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Misplaced blame

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

Last week, one of my therapists gave me Beginning to Heal: A First Book for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse.  I read through it rather quickly, as it’s a small book.  Parts of it were difficult for me.  The hardest part was on page 38:

“When children are abused, their ability to say no is severely damaged.  So even if the abuse continued into adulthood, you are still not to blame.  There is no magic age when you suddenly become responsible for your own abuse.”

I struggled with this most of my adult life.  I still struggle with it to this day.  My mother remained physically and emotionally abusive until the day I left home.  But that didn’t bother me as much as living with the fact that she sexually abused me until I was 28 years old.  And I let it happen.  Every single time, I let it happen.

The sexual abuse wasn’t consistent.  It stopped being consistent when I turned 14/15.  But every time I got sick, which unfortunately for me was quite frequently, it was like she preyed on that, and I became like a child too weak to say no.

“You can’t bathe yourself, I’ll do it.”

I didn’t fight back.  She’d undress me and make me stand in the shower as she washed me down.  Then she’d lead me into the bedroom and dry every last part of me.  Then she’d dress me.  I couldn’t go to the bathroom myself.

“I have to watch you.  Keep the door open.”

And she would sit right beside me.  I didn’t fight back.  Why didn’t I fight back?  My arms weren’t broken.  My legs weren’t broken.  I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself.  But I couldn’t say no.  Here I was, a mentally competent adult in my 20s, letting someone take advantage of me.  How can I expect anyone to feel sorry for me when I chose not to stop this woman from continuing to abuse me?  I made the choice to let her.  I had a choice.  I could have said no.  I could have stopped her.  I could have left.  But I didn’t.  All of those times it happened, and I didn’t.

My own bad feelings about the situation were magnified when someone who I thought was a friend blew up on me, and said I was a grown ass woman who could just leave, but that I was “scared of my mommy”.  She then continued to call me derogatory names for not leaving, and that I just kept letting it happen and so it was my fault.  It was one of the worst verbal attacks I have ever experienced in my life, made even worse by the fact that it occurred on a public forum.  I was ashamed.  I was already feeling like so much of this was my fault, and she only confirmed by beliefs.  I was acting strong on the outside, but on the inside, I was breaking apart.  What kind of person lets their mother abuse them?  She’s right.  I must have issues.  Something must be wrong with me.

Except not.  Why are we victim-blaming?  The person responsible in this situation is my mother.  Not me.  When she abused me all of those times in adulthood, I was not an adult.  I was a scared child, afraid to go against her mother for fear of being hurt or killed.  Same situation, just a different age.  How should I have expected my response to be any different?  For so long, I’ve blamed myself for letting the abuse happen.  I blamed myself for what happened in childhood, but I especially blamed myself for what happened when I was an adult.  As if a magical cloud of knowledge and responsibility appeared before me on my 18th birthday and gave me everything I needed to know any better.

I should have known better.  But I couldn’t have.  I never had the opportunity to learn what was normal.

Superman

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

The other day, one of my therapists suggested that I buy a stuffed animal to comfort my child self.  I never had a stuffed animal.  If I needed to hold onto something, I’d use a pillow.  I’m usually compliant when it comes to therapy, so that night, I checked online to see if there were any stuffed animals that caught my eye.  After ten minutes or so, I came across the perfect bear – a brown teddy bear dressed in a blue sweater with a lightning bolt, red cape, and eye mask.  It was the teddy bear version of Superman.

I knew I had to have it, so the next day, I trekked to the nearest Toys R Us and searched frantically for over a half an hour for that bear.  I even went to customer service, who could only tell me that they had it in stock and that it “must be somewhere in the store.”  I was minutes away from breaking down and crying before I finally found it, stuffed behind a bunch of ballerina bears.  I hugged that teddy bear so hard, right there in the middle of the store.  No fucks given.  That bear was mine.

You might be wondering why it was that particular bear that I needed.  As a child, I would close my eyes and hope that Superman would fly down and defeat my evil mother and save me from ever having to be hurt again.  I would look out the window, just waiting for him to fly through, at the same time trying to distract myself from the pain of the abuse.  Superman never came.  But that never stopped me.  Superman gave me hope in a hopeless situation.

Now that I am older, I know that Superman can’t save me.  I have to save myself.  In a way, I had to become my own Superman.  I took on a Superman persona.  I wore my Superman pajamas every night to bed.  I wore Superman t-shirts all the time.  I even wore a cape (out in public).  People that knew me associated me with Superman.  During a group therapy workshop a few weeks back, we had a body image exercise in which other members and therapists wrote messages on traced images of our bodies; my therapist drew the “S” and wrote Superman on mine.  Among all of the messages, it stood out the most.  I knew I wasn’t Superman.  I just needed to feel like I was in a theoretical sense.

My coworkers used to call me Superman because I could do anything.  I could unload trucks, answer any question, and complete any task with ease.  Little did they know how weak I really was.  I could lift a 200-lb grill by myself, but I didn’t have the strength to fight back my abusive mother.  While I may be physically strong on the outside, my inside is completely shattered.  There’s no point in having physical strength without the support of an internal structure.

While I have escaped, I still don’t see myself as strong.  I didn’t confront my mother.  I didn’t stand up to her.  I didn’t stand my ground.  I left in a weak way.  There was nothing Superman about that.  I’m still so broken.  Why didn’t anyone save me?

Five Weeks

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

As I typed in the title of this post, I wondered when (and if) I would ever stop labeling the weeks of my life based off of the time I escaped my ‘old’ life.  I’m sure there may come a point in the future when I will be so occupied with my new life that I will no longer need to base it off of the old.  For now, I feel that each week that goes by is an accomplishment.  I came here expecting very little of myself.   I’m not even sure I expected to make it one week.  Now I’ve made it five weeks.  So what’s stopping me from making it six, seven, eight weeks?

I probably shouldn’t even be writing this blog post right now.  I have a thesis that is not writing itself.  Chapter 5 was due last Sunday while I was hospitalized and I have yet to hand it in.  Honestly, I haven’t even started it.  I’ve been so preoccupied with work, so exhausted with adjusting to a new schedule, and so many things on my mind that I just haven’t been able to sit down and focus.  It will get done today, I promise..right after I finish this post.

I can’t believe I have one more week of school left.  One. More. Week.  I have to give myself credit.  In five weeks, I have moved/escaped, got a new job, started therapy, gotten hospitalized, and still managed to write 60 pages of a thesis on a topic that I unfortunately live with every day.  And in one more week, I’ll have my 120 credits (121 actually) for my BA in Psychology.  I don’t know that many others would have been able to do what I’ve done.  I have fallen, but I’ve also gotten right back up.

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned the possibility of a DID diagnosis.  For me, it was hard to swallow.  That whole experience was hard to swallow.  I was dissociating so badly, it was out of control.  I could have been hospitalized again.  The other therapist brought up the possibility of putting me in IOP and my heart sank.  For me, I see that as a failure.  I am in no way saying those that go to IOP are failures, I am saying for me personally, it is a failure.  I want to be as normal as possible.  I want to be able to go to work every day.  I want to function.  I feel like IOP takes that away from me.

At the same time I understood where she was coming from.  I can’t put them in a position where I am a danger and it comes back on them.  They are only equipped to do so much.  I told them I didn’t want to do IOP.  I’ll do whatever it takes not to do IOP.  But to do that, I need to accept that I have a dissociative disorder and focus my treatment on that, instead of trying to cover up my symptoms and having it blow up in my face like it did in therapy on Thursday.

I think hearing those words hurt more because I knew deep down that I had a problem with dissociation.  I was familiar with DID from my courses in psychology and through meeting people with DID through trauma support groups.  I always felt that so many of the symptoms rang true for me.  But I didn’t want them to.  No one wants DID.  No one wants a lifetime of therapy, a lifetime of misunderstanding from others (although I sort of have that already).  There’s no cure.  DID won’t go away with a pill.  A lot of therapists won’t even acknowledge its existence and therefore won’t treat it.  It’s a complicated diagnosis.  It’s a complicated disorder.  I don’t need any more complications.  Why can’t life be simple?

Maybe I am just overwhelmed right now.  I’ve always wanted answers, and now that I have them, I am pushing them away because they are not the answers I want.  Why is it that now that I have escaped the horrible abuses my mother had been committing against me for so so long, that I am still being affected?  Why couldn’t everything just become normal once I left?  Why do I still have to suffer? She should be the one in the hospital (or better yet, in prison).  She should be the one in therapy trying to figure out why she does the fucked up shit she does.  She should be hurting.

Instead she’s living her life day in and day out like it’s nothing, like everything is okay.   Yet here I am, physically and emotionally in pain.  Here I am paying for therapy instead of groceries because my mind is going to kill me before hunger does.  And here I am struggling day in and day out trying to keep it together, not only for myself, but for those out there (my friends, my readers, my therapists) who are pulling for me.  This shit is backwards.

There is a part of me that is strong, that knows I can overcome anything and do great things.  Unfortunately, a lot of times, that part goes into hiding and I am left with my fearful, anxious self.  The self that doesn’t want to get out of bed.  The self that is so scared just to take a shower.  The self that fears mother is coming to hurt me.  I almost enjoy when I’m not myself because it gives me a break from living in fear for a while.  Or maybe it’s not even myself.  Maybe it’s another part of me entirely.  How do I even know?

Maybe I understand myself a little more than I like to acknowledge.

Involuntarily voluntarily admitted

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I’m back.

A few hours ago, I was released from the psychiatric unit of my local hospital.  I had been there since Friday.  I didn’t want to go to the hospital.  In the end, I knew it was the right thing to do.

Friday night, everything just came to a head.  My flashbacks were occurring quite frequently to the point that I was becoming almost paranoid.  Looking back, my thoughts were so irrational.  I genuinely believed that my mother was going to come and hurt me.  I heard her voice in my head and I couldn’t get it out.  I didn’t feel safe.  I jumped at every little noise.  I couldn’t breathe because I had gotten myself in such a panic.  I was switching between wanting to die and wanting to find safety.  I ended up cutting myself more than I even consciously realized.  I taped menstrual pads to myself, grabbed my hoodie and my sneakers and ran out of the house.  I left the house originally planning to take a walk, hoping I would be able to find some relief.  Instead, I found myself panicking even more, constantly looking over my shoulder, running through the streets in the dark of night.  After awhile I decided to walk to the hospital.  I waited in front of the emergency room for a while still hoping the feelings would go away.  But they were still there.  I knew I had no control at that time.  So I went in.

When I first got in the ER, I was panicking. I kept telling the nurse to “please don’t let them (my family) find me, please don’t tell them I’m here.”  When I met with the social worker in crisis, she asked me if I was hiding from anyone because of what I kept saying. I told her the basics, that I left my family because they were not nice people. No one wants to hear that shit anyway.

After a few hours in the hospital, the panic began to subside.  I started to feel safe again.  I wanted to leave, but of course you can’t just do that.  If you don’t admit yourself voluntarily, they will involuntarily commit you.  Then, if you try to sign out of voluntary before you are released, they will involuntarily commit you.  So not much of a choice, is it?  The staff kept trying to tell me I was depressed.  I specifically told them I was not depressed.  It was an issue of anxiety and PTSD.  I know the difference very well.  It always seems to be a fight, though.  I was more upset at the fact that I was now going to be missing my first day of work, and I’d probably be out of a job.  All these steps forward I took and now I’d have to start over.

In the hospital, I contemplated going back home.  Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this freedom.  I don’t know.  I moved away, yet I still ended up hospitalized.  So maybe it wasn’t the right choice.  Maybe I missed something.  Maybe my mother was right.  Maybe I can’t live without her.  I just want to be normal.  But maybe I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never be normal.

It doesn’t help hat my support system is lacking.  I have no family, and while I know that is for the better, hospital staff see that as concerning.  I tried to reach out to someone on Friday night, only to be shut down.  I couldn’t contact my therapist because she was out of the country.  While my online friends are available, I often think there is a lack of understanding, especially when some of the comments they make tend to piss me off or upset me even more than I was upset to begin with.  I’m not even surprised I ended up in the hospital.  I have no one here.  I’m not even sure the people I have a distance away are supportive for me anymore.  At this point, I only have complete trust in my therapists.  Everyone else is just sort of out there outside of my protective bubble.

Going back to my hospital experience, I can’t tell you how much I dislike going into psychiatric hospitals because you have to answer the same horrible questions so many times, tell all your problems to at least one person on each floor.  It’s frustrating for me because I always struggle with whether or not I should be open about my history.  If I say I have flashbacks, they want to know of what and why.  When they ask about any abuse history, they want to know who, how, and how long.  I never know what reaction I’ll get when I say it was my mother.  I admit, the last couple of times I was hospitalized prior to this, the staff were accepting and appropriately responsive to me.  During this hospitalization, when I revealed that my mother was my abuser, the nurse made a face and asked me “Are you a lesbian?  Is your mother a lesbian?”  What? Hold up.  I just told you that my mother and father both abused me, which means my father was in the picture, which means my mother was not a lesbian.  But even then, what the hell kind of a question is that?  Saying something like that makes me feel like you are insinuating all parties involved are homosexual.  Mother-daughter sexual abuse has nothing…I repeat NOTHING…to do with homosexuality.  This assumption gets me so infuriated.  If I was a male who admitted being abused by a male, would she have asked me if I was gay?  I highly doubt it.  Sexual abuse is rarely about sexuality.  I am not a fucking lesbian.  Fuck.  If it weren’t for the fact that I hadn’t slept in about 30 hours at that point, I probably would have blown up at her.  But I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I just let it go.  It makes me rage just thinking about it, though.  Then again, I can’t blame people for their complete lack of knowledge about MDSA.  I just need to use this experience as more fuel for me to spread awareness.

I have to say, the one (and probably only) positive that came out of this hospitalization experience was seeing the psychiatrist.  This psychiatrist had a brain.  He had a concern.  He actually talked to me for a good 30 minutes, which is something I have never experienced from a psychiatrist before.  He listened to me.  He listened to my concerns.  We went over my whole lengthy medication history.  For the first time, someone is focusing on treating my PTSD.  Not depression.  Everyone always wants to shove anti-depressants down my throat.  In fact, within 10 minutes of arriving on the psych floor, they wanted me to take a dose of Celexa.  I refused.  First of all, been there, done that drug.  Second of all, these people don’t even know me or my history yet, how are they medicating the unknown?  I am glad I stood my ground, and the psychiatrist agreed with me.  I think he liked me.  He told me that I should pursue a career in psychiatry.  When I told him I wanted to be a counselor, he said “you can do both, you can do whatever.  You’re probably smarter than I am.”  This dude just met me.  What?  How does he assess me so fast?  At the end of our session, he said “I would be honored if you would be my patient.  I genuinely enjoy talking to you.  Can I shake your hand?”  It was late at night.  Maybe he needed sleep.  I don’t know.  Everyone else was saying how much of an asshole he was, but he was anything but to me.

Anyway, he prescribed me Prazosin.  It’s actually a blood pressure medication but has been used off-label to treat combat veterans returning from war with PTSD with considerable success.  He said it should help my nightmares and night terrors.  He also prescribed Topamax, which has been used in treatment-resistant PTSD (since I haven’t responded well to anti-psychotics) and hydroxyzine for panic attacks.  So far, so good.  I had no problems in the hospital.  No side effects, except for the hydroxyzine making me extremely tired.  But I’d rather be tired than in a panic.

Overall, the other patients were cool people.  I talked to everyone.  There was one girl who was a little inappropriately attached to me and the other patients were saying she was in love with me.  She may very well have been.  She was constantly sitting next to me and at one point pulled me over to the side to ask me to help her fix her bra.  She also touched me several times despite me telling her please do not touch me.  It irritated the hell out of me.  I try to be nice to everyone but between the MDSA and the nurse’s question about being lesbian, I was just not in the mood to be involved in that shit.  I knew I had to be patient and bite my tongue if I wanted to get out of there.  Acting out would have just gotten me involuntarily committed or punished with a longer stay.

Since I was doing well on the medication and had a therapy appointment already scheduled today, they released me.  I’m glad, because being in that place was not an overall positive experience.  It was very unstructured.  There were very few groups and activities, no outside time, and very little staff.  There were no individual counseling sessions and no meetings with a social worker, which I have always had in my other hospitalizations.  It just seemed very disconnected.  You never really knew what was going on.  If it wasn’t for my roommate getting in contact with my therapist for me, I don’t think the hospital would have even ever contacted her to tell her I was there.  I learned a lot of the patients were “regulars”.  With the lack of care there, I am not surprised.  Many of the patients were just homeless and needed a place to stay.  It’s sad.  The system isn’t working.  It needs to be fixed.

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.

I’m still afraid

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing this post while at a point of complete physical and emotional exhaustion, so I will try to make sense as best I can, but I can’t make any guarantees.

I’m still afraid of my mother.

Despite being in a location completely undisclosed to my own family and friends, I am still afraid of her finding me.  I am afraid that one day I will open my front door and she will be there.  Sometimes when I hear my roommate coming up the stairs, I think it’s my mother coming to punish me.  I still have nightmares.  I’m extra vigilant about every movement going on around me, expecting my mother to come out at any moment.  When I get a call or text on my phone, I am afraid to even look, dreading that the person on the other line is my mother.  It’s not like she can reach through the phone and choke me, so why the hell I am still so afraid?

Then today, as I was participating in a group therapy session with guided imagery, my mother invaded my imagination and tried to drown me in a stream.  I immediately tried to snap myself out of it, but the damage was already done.  To me, this was just a clear indication that I am still in fear of her.  I am living my life like a person in fear.  I don’t want to live like that.  But what do I do?

I am still debating on whether or not I should cut ties completely.  I wrote my mother a letter (which I will try to post tomorrow) and mailed it to a friend (so it couldn’t be traced to my location), but she has yet to send it because I am still unsure.  How will she react to it?  Will it put me in even more danger?  I need some type of closure, but I just don’t know what is right.

Hitting too close to home

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I am in my last semester of college.  At my school, students in certain degree programs are required to complete an undergraduate thesis in order to graduate.  You are encouraged to choose a topic that relates to your projected career path, conduct research, and write a five chapter thesis on that topic.  I had thought about a few different topics I would possibly write about: the lack of adequate mental health care for the elderly population, the complexities of PTSD, or the legitimacy of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

In addition to those topics, I also considered writing about mother-daughter sexual abuse.  This topic had a lot of pros and cons.  It was a topic I had experience with, so there was the benefit of familiarity.  I already knew where to look to find information and research.  I had direct access to reputable sources.  On the negative side, this was a topic I had experience with.  Would I be able to handle it emotionally?  Would I be able to separate my own experiences from the facts and approach the project without bias? Would I be able to find enough information on a topic that is still very much kept quiet about?

Ultimately, I ended up choosing MDSA as my topic.  I started my thesis the second week of June.  Six weeks later and more than half done with my thesis, I am hitting a mental roadblock.  I need a break.  I’ve been able to write three chapters with much success.  But now, I think I am mentally exhausted.  I am working on my own recovery of MDSA and then researching and writing about MDSA; my days consist of MDSA and not much else.  I don’t have much time to think about or focus on anything else.  It has taken a toll on me.  It’s too late to change my topic now, as I have less than one month before the thesis has to be handed in.  I just have to figure out a way to get over it.

I’m sure a lot of you would ask me why I even chose this topic, considering everything that’s happened.  I felt like I needed to write it for personal reasons and for a larger purpose.  I feel like in learning about the topic, I can learn more about myself, and help myself in some way.  I also want others to learn that MDSA does happen.  In the last 27 years, only 10 books have been written exclusively about MDSA, and most were written within the last 10 years.  I’ve read a few of them, and while I can say they were great books, they are also lacking in a lot of areas.  How can we increase awareness of the topic if people are refusing to even write about it?  I want to write about it.  I need to write about it.

I’ve always been told I had a gift for writing.  I never thought I was all that great, but whatever.  I’ve also been told by several people that I should write a book about my experiences someday.  I don’t know if that will ever happen.  I can barely get myself through this thesis.  But maybe that is because I am still working on myself.  I want to get to a point where I can help others, through counseling and through my writing.  I guess this blog is a start.

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.