ack

Now that I've forced myself to remain conscious and deal with several things, I am debating if I should go crawl back into bed.

I hate being sick. It makes me not only feel miserable because I"m ill but also like a wretched person.

An Apology to some of you.

In my recent ramblings, I stated that I have no one I can speak to.

That is not entirely true.

I feel very guilty for speaking with some individuals who have been extremely supportive of me because I feel that I am placing far too much of a burden upon them and that I have no right to do so. Stargazer worries over me far more then I think she will ever be wiling to admit. And Kat, I know you do the same. I try to avoid making Kate worry, though I fail regularly at it because I think she' worries as much as I do.

And then... then there is my husband.


Darling, I know you speak to me often about my anxieties and problems. I'm not going to say that you don't. I think you probably have to deal with my problems the most.

Guilt is a rather shallow word for how I feel about dropping all of these things into your lap. I know how many things you have to worry about and deal with everyday, or at least I have something of a concept of it all. To add to it... well... it makes me feel like a horrible person.

I owe all of you who have been supportive of me an apology. I discredited all of your loving support and efforts to help me. That was wrong of me.

I recognize that I am a fool for feeling the way I do. It's very difficult for me to admit that it is ok for me to get help with my problems. It's even more difficult for me to let the people I love help me because I feel that it is wrong for me to make your lives harder. I don't feel I have the right to make your lives miserible. I feel that going to you in the midst of my huge problems, that aren't really so earth shattering, is wrong because I make you worry for me, I often tax your patience, and can get rather aggrivating with my whining about the same damn problems over again.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. I know all of you have been trying for years to convince me that I'm not bad for doing this. I know that you all love me. I know that you all support me and are doing your best to help me when I tell you that there is something wrong.

I just don't know how to get past my anxiety to do so.

I know that I have hurt you all at times in my madness. I know that I have sorrowed you all at times in my grief and that I have even angered you when I get like this. I know that I'll probably do it again, entirely with out meaning to.

And I apologize for it.

I haven't anything else to say, not excuse or anything more. I know it is wrong of me to do so and I am deeply sorry for the pain and distress it may have caused, has caused, and will probably be causing in the future.

Pouring my heart out to who? II

I'm sitting here feeling rather cold right now because of this cool weather we've been having of late. I've forced myself to smile and laugh at work. I've forced myself to be cheerful and put on a "happy" face so the mentally challenged children I work with don't get too upset or afraid. I've forced myself to push forward through so many things just to get to this point today. And now, I sit here typing at the computer, cold and miserable.

I hate the cold, it makes my hands hurt. It burns me. As stupid as it may sound, it burns on my skin like hot water and can drive me to tears fairly quickly. And yet I'm over weight by close to 40 pounds (gaining more despite my best efforts), wearing sweaters, and the temperature is just a shade below room temperature in the living room where this computer is right now. It seems to be a metaphore for these horrible feelings that lurk beneath the surface everyday inside me.

At one point, I had a friend of mine theorize that I have seasonal affective disorder because I seemed to get depressed in the winter and the most in February. Ofcourse, that was while I was at college. In the winter and in February, I was dealing with my family. They didn't see me during the summer. In the summer, I was usually fairly miserable as well. Having people who treat you like you're worth about as much as dog-shit, usually does that do you.

Like I said, my family are crazy and not generally that good for me. I think that you've gotten some of that impression from my efforts to recount my childhood memories that are published here. I don't really think that my family knows this blog exists. I don't think that they're ever going to read it. If they do, I don't know what I'll say or do. I'm fairly certian that there will be some version of World War III happening at that time in the social order in that little group.

After all, I'm publishing the dirty laundry out where the whole world can see it. That's a bad thing in the eyes of my family. You keep family stuff in the family and don't talk about it. You talk about it and people will look down on your family and look down on you. Talking about it makes your entire family look bad and can hurt people in your family, even if you don't mean to. So, don't talk about the family.

Sounds kinda like the way some people would describe how the Mob operates, I suppose. But that's what I grew up with and what I'm bucking in some indirect/direct way here. I can't say if it's direct with any sense of confidence because I am not saying the family name or identifying any of the parties I'm referring to. If I were in a counselor's office, I may be naming names, but that information is kept under lock and key. I don't have to worry about my gossiping grandmother getting hold of it and shaming me before the immediate, extended, and all other familial relations that she writes to in her Christmas letter. Not to mention the non-family members that get the letter because they're "friends of the family." Translate that to her friends, and you get the real picture. After all, I've never seen these people except at DAR meetings and then they try to treat me like I'm about 12 or something. With the exception of one, who treats me like a young woman of some substance.

Ronna, I really appreciate that. I know you'll never read this, but I can't fully express how much I appreciate the fact that you treat me as an adult woman that is valueable because of who I am, not who I'm descendant from or related to.

I really hate how I'm always judged against some other person. It's usually:

1. My mother- A woman that is a self-avowed bitch and misanthrope, generally means well and manages to make life extremely uncomfortable for me about 90% of the time when I deal with her because everything comes down to some strange kind of challenge to a pissing contest. I'm still not sure if she loves me. She's been more affectionate since I've virtually cut all contact off with her and my father in an effort to force the relationship to be something she maintains. Ofcourse, I've questioned if she loved and wanted me since I was about 8, too.

2. My aunt- A crazy woman that abuses drugs, manipulates people, and carries herself as though she is entitled to all the luxuries that are available by virtue of her existance. Never mind the fact that she actively enabled the abuse of myself by her wife/lover and attempted to pressure me into silence via shame. I suppose she loves me, in her own fucked up way. I really don't care anymore now that I realize what she did/didn't do when I was younger and it's impacts on my life now.

3. My grandmother- Who is slowly going insane due to Alzheimer's and her own brand of psychological problems, and can't fully grasp the fact that I'm a grown woman leading her own life. I'm not the little girl that needs doted upon or will be slavishly devoted to her. She's torn between feeling hurt and angry with me between recent events with the death of my aunt's lover (which my grandmother blames me for) and the events surrounding the wedding two years ago. The relationship is strained at best. My grandmother is a gossip and a busy body. She feels that she can fix people and makes it her effort to do so, if you want it or not.

4. My great-grandmother Hazel- She died when I was in 3rd or 2nd grade. I can't remember clearly anymore. She was a constant source of comfort and generally acted to keep me away from the insanity of my family when she was well enough to do so. Her decline due to Alzheimer's crushed me and has long since given me a terror beyond words for the concept of losing my mind. Her death broke my heart but I have felt her presence with me over the years. I'm convinced that she's my "gaurdian angel" and has been there to guide me through the years. Hazel was an author, a bit of a poineer, and a feminist before feminisim became all about shattering the glass ceiling and the gonads of men.

I recognize that I am idolizing her a little too much, but I only have a child's memories of her. As I learned about her life, in later years, I have found that much of my idolization was too much romaticism of her life. Hazel lived a hard life that bore her a mixed batch of fruit in the forms of success, joy, and sorrow. She became a pillar of her community and a figure worthy of my admiration thru the triumphs she made in the face of adversity.

While I can be pleased or even flattered to be compared to my great-grandmother's pioneering spirit, my grandmother's compassionate nature, or my mother's strength...

I am generally angered by it. It denies me my rights of passage, my trials and sufferings and the marks they've left on my soul. It robs me of my personhood, regulating me to being a shadow of some one else and not my own person. And so many people in my family do that. I find myself expecting others who may have remotely heard of my family to do the same, and either look at me and see my misanthropic mother or my sycophantic aunt. Either way, I don't expect the image to be pretty or flattering.

With the others who never had encountered my family, I expect the social hell that I went through at school from day one until I graduated high school, and experienced to a lesser degree at college. I positively *hate* the "popular" people for one very simple reason. The "popular" people are bigoted bastards in my experience not even worthy of being spat on. Sure, they may benefit the earth by breathing, contributing fertilizer via fecal matter, and possibly their actions and efforts may be of value, but their value as a person is nil because they're generally malevolent and vicious creatures.

No, I'm not bitter. I'm really not, I'm rather caustic and vitrolic on the matter. I went through hell when I was younger. I listen to the ever so polite rants about how certian behaviors are not tolerated due to their hatred spawned nature and I want to vomit. I had so many ugly rumors circulating about me that I had college students at the state university in town asking me the cost of a blow job when I was twelve. These people shouldn't have even known who I was! I should have been just another ankle-biter of little or no interest, other then a possible source of income in the way of a tutoring or babysitting gig.

I had teachers harassing me, telling me that I was wrong to defend myself when I was assaulted by students because I deserved it. There were so many people saying so many ugly things, it simply had to be true. I was lying when I said that my mother wasn't a prositute or that I didn't do drugs. The other person may have thrown the first punch, but I obviously had to have provoked them or they wouldn't have done it. It wasn't really my lunch money that the person was taking, it was theirs that they were taking back from me because I obviously had stolen it. As my parents were too poor to afford it... and it went on and on.

And all of this harassment that I dealt with, it was supposed to be normal? I was being overly sensitive and thus I had to go to the school shrink? I was the problem?

I'm sorry, but I didn't do a damn thing to provoke having people take meter sticks and lift up my skirt. I didn't provoke having people slam me into lockers, trip me on the bus, push my down stairs, or step on me when I fell to the ground. I didn't do a single damn thing wrong, unless you counted my existing.

So... if you were one of the pretty people and I offended you with this, I'll apologize. You're most likely not one of the bastards that made my life hell when I was younger. You don't deserve to be in the center of my crosshairs on that one. On the bizzare chance that you may be one of those people that I went to school with and you feel that I'm being unfair, that's fine. You can feel that way. At least you got to feel that once in your life, because I felt that way for many years because of you.

...

I'm not sure if this is doing me any good. On one hand, I am expressing this stuff. At the same time... I ... I'm not sure how to look at it. It's keeping the crying jag at bay, but I'm getting indigestion from the anger bubbling up and a headache from the anxiety. God, I wish I had health insurance, then I could go see some one qualified to actually help me with this.

Pouring my heart out to who? I

Well, I suppose I have more motivation to type things up on here.

The person that I've been writing letters to describing the things that trigger my anxiety attacks is basically unable to cope with it. He's got his own stresses. I understand that. He's got alot of really crappy stuff to deal with being stuck in prison and having to face down the possiblity of cancer.

It was probably really friggin unrealistic and bitchy of me to expect him to beable to listen to my fears. So, I think I'll just stop writing about them. Or atleast, writing letters to him about them. He's anxious about his mother's health problems, his own health problems, the little brother off in the Marines during a time of war, and the other things I just mentioned. And I've gone and added my anxieties to the list.

I guess that makes me a bad person or something. I don't know. I'm torn between this feeling of bitterness and anger... and... I don't know, resignation and a sense of being proven right. Hell, not everyone can take on the world, put a smile on their face, and be the confessor/confidant of damn near half of the people they know while on the edge of their own anxiety attacks. I suppose I was expecting too much, maeby I'm the only one with that singular talent. Because I'm managing to make it look like I'm not coming apart at the seams except to the ones that I've told how bad I really am.

And even then I don't really say just how bad it is. I just give snippets of it because it overwhelms them to hear it. I manage to get about half to a quarter of it out before I get told they need to move on to a different topic. So I jam the cork into the bottle, choke back the tears and the hurt/angry wail of "What about me? Why do I have to be 'OK' for you? I'm hurting right now! Can't you fucking tell?"

I'm feeling hurt, depressed, and resentful right now. I don't really know what to do about it. I've got some dishes in the other room that needs washed, laundry to fold, needlepoint to stitch, a sweater to crochet, and various other projects and chores to possibly distract me. But it doesn't work. I just hit this point of auto-pilot and I'm not there anymore. Oh, sure I'm doing the work and I'm attentively doing it. You won't see any flaws in it, or at least no more flaws then when I'm completely focused on it.

But I'm not mentally there beyond counting the stitches, untangling the thread, or making sure the dishes get spotless and not dropping them. I've dissociated and am lost in my own mind and the horrible feelings that are plauging me. I'm getting to a point where I've realized that it's not the dissociation where I'm going to hurt myself, it's more along the lines of I'm distracted some how. I'm relieved by that fact, because I'd be terrified if I was on the verge of hurting myself again.

It doesn't help much that I catch myself thinking about hurting myself. Don't let any one tell you that I'm not a stubborn woman or that I am weak-willed. I've caught myself so full of self loathing and the horrible impression that the whole world, including and especially those I love, would be better off with out me that I'm fantasizing about doing things to harm myself. I break myself out of those reveries when I catch myself doing that. In the moments that those thoughts come to me, I can almost feel it happening to me. I see it all so clearly in my mind that it's like some horrible vision or nightmare.

It's enough to make me feel guilty. What right do I have to contemplate taking my own life? What right do I have to damage myself in some fashion? I'm not some horrible person. I don't rape babies or do other acts of animalistic savagery for fun or some sick sense of personal power tripping. I don't engage in sadistic acts to escape my sense of misery. I don't lie, cheat, or steal. I'm an honest person who deeply loves her fellow man.

I have a roof over my head, food to eat, a husband that adores me, friends who love me, and a family (while crazy and generally not good for me) that care deeply for me too. I have so many good things in my life that I have a hard time counting them all. I shouldn't be so damn depressed. I shouldn't want to hurt myself so badly that I can almost taste it. But, for some sad, sad reason, I do. I feel that I need to punish myself for the fact that I'm only human.

As if there's something wrong with it, and I'm flawed or broken for not being "perfect". The sane part of my brain, the part of me that knows I have these good things, that knows I am blessed to live the life I am right now, knows that I'm not guilty of all the hardship in the lives of the people I love. The sane part of me knows that I'm not a horrible person or that I'm like that wretched woman who died recently.

But the things we know and understand with logic rarely match up with what the heart feels or the wounds of our psyche.

In it all, I find myself crying out for something again and again. Something that doesn't happen as often as I need it and it never really did, to be honest.

I just want some one to hold me on their lap, cradled against them, as I weep with this pain. And as they hold me close, tell me I'm safe, that I'm not crazy, and that it really will all be ok. Remind me that I am a good person and that I am loved. Show me that the logical part of my mind really is right, because I doubt myself far too much.

But I guess that's too much to ask for in this world when you're an adult.

Somedays, I miss being a little girl and having my daddy hold me when I got scared like this. Now, I just get people responding to me like my mother. "Suck it up, it's not really that bad. Stop this crap and get over it. You're being dramatic, knock it off."

I'm afraid. I'm so damn afraid but no one holds me anymore. No one tells me it's going to be ok when I want to cry because I'm convinced that the world is going to end if I stumble. I know those times happen when I'm not at home, most of the time. But... It makes me wonder, maeby I really am broken inside and perhaps Mom was right. Perhaps I need to be in an insitution some where.

What IS the correct response?

The woman who terrorized me for years is now dying as a result of her lifestyle of drug abuse and self-neglect. The psychological damage the woman has caused to myself and so many people in my family would probably cover a third of the DSM IV's list of problems.

When I learned of the fact that she was dying my initial thought was "I knew this was going to happen. Good. It is about time." I'm not sure if that makes me a good person or a wretch. The woman's been quite ill for months if not years now. Now, she's in a vegitative state and her body is being consumed by infection and rotting from the inside out.

This is one half of the couple that I didn't invite to the wedding. The couple that I refused to invite to the wedding and held my ground in the face of all arguments from my family. And, I add with a bitter sense of relief, the woman that I am not related to by blood.

Clear memories of this woman brutalizing me, attempting to drowned me, and generally making my life a confusing hell war with a nagging sense of familial obligation. I'm torn between the feeling of satisfaction that her poisionous life will finally end and guilt for that feeling of satisfaction.

I'm not sure what the proper thing to do here is. I know that Miss Post would probably not approve of my airing the familial dirty laundry here for the whole world to view. Dear Reader, I don't rightly give a damn how Miss Post views the world at the moment, though. Instead, I'm more concerned with how I view the world and the weight of the past years on my mind.

Some days it feels hellish because I'm so emotionally numb and trapped within myself. The memories and the effort to push them aside so I can deal with my day clash with the need to rid myself of the toxic thought patterns and self-image that I've developed as a result of those efforts and the damned memories.

Sometimes, I look forward to Alzheimers, as it would take away this hell. But then I remember, those things were imprinted early and will last long in my psyche. So, I'm damned to remember them until I'm on my death bed. And even then, I am probably going to be torn between the savage joy I feel as the liberation of the demon of dreading her presence in my life and the guilt for rejoicing over another's death.

Imitation of Whitman...

I sing the land triumphant
Grain bursting in the ear
Grapes heavy on the vine
And apples heavy on the bough

I sing the land triumphant
The fallow doe is sleek and fat
The cattle low and amble in peace
And the river soothes the honest man to sleep

-----
That was all I can recall of the spontanious lyric that came to mind as I was driving come from getting groceries and looking at all the trees in their glory.

----

Do not tell me of how hard times are
Look, let the man who is hungry come
The harvest is in
The corn stands ready
The fruit is heavy
Let the man who is hungry come
He who works shall share
The harvest is in

----
Another lyric that came to mind as I watched some one gathering in their corn this afternoon on my drive home.

So there!

And my mother accuses me of not behaving like a well bred lady.

You Are 92% Lady

No doubt about it, you are a lady with impeccable etiquette You know how to put others at ease, even if their manners aren't the greatest.

Are You A Lady?

Memory: pt. 5

I don't want to remember how much I hated being alive when I was in my pre-teen years. My mother doesn't know it, and very few others may either, but when I was in that stretch of time between second and fifth grade, I did think about killing myself. That time where I took the extra dosage of children's Tylenol was a rather pathetic suicide attempt that resulted in my being additionally sleepy. I didn't do like my brother and down half the bottle. Mom freaked out when he did that, screamed at me and proceeded to call poison control. For some reason, it was my fault that my 7 year old brother had gotten his hands on the Tylenol. Never mind the fact that she left it sitting on the table.

So, I had my Mom freaking out with poison control on the line. I was getting yelled at when she was put on hold and then ordered not to move when she was back talking with the nurse or who ever it was over there. Then, Mom got the castor oil, made my brother take a swig of it and sent me to fetch the bucket. Right as rain, he threw up and then everything was fine. Except for the fact that I had to clean up the spot on the floor where he missed the bucket and wipe down the rocking chair that he puked on in the process of missing the bucket. So, I got bitched at and punished for a combination of my mother's own dumb mistake and my brother's insistence that the orange flavored Tylenol was actually candy that magically made him feel better.

Thanks a lot, Mom. That did wonders for my self-esteem. I've lost track of how many stupid schemes like that happened. Maeby it wasn't my brothers drinking or eating something stupid, but they'd do something and I'd catch hell for it along with them. Even if I wasn't there, because I obviously had to have put them up to it since I was the eldest. I am amazed that I didn't get yelled at for when my brother got scalded by the hot water from the tea pot. Mom was visiting with my grandmother. My youngest brother, who was all but 3 years upon this earth at that time, walked up and took a hold of the tablecloth as he grabbed onto Mom's leg. Insisting that Mom pick him up, he pulled on the tablecloth and Mom's pants. The table cloth came down and with it came the hot teapot filled nearly to the brim with hot water.

He screamed. It was a wordless, almost inhuman scream of pain and horror. Mom grabbed him up, rushed to the sink and began to pour cold water on his shoulder. Grandma called 911 and Mom ran with my brother in her arms to the car to take him to the hospital. I and my other brother sat in the dining room watching this drama unfold. When Mom and our youngest sibling was away, grandma began to clean the hot liquid up and then clean the house. I remember watching her as she picked up the shards of the broken teapot. It was a dark blue teapot, oddly enough that looked quite a bit like the one I have now.

The way it looked an eggshell blue on the white of the broken porcelain just shines in my mind. It's funny, that color and his scream stand out more clearly in my mind then my first day of school. I hated school and yet loved it at the same time. My first day, I don't remember the entire day. On the whole, it was one of the worst experiences I've had in my entire life. And for me to still say that 20 years later, well.. It had to be rather awful. It was one singular thing that should have warned me that school was going to be hell.

I got on the bus for the first day of school, dressed in my brand new yellow and pink dress. I had my hair tied up into pig-tails and I wore my brand new rain jacket. It was bright red with lady bugs on it. And I had my purple back-back. I walked up onto the bus and was promptly tripped flat onto my face. Not stumbled and fell over, no some malicious little bastard stuck their foot out and tripped me. The entire bus laughed at me, including the bus driver. I was teased and pushed around for a few minutes, unable to find a seat. Finally, the bus driver pulled the hulking beast of a bus over ordered some one to move over and I had a seat for the ride to school.

As sad as I am to report it, but that set the tone for the rest of my schooling years. I was regularly harassed by my classmates and not a few members of the faculty and staff of the places I went to school. I had kindergarten teachers questioning my intelligence because I was small for my age and born prematurely. I had classmates beating me up and insulting me because I didn't live in town with them. I had a teacher in 2nd grade that regularly punished me for not believing in God. She asked me who made me. I answered that my parents did. The teacher blew her stack and I spent a lot of time out in the hallway with my friend Joanna, who was Jewish.

And I wonder now why I have so much difficulty with things like multiplication. Perhaps if I didn't have a teacher that threw me out of the room for any possible reason she could think of, I may have gotten the basics of multiplication down at some point in time. I got the bullies on the bus that were older then me putting their hands places they weren't supposed to go and threatening to hurt my younger brothers if I told any one. It happened up until my brothers started fighting back, and it happened for a little while after that. You see, since people realized they could harass me until I cried or did what they wanted, because there was more of them then there was of me, they started in on my brothers.

One day, my brothers got mad. So they started fighting back. They saw one of the largest boys on the bus grabbing at me. My brothers threw themselves at him. I joined in the fray. Next thing we knew, I had been knocked to the ground with the beginnings of a fat lip. My youngest brother was kicking and trying to break out of the headlock he had been put into by the offender's friend. And the leader of the group had picked up my other brother by the neck and was slamming him against the window of the bus. The sound of my brother's head hitting the wall of the bus carried awfully well and the bus pulled over in a hurry. A few days later, after my parent's had both had a rather loud argument with the principle of the school, we were pulled out of that school and started at another.

And this incident was one of many that happened on a regular basis as we were attending school. Yet, this was the place where I met the man who is the love of my life. He is one of the few good things that came out of that hellish place that I went to elementary school and high school. When I did fight back, he was right at my side with my brothers and my few friends. As I got older, I lost that fire. But he was still right there with me. I can say it honestly, I was a fool for not telling him that I was in love with him right when I got back to that school at the beginning of high school. I had been, ever since 4th grade, if you can actually believe it.

Memory: pt. 4

What disturbed me, and still does, is how you basically needed to get into a pissing contest with her about whose pain was worse. There are only a few times where I didn't get the rant about how her childhood was worse then mine will ever be. One was when I was sick in the hospital with chicken pocks. The other was when my great-grandmother Hazel died. That crushed me, I loved her so much and it was awful to watch as the Alzheimer's disease ate her mind and then her body. Strangely, I do remember the viewing quite clearly. People were telling me how sorry they were for our loss and that they regretted that she died. I kept getting told about how she was at a better place and no longer suffering.

I just nodded sagely, as a child could only attempt to, and didn't say anything. It wasn't that I couldn't believe that she was dead. I knew she was dead. I didn't have great-grandma to tell me stories about how her uncle was mad about the new contraptions called cars scaring the horses or help me steal butter scotch from grandma. But she wasn't gone. From that day forward, I've felt my great-grandmother's presence with me. And, oddly enough, at that time, I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone that great-grandma was still with me. Years later, I said something to my mother, but I was told how it was wishful thinking on my part.

It was all just a wretched joke, in her eyes, because my two wicked aunts were trying to get me to believe in magic. Mom didn't like the idea of my learning about witchcraft or magic. She especially didn't like the idea of my learning it from those two women. I suppose the reason why I went to visit them is because they showered me with affection more frequently then my mother ever did. Of course, with that affection came their efforts to manipulate me into being the tool by which they destroyed my parent's marriage. They hated my father, and probably still do today. As a result, my aunts (one was my aunt and the other is her lover) did things like tell me that I wasn't really my parent's child.

I was told how my mother's real baby had died in the hospital and that I was actually some one else's child. I was told that my mother kept me because she didn't want to make my father angry by getting rid of the kid that she didn't want to begin with. I was encouraged to believe that my mother didn't really want to have a daughter and that she wished I was born male. And then there was the whole concept of how my brothers were loved more then me by one parent or the other.

It's all an accursed mess and I still have a hard time sorting out what I recall and what I don't. The period of time that I'm looking at now is what some people define as middle childhood. Those years between when you start kindergarten and when you go to junior high/middle school. I regularly got jumped by other students at school and beaten up at that age. I fought back a few times but it became clear very quickly that if you defended yourself you were in as much if not more trouble then the bully.

I'm tired but yet I must write. I need to purge this .. boiling hell that's writhing beneath my skin in my blood and brain before I become violently ill or completely useless to the world... or at least useless to myself. It's a hellish muse that lashes at me. I really don't want to commit these atrocities to paper. Who would want to recollect the horrors to have them stare back at them on the clean page? It sullies the paper in ways that no words were ever intended to. And I can't even use this to get some meager measure of restitution. I can't help the terrors that I feel.

Memory: pt. 3

My aunts are clearly villainesses, though as a child I hadn't any bit of a clue as to the fact. You figure if some one tries to drowned you repeatedly, it's a sign that they've got a heavy dose of evil (or at least insanity) in their heart. I'm getting ahead of myself... or perhaps not. I never really did plan out a structure or any form of organization to this thing. I keep telling myself that I need to write this chronologically but it doesn't really make much difference. It's not as if these events build much upon each other. In some ways, I am writing this as I remember things, so you may get a glimpse of how my mind works. You also will see how disjointed my writing is in the face of "real" life and my fears of putting this down on paper/internet/appropriate media format.

Why, you may ask, am I afraid to put these things to paper? Well, in part, because of all the grief I got for even talking about these problems when I was younger. I regularly was told by my family and others around me that I shouldn't talk about these things. On one hand, you have the potential for familial embarrassment, which can prove extremely problematic in a small town like where I grew up. On the other hand, there is the need to keep certain things quiet so that no one comes to question or investigate these things.

After all, who talks about their uncle propositioning them or asking overly personal questions about their direct knowledge about sex? Who talks about their teacher punishing them for no reason other then the fact that they weren't Christian? No one really wants to hear about how the bigger kids on the bus pushed you around and some of them put their hands places that only you could touch. No one should know about the doctor's assistant placing his hands on your vulva during a physical in the school nurse's office. Not like they'd believe you, you're only a kid. To make matters even worse, your not just a kid, but you're a girl. You're going to be making all sorts of wild claims for attention because that's what girls do, right?

So, I spent the vast majority of my middle childhood being abused by many different people in many different ways. At the same time, I also had to keep huge secrets. For example, when I was in 3rd grade, my mother had an affair. It lasted for most of a summer with a friend of the family's at the time. I had to keep that secret. If it's ever mentioned to her, she'll deny it and then blow up at me for accusing her of something so horrible. It'd be a fast way to destroy my relationship with my mother and there by destroying my relationship with my father.

If Mom terrorized us, then Dad was the voice of reason and our refuge. Mom's temper was and still is infamous. On a fairly regular basis, she'd throw pots across the house in a fit of anger with my father's actions. These weren't just the aluminum pots. This also included the 3 to 4 pound cast iron frying pans. Many times, my brothers and I kissed the earth as the black whirling frying pan of death flew over our heads. I know if it connected, one if not all of us would have suffered severe trauma to the head. But it didn't make much of a difference, Mom was mad and when she got mad she threw things.

So, we spent a lot of time outside when we were younger. I look back on it all and I'm still amazed that Mom didn't throw steak knives or everything that was in the butcher's block. Looking back on it all, I suppose that Mom was going through her crazy lady phase like I did when I started to work on getting over the crap that the one bastard I was with in High School did to me. It doesn't excuse her behavior, but it does explain some of it, I guess. I mean, if you're dealing with the fact that you were grievously abused as a child by men and you're lashing out at men in the midst of the confusion you're going through, you'll probably line your husband up in the cross hairs. And Mom was abused, it's not some kinda line or anything. She had her jaw broken by her father essentially for the fun of it.

Memory: pt. 2

As a girl, I had a happy childhood despite the many minor tragedies that happened. I can't exactly claim them to be major tragedies because they didn't afflict the entire nation, just myself and my kin. One of my earliest memories is riding in a stroller at some kind of balloon rally. The stroller was yellow and orange check with clear vinyl "windows" and a crochet trim with pom- poms along the top. My father was carrying my brother on his shoulders and I was in the stroller as my mother was pushing it. I was looking out to my right and I saw a hot air balloon in the colors of the rainbow. It is still one of my fondest memories. I believe that I was three at the time, but I'm not entirely sure.

To this day, my mother insists that I am wrong and that my parents never owned a stroller like that. Now, as I look back over the years, I realize that we were probably down in Florida when this happened. Mom was possibly pregnant with my youngest brother at the time, but I'm not sure. It's sad when you're told constantly that your earliest memory is incorrect. It makes you question other memories at times. But, to be fully honest, I can't exactly declare that this memory I have just shared with you is incorrectly recalled. You can't falsely recollect the scent/taste of clay dust mixed with straw. You can't falsely remember the patterning of a balloon or the way the heat made the very air shimmer. Or the smell/taste of warm vinyl and cotton. Some things can't be imagined. I attempted to argue with my mother on this point but she refuses to listen or even consider the possibility that I was right.

You'll find my mother is something of an antagonist and protagonist in my life. She is a very devoted mother who loves her children dearly, but for the sake of everything holy, don't cross her or be around when she has her crazy days. The woman's worse then a fistful of angry hornets then. I love my mother, I truly and honestly do. I love her quite deeply. But I've always questioned her love for me. Even today, with the intellectual understanding that my mother does love me in her own strange way, I question if she truly does.

Memory: pt. 1

Sometimes we are called by something no higher then ourselves to recite. We keenly feel our flaws and failures. We cry out that we haven't the ability to sing, play music, or other wise fulfill the command. As that calling to us becomes more potent and present in our lives, a pressure builds within us and we soon find ourselves squirming with the pain of hindering expression. It's like the foulest of gas pains, but in an emotional sense, I suppose. Time and again, I find myself urged to recite my own memories. I resist the urges with a frantic terror that probably baffles many. Like a fool, I decry the pains of refusing this creative urge and I often go so far as to state that they are something different. A creative block and depression are my personal forms of that emotional set of "gas" pains.

Like bad gas, when the pressure hits a certain point, it will release explosively. Some times, it's a burst of tears and wailing. Other times, it is in a particularly vivid series of paintings spawned by the raging emotions within me. For a long time, I regulated writing to be my expressive focus for things aside from this emotional burning within me. It was eased from time to time with my dabblings in poetry, but I maintained a wall between prose and poetry for my expression of this anguish with in me. Now, I realize that continuing to do so is only going to serve to deepen the pains within me and this blockage will extend for so long that I'll be unable to fulfill the dreams I have as an author.

So, I present this humble expression. This is not going to be pretty. There are many ugly and horrific things lurking behind my life that I am going to give voice to in the desperate hope that it breaks the death's hold they have on me. Terror has long been a constant companion. It's not the warm fuzzy blanket companion, as some like to present it, a comforting habit that serves some buried psychological pleasure center that's been wired wrong. It's that monkey on my back, strangling me slowly every day. I didn't even need to go to the wastes that Sinbad visited or go through the effort of attempting to steal a Roc's egg to acquire this hellish little creature. I was simply thrust into a world that gifted it to me. I'm perhaps possessed of a morbid bit of luck, but I honestly don't know. Even as I have terror as my constant companion, I also have love with me at all times. Perhaps it resembles something less akin to the luck of the infamous Murphy and is more like Pandora's box. I'll let you decide as I present my tale.