About That...

I just realized today that since I wrote about my friend D's abandonment of me, that I haven't been thinking about her as much. I haven't been searching for her on Facebook as much, and not scouring the Internet for her, looking for any tidbits of information. Yes, I have a problem with cyber-stalking. So sue me. I have a hard time getting over past hurt's, and D was one of many. I thought maybe if I wrote about another past hurt, the same thing would happen? It's worth a shot.

My high school/college boyfriend, B. Sigh. What a mess. The whole 3 year on-and-off- again affair was always a struggle. If that relationship was a highway, there were many exits I passed up, and many detour signs ignored. Like that person that ignores the signs on the interstate warning "Accident Ahead" and doesn't get off the freeway, I sped along to see the carnage for my own eyes. The first red flag was the first time I ever went to his house. His mother answered the door, shortly told me he wasn't home, and slammed the door in my face. Wow, nice to meet you too, bitch. She never liked me, by the way. The very first day after we had the "DTRT" (designate the relationship talk), I felt something was wrong, and wanted to break up with him. My best friend convinced me to give him a chance. I should have went with my first instincts. And when he assumed that I was a virgin, I lied and told him I was. You can't build a relationship on a foundation of lies.

I met B. at the tender age of 17. I extremely vulnerable at the time. My parents were separated because my dad had had an affair. My mom had breast cancer, and was going through chemo and radiation with no one else to talk to, save for her 17-year old daughter. I had an eating disorder, and carried 100 lbs on my 5'5 frame. I was weak. He was hot. And he liked me. No one like him had ever even paid attention to me. I fell hard into lust. We had a typical high school relationship, and fought about everything.

We kept going for a year and a half this way. We went to separate college's, about 100 miles apart, but stayed together. I put on the freshman 15, and that's basically when things went south. I became insecure, and so jealous. I called him a dozen times a day, and obsessively checked his email and social media accounts. Eventually we came to that day that many young loves come to, the day that we broke up.

It was 4th of July. 2001. We were at a beach party on the Oregon Coast. We got into a screaming match on the beach because I had to work the next day and wanted to leave. He did not. The fight was definitely fueled by the amount of alcohol we drank. I told him I was leaving. He said if I left, it was over. I defiantly walked away. He lunged to grab me, but only grabbed my hand. I had a deep, fresh cut on that hand from the meat slicer at work. I shook him off, and stalked to my car. When I got to the my car, in the light, I looked down. My pristine white sweatshirt was covered in blood. He had re-opened the cut on my hand. I remember staring at it, getting in the car, locking the doors, and starting it up. The drive home? I don't remember. It's a miracle that I didn't kill myself, or someone else on that drive home.

After a couple of days, I had sobered up and was sorry. But I couldn't find him to save my life. He didn't contact me for 2 weeks. My heart was broken, and I, again, was an emotionally distraught mess. When he finally did come back, he told me he'd been staying with another girl. I fell into a ball on the floor, sobbing. Somehow, after talking all night, we got back together. This time around, he transfered to my school so we could be closer.

We were back together, but nothing had changed. We still fought. I was still jealous. I had begun following him around campus, checking on his stories. Finally one day, I caught him at a girl's dorm. With a girl. I forgave him. I saw him at bar, making out with another girl. I forgave him. I found pictures of him at a sorority dance with yes, another girl. I forgave him.

Looking back, I am completely disgusted with my lack of self-respect. How could I let him walk all over me like that? I look back at that girl that I was, and she doesn't even feel like me. We ended up breaking up for about 2 months, later on that year. I'd starting dating someone else when he came back, and told me he wanted me back. I'd just started to move on, and he pulled me back in. For 1 week. 1 week later, on a very cold February night, with driving down rain, he blindsided me. We had just finished studying and were standing outside the library when he told me it was over. For good. He left me standing, sobbing in the pouring rain, outside the library.

This was one of the hardest time period's that I've had to overcome. I don't think my heart as ever been broken more. It had been shattered with a sledgehammer into a million pieces. For a long time after that, I felt like I didn't even have a heart anymore. My self-esteem had also been shattered. I didn't feel like I would ever be whole again. I would never be able to trust anyone again. I hated him with every fiber in my being. I hated that I laid in bed at night, unable to sleep, images of him with someone else in his arm's flashing through my over-active imagination. To this day, I have no idea why I allowed him to degrade me so entirely. I didn't date anyone seriously for 3 years. The first serious boyfriend I had after him, is now my husband.

We had one last conversation, after that incident in front of the library. It came via phone call late one night, about 3 months after the end. He was drunk, and said some of the most horrible, vicious things anyone has ever said to me. At the end of the phone call, he said, "We'll be friends again. You'll forget what I said. I don't care if it's 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years from now. You'll forget everything, and you'll come back". I said, "I will never forget". I hung up the phone, and that was the last time we ever spoke.

So, it's 9 years later. Time heals almost all wounds. I'm married, and I'm happy. But I'll never forget. I still find him on Facebook from time to time. He's fat and balding now.

Is it bad that that makes me happy?

The Birds... And The BEES

I have a couple of recurring nightmares, ones I have at least once a month. They both involve wasps. I'm deathly afraid of wasps. It's a completely irrational fear. What is the worst thing a wasp can do to you? Sting you. It hurts. So what? I'm a little bit into pain. I like the feeling of getting a tattoo, not to mention I used to cut myself. What gives? There is no rhyme or reason. To run when I see a wasp is a completely ingrained response. And uncontrollable. I've tried.

Dream 1 that haunts me is short. My family (Dad, Mom, Brother, Husband, and I) are vacationing in a cabin somewhere. We are in the common area, playing a board game. Always a board game. There is a knock at the door. My Dad goes to answer it. When he opens the door, a giant wasp flies in. One bigger than I've ever seen. I scream and yell for something to kill it. I run down a long hallway and into a bed room. I slam the door shut, only to realize there is a large gap at the bottom of the door. I'm frantically trying to stuff a towel into the gap when the bee flies under the door and lands on my leg. I scream and it stings me. I am trying to swat the wasp off my leg, but it won't budge. I continue to scream and try to get it off me, and that's when I wake up.

Dream 2 is just weird. I'm in a boat with one of my high school girlfriends and my husband's ex-wife. We are in a speedboat being taken out to the middle of the ocean. We are in the middle of nowhere when the boat tips over, and we are plunged into the water. Apparently, this is a race to see who gets back to shore first. I begin furiously paddling in the direction of the shore, when I realize the water is full of tiny jellyfish. The jellyfish begin to sting me and it just makes me swim faster, scared out of my mind. I finally reach the shore and collapse on the beach. My high school friend and my husband's ex-wife have disappeared at this point, it's only me on shore. A woman with long brown hair meets me on the shore and announces I am the winner of the race. I must get cleaned up for my interview and trophy ceremony. She escorts me to a shower room, much like those you would find at a public pool or gym. There are a million showers out in the open, but very few with a stall and curtain. I'm hurrying around trying to find a stall, when I realize people are running and getting into the private showers. My only option is to shower out in the open. There is no way I'm doing this. I decide to go home and shower. I walk out of the room, and outside. Down a long path to a log cabin, which is apparently my home. I open the door and find my husband reading on the couch. I tell him I won the race and I must shower for the interview. I go into a bedroom. I immediately look up and there is a wasp near the ceiling. I back out of the room and yell for my husband to kill it. I realize there are 3-4 wasps near the ceiling in the hallway, and I run back to the living room. There are even more wasps in the living room, near the ceiling and all in the blinds on the windows. I'm screaming to my husband to kill them. He is crazily running around trying to kill all the wasps when he shouts that he doesn't know where they are coming from. It appears even more wasps are entering the home and I'm just screaming. This is when I wake up.

These are weird dreams. I obviously can't decipher them. From what I've researched on the internet about dream interpretation (not a very scientific topic) wasps symbolize evil. I'll buy that. The first dream is all about trying to keep the evil out, but it seeps in anyway. Very similar to the way memories and images have been creeping into my brain, while my brain is desperately trying to keep them away. The second dream? There are so many facets of this dream, I just have no idea. My high school friend, my husband's ex-wife, the jellyfish, the showers, the wasps. They all could mean something. Interestingly enough, jellyfish are supposed to represent painful memories that are emerging from your subconscious. Whoa. Not sure if I believe all that dream interpretation bullshit.

I've had nightmares all my life, but very few recurring nightmares. These are new, they started about 7 months ago. Along with everything else.

It's been a hell of a ride so far, and unfortunately, I think it's just beginning.

Where Did It All Begin?

I'm 4 days away from my first appointment with a psychiatrist, and I've pondered this thought for a long time now. Ever since I kinda, sorta put the puzzle pieces together, I've been reaching and straining to really, really put the pieces together.

It's just not that easy. What I have recovered are more like flashes of images, not actual memories that play like a movie in your mind. I want to remember, because I want to heal, but obviously my mind is not ready to concede. I know this. Sometimes at night, when I am laying in bed, waiting for the Ambien, Noritriptyline, and Hydroxyzine to kick in, I try to remember.

I have lots of memories from this time period (3-5 years of age), but none fit together in a succinct timeline. I felt a lot of fear as a kid. I remember my mom leaving me at daycare, and crying inconsolably for hours because she had left me. I remember being horribly afraid of the dark, to the point of panic if I was completely in the dark without my nightlight. I suffered from terrible nightmares as a child, dreaming about everything from ghosts, to serial killers, to killer clowns. I was convinced there was something under my bed that would grab my legs and pull me under if I got out of bed at night. My window shades in the room had to be tightly shut with no way to look in. Because, you know, if you could see in my window, the aliens would see me and take me away. I honestly believed that if I looked in the mirror at night, there would be a ghostly image of a girl who would pull me in. I still avoid mirrors at night to this day.

I remember my grandmother's (my mother's mother) house that she lived in at this time. It was right next door to my parent's house and 2 houses down, my aunt, uncle (one of my mom's brother's, the sane one), and cousins lived there. I remember my grandmother's front door, her living room, her kitchen. I also remember the room that my uncle (my mother's other brother, the not-so-sane one) lived in, the way the window was positioned, his wood bed, the furniture, his ash tray on the bedside table. I cannot, for the life of me, remember her bathroom or her living room couch. I have an image in my mind of my uncle rubbing me on her couch, but I can only feel the couch against my skin and see the couch as separate from the room. I cannot picture the room with the couch in it.

My uncle was bipolar and schizophrenic. He had a pattern of going off his meds, and disappearing for months at a time, not contacting anyone in the family to let them know where he was. He would always return, docile and completely medicated. When I was 5, my parents decided to leave the town I was born in and move 60 miles south. I remember during this time that my uncle was not allowed to contact my family. Not by phone, not by letter, and definitely not to see me or my brother. My parents told us that he was addicted to valium and until he went to rehab, he wasn't allowed to have any contact with us. I was 7 when some sort of deal was reached between my parents and my uncle. My uncle apparently went to rehab, and later moved to the town where we had moved to. I'll save this story for another time, but my uncle disappeared permanently when I was 16. Off his meds, and into a life of homelessness.

For as long as I can remember, something was amiss between my mother and her mother. They never got along, and my mom could barely stand speaking to my grandmother. My dad was the go-between, and he was actually the one who took care of my grandmother as she was dying. My mother rarely visited her mother as she was dying, and could barely bring herself to see her before she passed.

Now that I'm where I'm at, pondering what has made me the way I am, I'm wondering how there could be so much I didn't see as a child. Could my uncle have been harming me, and my parents found out? Is that why we moved? Is that why I wasn't allowed to see my uncle? If so, why would they let him back in our lives? Did my grandmother know about this? Did she know about this and not do anything, and that's what happened between my grandmother and mom? If this did happen, why didn't my parents tell me? How could they not see a link in how troubled I was, the constant headaches, the stomach problems, the drugs, the promiscuity? How could they know, and yet, let me suffer?

I'm struggling with where I am today. My grandmother is dead, I cannot ask her what happened. My mother is such an emotionally shut down person, I couldn't imagine ever asking her these questions. My dad is an intelligent and very caring person, so I imagine there will be a time in the future when we will be sitting down and discussing this. In the meantime, I will continue to wonder where it all started. I will continue to reach for memories, despite the fact my mind tells me I don't want to remember. I just have to know. I just have to.

Out of My Element

My husband and I are staying with his aunt and uncle for a couple of months. We are having a house built, and it won't be ready for about 4 months. To say that staying with his family has been difficult would be an understatement. My husband's aunt is anal. She is very, very particular about her home. We have 2 dogs, long-haired chihuahuas, and since they shed, I have to vacuum the house and the furniture every day. Our dogs have specific places in the backyard our dogs can relief themselves. How do you tell a dog to pee on this bush, not that one? We have to dry our dog's private areas before we let them in the house. Purses can't be placed on the counter. Shoes can never be on. Plates must be wiped down with paper towels before you can rinse them in the sink. There are plenty more rules, but I won't continue.

To say that we don't exactly feel welcome would be true. Hence, I'm feeling very out-of-control. I'm having a hard time refraining from cutting, from self-injury. I feel like there is nothing I can do without making her mad. Her house is not homey. One thing I have learned is how I'm not going to act about my new house.
To give Aunt and Uncle a break, they ask us to go to the husband's mother's house for a couple times a week.

I'm very unhappy at her house. She is a very dirty person, she never cleans. I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach when I go there, and all I can focus on is the filth. My eyes dart around her bathroom, from the dog hair on the baseboard, to the cobwebs at the ceiling, to soiled-on dirt in her sink and around the faucet. I cannot handle it. We spent Friday night there, and I didn't sleep a wink. I lay awake all night, and much to my disgust, was haunted by memories.

I didn't recover anything new. It was all a repeat. The main memory that plays and replays in my mind is a memory of my uncle creeping in on me at my grandma's house. This is the first memory I ever recovered, and the one that continues to haunt me the most. The bed I'm sleeping in is always the same, the nightgown always the same, the moon shining through the windows always the same, the actions my uncle takes always the same. I can't stand thinking about these things, yet they come into my head whenever they choose.

I think the fact that my husband and I are so obviously nomadic right now is affecting me greatly. I don't have a home base, I don't have somewhere I can go to get away from it all. I'm almost always with people right now, and I'm having a hard time processing it. I'm used to alone time, time to recharge my batteries. I won't have that for a couple of months. I'm hoping I can make it through this time without blowing my fuse, and without exploding at someone.

It's hard feeling so out of control, having no place to hide. We'll have to see if this time passes my smoothly. Fingers are crossed.