falling down hard!

So, I have been in this fight with my own mind and body. I recently had a trauma in my life that took me back in to a deep and dark place. All of my past abuse came up and landed hard. I have experenced things that I never thought possible, physical pain and mental distress. The truth here kids, I am scared! Yup me! Scared!
My physical body is a stranger to me right now. I am having what is called body memories. Strange stuff! I feel the pain as if I am being abused all over again. My body hurts as if I have been raped. I feel beaten and bruised.
My mind is in full on panic and fear mode. All of my senses are on high alert. I am in fight or flight mode. I have never felt anxiety like this. I never as an adult had an issue with this. Now it overwhelms me day and night. I have to medicate mt self to sleep and still I wake up feeling trapped and smell my abuser. I feel like my mind is now my enemy, my body the victim all over again.
I have to tell you that I was truly scared. I am truly scared. Yet I know I will be able to move past even this. I will learn and grow from this too. I have had the hardest time and continue to struggle to get through each day. But, I will grow, learn and yes....change! There is not a choice!
I will be honest I also have had friends who are supporting me and helping me find my way. Thank you for them in my life God or who ever you are! My inner voice right now is untrustworthy. I will keep moving torts hope!

Oh time to work it!!

Ok, ok! I hear you! My inner voice is screaming at me, giving me directions. As per usual. I ignored it until I could not stand it any longer. I do know whats best f0r me and how to make it work in my life. But, hell it is so much easier to ignore it and do what feels good in the moment instead of taking the path that I know will be work.I like you I am sure hate work. I like easy. At least I admit it! I quietly give myself the speech that a friend has given many times to others and one that her mother gave to her. The good life just does not happen you have to work for it, no one hands you everything that you want and then come in and takes care of all you problems. The good life has a price. It means doing the dishes and cleaning the floors. No one will just do it for you. No one takes care of your problems it is up to you to make life good for yourself! No one will take care of your soul, not even God. He gave it to you along with free will and it is up to each of us to work at it and make it better, more en-lighted! Sooo I say why oh why is it that I know all of that and still I struggle with the inherent lazy. I know what I need and what is good for me now I have to kick my own ass and DO IT!!!!! Ha, ha..... I am on it! Look out baby I am on my way ! Working on the me here look out people!! Step aside!!!!

I don't not anymore!

I would say on any given day that most of us struggle with ourselves to do what is good for us. We try hard to eat well and get our rest. We work hard on our issues with ourselves and others.We try to teach our children to do the right things.More often then not we get stuck in situations and relationships that are not good for us and for whatever reason we are willing to stay and suffer for the sake of the children. At least that is what we tell ourselves and others. The truth...we are afraid to upset and disrupt status qua. We do not want to feel pain or cause others pain. We definitely do not want to hurt our children. Wow I have been there!!! Oh man have I been there! Now I look back on it and I remember my inner self feeling as if it could die. Trapped and unhappy. Knowing that my marriage was truly over and staying because I did not want to cause my children or my husband pain. Some stupid reason I thought if I was the only one feeling the pain it was ok. Wow... stupid! I wasted years of my life and yes I am sure that my son knew I was unhappy but did not know why. I Worked myself into the ground to avoid my life. I lost soooo much time being unhappy and for what ? I just prolonged the inevitable. I put myself last. FUCK that life is too short and we all deserve the chance to be happy. All of us. There is no prize for being the one who suffers. There is no reward in heaven for suffering unhappiness! If ya think the kids don't know ... come on they know. All you are doing is showing them what a marriage is NOT supposed to be.Years from now they will be in therapy and say they have there relationship issues because of you and the bad example you gave them. To love is not to suffer!!!! TRUST ME! If your inner voice says ...hey I am unhappy and I want more then this, I need to be loved and to give love to someone who will not hurt me...LISTEN! Your inner voice, your gut feeling is there for a reason for you to listen to it. If your child sees you happy and fulfilled, well balanced and healthy, they will strive to be so as well and if you show them a good relationship they will also emulate that. They will not settle for dysfunctional and unhappy in there lives. Now, I am a romantic at heart and I must say if you are with the wrong person you may miss out one the right person. Your other half could be out there looking for you and your stuck with not being able to change your unhappy dysfunctional relationship as they walk right past you!
Now do you think that's truly the way to go here? Think about it really hard! You have one life and one chance to do what is right for you and your children. Don't fuck it up, don't fuck them up. Yes, it is hard to get a divorce and do the whole custody thing, but what do you really want to tech your children in life? Listen to your inner voice it will never lie to you!!!!! Live, grow and change!

Still at it!

Ya ever find that it is just too easy to judge others. Easy to see there faults and weaknesses. We think that we know our own just as well. But on closer inspection we realize that we do the same things that they do for the same reasons. Fear, loneliness, anger and self preservation. I am sure that it is all part of our instinctual will to survive. But when you strip away that witch you think you know about your self and go on what you truly know it changes the game of life up completely.When we list the reasons that we do things it can be astonishing how selfish we truly are. For someone like me however it is a struggle to be selfish. Yup I am a give till it fucking hurts kind of girl.I look at the reason why I do the things I do and more often then not it is to be excepted and loved by others. Not to get what I need or to help my situation in life but to have others care about me and love me. I seek the family I never had and fear being alone. BIG realization on my part. Inner voice screaming at the top of it's lungs, you need to be loved here!!! Well I know me better then anyone. I self analyze every thing I do and say. It is my way to be honest with my inner voice and the world. I know I need acceptance and love but I also know that it come many times with a price. So in knowing that I am choosing to love myself and fill the void. This is harder then it sound. To truly love your self is hard. I have a difficult time not hearing my parents voices ringing in my ears telling me what a loser I am. How I will never amount to anything, that I am fat and stupid. After all these years there voices ring in my head like a part of my brain absorbed it and regurgitates it when a certain word is said or when an emotion is felt. I fight against it and give some positive self affirmation. Strange how they are dead and now there stain is still in the fabric of my mind. Some fucking spot remover over here please!!! So I meditate and clear my mind. I sit until my chubby butt goes numb and I clear away all of the cobwebs and start fresh. I sit and thank God for all have have and all I wish to be. I clean my spiritual plate and start fresh everyday. As soon as I get off the floor I say, " begin again with honest intention and love for myself and others, I will give my best today!" And I do. Now I am not perfect, oh trust me here that would be funny if ya knew me! I indulge in sugar, and fat and alcohol and cigarettes. I have addictions and I bitch about the state of the world. I get angry with others who act on the behalf of stupidity. I am far from perfect!!! I just try to be a better person every day! After all I know that life is a gift. I have survived hell and I know what I do not want. It is however hard for me to find what I do want. It is not a thing or a place but a feeling. I seek to feel full and I am unsure what I am hungry for. I want to help others and know I am making a difference, I want my life to count. I want to change how others view themselves and interact with themselves. I want to help others let go move on and change for the better. I once had a doctor who saw my childhood medical chart ask me how I survived. At the time I was just angry that I slipped through the cracks. Later I thought about it. I had survived and just lived, but, survived. I grew and was not a victim.I used what I had been through to make me more aware of my soul and its needs. I sought my own truth and path. I did not give up. I am here! I let go of the pain and deal with the memories.i listen to my inner voice and I seek happiness. That is what I want to give to others! My inner voice is leading the way. What will I do next? I am still growing and learning so I guess I will find my answers.

My friend...the brave!

Well, on the road of life, change and growth she goes! My Best friend in the world seance I was 5, is heading out on her life's changing quest! To find out what she wants and needs out of her life and what direction it will take next. Brave! I think that is the word that comes to mind every time I contemplate her plan of action in this time of our lives. Just, brave. She is going away to be alone and look inward. Away to unknown destinations, just getting in her car and going! Changing and growing finding out what she wants from herself and the world. Now, I am sad that my friend will not be here with me in our small town, sitting on her kitchen with me solving all of the problems of the world or sharing a smile and giggle over tea. I worry that she will be sad or have a hard time all alone in the middle of god knows where, but I hugged her goodbye and sent her off with all of my love. I know the trip she is taking and how we all come to a place in our lives when we want more for ourselves and the world around us. Most people will just except where they are and close there eyes to it. While others run from it by putting there heads in the sand and and will not even acknowledge it. To see that a life change is needed and looking away is, giving up or giving in to what we think we are supposed to do. There are those who will not just gel in the mold, they break it! Mold breakers tend to hang together and inspire others to take the same mold breaking chances. Yup, change is infectious.
Now , back to my friend. She is one of the most level headed gals ya will ever meet. So she sees this as a matter of fact kind of thing. No, she does not realize most people would shit themselves at the thought of running to themselves all alone in the big cruel world! Hell most people would never just get in a car and drive with out a plan and a set destination. Funny when you think about it right! Well after all we would not be here if someone didn't take a risky trip across the pond.We all descended from explorers in one way or another. Yet, we find ourselves never leaving the state we grew up in. And never mind the idea of travel into our own souls, digging deep for our answers. That trip is even harder. So now you can see why I love and admire my friend, and why the word is brave! That is who she is, just brave! I wish you well friend. My heart goes with you as does my admiration. Go and find what you need to feed your soul and sing sweetly of it. Grab life and suck the marrow out of it. You are gifted in so many ways. Look inward and drive onward, you my friend rock!!! I will be here when you come home and I will have done my own trip inward, hell we will have a lot to share in that kitchen of yours next we meet and tea may not be enough! I will bring the wine!!!
Now to the rest of you! Come on kidz if change is infectious and growth is the goal, what the hell is holding ya back??? Yer not chicken are ya? Find that inner voice and listen just once, it could change you forever. Be brave!

Ya thought you knew me

Ok so ya thought ya knew me! You are shocked by what you have read here. I am raw and open about things that most people hide from.I have hidden my whole life, run from it all and now I have no reason to hide. I am who I am! I have no reason not to tell. I am a sum of all of my parts, present and past experiences. I share what I can. There is still so much I can not. I generalize and stay away from most painful detail's. I have had many write to me and say that they are floored by what I write and how they think I am both brave and crazy for sharing so much. Well, kidz I think it took me more to hide it all these years then it takes me now to share it. So you thought you knew me? Here is a truth, we never really know anyone! You never know anyone's true past or memories of there past.We never know what people are thinking or feeling. Behind closed door lives happen that we have no idea about! I have come to learn that only when I opened my door have others come to me and opened there's! Huge deal!!! People are more open to me then ever! I have heard about peoples lives and there true feeling. All I did was open my doors! People who I went to school with have come to know me through this blog and are sharing there stories with me!!! WOW!!! This is big. I have heard from many of you on my face book messages and I am pleased to say that I love your opinions and your stories, I love getting to know you. The real you! That is what I am all about! Now I have gotten one or two asking me if I am crazy to share so much in a blog spot that any one can read. To you I say I have not one thing to hide or anyone to hide from. I am who I am! Open and FREE!!! I welcome all responses!!! Good, bad, and indifferent!I want them all of them! Keep it up. Respond and leave comment here or on Face book! Become a fan of the blog and read on and on! I can tell ya brother it is just about to get crazy here.So keep checkin in on it! I am just getting started. I am growing and changing right here with you!!!

Lay it down, lay your burden down.

Lay your burden down!Well that's what I do here. I lay it down. I have dealt with my fears and pain and I survive. I give it up, lay it down and hope that my words and my story are meaningful to you in some way. Get what ya can from it. Grow and learn about your self here. That is my hope for you. I sat in myself and felt the old feelings of self doubt. I remind myself that I am never alone and that I have run a long and hard road to end up here. Sitting in my soul looking at my past and contemplating my future. My inner voice is now just my voice. My past is just my past and my future has endless possibilities. Bound only by the constraints of time. I have said it so many times, " I do not know what I want to be when I grow up." Well my best friend reminds me we are grown up! Ugh! I know we are but somehow I had one life already, I was the mother and wife, workaholic and professional.I had that life. I was the grown up, what I never had was a childhood! I give in to childish things now that I could never do before.So this is my second time around in one life time and I know I need to decide on what to do to take care of myself. Money really does not grow on fucking trees my Grandmother was right! I have looked on the internet and not seen one so far! Ha, ha,ha! So now what? No shit I have to grow up! Get a job and I will only do a job if it has meaning and is feeding my soul!I want to help other to move forward and learn to grow. I have not done all this work to get to where I am to keep it to myself! That is why I do this blog and why I am so open with others, I want to help them become survivors and meet there best self. To help them to find there inner voice and let it yell out to the world!! Well, I am working on it and walking my path. We will see.... Until then I blog and do odd jobs for cash! All that is supposed to happen will and in the time frame that it should!I have faith in the powers that be!

Now, I know that time is my constraint! Shit I am after all the big 40 and I guess that climbing Everest is not in my ability at this moment. I am in shitty shape, I do work on it but; hell food taste so good and I hate to exercise! More wine please... one more glass of course!! Ya know the drill to much of a good thing and I grow another ass! I am working on it!!! Do not judge me man! I said I am working on it! So I find myself looking at the time that seems to be flying by so fast now I lose track of the days and months.And no I do not have Alzheimer's!I just know time move quicker the older ya get. I want to push to do all those things I want to do and dream of completing before my time runs out! I am working on it. I will do my best. All to be happy and healthy and grow as a person. And oh yes to help you grow too. Despite what you think you have to deal with. We can all grow and gain freedom from our emotional pain and trauma. Trust me .... I know!!! But you have to want to try and be ready to move forward. Read, learn and leave a comment. Let me know what you think and if I am helping in some way. And even tell me if I am not! I can take it I am a big girl....Grown I mean, not fat!

When I step away I still pray

Families defiantly are the most complex and sometimes the most difficult relationships we will ever have. I know from experience.No one in my family is close, the have strange distant communications. No real working out our childhood together kind of stuff going on. Much like acquaintances and not like a family at all. No one really knows anyone. I am distant from all of them. They never call or stop by. Nor would I welcome that. It sound cold, I assure you it is self preservation! I also have to tell you that I have one brother who is one year older then me who is pervasively mentally ill. He has schizophrenia. I have done what I could to help him in the past. He moved in with me at a point and it ended with him beating me and me losing a pregnancy at 3and a half months. For a long time he had a case manager with adult protective services who made sure he would go to get his get his shot on a regular basis. It help my brother to maintain in the here and now and function to take care of himself. Recently he lost his case worker and has refused his medication. He is dirty and steeling food. He sits on the sidewalk and yells at people who are not really there. He scares those who are there and and is pulled apart from any friends he once had. The law is in his favor. Mental health laws are built to protect him and his choices. He can not be forced to take medication. Not unless he commits a violent crime or is declared incompetent in the eyes of the law. This is all harder then it sounds. Because he can feed and dress himself and is not homeless or penniless he is seen as legally competent. He does receive Social security Benefits so he has money. His rent is paid automatically and that cover heat and electricity all in one. He spends the rest on beer or gives it away it is even stolen from him as he is an easy mark for predators. I feel for him and wish the system would help him. I can not step in, and if I did there is no way I could change his path. Unless he is charged and remanded to treatment against his will, his life will continue on a path of destruction. I fear that he will kill someone and I pry that he will kill himself. He should be released from his torment. It may be a awful thing to say and please don't send me hate email! It is my honest feelings. Raw and real and is that not what my blog has been? I don't hold back here people! So just stop reading if it bothers you or if you think I am a bad person. I will not be hurt by that. My brother is tortured in his thoughts ever day and has been for years. He has been in hell thinking that the voices in his head are in control of him and thinking that they are aliens that put an implant in his head and are controlling him. You try living that life! Hell on earth nothing less! So yes I wish he where at peace and out of misery. Call me kooky! Death would be a gift to him and I do think there is an after life and that he would not be judged for taking his own life. My fear here is that he would take the life of a random stranger. That stranger may have family and friends and children. I would hold that in my mind the rest of my life and never forgive him for such an act. You may think because he is mentally ill and not in control that I should forgive him for such an act. NO fucking way man! The choice was his not to take the medication! He know he is ill and he knew full well what would happen if he stopped the meds, that is a choice. I may seem harsh, but; remember I used to work in mental health I know the reality of where he is a. I am not unfeeling here. I am just a realist.No rose colored glasses for me thank you so much anyway! I wish deep in my heart that he would be the same boy I knew as a child. I wish we were close and shared our lives. That is only a wish. He can not be a part of my life because he is dangerous! I do what I can through the system and that is all I am willing to do. I pray for him and I hope for the best. I did have an older half brother who was also schizophrenic and he hung himself on a Christmas morning. I never really knew him, I only met him once. I have only a memory of the look in his eyes. It was the same look of fear and confusion, mixed with desperation. So many people I am sure can relate to where I am at with this situation and for us it is always a rock and a hard place kind of feeling. It is easy for others to judge because they are not in our shoes.When and if you see my brother the best thing you could do is cross the street and pray for him. Know his "rights" protect him and not you, and thank God that you are not him. Mental illness is more prevalent then any physical illness and treatment is always a guess. The human brain is a mystery to the medical profession.Laws have been created that will protect him from being forced to get treatment.This is his choice!!!

Friend or foe

There are people who give all they have to help others and people who do nothing but take from others. I have always tried to be a giver. Many people took from me what I gave and others who took when I was not giving. They just took.Ripped off pieces of me. I call them energy suckers. I have fallen victim to these people so many times. I know now why! All of the energy sucker that I have known are good at making you feel a part of there lives. A part of there family. They endear you to them with a sense of welcome, the whole you are a part of my family and I care about you thing! The next thing ya know you are mowing there grass and making them dinner. They ask and I give.I am a patsy for it every time! When they are done with you it hurts big time! I have a selective blindness issue. I will only see the potential of people not who they truly are! At least not until I am left wondering what hell went wrong and why is this person treating me badly. I have in my life been a part of many family's. I was always heartbroken when I realized that this friendship was so one sided and the other person really was just using me. I fall victim to it and try to not let me feeling run away with me. My head fights to stay in control. At this point my inner voice does me no good. It is still that small child's voice that wins." I want a family that will love me, please!" I could kick the shit out of that kid every time I cry over one more loss! I tell her to see the person for what they really are not who they could be or who you want them to be! Stop being so pathetic and grow the fuck up, you do not need what you never had, and if you never had it you can not miss it you do not truly understand what you are missing,....Dumb ass!
The lesson is see people for who they are not who you need them or want them to be!!! Hard to do, but it saves lots of pain trust me and learn from my growth on this one!!!

letter to my abuser

I could not sleep. I found myself turning it over and over again in my mind. I found myself feeling unsettled and fearful.I thought about you. I tried to imagine you as a child, helpless and small.I tried to picture you with your abuser. I wanted so much to connect with that image. I thought it would somehow give me some sense.Some kind of understanding to why you hurt me. Why evil seemed normal to you. You were in my shoes once, was it normal then? When you were small did it feel normal? Or were you like me? Did you freeze at ever touch, feel sick at the thought of it. Let your soul leave your body to escape the pain and fear? If you were like me, then how could you go on to hurt someone else in that way? Not just some one else, no not a stranger, your child! I was your child! I was a flesh and blood part of you. Did you hate your self that much that you would damage a part of your self to the point that they would carry that pain there whole life, long after you were gone!? You made the choice to hurt me! Did you need to regain your power. The power taken from you by your father? Did doing the same to me make it feel better for you? Did it make you feel like a man? In your last days I gave you forgiveness, sympathy and love. I gave you, the devil himself, forgiveness! Sympathy! Love! Would you have given that to your abuser if you had the chance? I do not think so! when you abuser died you just sent flowers. You did not know him, you could not forgive him.The flowers cost $27.50. Not sure why the price sticks in my head. Because you never got to tell him that he hurt you or ask him why, maybe you can understand why I had to ask you and push you to get my answers. I hated you for so long.I hate my memories of you still. You broke my bones and used my body as if I had no feelings at all. I was your toy, a possession with out feelings.That is how you treated me. I learned not to feel physical pain, I shut off from my body and no pain can reach me. Break my arm and I did not cry. I would just sit quietly on the floor. I would tell the lies I was told to tell in the car on the way to the ER Like your "good big girl." I remember sitting at the foot of your bed while you slept holding your loaded gun. I wanted to kill you, to shoot you and watch you die. I wanted to rid myself of your evil. I would always walk back upstairs and put the gun away and think that I was a coward. I know it would have been easy to kill you it was hard to in the end forgive you and myself for what happened.I have written you so many times. I have thought of you everyday sense your death. I wonder if God exist what you had to face in death. I hope you got a life review and had to experience things from my perspective. I wonder if God forgave you? Are you in heaven or hell. I think sometimes that maybe you are with me and feeling my pain. I am not sure what became of you. Are you at rest? The secrets and lies you let behind life on in this world, the pain and horror are still fresh.You are not forgotten here. I just want you to know dad that I am telling and I will not stop. I will survive you and your abuse. I hope we meet on the other side.I hope I can say what I need to then. I hope to maybe view your soul and gain understanding and peace. I have tried in this life to have that and will keep working on it. It is crazy, I fucking hate you and I fucking wanted you just to be a good parent. To love me and treat me well, encourage me and hug me! You did your best in public to pretend but we both knew the truth!I was your child you fucking bastard! I will survive the damage to my soul I will move forward I will not ever be like you. Thank God evil is not in my make up! I have prayed for you. I pray for me. I move on one moment at a time. I will heal my soul and my heart. I am not your victim anymore.

The quiet moments

In quiet moments I remember just how it felt to be powerless and small. I can feel lost and alone. I find it hard not to sink in to a hole a self doubt. I have to remind my self that I am stronger then my memories and stronger then the acts perpetrated on me by my abuser. I have to move past the moment and pull myself back to the hear and now. I sometimes remember his smell or his breathing. It is like a movie in my head and my body goes on ride. My senses are overloaded and my instinct is to shut down. That is what is hard for me. I Know I am safe and loved and yet fear can push up it's ugly head at any time. My inner self screams. "This is not real snap out of it!" It is like some distant whisper at first and then a scream that pulls at me until my frozen body reanimates and I can once again feel my surroundings. The whole thing may only last a few moments but it feels like a life time.I have been fighting those moments all my life. I feel every time they rob me of being present in moment. They make me feel victimized all over again. I know it happens for some reason. Maybe it is so I will never forget that I survived. Maybe I am supposed to use it to help others. I am not sure. I just think if I did not need it in some way those moments would be over. I know from every thing we must learn lessons. I stumble to get this lesson behind me, but, I will someday.I look at others and wonder what there quiet moments are like.Are they peeling there emotional onion and crying from the smell of it only to find it's healing properties? I wonder what normal people do in those quiet moments?I wonder if there are "normal" people! I read that 37 million Americans were sexually abused in 2009. The number staggered me! Is the world in such a bad state that we allow this? Are we as a people allowing this? Do we look away from harsh things to not be involved. Are our children disposable, usable like everything else. Is control in such high demand that it has to be taken over the helpless and weak? I have studied sexual predators and tried to figure them out. I have known children who where abused and then became abusers. The chain of sickness one link at a time. The damage on the mind of a child last a life time. If I got in a car accident and lost my legs I would learn to use a wheelchair, I would be hard, I would be fine. If I lost an arm...I would be fine, prosthesis is available. But damage my soul, my mind... well, that is a life long uphill battle.I know a battle it every day. I never forget not one thing, not one moment! I survive on a day to day basis fighting those quiet moments. My abuser, gone, dead, I fear him still. I am not sure why. It is always in my mind that he will somehow find out I have finally told on him. In the end of his life I knew he had been abused too, he told me so. I knew that he was a link in that chain. The chain ended when he died no further links will be formed. Just that quiet moment to move past. They are less now that I am older and someday they may not come at all. But for now... I hate the quiet, I survive the quiet. I will not be a victim of the quiet. I will heal my soul and find my peace, but I will not do it quietly!!!! I will share it and trust in friends, I will put it in my art and my songs I will yell and swear at it. I will live, grow and change to find out who I am inside and share that with anyone who care to hear!!!! It took so long for me to tell that now I will not stop telling. I can not. I am a survivor here!

Ready to share again

I think that we all know the challenges life has. Some of us destined to face bigger ones then others. Still you should not judge some one else based on how easy or hard there life has been. No one has a free from feeling ride in life. Things may appear to be happy for the other side of the road but get close and listen at the door and then know the other persons reality. No one can truly understand what some else thinks or feels. We all make assumptions about others. Why as people do we do this? To make us feel better? Is it weakness on our part to want others to have a harder time in life? Or if we think that they have a better life we judge them as well! You can never walk a mile in someones emotional shoes! Too much goes into that and it could never be possible. We could how ever give others the chance to show who they are and what they are made of. The substance of a person is what matters! But know that no one is who we think they are. Every person has a private self. I know vary few people I share that self with and feel safe doing so.I speak with my inner voice to few people, the people I trust and love. I am open and kind to other friends just not as intimate with my feelings and thoughts. It is a self regulation I think we all do. It protects us and makes those close connections special. I admit I have not shared half of the things that have happened in my life with you because I need to protect my feelings. I share what I think I can. I did have someone ask why I did not get more detailed about my abuse as a child. Well, because this is not a work of fiction or a movie...it is my real life! My goal was to reach people and share how I have grown and changed, to show it is possible for anyone. I keep information and details to myself because they are painful. I could write about them for shock value or to entertain you and keep ya reading. But that is not my goal. I lived in hell and never wish that anyone know how that feels. Most people who have been in my childhood shoes commit suicide or become abusers themselves.It is my walk into survival that I want to share, not my victimization!I had to step away from my original format to deal with my feeling that crashed in on my physique like a bolder. I am ready to get back on track and start diving in to my soul again. I will give you what I can, on my terms. Read it if you want to, learn from it if you can, and know it is all about healing. Me and you! Know that this is soooo fucking hard to do and respect that!

my dogs are family too

When I was a small girl my family had lots of dogs. I found comfort in them, safety and love. When I grew up I found that the same was still true. My dogs have given me unconditional love and made me smile despite how I may have been feeling at the time. Love from a dog is like no other love. Strange but true! My dogs do not judge me or criticize me,the do not care how I look or if I am funny or clever. they only want to give and receive the basics, love, food and my time.They have laid on my bed when i was sick and licked my hand.Let me hold them when I have cried in sadness and slept at my feet to keep me safe. I wished as a child that I would turn into a dog and I would never again know the cruelty of being human. Humans seemed so hurtful and dishonest in there emotions.I gave my dog all of my tears and secrets. As an adult I have had several dogs.I trained therapy dogs and used them to help children of sexual abuse to enable them to testify against there abusers. My dog Charlie sat in a police station for 5 hours in the middle of the night while a strange child of the age of 6 gripped him and cried on him while the child told of his abuse. Charlie licked the child face and wagged his tail the whole time. Not once did he want to get down or ask for a walk. When the child was done and was ready to go to a safe house. Charlie and I said good night. My dog sat as I tried to walk him to my car. He sat and I could not move him. He sat until the child and his mother left the police station parking lot, then he got up and walked me to our car. He sat with his paw on my leg the whole way home.As if to say, I hope you are ok too,I am here for you. Charlie is 10 now and he is looking old. I give my friend a good life and lots of love. He has done the same for me. I think of the work he once did and know that he made a difference. I think all dogs do. I have done some animal rescues for the ASPCA in the past years. I worked in mental health and would come across some pretty serious situations regarding pets.Hoarders with too many dos and cats to count in one visit. I would get them to agree to sign over the pets to me and I would clean them out and take the animals to the pound for treatment and re homing. One dog will always stand in my mind.The owner had a serious mental illness. She had 7 dogs and they never left the house. They came in as puppies and never left the house until I came. The floor was compacted fecal matter. About 2 feet thick! I ran out after a short time and got sick in the driveway. I put tiger balm under my nose and went back in. I got her to sign over the dogs and I let her say goodbye as I took them one at a time to my suv and put them in. I thought I had them all until she said. "you will have to come back for Tiger. He can not be with the others and I am not sure how to get him out for you!" I asked what she meant by that and where was Tiger. She pointed to a door with a small hole cut in it.I walked over and looked in. A large pit bull was on the floor looking up at me covered in sores and poop. His owner explained that the dog was 3 years old and he was left with her by her son and she was afraid of him so she put him in that bathroom and fed him through the door. From the time he was a puppy.I talked to him through the door. He lunged at the door and bit the door frame. His eyes told me he was sick and in pain. I left and took the other dogs to the shelter. They where in bad shape. I got a catch pole and a shot pole. I took a tranquilizer with me the shelter major showed me how to use. I could not bring them to the home because I had promised my client she would not have any kind of ordeal and her mental health treatment was important to me.She had agreed to go to a assisted living home and if I broke my deal that would be out and she needed it so badly!
I returned to the home. I comforted her on the lose of her dog friends and told her they would go to good homes. I explained what I had to do to help Tiger. I pushed the shot pole in the hole and got him and the 10th try.My arm hurt for days after! When he was out I opened the door rolled him on a tarp, drug him to my car put him in the back with a muzzle on and left for the shelter.I had tied a know in the leash and closed the leash in the door. Me safe! I got to the shelter as he woke up. The shelter manager and I looked at him through the window, he was thin, and his paws where covered in open sores and blood.His Oder unbearable.We tried for ever to get him to show some sign of approachability. He hated people!!! He feared people. He had not know human touch in years. We gave him a sedative.We needed to get close enough to him to put him down. WE lifted him out of the car. I needed to put this dog on the grass. I needed to! The shelter manager looked at me in understanding.We took in to a spot near the woods and laid him on the grass. I stroked his head. He was just a dog. He trusted the people to love him and care for him instead they locked him in a small room and dumped food in a hole for him, not even enough to fill his belly.He was sick and in pain. He had not known kindness! I held his head and spoke softly to him as he was given his final shot.He licked my hand before he died. We both cried and stood up walking away from his body now cover by the tarp. She said that she thought he needed the last lick in to see if I might have been tasty. I said no he just wanted to say thank you. I drove home in a fog and with a new dog on my lap. Fostering it was what I needed.I cried the whole way. I found the little dog a home in no time. All the others where put down due to illness and age. some blind and crippled. Others with advanced heart worm.But Tiger....I know how he felt. I know that anger and fear when people are supposed to love you do not.I see pits now and then who look like him and I have to take a deep breath. I wanted to save him and show him kindness. He was too far gone for that. I know that I could have been Tiger. I was that angry and fearful once.

People say that they do not understand my love for my dog and why I take in rescues when I have other things going on in my life.And for now I have stopped taking them in. But I have done it and may do it again in the future because I know just how that dog feels and I can help them. I never want admit it but each time I help me too. That child inside me who connects with that fear and pain heals each time I help a living thing in pain to trust and love again.

I may not do rescue for many years but something tells me that it is never over.
So if you need a friend and you are not sure if you should or could adopt a friend. Know you will get back more then you will ever need to give! Let that child inside you lead you to a fuzzy loving wet nosed friend! You will never be alone again!

Word of the day folks, love make a difference and grow from it!

trust

Well now, I hear my inner voice screaming at me again. Why, Kathy, why?! Why do you trust your fellow man to do the right things when you know they will never live up to that trust. I say, do not be that way, that is so awful. Some live up to that trust and some do not and that is a fact. Yet when someone that can't or don't live up to my trust comes along it hurt so much I say I will not put myself out there again to get hurt. Well.... I do it again and again thinking that I will give people the benefit of the doubt, I will trust my fellow man. I must! I am not the sort to be distrustful, I want so much to think that others are like me and take trust seriously. Wow, I know it sound crazy. I get hit hard a lot on this one. I just do not want to walk through life not trusting. Now I don't trust for the sake of it. i trust people that I know and have become friends with. Not a dark stranger in the ally! I am not stupid here! But friends, people that I have come to know. I can say that I give my trust to friends. Yet these people that I call friends have taken me for stupid. Not all my friends but some of them. They have taken my trust and used it to better themselves and disregarded me and my feelings. The hurt of that is like a break up with a lover. That intimate friendship connection broken and defiled. It hurts... So I tell myself, learn from this and do not give so much of yourself. I can not get that lesson for some reason. I invest deeply in friendships. I can not allow myself not to experience a friendship in it's fullest! Even knowing it may hurt in the end. But I learn from each one and take that for what it is worth. I hope in that I find more of myself and know that the friendship gave me something I needed at the time.Then I lick my wounds and move on!What else can you do, never trust never have the joy of a friend, never experience the world one persons view at a time. Friends have a lot to give and even when the friendship is over you still have some lesson that it gave to you. Now, my mother was agoraphobic and never left the house and did not have friends. She had a sad life. I know I watched it play out for her. I never understood it. She trusted no one. She lived her life behind closed doors with only my father as her confidant. After her death he told he how hard that was for him, he was a social person and wished she could do things with him. He felt responsible for her happiness all the time and hated her for it a good part of the time. I never understood how they worked as a couple. I vowed that I would not ever be like my mother or my father! No matter how hard some friendships are they are worth it! We get so much from the interaction in the end! I hope that trust is something that is seen as a gift from one person to another!!! Think about how you give and how you receive trust it matters for you and others!!!!Think about it! Word of the day!TRUST!

The real deal, Change

So, I have given much thought to what creates a change in people and I could tell you that is is some dramatic event or survival of hardship. I have come to know that although I have been through that kind of thing it is more often realization on self.What you think about your environment and relationships. What you know is good for you and what you are willing to do about what takes away from you. Your time, love and energy. Are you willing to fight for you and your happiness? I took a long time to find my inner self and to listen to myself. I still ignore my true feelings to please others and work on changing that every day.Happiness just does not happen, you have to know what makes you happy and work for it! I think we all have an idea what we want from ourselves and others. But damn it, it is so hard to do what we need to so that we can have what we want from an honest point of view. we lie to our bosses to get a day off because we need time to do something for our family or lie to a friend because they are invading our personal space. we lie to ourselves and say that if we do all the right things we well get that perfect body, while we cheat on our diet and say I will do better tomorrow but that day never comes. I am guilty too man! But I work on it every day and know I am creating change in my life. I recently spoke to an old friend who said that they lived in a strange situation. They are married but have not had sex in 4 years but, hoped it would get better and loved their spouse. I asked if the spouse loved them back. My friend said, I am not sure!! Holy shit wake up and smell the coffee!!! I wanted to smack them in the head and yell wake up, it is over, move on, stop wasting your life. This is not happy!! In a place called happy people in a marriage love each other and talk and share feelings. They have sex!!! Unless agreed that they both don't want to.
Now I have the hole I stay for the kids thing. But hello now you are showing your kids that a dysfunctional relationship is ok. They will some day feel guilty and need counseling and wonder about every relationship they have as an adult. Show them how to be true to themselves and that true love counts. They will still get love from both parents and be just fine. So... instead of saying that out loud I said...oh I am so sorry to hear that. Strange conversation! I was courteous on the outside and freak-in out on the inside. But why did I not say what I wanted to? I think I was afraid or felt awkward, like it was not my place. But now I think damn it why didn't I say it. I should have it was honest and true to myself. I did not want to hurt my friend but enlightenment is never easy. I wish that others had done the same for me in many situations in my life!It may have saved me a lot of work and suffering. So now I can say that I welcome others honesty even if it hurt in the moment.Truth is worth it's weight in gold! Now having truth with your self... much harder. we lie to ourselves for lots of reasons. I know I still do and fight to call myself on it. I am never going to "work out" like a say I will. I hate exercise and sweating! I hate it! So why do I eat that cake and say I will have to just "work it off" that day my friends will never come!Sooo the cake sits on my ass as a sad bump of cellulite! I am sad to say it will never be alone next to it's family of cake bumps. But I work on knowing that I am lying and try to change it. Change is hard! It hurts and is uncomfortable to know and except. But the reward is you being honest to yourself and learning so much from it. You will know yourself truly and then know what you want from yourself and in turn others! Worth it? YES IT IS! As a way of life I can say it gave me more then anything else. My truth is what I stand on and know as the one thing in my life that never fails me. I know that in fear we all so what we must to survive, but, if we do it with truth it changes our outcomes. I know so many people who lie cheat and steel to get to the top and money seems to make them happy...but are they really? Do they have true friends and will the grow in spirit? Will they know simple joys and love or wonder if there bad deeds will come back on them and not truly trust friends family or others because they think others are like them and just look out for themselves and what they want to get. It is a ugly slippery sloop! Truth and change in self can bring you to a higher ground of understanding, who your real friends are and who is truthful with you. What is real love and what is not. No trick no lie no gimmick just truth. Now I am not saying tell your friend she is ugly or fat or her dress is the most loud thing in the room. Use it where it counts.Maybe tell her that you worry she is not happy because she is gaining weight and you love her and know how hard she has to work to keep it off. Use truth to connect not disconnect. Well unless the disconnect is what you want, then be honest about why! A few years ago I did the honest disconnect and ended a friendship that was not good for me. A 20 year friendship. It was hard to do. But others would ask me, how can you still be her friend she is not good for you and lies all the time. I guess I saw the person that she could be instead of who she was. I wanted to be friends with that potential in her, have faith that she could be a better person despite how she hurt me. She would never be the person that I needed as a friend. The disconnect was hard but I know now worth it. She still has not changed...Sometimes truth leads us down roads we never expected and when the changes come, man they come !!! Take it from me. In 2006 I was married had 2 kids and was a workaholic! I had little friends and traveled and gave my life to my job. Thought I would be in that life until I retired and married to the same man. WOW, now I am getting a divorce and my job let me go while I was in the hospital with cancer. My job could not love me, it just took all I could give it and spit me out for someone else who could do it. They did not do it as well and that is the truth, but they could do it. So I was given a choice... I could get well and jump back in to the life that gave me cancer or change it all and be happy.... CHANGE!!!! Found truth in myself and change came in. I feel like a preacher on Sunday folks!! But it is true all of it!!! Live,Grow and Change.... Be happy you have one life one chance at being the person you want to be. When you are true to yourself you will know who that person is, I promise you!

Open eyes.

Not all man are created equal. Some are gifted in spirit, heart and ability to change the way others view the world. I think my gift is just this. I walked in hell, survived and came out on the other side to tell my story to you.I need no pat on the back or pity from you I need you to only look inside of my story and find pieces of yourself. To see that I am a survivor and so are you! That is the gift here. I will not be a victim to abuse, cancer, heartache,cruelty,abnormality, disability or stupidity. I will live, grow and change! I WILL LOVE, SING AND DANCE! I will never give up on myself my children or my friends. I believe in the goodness of man and forgive all else. I forgave my abusers and those who hurt my heart deeply. In forgiveness I grow. I will die with no regrets of my time on this planet. What is the goal for your soul? I hope my gift touches you and insights your growth. All we take with us is our knowledge, our memories, our love. I am a work in progress and I am sure I will be until the day I leave this world I plan to make it count for something! No regrets! I will know that I gave all I could have, loved even my enemies and made a difference in the hearts of others. So that is who I am! Maybe, just maybe that is why I am here, to show that if I can do it others can too. I have been battered but not beaten, I have been lost but not lonely, I am hated but I do not hate. I have always had hope and faith in myself and the powers that be. I will never be lost. I keep finding my self everyday! Enjoy the ride. share with me! Live, Grow and Change!

Change of direction.

I am sorry that I have not written in so long. Life has it's turns doesn't it. I am off topic a little this time. But I had to write this at this point. I ask you, the reader to give me some leeway. I have had trouble lately and I needed to get some things off my chest.Recently a witch hunt has made my son a target of hate. My son is severely autistic. He is not capable of understanding the things that are being said or why someone would say them. I think I need to tell you his story so you better understand why I feel the way I do about all of this matter.

Evan was born on August 15,1994.He was a perfect baby and I could not stop staring at his angel baby face. My husband and I had tried for a year to have a second child and it seemed that every woman I knew in my small town was popping kids out left and right.So when I finally got pregnant I was so happy!I had given up at a point and gone back on the pill then got pregnant.I say the plan of the universe was at work here and my plan made no difference. You have a baby when the big guy up stairs says so and that is how it goes. So I saw my son as a gift! He was a dream baby. So cute and healthy. He progressed well, doing all the developmental milestones ahead of time. I has so proud of him. I remember the day so clearly that shook my world upside down. I took him to get his shots at 18 months old. That night he had a seizure.I rushed him to the hospital. It lasted for so long and they did nothing but watch and give him a Tylenol suppository.He had a raging fever. we stayed till morning at the E.R. The next day I took him back to his pediatrician.Who told me he would be fine and that it was just a reaction that can happen to some kids. I took my baby home and he slept, sick and exhausted, he slept. I checked on him every few seconds crazy with worry. The fever want away but my baby seemed like he had something else wrong. He just stayed curled in a ball even if you held him. I tried everything I could he did not respond to me. I rushed him back to his doctor. The doctor said that I was overreacting and that he would be fine. I asked him to really look at my son and tell me that he was fine. Then I asked for my son's medical records. I was taking him to someone else. I called my mother in law and she made me an emergency appointment on the reservation. My son is half Mohawk. We drove as fast as we could my baby still in a strange ball in his car seat. The new doc looked him over and took me to a smaller room and said that she thought my son may have brain damage. He appeared to be deaf, blind and catatonic. She made him an appointment to go to Burlington VT. The next day to see a new doctor. I cried and lost my mind for the entire night. He was so little! Would he die? What next? Why him? We were off the next morning to Vermont. We sat in a room with other parents who would not look at us. I cried the whole time. The new doctor looked my baby over and said he needed to do some test and could we bring him back the next day. He arranged for us to stay at a Ronald McDonald House that night. The next day the test started. I will not even tell you how hard that was!We spent the night again and the third day the doctor sat with us and said that my son was not blind, not deaf, but what was wrong was nerological! He made an appointment for us in Boston at the children's hospital.
So now we were off to Boston.I did all I could to maintain.Boston was even more test. Too many to count! Two days of test! The third day we still had no answers. They needed time for results to come in. So we went to the aquarium. I tried to pretend it was normal. People stared at us! At my baby! We did our best.Then the big day..... I held my breath until I thought I would pass out.When we entered the office a woman came over and said that she was there to hold my son so that we could focus on what the doctor said with out distraction.The doctor stepped out of his door and called us in. I could see my baby through the glass wall with this woman holding him wrapped up in a blanket. The doctor went into the test results. He told us our son was catatonic and had something called autism and it was a severe form. He gave us time to digest the news. Quiet was like hell ripping my soul to small fragments. I cleared head. What is autism and how can we help him? What is the treatment? The doctor shook his head no. He said that it is not treatable that my son would be exactly how he was right now and that will be his life. He will always be catatonic and it would just get harder to care for him as he got older. He said the woman who was holding my son was from a children's home and they could take him in if that is what we wanted. We could try for more children and visit him on holidays and birthdays.

I freaked out! I stood up and went out to get my son. The woman introduced herself. I said, "may I have my baby please." She tried to talk to me about the facility he worked for. I said again, "give me my son." She kept talking. I said, " If you do not give me my son we are going to have a serious fucking problem here, trust me!"
She handed me my son. I looked at the doctor and the woman for a long time as they asked me to calm down. I made a promise to my child and to them on that day. I said that I would be back some day and that they would eat there words when my son walked in to there offices and said hello.He will walk, he will run! He will talk! He will sing! He will do all the things that they said he would not do! They were wrong!
I took my son home. I kissed him goodnight. I kissed my older boy hello and goodnight. Then as my house slept I had a true mental breakdown. I do not wish to explain it. Somethings I need to keep to myself. I can say that I know true despair and helplessness.I prayed, I cried,I begged!
The next day I got my shit together. I made the calls to the family and friends I needed to. Then I got to work! I took the boys to the library. I read all I could on autism. I found a way of teaching my son. I got on the computer and printed out pages of information. We went home and work began!I had read a book about ABA,I will spare ya all the technical stuff.The basic is that you can teach autistic children with repetition.So I wrote up a lesson plan. First I knew he had to regain what he had lost.His ability to walk, feed himself and make eye contact! I gave him weeks of massage. Legs and body work that I read about. Then I tied him to my body with bandannas. held his hands and off we went. Miles and miles around the house. My older son and I played hid and seek while I walked my younger boy around. My baby screamed the whole time!My husband could not take it he thought I was being unrealistic. I kept going! I still think of the day when he took his first step I fell to the floor and hugged his so hard I thought I hurt him. He walked!!! We did it!Nothing for him was easy!I was waring thin. I found out about a program that would come to your home to help. They were called Early Intervention. I called. They came. They did not know ADA. I showed them. I gave them all the books I had. They helped!My son began to utter words. Then he spoke. Time passed. He can now run and sing and ask for his basic needs! He is innocent and kind!We have put in a long road he and I. Too much to tell about here. I can say he will never lie, cheat or steal. He is not capable of those things.He will need help his entire life. He does not know fear and trust everyone. He has no concept that people can hurt him. He is now 15 and I work everyday to ensure he will be a productive citizen. He will have a job and be a part of his community. I did call that doctor and my son said."Hello I am Evan and I run and sing!" I sent that doctor his photo and documentation of his progress. Then I told that doctor he was wrong!He sold my son short. If put in a home my son would have stayed in a catatonic state! He forgot that love can change the world! That doctor retired the next week and sent me a letter that I kept until a few years ago. Telling me that he had come to know that he was wrong and I did the right thing for my son.He passed away one year later.

My child is not like other children. He has so much still to overcome. I will give all I have and all that I am to him. He has given me more then I could ever pay him back for.I used to pray that he would be happy. I did not see that he was and is. He is my gift! I am blessed because I was chosen to be his mother.He has never been violent or harmed others, he would not understand violence in any form. He is an innocent. Still learning to tie his shoes and not to hug strangers hello.Just because he is not like other children does not mean that he is bad. It is just the opposite in fact. Other children,lie,manipulate, swear, bully and I could go on and on and on! My son is incapable of those things! So educate your self please autism is not a mental illness! It is a developmental disability! Before you spit venom at someone know your facts! Or it will be you who is the danger to the rest of us. Learn, care grow and change!

Live,grow, change...or something like that...

Well to be honest I needed to take time off from writing. I had to deal with some feelings I dug up while writing this blog. Best to do it when you are experiencing them. No more suppressing that inner me.
So I left off with the last request from my mother. Take care of your father she asked. Now may I say although I know everything happens for a reason it is hard to know that in a moment of complete pants shitting panic. I gave her my word knowing that she needed it to die in peace. I kept myself together until after the wake. Thank God I am Irish and we all drank ourselves stupid after. Then I slept in my car that night in the funeral home parking lot. As I drove home to wash up and change it all hit me like a nightmare. The words rang in my seriously heavy head...take care of your father. I had visions of shooting him, blowing him up, driving over him repeatedly! Then one of him at my mothers side sobbing and kissing her forehead as she died. He was who I had remembered and feared. No, he was old and weak,sad and needy. I was stronger.I found myself pulling into his driveway. I went up and knocked on the door. He yelled "come in".I did. I stood there looking at him. He was lost. Red faced from tears and still sobbing. I am not sure what happened at this point I think my inner self may have taken over. I kicked in to a self preservation mode. I saw weak in front of me yet still felt fear. My inner child was screaming. I said." Look here old man, I will take care of you I did make mom that promise.But we are going to have some fucking rules! If you don't follow my rules I will leave you all alone and no one will fucking take care of you! Do you understand! You are never allowed to touch me or my children. If you break that rule I will fucking end you. I call the shots I hope ya get that. I am not afraid of you anymore. I hope we can get some understanding of that here!" He said yes softly.His head down he sobbed into a paper towel. I sat at the table. We talked like real people. He admitted that he knew he was a bastard and had been a bastard to me. He did not have any explanation for himself. I knew I had pushed a fragile man too far. I said I needed him to understand that I would help him I just needed rules. I needed to feel safe. He shook his head yes. I asked if he had eaten as I went to the refrigerator. I started to cook eggs for him. There I was cooking eggs for the devil himself.I asked him about mom and what he loved about her most. We talked for the first time. The first real talk with feelings I had ever had with this man I had know my whole life. I felt pity for him. My inner self was silent.I felt like it was hiding in fear. Just expecting that this pathetic man would somehow decide he was angry and grab me up. He ate his eggs and cried. My brothers and sisters showed up and the circus continued.They all played pretend. We where a pretend family for a few hours. But I did note the look in the eyes of each of them. I am sure I had the same look in my eyes. I am sure we all felt the same. Not that we could ever discuss it. We where all distant and estranged from each other. I did not really know them and they did not really know me.We never talked for any reason ever, until my mom died and even then it was about her and not our feelings, not our needs or memories. They took what dad gave them to remember her by, made promises to call and stop by to see him. I smiled and played my role in the circus. Then I left. I knew they would not make good on their empty promises. I would however make good on my promise.I would take care of him and I would somehow get the answers I needed from him. Why and how could he do that to me?...I was his child.
I went home and took time to sleep and see my children. I needed it. Then, well.. Off to the races.Now it was even more intense.Family, work, home, kids,dad, garden,cook,clean and care for two households.Then dad got sick, really sick.My inner voice cried quietly for me to help it. I could not. I was the last thing I needed to deal with damn it. Dad went to the hospital.Somehow I knew he would not be ok. He was not. I saw him in the hospital and then cared for him at home. We started to be good at the game of truth. I would ask a question and he would take a deep breath and give me an answer. I asked. "why did you hate me so much?" He said." I never hated you I just never knew how to do it differently. I worked hard to care for my family ya know.I didn't have much of a roll model I guess.My father was awfully bad to us ya know." As our time together rolled on I got to know this man I called dad. We built a guesthouse together. Well, my husband and I built it dad directed. I worked hard to keep my defenses sharp. Dad got sicker. He spent more time in the hospital.I was there. My best friend supporting me. We sat and played cards with the devil to help him pass the time.I think she understood that I needed some kind of connection with this man to reconcile my past.She worried for me and loved me through it.Dad got worse. The doctor moved him to ICU and they wanted to move him to a different hospital. Because of his breathing difficulty they wanted to place him on a ventilator.I went in my dad's room to tell him.He agreed and then grabbed my arm and said."I am sorry I just want you to know that. My dad he did things to me too and I did not know better.I did try to be better then him.I guess I wasn't. I understand why you could hate me. But Kathy I always loved you and I am so proud of you now, you are a good woman and mother.Promise me you will let me go to mama when the time comes and that you will quit smoking.Please kiddo." I held his hand and promised I would let him go to mom when the time came. I never said I would quit smoking! When he arrived at the new hospital I was already there.I called my other family members. My older brother was booking a flight.No one else would come. My father had lung cancer. He was in end stage.My brother came the next day. I made the decision to pull the plug and let him die. I held his hand and forgave him with all of my heart, I let him go.My inner voice said the words out loud, "Dad I forgive you it's ok you can go to mom now, I forgive you dad." I quietly said to myself I forgive me too.I was a child and I was a victim, I forgive me too.

My father passed away almost a year after my mother. In the end I got the father I had always wanted.

I was reborn! I was free. I started to talk to others about my abuse and my survival.I was no longer afraid,I was no longer a victim.I was growing and changing. All in rather small doses. But still it was something. My brothers and sisters went back to the shadows and I was left alone by my blood family. Free at last.None of my brothers or sisters got to truly know my father the way that I did and for that I am sorry. I wish they all could have come out and been honest with them selves and gotten the closure that I did. They all are still in denial and pretending that it never happened.Although I was free, I knew they where not. Since they were not a part of my life I could speak freely.Feel freely and grow. Now mind you I was just starting to listen to my inner voice but I still shut it out most of the time to maintain my pace of life that kept me safe from the feelings and the world. A semi hibernation.A controlled hibernation. I was not truly free yet.

I began to heal myself be writing in a journal and reading my fathers writings. He would write about everything. He just left out most of the truth. He made it sound like we were a fucking TV perfect family. I wrote the truth in my journal.I always ended each entry with: and everything happens for a reason. You see I think my mother knew what she was doing by asking me to care for my father. I got a true gift from her...CLOSURE! Thank you mama!

I started to grow! But I kept up my pace of work and family and ran like a mad woman. Somehow thinking I had to,still afraid of me somehow. I am not sure why, but I think I got caught up in thinking I could save the world.

This went on for a few years....

I think I will step away from the bad part of my childhood and tell ya some of the good parts so you can see me even more clearly before I move forward with my story. So next blog we will look back again and you will see the people I call my angels.People who gave me hope and love and the determination to want more from myself. They were in the right place at the right time and I don't think that that is a coincidence. Thank you to whoever is in control up there. So until then I will grow from what ever memories this congers up in my mind, and heal, and know I am not a victim but a survivor.

Live, grow, change...ot something like that!

Well, I want you to know that this post is vary hard for me.I procrastinated on it all day. In fact just baked a cake from scratch to deal with my thoughts. What should I say what should I hold back? That is my main calamity. So by the time the cake was frosted. I knew I should just sit my butt down and start writing. Here I am sitting and jumping in to the land of white screen and thinking with my keyboard.

The onset of hibernation. Not easy to think about none the less write in an open forum about. I was as a child abused by my father. Not just spanked but beaten.I was sexually abused by him as well. I grew up in hell. I was his main target and I was small and fearful. My mother knew what he would do to me and she looked the other way. She had her own issues.She was sick all the time. Suffering from obstructive lung disease and mental illness. She was often medicated. She never left the house being agoraphobic. She would sit in front of the t.v. and act like no one else was in the room. She would go on what my father said was "vacation." Real world terms to the mental hospital. My dad did not need a reason to hit me he just did it because. I had broken arms and ribs,legs and hands. The skull fractures and concussions where hard to explain after a while to the school. My parents said I fell a lot and that I had balance issues. It was when I was very small maybe 6 that I remember "going away" in my mind. I left my body and went off some where else. Not a place I can tell you about just some where that was not in my body. Hibernation! It was a quiet place, a safe place. I was alone and unafraid there. Strange I know but true. I can still do it to this day just close my eyes and I go. I feel nothing that happens to my body. A self survival skill. I learned quickly to hibernate in life.It helps so that you, the real you doesn't get hurt. I would go there when I was scared or angry. I protected my self. I left home when I was 14 and never looked back. I was strangely already in hibernation and it grew on me like a coat. Protecting me from the pain of my world. I was a liked girl and I made friends with everyone. I did well in school. I had no outward appearance of the life I lead at home. Well, other then absences from school and a tough shell. I think I was well liked. I was even a cheerleader for our football team. I was sure no one knew of my home hell. My very best friend and her family had an idea. Her mother sent me off to camp to get me out of my home for 2 weeks a year. She also took me to a doctor thinking that something would be done to help me. I love her so! I would dream that this family would somehow take me in and save me. Although they did not take me in they did save me! They gave me skills that I use to this day and will always be grateful for. They showed me a family could be good and kind. That parents could love and not hit. That not all fathers used their children as punching bags or as sex toys. They gave me the most valuable skill...Trust and love. My best childhood friend is still just that and I refer to her as my sister. I know I made it hard for her to hang in there with me. My anger in my hibernation grew.I was cynical and harsh for years. I hated the world for having to live in hibernation. I was too fearful to come out to like myself. I thought it must all some how be my fault. My mother was crazy because of me and my father angry because of me. I must have done something . I just did not know what. I hated me for it. I am not sure what made me think it. It just was true in my mind. It was my fault! Self hate! I stuffed my self down, down, down. My inner voice was gagged! My friend went away to a boarding school, I left home. I was alone. I met an older man and moved in with him. I was married at 15. He said jump and I said how high? I was what I thought was happy. I had a place to live and someone to take care of me. I stayed in school and did well. Then the bottom seemed to fall out. It all seemed to change. He became controlling. I was fragile. I could not give him what thought he wanted. I became anorexic. He judged my weight and I wanted to please him. I ate little if at all. I dropped out of school to work harder and earn more money to support us. I lost an immense amount of weight. I drank and smoked, my hibernating self now starved. I wanted so much to just kill it and feel nothing. Take my inner self out and cut it up and watch it die. To be free of the voice that kept telling me to live and grow and change. I did not want to. I wanted to be in hibernation and forget that people hurt each other. That they hurt ME! I wanted out man! Well that is not what happened. HE left me and we got a divorce. I survived! I got healthy. I still drank and smoked and well hell it was the eighty's so figure it out...I was a bad girl. You name it and I tried it. Any escape. Hibernation helpers! I then lived on my own for a while. Not good for me at all! I am no good on my own, or was not then at least. I met a good guy and we lived together for 3 years. I got pregnant! My inner voice called out " I am still here and we can do this." I had a baby boy and my inner self knew I would love this child and protect him from the world. I married and we moved out of town. My inner self began to grow with the love I felt for my son. I stopped being so angry and learned to give of my self. He needed me. I needed him. I was a model mother and wife. Clean house happy baby happy husband and I could do it all. Baby, husband, home, garden, work and friends. I reconnected with my parents...Only to find they had not changed. I slipped backward. Fear and confusion rained down. I tried to show my husband that I was normal too. That was a total lie. I was not, in fact far from it. He had never met any one like me, his family was nice and normal if there is such a thing. I wanted to show him I could be like that too. What a huge game I played..Big fat liar face.I knew I was playing with danger and I was going to pay for it. When my second baby came I was so happy. More babies more love. Me with a baby in my arms is a blissful me ! I saw my parents on brief occasion.s. I tried to have the most control over the situations. I really knew I had none. On one occasion my mother was in full swing. She was agitated and slapped my baby. I Got my kids and left. I called later and told my father I was done playing house and that they where never to see me or my family again. Then I threw up! My inner self yelled out " thank you!" Memories flooded my head and the stuffing began. I ate and ate and ate. I cried all night and slept when the kids took a nap. I fell away deeper in my hibernation state. Soon after my younger son was diagnosed with severe autism at the age of 2. I ate and ate and ate. I padded myself to the pain of failure. It was somehow my fault. I came home and fell apart. For one night I fell hard. Lost all control of what was left of me. The next day I did research and learned all I could about how to help my son. I began the work of saving him. My self redemption. I worked hard to give him a chance. It took up my time...No time to think of me or what I needed. That is how I liked it. I educated the school system and the community and worked with a local agency to invoke even more change. My marriage slipped . It was hard on my husband. He did not want to deal with agencies or the school and I had become the expert. It was all on me and I had asked for it. I knew I had taken over and yet I hated him for not participating. As time rolled on we drifted further apart. I took a job with a local mental health agency and became a workaholic. I did it all. Kids, school meetings, home meetings with care providers, cleaned, cooked, doctors, job, what friends I had left, garden, pets and what was left went to my husband. No me! Eat, eat, eat, work, work work! Run, run as fast as you can no time to grow just do what's at hand!

The powers that be said stop. I had a pulmonary embolism. Oh I stopped! My inner voice said. "Please I do not want to die I never got to live, I want to grow and be happy!" I said shut up and worked from the hospital room. With out a skip. I almost saw my own end and did not listen.I was in ICU for a week. I worked. I was running so fast I could not, would not; stop. Nothing could stop me.I had to run ya see I was running from the most scary thing ever...me!
I got out of the hospital and went back to my crazy life.FULL SPEED!
At least for 2 years. Then I got a call...my brother...my mother was going to die and wanted to see me. It had been 8 years since I last saw the parents. I shook. I thew up. I drove alone to the hospital in the middle of the night. Scared witless. I stopped at least 3 times to get sick on the side of the road. But, I made it. Long story short I was with my mother and family and it was a circus and she died at last. But, just before she died we were alone and I forgave her. I reached in side deep and truly forgave her. I set her free. She did ask me to do one small thing, take care of my father. I could not as hard as I tried refuse her. I still wanted her love and acceptance.

Now I was to care for my abuser!

I think at this point I have to stop. I am feeling so much as I write this and I need to believe it or not take time for myself to deal with my feelings. I will pick up again tomorrow. I want you to know that I am telling this story of my life not to give you a oh that poor woman feeling. Not at all I want you to know and to see that I am in no way a victim. I am a survivor. All of me my whole person. I am here and I am growing! I hope to show you that anyone can grow and change. We all can no matter what we came from.No matter how long it takes us to resolve our stuff.

We all can grow, if we chose to!

Live , Grow, Change....or something like that

Hibernation, My sleep lasted almost my whole life. I just did what I thought I should do and did not follow my inner voice. I worked my life away and came home and took care of the house and kids and husband.Nose to the grindstone and head up my ass. I gave up friends. Well, except those I worked with. I got caught up in being the best and saving the world. I wanted to have it all. Home, kids and save the world. No one was saving me! NO ONE. My best friend tried I know she did. But I am thick headed. It took cancer to stop me in my tracks. A huge kick in the ass. God said. " Here ya go stupid lady I will stop your crazy world and make this simple for you. You need to take care of your self." I listened! With fear in my heart, I listened! My world spun to a stop and the voice in my head said. "Now me please, I need you." I took a big breath and sat down. The inner me was so weak so small. It had been trapped in a 269 pound body and muffled by my need to save the world and be the best mom and do all the things others wanted. It was only left as a whisper. The day I went in for my first surgery I sat in the room where they prep you and put in the i.v. I was given a drug called versed. I love this stuff! You feel like you are floating. I enjoyed the moment until they came and begun to wheel me off to the operating room.My small inner voice said. "I do not want to die! I never got to live! I want to be happy with me, for me. The me you will not know if it's over!" I was out in a flash and when I woke up I knew that I had to live.Not just go on in life...LIVE! All of me! I wanted to like me and feel happy in and with myself. I wanted more. Not to save the world, but save me! I had been a stupid mindless drone and pushed my true self away my whole life to please others. Now mind you not that they asked me to, I felt I was supposed to.

I began to listen to my inner self. The voice got louder. Ok for those at this point who think I may be stratospheric or have a spit personality, back off, I am not crazy. My inner voice is my conscience and I hope we all have one. As I listened I got comfortable with me and what I needed. Yoga was a great help. It made my mind clear, so I could listen.
However although I was listening I was not acting on what I was being told. So, again the powers that be kicked my ass! Cancer number two! More surgery, more fear.My inner voice was quiet. I was fired from my job while I was in the hospital. The powers that be said."This was making you sick and you should not do it anymore so now it is over." I needed that I truthfully did not know how to leave that job. It was a sick emotional enmeshment for me. My inner self had a bruised ego."How can they do anything with out me. I worked so hard there."
Well, I was hurt, I got over it. OK. At least I am working on it. Rejection is hard for me ok. So I healed and my inner voice was quiet. Until one day when I was in my car. The quiet stopped. My inner voice screamed! "Listen to me please, please, I just can't take it any more." "heal me, love me!" "You are not happy still and you have to do what will change that or we will be sick again and you are giving your life up by not being happy."

I woke up to my real self. I had not been happy and I new it. I kept trying to make myself happy but I was afraid to do the harder stuff that I knew I needed. The powers took care of that too and I soon left my 22 year marriage.I think that it was the best thing for me. I think we knew it was time. It still hurt. I still care for him.We are better off as friends.
I respect him too much to go in to that and I hope you understand.

So I was now free to hear myself, for the first time! I heard me! I was almost a stranger to myself. No; I was a stranger to myself! I had never wanted to know me before, I did not like me and I kept me in a box covered in blubber deep in the pit of my belly. Any time my inner self mumbled I stuffed my face with food to shut it up, suffocate that silly voice. Now I was literally dealing with stuff I had buried since childhood ! Scared shitless ! You know it! I was also at this time living in a guesthouse 10 steps from my marital home. Looking for a place of my own. Yup when I do the life upheaval thing I really put my whole self in.The hokie pokie all or nothing soul search! Ya put your childhood memories in, ya put your self hatred out, ya mix it all up and turn your self about! Not a easy dance folks!It helps to have people who love and support you through it! I did have that and you know who you are..So do I, and thank you! I will always love you for it. Always!

Wow ya know, I can say I survived it! I danced the dance and I continue to stumble and keep going to the beat of my own drummer. Some times I am Grace Kelly other times I am the drunk guy in the corner of the bar that stagger dances by himself to the jukebox.A true work in progress. As long as I keep dancing I will grow! That is the biggest gift of our lives to be able to grow and learn from what we experience.Not to be a victim of it, but a educated survivor.To look back and say I was; I am, STRONG! I do not have to do that again because I got what I needed from it.HA!


I will be back to write tomorrow and I hope that ya like being here with me. I am sorry I should have warned you that I swear like a trucker sometimes. Sorry! It is the real me. Oh and My spelling is horrible. I am dyslexic. Sorry again. But if ya like what I am doing here you'll deal right. Tomorrow...I will be back and I will get into some more about being awake and also more of why I think I hibernated to start with.

Live, grow , Change...or something like that...

Here I am again looking at this blank screen... In my last blog I said that this time I would tell ya all where I am in my life now. So here I go! First let me say that the blank screen is seriously intimidating. I had what I wanted to say in my head, well somewhat anyway and when I sat down to write I freaked out just a little. This is big for me. I mean I have kept so much in for so long and only my close friends truly know me. But now no more fronts just truth to you and myself! That is big man. Truly big! How many people will not only tell the truth to themselves let alone people they do not know. Here I go headfirst, deep breath and jumping in.

I am 40. I live in a small town in the Adirondack Mountains where every one seems to know every one. My family situation is strange to most. I have 2 children who are both boys.My oldest is 18 and in collage. My youngest is 15 and has autism. Both are kind and loving.My youngest child is severely autistic. This has been a challenge trust me. He is a wonderful boy. I do have a gift in him he has taught me many lessons. I think people feel bad for me and for him because of his disability. Well, I say how many parents can say their child will never lie,cheat,steal, hate or hurt anyone's feelings. I can say that! He is not capable of those things.

I am separated from my husband and will be getting a divorce. For the record I left him. We are still friends. We talk on the phone and see each other frequently. No, we will not get back together.We are better as friends. We agree that our kids are great!

When I say my family situation is strange I mean the family I grew up in. Both of my parents are dead and have been for several years. I am one of 10 children. Yup 10! I am the baby. I never talk to my 5 brothers of 4 sisters. We have never been close. Our family was a yours, mine, and ours deal. My Mother was married before she married my Father and she had 3 children. My Father had 5 children from his first marriage and together had 2 more. Breeders! I know we all have our own memories in families. Mine are never good. I did not know most of my siblings and those I do know I do not know well. So I have made my own family out of my friends. I say you can chose your family.Hell I did and I am better for it. I will get into my childhood hell in another blog. Needless to say it did shape who I am for better or worse. I am strong because of it and I survived.That is important. But another blog another day.

I have just and by just I mean in the last 3 years started to like me.It took a big kick in my ass by the powers that be to wake me up from my strange hibernation. That is the word I think sums it up, hibernation. I will explain this state of being in my future blogs so that you will understand.

I am, at this point less of a women and more of a woman at the same time.. Boy now that warrants immediate explanation! So here you are.I had cancer. I had my uterus, cervix and both ovaries removed. Like that was not enough I just had a double mastectomy with reconstruction. By the way I love the new small boobs... They rock.I was a D cup and now;well an A cup... My back is great and no bra ever again! I am at this time cancer free!!!! I did not have breast cancer. It was shaky but all the tissue was fine. I had to cry for a few days until I got the pathology but, so what! In the end I was home free.
So they took what was considered all the womanly things away and I can say that is not what made me a woman. Strange right? I feel more sexy and secure in my gender then I ever did before. Maybe being older and wiser has something to do with it. Being 40 and at my supposed sexual peek.Isn't that what they say.Peeking aside here, I like the new me. Cancer was the eye opener in my life.The me I like now is a person who takes time to listen to the inner voice. Learn from what I experience. Grow from every interaction and self awareness and change my view about myself the world my own self depreciating inner voice and who I want to become.I am a survivor of life! Not a victim of anything! I work on my childhood shit like we all do or should.I find my truth in myself.I work on that almost on a weekly if not daily basis. I work on alot of things like eating more healthy and taking better care of my body.Ok...This is a big one for me I have food issues.I love food. I love to cook and eat.I was a few years ago 269 pounds and have the photos to prove it. Now I am still overweight and fight not to slip back into fatty land. It is hard! I am chubby! At least 30 pounds overweight. Work, work, work...I hate to exercise. I will walk and do yoga.I just need more discipline to get on it and do it as a routine. Hard for me. I am not sure why... Workin on it.I wish I where taller and that would help, I am only 5 foot tall. If I where say 5 foot 5, I would be the right weight.HEEE,HAA. I am not going to grow so I guess I need to get my chubby self in gear here.

At this time I do not have a job. Ya see I was a program director at a mental health agency and was fired while I was in the hospital after surgery! 10 years of my life at that place and done just like that.I am thankful! Yup thankful! I was a workaholic. No time for family or myself or my friends.

I just bought a house! I was renovation woman and still work on what needs to be done as I can afford it. I love my house. I have lived here for 1 year. I know every nook and cranny. I love it.

So that is the basic who I am right now I think. I will get in to my hibernation and awakingning in my next blog. I hope you are hanging in there it gets way better. Trust me.Just hang in there with me. Although I can't show you a video of my life I can keep giving you small snapshots of it that will eventually give you the clear picture of it. I am doing it for better or worse. At least it's honest.

Live, grow, change ...Or something like that!

Well, where to start.. I write all the time for myself and thought that this could be easy. I think right now I was wrong. I am looking at the screen and wishing I could somehow through osmosis let you all in to my head so that you could watch a video of my life. An edited version of course.I would take out the parts where I looked like a fool, or of course bathroom scenes and awkward sex scenes. The video would allow you to know me.The child I was and the woman I became and why. Since that video can not be accessed I hope to give you an understanding of me.Not the one I sugarcoat, but me, the real deal.I am a survivor of life. A student of mankind.Real and self conscious just like you. I learn from everything I experience. That is the goal! It is hard and I am sometimes stupid.

I hope that you are in for the ride with me and that I can in someway help you find yourself through my story.I hope that I can give you the insight that I have to help you to learn, grow and change in the direction that you wish. I am far from perfect here trust me folks...At least 30 pounds overweight and 40 and freaking out about it. I will as my goal try to do this everyday and I will start from where I am at in life.Ya know who I am now and what I am like. I hope ya hang in for the ride with me...That is if anyone reads this! If not then I guess it is for me and my own self awareness. I am a work in progress! A survivor! So I will start my story tomorrow!

Tonight I will think about that video and how to relay it to you....It will not be easy! Hold on to your hats!