recovery

Flee, Part 2

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

“Are you protecting them or are you protecting you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand this.”

“You don’t need to protect them anymore.”

I know that; intellectually I know that. But I was still so afraid to say out loud what happened. We were trained not to tell anyone anything. She told us they wouldn’t understand. So I kept quiet. I never told. And even though she’s not here now, I’m still not telling. I’m still living in fear of a threat that is no longer valid.

I think I am protecting her. I am still protecting both of them. I can still hear her voice inside my head sometimes. Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell.

“Look around. You are safe here. They are not here. No one can hurt you here.”

I knew where I was. But I was somewhere else in my mind. I was existing within two worlds at the same time: the world of now and the world of my childhood. It was as if I were standing on an invisible line, with one foot on either side: the past to my left, and the present to my right. I can see both worlds, but I can’t pick a side. So I stand there, existing in limbo.

“What was your mother doing?”

The pressure built up inside my head again. I could feel my insides shaking and I started to panic. Why is it so hard for me to tell? I want so badly just to let it out and I can’t. I can’t do it.

“Do we need to take a break?”

I wanted so badly to say no. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to fight through the chaos inside. But I knew in that moment that I couldn’t go on. I wanted to flee from my own body. I wanted to escape right then and there. But why? I was in a safe place. I was with a safe person. So why do I still want to run away?

I want to run away from the truth. I want everything to be okay. But it’s too late for that.

I told her yes. I didn’t acknowledge in that moment how powerful it was for me to admit that I needed a break. I never did that before.

My therapist asked what I had for breakfast. Nothing. She asked what I had for lunch. Nothing. She asked about coffee. I always have coffee before therapy, even if I don’t eat anything. I used to drink it black, but now I get it with cream and sugar for the added calories. It all tastes the same to me.

I’m in therapy now, talking about coffee. I was slowly crossing over the invisible line into the present, no longer teetering into the past. We talked about my school situation. We talked about the GRE, and how I cried over the phone because the person registering me could not understand me. But I wasn’t crying about the misunderstanding or about the GRE; I was crying because I couldn’t handle everything that was going on in my mind.

We talked about TV. I bought a TV back in February and have watched it twice since then. I don’t know why. She asked what kinds of television shows I like to watch. She mentioned reality shows. “I can’t watch them, my father watches them.” She mentioned another type. “I can’t watch them, either. He liked them, too.”

I have disconnected myself from anything that reminds me of my abusers. I told my therapist about the Poptart incident from the week before. I told her how I can’t wear headbands because my mother wore them, how I can’t eat certain candies because my mother ate them. I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be like my father, either.

“That doesn’t make you anything like them. You need to reclaim those things. You can eat a chocolate Poptart because you like to eat them. It doesn’t make you your mother.”

“It’s alright, I switched to peanut butter. My mother hates peanut butter.“ But I knew that wasn’t my therapist’s point. I’m still avoiding. I’m still restricting myself from things that I could enjoy just because those other people enjoyed them, too. It’s not fair.

By the time the coffee and Poptart conversation was done, we were nearing the end of session. It didn’t feel like all that time had passed. I was sitting there, still very much unresolved. I knew the memories were going to come back. I knew I failed again.

I want to stay here. I don’t want to flee anymore. Help me get through this. Help me stop this.

Seeing more

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

When you live a sheltered life for so long and then find freedom, you see the world through a different set of eyes. You have vision that most other people lack.

While everyone else around me ceases to notice their environment, I am consistently amazed by even the most menial things. Whenever I am somewhere I haven’t been before, I have the excitement level of a three year-old child. I look up and around at everything, and take it all in. It doesn’t matter if it’s a burger joint on the corner, a large patch of grass, or a famous landmark – it fascinates me still.

I see the beauty in things that others take for granted. I look up at the sky, at clouds, at the stars. I walk in the rain without an umbrella. I stop and watch the geese walk across the grass with their goslings. I watch the worms wriggle between the cracks in the sidewalk on my walk home from work. I observe the butterflies as they fly so gracefully; they are free, just like I am now free.

I see the beauty in the people around me. The mother on the bus holding her sleeping child in her arms. The man buying food for a friend who is hungry, even though he has no money for himself. The friendly neighbor talking to a hyper young child just to give his mother a short break. All of the people who aren’t afraid or ashamed to be themselves. All of the people who freely offer hugs and encouragement. I see it all.

Before, I had no opportunity to take anything in. The world was scary, because that’s what my mother told me. There was nothing amazing or beautiful to see. In my mind, home was already scary as hell. If the outside world was any worse, I did not want any part of it. I know now that is was my mother’s way of keeping me sheltered. No desire to know the outside = no risk of her losing control.

I looked down towards the ground all the time.  If you look down, nobody will see you. No one would be able to see the shame, the pain, the hurt in my eyes. I never made eye contact. I never looked around to see what existed outside of the few places we were allowed to go. I shut myself off from the world.

Now, after 30 years, I am finally experiencing the world for the first time. Yes, I may react like a child sometimes. The simplest things are so amazing to me because I never got to experience them before. It allows me to see the world in a different light, a better light.

Sometimes, I wish others could do the same.

Anonymous Reporters

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

I am the type of person who will approach someone if I have a problem with them. Perhaps that is why I could never understand why people anonymously report other people.

I mean, I could have used some anonymous reporters throughout my ENTIRE CHILDHOOD. That is when I needed someone to report. But no, no one reported shit back then. They all pretended like they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.

Instead, I’ve had to deal with anonymous reporters throughout my adulthood. There were quite a few instances at work (which just reinforces that my original workplace was a shit show) where people wrote anonymous letters to my boss (and even to corporate) about me and others involved with me.

Really, there was no reason to. I was there to work. I never wanted a promotion, I was never trying to take over someone’s job. But some people don’t like to see others succeed, so they sabotage them.

Many years ago, the front end manager was out on leave. I covered her. I worked without a day off because there really was no one else. I didn’t want the store to fail. And you know what? My team was #1 in all of the metrics. We were on top. And I never once yelled at or threatened anybody. I used positive encouragement. I told my team that if we reached a certain goal, I would buy them all lunch. And I did. Everyone was happy.

And then someone left an anonymous letter on the store manager’s desk. The letter claimed I was mistreating the employees, that they did not want to work under me, that I was mean. It didn’t make any sense considering the great job everyone was doing, but the store manager automatically jumped to believing this anonymous letter as truth, and pulled me from managing the front end. I wasn’t hurt by the change in position, but I was hurt that someone went out of their way to knock me down when I did nothing wrong.

Then there was the anonymous reporter (again at work) who reported me for working off the clock among other things. Technically, I wasn’t working off the clock. I did not want to go home after my shift (for obvious reasons), so I would go and hide in the back warehouse office for hours. My mother thought I was working, so I was covered in that regard. But really, it was just my safety zone. I would sit back there and read a book; sometimes, I would clean if I was really bored. A few times I helped out if they were really behind. But everyone sort of knew and no one ever had a problem (I had been doing this for a long time).

The anonymous reporter also accused me of having inappropriate relationships with management. Well, the assistant manager did drive me home quite a bit. I would often stay to work late shifts and she fed me and drove me home in exchange for me staying. I wasn’t hurting anybody. There was no inappropriateness there. No one questioned why the anonymous reporter knew I was being driven home by this person. They didn’t see the creepy factor in that at all. No, it was all about me and my supposed wrongs.

When I found out about the letter, I cried. I cried for the entire day. My face was so swollen I had to hide it in my hoodie. My manager bought me a giant stuffed animal (it was Valentine’s Day), but it wasn’t enough. How could it be? I was no longer allowed to stay in the back office. My sense of safety was literally stripped away from me. And why? Because someone wanted to be an asshole. There was no other reason. This person didn’t see or understand how much he/she was really hurting me. Now I had to go home after work. Now I had to spend more time in hell.

Then there were anonymous reporters who tried to pretend they were me. They made up yahoo e-mail addresses using my name and sent e-mails to corporate about random things. Hello, why would I send anonymous reports to corporate using e-mails with my name in them? And my name wasn’t even spelled correctly. But of course, as usual, the store manager jumped to conclusions. It took him a long time to realize that it wasn’t me; everyone else saw the obvious fakery. But it didn’t matter. His mind was already programmed to hate me.

I know who some of the anonymous reporters were, but I was never certain of all of them. In reality, they may all be connected to the same people (the front end manager I covered for, her sister also worked as a night manager at the store – and the faked anonymous reports were confirmed to be from her after an investigation). Hell, some of them could have been my own mother. I would never put it past her. She’s stooped lower than that many times before.

It’s funny, when I got banished to the warehouse (which the store manager saw as punishment for me  – I saw it as a much wanted opportunity), the drama stopped. The anonymous reports stopped. I was still there, so I wasn’t the problem. Clearly someone just wanted me out of their hair. Someone wanted to be the star. That’s okay, I never wanted to be the star, anyway. It was just a job.

I thought the days of anonymous reporting were over. Recently, however, I became the target of anonymous reports once again. Not at work (thankfully, I work at a much better place now), but at school. I was a little confused when I found out, because not one person ever approached me with any concerns. Instead, they chose to go on the internet and dig up whatever they could on me (ending up at this blog), and anonymously report it.

Not a fan. Not a fan at all. I would never anonymously report someone. I would never put their education and career in jeopardy.

I’m going to turn this into a positive, though. Even though I have once again lost my faith in humanity a bit, I am making a change. I am dropping out of this school and moving on to a different program at a different school. I likely wouldn’t have done it so soon if it weren’t for the anonymous reporters. So thank you.

It’s unfortunate because I really believed I could do great things at that school. It’s going to be their loss. I just don’t like being around people who go behind others’ backs like that. But I am going to do great things no matter where I go. I have proven that by maintaining a 4.0 GPA despite my life’s circumstances. I have proven that by passing the CPCE before I even finished one semester of the program. I have proven that by the work I do every day, not only to better myself as a person, but to better society. Maybe that’s what got me into this mess in the first place. Maybe I should have just been average.

But I’m not average. I refuse to be average. I refuse to shut up and hide who I am. I refuse to conform in order to make other people comfortable. I am who I am and I have gone through what I have gone through for a reason. I am here, today, for a reason.

I don’t need anyone’s concerns now. I needed concerns before when I was a helpless child. I needed concerns when I was crying out for help and receiving denial after denial.

But I am free from that now. I have a support system. I have real, non-anonymous people who care and don’t turn away from the truth or hide from it.

Worry about someone who needs it. Worry about that child that’s being hurt right now, wishing someone would help her find her way. I’m finding my way. I don’t need anyone fucking that up for me.

Mothers Abuse

~ KJ ~ 14 Comments

The majority of child abuse and neglect cases involve a female perpetrator, most often the mother of the child. The majority of cases. That means over 50%.

Yet, what type of person is consistently portrayed as the typical child abuser? A creepy-looking male stranger.

No. Just no. Between 80% and 90% of child abuse and neglect cases involve a perpetrator that is known to the child. Most often, parents or other family members are involved.

Part of my struggle growing up, and also attempting to seek help in adulthood, was the flat out refusal to believe that females would abuse someone, let alone that a mother would abuse her own child. But they do. So often they do. And they get away with it because no one wants to believe it. But the facts are there. They’ve been there all along.

I was told I was just confused, that my mother loved me, that what she was doing was out of love and protection, that my mother seemed like a nice person so they didn’t think she was an abuser. One counselor, after learning my abuse history through hospital records and some of my own admission, handed me a book on attachment disorders and said “I think you have an attachment disorder. Read this.” In essence, I had the problem

Way back when I first started this blog, I wrote a post on mother-daughter sexual abuse: The Elephant in the Room. I will copy and paste it here as well.

As we head into Mother’s Day weekend, the majority of my posts are going to be mother-related. This is a difficult time for me, and for survivors of mother-perpetrated abuse. But we are not alone.

Continue reading →

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.

Gifts

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Gifts are complicated for me.

When I was younger, my mother would give me gifts and end up taking them away or destroying them soon after. I honestly believe that her intention each time was to leave me with nothing. It was like she was playing mind games with me. If I didn’t seem grateful enough, if I didn’t do something right, there went the “gift”. Bad girls don’t deserve nice things.

My mother continued that practice into my adulthood, except she would take away the gifts that other people would give me. It was always that I didn’t need it, or didn’t deserve it. Sometimes she even had the nerve to tell me I didn’t want the gift, and that’s why she took it. Everything was always about her.

One Christmas, my mother bought me clothes – sweatshirts, a jacket, shirts, pants – all in Men’s size 5XL. While I admit I was (and still am) overweight, I was nowhere near that size. I told her that none of the clothes were in my size, and she said “oh, just try them on. I’m sure they fit.” Yea, they’d fit two of me. When I told her I didn’t want them, she went on a tirade and started crying about how much I hated her.

Last Christmas was probably the most difficult for me. While the sexual abuse had stopped for months at this point, my mother continued to find subtle ways to remind me. She did it at first by showing me the shower picture. She continued it at Christmas by gifting me underwear, bras, and lingerie.

She wrapped them all just like they were any other Christmas gifts. I felt sick once I opened them and realized what they were. Even worse was that they were the correct size. My mother had no knowledge of my size, especially my bra size. She had gone through my drawers. I felt like my privacy was invaded, even though I knew privacy didn’t exist in our household. My mother knew no boundaries. I think she knew how it made me feel, how sick it made me. That’s why she did it. If she couldn’t abuse me anymore, she was just going to find other ways to get to me. And it worked.

Despite my shitty experiences with gifting, I really enjoyed picking out (or making) gifts for people, gifts with meaning and purpose. One Christmas, I bought gifts for all of my coworkers, even the ones I wasn’t very close to. Every gift had a reason behind it. I bought a 12-pack of diet coke for my manager who loved to drink it. I bought the human resource person two packages of Oreos because they were her favorite food. Small things, sure, but every gift was wrapped and adorned with decorative bows to make it special.

As I handed the customer service woman her gift, she started to cry. Confused, I started to apologize to her, thinking I had offended her in some way. She hugged me and thanked me through tears as she told me that no one had ever thought of her at Christmas before. She hadn’t even opened her gift yet and was already grateful. It was (and still is) a reminder for me that even small gestures can make a world of difference for another person.

My joy soon turned to frustration when I came home later that day and had to deal with my mother’s never-ending sense of entitlement.

“I hope you are as generous to your own family as you were to all these people at work. They don’t do anything for you. I give you everything. What do I get for it?”

I was quickly reminded of how obsessive my mother was about gifting. She believed that she should receive a gift for every occasion. I never wanted to give her a gift. I hated her. But if I didn’t, I’d get in trouble, even as an adult. I had to swallow my pride and get her something just to avoid further pain. And I couldn’t just get her something small. It had to be something good enough to meet her standards.

My mother made similar demands when it came to giving gifts to my brother. She was always on top of me in the weeks before my brother’s birthday, making sure that I bought him an adequate gift, telling me all of the things he wanted. If I told her I couldn’t afford any of those things, she’d tell me to find a way.

“If you didn’t buy so much for yourself, you would have enough for the people that matter.”

In her mind, gifts were associated with how much a person mattered. It made sense. It’s probably why she never demanded that I get my father any gifts; she treated him with disdain. It’s probably why she showered my brother with expensive gifts, gifts she couldn’t afford but bought anyway. Me? It was obvious I didn’t matter. Whenever my birthday came around, all I got were a bunch of excuses.

“Oh, I don’t have any money this week. I’ll get you something in a month or two.”

A month or two never happened. Despite her financial difficulties, she always found enough money to buy herself whatever she wanted. But when it came to me or my father, she was broke. There was no sense of celebration for my birthday. I was lucky for a few years and managed to find a birthday card thrown on my desk when I got home from work. No special message, just a cheap birthday card and a signature. There was no thoughtfulness. There was no love. It was merely an act to say she did something.

The last couple of years, I started to stand up for myself and refused to get gifts for people I cared nothing about. I dealt with the backlash. I dealt with my mother’s verbal assaults, all the horrible things she would say about me and the names she would call me. At times, it got physical. One time, she found out that I bought my best friend at work a Mother’s Day gift and she went on a rampage that ended with me in tears. I had to beg my friend not to tell my mother about anything I bought anymore.

Of course, my mother used that situation as a way to get people on her side, telling people that I bought this other woman a gift but wouldn’t even get anything for my own mother, how it breaks her heart and she just doesn’t understand why I hated her so. She was so manipulative, and people actually fell for it.

I am actually a little relieved that this is the first year that I won’t have to deal with any of the drama. I briefly thought about mailing my family a bill for my therapy (anonymously, of course). I’m not even sure that they are worth the effort of licking the envelope. Then there is a company that allows you to anonymously mail shit (literally) to anyone in the world. Some parts of me would thoroughly enjoy doing that, but I know it won’t serve a purpose in the end.

I did want to do something for my therapist. While I was browsing the local book store last week, I came across the same coloring book that I received a couple months back at a group therapy session.  I was in a bad place emotionally at that time and I made some apparently frightening color choices. It was a page with the word ‘HOPE’ in big letters, surrounded by flowers and a bird. I colored hope black, and scribbled over the rest. Both therapists noticed. Back then, I had no hope. It was dead.

I bought the coloring book. This time, there was no black. I colored in each flower with bright colors. I even colored the background sky blue, and colored hope white – the complete opposite of what I had colored just months before. I bought a basic frame and put my new art in it. After my therapy session today, I told my therapist I made her something. I preempted it with saying that it was kind of lame and that my coloring skills needed work. I handed it to her. I told her I have hope now. And that’s the truth.
It was the best gift I have ever given.

Change the world

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

It’s been emotional these last few days.

I think the reality of everything has finally started to sink in.

I realized that I have people here that really care about me. My team at work congratulated me when they found out the news of my grad school acceptance. My work buddy kept saying how proud of me he was and I had to tell him to shut up before I started crying. Fortunately, he doesn’t take my (at times) harsh responses personally.

My roommate took me out to dinner last night to celebrate. I tried some new foods and stepped out of my comfort zone a little. She started to say all these good things about me and I tried to get her to shut up. I need to work on accepting compliments more. I’m improving in some ways because I’m no longer countering every compliment with an excuse as to why it’s wrong, but I’m still uncomfortable receiving positive feedback in general.

I had my usual Thursday therapy session today. When I arrived, I set my bag down and the other therapist came out to see me. She asked if she could talk to me for a few minutes. I was scared and anxious but I followed her into her office and sat down. My therapist came in and sat down on a chair next to me, and the other therapist on the opposite side of me.

She reached for something on her desk and handed it to me. It was a bag filled with makeup. While that may seem random, I was stressing out last week because I realized that I didn’t own any makeup to wear for the interview (the few products I had were ruined months ago when a bottle of acetone leaked). Now I might actually wear makeup once in awhile.

Then she handed me a book: What Do You Do With an Idea. It’s a book that I read once before after a particularly difficult therapy session months ago. She told me that her and my therapist had written some things on the back page. I turned the book around and opened up to the last page to see what was written. One message stood out to me the most:

“With your brave and tender heart and your exceptional mind, I know that you will change the world. I believe in you.”

I’m going to change the world? This was written by the very woman who played such a huge role in changing my world, and in changing the lives of so many survivors. For her to think so highly of my ability to do anything is mind-blowing to me.

I started to cry. They both told me how proud of me they were, how amazed they were at how far I’ve come in the five months I’ve been away. I was trying to take it all in, but I was also so focused on trying to stop crying. I can’t even identify all of how I felt in that moment. I felt safe, appreciated, and cared for. I felt like I was really at home (and not in a physical building sense). We had a group hug, and at that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay.

I don’t think I can change the world. I wish I could. All I can do is try my best to effect change in others, and hopefully somewhere down the line the world will change for the better.

Acceptance

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I spent the majority of my life being told I would never amount to anything.

My schoolwork was never proudly displayed on our family’s refrigerator. I never got a pat on the back for a job well done. While my brother was honored and glorified for getting mediocre grades, I was made to feel like shit for getting straight As. “What do you think, you’re better than us? You think you’re so smart? You’re nothing.” It didn’t matter what I did. It would never be the right thing. I could never be good in their eyes.

I found out after the fact that many of my college acceptance letters were hidden from me. I never had a choice in the matter. My family took my acceptance into Princeton as an insult to the family. Any other parent would have been proud. They didn’t want me to succeed. They didn’t think I deserved it, and for awhile I believed that, too.

Why am I talking about this? Because today, I received a call from the admissions office of the university I interviewed at just two days ago. I’ve been accepted into the program. I will be pursuing two masters degrees in counseling. As soon as I heard the woman say “Congratulations”, I started to cry. I had just left the store and was standing on the sidewalk in front of the parking lot. It took everything in me not to fall to my knees. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I could barely speak. The admissions counselor wanted to register me right away, but I asked if I could call her back tomorrow, and she said that was fine.

I hung up the phone and began to cry uncontrollably. People walking by were staring at me, but I didn’t care. Everything I’ve been told would never happen was now happening. I’m free. I’m succeeding. I’m something. People are seeing the potential in me; the potential that has been there all along, the potential that was consistently quashed by my parents.

Through tears, I wrote about my good news to my online friends. I e-mailed both therapists, and text my best friend. I may not have had anyone to physically celebrate with, but that was okay. People were genuinely happy for me. My therapists may have been just as excited about the news as I was.

Even hours later, I still find myself intermittently crying. I never expected to be in this position. At this time last year, I was extremely close to giving up. I told myself if I didn’t make it out in the next year (by the time I turned 30), I was going to end my life. I thought for sure I was just going to continue on that path towards death. I didn’t expect an end to the pain. I didn’t expect to escape that hell. I didn’t expect to be living the life I am now. If I didn’t escape, I would not be where I am today – and I don’t mean just physically, I mean emotionally and otherwise.

My therapist told me that people need light and love to blossom. I am blossoming. It’s amazing how much different I have become in just five months. I’m achieving so much and growing in ways I never imagined.

The journey has been difficult. It will continue to be difficult. But I have support for the first time in my life. I have people I can count on. I have people who genuinely care for me. I can pursue better things without being made to feel like I’ve done something terribly wrong.

I almost wish I could tell my parents how far I’ve come. I want to tell them that I am better than them, that I am smarter than them. I want them to know that I am not nothing anymore. I don’t need them to proudly display my schoolwork. I now proudly display my own work to remind myself of what I have accomplished.

13 weeks (and one less job)

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I’ve made it 13 weeks. Thirteen grueling weeks.

I spent most of today laying in bed, and by most, I mean I just got out of bed about 10 minutes ago. I was that physically and mentally exhausted. I should be at work right now, but I can’t work there any more. I made it three days before I realized what a bad decision it was.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the physical demands of the job. The job itself was easy; probably a little too easy. It was a popular baby store. It didn’t even cross my mind that there would ever be an issue for me. My therapist asked me before I started the job if I was sure being in that environment wasn’t going to be triggering to me. I didn’t think it was, so I brushed it off as a non-issue. I didn’t have any problems the first day because I was in the back doing training. The second day was slow and I was kind of out of it a little, but I bounced back. Yesterday was a nightmare. I lost complete control. I couldn’t stop crying; it got so bad sometimes I had to run to the bathroom. The nausea was so intense, I thought for sure I was going to puke. I felt like I was floating away. I don’t even think I heard half of what was going on, I was just trying so hard to make it through the night. It is exhausting trying to stay grounded for a few minutes. Imagine trying to stay grounded for a few hours.

When I finally made it home, I broke down completely. I couldn’t stop crying. I could barely open my eyes because my face was so swollen. I couldn’t handle being bombarded with all of these happy families, with mothers proudly holding their babies and toddlers. What happened to me that my mother hated me so much from the start? What did I do that these children didn’t? Why did I miss out? I won’t ever be able to experience what it’s like to be loved by a mother, or even by a family. And now I was being constantly reminded of it every few minutes at work. It just wasn’t going to work out.

My roommate heard me crying and made me open the door. By this time it was well after 11 o’clock at night. I was so exhausted, which just made me cry even more. My roommate tried to comfort me. She told me I didn’t have to work there if it was going to mess up all of the progress I’ve made (what progress?). She said I wasn’t a failure if I quit. But I wasn’t having it. Still crying. She took me outside for some air and a cigarette (smoking used to be one of the few things that calmed my nerves before I quit). We tried to figure out the best way to go about it. She said she would go there for me and explain everything if I wanted her to. Instead, she called me out of work today just so I could have a day to think. I was finally able to stop crying, or it could have just been that I ran out of tears. We came inside and she told me to stay and watch a movie to clear my head a little bit.

By 1:30, I had been awake more than 21 hours and I knew I couldn’t fight it anymore, so I went upstairs. I checked my e-mail and saw that my therapist had e-mailed me back. I e-mailed her in the middle of my breakdown out of desperation. I must say, it’s a privilege not only to have a therapist who willingly deals with my shit, but also one who answers e-mails at 1 o’clock in the morning. Some of the things she wrote were the same things my roommate was trying to tell me. She wrote that it is not a failure to admit that this work isn’t the best place for me right now, and that I’m still grieving the loss of the family I never had.

“Success is not rigidly adhering to a plan that is not working.  Your mental health is more important than that particular job, and for you, I would count a decision to value yourself and your healing process as a success. There are other jobs you can take.  There is only one Crystalie, and she is worth protecting.”

I’m still having trouble seeing this as a success. I’ve never had to quit a job before, let alone quit one like this with no notice. I don’t even think I can tell them face-to-face because I will just break down again. I considered writing a note and slipping it under the door tomorrow while the store is closed so I don’t have to see anyone. I just don’t want anyone to hold it against me. I don’t expect them to understand. I don’t expect anyone to understand. I don’t even understand it myself. Things like this shouldn’t bother me. I shouldn’t have to leave a job because I can’t mentally handle being there. This isn’t me. This isn’t who I should be.

So now I need to reassess my life once again. I am going to take a couple of weeks and figure out what the hell I can do to survive, because this isn’t going to work long-term. I absolutely refuse assistance of any kind. I am capable of working. I am capable of supporting myself. I don’t want help. I just want to be normal. I want to be able to experience the world without experiencing a flashback, or a breakdown, or dissociation.

My heart hurts more than anything right now.

I just want the pain to go away.