Independence Day hope

Have courage in yourself.

You will see the things that your mind needs you to see. 

We are here. Wherever here is and we have unwelcome company. Knock knock, it's PTSD. Not exactly the kind of friend I thought I would ever spend time with. This friend brings misery and pain. It destroys and terrorizes. You will lose yourself as PTSD defies your space, your person, your boundaries and effectively forces you to see, do, feel as it says. Uncomfortably similar to the abuser's infliction upon us in terms of pain, emotional devastation and complete personal invasion. It has purpose of healing unlike abuse, no matter how bad it may seem. You must confront that which you are escaping. It is only through our suffering that we will find relief. 

There was a point years ago, when I felt something surfacing. I couldn't at the time have began to really comprehend the magnitude of impact that would become my present, my today. Reality was literally knocking at the door of my very own fantasy, my safe place. Looking back its easier to understand why I had created this place. My marriage was suffering, I had been making choices out of my character, this was a phase in my life. (Coming soon) I was more discombobulated and unsure than I had ever felt. Nothing was working, nothing was right.

Looking back I realize this time in my life was the turning point. I just didn't know it yet. This is when PTSD began securing itself in my world bit by bit. My sleep habits suffered, depression, and disinterest in life swept over me. This lead me to a psychotherapist that I will forever be grateful to, you know, once I get to the point of feeling and expressing true gratitude. Feeling, its just not something I've been able to do for myself unless it was deliberate to appease, or use my empathetic tendencies so I could feel something, even if it was feelings for others.

This life I felt was getting the better of me, despite my justification of giving only the best efforts was not making sense anymore. This was merely a mirage in the desert of dismay. The judgement that I placed wildly, unfairly, and regretfully with no regard to most things I considered as outside my reality and viewed as threat. It was a sense of feeling in a way. A replacement to what I should have felt, how I needed to feel, simply the way I actually felt, me, my feelings because I could not seem to really grasp what was supposed to belong to ME! I lived in denial. Denial is not safe, it is not real, it does not lead to success, fulfillment, or anything I've spent my entire life telling myself I was chasing.

Its a difficult thing to open your eyes. Its painful and all to real. That is why the term reality check resonates so strong in many. It evokes emotion, real true emotion. What not many people will tell you, what no one told me, is that fear, anger, sadness, and similarly uncomfortable emotions are still emotions and those are okay. I was so comforted by fantasy and denial because I could pick something I felt in charge of. I had power and control, unlike my childhood reality and ensuing adult relationships. This was the only choices I was able to make, yet because I didn't know I was making them, I felt powerless. My choice was to deny all things in relation to, slightly similar to, or reminiscent of anything that may connect my fantasy to my reality concerning the relationship with my Mother.

She always chose bad, so I made a point to choose good. She was negative, I thrived in all positive. She was hurtful, I am at times, overly helpful. She was ridged, mean, assertive in unhealthy ways, violent, crude, horrid, hateful, evil, sick, destructive, damaging, revengeful, abusive, selfish and downright awful in every fucking way. I chose passiveness, concern, kindness, forgiveness, love, generosity, consideration, uplifting, successful, attentive, and as much good as humanly possible. Or at least my interpretations of these things. I wanted to, and thought I was making a difference. I lived for others, because she only lived for herself. I chose everyone, deserving or not, over myself. I could never understand how I could put out so much positive, love, good, but be met with so much negativity, and failure constantly. I maintained my fantasy despite those failures, defeat, and a sense of something missing. I sought fulfillment, a selfish tendency, but completely natural under the proper circumstances, another thing I was naive to. This brought a constant feeling of guilt, blame, personal dissatisfaction, lack of self worth, no trust in myself, low/no self esteem, and a general lack of comprehension that left me completely bewildered as a regular state of mind. There was a complete disconnect between my reality and the fantasy required to survive and thrive.

I asked myself yesterday in my Mommy Dearest thread if it was an important concept in my recovery that I believed something about my Mother that was not factual. (I identify my mind as a house during my self searching to give it a sense of something tangible, something not larger than myself.) This concept of my Mother was a key, a skeleton key for all imaginary purposes. It was the key to the front door of my home. A home, not a house I built but do not deserve, MY HOME! MY MIND! I unlocked one door to a very large house. A house filled with doors, rooms, darkness, dust, and for all intensive purposes of this metaphor, shit. It needs a lot of work. This door unlocked an awareness of a single aspect of my internal conflict, my search for a missing soul. Just one single room in a vast house of horrors, some I filled myself, some with the remnants of people I allowed to occupy with these spaces, and others were filled with the needs of my survival.

Make no mistake my Mother was not a good person nor parent even in the loosest definitions. That has not changed in my mind in any way other than accepting her true identity. I have accepted this as another component of my fantasy, but clarified my life long perspective of her. The image I believed in, the nurturing components such as love, protection, care/concern, guidance, and respect that were associated with this fictitious version of her. A woman whom I desperately sought after well into adulthood belonged not to her, THAT WAS ME, MY NURTURING COMPONENTS! I saw her, because I refused to believe in myself!!

I could not fathom how my personal ability to self-learn could have been met with success and not failure. The worst part of childhood abuse, particularly emotional abuse is when its complimented with an even deeper level pain only found in a psychopath/narcissistic parents. They can manipulate innocence but leave no evidence of such. There is no empathy, no love only selfish, self rewarding behaviors. It is only those special souls that can survive, remain innocent through coping mechanisms, or will power to overcome and remain in tact, purely good on the other side. I survived and for awhile thrived until this damn delayed on-set of PTSD came into my life like, "Hey! Worst fears are here!"

I tell myself that I survived, these are just memories, like dreams they can not hurt me. If I allow myself to see what my mind needs me to see then they will stop. I will be a mother fucking success story!

I feel emotion. I feel excitement and satisfaction, a fulfillment if you will that has gone to a place within me and taken hold. This represents a value, a confidence, a moment of worth that allows a brief breath of fresh air. YES fresh air!! I've mentally and physically for just this second, stepped outside the garage, my proverbial safe zone. Look at what beauty has risen from destruction. I feel a sudden wave of the oh so familiar feeling I've become so accustom to these days. I can identify it as trepidation, terror, fear and I feel myself mentally buckle down. There is much to process. I have so far to go. This was one key to one door... My heart races, shoulders slump but there is something positive that remains within, hope.

I'm had a great moment, one I hope will overflow into a great day! I did not write this in the garage! I sat upon my second story porch (still safe above the reach of the world) admiring the day, the lake activity, the beauty that seems to be slightly different, yet it has not changed. Only my view has changed. It was not long lasting, but it was a moment. Today is Independence Day, truly. I will break free and regain my independence!! I just cant give up.

Do you have hope? It exists, I felt it for a second. Have you? Is any body out there?

Mommy Dearest

Since it seems there aren't an exorbitant amount of things related to my current mental state I do have answers for, let alone do I know if I am asking the proper questions to find appropriate answers.... Ive decided to approach those things that I am already able to answer with certainty. Process of elimination....right? 

Childhood.

Father=Not Present 

I was born to a woman with a severe mental illness, whom inflicted mass amounts of varying types and degrees of abuse as well as inflicted my first experience with betrayal bonds. She was raised in a two parent home, in fact my grandparents are still married today. A conversation I recently had with her Father, my grandfather, provided to me key information regarding her childhood mental state. At the early age of 11/12 he described how this young girl began to retreat to a place within herself, but had completely lost touch with humanity by around 16. Being that my grandparents still to this day have a different ideal of family values, of course nothing was done, not that Im sure there was anything that could have been. Regardless, of that this is the time in my Mother's life, based on her behaviors explained to me and shared with me by those that had been present to witness, had emerged as a Psychopath.

My Mother plowed through men like they were insignificant and replaceable, likely because to her they were. She was a physically attractive woman in many ways as well as seemingly pleasurable to share company  with. This never lasted long. My two younger sisters and I have attempted to count marriages, and our best attempt to utilize the information at hand leaves us in agreement at 10 marriages, with mutual agreement that we believe there were more informal unions that were so short lived there is no evidence available to us for verification.

Chances are mixing a psychopathic care-giver, with a parade of men, drugs, alcohol, and a general lack of all emotions, concern, and interest in children as a Mother, let alone human being, its likely that the fact my siblings and I are alive is considered a blessing in itself. There was no love from as early as my memories, and episodes have brought me. There was however emotional, sexual, and physical abuse paired with neglect, poor environments, drugs, and lack of nurturing. If it was negative, traumatic, awful, terrible or just plain wrong, I encountered it from a very early age.

By 3 years old I was forced to meet my own needs for survival. My grandmother had bought a toaster as a gift for me. A gift.... to enjoy toasted bread, rather than plain, when bread was available at all. I ate quite a bit of chocolate. It seemed sweets were plentiful at that time of her life. Looking back I am aware that it was a drug correlation, some users crave sweets. She was not only using but selling drugs.

There are memories of large men standing in a circle, crowding the area in front of my bedroom door as they passed money between themselves. Later I expressed hunger, was met with an excuse re: lack of funds, questioned the transactions I saw with my very eyes, and received nothing for dinner that evening. This was common. I have just a few memories in between this and age 6. Its a primary source of focus for possibly containing the key to my freedom. So many empty places devoid of memories, emotions, good or bad. However its concerning that I may be locking away something deeper than these random memories associated with this same early time period.

*Bad drug deal results in vivid detailed view of my dog hanging, dead, from the support beam for the awning over the front porch. Age 4.
*Destruction of magical childhood memories, like Santa Claus and Christmas morning. She said I was too naughty. This is significant to me. It signifies the disconnect she had for me. Age 4.
*Feeling of terror. I cant recall a physical punishment, nor the verbal words used but the look she had in her eyes, the proximity of her pointing finger, and the complete and utter fear that I felt was nothing short of intense. Age 5.
*Once again I have loss of audio, and physical interaction in this memory but she was mad and all I could do was try to catch my breath. I was in complete hysterics and hyperventilating to the point I felt imminent danger and fear for my life. Age 5.
*Chicken pox... she moved out of our apartment and left me until I was well past chance of contagious points. Her boyfriend at the time would make visits to ensure basic survival needs were met. Age 6.

I could go on and on. I think the idea has been presented, the things I do recall are definitely traumatic in their own right. I find myself asking with terror, what else?

At age 6, I became a big sister and again at age 9. I was the primary caregiver and nurturer for both girls for the majority of their lives. All needs during waking hours for my siblings were my responsibility. My mother was sure to provide the necessities, food, shelter, clothing, and rights to education until education brought speculation upon her for abuse, at which point we lost education.

*First recalled sexual abuse. Step Father. Age 8.
*Second recalled sexual abuse. Trusted family friend. Age 10/11

I could literally spend hours and hours recounting the things that I recalled prior to any acknowledgment of PTSD, blind spots in my memories, and who my Mother really was versus who I convinced myself she was. I like to tell myself that in this case, it is not what I do know but what I dont know that is causing a dissociation within me. Im still learning though.... so Ill let you know how that works out for me.

I went through so much as a child. Constant moving, lack of stability in many forms, betrayal of trust, Abandonment, Emotional Abuse, Sexual Abuse/Molestation, and lets not forget my psychopathic mother. Really... its difficult to imagine much more, Im not really all that thrilled about what lies ahead for me in terms of flashbacks. Im concerned that my heart can't handle the anxiety of something more intense. Intense enough to rip from me, scare into hiding, steal or possibly murder my soul.

There came a point where everything changed. My Mother was in a devastating car crash. She was no longer functioning independently for a very long time. There was periods of needing a wheel chair, showering, dressing, and caring for my Mothers needs as well as the needs of my siblings. My mother became increasingly abusive. This continued from age 14 until 16 when I left the home.

Dark deep depression was immediate due to guilt of leaving behind my sisters, who would later also leave and end up in my home, needing additional nurturing and care as if I were their Mother figure. There was much pain during this time of my life. A time when escaping the grips of abuse should have, in my mind, felt better than it did. Shame, remorse, and guilt were nothing new for me by this point as a person who seems to always doubt and devalue myself. I had been diagnosed and medicated for depression since the age of 8 with varying other diagnosis that my Mother found doctors to document. Clearly, I don't agree with this.

The most difficult part of childhood was the complete sense of helplessness. Countless reports accumulated along the years regarding abuse. School counselors, friends, police, human services, and many many other attempts to utilize a justice system that is supposed to help those in need failed on countless occasions, not once but multiple times over the course of our imprisonment with a psychopathic mother.

It was not until just two nights ago, ending yet another dissociation episode that I came to terms with a few things regarding my own story of survival. I was for a very long time convinced entirely that my Mother was different prior to her car accident. I believed in a idea that it was the car accident that damaged her. It was not..... was this important? Should this be part of my recovery?

So things were rough as a child but I do not understand what I am searching for yet. Ideas? Are you reading this? Is there any body out there?

Something is missing...

I am going to make a difference in this world.

 Fear will never again define my life! 

I choose to live. I choose life! 

I have felt nothing, truly deeply nothing of my own for so long. I don't know how to feel, let alone what to feel. I try to focus, examine my surrounding. I know what I am searching for but its not happening.

"What is it?" I ask myself.

"Take in anything, focus, find something!" I scream!

I need to feel something. Desperate desire to decipher, analyze, understand....something. It is so lonely, not exactly the emotion of loneliness, more so in reference to an emptiness. 

"What is wrong with me?" My mind, and body respond to the internal question with a blast of overwhelming sensation I cant seem to control. My thoughts jerk around, like drunken teenage boys surrounded by very intoxicated female peers. There is no certainty, just a series of illogical responses to hormones flooding the mind and therefore the body. My chest tightens, heart races, head feels fuzzy, vision blurs in a response to a disorientation. 

"Here it comes." I recognize the pattern now. Its not something you can get used to. Adrenaline educes a flood of reactions that nearly bring an emotion to finally feel. Almost.... 

What you wind up with is not feelings that anyone would want to encounter. Imagine betrayal so deep, pain so intolerable, fear so debilitating, or something so damn terrible that your soul, the very essence of your existence in some beliefs broke, took off to hide, or worse. Not entirely pleasant in my experience anyway.

I am 30 year old Mother of three, wife of 10 years (unfortunately), sitting in my garage, completely alone on the Friday evening before Independence Day. The garage I've owned for only 6 months. I helped design and build our first house a privilege I still deny I deserved. I always felt the garage was way to big as I looked over the blueprints but its for resale value, aka preparation of failure. Now, I'm grateful for its size. It's late, the day has passed too quickly. A beautiful sunny, warm day in July. I heard the boats on the lake periodically as my focus faded in and out. I had planned to spend a day with members of my family experiencing the Michigan Sand Dunes for the first time. Planned being the key word. I desire trying many new things and exploring what I may or may not like. I usually find reason to do something someone else likes instead. Its a difficult thing to choose yourself over others when yourself is so blank but others give a sense of something, direction, feeling...

I've spent a lot of time here lately in this garage. This used to be a place I came routinely with my Husband. We'd escape into our electronic devices, never one another, while inhaling nicotine as if the stresses of our children and secluded home life were too much. I sought a different kind of escape these days, though escape nonetheless. This garage I've become a squatter in, devoid of external influences, positive and negative alike has become familiar. It has been my refuge from the barrage of uncontrolled emotions I began to explode with not all that long ago. I later found a term in a blog, that just for today kept me from slipping too deep into myself. He termed these as episodes as pseudo-seizures but they can also be defined as a flashback.

Something important is missing from me. I'm lost, rather the things that seemingly would define me, you know, as a human being versus just a mammal with a thumb, that's missing. One point of view I adopted because it made sense personally was that my soul, or part of it at least was not with me. At a point in my early life, that I can't seem to recall yet, my soul abandoned ship through fear or pain associated with the trauma of abuse, betrayal of trust by a loved one presumably my psychopathic Mother and never returned. I don't know how else to explain, in summary my current condition, since I haven't found the answer I'm being forced to seek. I'm not even sure the right questions are being asked.

Today, I've spent all but maybe an hour in total, sitting right here in the garage. Time seems of no concept whatsoever as I had no references to it like work or any responsibilities aside from sustaining my life. I am from what I am told, approximately a month in to a dissociation episode, contributed to delayed onset of Complex PTSD directly related to long term, chronic abuse as a child and adult sadly. I'm rapidly loosing time and awareness. I can best describe this medically as depersonalization. It happens to be more related to what I'd consider an identity crisis type moment. That seems to better reference lacking/missing knowledge of myself, how I feel, what I like, who I am, and that is in my opinion, identity. I'll spare the series of unfortunate events composing my life leading here, for a later post or series of post more likely. 

Ive decided to document through journal entries during moments of comprehension, to reflect on and share with intentions of making a difference for someone who themselves may be suffering without definition, like I had been. You are not alone!! This is not your fault and all those personality disorders and terrifying mental illness titles likely are not the cause. You are not crazy. That was the first thing I found comfort accepting. I have spent as much of my energy as possible arming myself with knowledge for my personal battle. It takes guidance, information, strength, courage, and support to survive C-PTSD and its debilitating hold. 

I've become completely consumed by severe PTSD symptoms at times over the past 30 or so days. There is no option of escape from the darkness that has seemingly, without warning, consumed my entire existence. I'm here, wherever that is. The only way out now is to push through it. "It" is PTSD. 

I've been alive for 3 decades, but experienced nothing for myself. Most people on death row are considered to be Living Death. No purpose, no rights, no choices, no regard for self preservation, basically nothing to live for. I had been Living Death but am finally choosing life!

Favorite blog of the day: PTSD and Me 

Does any of this nonsense hit home? Do you feel this way? Are you reading this? Is there anyone else out there?

Resurrected Journal Entry #2

Disclaimer: This is an exact translation of a written journal entry I recently located and found essential to my recovery. I didn't keep any consistency in my journal activities over the years. When I opened and read these few entries I really wish I had. Being that it is an exact transfer for authenticity reasons, please excuse the grammar issues. 
IDENTITY PROTECTION: C = My Husband

01/10/13

Do I feel emotion? I'm not angry, sad, upset, happy, or any other known emotion concerning anything from my childhood and even into my early adult years. I do not dwell, I do not agonize, I don't acknowledge in an emotional way anything that I imagine I should. I feel love or what I believe love feels like towards C. I love my children but it is an entirely different love than I have for C. I assume that is not entirely unusual. I neither have, nor pursue or attempt to maintain any relationships outside of my core family here at home. I'm not sure if any of these thoughts matter. It seems odd to me though.

Did my Mother die in 1999? C says the woman I knew and loved as a Mother died in her accident. He believes I may need to grieve a loss in order to find peace in my life. That makes sense on what I'm going to call a surface level of thought. The deeper I dig into that idea the less I find myself missing that woman before she died. My memories tell me she was never a Mother. Sure I could argue she was better prior to her accident but that seems to only be because I was a child and didn't know anything else nor the difference between right and wrong for parents.

I was always alone in this world. Sure I've very seldom ever really been alone by the definition but I've always been alone. Abandoned in a world surrounded by people but alone. I was the only person I had. Sometimes I believe I try to cause myself to either be alone or feel alone again. I'm programmed to only have myself. I stuff emotions, don't speak up, internalize to and unhealthy state of mind. I don't forgive but instead I try to forget. I've forgotten my life away so that I don't have to feel. Are true emotions too much for my already bogged down mind? I don't really understand why I'm so different than what I imagine everyone else, in general, is.

Since I never knew "normal" do I make up these wild standards that I deem normal to be and use my inability to obtain or reach these standards as failure? Its possible.

Maybe because I wear a facade of positivism and portray myself as a put together person, even though I know I'm notion the inside. This brings on a lot of my own inner turmoil. Do I pretend to be a completely different person than I recall am or am i really that persona I try to be but I'm missing something (confidence duh) that allows me to see me the way everyone else does? Uhg! I'm getting no where.

I tried to have a conversation with C last night about my Mom and issues, like I said earlier. Anyway, a few minutes into the talk I became SUPER uncomfortable. I was frigidity and anxious. Why is that? I know it was shortly after I considered the thought that there is something worse than I can remember, that I cant remember. There is something messing me up. I still do and rather would believe I have mental disorders such as bipolar and/or a personality disorder. That makes more sense to me. Besides these things are genetic anyway. Just consider who my parents are for a second with me. My father is a permanent register to the sex offender database. He spent the better part of my life in prison, or trying/succeeding at escaping. According to him that is. He's not even on my birth certificate. My Mother....gosh I need more room. How could I not be fucked up?

There will be a photo of the actual journal entry posted to correlate...coming soon. If you're reading this please let me know. Tell me I'm not alone. I'm here to tell you you're not alone. Is anyone out there? 

Resurrected Journal Entry #1

Disclaimer: This is an exact translation of a written journal entry I recently located and found essential to my recovery. I didn't keep any consistency in my journal activities over the years. When I opened and read these few entries I really wish I had. Being that it is an exact transfer for authenticity reasons, please excuse the grammar issues. 


01/09/13

So here I am.....turning 28 shortly and still searching for myself. For answers, for what I imagine normal is supposed to be. Does this happen for everyone? I can't imagine that it does, at least I hope not. Its a terrible feeling and thought process to have and cycle though over and over again. Some days I feel indefinitely lost, just trying to direct myself forward. Other times I'm driving a race car in life. Speeding through and missing it all. Am I lost? Did i ever have a "me" to lost? I guess that's why I'm supposed to journal....could I really find myself in these pages?

I'm suppose looking back in time to childhood, (which feels so far beyond my reach I must add) I never felt lost, alone would be a better term. Forever I hear myself reassuring my sisters that Mom wasn't always that way. Before her accident she was a good personal and Mother I say. Then I go on to try to explain to them, or whoever I'm talking to that she was just gone a lot. We had chores but they made us responsible. She only spanked me once but I deserved it. I was really making excuses, (well still am) for her, My Mother. I haven't a clue why! Why don't I hate her? I'm not even mad at her nor do I blame her for anything. Strange. Anyway... alone. I felt alone. I didn't see being alone and feeling alone as a negative. I just knew alone meant responsibility. I was in charge. I handled alone well. I learned to feed myself, to care for myself, and when my sisters came I learned to care for them and quickly.

I'm still not sure how this will help me. My rambling memories wont direct me. I don't need to find sympathy. I don't want to be told I've come a long way, or should be proud of. Of what? Of living? Making Mistakes? Hurting people? Lying or stealing. I'm not proud of who I am. I am a sick, mean person.

There will be a photo of the actual journal entry posted to correlate...coming soon. If you're reading this please let me know. Tell me I'm not alone. I'm here to tell you you're not alone. Is anyone out there?