Story #53

I will start at the beginning.  When I was born, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, thus preventing my lungs to full develop.  I had to end my gestational period in an artificial womb that I couldn't come out of.  I don't know if I missed out on the bonding that should develop between babies and their parents, but I believe that I did.  I could not be held in my mother's arms for fourteen days, nurtured, only by bitter nurses who couldn't have children of their own. How many more psychiatrists are going to tell me that I might be thinking too much?

My dad was old school, but I don't know if we are talking about the same kind.  End stage alcoholic.  You know, the mean kind, they come home from the bar and your whole world turns nasty all of a sudden?  I mean in like 2 seconds?  My dad was a child abuser; they now have laws that protect children in circumstances like mine.
    
Dad would get so mean to all of us when he would drink.  I can't even tell how many times I watched my mother be tormented by him.  He never would hurt any of us in the face, he seemed to favor grabbing your neck and having “real” eye to eye contact.  My God, you could literally get drunk off of his breath!  My skin is crawling now, thinking about it.  He would always seem to leave bruises on our necks.

When I was about 8, my dad's heart got really bad and he turned from the physical-verbal abuse to just verbal.  I've decided at least the bruises would go away but how do you heal the scars that are buried, deep, within yourself?  I would scream at my dad to just hit me and get it over with.  He would torment us for hours, the foul language that came out of his mouth.  I was grown up before my time.  Now, I'm going through the stages of being a teenager because I never got to be one.

I was kind of overweight as a child and I was an early bloomer.  I started getting teased about being fat when I started puberty at eight.  It was the start of me becoming anorexic.  At first I just dieted and exercised and the weight was coming off but at a slow rate.  I started to eat less and exercise more.  It became an obsession for me.  Then the craving for food just started to get too much and I gave in to the temptation of bingeing and purging.  Sounds lovely, doesn't it? 

It was the start of me taking prescription medication and smoking marijuana.  I was monitored so closely; I couldn't even go to the bathroom by myself!  Take the medication so I couldn't throw up.  I honestly will say that I began smoking pot to alleviate the physical effects of being an anorexic.  After ten years, it is safe to say, that I am addicted.

I didn't have many friends or boyfriends.  I pretty much was a loner and I think I even scared people a little bit.  The only people I associated with were my family, and it was my nephew that introduced me to a friend of his and he was my first love and my first husband.

I got pregnant at 17 and gave birth to my son.  My husband and I were basically good to each other for the first couple of years and then the strain of being so young with a family was too much.  We started to do a lot of methamphetamines.  Our marriage then turned violent, as do most that mix drugs and marriage.  We use to get in rages that would end in one of us getting hurt.  At this point in time my husband had an affair on me. 

I discovered at that time I was three months pregnant with my daughter.  I was severely depressed and the pregnancy kept deteriorating.  I was losing weight, my blood pressure was through the roof, I was already developing protein in my urine and they told me the baby probably wouldn't make it through the pregnancy.  I was supposed to be bedridden for the last couple of months but impossible when you have another little one running loose too.

My husband's guilty conscience led to him blaming me of having the affair and there was no way possible for this baby to be his and more fighting and more pain.  My doctor put me in the hospital for the last weeks of my pregnancy.  My daughter had to be monitored carefully because of my blood pressure and I kept going into premature labor.  I finally gave birth to her during the blizzard of '96.  She was my unique little snowflake.  She is my mini-me.

I have always hurt myself.  I don't know a time that I didn't.  Even when I was a little girl, I did it.  I hated myself so much that I could only think of the next way to hurt myself.  I like to cut myself and eat a lot of pills.  Then it seemed like for a while I would pick men who were hazardous to my health.  It's like I attract the mentally unstable (forgive me for the pun) men who like to beat women.  My daughter has watched me get beat up several times and two years later still have nightmares about it.

It was after that time I started to get paranoid.  John was stalking me, the police weren't helping me, I was getting harassed by all of his friends, and my house was getting broke into.  I tried to commit suicide one night taking a bottle of Phenobarbital and drinking a bottle of fire and ice.  That was the first time I wound up in a special care unit.  I tried to explain to them about John and they gave me a sympathetic shoulder and a dismissal.

I went back home to the same house.  It was broke into again.  More paranoia and more delusions.  They were getting worse and the time lapses started getting more and more frequent.  I wouldn't come out of my house.  I barricaded and nailed all doors and windows tight.  Nobody was going to get in or so I thought.  I tried to overdose again on a bottle of Xanax and a bottle of peppermint schnapps.  I couldn't live with all of these delusions and wondering if they were real or not.

A friend found me this time and I woke up again in the same hospital.  I seen a different doctor this time.  I explained to him about my divorce and the depression and he started me on some antidepressants and anti-psychotics.  I stayed in the hospital for two weeks this time.  At my house, my brother and nephews were moving me back home.  When I got out of the hospital, I did not return to that house.

One day I had an episode and I don't remember how or when I did this but some kids from town found me out at a pond cutting my legs with broken glass.  They said I just kept stabbing at myself.  My family had me committed then. I started a new regime of medicine.  Effexor XR,  Seroquel, Lorazepam and Trazadone.   My mother dispensed my medication to me like a child in fear that if I had control of them I would just eat them all.

I started a day program with the hospital and it was OK but it wasn't something I was very responsive to.  I just find it hard to open up to people face to face so it made it very difficult for me.  I've been bottled up all of my life so I feel sorry for the one therapist I'll unleash upon. 

I went back in two more times that summer...  I can't explain why I went back those times, not for attention but I mutilated myself so bad that when I tried to hide the bleeding, I kept soaking through the layers of gauze and my Mom got all freaked out when she saw it, that she talked me into going back again.  My doctor would get so mad at me!  "You are difficult to treat, you have erratic behavior, etc." he would tell me. 

The hospital assigned an at home nurse to come and see me every other day. She would take my vitals and count my medicine.  She would make sure I made it to the day program, she conversed with the doctor and the therapist in the day program.  I started to feel better because my medication was at optimum, working levels.

The last six months have been a transformation for me.  I found a job that I really love.  It gave me a grounding point, and gave me goals for my life.  I began to feel normal.  A life, kids, a job, a house, a relationship.  I don't know if I can handle normal.  I began to feel so good I quit taking my medicine.  But I still don't know if that was a good thing or not because I have two men that are in my life.  I know that I have a dependent personality, but is it wrong to be with two men who suit your different needs?  I just have to have the chaos, one will say to me. 

One man gives me what I need emotionally and the other gives me what I need physically.  There are so different from each other.  I don't know why I find solace in leading a double life but for once in my life I finally feel like I have love.  I know that one day I will have to choose between the two of them and I dread that day but that will be the day when I know which one really, truly loves me and that will be the man that I will give myself to.

I know now that no matter how good you are feeling; do not quit taking your medicine just because you think you feel better.  My experience with going off the meds hasn't been good for me.  I went back to the mutilating and suicidal ideation after a couple of months. But as of last week I am on my regime once again and the racing thoughts and the self harm is at bay for now.