Story #49

On Halloween (trick or treat?) of 1978, I was born to a middle income family with one brother 21 months to my senior. It all went downhill from there. My mother never wanted me, and she would tell me that every day. Not necessarily in those words , but she would say that she "never wanted to have a girl", and that I was " no good and fat and lazy." I can remember these words in some of my earliest memories, at an age when any child is too innocent and naive to live up to the expectations of a tyrant. Since she started me young, though, she set me up for her years of anarchy. My parents weren't as physically abusive, although they did hit me at times. They didn't need to be, all they had to do was look at me wrong and it would kill me. Every day of my existence, though, they made sure that I knew that I was fat and ugly and that I would never be as good as them or as my brother, whom, it was made clear, was my mothers favorite. I was daddy's little girl, but he was afraid of my mother in a way. He would never stand up for me and, in fact, he would join in with the fat jokes and name calling that I endured from the rest of my family for every lousy day of my childhood. 

I was fat. I was depressed. The only thing that I had control over was what went into my body. I would wait until I got home from school. My brother would be outside and my parents would still be at work, and I would go through all the cupboards and eat as much food as I could possibly shove down. Then, the rest of the family would come home and make comments like, "why don't you chase your sister around the house to see if she can lose some weight", and "at least if we ran out of food, we know that YOU'D live." And, of course, I was hitting my teenage years. Anyone who has ever been in a public school system knows how cruel children can be. No one even noticed when I tried to kill myself. I couldn't believe that my parents didn't even notice half a bottle of their precious pills gone. During my adolescence, I probably tried to kill myself a total of 5 times and no one noticed, not once. My parents did not even notice their 11-year-old daughter intoxicated for days at a time with alcohol from their own liquor cabinet.

It probably didn't help that both of my parents were into drugs and alcohol. I used to have to take care of my mother when she came home drunk. She be crying and saying that she was going to die, and I wanted her to. I think that is where most of my anger comes from. I would be so mad at her the next day, not for getting drunk, but for saying that she was going to die and not following through. They could never understand why I "threw temper-tantrums," just as I could never understand why the people who were supposed to love me the most hated me so much. I was lucky that my grandmother came to visit every summer. No matter how bad it got in school, it was nothing as compared to staying home with my family, but my grandmother was different. She was the first person who ever made me feel loved and it only took four words "you're my favorite grandchild." I've never been anyone's favorite anything. We were pretty much inseparable all summer every summer. Without her I would probably not be alive. We would go fishing, pick flowers, pick berries, make jelly, bake, make stuff, things that I had never done or wanted to do with my mother. She left every winter though, and again, I was alone.
 
I have been alone all my life, I am lonely a lot, but I am always alone.

I moved out of my parents house when I was seventeen. I was still in high school and I actually graduated (after summer school.) It's not that I wasn't smart, I scored high on my SAT's, but my emotional problems interfered with homework and with my relationships with anyone in authority.

My parents forced me to move back home right before I turned 18, so right after I turned 18, I moved over 200 miles away. Did not tell them that I was leaving, never mind where I was going. I didn't know where I was going. All I had was my car and some clothes.

I ended up in New Hampshire, with hopes of trying to sort out this mess that is my life. I had a boyfriend who was married when I met him and old enough to be my father, but I stayed with him for almost two years because my mother told me that it wouldn't last a month. I was alright for that period of time, I have always been an emotional person, but there were no breakdowns until I ended it. He was an alcoholic and in the end I could not deal with it, so I left him and was single for eight months. I was in a band singing and drinking and doing a lot of drugs as well, but I was the happiest I had ever been.

That's when I met Cliff. He is the first and only man I have ever truly loved, which , for me, is torture. I am so emotionally volatile and moody that I have a hard time putting someone I love through this kind of hell. It seems like something goes wrong every single day now.

My health is deteriorating, my PAP tests have been coming back abnormal for the past year and a half now, but I have not been to see a doctor in over a year for it. I can't afford to and I guess I'm hoping I'll just die.

During my last "temper -tantrum" I actually burned to word die into my stomach. I always cut my stomach so that no one else can see. I am so embarrassed by the fact that I can't control my own actions. As I am writing this, I am experiencing my second miscarriage, which, after burning the word die in my stomach, is really freaking me out. This is my second miscarriage and not that I was ever trying to get pregnant, but to be pregnant and full of life one minute and have it die the next (especially after burning the word into my stomach)..........it's my own fault.

I've already killed two of my babies. Maybe not intentionally, but just because of who I am. No fetus is ever going to be able to survive my stressed body, I don't even know how I do it. I suppose it was a blessing for both of them not to be condemned to a life with me as their mother. Cliff was the father of both, though and to think that my body is not capable of producing anything out of love..........I don't want to think about it anymore. 

Last January, the other singer in my band, and my very good friend, died in a car accident. I stopped working for a couple of months. In May I had my miscarriage.

In June, I was fired for working too hard, kicked out of my house, and broke up with Cliff (busy month.) I got another job that lasted only a month because I hated my boss and wanted to stab him through the heart with a letter opener.

I started hanging out in bars a lot, conning men out of drinks and money. I got another part-time job that lasted a month. Then, again, went back to conning men out of money. I have been working for about a month right now, but am ready to quit for fear that I will seriously injure one of my coworkers. I am a hard worker, I just can't deal with people. But, since I am such a hard worker, I am very strong plus I workout on a punching bag to relieve some aggression. When I get mad, though, I get afraid that I might hurt someone seriously. And I generally seem more interested in fighting men than women.

One night as I was going to a bar by myself, I saw a couple arguing as I was getting out of my car. He hit her, so I spoke up and he threatened me. I walked back to my car, started it, put a pair of gloves on then went back and screamed "hey" as I was right behind him. As he spun around, I smashed him in the face, first with the right, then the left. I knocked him off balance, and as soon as he hit the ground, I started kicking him with my pointed high heel boots. His girlfriend ran into the bar so I kicked him in the face a couple of times, then took off. This is the first time I have shared this with anyone, I told myself to forget about it. I went back to one of my regular bars and got trashed.

I don't know how to deal with my life. I started going to therapy a few months ago, and they diagnosed me with BPD and major depression. They put me on medication, which seems to have reduced the feelings of self pity and sadness, but those were the only things that have been keeping my anger in check. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with it, but I just try to take each day as it comes. Maybe if I won the lottery, I could have everything I want and live by myself.......alone-not lonely.