April SAAM

 

Sometimes there are so many things to say and other times I can't find just the right words.  At the moment, I am not sure that I have the right words. April is a rough month for me.  It's my favorite month because it's the kid's birthday.  It's the worst month because it's mine.  And I hate my birthday, more than you could ever imagine. For me April is a month of trying to be ok, while I am drowning.  This month is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month and that beings its own challenges, especially when it means so much. There have been years that I have wanted to scream from the rooftops.  There have been years when I am silent needing time to process.  I am not sure which one I am in yet.  I am trying to process the worst year of my life when I was 13 and am finding it incredibly difficult.  I know that I am working as hard as I can, but there is a part of me that feels like a failure because the sadness is pretty overwhelming right now.  Tears come often and out of the blue and I am tired.  I am oh so very tired. . 

I am in this in-between place.  I have worked on healing for so long and so many areas aren't ugly oozy anymore.  And still there are other things that I fear facing.  So many things have changed for me.  I am further than I have ever been and even harder on myself I fear this place that I am in.  I have come so far, and feel as if I should be further along.  Somehow the things I am struggling with are things that I should know, that I have dealt with before and therefore, I should be fine.  But I am not.

I am In grad school to be a counselor!   That is huge, and there are times when the feelings are so overwhelming, and I think what a fraud Callahan!   How are you going to help others when you are in the state that you are in.  I know that is dramatic, I just think that I should be further along.  I want for things not to bother me. I have no doubt in being a counselor, I feel at home.  I just want to feel at home being me.  I feel at home in my counseling skills class, it's something I have wanted for so long.  I want to be able to say yes, these things happened to me but look at where I am.  You know how when you say something then say but, that everything you said in the first place doesn't matter.  That is what I want.  I want to say those things happened, but I am happy, I am whole, and I am living this life. 

I am presenting at the trauma conference in July, and that is really huge.  I am terrified and at the same time, it is a chance for me, to use my voice and make a difference for others.  That means the world.  I know that Mark wouldn't let me fail if he thought I wasn't ready.  I just have to be real.  Sometimes the struggle is still so prominent.  Maybe it's learning that there are always going to be things that I have to deal with but that doesn't make me less of a person. Because I am not completely done, doesn't make me any less credible Right?!?  I don't know.  

Such a transition time for me.  I am making all the right moves one foot in front of the other, making my own path.  I just want to be proud of myself and the things that I have survived.  I want to stand in my own light and make a difference.  Less doubting of myself, even through the healing. I may never come to a place, when I am completely finished, I don't think that is realistic anymore.  There is no stopping point, or time stamp for me being healed, just layers.  I think that I am just in a rough layer.  

This layer of being 13, is hard.  So much loss and pain that is hard to comprehend.  I am doing it I am working.  Sometimes I just need a breather.  It's so much. 

So this SAAM, I am going to go gentle on myself.  I have healed so much and looking forward to helping others. Each time that I speak or present it is a turning point. I learn so much.  I am sure this Summer will be no different. I am excited to make a difference.  Each time I speak a little more of me gets her voice back.   So I heart your heart.  Always always. 

Sometimes it hits so hard

 

I just finished Baby Reindeer on Netflix. I am at a loss for words.  I finished and my stomach is uneasy, and I so badly want him to find his happily ever after.  I watch it and my heart understands.  I watch and I think how amazing this is for all the people that will be able to watch it and find solace that they are not the only ones. So many things are heartbreaking.  A man so hurt he will do anything to make another human feel anything other than all the things he felt about himself.  A man so lost he struggles separating himself from the things that have done him the most harm, one of those shows that is going to stick with me, that is going to take some time to process in my brain.  

I can watch movies like this all day and most don't affect me really.  There is this part of my brain that watches things like this looking for answers, happy for others and trying to find some sense.  The truth is there will never be a movie to make sense out of the things that have happened in my life.  There will be no movie to give me a happy ending, to make everything all better.  But I can watch movies and be grateful they were created and grateful that hopefully they will help others.  I will always watch movies like this in hopes that there is a glimmer that will somehow ease my pain even if for a short time. 

The part where he sits down with his parents, that broke me.  I have never been able to just sit and do that.  I have never been able to just tell them to wait and get it all out.  His father, his response, that was beautiful.  

I found myself wanting to say the words more than I ever have before.  I say the words in writing, they are so much easier to type then to let the sounds pass your lips.  I can talk about it in a roundabout way, but to sit with those words, leaving my mouth is more than difficult.  I am not even a fan of hearing someone else say them.  I find that somehow, I can say them if its somehow far away and apart from me.  But to be fully present and say the words, I am just not sure. 

I was raped. I was raped. I was raped. 

I don't think those words will ever become easy, will ever be something that I can say and not cringe, like I have done something terrible wrong.  I say those words, and I think I can say it millions of times for each assault, for each hurt, for each time that my body was used even when I said no and fought like hell. 

Sometimes I wish that I could be easy with myself and just sit, spill it all out, cry, feel then pick myself back up knowing that speaking the words doesn't make me any less of a person. Saying those words, are what happened to me and not the person that I am inside.  That is a hard one to understand. Those words are what happened to me, not who I am.  That is powerful. 

I was raped so many times, I don't even have a number and it becomes so normal.  When another rape happens you go to this numb dark place, because it's just safer there.  I say the words and the pictures start running, there was this time and this time and this time and this time and this time.  Sometimes they all start running together, because when your 5 that is just what happens and as you get older and it still happens, they still run together just your body is older.  And then later still later you think, well it just happens it just happens.  But it shouldn't happen.  It should not have happened when I was 5 or when I was 13 or when I was 29.  Those things never should have happened at any time in my life and today at 49 I am still picking up the pieces.  

I think that I have more pieces than I have ever had, but that doesn't make it any easier. 

I was raped.  I was raped. I was raped. I woke up, I went to work, I taught, and I was raped.  All things that happened. Only the first one bruised and scarred who I am to my very core. The first one was something that became just as normal as waking up going to work and teaching.  

I watched this movie and thought, I want to sit my children down and tell them.  These are the things that happened to me.  These are the reasons that I am so protective, that I say the things that I say, that I respond to things the way that I do.  These are some of the reasons why.  I want to say, I am so sorry that you don't have a dad.  I want to say, I wanted to be normal, and wanted to go shopping and out to lunch.  I want to say, he came in my home and had no intention of any kindness. He was more than a mean man, he was worse than just not listening to me. I want to say he put a pillow over a face, and I begged him no, that we were supposed to go shopping and my entire world went black. I need to tell them, He raped me there on my bed and just left, admiring his BMW.  I want to tell them that, so they understand the woman that I am today and why I fight so hard to be that person. I want to tell them that so they can understand, I am not a monster.  Someday I will sit, and I will share, and they can listen and come to understand. You can ask anything you need to ask, and then I hope you will have a different understanding. 

Sometimes I picture myself  sharing the words and I laugh hysterically because they are just that heavy.  Somehow keeping them in takes such great effort, that releasing them is something there are no words for.  I remember the first time that I saw the Accused.  I was over my friends Lori's house.  And after I watched it, the laughing was so intense and all I could do, there were quiet tears later after she had fallen asleep.  But that laughing like there is no way that so much could happen to a person in one lifetime, and that person still be walking around smiling living and even breathing.  

so many things, this one is going to take time to sort through.  

I was raped so many times and yes, I am still here still breathing and still trying to figure out how that word can become just a word and not something that makes me unworthy. 

I heart your heart. 

Sadness

 

There are so many things to speak about.  So many things that are in my heart that I can't explain or understand.  It is something strange when others start reading the things you write.  On one hand, it's amazing and you hope that it is making a difference.  On the other hand, it's very overwhelming and you question everything. In so many ways it's something that I have always wanted to share. The things that are in my heart are things that I want others to be able to understand. I want my experiences to be heard so that it makes a difference for others. For someone to read what I have written and maybe do things different so that other people don't have to go through the same experiences that I have. That means the world to me, knowing that others will be treated differently is something that I am more than passionate about. We have to do better for survivors.   

For me, looking back on some of the past things that I have written there was a theme of sadness.  I was a little shocked, like really these feelings are still here so prominent. And there was the anger at myself that I am not done yet. There are moments I feel like one of those people that is dwelling on those things.  The last thing I want to be is to that person who people dread coming and run the other way.  I fear people reading the things that I write and thinking, she needs to get over it, she is looking for attention.  It is a real fear that I will be seen as someone who is just stuck in that place of sad, like oh poor me.  I am everything opposite of that, but the fear that is how I will be seen is much bigger than I would like.  

So tonight, I was talking about that sad that has been an ever-present part of my life. There are oh so many questions, I wonder if this sad will ever go away.  I wonder if this will always be a part of who I am.  I asked Mark and he said that hopefully it will soften, the edges won't feel so sharp.  That made so much sense.  Lately the sad is very sharp, and it makes me heart heavy.  There is so much sad, just so much. Mark even said that he can not imagine the amount of sad that I must feel. And the weight of that hits me and it's a punch to my stomach.  I hear that and I want to give myself the time for that sadness. like if someone else is able to acknowledge just how much sad that I have in who I am, then somehow, it's ok to be sad. 

And he asked me another thoughtful question.  Would there be Joy if there was no sad?  And I don't know.  I see the little things around me all the time. I notice the little bird drinking water from a puddle.  I notice the leaf that looks like a heart that landed on my window.  I notice the clouds and the smallest drop of rain on my cheek and the most beautiful rainbow off in the distance.  Even at the worst of times I notice those things and they keep me going.  Those were the things that have always kept me going. Even this morning leaving for work, I was late of course, and yet I still noticed that vibrant Cardinal sitting on the sidewalk.  That made my day this morning, it's those little things that I notice, that make my heart smile.  It's always been those little things. And would I give up those things to never have that sadness, and the answer is no.  Not in a single second.  I would never ever give up those little things, for the sadness to go away.  With out a doubt without questions, I would never give those things up.  At the same time that I believe that it is possible to experience joy without that deep sad.  The amount of sadness that I have experienced gives me a different appreciation of those little things. Even sitting here, writing I hear the birds out the window.  It stops me in my tracks, and I think how many there are do they live in the magnolia tree, just to hear them happily chirping, that is everything. I would never give up how I experience those little things.  And I wonder, without that sad, what would my experience of those birds outside my window be?  I can never answer that question because I cannot change a thing that has happened to me, but I can try to change things for others.  

As deep and as, awful as that sad is maybe I need to learn to embrace it a little. For me sadness is the enemy, it's not a good thing. Sadness is something weak.  My sadness terrifies me because it's so deep and so intense. It's fine for others, but for me it isn't ok for me to be sad. I feel like a broken record often because when you have not had normal life kindness, kindness is something extra special that I am not willing to overlook that.  Often when I receive those kindnesses the tears come, because I am that grateful. Because things i should have heard my entire life I have just heart while in my 40's.  Let that sink in. 

I was crying in my session tonight and I asked the question, will this deep sad ever go away.  There is a piece of my heart, that knows, there are going to be pieces of that sadness always there.  I am always going to have parts of me that are sad about what was lost, what was taken what I never got to experience. I need to be realistic, that it is not possible to wake up one day and magically have that sadness wiped away. I am just a person that feels everything so deeply.  I am still trying to figure it all out.  That balance, the tears and the joy.  I would never want those little joys to be anything other than that for me, but I do so wish that the sad would lose its edges.  I have been battered and bruised for so so long and I just need less of that sad.  I just need less of the heavy that weighs on my soul.  Life is heavy and when you are a person that feels it all, it's a burden that no person should have to carry alone.  I have hope that the sad will soften, I have hope that somedays the tears won't be so quick to come. I have hope that I am never going to stop trying, until each and every one of those edges is as soft as a feather. 

Even with this sad I am going to find my very own happily ever after. The sad is so intense, that it often takes me breath away. I need to remember, it's a feeling, feel it and let it pass.  Just a little turbulence.  I was listening to that song on the way home and the tears fell and fell and fell. So many tears.  I know that I have come so far, and I know that I have a way to go.  I don't care what anyone says, I am looking for that place of happily ever after, when my heart finds peace and comfort, with the softness of a million feathers. 

Both so turbulent and Always searching for happily ever after. 

I heart your heart.   

Swallowed whole

 I saw this picture and my heart melted.  Often, I feel like I am being swallowed whole by the things that have happened to me. I fight goodness I fight, but sometimes as hard as I fight it doesn't seem like it's enough.  There are moments I feel as if the world is traveling smooth and things are going well.  Then again, it's something so simple, and everything seems to fall apart. Sometimes I just need to be gently rescued from the thoughts in my head that tell me how awful that I must be. There are times when I take everything in, but there is this raging current of feelings and emotions going on inside. Yet on the outside you would never know it.  There have been a lot of feelings of being alone and having to do everything alone and its overwhelming. Exhaustion is something that is felt often daily.  Sleep has been hard to find.   It's not even specific nightmares but a feeling of running until there is nothing left.  When morning comes, I have been running all night so there is no real rest.  I need a break I need some peace; I need someone to guide me through this that can be there for the worst of the worst and the best of the best.  I am tired of cleaning and tired of cooking.  I am tired so tired of all the things and I desperately need some rest.  It's the end of another semester and find myself questioning everything! Did I do this right, that right, did I turn in everything that I was supposed to. I am second guessing everything, and my head hurts. I just desperately am wanting to find my place in this world.  I want to find my very own people that I can say will you come over?  Want to watch a movie ?  Hey my favorite poet is in town want to go with me ? That is what I want.  It seems that at 49 I am yet to find those things and it makes me sad.  I feel like I am doing something wrong. I feel like there is some kind of flaw that makes me always the outlier.  

Cutting ties

 

I can't even believe that I am putting this into words, but it is more than time.  In my life I have always had favorites.  There have been people that I have unconditionally loved without a doubt.  Often times, I had favorites, but I was not their favorite and for a long time that was good enough.  For too long really that was ok with me.  Because they were my favorite.  Recently, that just isn't enough.  I am sick of having favorites but never being anyone's favorite back.  It's so hard to explain really. I give and give and give, getting morsels back.  Each morsel I hold onto thinking maybe someday I will fit with them maybe someday; just maybe I will be their favorite too. And I look around, at their favorites and realize that I have just crumbs.  I used to be ok with that.  I am not anymore.  I deserve more than crumbs.  I want more than crumbs every now and then.  And it's really hard.  When I realized that I wanted more, things that used to be ok just aren't anymore.  What used to be fine, just isn't anymore.  Part of that breaks my heart because some people that were favorites, literally meant everything, and at the same time the amount oh hurt that was inflicted on my heart, are things that I can no longer ignore.  When there are new posts and pictures that break your heart, I don't need this heart of mine to keep breaking over things that aren't meant for me. It hurts, because I never imagined, this is where things would be.  When a person can't appreciate who you are, and how you got there, it makes things difficult. I want people that hear me and can appreciate where I have been and where I am going. And I am just not going in their direction, maybe it was a season, maybe it was something else, but I can't sacrifice myself to be something to them that I am not. I cannot hold on hoping to be something to someone, because I am worth more than crumbs. I am worth more, than I am being given. 

It was my birthday, and I received a text message saying well, I tried to say happy birthday, but we are no longer friends on Facebook.  I am sure it was a mistake.  Then well if this is the only way that I can contact you Happy Birthday. My heart sank.  No, we were no longer friends on Facebook.  It was just too hurtful for me, knowing that I was not seen and heard. Others were chosen over me, and excuses were given.  Not once was I asked if I was ok. So many months ago, I decided that I was no longer willing to have my heart crushed and I did unfriend her.  A long time ago.  I saw her message and a part of me froze, should I tell her it was a mistake, do I tell her I have no idea what happened?  So many thoughts and it took me a few days to answer.  I wanted to say, some conversations are just not meant for texts. Thank you for the happy birthday. I wanted to be brutally honest, but I didn't have it in me. So, I said awe thanks, things are crazy with grad school full time and working full time.  And then another response and another.  She asked if I was going into school administration, clearly, she had not seen my page is a long time anyway. She asked me questions that she had not asked in years.  She was having this conversation, and I thought the only reason this conversation is even occurring, is because she realized we were no longer friends.  I cannot even tell you how long it had been without any words from her.  There was a sadness, because she doesn't get it.  There was a sadness because she used to be a favorite.  There was a sadness, that I was no longer willing to have my heart broken to hope for something that deep down I knew would never be.  It's the worst feeling when there are all these words that want to come out, and you realize that there is no point.  All the times they have come to Dallas, I have not seen them.  All the times they have been close I was never a consideration.  There is just so much hurt there.  As I am growing, as I continue to heal, I cannot be a part of something that doesn't want me to be a part back.  There are still so many thoughts and feelings. It still kills me, I never imagined this is where things would be. She always said you can't be everyone's friend.  NO, that is true.  You cannot be everyone's friend.  So to avoid my heart from breaking anymore, I removed myself from the situation. I did what was right for me, it hurts that there is no understanding. It hurts so much.  In time, I hope, this ache lessens.  I just so wanted to be a part of them like they were a part of me.  I can't be an afterthought, the one always left out.  I deserve more. 

 I heart your heart

FAILURE

 

What I really want to do is write this word over and over and over and over until I don't feel that way anymore.  There are no words, but this one and it's all that I can see.  It's been this way for over a week and still it's grip is strong.  It started last week, when there was an issue with my video for my grad class. Because of that issue I was unable to turn in the assignment.  Mind you, that morning, I was able to download the corrected video and was able to get the assignment in that evening.  My professor said that it would still be late, but there really was no other option for me. I think I cried through most of the class, because not turning an assignment in is just unacceptable. I was pretty devasted. On one hand the professor was understanding and at the same time was asking questions well why didn't I realize it sooner, well it isn't that bad, there were many discounting statements that didn't help what I was feeling. Since then the feeling of failure is immense, and I am not sure how to shake it.  Then the following Saturday I am slowly coming back from that sense of failure.  And BAM group project, I froze I was a deer in headlights and no words would even come from my mouth.  I had a partner who did nothing, even when reading the notes, she read it like a script instead of a conversation. Needless to say, it was more than rough.  Then there was the co-facilitator who texted on her phone telling us that we needed to speak more and interact.  I could not, there were no words that were coming out of my mouth.  They asked how I thought it went and said that I felt like a deer in headlights that no words would come.  I said that I didn't drink but if I did I would need a very large drink.  It seemed ok, the professor came back and was talking about group being difficult and it's not as simple as some may think.  For a few minutes I gave myself a break until the professor and co-facilitator were speaking and you know when you can read body language yea that moment and I was flustered the rest of the day.  FAILURE, the only words that seems to keep running around my mind.  And the spiral that comes with that, I am not good enough, I am a letdown, yada yada yada !   All the things you could imagine were leading me down a spiral going nowhere fast.  I know that I am not going to be prefect at everything, but I feel this need to be better than what I am.  I am exhausted and have a few weeks left of classes.  There are a few classmates that are getting on my last nerve.  I just need a breather and a break.  All I know is that I am not a failure, but I sure wish those feelings of failure would soon disappear because they are heavy and exhausting.  I am spent.     

I heart your heart. 

Even from the grave

 It's amazing the things that can bother us even after a person has passed away. Most days I am fine.  But on those days that I am not it feels like there is a lead balloon in my soul.  My mother acted in ways that were not kind and said things that were often not true about me. I don't even want to imagine the things that she said to those that were around her.  I could tell by their silence towards me, that it wasn't good.  Everyone contacted my brother, flooded him with all the praise.  I got nothing, no condolences no nothing.  Since she passed away, the words that she wrote, things that she stated towards me have broken my heart into millions of little pieces.  I find myself every now and then thinking of her wishing for warm thoughts and kind memories, but right now I can't see through the hurt.  That was always the problem when she was alive.  She could never understand how I saw things or where I was coming from. She was never willing to acknowledge her part in the awful things that happened to me. She could never acknowledge the person that I was, and who I was becoming. She could never acknowledge the person that I was because of the things that happened to me.  She wanted me to forget, sweep it all under the carpet and pretend that all was well with the world.  For me, none of those things were an option. 

I was everything the opposite of what she wanted.  So many things I will never understand.  I thought by now some of the things that I have learned she said, would no longer hurt.  But they do, they still are like a knife.  I was even looking back at a memory that came up on my phone, and she said that I had a peace breaking spirit. What? ME?  I have a peace breaking spirit?  I can remember the day that I read those words like it was yesterday and today they hurt just the same. It was an email that she had written, and she left it out on the dining room table.  I hard cried, the kind of cry where your shoulders shake, and you can't catch your breathe. I read it over and over thinking that surely, she wasn't talking about me.  Yes, she was, and I truly believe that she meant those words.  How dare she say that, how dare she send it in an email. How dare she leave it on the table. It's like she meant to leave it on the table as a stake through my heart. There are so many questions that I want to ask, why did she think that what did I do.  But all of those words are useless, there will never be any answers to satisfy the hurt. 

Just so so many hurtful things.  When I clean out the rest of her things, I am just throwing things away no need to find anything else.  It has been made very clear, how little that I meant to her. So many blaring examples, and still they hurt.  Crazy that even though she has passed on, her words cut.  I guess that's the thing, I am not sad that she has passed away.  For me the main emotion is relief.  The sad is because I want to want to miss my mom.   I miss all the things that I didn't get, I miss the mom that I didn't have, that is what I miss.  Just a moment, as time passes, I hope the feelings will become less sharp. I hope that good happy things fill the spaces where there is so much pain and hurt. 

I heart your heart. 

Some days

 

Some days are just hard. Just lonely just all the things that you wish they were not. 

The sky is beautiful, the most amazing hue of blue

The trees are beautiful, moving to the breeze

Butterflies trying to find the perfect spot

Birds finding their song with just the right notes

Then there is me in the middle of it all and the tears flow

I can appreciate each of these things and am grateful

I sit on the deck taking in that beautiful sky, 

feeling the trees and hearing the birds

there is such a peaceful appreciation for these things

at the same time the tears fall

I talk about it all the time this deep sad in my soul

it's there all the time no matter what I do 

it's so heavy and is something that just is

It's so heavy that even in the beauty it steals my breath 

I think that as much as I am able to heal 

there will be these slivers of sadness

sometimes they will come as tears 

Sometimes as that ever present ache 

and then days when its so heavy that you have to remind yourself to breathe

Today was just lonely

And there is a huge guilt that follows

The sky is so pretty and the trees so full and green

The birds so happy, the sun so bright and 

still Callahan is sad,

Maybe there will always be days like this

forever and always

I guess if they have to be, what can I do

I just wish that someday I didn't have to do them alone

I want nothing more than to lose this sadness 

as hard as I work, I fear it's just a part of me

Pieces of me that will forever be tender and fragile

So many bruises, so many marks that still hold the pain

I have come so far and this sadness is so deep

It's always there just some days it becomes to vibrant

begging for attention

I don't have time to sit and wallow

I don't want to sit with this sad 

so many things lost in life, and I think aren't I done with that

My heart hurts and I feel the sad in everything

Just one of those some days

I heart your heart

Holidays

 Holidays, Special days I am not a fan of either of them.  Today is Easter and not one person has reached out.  Not one person has said Happy Easter, I hope you have a great day.  It's just another alone day where things are the same. Everyone with their families and I am alone.  I am trying to find my people, I just don't know how, or even where to look. Most people are with their families doing family things. 

Everything about that makes me more than sad. Usually, I am the one that is reaching making sure that people feel seen, making sure that I acknowledge others.  This year there wasn't enough left of me, there was nothing left for me little lone anyone else. So, it was a quiet sad day, wishing that I had people to call my own. It's like this most holidays really, everyone has their own families and I understand that.  It is just when it's you and you have no family things get complicated and cloudy and sometimes very heavy. So today is just one of those sad days.  I told Mariska no Easter baskets yet that is what she did.  That girl, everything was perfect and brought a smile to my face. She even made one for her brother I made them a small backet, she would say everything was great even if it was not.  Vincent left early this morning saying nothing.  When he got home, I told him he had his baskets and nothing they are still sitting on the table untouched. He brought home beautiful flowers but just laid them on the counter no interaction.  No happy Easter mom.  

Then there is the fact that my birthday is coming up and I hate it.  Mariska is already planning and has mentioned taking the day off.  I just want the day to be normal.  I think it's easier that way and less of a chance of being let down.  I am tired of being disappointed.  Not with Mariska she will decorate and do all the things, and I will try to smile and be so excited.  Inside I will just look forward to it being over. I just am in a place where I really cannot add any more disappointment to my plate. I just can't.  It's just me trying to carry everything and I am barely keeping my head above water. I feel like I am trying so hard to be happy and it's not working.  It does feel like there is something innately wrong with me, and I am trying to fight that but it's difficult.  It's a so sad place that I am trying to maneuver.  

I heart your heart 

No one to Ask

 

I am more than stressed. Like stressed beyond a single tear. Its am empty echo feeling. It is this huge hole that I don't think will ever be filled. And I hate it. People have no clue what it is like to have no family and no one that is close for those unconditional things that people take for granted. Just an example, my mortgage went up almost 400 dollars!   I was in panic mode, as a teacher paycheck to paycheck there is not an extra 400 around.  So, I had to start shopping for new insurance.  That in itself is stressful, but then imagine that you have no clue what you are doing and have to make these big decisions and have no one to ask and make sure that the decision you are making is a good one?  That is daily life, and it is more than hard to navigate.  I did find new house insurance and I hope that it's the same coverages and I hope that I made the right choice.  At the same time, it was the only choice, that would leave my mortgage where I needed the payment to be. There is no dad that I can go to and say is this the right thing to do is this insurance, ok?  There is no one for me to ask there is no shoulder to lean on, I am here it's just me and it all falls on me.  Every single big decision if something isn't right it's my fault. Sometimes it's more than overwhelming. I have to carry so many decisions all on my own. I just wish that there was someone in the everyday, just to guide me, to give advice and to reassure me that I am doing things ok and that I am not failing.  I just wish that there was a person that I could count on unconditionally all the time no matter what.  I have never had that and, sometimes that's what I want most in this world. 

Church

 

Every single Sunday these last few weeks, there is an anger that comes up.  It comes so fierce and then the rage sets in.  You turn the TV on and there are all these pastors and preachers each one telling their own version of things that they want you to believe.  Each one voice louder than the next and I struggle to understand, why would these people be yelling at us about how great the things that they are saying are.  

Religion and church have hurt me more in my lifetime than I even want to acknowledge.  I think that when you pray to die at 5, it really changes a person.  It is something that stays with you forever.  Some of the people that have hurt me the most in my lifetime were people that claimed to love god and built their life around the church.  Those were people that I knew I never wanted to be like. 

The people that have meant the most are the people that have been really genuine and true because of who they are as people not because of a god that they believe in. To me that speaks volumes.  The people that can accept my questions, that still love me even when our views are so very different those are the people that I want to be around. 

For me growing up I was always questioning and wondering.  I was never one to just believe because a person told me too.  I wanted to know more and believe in something with my whole heart, if I couldn't do that then it was not something that I wanted or to be a part of who I am. I am sure that growing up with people who so severely hurt me then went to church the next day talking about how wonderful they were had really affected me.  As a little girl I was surrounded by people in the church, who said one thing then did another. I never found caring and comfort. All I found was violence and disbelief.  There was never an understanding or a sense of family.  I was always the outsider, because as long as I can remember I would question the things they wanted me to believe; and that didn't work in the catholic church.  You don't question you just comply.  I saw evil all around me, that was so inconsistent with all that they were talking about. 

I saw the man who violently rape me, then proceed to kill my tadpoles and tell me that next time I wouldn't fight receive communion the next day staring me down like I had done something terrible. 

As a family we had to carry the communion and wine to the alter then on the way home get screamed at and called horrid names and receive the silent treatment for as long as he thought necessary. 

I was gang raped by men that carried the cross during Sunday's mass. 

I was told that the only way that I was going to heal was through God and the church.  

I was not believed or helped when I was made to tell what happened to me. Instead, I was made the black sheep, called a liar and ignored. 

There was the Christian counseling center who told me I made my bed and had to lie in it. 

Church, Religion and God are not things that hold my heart and make me feel at home.  Those things have hurt me beyond repair.  I do not believe in a god that lets a little girl of 5 pray to die because her father comes in her room every night. I will not believe in something, that tells me all about going to heaven and in the same breath says my father will be there. 

I do not want to believe in something that has damaged my life in ways that I can't fully comprehend. 

I will not believe in something that is more about being the popular person than about who you are in your heart.  I just won't do it. 

There was a woman who was married to a woman and wanted a church family.  I asked the pastor, and he said Well she can come but we don't believe in her life. I was more than shocked.  The judgement. 

There was the pastor when my mother worked at the bank who told her I should have kept my legs closed, which she then told me. 

It was a woman in the church that said to me Well you can't be everyone's friend and that has stuck with me, no.  You are absolutely correct. 

So, no I don't believe in God, or Church or anything that resembles it.  

I have lived this life on my own.  Relying on the things around me, on the birds and the trees and the animals, those are the things that have kept me going and have given me hope. 

I am fine with believers.  If that is you, and it works, wonderful.  But it does not work for me.  I am not less than because I don't believe in the god that you do.  I am not less than because I am a kind human because that is just who I am.  

I remember asking about the Dali Llama once.  I said so, you're telling me that he won't go to heaven because he doesn't believe in god?  The short answer was Yes.  So, if someone that gentle and kind is thought to go to hell, that is not something that I want to subscribe to. So many rules and unkindness's that don't feel right for the person that I am. 

I do not believe in some kind of God that lets children be brutally raped throughout their life.  

A man once said that he thanked God that a light turned green or that there was an upfront parking place.  Wow that seems trivial compared to the rape of a five-year-olds body.  Can you explain that?  He will let a violent attack occur and yet change a light or give you a parking space? I know it isn't that simple but there are things I just don't understand.  I understand choice and free will.  For me there is suffering that destroys and there is no way around that. 

I believe in the goodness of kind good people because that is who they are in their heart, and not for any other reason. 

So yea, Sundays and church and all that includes sometimes makes me sad.  It just isn't all it's said to be. 

I heart your heart. 

I can't breathe

 

When I think about her, when I talk about her, it takes my breath away.  My favorite wants to do a ceremony of sorts to get that little girl in the here and now with me. I feel like there are pieces of me that are still chained to the things that happened when I was 13.  I want her here with me in the present more than anything. The second, I think about closing my eyes and really paying attention to my breathing the panic sets in, it feels terrible. I don't want to be in my own skin. I feel like there were pieces of me that left that day and have never been back.   She can't speak because she doesn't have the words and that has to be ok.  I just want her to find some peace in this world.  I just want us to be on the same page. This is not like I am holding on because I want to.  What is happening is that the things that happened to me are so engrained that they have a hold on me.  I am more than ready to let them go, but as I was once attached to them they have attached themselves to me.  I almost think of it as a haunting.  I have let it go I don't want it there anymore, but there is so much unfinished business that it won't remove it's grasp.  

I am working more than hard doing everything that I know and still it is a huge part of me that makes me want to crawl in a hole and come out when it's all over.  It's hard to work on something when there are no words.  It's hard to figure things out when you don't have any breathe behind the words. And that is where I am and it's a terrifying place.  That so scared thirteen-year-old part of me is stuck in a place of hell trying to figure out the things that are unfigure out able. There is no way to make sense out of something so humiliating and shameful that you wished they just killed you.  I know there are days I truly wished that they just finished me off.  It would be better to be dead than to have to face the things that were done.  I am so afraid that I will never move on from this part of my past.  It's too big, too terrifying and what does a person do with something that there are no words for.  I have come such a long way and works more than hard to heal the things that have hurt my heart, this is just so big and I am still so afraid.  She needs a rescue.  She needs a rescue and time to heal with no words needed.  She needs someone to come to her with every reassurance that things are different now.  I can not give her guarantees.  I can tell her that over my dead body will anyone ever hurt her again. She fears the same thing happening again,  and the chances of that are so slim. But to her in her mind and body the chances of that happening again are great and she knows that she wouldn't make it . 

I am terrified of being back in my own body and I fear that it is going to be necessary in order to heal that so young sweet girl that just wanted to belong somewhere.  I hate her for being 13.  I hate the fact that she was so excited when he showed her attention.  I hate the fact that once he showed me any attention I wanted more.  I never in a million years imagined that when he said he would see me again that he meant, what he did.  When he showed up at my house, those first few seconds there was this excitement, he had come to see me.  In the next breath, I realized he was a very different person, he had no intentions of being the good guy and making me feel special.  In my head I know so many things, I know the right thing to believe, there is a part of me that knows I didn't do anything wrong but the part that believes I did is gigantic. My heart is struggling.  I know the right things to say and think and in the same breath I hate that she was so naive and believed that something was good.  Did she not learn anything from years of rape and abuse by every man that she came in contact with.  Why would she think that this would be any different.  I want to believe good things for her, she deserves so much love and care.  And she doesn't know how to even let that happen. I don't know how to talk about her and keep breathing.  I don't know how to be present as she cuts the chains to experience the good things in this world. I am so afraid maybe it won't happen for her.  Maybe just maybe, she is too afraid, too damaged.  I will never stop fighting for her, but I can tell you it's absolutely exhausting.  this is more than hard to explain and even harder for me to comprehend.  There are still moments I don't know how I am still here standing. I know that surviving was all she knew how to do.  She just kept moving, but there are days I just don't have a clue how she kept going.  

I heart your heart. 

I was so hurt

 

I have sat on my couch for the last hour and the tears haven't stopped, the kind of tears that are tired of being alone, tired of pretending the everything is fine.  Nothing is fine, not even close.  I am more than tired of being alone and having to keep everything together.  I just keep going and keep going but there are pieces of me that are frozen. Pieces in a place that so sark and devastating that it holds that innocent 13-year-old girl as a hostage.  There are pieces of me that have never been able to speak never been able to express just how badly that she was hurt.  That 13-year-old that was so young and just wanted to belong, was hurt brutally beyond understanding. She was hurt so badly and yet no one around her ever acknowledged that she existed little lone what happened to her.  The blamed and pointed fingers. So, she shrank in shame and has lived in that place ever since.  She is so afraid still trying to find answers for the things that no words can ever begin to explain.  She is so afraid that staying in that place is safer than being here in the present.  I am not sure that there is even a way for me to explain just how complicated that her world is.  I have been working so hard in counseling for her to come into the present and work on healing and it isn't happening fast enough for me.  I want nothing more than to be done.  I want nothing more than to be free of this and for it not to hurt my heart anymore. I am drowning in the sorrow of that spunky girl, she just wanted to matter.

She always covered up so much, all the bruises all the marks, all the everything. Things would happen to her and you would never know it.  She would be a 10 on a pain scale and yet keep smiling.  That was how she survived, that is how she kept breathing and for that no one believed her. When you have grown up having to pretend that your body didn't hurt it's amazing how good that you get at ignoring your own body, and the things that happened to it.  The first time that Don came there was a shock.  He was supposed to be a good guy, but he was not.  He threw me on the floor right there by the door, the floor was so cold and he was so different. I kept saying no telling him to stop, there was this conversation in my head but you are a good guy, why are you doing this.  Right away the self-blame kicks in I danced with him, I kissed him, I had butterflies that an older guy was paying any attention to me.  I cried, and I begged him to stop, that was not going to work. I can still see the pattern on the floor, and the wicker shelf that was in my room when I was little there was one of the little slats that was broken.  I remember the shadows of the TV on the wall, and the faint voices from some TV program.  He was hurting me, so very rough.  I wasn't a person, I was nothing.  He had his hands on my neck and all over anywhere he wanted.  I wanted him to stop and just go away.  I wanted him to be the good guy I had met on that weekend.  Things get so blurry; he rapes me again in the living room.  I remember him sitting on the couch with this Look of accomplishment on his face, he was laughing at me.  I had curled up in a ball on the floor.  My mind was everywhere and nowhere, I was just a slut, and this is what happens when you want attention.  He finally left and I spent the next moments of time, fixing the living room.  Fixing the pillows, the fringe was perfect, and I made everything look as it did before he came.  I can remember the pain in my body, walking was painful, and everything hurt.  Everything Everything.  And you do what you know hoe to do, you go to bed and wake up in the morning another day.  There wasn't even a thought for someone to know and to help you.  There wasn't a single thought that I needed to tell someone so that they could help and make things better.  I just dealt with what had happened to me.  Why wouldn't I , it was my own fault.  I flirted and I danced, and I was the one that wanted to see him again, well I guess that I got what I wished for didn't I.  

And life goes on until it doesn't.  Done comes back bringing his friends and I am no longer a person.  I don't have the words that I so desperately want to have just to get it out of skin, and out of my bones.  I feel like I carry it everywhere all the time and I am exhausted.  I see the window, and the waterbed and that burnt orange chair.  I relive the details of that day in such great detail.  The smallest of things etched on my very soul.  The sun on my face as I was laying by the back door.  The feeling of the rope on the hands behind my back.  The rug burn from when I tried to run and fell in the hall.  The fan in the living room as I repeated their names hoping that each turn would be their last.  I remember the turn taking in my brothers room. I remember the panic, when I thought they had gone but another one was coming. I remember them chanting and laughing.  I remember being so very cold.  The kind of cold that no amount of warmth would fix.  I can remember thinking that if I just curled up tight enough in a little ball then somehow, they would give up and leave. I can remember the moment that I thought they were going to kill me.  Laughing and waving the gun around, him ending my life would have been a relief.  He used the gun to assault me laughing. That second when you realize just how hurt that you are. Them laughing at the blood, I was their joke. I can remember screaming and at the same time there was no more sound coming out of my mouth.  Things were more black then in color, I just went to a place far far away so I didn't have to experience or acknowledge the things that were happening to me.  It was never ending, there were more turns and more abuse, more taunting and teasing.  There were moments in the day I gave up and moments in the day that I fought like hell. There were screams that sounded less than human and I begged them to stop, but I was wasting my breath. They tore at my body and took pieces of me that I will never get back. When they left that day there was nothing left of me.  I was a shell of a person; I was a nothing that deserved what she got. I danced with him, I got butterflies, and thought I was something special.  I am pretty sure that I missed a few days of school.  I am sure that I made up something a migraine, a stomach virus something anything to give my body a few days of rest.  My body was black with bruises and everything hurt. 

Then there was the last time that Don came.  I still beat myself up because I answered the door.  After everything that happened I am not sure why I thought it was ok to answer the door but I did. I know that the world stopped and took my breath away.  The tears started right away, I can remember their warmth streaming down my face.  By this time I knew what he had come for.  There was no fight in my heart.  There was nothing, just let him take what he wants we can make this easier or harder. I chose easier. I think that he was looking for a fight and was unprepared for my reaction.  I unbuttoned my pants and I laid down right there on the floor .  The same scene as the first rape.  He was looking for a reaction, I didn't have one.  All was taken, I just wanted him to get what he had come for and leave me alone. I will forever be guilty I didn't want to be raped I didn't think that there was any other option for me.  I was alone, no one cared to ask if I was ok or why I seemed so sad so you do the things that you have to do to live another day.  That is what I did.  I think that there was also a part of me that that believed if I had just laid down the first time then he would have left me alone.  So either way there was no way for me to win.  Fight and be hurt, or lay down and let him do what he is going to.  Really nothing mattered, he had already destroyed that spunky girl, the last time he seemed so unsure, I didn't fight didn't make a sound. He got up when he was done kicking me, spitting on me and saying awful things, and just left.  It made him so angry that there wasn't any fight left.  There was nothing left and I wanted to die.  I was barely breathing going through the motions of life but I really didn't even feel human anymore.

I wasn't ok after that.  Calvin was the one who knew I wasn't ok. And there are parts of me that still aren't ok.  I feel terribly guilty even writing about this time.  Somehow this is something that deserves to stay in the dark.  I feel like I don't even have the right words to convey all the feelings that are inside.  Things are so intertwined.  I have done this hard hard work and yet there are parts of me that can't let this go.  I am struggling that no one stepped up and did the right thing.  I don't understand why I wasn't important enough. No one cared for my heart, no one was there even after they knew.  As hard as it was telling I thought that maybe maybe I wouldn't have to carry it alone.  The truth is , things just got heavier because, people knew, and I still had to carry it on my own.  This place is so lonely because there are worlds that I need to get out and I don't have a clue how to get any relief.  I don't understand why this piece has such a hold. I see the pictures in my head and it's almost like I am still in shock. I am still on repeat trying to make things different.  I get more than angry with myself because all these years later I still haven't figured out that there is no way to make it different to make it better.  There is no way in this world to pretend that it never happened.  I wish that girl would have had a normal teenage life.  I wish she could have experienced all the fun things in high school.  I don't know what to do with the sad that because of all of this I missed out on any sense of a normal life and I have spent my entire life searching for what I will never find.  I just want to let go.  I just want to feel like I am not some kind of damaged human. I just want to forget that it happened at all. 

I heart your heart 

Pictures that mean the world, that are my heart

It's kind of crazy, I am working on a presentation that I don't even know if I am going to be presenting yet. But I want it more than anything and I am hoping that I will get a yes. The need to have a voice and get it all out is something that I don't understand.  There is something that comes alive like somehow people will hear me and they do things better for others. I cannot change the way I have been treated; I cannot change the things that have happened to me.  Today I just have to keep fighting and make sure that others understand the need to do better for people like me.