3:30 AM is the worst

 

This must be the witching hour.  I can almost guarantee when my body aches and I wake up in a panic its around 3:30 am.  I am so done with the nightmares, I am past exhausted, I have to fight the memories and the things that have happened to me ALL. THE. TIME. Whether I am awake or sleeping, I see so many things as clear as I did when they happened.  It just gets old.  Don't get me wrong there are a few nights here and there, when there are no nightmares, but I will wake up feeling like i got hit by a mack truck. There are days that the memories are not on repeat.  But sometimes the smallest thing will literally throw me right back in the middle of awful. I feel like i am realizing new things all the time.  I was never safe anywhere not even in my own bed.  There are literally things everywhere that are reminders.  I am not sure that there is one thing that is not affected in my life.  Not a single one.  How insane is that!  I am sure its been worse lately because I feel like there have been many new realizations, all good all hard all moving me towards healing but still so very hard. My job isn't making things any easier.  I have two students that are violent, often and I know that they are little, but it breaks my heart and brings many memories.

After all of this time, I still struggle for peace.  I am not saying that I haven't found any.  I am saying that it is still astounding to me that after all this time I am so affected. The things have such huge consequences for me.  The other day in class, A student slapped my chest, and for a second the world went black, all I see is Don doing the same thing.  Another student was throwing shoes and it hit the back of my neck, and I froze as if, its Don holding a gun at my neck.  I know its my students and things could not be any different but there are parts of my brain back there during that time.  I think that is the pat that is trying to figure things out as I sleep.  

I know that I am working so very hard, I know that I have come a long way.  I think it just gets frustrating when more than anything I don't want the memories to haunt me anymore. 

Brutal nightmares

 

I just Woke with one of those nightmares that you wake up and it feels real. The kind that chills to your bones and there is nothing you can do. I was curled up in a ball.  I had written about Bella and missing her and being so sad and my mother Was reading it, but she wasn't on my side caring or anything. Like she was there but no emotion. Then my father came in and I could hear her telling him and I curled up in a ball even tighter, he was carrying on as usual, making things about him. He said Sherri is this true, Were you pregnant? I winced, I shook my head and said yes. He went crazy, I was left alone, no acknowledgement, and then they disappear. I wonder if he worried that she was his? That has crossed my mind too.  Then somehow, I am much older. And there are these like bag of stones almost and they tell you who passed before you, and the other person saw mine and put it to the side, I noticed it a little later and just kept saying see I wasn't lying, I wasn't lying. I had Bella and she was mine. I kept repeating her name over and over and over again, and I woke up saying her name and feeling like that girl curled up in a ball feeling so alone. It was like it was Bella and I against the world. 

I hate the nightmares like this that feel so real that keep going even after you wake up. I just wish there were answers. I wish some of this did make sense. Its soooooooo sad. Even if someone said anything would things have been different, I don't know.  

Today, she would be 35 years old.  

I am just sitting here, and my heart is achy.  It seems so far away and yet so close.  I wish that I had an understanding of that time 35 years ago.  Who knew, what did they do.  As nice as that Dr was, as grateful as I was for his kind touch.  Why didn't he do anything.  I can still hear his voice in my head and, so clearly, I hear his words I am sorry you have lost her.  He said her, would I have even known she was a girl if not for that DR. Why even then did no one step up to help me.  I was left alone in my grief, wanting to die.  They had to have done a sonogram, an exam, I mean they would have noticed something right?  Because I know that I wouldn't have been ok being touched.  There is a part of me that is more than grateful that I don't remember some of these details.  And then at the same time, I wish that I had more pieces of the puzzle.  I was 13 years old, maybe 14 when I lost her. There was no way for me to understand anything that was happening.  There was no way to even comprehend, what had happened, her being gone and how to keep living life.  No wonder i wanted to die that Summer in Florida. OH, my heart. Not a single person, did anything.  There was no way for me to begin to even process all that had happened to me that year.  According to Joan that didn't happen anyway. Just so very sad.  I cannot process this at almost 48!   Yet at 13, nothing was ever spoken of. I would have missed a few days of school, right?  How in the world do I go back to middle school, after losing a child? I wasn't like them before and didn't fit in, there is no way I would have fit in now.  How does this happen. Everything in my life up to that point built me to just keep moving.  Just pretend that everything is ok and all is well with the world. I am sitting here and literally cannot comprehend that little girl's life.  This is truly heartbreaking.  She has no memento, no blanket, not an ever so tiny footprint.  All we have is that whale necklace that we got that Summer, a mother whale and her baby.  That is what we have.  

Oh 13-year-old Callahan there are not enough sorry's in the world for having had to do this on your own.  I am so so so sorry for all that you went through.

 I heart your heart. 

Anger ? Who me ?

 Just not good with anger. If I let it out there is a fear that a beast will be unleashed and there will be no taming him.  I am pretty sure I could go my entire life without getting angry for me.  I can easily get angry for others.  It was anger that helped me press charges on my father, I was not going to let another little girl be hurt.  I can be angry when my students are not cared for.  I can get angry, for others and for the many injustices in the world as long as I am not in the equation.  When it comes to being angry for the life i have lived, I am more than ready and willing to point the finger at myself and be angry at all the things I should have done different. I avoid anger at any cost, let's be honest.  When a person believes that everything is their fault being angry at who you are becomes something like a second skin.  

When I even think about anger it almost always goes straight to sad.  Sad is easy, sad is something that you can do quietly and alone.  Sad is easier to hide then anger.  Anger is the loud, obnoxious feeling that makes me feel like my head is going to spin and objects will go flying.  I fear that if I feel the anger, it will be almost catastrophic. It is dangerous for me and everyone around me. There is a fear that somehow, I just might implode if I were to really feel the anger about all the things that have happened to me.  Anger is one of those things that if I let it out in my house, there would have been hell to pay.  My father was the only person that could ever be angry.  He was the only person that could show anger, or any emotion really and I always knew that. I can remember truly being angry a few times and I can literally remember being afraid for my life.  If he saw me angry I would have to pay for it.

So to be angry for me and the things that have happened. its there; it has to be.  All that happened to me wasn't ok.  So many people should have stood up for me.  So many people should have done something and taken care of me and no one ever did.  That makes me angry.  It makes me angry that no one cared enough to do the hard thing. It makes me angry that I never meant enough to people for them to care that I was being hurt. No one cared that I was abused and alone. They were all worried about saving their own ass. At the same time, I am very quick to point out that I should have done things different.  And at the same time, I think, I could have screamed naked from the rooftops showing all the hurt, showing the bruises and they, all would have found some way to say that I was lying.  I sometimes think I should have said something, done something to make things stop.  And I think to the teacher, Mrs.Mcdermott who found a note and she did nothing.  I was screaming for someone to notice and do something. There were things I did begging for someone to help me. There were times I did things begging for someone to ask if I was ok. There were the scratches all over my arms.  My legs covered with bruises that I did to myself at night.  There were things, I did try and reach out I just got no response.  I did try and reach out, but no one was able to hear me.  

I hate my father for what he did I hate my mom for telling me to just do what I was told. She was such a bigger part than I ever imagined. I was always being told it's ok, just tell him what he wants to hear. He wouldn't want to make him angry or upset in any way Everything was always ok, only it wasn't. The motto in my house was just make him happy. That is no way for a family to live. Never ever in my brain was there a thought that people were not supposed to hurt me.  I think about that today and that makes me angry.  No matter what anyone did or what they wanted, there was never an option to say stop your hurting me, don't do that.  The first time that I remember abuses there was never a thought to tell someone and get help. There was never a thought that those things were not supposed to be happening. The first thought always in my head was this is just what happens to me.  Sex at 5 was normal.  That is crazy, as a child there was never a thought of safety. My world consisted of having to do what everyone else wanted and I didn't have a say.  I am kind of blown away, that I ever became my own person.  At the same time it was little Callahan, it was me at 13 it was all of who I am today that allowed me to become my own person that literally saved me.  

There are oh so many things to be angry about, and I think I fear that the loneliness of right now will get even lonelier if I feel it acknowledge it and really really look at it.  I think another part of that is seeing anger as being Violent.  I know that my father was always angry.  I think that all of us were targets of his anger in the house, but I was who he took it out on.  He was angry at me no matter what I did. He was angry where I put my plate, angry that I took my mother's attention, angry that I couldn't do what he wanted in bed.  I think that for me anger is violence and I want to be as far from that as possible.  

So many layers to figuring this out.  I think that maybe there is a part of me that thinks things will get violent if I actually acknowledge all the anger that I do.  Which is crazy, because I am the only person, I ever take my anger out on.  By the time I got to 13, anger wasn't really an option.  The things that happened were just things that had been done before.  I think I often got upset that I couldn't just forget, or when things hurt the worst because somewhere in my head, I had to believe that all the things that happened to me were just a part of life.  I was meant to be used.  I was meant for sex. I was just meant to be hurt. I was meant to do what I was told at any cost.

 With the work that I have been doing lately there are so many revelations and things that I am looking at from a totally different perspective.  Things in my life should have been a lot different than what they were. So many people could have changed things, if one person cared, if they made me feel worthy, they could have prevented terrible things from happening to me. Not one person ever said that they were sorry or that those things were never supposed to happen to me. I was never worth anyone's time or attention for anything. I was a bother, a pest and usually someone who just got in the way. So I became an observer of all the things that I knew I never wanted to be, and that has made me the person that I am today. So yes, I am so angry at those things, but anger hurts you. Somehow someway, there is healing in the tears of the sad. Lots to think about still, such a journey.  Someday I will look back and think WOW Callahan, you made it despite all of them that doubted you and made you feel worthless. Someday. 

I heart your heart .

Am I ready yet ?

 Since applying for grad school, there have been so many moments, where I think what in the hell am I doing?? Is this the right time.  Am I doing this to fix myself.  Will I be good at helping others, am I too emotional?  There are so many things that I question.  And at the same time there are so many things that tells me this is exactly the right time.  I see 11:11 all the time, I hear songs I am getting so many things that are telling me to take the chance and go for it.  Still, I am more than afraid.  Maybe i am afraid to succeed, maybe I am afraid to truly do this and really make a difference. I know that I can't keep doing what I am doing and getting so frustrated that there is so much wrong with our education system.  I understand rules and procedures, but I do not understand red tape and jumping through hoops to get to the same outcome. I do not understand a system that keeps adding and adding to a teacher's plate and offers no help or support.  That is a problem.  

I want to help others; I want my own story to mean something. I think I have wanted that for so long, and even more so lately.  I want my story to see all the light that is possible so that it never holds me back again. I think that I am a natural worrier, it comes easy.  What if I am not made for grad school, what if I am not smart enough, what if I am not a good fit for this profession.  There are so many things.  I really used to love my job, but its changed and not for the better, I cannot do my job alone and that is what I am being asked to do. I think I am far enough in my own healing to help others through theirs.  There are still things that I have to overcome, there are still pieces of me that that haven't moved on.  There are parts of me that are frozen and afraid.  There are times i still cannot say the R word.  How stupid is that.  I can say it when its far away but not when its close and personal.  I don't want to do more harm than good.  I never saw myself working with adults before.  It was always about little ones, and in the next chapter, I have thought more and more and its adults, its women.  So many different things.  I just want to be sure that I am ready that I will be able to help.  I want to know that I am doing the right thing.  I want to know that I am not doing this as a way to heal myself but to help others in their stories heal their pain and live a happy full life, 

She can't move on

 

She is stuck back there, back in a time when nothing makes sense. The world was so loud yet all she knew was silence.  She went to bed hoping to die and woke up with the deepest sadness that she hadn't.  That is no way for a thirteen-year-old girl to live.  Scared of the world and all the people in it.  Men were attracted to her; her entire life, and women always seemed just to look the other way.  All that she ever had were her animals, whether stuffed or real.  Today I am this woman with a house and a job, and I do all the things that have to be done. But this part of me, can't move on.  She is still trying to prove that she isn't this awful person.  She replays what she can, trying to remember little details that might prove to others that she was telling the truth.  If she could just get them to believe her than maybe just maybe she could stop looking for those just right answers, to prove the unimaginable things that happened to her.  No one ever listened and no one ever heard. She was silenced before she ever had a chance to breathe.  She was silenced because they could not imagine the horror that she lived though. But she did, and has to live with what was done to her little body by those men, she has to live with the memories that repeat, she has to live still feeling their hands and being afraid of any group of men.  If 5 men are in a group, her world gets small, and she just wants to get away.  It's been so long but she can feel them, sometimes she smells them.  And she hears them in the way people laugh at her sometimes.  Can you imagine living your life like that?  All day everyday she is still fighting them still, trying to find a way out, or make a different choice.  Somehow if she can just answer some of those questions in her head, then she would be ok. Maybe if she could, have some answers then what they did wouldn't still haunt her.  I don't know what else I can do to help her.  As clear as I can see this computer in front of me, I see the things that happened to her. I see them and I don't know how she survived. I see them and its heart breaking. No one cared to make her feel better or give her a hug, let her talk about it.  She was shamed into silence and has lived there ever since. Even if we want to talk about it we don't know how.  How do we put words together to tell about the horror, how do I give words to my nightmares.  It is not fair that anyone has to listen to the hell that she was put through.  It isn't fair for anyone to have those pictures in their head.  I know I have said it before, I want to be able to stand in those things that happened and not feel ashamed and gross and disgusting and I am not sure that I know how to do that, not yet.  She was just a girl and didn't understand so much.  All the time Mark talks about filling in pieces, and I can do that but I don't want to. The evil that was done to her, how they used her and hurt her so violently.  I don't know how a person can live after that.  Sometimes I wonder how in the world I am still breathing, how I am still functioning in the world that let those things happen to me.  She didn't understand so much, she was so so afraid, and just wanted to die. But she didn't, she didn't want to let them win.  As hard as it was to live, dying would have been an easier option. Callahan was never one to go with the easiest way through anything. I will never give up on her, but I am not sure what it is going to take. 

I heart your heart. 

I'll be here as long as you need me

 I think for a person like me, I am no longer surprised by people leaving Me.  I have learned to do life mostly on my own.  Hearing the words, I'll be here as long as you need me, mean more than a person could ever humanly imagine. These are the words that a person like me that has been bruised and battered their entire lives long to hear.  In a world full of leaving, he stays.   I was reading a book today, and in the last chapter that was the line. And the tears just started. I can remember awhile back being afraid that I was going to need someone forever.  And with the kindest voice, the kindest eyes, he said I will be here as long as you need me.  And for once in my life, I think I believed it.  My entire life no one has stuck around.  There have been a few really important people, most of them don't stick around and things get ugly.  I am left, and they move on and for me I take that to mean that I am just as unimportant as could be.  People in my life leave all the time.  People leave and never look back.  I always have favorites, but I am never anyone's favorite.   It's a fact of life that people don't stay around for me. I think there is a part of me that holds on to that.  It's easier thinking that someone will leave you, then when they do there is no disappointment. Because the pain of holding onto important people and being left just reinforces everything that I have learned in this life.  But his words, I'll be here as long as you need me.  Those are words that I carry forever, and for once I think I can truly believe them.  I think there will come a day, when I can say goodbye to him as a counselor, but things will change and he will become my friend, as I move into my next phase of my life using my story helping others.  Maybe it won't maybe I am just wishful thinking, but I can tell you that I will carry him with me forever.  I can tell you that I would not be where I am without him.  I can tell you that this man saved my life when my heart was literally breaking.  He went above and beyond for me and continues to this day.  I can remember the day that he said how about we make you a permanent time.  And I think for the first time in a long time my heart smiled. He made space and it meant the world to me. I will never forget that first session and at the end he asked if he could give me a hug, and I said yes, and felt so safe. It had been so long since I just had a safe warm hug. I couldn't tell you the last time that I had gotten a genuine hug.  And each time since I get a hug when I walk in and a hug when I walk out.  Those hugs mean the most.  There are hard sessions, and I forget if I got a hug, but I know I always do.  Sometimes I feel so strong and think of that moment that I don't need him, and I feel proud and excited, other days I picture us both older and me still seeing him.  Still needing his reassurance that I am not so awful. Either way I know that its ok, I will get there.  I have come a long way.  I am starting new chapters and learning to lean into the light, I am growing into who I am, and what I want to be.  There are times I still worry about being a bother and a pest and yet, he still smiles and is ever so welcoming. I think everyone needs a person like this in their life, and I am more than lucky that of all the people in the world and after so many failed attempts I found my forever. I feel like the luckiest person in the world.  I know that he is always on my side.  I am not sure if you are supposed to love a counselor.  But I do.  I love him with my whole heart and am beyond grateful.  As I start this next phase of my journey, I hope that I can be there as long as someone needs me.

Peace MH

I heart your heart

No Words Fit

 

Sometimes I just don't know, and there is something that reminds me, and it breaks my heart.  I get this unbelievable sinking feeling because I don't have a clue what to do. All I can think, is, I don't understand. I always wanted to be a mom, but not like this.  I wish it was as easy "oh mom just dropped two eggs."  If it were only that simple. I wish that it was that simple, with all that I am. But it is not.  It is one of the most complicated things that you could ever imagine. 

Mariska was fixing her room and the new books that she ordered are on her bed.  One of them is a collection of thoughts about being biracial and what that means. What are you? By Pearl Haskins.  What are you? I can tell you those words cut like a knife. What are you, how heartbreaking you are my amazing daughter!  I want to fix it, make it better I want to make sure that their hearts are taken care of, and I can't do that. I cannot make a single guarantee to make sure they will be ok. Do they want to talk about it?  Can they handle the truth?  How does what happened to me affect them?  I don't want to break their heart; I cannot be the one that does that.  Isn't it easier to tell them I was just a slut.  In all the places in my head that sounds better than telling them the truth.  Sometimes I have the conversation in my head, and I cannot say the R word. I don't want to attach that to what is most precious. And in my brain the scene plays out  he held a pillow over my face, he knew exactly what he was doing, and I went far far away.  I don't know how that experience fits in my head, how can I explain it to my children. My heart is heavy, I think that I always wanted to be enough, that somehow, they wouldn't have to worry about it. Like I am their mom I am the one who made that decision, I just want to be enough.  I think that somewhere in my head if they have questions that it means something terrible about me.  I think I find it hard to understand that need for wanting to understand their other half.  Maybe that is Nieve, and I wonder if Charles was white instead of black if that would have made a difference.  I don't know but I know that when I see books like that, she has questions and I want to be able to answer them for her.  I know she has made comments before that made me cry.  We were making dinner and talking.  I don't remember the beginning, but I said your white, don't you think?  And she said half.  I started to cry, and I said Really?? And she said, "well two white people don't make a brown baby".  The tears fell.  Why is a man that means so little a piece of who they are, this kills me and more than hurts my heart. Maybe it's the whole making a baby thing.  I didn't want what happened to me, but I wanted them more than anything.  I am not sure how I can possibly help them understand that.  I think there of pieces of my brain that literally still have a hard time that what he did, and I was pregnant.  Somehow in my brain I put what he did so far away, they were all that mattered.  I did the same thing with Bella somehow there is a connection that is missing.  I mean I know how it happens that is not it.  But somehow for me and my brain there is a missing connection that I don't know how to explain.  I can remember one of my Dr. Appointments with Dr.Albert.  Because twins are high risk, they had to do an internal sonogram to make sure I had a strong enough cervix to carry to term.  I must have had some kind of reaction, he made some comment about it not even being very big, that I did get pregnant. He kind of chuckled.  Like i was making a big deal out of nothing.  I felt so small and was so embarrassed.  I wanted to scream and yell at him, tell him that he had no fucking idea. I wanted to punch that chuckle right off his face and tell him that it wasn't funny.  I just let the tears run down my face and focused on my sweet babies.  I have never ever gotten that out before.  What an asshole.  People need to be careful with their words that's for sure.  I didn't ask for this and I didn't want what happened to me.  Yet no one asked.  No one asked anything.  I think even with Dr. Cardenas.  He was amazing, but there were red flags and not once did he ever ask anything.  I told him the date I got pregnant.  And he kind of blew me off, like yea ok.  But I knew, I knew that date.  When he was asking me about the father, I started talking about mine!   Like it took me awhile before I was like oh, he isn't asking about my father, he is asking about theirs.  All the things I couldn't answer and would quietly shrug, I don't know, I didn't have answers for his questions, and he never said a word.  I wasn't asking for sympathy; I wasn't asking for anything really; I just wanted what happened to me to be acknowledged and it never ever was.  If one person would have asked, I feel like I could have gotten support and help in a different way.  It wasn't until they were in elementary school that I even acknowledge what happened, once again so many red flags and not a single person asked.  I feel like I was failed in so many ways, always left on my own; made a joke of and I didn't find any of them funny. I don't know how to do this.  I am not even sure about all of the feelings that I have.  It's all confusing and so difficult.

My amazing Vincent and Mariska you are all mine and I love you more than life itself. You are the reason that I breathe.  You are the reason that I get up every single day.  I would do everything exactly the same to get to be your mom. You both are my everything.  I love you more.  I love you. I love you. I love you.

I heart your heart.

Still a prisoner

 

Today I went outside, and it felt like I was that little kid back in the park on that perfect day.  On days like this I realize that I am still a prisoner to all the things that have happened to me. I try to shake it off, but I can't. I remember the breeze in the trees, the sun shining through. Those big billowy clouds. That red van. His big boots. So many memories I wish there was a way to forever and always forget. Like I don't know what else there is for me to do. I feel like I have talked the life out of it, I have cried oceans. I know it wasn't her fault. I know she was just a little girl. I am an almost 48-year-old woman, and it still tears at my heart like it was yesterday.  I want to curl up in a ball and just make it go away. It isn't fair that all this time later it still feels like it's happening. Am I ever going to totally let it go. It's not even about the tadpoles anymore, that sweet little me didn't have a chance and when this happens, I feel so frozen. I feel like I am frozen in the memories and nothing I do makes a difference. I feel more than alone and even after all of the work that I have done, it still breaks my heart. There are so many good things today.  I am not that scared little girl, I am not trapped and yet all of those feelings are still there and making themselves known.  I can understand having moments every now and then and being able to breathe and know that things are ok.  But on days like today I just want to scream, I don't want to see the pictures in my head, I don't want to see those things, I don't want to feel them, and I don't want to feel like I am that scared little girl anymore.  I am an adult I have my own home I have two children and so many good things yet days like this run me into the ground and I just wish that there was someone I could call just to tell me that I am not crazy.  It just feels like I am alone in this, and I don't want to be alone.  I just applied for grad school and on days like this I think; Who am I kidding?  How can I help anyone when I can't even stop replaying pictures from over 40 years ago!!!  Sometimes this life of mine is unimaginable.  On one hand I am this competent independent woman. 

On the other hand, I am this frozen tired girl who can't let go of the memories, who feels frozen in her own story.  How can those two worlds be happening at the same time.  I have come to understand there are going to be moments because I can never ever make what happened different or less violent but days when the memories knock the life out of me, and I can do nothing but sit on the couch and try to keep breathing.  I don't want this to be how my life is.  I don't want this to be something that I have to accept, there has to be something different.  There has to be a way for me to be ok.  There has to be a way for me to live a better life despite all the things that have happened. It s better don't get me wrong. But days like today are just exceptionally painful.  It is one of those things, the smallest trigger and I am out for the day.  Today was that day, I have to hope that tomorrow will be better, my body less achy and less memories.  I need a breather tomorrow and some truly restful rest. 

There are no right words

 

The closer that I try to get, the more terrible that the nightmares become. The more that I want her near the more that my body feels, the things that happened to her. And there is a part of me that struggles because for a lot of the day things were just darkness.  How can I feel something when all i remember is blackness. I want her close, I want to understand her and hug her and keep her safe and she is still more than afraid.  She can't open her eyes because she can't imagine the things that she might see.  She is afraid that she will open her eyes and see even worse things than the monsters in her mind.  I am not sure that she trusts me or anyone else yet. There is so much more in the world than trying to figure out the evil that was done to her.  She spends her time looking for something anything to make sense out of things that there is no sense in. I will watch every show on the topic looking for some kind of words that will somehow make everything feel ok. I want to find those right words that are going to give her peace and let her know that she isn't at fault.  I want to let her know that none of those things were ever supposed to happen to her.  I want her to know that she is so much more than the things they did to her and all that they took.  Sometimes I worry that she is too far gone.  I worry that maybe she has come as far as she can and that scares me.  What if I am not enough and she will never get to experience the same freedom as little Callahan.  She needs to let it all out, but the terror inside is infinite.  I worry that I am trying to pull her out of a place that she isn't ready to leave yet.  Right now, I want it more than she does.  I want her out and free.  I want to find my own happily ever after. I can't do that with out her. Sometimes I am angry that it has taken her so long. She isn't ready for care or comfort, but She feels so separate, and I want her to feel like a part of me.  There is just a sad because sometimes in trying to help her and trying to heal I feel like i hit a brick wall. She feels defeated, totally defeated. I do not think she believes that she has any worth or value at all.  I am not sure how to let her know and understand how strong that she has been her entire life. it's more than difficult to know that as much as a part of you that she is she feels like something that is so far away and so very different.  

I heart your heart

Timelines : A perspective

 

I think that I am a little in shock really, this is a lot in a short time frame. I am amazed that I survived this basically on my own.  So much in one single lifetime. it's weird you know things happened but when you put them in order and see them written down its totally different.  Mark is doing a talk in July and i am going to be a part of it.  There is just so much, my story is complicated there are so many layers and ways that things are connected. I didn't realize how much that the church was woven in until getting ready to speak to Mark's interns.  We are thinking that a timeline will help.  There are so many different parts and pieces. I think maybe I am learning to give myself a little credit for surviving and becoming an okay person.  I don't use the word miracle lightly, but it's a miracle I am where I am today. I should be proud of myself.  

Oct 12, 1998, Made the first report /Pressed Charges 

April 22, 1999, He was indicted. 

May 22, 2000, He took a plea deal.....it was a Class A misdemeanor....So not fair 

January 2002 Went to Boston and testified for Angela ( I had been there before but case wasn't heard )

Aug 22, 2003 Got pregnant with Vincent and Mariska 

Oct 17, 2011 Contacted detectives in Nixa about the letters I received from my father 

2012 Started my blog -- Not important but a date to remember.

May 2014 graduated UNT. 

January 2015 first talked to Valerie and Neil 

May22, 2015 Filmed Off the Record 

2016 Off the Record Released 

No wonder I was exhausted.  As hard as these things are, they are good for me and gives me a different perspective on where I am.  And people were so cruel along the way always judging what I was doing why and how, they had no clue and didn't take a breath to ask. 

I am trying to let this all sink in, so much.  And all of this on top of all the things growing up the way that I did.  I think now more than ever I would say I was definitely a fighter, time after time giving up was never an option! There were so many opportunities, I don't think I give myself enough credit. And that isn't the little things and the setbacks that were in-between all of the big things. 

To be where I am today is more than amazing.  I literally survived the unimaginable, in a shit show of a household. 

Here are also some of the possible titles for the presentation in July, I am sure the list will grow, here's the first ones that I came up with

Wounds of the heart 

Born to be Brave. 

Beautiful Trauma 

Learning to live with what is broken. 

Learning to live with broken pieces. 

Tragedy to triumph

Battles fought and won. 

Untangling the Trauma 

Someday I will

 

Someday

Someday I will stand with my story and not feel ashamed.

A day when I can be proud that I survived.

Someday I won't worry about the words.

I don't want to Make anyone uncomfortable.

I fear the words will be seen as an embellishment or a lie.

Someday I want my story to be less about pieces and about the me that survived.

I still have so many of the things that people have said to me stuck in my head.

And with out a thought, I believe them 

I am a liar, I want attention, I wish I understood why that is the first thing people said

I was reaching out because I couldn't carry what I was alone,

I wanted to be hugged and told that I wasn't so awful.  I want someone to step up so that 

I didn't have to take care of everything. 

I needed someone to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay.

All I got were the messages that I was at fault, 

I wasn't worth being cared for and protected.

Someday

Someday I just want to stand and say the things that happened to me 

with no filter no fear just brutal honesty, just to get the pictures out of my head.

I just want to be able to let the pictures out, they are frozen in my mind on repeat constantly trying to find a home a place where they belong where they have no power or control over me 

 figure them out, find meaning and make them different.

Maybe if I could change the pictures if I could find fault somewhere else

 then I would be held and cared for.

Maybe if I could give all the pictures words, I could be free, 

Maybe not, but something has to make the pictures in my head less heavy.

They are just so incredibly debilitating. 

Even some moments of happy there are pieces of my shame

staring pointing fingers, telling me that I don't deserve to be happy

they replay millions of times and each time I still try to figure out what I could have done differently. 

But to be free from them,  oh that feeling of being free 

I want that feeling that I am more than the things that have happened to me 

More than their hands and all the words

I want to be more than all of the things that have hurt my heart and slashed me soul

I don't want to be afraid of the words that are carried on my heart and soul.

I don't want to be afraid that they are what they are.

I think that sometimes I try to make them pretty and presentable.

Make them less serious, I still struggle with the words all the time

because some things aren't meant to be said.

I say hurt, because if I gave you real words; 

you would be socked at what I survived.

If I say the real words I have to acknowledge the bigness of what happened to me

No they aren't meant to be said, they should never have to be said 

but I just can't carry them anymore, they are keeping me stuck 

that feels so very selfish, I should be fine 

after all this time

But my heart still hurts and the pictures are oh so vivid.

Someday it will be different. 

Someday I will. 

I heart your heart. 

I did it

 Today this day February 25, 2023, I put my application in for Grad school.  And tomorrow I will complete my application for the Counseling Program.  I have contacted the references and it's all in motion.  

It's something that I have wanted for so long.  Maybe just maybe this is my time.  My time to soar my time be  be happy to help others. This is my time to give meaning to all the things that have happened in my life. 

So much more to this story.  My GPA isn't what it should be.  Looking at other options.  Different schools.  I am speaking with a woman from UNT tomorrow. Time will tell. 

She was less than desirable.  She was cold and only cared about numbers.  I understand that there are rules.  I understand that things are the way that they are for a reason.  I also believe that we must look at each person.  She said we hear stories like this all the time.  I wanted to scream and say could you please introduce me because I would love to meet another women who was assaulted and was raising twins on her own.  I didn't I said thank you and hug up the phone,  I wasn't even a person.  

So I have my application in with A&M commerce.  They seem more personable and looking at the whole student.  Not to mention their campus is in Mckinney !!  I will keep adding with every update.  

I fell like this needs a new post, a new chapter for sure. 

And oh yea speaking at a trauma conference in July.  I would say these are all amazing chapters to start.