Since I don't have my shrink anymore...

Since I don't have my shrink anymore, why not just spill my guts to a bunch of people who may THINK they know me, but likely don't.... What the heck... I'm already judged my quite a few, why not give them more reason to judge?

I don't have a lot of memories of my childhood. There's a reason for that. I'm not saying that growing-up my whole life was hell, because that's not entirely true.... but there were some things that happened that were bad enough that I mentally blocked them. I remember some pretty bad shit, so if that's what I DO remember, I'm not sure that I ever want to know what I DON'T remember.

I only have random memories of actually being a kid. Kind of like little mental photographs... but I only really "remember" the stories because I've been told them so often. I do remember bits and pieces of Nebraska... bits and pieces that I wish I could forget. I remember that my mom worked... a LOT. That was when Kelly was born. I was 6. I remember my step-dad leaving me, sitting in my toy room. He left me there for hours. I couldn't eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. When you are 6 years old, it's impossible to control your... functions... for that long. He would leave me there like that until just before my mom got home. THen he would get me up, beat the crap out of me for what I did, tell me to clean-up, and then threaten me. "I'll send you away if you tell..." As bad as things were, I didn't want thim to send me away. I loved my mom too much to leave her. It was a threat that my step-dad used for years... until I was old enough to realize that he couldn't do it anymore. This went on for two years. Like I said, if I remember this, I don't want to know what I forgot. I don't remember much more about Nebraska, except that it was horrible, and that Kelly was born.

I remember some pretty crappy things about when I was at my dad's house... I remember being humiliated. I love my siblings now, but we were horrible to each other then. I was the stupid one. The PG County school educated one... the half-wit among brilliance... or at least that was what I was told. I remember my dad humiliating me because I didn't know what an opus was. He made me feel like I was only around out of obligation. He had his new family, and I never quite felt like I fit in there. I remember being tormented about stuttering... here's the thing though... that was something that I only EVER did at my dad's house. I was terrified of being humiliated, and embarrassed, that I just ended up making things worse. When I turned 17... actually, on my 17th birthday, my dad "disowned" me, because I was moving in with my grandparents. He told me that I was no longer his daughter. He told me this while I was at work. He said that he would be civil to me at my sister's wedding, but that was it. Ironic considering that he had never really been civil to me before. What's funny is that when he did this, that's when my step-mom and I started to build a relationship. Now I cannot imagine my life without her. Just after that, we went to our first Creation together... Dad, Allie, and I. We made friends that are life-long. They helped my dad and I to both forgive each other. We finally started to have a REAL relationship after that. When I found out about my dad's cancer, I was devastated. When we found out it was terminal, it just about killed me. When he died, I wanted to die. I had had too few good years with him, and now he was gone. I still think about him every day. I see him in my daughter... she is so her grandfather... she's just as nasty as he was =) I wish that my kids, and all my nieces and nephews, and all the grandkids to come could have had a chance to know him...

I've tried letting go of a lot of things that have happened to me. I have (mostly) forgiven, if not forgotten. I love my family now, I've tried to bury the past, but I know that it's part of why I am as screwed-up as I am. I constantly doubt myself, question myself, I have absolutely no faith in myself, at all.

I have been raped once, and came close a second time. Very few people know about it, and they only know because they were there for the aftermath. Both instances happened because I was so naive, and so stupid. I trusted people, even though I had learned time and time again that I shouldn't. I have been in a very abusive relationship. Thank God for my "family" across the street... if it wasn't for those boys threatening to kill him if he ever came near me again... well... I shudder to think about it.

I blame myself for these instances. If I had been smarter... paying attention, not been so... me, maybe they wouldn't have happened. Here's the thing... no matter what anyone tells me, this is how I will likely always feel. That's just me... I always blame myself.

Shortly after that, David and I reconnect. It was trouble from the beginning. We never really dated. We jumped into trouble. There were other girls throughout our whole relationship... and other men. I won't say that I was innocent in that. I wasn't. I did stupid shit, as did he. Difference was, he did it because he was a cheater... I did it because (1) I was trying, unsuccessfully, to punish him... and (2) I was lonely a lot. We fought, a lot... cops were called frequently. I was doing a lot of drugs back then, drinking a lot, and taking fistfuls of tylenol PM just to sleep my way through the... well... everything. Some people knew what was going on, most did not. I got dangerously close to over the edge. My grandmother once found an empty bottle of tylenol PM, one that she had just bought a few days before. She called 911 on me and told them I tried to commit suicide. I was given the option of jail or therapy. I chose therapy. Yeah, didn't help much. They diagnosed me with bi-polar... which I already knew... they only gave me a prescription for enough meds for 1 month... just long enough for it to start working, before they were gone. Back into the mist... the fog... the whatever. I finally stopped the drugs... well, all but the tylenol PM. I honestly don't remember when I quit taking those. But, I drank enough to make-up for the lack of drugs. With David around, there was never a lack of alcohol. I fell in too deep... and then, I was pregnant. David had just told me 1 week before that he was sleeping with 5 women at one time... I was only 1 of a posse of females he had. I left him... fell deeper. THen... I found out about the pregnancy. I didn't know what to do. My step-mom begged me to keep it. My mom begged me to come to Florida. A few begged me to get rid of "it". I couldn't. Regardless of the situation, I knew I wanted the baby. David did a 180... sort of. I remember once being pregnant, and showing up at Champions. He had told me that the Don Pablo's Christmas party had been canceled. He had already proposed to me, and he was supposed to be at my house to take me to the airport the next morning, and he was nowhere to be found... So, I knew where he was. I showed up at Champions, and there he was... with one of his other girlfriends. Wow... why was I surprised? I shouldn't have been. I started a fight... and he ended up leaving me stranded in a parking lot... in the middle of night, in Laurel, which isn't a great place to be left alone... and pregnant. Again... wow... I didn't leave though, I didn't want to be a single mom raising a kid alone. Ironic now, considering my current circumstances. We married... we made it work for a while. We moved to Florida. I was so alone. I had no friends, didn't see my family a lot... David was never around. He had friends that he continuously left me, and the kids for. I started going to school... I was trying to raise a 2 yr old, a newborn, was working full-time and going to school, and he just wasn't around to help. And he would get angry because I was spending time on school, instead of him and the kids... yet he wasn't around... again, ironic. He had friends who would constantly get him into trouble... he stay out until 4, 5, 6 in the morning sometimes. And I was home, alone... always. Then... thank God... I started my playgroup... Jax Mommies. This group saved my damn life. I finally made friends... women like me. I met amazing women... including Mindy. I don't know what the hell I would've done without her. I won't get into the mushy details... but that woman, and her family, saved me. She helped me to start to become myself again. Helped me gain control of my kids, and finally, after a while, helped me to see that it was time to let go. Let go of what I had been holding on to for so long. During this time, I also found out about David and another woman. I still don't know what completely happened, or how far it went. I do know that I found messages between them, including him telling her he loved her. It broke my heart, but, deep-down, I think I was kind of relieved. We tried one last effort to make it work, but it was too late then. I left. Mindy was there, Amanda was there, even when certain people in my family turned their backs... they were there. Amanda let the kids and I move in with her... they helped us. Again, I thank God for them. Mindy pulled me back from the edge when some heart-breaking things happened to me. That's a story for another confession, but she kept me from going completely over. Then, came the finalization of the divorce, and the fact that David was finding his current girlfriend more important than his kids. He also stopped paying child support. I couldn't afford to live in FLorida anymore. I had no choice but to come home. Home to Maryland... a place of so many bad memories, and so many good ones. People who loved me still, even though I had been gone 4 years. I'm scared of this new step. Being a single mom... of 2. Being single for the first time in 8 years... not knowing where my life is going from here. Being alone during the holidays. I feel a hole... at first I thought that I might actually be missing David... but then I realized, that's not it. I miss the idea of him. Knowing that there was someone who would be my "date" to parties, get-togethers, etc... Someone who would (eventually) make it home. Someone to share the bed with... besides my wild-sleeping toddlers. I miss the idea of being a wife... of being 1 part of 2. I'm sure I'll get over it... but damn the holidays are a bad time to be alone. I don't know what I want right now. I don't know where I am going. I don't know who I am. But it's about damn time I find out. I'm scared, I'm losing control right now. I'm, once again, going over the edge, and I don't know this time what will pull me back. I'm hoping that now that I have a job... and will have money coming in... maybe this will change. I don't know. I'm irrationally angry all the time, lashing out at my kids... the ones who need me now more than ever... and I can't help it. I hate myself for it, which just makes me more angry. It's an ugly cycle, and I have to pull myself out of it. I don't know if I am strong enough for this, but I also know that I don't have a choice, I have to be. They need me to be. I guess after so may years of being told that I will not survive alone, that I am never going to find someone to love me, someone who cares about me, someone who will "put up with me"... I started to believe it. But, I guess only time will tell. And, if it really is true... well then I eventually have to be comfortable enough with myself to know that it's okay. You don't have to be 1 part of 2 to be happy in life.

So, there's my (partial) confession... I don't know how many people will be angry with me because of all of this... but I hope that they aren't, and that they realize that confession is good for the soul...