healing

Trust

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I’ve never been able to trust anyone completely.

It’s not surprising. Every survivor of child abuse I have ever met has had the same difficulty with trusting people.

Why is it so difficult for me to trust? Because the first people I met, the first people I ever formed relationships with – my parents – were also the people that abused me for my entire childhood. The very person that a child is supposed to be able to trust was the very person that shattered my ability to trust anyone.

In my healing process, I have come a long way. I have learned, to an extent, to trust other people. But I have never been able to put my full trust in anyone. There are things I keep inside, never feeling comfortable enough with anyone to let them out, never trusting anyone enough to be able to give those things a voice. And in the long run, it drains me.

I have so badly wanted to be able to trust someone enough to let everything out. And I think, just maybe, I finally found that person in my therapist.

I have been avoiding telling my therapist something that has been eating away at me. It has been eating away at me for years, really, but even more so in the recent months. I have made passive comments about it, but whenever she probed further, I said it was something that I couldn’t talk about. It came up again on Monday. I don’t remember everything because I had dissociated towards the end of our session, but it must have been significant because she brought it up again in our Thursday session.

By this time, I think she had an idea about what I was hiding. She asked if we could talk more about it. She asked if there was anything she could do to make it easier to talk about. I really wanted to say let’s forget this ever happened but on some level, I knew that wouldn’t help anyone.

My words were there but I was still so afraid to let them out. I sat there with my head down, staring at the rug beneath my feet, contemplating all of the possibilities that could come out of this. I must have told my therapist at least a dozen times that I was scared. She continued to reassure me that it was okay to be scared, that she understood. She told me that she would continue to care about me no matter what I told her, that no matter how bad I thought my secret was, we would work on managing it together. I told her that no one would understand the darkness within me. She wanted to try to understand.

After a half hour (though it seemed like hours) of inner turmoil and resistance, I finally broke down. I started crying and just blurted it out. The secret that I never told another person. The secret that I never even wrote on paper. The secret I will likely never tell another soul.

Now it was out there, out in the world, and I could never take it back.

I immediately turned away from her and hid my face. I was so disgusted with myself, so ashamed of what I had done. I couldn’t face her.

But she didn’t run away. She sat next to me, comforting me, asking me questions. I asked her if she hated me now that she knew the truth about me. I asked her if I was just like my mother.

“Your mother would never be sitting in therapy like this, feeling this intensely about anything she ever did. But you’re here, feeling all of these things because you care so deeply. You’ll never be like her.”

That still didn’t change what I had done. I still felt sick. I still felt unresolved. But in a way, I felt different. I didn’t feel weighed down. I felt like I could breathe a little deeper. I felt a release.

I realized, after our session, that my therapist is the first and only person I have complete trust in.

I never thought it would ever be possible for me to trust another human being like that.

The response

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

My grandmother answered my letter.

I emailed it to her, so there would be no trace of my location. I wasn’t sure if she was a fully trustworthy person.

She didn’t acknowledge anything I wanted her to. In fact, she completely ignored most of my letter.

She updated me about herself, about how no one visits her, about how she gave my father a car so they could come over and they still didn’t visit, about how she could have sold the car to someone else instead.

Then at the end, she asked what school I was going to, and what I did for work. And that was that. No acknowledgement of anything else I wrote. No apology, no further questions, not even a mention of the word abuse.

I was disheartened. I realized that she is likely in denial. I said all I could. There’s nothing more I can do. I can’t force people to accept a reality they don’t want to face.

I was angry. She’s continuing to enable my family. She got them a car. A fucking car. All the while they’re still driving the Jeep that I bought them years ago. And they get a car, too. You know what I get? Nothing. I continue to get nothing. I’m the only one in the family that’s not a complete asshole, and I get shit. I struggle to be on my own and they get consistently get handouts. They get rewarded for being horrible people. Ain’t it funny how life works?

I didn’t reply back to her. I sat with my emotions for awhile. I emailed my therapist about it, and she reminded me that I don’t owe my grandmother anything, and I’m not obligated to send her a reply. The fact that my grandmother is still actively enabling my family makes her an unsafe person. I’m not quite sure it’s worth the added stress to go through a relationship that will never be genuine.

It hurts, but I’m actually so used to the hurt now that it doesn’t affect me like it should.

At least I tried.

Secrets

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Secrets are dangerous.

They eat away at you, slowly, from the inside, like a slow-acting poison.

The shame takes residence in the pit of your stomach, where it causes a nausea that never seems to subside.

The guilt takes residence in your chest, where it weighs you down so immensely that you can feel your heart hurting from the pressure, you can feel yourself slowly suffocating.

The memories take residence in your mind, where they replay over and over, reminding you of things you can never take back, things you can never change.

These secrets can never come to the surface, so you push them further and further down, hoping that one day, they will just go away.

But they never go away. You push them and you push them as far as they will go. They jounce back, beating you up, ripping you apart from the inside out.

No one can see the damage. No one can see the poison flowing through you. You look okay on the outside. No one suspects a thing.

So you learn to live with your secrets. You let them overtake you, control you, because the alternative seems so much worse.

You can never tell anyone. You can never even write it out because then the paper will know. No one, no thing, can ever know. No one will ever understand the darkness that lives inside of you.

You become a slave to your secrets until the day there’s nothing left of you. Your mind is shattered. Your heart is broken. Your soul is gone forever.

And now you’re just a shell. One final tap and you’ll finally crack, you’ll finally fall to pieces.

But your secrets fall with you, too. No one ever has to know the truth. No one ever has to see the darkness.

Your secrets die with you.

January 30th

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

January 30th is no longer my mother’s birthday. It is now a day for me.

I contemplated how I could turn this date into something different. Part of me wanted it to be the day my mother died; not her actual death, but her death inside of me. I wanted it to be the day I completed severed our relationship. I wanted to become an orphan. But I realized that wasn’t the right thing to do. I know I am not emotionally ready to make that full disconnection. I also know that wouldn’t be fair to my parts, some of whom are still bonded to our mother. Killing her, even though it would have been just emotionally and psychologically, would have traumatized and confused my younger parts even more. They don’t deserve that.

Another part of me wanted to send her shit (literally) in a box. But I’m not even sure she is worth the effort and the $14.95 it would have cost to ship it. I wanted to write her a letter, telling her all of the amazing things I’ve been doing. But that wouldn’t even matter. She wouldn’t care. It wasn’t worth the effort of writing or typing it out.

I didn’t know what I was going to celebrate, but I decided that morning to just roll with it. My therapist sent me a text that morning to remind me that it was MY day. So I decided I would get out of the house and see a movie. As I was walking from the bus stop that morning, I got a notification on Facebook. The PAFPAC Facebook page had reached 100 likes. Now, I am not a person that takes “likes” seriously, I never have been. But I couldn’t help but find the irony in the timing. Of all days, it happened on my mother’s birthday. My mother, the very woman that symbolizes everything I created the organization to fight against. My mother, a child abuser. My mother, a female perpetrator.

I felt a rush of emotions come over me. I actually laughed at first, because I realized the irony right away. And then I started to cry and had to dart into the nearest bathroom. It wasn’t really tears of sadness, but rather tears caused by the realization that I’m doing so much more than she had ever planned for me. I calmed myself down in time to get to the theatre, but even as I was watching the movie, my mind was bouncing back and forth with thoughts and feelings about my mother and about what I’ve done with my life.

When I came home later that afternoon, I made chocolate cupcakes. My roommate made buttercream icing from scratch and frosted them for me. And they were delicious. And I didn’t have to share them with my mother. So it was a double win.

This morning, as I was talking to my coworker about my day yesterday, I realized something that I hadn’t noticed before. I made it through yesterday completely sober. I knew it was going to be a difficult day, and I’ve always responded to difficult days in negative ways. But I didn’t drink. I didn’t turn to drugs. I didn’t hurt myself. I made it through the entire day completely unharmed, for what is likely the first time ever.

That in itself is an amazing accomplishment for me. I thought about that for the rest of the day. I thought about how I made it through that day unscathed. I thought about all of those other times that I ended up in a downward spiral into the dark place and struggled to get out. But this day was different. And that in itself made it a special day.

It’s different

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

When I escaped nearly six months ago, I envisioned a life of being a nobody.

I was going to get a minimal job just to fit in with the rest of society (and to help pay bills). I was going to be average. I was going to fly under the radar. I wasn’t going to do anything more than I had to to get by.

I never imagined I’d be going to grad school. I never imagined I’d be a mental health blogger. I never expected my face to come up whenever someone google searches my name. This is not flying under the radar. This is not doing the bare minimum to survive.

I never expected to be a person that people look up to. I’ve gotten a lot of opportunities recently, most notably guest speaking. While I’m honored to have such opportunities, I also need to remind myself that I can’t do it all.

In the last few days, I’ve had many people thank me for my work in starting up PAFPAC. I know I am doing something great. But I never expected to be doing this at all. A part of me still feels like none of this is supposed to be happening. I can still hear my mother’s voice telling me I’ll never amount to anything. Sometimes, it hooks in me and I start to doubt all of the good I’ve been doing. Maybe I’m not worthy of this work. Maybe I really can’t do it.

I came here wanting to be a nobody and I’m turning into a somebody. This is not at all what I had planned. She would never want this for me. I’m going against everything my family set for me. And I feel horrible for it.

A need for connection

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

Some days are harder than others.

Some days, I make it through the day without thinking much about home.  Other days, like today, I think about the people I’ve left behind…and it makes me sad.  I feel completely alone here.

While I do keep in contact with my best friend, it’s just not the same.  We talk on the phone once a week and text a few times in between phone calls.  My other friend from work has remained distant; aside from a few texts, we rarely talk.  I am too afraid to reach out anymore than I have.  I don’t want to push people into something they are not comfortable with, considering they work with my mother.  But for a long time, these two people were my only source of meaningful human contact.  We would exchange hugs every day when I got to work, and then again when I left.  I needed that comfort, that affection, that connection because it was something I had never had before.  And now I am back to not having it.  Sometimes I think about dropping everything and getting on a train and going back to see them, even if it’s just for five minutes, even if it’s just for a hug.  But I know I can’t do that.  I can’t go back.  And that hurts.

Last week, I became so lonely that I started talking to random strangers on the internet.  One of the conversations seemed genuine so I decided to meet him.  I just wanted to talk to someone face-to-face.  It wound up being a horrible experience and I ended up at a place I didn’t know at three o’clock in the morning with a guy who refused to take me home unless I gave him what he wanted.  Once I managed to get home, I walked in the door and immediately broke down crying.  I can’t blame anybody but myself.  I am ashamed that I even thought anything good would have come out of that.

In therapy today, I talked a lot about my strained relationships with my two friends.  Then I disclosed what had happened a few days earlier with the random internet stranger.  When she asked why I did it, I told her I needed to connect with someone.  I needed to connect face-to-face, not over text or phone conversation.  It’s just not the same.  At that point, I didn’t care who it was; I needed it that bad.  At the end of our session, my therapist asked if she could give me a hug.  I tried so hard to hold back my tears.  I didn’t want her to let go.  For that minute, I felt comfortable.  I needed it.  She knew I needed it, too.

I’ve spent the last few hours crying to myself.  I feel like I am grieving the loss of so many relationships; the relationships with my family (which weren’t good anyway) and the relationships with my friends (which are slowly fading away).  As much as I try to pretend like I don’t need people, I really do.  I wish I didn’t have to abandon everything and everyone I knew.  It’s not fair.  While I may be safe, I am so incredibly alone.

My love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with medication

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but never quite got around to it.

Anyone who has experienced some type of psychological distress or mental illness has likely also experienced some type of medication to treat it.  Even with psychotherapy, most doctors and psychiatrists push medications to help ease the symptoms and improve functioning.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s always a gamble, more so than with physical conditions, because the brain isn’t always so straightforward.  Fourteen years of experience, lots of research, and an education in psychology has allowed me to increase my knowledge about psychotropic medications.  I almost wish I had the knowledge before taking some of these medications, but what’s done is done.

I started out, at the ripe young age of 15, on a twice daily prescription of Depakote.  Since I couldn’t swallow pills at that age, I had to take the liquid form – which came in a container that resembled a large bottle of peroxide.  The taste was not pleasant.  The side effects were annoying; I would get sunburn just from sitting in the car.  I also developed cystic ovaries that were most likely a direct side effect from the medication.  More importantly, Depakote didn’t do shit for me psychologically.  But why would it?  I didn’t have Bipolar Disorder.  It was a waste of money, a waste of time, and a waste of my ovaries.

I went quite a few years sans medication.  That wasn’t by my choice, really.  I wasn’t allowed to go to the doctor.  I just dealt with everything on my own, as usual.  I managed to stay alive, so I guess I can’t complain.  Maybe I should have kept with that method, because starting back on a path of medications turned out to be a horrible experience.

In October 2014, I managed to sneak to the doctor’s office to ask about medication.  I had been communicating with a therapist online who suggested that it was worth looking into.  I was at a point where I was becoming increasingly unable to deal with shit on my own.  I was prescribed 50mg of Zoloft and 0.25 of Xanax.  After a week, I was having trouble sleeping, so they added on Ambien.  After two more weeks, I still wasn’t feeling any better, so they increased my Zoloft to 50 mg twice a day and Xanax three times a day.  Within a week or two, I was severely suicidal.  I felt worse than I did the month before when I came to the doctor’s with nothing.  I just wanted them to try a different medication.  I knew there were numerous options.  Instead, I ended up hospitalized.

During the first hospitalization, I was taken off Zoloft and put on Paxil.  No change.  After a few days, I was taken off Paxil and put on Prozac.  Prozac made me want to jump out of my own skin.  I was constantly on edge, irritated, and anxious.  I couldn’t stop shaking during one of the group sessions, so the therapist called the psychiatrist in to reassess.  The Prozac was immediately discontinued and I was started on 10mg of trifluoperazine.  Yea, I never heard of it, either.  Once I got out of the hospital, I was able to research it and found out is an old-school anti-psychotic prescribed for schizophrenia.  It was definitely not a common drug – I had to go to several pharmacies before I found one that even had the medication in stock.  While it didn’t make me worse like all of the antidepressants I had taken before, it didn’t really make me better.  There were some days where it left me feeling weird overall – like it hurt to be in my own body, physically and mentally.  I had to keep moving because I felt that if I had stopped, my body would become rigid and it made my pain worse.  After a week of taking it outside of the hospital, I stopped.  The weird sensations were just too much for me.

During my second hospitalization, my medications were changed again.  I was put on Celexa and Ativan.  The Ativan worked better than Xanax ever did, but the Celexa was the same as any other anti-depressant I had been on.  I was switched to Remeron, which I had never heard of before.  It’s a less popular anti-depressant, not an SSRI but a tetracyclic.  I started back on the trifluoperazine.  By this time, I was just tired of being in the hospital. I was also dealing with malnourishment and was put on a load of supplements, and was sort of in a “fuck it all” mindset.  I had been sleeping a lot, but I had attributed it to the malnourishment.  Weeks later, my sleeping had only gotten worse.  I would wake up to take a shower and would crawl right back into bed afterwards because I was so exhausted.  When I was working, I would come home and go right back to sleep.  On the weekends when I had off from work, I would sleep 14-15 hours straight; even when I was awake, I was still too tired to do much of anything.  I was miserable.  To make matters worse, I started losing my vision; it was a side effect from the trifluoperazine.  Once I started having involuntary facial twitches, which I recognized as the beginning of tardive dyskinesia, I knew I had to stop taking the trifluoperazine for good.

Some time between my December hospitalization and my last hospitalization in February, my primary care doctor prescribed me Adderall for ADHD.  I always had problems with keeping focus and attention, but I managed all those years just fine.  It did get to a point where it was becoming overwhelming.  I was barely able to get my school work done and I was having problems at work.  I started out with 10mg and it worked.  I was able to get shit done.  My mind was clear.  I could focus for once.  My doctor gradually increased the dose to 30mg twice a day.  I felt so much better overall, not just attention-wise, but anxiety-wise as well.

Going back to that horrible drug Remeron, I couldn’t get a refill because county-run facilities are shit and the psychiatrist cancelled my appointments more than four times.  I couldn’t even wean myself off and I became increasingly suicidal again.  It’s no surprise I ended up in the hospital in February.  In the hospital, they took me off of all my medications, including the Adderall, which was probably the only redeeming medication I was taking.  The nurse practitioner did not think the Adderall was helping me; I found it somewhat amusing that this was the same facility that placed me on so many medications previously that did shit as far as making me better.

This time, I was prescribed 150mg of Zoloft and Seroquel.  Within an hour of taking the Zoloft, I lost consciousness.  I woke up on a hospital bed with no idea of what had happened.  I was monitored for the next 12 hours and got to stay in bed.  It was marked in my record that I was reactive to Zoloft and should not be prescribed it ever again.  They waited a day and then started me on Lexapro.  A few days later they changed the Seroquel to Risperdal because I guess I hadn’t had much benefit from it.  I was also put on Klonopin for anxiety.  I had a paper due soon, so I told the hospital staff the medication was working so I could get the hell home.  I wasn’t any worse, maybe slightly better, but still not stable.

I didn’t like the way Klonopin made me feel, so I switched back to taking Ativan as needed.  After a month or so, the psychiatrist doubled my Lexapro dose because I was (like clockwork) getting worse, added trazadone and increased my Ativan.  I was taking so many medications that I carried around a purse just so I would remember to take them all.

I tried to keep up with taking my medications…I really did.  I know that people go off of their medications all the time and end up in a worse position.  In my heart, I believed it was too much.  I got tired of taking multiple medications every hour of my life and not really seeing a result.  I made the decision in May to wean myself off of all of my medications, including my beloved Adderall (which was re-prescribed by my PCP).  I didn’t tell anyone because I knew I would get backlash from it.  I would not have done it if I wasn’t educated and knew what I was dealing with.  I also had enough sense to know if something was going wrong.  I never suffered any withdrawals.  While I didn’t get any better, more importantly, I didn’t get any worse. 

It’s been more than two months now and I’m still functioning.  I do occasionally take an Ativan when I feel my anxiety getting bad (who would blame me, especially these last several weeks).  I did notice that my focus and attention went to shit, but I was coping.  Then it got bad.  I was so behind in my thesis work and got to a point of desperation.  Luckily, I saved all of the medication I stopped taking.  I took an Adderall on Tuesday night and finished 13 pages of research by Wednesday morning. My mind was clear, my anxiety was gone.  I even decided to do something I never do and went to the beach by myself.  It was a good feeling.  I missed the Adderall.  I probably shouldn’t have taken a full dose, though, as I ended up staying awake for over 40 hours straight.  It was nice feeling somewhat normal for those 40 hours.

I’m not even sure if I’ve mentioned all of the medications I’ve been on.  All I can tell you is it’s been too many.  I probably function better now that I’m not on a bunch of medications.  My therapist was actually supportive of my decision when I told her what I had done.  Now, I am working on finding a new doctor that my therapist can work with to make sure I’m not sent down that slippery slope of over-medication again.

Changes

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

After my therapy session and subsequent blogging Tuesday night, I decided to go ahead and make some changes for myself.  For the first time ever, I have control of who I am and who I want to be.

I wanted to change my hair color.  I could have just bought a box of hair dye from the drug store, but I wanted to do something different.  I went to a salon, for the first time ever.  I got 10 or so inches cut off and layered.  I told the stylist the color I wanted and she immediately made me feel like it was a bad decision.  She said it wouldn’t look right, and that I’d regret it.  Usually in circumstances in which people disagree with me, I give in to their wants without a fight.  But this time, I stood up for myself.  I told her I knew what I wanted, and eventually, she gave in.  I went from one side of the color spectrum to the other; the change was drastic…and I love it.  I received a lot of compliments on it, which made me feel even better about my decision.  The best part?  My mother can’t copy me.  She has no idea what I look like.  It’s freeing in a way that I can’t explain.

I also did some shopping for myself.  I bought new glasses, some jewelry, and a nice shirt.  I probably would have gotten a tattoo as well if I knew where there was a tattoo shop around here.  I should think that through a little more, anyway.  I don’t want to turn into one of those out-of-control youngsters who goes crazy once they get a taste of freedom.  I’m too old for that now.

As if that wasn’t enough for one day, I decided to go to the beach…by myself.  I was just going to sit on the far end away from the water and absorb the sun, but by the time I got there it was windy and there was not much sun.  I didn’t want my efforts to get to the beach to go to waste, so I took a chance and went into the ocean.  This was big for me.  I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I tried to drown myself in the ocean.  I’ve managed to avoid anything further than dipping my toes in the water for that reason.  I didn’t want a flashback.  I didn’t want to go back to that place.  And since I was alone, I was taking a chance that if I went back to that place, I’d have no one to pull me back to reality.  But I did it.  I went in.  At one point, the waves knocked me right down on my ass and I just sat there for a while as the water pushed and pulled me back and forth.  But I got through it.

Maybe it was the physical changes I had made that put me in a different place.  Maybe it was the Adderall I had taken the night before so I could get my paper done.  Who knows.  I feel like a different person.  Even small changes can mean so much to a person.

The Letter Left Unsent

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Before I escaped, I wrote a letter to my mother.  It wasn’t the nicest letter.  I called her out on her shit, so to speak.  I also wrote that I never wanted to hear from her again.  I e-mailed a copy to myself, which I’ll paste here.  I believe I added a few things here and there, but this was most of the letter:

I have removed you from my life. Remove me from yours. Do not contact me. Do not attempt to contact me through others. Do not speak my name. You’ve spread lies about me to anyone that would listen; nothing that comes out of your mouth has ever been the truth. I’m crazy and bipolar? Newsflash – I don’t have bipolar disorder, and I’m not crazy. You are the crazy one. You say I don’t have any friends because I feel that I am better than everyone else? I never had friends because you never let me leave the house. I’m not better than anyone else – in fact, I have a hard time believing I am worthy of anything because you’ve treated me like shit for so long that I believe I am worthless. You think telling people I hurt myself makes you look better? How about you tell them that both your children hurt themselves? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both your kids are so fucked up. But it’s okay, keep acting like you’re the innocent. No matter how much I hurt myself, it will never be anywhere near as painful as all of the ways you have hurt me.

You never tell people what you’ve done. You are a histrionic, narcissistic abuser. It wasn’t enough that you took away my childhood, you had to take advantage in my adulthood, too. You are sick. One day, everyone will know who you are really are. You are not the victim you play yourself out to be. You were never the victim.

You’ve controlled me for 29 years. You will not control me anymore. You have tried to isolate me from everyone. Some have fallen for your manipulation, but others have seen you for who you really are. You should be rotting in a jail cell; instead, I can only wait for you to finally burn in Hell.

You were right about one thing – I hate you. You are not deserving of anyone’s love. You don’t even deserve to be called a mother.

I ended up editing the letter a couple of times.  After I wrote my first draft, I took a picture and showed it to a few of my closest online friends to ask if it was too mean.  Someone pointed out that I had written “please” several times throughout the paper; I hadn’t even realized.  I shouldn’t have been asking her for anything; I don’t owe her that.  I promptly changed it and added more to it, and eventually ended up with the above.  I knew I couldn’t mail it from my new address, because the postmark could reveal my location.  So I mailed it to a friend on the other side of the country.  That will REALLY throw her off.

My friend hasn’t mailed the letter yet.  She is waiting until I give her the okay.  I’m still so unsure of myself.  Is it too mean?  Am I going to hurt her feelings?  Am I a bad person for cutting off all contact?  Will this make her even more angry at me?  Can I live without her?  I don’t know.  Some days I feel like I am ready to take that step; other days I am not so sure.  How am I going to deal with the aftermath?  What do I do when someone asks me about my family?  No one wants to hear that you cut off all contact; they don’t understand that.  Either way, soon, she is going to realize that I’m not going back.  I can’t leave her with no explanation.

Taking steps in rebuilding my life

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

Today marks exactly two weeks that I’ve been out.

I’ve taken the bus five times.

I walked 1.3 miles home in the dark of night.

I’ve crossed a major highway twice.

I navigated successfully through three different towns and only got lost for a few minutes.

I used Uber three times.

I had a phone conversation that lasted an hour and a half.

These may seem like small, insignificant things to most people.  But for me, they were big steps…things I had never done before, actions I had never taken.  And I got through them (though I admit, I did walk into a tree and tripped over my own foot during the late night walk home).  I’ve managed to wake up every morning and drag myself out of bed, even when I didn’t want to.  I’m trying.

Oh, yeah.  I also managed to get a job.  I applied to every place I could think of over the last month or so, and finally got an interview on Monday.  I got through that interview with no problems and had my second interview yesterday with the general manager.  He hired me on the spot, and started me with almost $3 more an hour than I was making at my old job, which I had been at for over 10 years.

I was so thrilled; it felt like I was finally on my way to getting established here.  Then I came home to go over the paperwork and my excitement came to a grinding halt.  I completely overlooked the fact that I would need identification.  I have my State ID, but that’s not enough.  I need a birth certificate, passport, or Social Security card.  I’ve never had a passport, and my mother kept my birth certificate and SS card locked away – I was never allowed to have them in my possession.  I just started crying.  What the hell was I supposed to do now?  Do I go home and try to get them?  Can I really handle even going home?

I looked online to find information about applying for new ones.  It takes at least four weeks to get a birth certificate; I also have no idea where I was born, so I don’t know if it’s even possible.  For a social security card, it takes 10 days from the date of approval.  That’s cutting it close.  Luckily, my roommate’s boyfriend offered to drive me to the Social Security office today.  We got there a half an hour before it closed…but…I did it.  My application was processed and now I just have to wait to get the card in the mail.  Crisis averted.

The most important step of all has been getting myself into therapy.  I was fortunate enough to be in contact with a therapist from my online support group before I even made my move.  Now all that was left was for me to actually show up.  And I did.  It may take me a half an hour to walk there, but I’m doing it.  I may need a second job just to pay for my sessions, but I’m doing it.  It may be hard for me to talk about shit, but I’m doing it.

I knew by coming down here that I was taking a lot of risks, putting myself in a position that I’ve never been in before.  But I’m a fighter.  I’m building myself back up after being shattered for the last 29 years.