My Story

I am a survivor
I am 47 years old single never married mother of two, I have a son and a daughter, they are almost grown up, it seems like yesterday...
Well anyway my saga began when I was nine... My mother was the mother of seven children 4 boys and 3 girls...I am the middle child... My Mother died of cancer, I was severely traumatized... In my nine year old mind I was the cause of her death...My older brothers and I had fought in the hospital and the last words my Mother said were ones of admonishment, something to the effect of behave yourself I don't remember exactly...So when she died the next day I thought that I had somehow caused it... At the funeral I wanted to apologize and kiss her good-bye so I waited for all the people to go outside, climbed up on the kneeler and bent to kiss her I was jerked away before I could, by two men and placed in a car with 4 nuns... My last memory of that day was turning around and seeing my father get into the limousine as I kicked and screamed and the limo pulling away...The next two years are a blur...I do not remember my mother or being younger than nine... My Father remarried when I was twelve to a woman who had no children and I don't believe she knew what she was in for living with 7 children not her own... I am not sure when the abuse began, but my childhood is filled with verbal and physical punishment... My father would come home from work and line us all up Oldest to Youngest and start with my sister...He would ask "what did you do today?" the reply did not matter we were beaten with a wooden paddle...I being the middle child would try and protect the younger siblings and I came up with extra infractions so I would wear my Dad out before he got to them...After a severe beating I had welts that were oozing blood and was not able to sit...At school I went to the locker room and tried to take a shower in hopes that the pain would lesson...I was caught in the shower by an instructor and taken to the nurse back in the 70's corporal punishment was an acceptable practice... But the nurse became my friend and I was excused from my classes in my senior year and allowed to sit in the nurses office and that way if I was beaten again I was doctored by the nurse and allowed to sleep... My teachers all sent me homework via the nurse and I returned my homework the same way... When I graduated I had made enough money from working on farms and from my job as a shoe shine to relocate so I left everyone I knew and went to California..Alone.. It was great!
My Grandmother called me one day and said I needed to come home and help her as my Grandfather was gravely ill... So I did... All the abuse I had endured had already taken it's toll... I already thought I would never amount to anything... I never could get the approval of my father... Nor my stepmother...

The patterns I learned as a child were not healthy ones. In my decision making process mis-cued responses were usually the case. I have always felt less than capable, but in all reality I am a very capable person, so when a decision was to be made, the irrational response brought on by my low self esteem didn't allow me a logical choice. I often misinterpret compliments, looking for the real reason someone said something nice... I couldn't possibly deserve it.! I have to catch myself when these things I say to myself and reverse it---and look at what was said for what it was a compliment... These people who say these compliments see me everyday and my father who gave me the low self esteem isn't... I am worth the compliment that was given, I have talent and I have worth...And someday the question in my mind if I am worth the compliment won't come and I will be able to smile and say Thank You! Without hesitation

I met men who were abusive, seeming to attract them- the first one professed his love after I made manager of the same company in three short months. I was 20 and lonely, he gave me a ring after having never even being on a date... He talked me into leaving my managers position and moving 178 miles away from friends and family, isolation, one room cabin in the middle of nowhere while he went away for a week or two at a time. I then became pregnant he seemed excited but said we really couldn't afford a child and after a little discussion he talked me into an abortion. Just the thought of the abortion brings back pain as two weeks later (he made me go alone) we were on our way back home and he announced he would be buying a drag racer to race on the Martin Circuit, I tried to jump out of a moving truck doing 65 on a highway... When he stopped the vehicle I was very distraught, I had killed my child for financial reasons that must not have existed, I left him as soon as we got back home flushed my diamond down the toilet and never looked back but the pain resides. He married six months later and has 6 kids and no drag racer.

The second attempt at a relationship with ex-fiance's best friend sort of like a revenge thing I guess but I wound up pregnant again. I knew God wanted me to have this child so I gave the man an option- 1. He was alcoholic so I said if he wanted to choose to stop drinking he could help me raise my child
2. He could choose to continue to drink and leave me alone.
I never heard from him again until the Friend of the Court found him in Alabama on his death bed, he had brain cancer and wanted to meet his son...The trauma we went through in that event occurred while I was attending college, shortly having the memories of my mothers death coming back while doing a meditation exercise for school... He met his father and it really had a terrible effect on him...(I'm sorry son) His only advice given to a twelve year old was "Son, Women are like busses a new one comes a long every fifteen minutes."

Round three has been by far the most debilitating to me, I was raising my son by myself sometimes working three jobs to make ends meet so at times I had no sleep... I started taking speed to stay awake, which led to crystal methodrine a stronger form of speed, I would stay awake for days at a time and somehow functioned for about 6 months when I was robbed and couldn't make the rent, I was evicted so I had a two year old and myself living out of an old galaxy the back seat carried all the necessities. I was stopped in a routine traffic stop for a broken head light, my license had been suspended due to a ticket long since forgotten, not having an address to caught up to me I had no knowledge of it, the officer let me go as he could see I was living with a baby out of my car. The mandatory sentence for driving on a suspended license-30 - 90 days in jail, plus fines etc. Considering my circumstances I asked my family to watch my son and went to the Judge who would hear my case explained the situation (other than the speed) and he assured me I wouldn't have to spend time in jail and to take care of my son...So anyway I knew I was in trouble so I signed a 6 month power of Attorney with my sister and planned to move to Cadillac to dry out. I met my daughters father at a Halloween Party just before I left, he seemed genuinely interested in me. I moved anyway and corresponded with him on a regular basis, I got word that my sister had filed a petition for adoption while I was in Cadillac so I asked him if I could stay with him while I fought for custody of my son, he agreed. I came back wrote a letter to the courts and revoked the Power of Attorney. My sister has never forgiven me she felt she would be able to give him a better life....
Well I did not move back to Cadillac but instead stayed with my abuser, at first it was great we could talk and he had fun with my son, then his friends started coming over to meet me, things changed rapidly I was not allowed to use the phone I was not allowed to shop unless he was with me I was not allowed to have friends over etc. When I had a friend stop by unannounced we moved to the sticks. I was with my son twenty four seven not allowed to work which I thought at the time was cool so my son and I had great times until he came home, nothing was right the brat made a mess etc... It escalated real fast he started accusing me of cheating on him and smacking my son when he misbehaved or just didn't make a response that he liked... Demanding respect from a three year old who got nothing but dissrespect... He began spanking him, from my childhood that was something I did not want when I tried to discuss my three year old son he would automatically take out his aggression on him... Shortly after Thanksgiving I called the Landlord and asked him to come pick up the rent, when he arrived I had a suitcase with my sons belongings and a few of mine and hitched a ride to town. I went to the health department because I felt ill...I was pregnant

As you can see I created more and more chaos in my life. I have been dealing with forgiving my father as he didn't know that I was traumatized at the funeral and raising 7 children while trying to pay for his wife's medical bills he didn't make good choices. He loved me and he isn't a violent person he was a frustrated one.
I have struggled with my feelings about the physical abuse as a child as my siblings and I each have a different view of those years.

How can you separate from a family whom you are part of...They live and breath, they went through the same thing, why don't they see it as abuse? Are they abusive of there families? Questions I can't answer, and it is hard to know that the cycle might continue, do I have the strength after all that I have been through to regain a normal life? Do I reach out to my family and confront them? No I can't do confrontations...When I am involved in an argument or disagreement my mind goes blank I am the little girl standing in the beating line.....I have learned to argue with my children and they always win the first round because I get lost, I always made a second chance and we will repeat the discussion and we do it as many times as it takes ..If I tried that with my siblings It would not make a difference. It is a one shot deal...My children have adjusted to the way I have to do things due to my disorder but I don't have 17 years to explain this to anyone else I feel lost...

Too tired to be angry, After all the struggle I have consumed, my body is tired of being in shock! The abuse I have endured and continue to endure via my daughters father (still ranting and raving about child support and what a lazy fat etc..Mother I am) almost 18 years of living on the edge waiting for him to come and finish me off....I'm tired
I am in chronic pain... And sometimes think I know everything...I don't... My emotional pain is the root of my physical pain and it is a vicious cycle...I can't seem to let it go and my body is responding to that emotional pain, by falling apart.
So when I spout off and it sounds like I am a know it all...Remember I don't

January 06 2005

Well It's almost a year later, I'm back in Michigan still disabled and still having flashbacks. There are more traumas in my past that I didn't include in the original post and I'm not sure that it's such a good idea to air them here. Although I may at some time need to vent them because they still bother me. (flashbacks)
My daughters father disowned her then bribed her back with a phone still in the Power and Control realm. My daughter has begun to recognize this behavior for what it is. She loves her Dad but thinks she has a handle on it. He was on her college paperwork as a contact she removed his name so he can't check up on her. He was opening her mail now she has changed the address so he doesn't receive any. For the Holidays he demanded she stay with him and told her she couldn't come and go as she pleased but she did anyway, I am proud of her accomplishments in school and the way she is developing as an adult.
My son made me a grandma this year and is taking on the responsibility of three children who are not his own. Making a 6 member family. I worry the most about him because of the things we went through together. He never had a decent male figure in his life, we moved a lot, he attended (geesh I lost count) at least 8 schools and left me at 15 to go to another town alone to finish a GED. He actually graduated a full year ahead of schedule. Got married at 18 to a woman who had a 3 year old, he wanted to be this little boys Daddy and give him a chance that he himself didn't have. His wife kicked him out after only a month but won't give him a divorce. He went into the Army, when he left he had a fracture in his ankle but they allowed him to pass the physical, I have no idea how they missed it. While in basic training he fell from a tree refracturing his ankle and they told him he had a pre-existing degenerative spinal disorder and medically honorable discharged him. Now he has met his current girlfriend who had 3 children already and she has some issues, but what troubles me is that he struggles to be employed with a back injury, but doesn't want to be disabled. The responsibility for taking on 4 children and a woman you can't marry is like a bomb waiting to explode. I can almost hear it tick. I keep praying that he will stay in this relationship because if it fails he would surely be crushed. He was suicidal when his wife kicked him out, so now that he has a child of his own in the mix? I'm worried.

1/19/2005 transferred from recovery group

My challenge today is to see a world of possibilities. I don't see any.
I'm still living the PTSD
I don't know how to get out of this.
I'm not willing to latch on to a guy as a way out.
But sometimes feel that's the only alternative.
I'm 46 going through menopause. LOL if that isn't enough I'm homeless. well that's not exactly true, I'm living in a house and pay 250 dollars to stay here. But the situation surrounding me makes it not a permanent situation if you know what I mean.
I wrote my bio for my Journey to self which is posted on the web at shellssea.blogspot.com.
I went traveling in Febrary of last year in search of myself. I found myself homeless after moving into a situation very nearly the same as the one I am in now. So I still function the same, I am still on the Merry Go round and darn it I want to get off it. I just don't know how to get there.
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Shoot forgot to tell you I have a neck fusion at C6 and C7 I have a hard time with turning my head very far, it's difficult and hurts plenty. I get stress knots between my shoulder blades I also have lower back pain that has never been correctly diagnosed. I have/had bone spurs in my knees and arthritus. with a promise I need replacements someday. But I am overweight. I have an eating disorder that isn't a labeled one as far as I know. I eat my stress, I'm not bolemic though I just sock on the pounds. Part of it is a safety mechanizm I added on weight as the response to my abuser....Let it Go
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I'm not sure I have ever really dealt with my mother dying. I know I wasn't ready for her passing.
I also need to grieve for my Dad. Even though he is still alive what I went through as a child...I feel like I need to grieve for the relationship I never had.
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Recent or rather the rest of the story:

1996
attending college full load final semester.
14 yr old son
who had met for the first time and lost his Dad to cancer the year before.
10 yr old daughter
restraining order on Daughters father he threatened to cut me up in little pieces and show his daughter...trauma
fell off a fence a broke ankle
Had to drop out of college after 3 casts got wet and I was too far behind to finish. I was studying Ornamental Horticulture or Landscaping. My cast got wet in my outdoor labs. Turf grass management, Surveying for a design class and plant Identification.
I was misadvised I should have requested an incomplete which would have put my financial aide on hold. Instead I was withdrawn from classes and owed for the semester. I was on acedemic probation due to my grades, which was a result of being a single parent dealing with the trauma happening in my life.
I didn't see it that way "I failed"
I was the failure my parents always said I would be.
I started drinking to drown...a fifth a day. My son raised his sister....because I didnt drink at home. I am ashamed of this part of my life.
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and had the year wrong...I had so much happen...1996 I checked myself into a hospital...I wasn't suicidal I just wanted to die. I didn't know I had PTSD. The original diagnosis was depression severe and chronic. I had figured out the binge drinking wasn't good for me...tried to work but messed that up...lived in a crappy falling apart trailer, boxes stacked from floor to cieling and a storage unit packed to the gills. We had 4 cat's that my daughter rescued or adopted. My life was filled with debilitating depression. Checking myself in was the right choice. But now I had a label. Or felt like I had one.
During that hospital stay the psychiatrist tried to get my Dad and step mothers perspective. He invited both of them to come to a meeting. My Dad didn't come, my stepmother when asked how she viewed me, she brought up all my failures.
Operation Home Base- was a program I designed for Home Sharing. I recieved a grant from the United Way to start it after I researched it and found a place to house it. I gave the money back to the United Way when I decided that going to college which I was doing took precedence. It was the right decision for me and not a failure.
I had children out of wed lock...that was the other failure she sited...I failed to provide a stable home for my kids.
and then the jobs...I've had 72 jobs in a 23 year work history. Which wasn't a failure not very responsible maybe, but the jobs all 72 of them I put in 120% and I learned a lot of trades in the process.
The psychologist let her (step-mother) say all these thing's then he said good bye to her I was sobbing and distraught. She walked out and he said "Boy, she is a real piece of work!"
"It's a no wonder you think that you are a failure"
Then he helped me work out that these things were not failures. I did the best I could with what I had. But he missed the diagnosis of PTSD. The diagnosis at that point was chronic depression.
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During that phase of my life I really messed up my credit. It was already bad but I didn't pay even the normal bills. I spent what money I did have on the kids. I bought them all the things I wanted them to have so when I was gone..(I was suicidal) they had stuff to remember me by. I took them out to eat because I didnt have the strength to cook for them...Depression is a powerful disorder....
Anyway I moved back to the small town near the University. My kids both liked it here, and I promised my daughter she could finish high school. I worked as a waitress just enough to get by but I was taking my meds and feeling better. My defaulted student loans caught up to me then...they told me they would be gauranteeing my wages for it...I was barly surviving as it was...I quit my job and started working for cash so I could keep my income....aarrggghhhh
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I started driving a cab...I already had a cheauffers license from driving a city bus, and I was a school bus driver when I was in my 20's. When I first started driving there were two other drivers, shortley after I started they both quit. which left me and the owner to drive 24/7. We did it for three months and finally got new drivers. He then made me the manager. I contacted the fraternities on campus and got them started on a safe buddy account. So they could call us I also contacted Michigan Works and set up an account with them transporting workers to their job. I made enough money to stay afloat but the stress was high. During the summer we didn't have enough business to support all the drivers so I worked in a green house, we started in February with seedlings transplanting, and greening up the plants from the year prior. I worked very hard there all physically demanding work. I worked with a therapist for a year, then decided I was ok and stopped taking meds.
The following spring of 2001 was where my life came to a screeching halt. I was in transition from the cab company to the greenhouse...it was a cold February morning when I went to the farm to prune the apple trees. You prune them when it's cold so they don't bleed to death.
Anyway the more work I did the worse I felt I was achy and my lower back began to hurt...I couldn't finish it I told her I would be back the next day to clean up. The next day I couldn't move, I layed on the hardwood floor for three days. Walking was excrutiating. When I had to walk a block to the store for groceries I ended up sitting down on the sidewalk and crying I just couldn't take another step. A passerby stopped and called an ambulance. At the hospital they told me I had a pinched nerve gave me flexeril and vioxx said laying on the hardwood floor was a good idea and set me up an appointment with the doctor. I hadn't been to a doctor since leaving the hospital in 96 thats five years....I was healthy over weight but healthy...
At the doctors the next week she told me I was over weight and was probably going through menopause. She ordered physical therapy and said we would talk to a nutritionist.
This was March I hadn't worked for a month and was facing eviction my landlord told me to go to Welfare and get help. I tried, they told me because I didnt have an eviction from the courts they couldnt help me. I went to the Salvation Army they told me since I couldnt pay the next month they couldnt help me either. I started selling things I had of value...TV's, stereos, my car, we made it another two months... In physical therapy they put weights on my feet trying to stretch my spine to unpinch the nerve I suppose...at the same time my doc's son was ill her husband was also a doctor and he took over as my doctor going along with her original diagnosis.
During this spine stretching incident I was laying on a flat table and got dizzy I asked the nurse if I supposed to feel that way she unhooked it took my blood pressure and told me to lay there when she came 1/2 hour later she again took my blood pressure and sent me home. That night my neck hurt, sort of like a stiff neck would. The next morning I couldn't feel my toes and my hands were numb... I called the doctor and he told me I probably slept wrong....Another month later he scheduled an MRI we had lost the house, Heather was living with a school friend and attending school. I was staying with a family friend, dieting and applying for disibility.
During the MRI I felt excrutiating pain and asked them to stop. She let me out for a few minutes, then completed the test. When I got up I felt warm liqued going down my legs so I went to the rest room. I was bleeding and quite heavily, I went immediatly to the doctors office. He made me wait for about an hour then he told me that an MRI wouldnt do anything to make me bleed, that I was going through the change of life and I might as well get used to it. Two weeks later, results appointment. I already knew I had a herniated disc I got the results from the hospital and asked a friend studing medicine. So he said we would watch the disc and that again the bleeding that continued was just going through the change. I was sick I felt ill, my arms and legs were numb, I stumbled often...with a herniated disc I was just being brushed off again. I went home thinking I couldn't take much more, the son of the lady I was staying with was drinking and gave me a half pint of Jack Daniels, I hadn't drank since 1996...but what was the point? I had a handful of pain killers in my pocket, was I suicidal? probably..it's a blessing I got drunk before I took the pain killers. The next morning I checked myself into a mental ward again, I told them if the pain waas in my head and I was just going through the change of life, then cut my damn head off and get it over with.
They immediatley ran some tests to find I had a huge infection from an ovarian cyst that had imploded sending it's fluid into the female organs, since it wasn't addrressed it was infected. I was given two D&C's over the course of the next two weeks and was set up with a neurologist. I was in the hospital on September 11th when the world trade center disaster happened. The doctor who had misdiagnosed me for 8 months discharged me from his practice September 11th for not going to physical therapy while checked into the hospital... What a quack!! I couldn't believe he took the time on that day of all days to throw me out of his practice.

So anyway I had a disc fusion done November 14th of 2001. Slowly rebuilding my life
Here is the promise I made to myself this year.