Epiphany: A Future that is Mine

CONTENT – Child Abuse. Strong emotion. Therapy Review. The art work is not finished but will eventually be in my Etsy shop.

If I believe I have a real future and a real hope, why do I keep wanting to go back and fix things? Why do I still feel like that little girl who needs her mother to love her?

No, it’s too late. I know she’s gone but I feel myself unable to give up. But not giving up the past means there’s less room for the wonderful future ahead, a future I firmly put faith in.

Today Dr D ask me if I could say anything to her what would I say? My words are in bold. I told her Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me! Keep away! You keep saying you’re going to give me a way, then do it!

That comment was interesting because the entire time I was talking to her I never said I love you or why don’t you love me? I never said hug me. I never said anything like that. It was it, Get away from me! Get away from me!

I didn’t want her to touch me ever again. I was angry about her watching me. I was angry about her letting others watch me. I was angry about all of the touch. I was angry about her destroying the mind of my sister. I was angry about her destroying the relationship I could have had with my sister. I just wanted her to go away. That was different from the feelings I thought I had. When I had the “spontaneous opportunity” to speak it was the voice of rage not a tiny, vulnerable child. That was incredible.

The artwork I’ve been doing lately shows exactly how I feel about my mother’s voyeurism. She was everywhere to the point that it was scary. Now that I think about it, if she stalked her boyfriend with us in the car of course she stalked my sister and me. And she wore that stupid black coat with the stupid hood looking like the grim reaper. She wasn’t holding anything, but dang! Standing in a pitch black hallway in a black trench coat watching people like a psychopath!

She told me she had people watching me and my sister and that nothing could be hidden from her. Dr D jumped in an said, “This is why you have DID.”

It was the most terrifying time of my life growing up with her and yet I thought I wanted that woman to love me. I wanted a little child me to go to her. To run to her. To be held by her.

Are you kidding me! No way! This is the woman who beat my lips with a wide tooth comb. Who beat my body with a towel rod. No. No. I have got to scrape this off of my heart so I can let myself have that future that’s so right in front of me. I’ve been crawling towards it. How do I scrape this off of me, the filth that she layered on me? The filth belongs to her. Whereas a future filled with hope is mine. I believe that with all my being.

Faith

Father. Art.

I keep sighing. My heart is heavy but I keep trying to lift it up.

The fatigue is insane.

I’m learning so much about how OCD affects my life and how it affected my mother and sister.

I don’t know why I keep thinking about my father. I remember his voice was kind and sweet. I don’t want to be angry with my mother for separating us. It’s foolish to entertain what-if scenarios but what if one of my parents loved me.

I say my mother didn’t love but I’ve got to retract that statement. The more I learn about her mental health the more I think she had love for me from time to time but was unable to most of the time. There were many things I can point to now and see a shadow of normalcy where love could have existed. Somewhere in that shadow she may have been capable of loving me. Sometimes there may have been a spark.

I bet my mother battled depression after the divorce. I remember feeling like a failure after my marriage ended. Is that why she cried so often? Did she cry because of the divorce and the loneliness?

It’s hard to say she may have loved me while knowing the extremes she went to in order to hurt us.

She lied and told me my father was dead when he wasn’t. Now I wonder if what contact she had with him in my younger years.

Like all my other family photos, my father’s photo is tucked away so I can’t see it. There are no family photos on my walls at all, just art.

Our family of three left a restaurant together. While in the car my mother told me and my sister to “freeze, it’s an emergency, don’t move.” She said look straight ahead and don’t move. After about a minute or so she gave the all clear then said, “That was your father in the car next to us.” It was cruel.

I’m tired. I’ve got to sleep very shortly then get up and eat. The fatigue is heavy.

Original Art

This piece has changed significantly. It now reflects dissociation and PTSD. It’s currently listed in my Etsy shop.

This is more Chatter Art. It’s art that I do to better manage the incessant talking in my head. I’ll put this in the shop too. It’ll be in the section for journal art.

The above is complete and ready for the shop. It too is chatter art. It feels great to finish art pieces. You can see more in my Etsy shop. 🙂

I have a restart button hanging on the wall so if things really start to go down hill I can hit the button, take 5 minutes for breathing exercises then get back to life. I got the button from Dollar Tree.

Until soon,

Faith

Relentless Grief – A History of Madness

Content – Physical sbuse with some details. Sexual abuse. No details.

I suddenly put 2 significant memories with the memory of the abuse of K. What does it all mean now?

'Turn Back - She Waits' digital

My mother used to giggle as she told us the story of our pet dog trying to bite her every time she’d whip my sister. My mother told us the story around the second grade. I know where I lived so I know what grade I was in.

My mother thought it was funny that, before I was born, she tried to whip my sister but the little dog kept trying to bite her. That particular day she was angry. She picked my sister up and threw her against the wall.

I wasn’t born yet. This puts my sister under the age of three. My mother told this story many times. She said she didn’t like to whip us if she was angry bc she knows what she’s capable of, throwing against a wall.

My mother used a dowel rod to beat my sister before throwing her against the wall. A dowel rod was used on little K as well.

A lot of dots were connected even though I wasn’t looking for them to.

I’ve spoken a few times about how my mother beat me after my older cousin touched me. No one stopped him. I just got in trouble when he was finished. She said I let him do it. I was three.

I was three when she held me down with one hand and beat me with a dowel rod in the other. She was pressing so hard on my body. My face was buried in the bed. It was pitch black but I could see a bright light. I couldn’t see past the light but I remember making every effort to not go near it.

Afterwards, my entire body hurt so badly I didn’t know what to do. I was stunned. Every inch of my body was on fire, some of my skin was hot and itchy. I hurt deep in my body, not just the skin. It hurt to touch me.

Something else was different. When she hit me I tried to run away (in my head) into the matress but I couldn’t. But I remember watching my mother from the corner of the room. I remember watching my yellow pajamas, seeing her one hand hold me down and the other beat the life out of me because I “let” my cousin touch me.

All three kids held down around age three and beaten like that. I know for a fact that I was 3 when beaten for being touched. K was beaten at 3 for touching himself. I don’t know what my sisters crime was before I was born, no more than three years old.

Masterbation made her furious. She watched in the dark hallway with her trench coat and hood on, to see if my sister or if I were masterbating. She wanted to know if we were touching each other. When I was in the 4th grade she insisted my sister and I took sexual photos together. The entire time living with her, including briefly living with her my senior year, she watched me shower and relentlessly asked if I was masterbating.

A weapon of my own.

In middle school I discovered my great grandfather’s name. He was legendary for the wrong reasons. I hear his own dogs hid when it was time for him to come home. He was wicked. We’ll, one day we were all talking about family and stuff so I asked a question and dropped his name. My mother’s blood drained. She was afraid, visibly shaken, something she didn’t recover from quickly. I knew I’d just stepped into important information.

The following is conjecture –

Over the years when I was told about my family line, his name was skipped. I’d say, what about X? I only did it to shock. But now I wonder what he did that was so bad that the dogs were afraid of him?

Did he touch my mother sexually? Did he hold my mother’s three year old body down and beat her with his leather belt until nothing in her world would ever be the same?

When I was young and my mother beat me that day, my aunt was at home but she didn’t help me. Who helped my sister or K? No one helped my mother, I’m sure of that.

Did my mother lay there stunned? Was she red, itchy, skin tight, hot, swollen? Could she process the pain? Could she see through the fog?

After my mother beat me that day I then turned around and slept next to her in her bed. The last time K was beaten with a dowel rod so viciously he slept next to my mother in her bed. I bet it’s true for my sister, too.

I said my mother is deserving of pity. I’d love to know what was deep in her heart when she laid next to three bodies, at different times, that she herself ravaged? I don’t think she felt responsible for the horror. I think she felt justified.

As a toddler we’d been touched or touched ourselves. But why was it met with violence, with barbarism? Why did my great grandfather’s name make her flustered and shake? His name was the only weapon I had. I was intrigued watching her continuance melt from cocky to a stuttering, fearful, child.

Yeah, his name, it felt like that was all I had to fight with.

Faith