mothers day flower for me as i have been a great mom to
myself
(taken by myself on campus in april 2007)
okokokok
:)
i am going to write. something. yup, its time.
april was nuts, and was pretty intense for the most part. i was in school full time, and working full
time between three positions. i did very
well, holding in there until about halfway through the second last week, when i
snapped. yup, i crashed. big time.
right back into the throes of what i went through after the zyban
reaction...frozen in one spot, sleeping heaps, not really getting much done
beyond the basics, and spending ages wandering in circles starting stuff but
not finishing anything. thankfully, it
passed after about ten or twelve days, and i managed not to lose any of my jobs. mind you, my final exams took a huge
blow....a massive one.
i have been working on coming to terms with the fact that what i go through
quite probably will never fully go away.
it will abate as long as i do not get too stressed, but it quite
probably will never go away. this comes
as no real surprise as it seems no matter what i do or change, it still seems
to lurk in the background sometimes stronger sometimes weaker. at least i know what i am dealing with.
see, i have led a colourful life, one in which a lot has happened. i have had complex trauma happen in my life,
which leaves me dealing with complex ptsd.
i have known that i deal with ptsd at times since my late twenties. it is only recently i talked to my therapist
about it more, and asked if that is what i am dealing with. she said that she thinks so, that its
complex, and when i asked if it will be here for life, she said she thinks so
to that too....none of this surprises me.
i think i always knew, just wasnt quite ready to face that i may have
something for the rest of my life. now,
mind you, i can learn to live with this, and to modulate it as best as possible. its not like being handed a sentence for me,
it is more liberating. it is like yes! i
finally have something i can work with! something that makes sense, and gives
me a frame work, and that i can actually target. :) so in that regard i am happy...happy to finally
understand what goes on with me when i get too stressed and shut down.
i have been reading a fair amount about this the last few weeks. there has been ever so much more research
done on this than what was done ten years ago.
ten years ago, most folks i spoke to did not know what ptsd was, and
complex ptsd didnt even exist. complex
ptsd is a newer catagory, and one that is up for consideration for inclusion in
the next copy of the dsm. it helps to
explain so many things to me.
see, before i would read all kinds of stuff, and try to figure out if that is
what was wrong with me. i have known
that something has been going on, especially the last six years or so, i just
didnt know exactly what. i had figured
that much of my ptsd was under control as i had done therapy for it in my late
twenties. little did i know...
the more stressed i get, the worse i get.
i feel things more strongly than most folks do, my emotions are intense. anyone who knows me can vouch for me being on
the hyper side, and that i get passionate about things. i can tend towards being a drama queen as
well at times, to be honest.
i think that the zyban reaction was a real smack on the head for me. i was already dealing with a lot from my
past, and the zyban was kind of the straw that broke the camels back. the longer i have remained low stress, the
better i have been getting. i have
learned this winter that the more stress i undergo, the more i start to return
to the state i was in directly after the zyban episode. for the most part, i do well as long as i
remain calm. it is like my nerves are
healing, and i just keep getting better and better...being able to deal with
more and more, and a wider range of emotions.
i am not a basket case all the time btw, it is just that sometimes i
feel overwhelmed emotionally.
i sometimes get upset that i have to go through this. i never asked for the life that was dealt to
me. i didnt ask for an abusive
neglectful mom, for my dad to get killed, for my mom to have a violent abusive
boyfriend who tried to hit on me sexually and who gave me drugs and alcohol. i didnt ask to have a violent boyfriend in my
twenties, nor to have one who scammed me for thousands of dollars and who stole
my stuff. i didnt ask to be hit by a
car, nor for the two accidents my boyfriend got me into. i didnt ask for my stepfather to be killed in
a motorcycle accident. and i tried to do
something good for me when i took zyban to quit smoking. i tried to do something good in some of the
situations, to get myself out of them. when
i was thirteen, i went to childrens aid and asked them to take me away as i
knew that my family life was not normal.
my mom didnt take care of me at all at that time, and her boyfriend was
horrific. i became a foster kid to get
away from home. the violent relationship
only lasted around two years, with me ending it. the scamming relationship only lasted about
the same amount of time, again with me ending it. i dont think that i asked for any of those
things. that is just the life that i
have led. and yes, i could have left
both of those men earlier but i didnt. i
left when i felt strong enough, and when i had had enough and wanted something
better.
i have striven to be a better person. i
was terrified of having kids in my twenties for fear that i would be an abusive
mother like my mom had been towards me. i
realize now that i would make a great mom, but at the time i didnt know that. it wasnt until i talked with a therapist in
my mid twenties did i realize that i would have been okay as a parent. needless to say, i still dont have kids and
quite probably never will at this age. and
i am okay with that.
i cant blame my entire life on my mom, just parts of it. i have made choices in there too as i have
grown up. its just that she gave me a
shitty start in life. i think she knew
that she would be a bad parent and maybe that is partly why she left my sister
and i and went to canada when we were so small. perhaps
she knew that she would never be able to look after us. i think that may be, in part, why she left us
with my dad. most moms would never leave
their kids and move to another country...that just isnt done all that often. if my dad hadnt of died...
i used to think about that when i was younger an awful lot, about what my life
would have been like if my dad had of lived.
my first dad was killed in a car accident when i was five, and i came to
live in canada when i was six.
my life sure would have been different if he had of lived. he was killed in the middle of the night with
his brother. i think that must have been
so hard on his family. they lost two
boys at once in a brutal accident. how
do you cope with that? i am forty years old, it happened thirty five years ago,
and i am still learning to cope with the aftermath of that accident.
i travelled home to england once to meet all my family. my blood family that is. when i met my dads family, each brother told
me about his version of the night my dad was killed. it was almost like they felt that they had to
atone to me or something. maybe in doing
so, it brought them closure. i am sure
that the accident had as much of an impact on them as it did on me.
you know that if you beat someone long enough, and hard enough, that eventually
they stop fighting back, and finally will agree that they are wrong regardless
of whether or not they did anything. that
is what i felt like when i was a teenager, like i was beaten too long and too
hard. i felt like i was the worst person
ever, like i didnt even deserve to eat or to live. it is a good thing though, that i have a
strong part in me, deep inside, that stood up and fought back. i think it is the strong part of me that
pulled me through a lot of the crap that i went through. it is like parts of my ego got broken, bruised...but
a part of me knew that i was worth fighting for, that i was worthy. it is the strong part that kept me sane. i think that my intelligence has been my
saving grace, and has been the foundation of the strong part of me. i always knew in my heart that there was more
to life than what i was living as a teenager, that there was more than what my
mom was showing me. i am so thankful
that i met my family folks at that time, and that they showed me how a real
family can love and support each other through everything. i knew that there had to be more.
i have done some thinking on my family background as well, on what may have
made my mom be the way she is. she says
that my grandfather never loved her, that he didnt want her. yet my grandmother has told me how he
overstayed his leave from the army just to be there when she was born. if he didnt want her, why did he stay past
his time? to me that shows caring, desire, and eagerness for her to be born.
my grandfather was in the military. he
was a parachuter. when he came home from
fighting, my grandmother told me how he developed what she called the
"blue devils." he would wake up yelling and screaming, sometimes
would go right back to the battle scenes when he was wide awake, and that is
when he became violent with her. i now
know that what he would have been going through was shell shock, ptsd. they never knew what it was then. all my nan knew is that he came home a
changed man, one who could not always be trusted. he drank a lot. he was okay most times if he was sober, but
got nasty if he drank. i dont remember
him being nasty, he was always good around us kids. mind you, we got taken away at times, and
were told to behave around him. i think
my grandmother protected us from him. he
must have been awful to my mom when she was small. it would have been right around that time
that he developed the blue devils. she
told me how when she was small he would throw knives at her. he systematically smashed all of my
grandmothers crystal. it is so sad that
at that time there was no knowledge about what he was going through, and no
help for him. i feel torn at times. there is a part of me who gets angry at my
grandfather for the destruction he caused to my family, and there is also a
very very very deep compassion for the horror he must have lived not knowing
what was taking place inside of himself, and no help available. i dont get angry at him very often....i
usually just feel more compassion than anything, and sadness for him. he was a good man to many people, someone to
be respected, he just wasnt always very good at home. my grandmother is a strong woman. so my mom didnt have a very good start in
life either. she paid for the damage
that war caused to my grandfather. she
also learned to drink, even worse than he ever did.
my grandfather drank once in a while. it
wasnt very often from what i remember, not often at all. my mom drank every day. she was always drinking. it didnt really matter if she drank or not,
she was nasty regardless.
its kind of funny. one of the best
things that anyone ever did for me was done by my orthodontist, and i bet he
never even had any idea what he was erasing.
he filed my front teeth straight...smoothing out a couple of chips. they were fairly tiny chips, not ones that
anyone would readily notice, but they were so big and huge and glaring to me. they are gone now, and i dont have the
horrible reminder every time i look into the mirror of my mom smacking me in
the mouth and chipping my teeth. how the
hell does an adult do that to a child? i cant fathom it, and i dont understand. yes, intellectually i can understand how she
had a crappy start etc etc...but i also know about rational choice, and she is
an intelligent woman. how could she
bring herself to hit a kid? i was three feet tall! and she hit me with her fist. how can an adult do that? my teeth are
straight now, and the chips have been erased.
the memory becomes easier and easier to live with as well as i grow
older, and admit more to myself that she is a terrible person. i was only a child, and did not deserve to be
hit.
it is mothers day tomorrow. maybe that
is why i am rambling on so much about my family history. i dont like mothers day. why should i be forced to celebrate the very
person who created the foundation i struggle against in my life? i dont respect
her, and she contributed very little that is good to my being. she doesnt deserve flowers and a card. many people have said to me that it would be
so nice if i could have a relationship with my mother. they do not understand that to have a
relationship with her is toxic and poisonous to me, that my mother does not
like me and does not contribute anything positive to my life. she will only cost me thousands more dollars,
and a lot of heartache. i deserve better
in this life.
i would rather have a special persons day, where we are to celebrate the people
who are important to us. my grandmother
is important to me. my heartmom is
important to me. my friends are
important too. i would rather celebrate
those people instead of some evil woman who hates me. i dont like mothers day. i dont like fathers day either. i would rather celebrate special people for
both days. and i hated being made to
make things as a kid for those days. that
is just plain sadistic and cruel to make kids make things for parents who cant
even treat them good. mind you, i didnt
know she was treating me bad until much later.
i saw my old childhood neighbour a few days ago. i think i am going to phone her and ask her
to meet up to talk to me of my childhood.
there are so many holes in it. she
was saying how her mom still talks about how badly my mom treated us kids. i know that childrens aid had a file on us
when we were small, i just dont know what was in it, nor if we were ever
investigated. i wish someone could have
intervened when i was small, that someone could have taken me away from my mom.
i said to my therapist the other week how my stepfather treated us well when we
were kids. and yes, overall, he did. he fought with my mom, not us kids. he was kind to us, and made sure we had a
roof over our heads and food in our bellies.
he tried to teach me things to give me a good start in life, and some of
those things i still cherish. he taught
me to love books, and to be myself. he
taught me that i can do things, and that doing them is a choice. i choose to do things, the word cannot does
not exist. the word would be i wont, not
i cant. but when i was sitting there
telling her that, i also knew that he wasnt all that good in some regards
either. he never stopped my mom, and he
never protected us. he fought with her,
and made it so she would have to come wake us up in the middle of the night,
put us in the car, and drive around the town for hours until he was asleep from
drinking and it was safe to come home. he
made it so my mom would come crawl into my bed in the middle of the night as it
was safer for her that way. and he told
me that i didnt exist, that this entire world was a figment of my imagination,
and i believed him. he wasnt always good
either. he was never violent or nasty to
me, but indirectly he wasnt always good.
i loved him a lot, and i still do.
i respected him. and it is hard
to admit that he wasnt always good, but it is the truth. he should have protected me, and he chose to
do nothing.
when i was about 8 or 9 years old, i tried to run away from home. i packed all my library books up into a
plastic bag, and went and sat down on the side of the highway for my stepdad to
come home to take me to my friends place.
i guess i threw stones at my mom before i left, telling her i was going
to leave and go to my friends place. she
got in a lot of trouble for that one. maybe
he did try to protect me in some ways. maybe... she used to tell me not to tell him what she
did to me. i dont know how she hid my
chipped teeth from him, if she ever did.
maybe he didnt notice.
the last while, i keep getting smacked in the chest with heavy emotions when i
see yellow school buses. not all the
times, just sometimes. it is like tears
just come welling out of my chest, and want to pour down my face, and my throat
closes up and its hard to breath. if i
am alone, i let myself cry. if i am
around other people i try to control my face so no one can see what i am going
through. they are simple school buses,
but trigger such deep emotions in me.
i was driving one day, and i got stuck behind a school bus. i figured okay, i am here alone, good time to
explore this and try to figure out what is behind it, what is causing the bus
to be an emotional trigger. all that i
could come up with was potential. those
buses contain little kids who are full of potential. they have so much ahead of them and they are
so fragile, and vulnerable. they are
kids who can grow up to be valued people in our society, they are our future. i had my potential taken away from me when i
was a kid. i was tainted before i even
had time to grow up. yes, i am a valued
member of society, but it is by my own doing, and by the doing of my family
folks, not the doing of the people who were supposed to raise me up to be
someone. i lost my potential in
childhood, i lost my innocence. and that
wasnt fair. i didnt do anything nor ask
for that to be taken away. that is about
the only thing i can come up with as to why school buses make me cry. i liked school then, and i enjoyed learning. all the trips to school were good ones. i dont remember anything bad on the bus. all i can think of is the symbolic meaning,
the potential of the kids inside the bus.
gosh i am really on a downer tonight. i
havent written for awhile, and this is the kind of stuff that gets built up
inside of my head. this is what i ponder
over, and try to understand. when i get
deeper and deeper understanding of what happened, then it becomes easier to
deal with emotionally, and i can overcome what i go through. the more i talk about it, or write about it,
the easier it is to work with. if i were
to never talk or write, i would never get anywhere with it. i find it good to write here in my blog as i
can let things go here. i know that
maybe someone will read something. maybe
it will let them know that they are not alone, and that all this crap that
other people can do to us can be overcome.
we are more than what we are given as kids, way more. i know i am a good person, and i know i have
a right to be here. i know that people
care about me, and i care about them. my
mom never succeeded in taking that away from me. it took me a long time to get to the point
where i knew and understood that i am a good person.
i still dont feel much anger towards her.
i question so much, and i get disgusted with her, but i dont often feel
much anger. i feel pity more than
anything i think, and a huge lack of respect.
she is paying for what she did to me as a kid. i know she has to be. she is not a happy person, and lives a
reclusive life. she has almost no
friends, and people dont turn to her for anything. she is totally unreliable. well...i should say all of this in past tense
as its been over six years since i had anything to do with her. the last thing i did for her was to pay out
three thousand dollars in her back bills, and deposit a bit into her bank
account. she never even called me to say
thank you, or that the money was in her account. the last time i ran into her, she covered her
mouth horrified that it was me, backed up, and walked rapidly away. she never spoke to me at all, just ran away. she didnt even recognize me until i spoke to
her. she is not a good mother.
and so, i dont wish to celebrate mothers day.
mothers day is tomorrow, and i have to go to work at the restaurant. i will be working a ten hour shift, looking
after loads of people who will be celebrating mothers day. i will have to smile a lot, and pretend to be
happy. tomorrow may be a bit rough but i
will get through. i have done that job
so many times that it is easy for me to be a happy friendly person. most likely, i will genuinely end up happy
anyhow as i enjoy people so very much.
it is late here, and i have eight hours to get some sleep in before heading off
to work. i am going to trundle off to my
bed and put star wars in the player to fall asleep too. i have dumped another load of my emotional
junk into my blog, and so my head grows ever so slightly clearer.
good night.
lou
