IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY

The saying in the photo is something that I am now able to say to myself with almost 100% confidence. I am beginning to understand now; in my continued sobriety, that I really did make decisions that hurt myself because I did not know any better. I am not a horrible person. I am a good person who did horrible things in a desperate attempt to survive. Sometimes to survive what was being done to me, sometimes to survive myself. As a sober adult, I now can protect and take care of and comfort the younger me who didn’t know any better.

Thinking back, I believe I went into survival mode around the age of eight. Many decisions I made from there on out I honestly made to survive. I did not have anyone in my life to protect me from harm nor did I have anyone in my life to tell me that my choices were wrong or that there was another way. Yes, when I entered into my twenties and beyond, people tried to tell me but by then the damage had been done. I didn’t believe anything anyone said by the time I was entering my twenties. I trusted no one at that point and every choice I made I believed was going to save me, or make me happy or change my life. I know now that that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

It was in middle school that I also began to make choices or behave in a way that would bring me attention, even if it was negative attention. I didn’t realize at the time that that was what I was doing. It wasn’t until sobriety and after much therapy that I had a clear enough mind to see that the desperate need for attention, love and belonging was what fueled so many of the decisions I made. I wanted to be loved so bad that I would do anything and even put myself in extremely dangerous situations to find that love and attention.

Now that I am in a completely different head space, I am able to look back and see what I did out of a need to survive and what I did in an attempt to gain love and attention. I don’t know that making that separation matters to anyone but me and maybe it shouldn’t matter to me either. I guess for me, it is easier to forgive the things I did to survive versus the things I did to gain attention or feel loved or important to someone. For some reason I can understand making a decision out of an immediate need to survive far better than I can understand the latter. The fact is; however, that even the attention seeking behaviors were not my fault because I honestly didn’t know better at the time.

Sometimes I have to walk myself through the chronological memories to better understand how it was that I came to be the person I was at the absolute height of my addiction. It’s so easy to try and bury the traumatic memories and just blame myself for what I did. That’s not really fair to myself and honestly I can not fully heal if I don’t address it. There is a saying in recovery that says, “you are only as sick as your secrets.” Sometimes I even try to keep things a secret from myself because I fear that I can not handle the memories, the truths. Fortunately for me I continue to seek the guidance with my amazing therapist despite her having moved out of the country. Technology is an amazing gift and through Skype, I can still check in when I really need it and know that her support is near when facing something challenging. So with that support I must journey through the secrets in order to make peace with and heal from the past.

Even sitting here now, it is very difficult for me to put some things into words and my “go to” thought is to just stop writing. I realize; however, that I can not allow myself to do the things I did in the past. It did not work then so why would it work now? Running away from the difficult, the painful has always been what I did and I have to try a different way, a different path to heal. I have to allow myself to be vulnerable and take the risk.

To sit with myself and think back to my earliest memories is very difficult. As I begin to allow myself to go there, I can feel the sadness and fear building up inside me. My body begins to feel the way it did then, in those moments. I can feel my heart beginning to speed up. It becomes a little harder to breathe. My hands, they begin to shake ever so slightly but enough to notice. There is a small lump in my throat and my eyes, well they are trying to hold the tears back. I begin to feel like a little girl and it is a challenge to remember that I am an adult. “It’s okay”, I tell myself. “You are not back there, you are not a little girl anymore.” “Do not be afraid because I will protect you.”

I am just in my elementary school years and life is already difficult and sad. My mother is raising my brother and I alone since my father left when I was five years old. I miss him and I do not understand why he left and hasn’t come back. He doesn’t call and my mother just says that he doesn’t care about us. I start to think it is my fault, that if I was a better little girl he wouldn’t have went away. My mom has to go back to work full time now and that makes her angry. She becomes very mean and as each day then week then month goes by, it gets worse.

By the time I am eight years old, I am raising myself. She goes to work, eats dinner, watches tv and then goes to sleep. That routine is repeated every day and never is there time for me. I have to go to school, do my homework, make dinner, clean it up and get ready for bed. I must remain quite. “Do not disturb her.” I come to understand quickly that being too loud and disturbing her will result in a beating. She doesn’t just give you a quick smack, no no no. It is a beating with the belt, always with the metal buckle making impact. The pain, the welts, I must be quiet…..do not disturb her. The beatings continue to escalate and she begins to become verbally abusive. She yells so loud and repeatedly tells me how stupid I am, how lazy, how worthless. I just don’t understand why she hates me so much. As a little girl I begin to believe that she blames me for my father leaving, what other reason could there be?

That physical and verbal abuse continues through my entire childhood and beyond. It will be the majority of my adult life until I refuse to allow it anymore. I would have to believe now that that abuse was the beginning of my survival mode behavior. I was so unhappy as a child and very early on began to search for ways to make those feelings go away. It was also very early in my childhood that I began to strive for perfection in very unhealthy ways in attempt to get her to love me. My battle with anorexia and self mutilation began early and by the time I entered high school those battles were full blown.

I started doing drugs and drinking in middle school and by high school my use was completely out of control. I have to say that I can not remember the very first time I took a drink or used a drug specifically. I just remember the time frame in which it began and how it escalated from there. It didn’t change was was happening in my life but it numbed me and dulled the pain just enough, or so I thought. I didn’t want to feel anything. So often; as a child, I had wished there was a way that I could just disappear.

It was also during those formative years; prior to high school, that I was often left alone with my uncle who began to abuse me. I remember him locking me in a closet as a small child as well as getting in my bed and touching me in ways I did not like or want and knew were wrong. I was so terrified of my mother that I could not bring myself to tell her, not until many years later after a suicide attempt. I remember her response as if it was yesterday. “That’s a lie and you know it.” “Why would you say such a thing?” How could I ever trust anyone to protect me after being told that? To bring my childhood; before high school, to a level of intolerable pain was also the experience of having a neighbor violently attack me. Again, what was I to do? Who was I to tell or trust?

Having had these experiences as a young girl brought me to a very sad place by the time I entered high school. I trusted no one and hated myself beyond belief. I saw classmates around me with loving families, large groups of friends and enjoying participating in countless activities. I had none of that. I had an abusive home life; physically, verbally, emotionally and sexually. I wasn’t permitted in activities and had very little in the way of food, clothing or toys. Needless to say; by the time I got to high school, I really had no desire to exist. Part way into my freshman year, I attempted suicide and consequently spend five months in a hospital. Did it help? The answer would be a resounding NO!!!

I returned to school only to have classmates whispering about me and saying some pretty hurtful things. At this point in my life, I was rarely eating, barely sleeping and trying to bury the pain every and any way I could. I was drinking considerable amounts and hanging out with people I should have never been with. There are gaps in my memory from my high school years because of the many blackouts I had. I can remember bits and pieces of some events and today thank God that I didn’t die from some of the situations I put myself in. I vaguely remember sometime in early high school, beginning to think and believe that all I was obviously good for what to be an object for others to do what they wanted with. There was a long period of time that I honestly believed that and I just kind of gave up and gave in to it.

The summer before my senior year of high school was what I now see as the beginning of the end for me. It was the period of time that was to set up for me a long path of pain and destruction until the pivotal moment thirty years later when I would decide to live or die. The moment that started it all is forever etched into my memory and for the rest of my life it will be there. That moment was the last time my mother was to ever lay her hands on me again but the reason behind it, the choice I made to end it forever changed my life.

To this day I can not recall what it was that set her off but what I do vividly remember is her backing me into the corner of the kitchen preparing to beat the living hell out of me. As I recall this moment, my heart is racing so fast and the effort to gain my breathe is unreal. It feels as if I am there, in the corner of the kitchen filled with dread and fear. I remember thinking that I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to do something. I closed my eyes and shoved her hard, out of my way and ran. I ran out the door and down the street with absolutely no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. All I knew is that I had to get out and I was never going back. I had nothing with me, only the clothes on my back but I didn’t care.

Now I don’t remember how it was that I made the phone call that was to forever change my life because obviously there were no cell phones then but never the less the phone call was made. I phoned a girl I new who was a year or two older than me and asked her for help. I don’t even remember how it was I new her but I do remember that she was kind of a badass and in hindsight, that was my first mistake. She had some friends who lived a ways down the street from me and said I could stay there. I remember thinking how fantastic that was and that I was so lucky. I was not! It was a young couple that was just shy of double my age and now in sobriety I have to think, “on what planet was that a good idea?”

To be continued……………