Healing...

Ok so here it is the big ugly painful post I've been procrastinating writing something awful, but I know it's something I need to put out there so I can heal....

First let me say I love my parents (and sister) because they are my parents...they worked hard to supply all my physical needs and then some growing up.  I know there are people that had it way worse and I in no way am saying I had it worse than everyone...

That said, I was a huge "surprise" to my family so to speak.  I have one sister who is about 7 years older than me. Several times growing up I was reminded that fertility treatments were used to conceive her. They had decided they weren't going to have anymore kids and planned as such, then oops there I was.  Instead of being referred to a blessing and a wonderful surprise I was referred to as an accident that ruined the way they were living.  My sister was very bitter to have to share my parents, and well my mom was going to college again, which she had to stop and she had to give up her "art studio" so I could have a bedroom...  My dad, well I remember him telling me a few times mom could have had an abortion.  He never had the balls to stick up for me and was beat down as well.

All those things really could have been jokes (not that they'd be funny), but paired with things I dealt with every day growing up, they were hard to ignore.  I lost count of how many times I was told I should have been left at kmart before I knew my name and address.  I was verbally and emotionally abused everyday.  I didn't get cute nicknames growing up, my nick names were "dip shit", and "shit face"... constantly being told I was ugly, fat, stupid, lazy , selfish, unwanted.... and so on.  There was no room for mistakes, anything wrong was automatically generalized to "that's just how I was"  Anything "good" was mostly ignored, and if it was recognized I was then shot down again at the end of the same breath.

I remember bringing home a report card on time that was all A's and one B, the first word out of my mom's mouth was why is this a B?  When dad got home that was his first comment too.  Now they said they were joking, but the damage was already done, and I remember shortly after being called stupid for no reason... 

I was never aloud to be excited about anything that was important to me, if I had the nerve to mention something was important to me I was dubbed selfish.  I was selfish because I should have known my sister always came first and of course my mom.

I didn't have my first birthday party until I was 21!  No parties for me...when this is brought up they say we just aren't big birthday people.  Which I guess is true, the only thing I remember being done for my sister was a banner on our front porch on her 16th birthday, which she hated, I was not given the same pleasure.  We'd get to pick a restaurant to eat at that weekend with the family, that was the birthday celebration.  Most the time it was where we were planning on eating anyway.  And dessert wasn't even ordered, lol!

I remember one scary afternoon when I was young, maybe 6 or 8? I'm not sure...I went out to ride my bike and as I was riding my tire popped because my dad had over-inflated it. I, of course, cried because I wanted to ride my bike with my friends and it probably scared me...Well my mom came flying out of the house yelling and screaming at me saying I was throwing a fit for no reason being ridiculous, and I of course cry harder.  Long story short, she makes me go in, grounds me, sends me to my room, but not before she yells and screams at me some more and threw me on the steps.  I'll never forget seeing her all read-faced veins popping... See I never know which mom I would be dealing with.  She had two very different personalities.  Out in public she was nice as nice can be...but at home behind closed doors I just never knew if the nasty side would come out and how bad it would be...

Then you add school into the mix... kids are cruel, very cruel.  I was rejected, laughed at, made fun of, and even sexually assaulted (that's another story maybe a later blog).  So at school I was told I was fat and ugly and not worth anything by my peers...

Last summer I broke my ankle and it all came back :/  It was bad enough that I spent a week in the hospital and couldn't walk for 3 months.  I ended up going to stay with my parents after I left the hospital because they had fewer steps to get into their place, and no steps once in.  Well, it only took 3 days for me to be just as depressed as I was before I moved out before.  Once again being told to get off my fat, lazy ass and do something for once.... Mind you I was ordered not to walk and keep my ankles elevated, I tried to scoot around in a computer chair, but was very limited as to what I could do :(  That was an eye opening experience, I think it really helped me realize exactly where I had come from and why I felt the way I did...It initiated my healing process by showing me how ridiculous the things that were said to me were.

Well...I guess that about covers it.  For the first 19 years of my life I was made to believe I was ugly, fat, stupid, selfish, lazy, no good for nothing by those closest to me.

9 years after meeting my incredibly awesome husband, who is trying to erase these horrible words from my head, I think I'm about half way healed... "they" say it takes twice as long to unlearn something as it does to learn it, so that's about right? I don't know?  But I guess I'm getting there...