Story #37

Innocent. The word to describe most children, and in my case, I suppose I was not like "most children". I had my young little heart broken before I could even conceptualize the problems I was facing.

My father and mother divorced when I was three, because he was abusive to my mother. There were many cockroaches in South Carolina, and my mother despised them... so one night my father smashed a cockroach on her face and tried to make her chew it. It was alive. That was only ONE of the reasons they divorced. So anyway, we lived in South Carolina until they divorced, and then my mother took me and ran. We moved to Ohio. Unfortunately, we couldn't leave the painstaking and critical familial past I had known for three years.

My grandmother had to move in with us when I was a child. She has severe Histrionic and Dependent Personality Disorder. Stubborn as a mule, she insisted that my alcoholic uncle move in with us from the age of 3 1/2 to the tender age in my life of seven years old. When my mother was a child, she had emotionally abused her so bad about her appearance, that my mother had developed Anorexia from age 11 to age 27. It was sporadic, with several hospitalizations. Fortunately, at the age of 27, she became pregnant with her only child, me... and she began to recover from Anorexia.

My grandmother basically did the same thing to me. Grandmother let Johnny, my alcoholic uncle, take all of our money... even though we were going into debt. Johnny wasn't helping any. He was physically abusive to my whole family, and threatened one night when I was four to throw me down the stairs and let him commit suicide.

You must understand, alcoholism runs in our family. So does heart disease, cancer, and manic-depression. Johnny was also a manic-depressive, making matters worse. So he slouched around, threatening suicide, taking money... drinking alcohol, screaming and yelling.

"But I love him too!" My grandmother would say if my mother would ask for him to leave.

So verbal arguments began to occur frequently. After Johnny was kicked out of our house, my grandmother became solely dependent on ME. I was forced not to be a child, but to have a reverse role. To be a caretaker for my "sick" grandmother.

Thus, like I said earlier, my innocence had been taken away.

Grandmother would make me stuff my face. She did it to me when I was a baby. I had colic for God's sakes! She thought I was crying because I was hungry. I wasn't. She stuffed my face.

When I was older, she called me fat, pig, stupid, lazy... and I wasn't. She even got to the point of calling my ten year old FLAT CHEST (because I was even maturing until I was 13!) huge boobs! That was ridiculous.

And if I didn't do what she wanted, she would hit me. Severely.
Paddles, sticks, shoes... you name it. She would hit me repeatedly.

My mother was in the midst of having a nervous breakdown. The same thing that happened to her as a child from her own mother was happening to me. She became violent, aggressive... verbally and physically... even to the point of dragging me upstairs by my hair once and throwing me into my room. (When I was older, she would later try to strangle me after giving me a black eye because "I was the cause of all her problems)."

I had an added twist to all this.

When I was four and a half, I began kindergarten. I was an intelligent child... highly. When I was three, the people at my preschool wanted to test my IQ. Of course, I was three, so my mother disagreed.

Kindergarten went by ok, although most of the kids didn't like me because I was "intelligent", "talkative", "disruptive", and "emotional".

In first grade, I was victimized. A boy, in my grade, named Chris began to severely psychologically abuse me. Like I said, I wasn't fat, but I spent so much time obsessing on it, that most people would hurt me because I was vulnerable to that topic. So at first, he was just calling me fat. Then he called me ugly. Then he told me I had no friends. And that's nothing compared to what would happen to me because of him in eighth grade.

I was emotionally abused and sexually harassed by him from first grade until eighth grade. I didn't even tell anybody until seventh grade because I was afraid that I would be the one who got into trouble.

In second grade, I was hurt so bad by him... he literally made himself vomit because he said I was so ugly I made him sick.

I must be ugly, I suppose, even though people tell me I am beautiful. I listened to the jerk all those years.

But anyway, my grandmother deteriorated and totally depended on me and then she broke her hip and we threw her in a nursing home because we just couldn't deal with her.

I was eleven. I became severely depressed.

The one woman who had abused me so bad, was one of the only people that I felt I couldn't live without.

I was used to it!

And in seventh grade, the boy Chris egged my house. Here is a list of what he said to me that year:

"...Hey, I've seen your mother down at the corner to get money to get some food for you to stuff your face with..."

And there were more hurtful things than that, that I don't want to say at this moment.

I got petrified at the thought of going back to school after seventh grade was over. I finally told this to my mother. She told the school and they didn't do anything about it. She told his mother he egged our house and threatened to graffiti my driveway. She didn't believe us, but made him apologize. I rejected the apology.

In eighth grade, he made fun of me because I was "a tattletale, I ran to my mommy..."

He began to sexually harass my friend and I. I was having severe mood swings... feelings of rejection... loneliness...
You could have called me having manic symptoms... but instead of being euphoric, I was having extreme mood swings. I threatened to kill myself, and even attempted twice.

And I took a razor blade to school, and Chris was provoked by my presence... when he abused me I said that I swear to God if you touch me or my friend again I will kill you"

He told on me. Who's the tattletale now?

I was suspended, and then expelled from the eighth grade. But, luckily because I had a great record and a 4.0 grade point average in the past, they only kept me out a month and then let me come back under contract and probation.

I went on to the ninth grade luckily. But it was hard getting there.

I was finally hospitalized. I had been expelled, I was almost to the point of insanity... I was trying to kill myself, I would lock myself in my room, I was basically a Satanist, and then a vampire, and then my boyfriend of a year broke up with me because "something is not right... something is really really wrong..."

I was admitted to a psychiatric institution and diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder with Bulimia and Attention Deficit Disorder. But because I was such a rapid rapid-cycler, having around 6 mood swings daily on average... they dropped the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder.

I was released, and diagnosed as a Severe Borderline Personality with co-morbid Depression, Bulimia and ADHD.

I was put on the wrong medications, which made me gain weight, because they thought I was bipolar... and after a year I finally got off those.

Now it's been a few years later. The most tragic event in my life turned out to be the most eye-opening. I'm now on the right medications, have lost weight and am back to the small size my tall frame was in before, and I am actually attempting to take care of myself.

I didn't mention self-mutilation, which I finally did stop as well. I am trying to have better control, even though sometimes I think it would be better to pull out the razor. But what does the razor hurt? Me! And I don't want to be hurt anymore!

The bulimia is almost under control... I have the extreme case that nobody ever likes to talk about. I will recover from that eventually, because it is possible.