Friday, October 31, 2008

Dear House Guest

Posted by Anonymous


Dear House Guest,

I’m not a person who thinks this about kids very often, at all. But. Your daughter is a brat. I won’t have her pouting and ruining the fun for everyone else while you are here for the next two weeks, so yes, I will be continuing to say things to her to let her know that her behavior is unacceptable. Sorry you don’t like it – but really? I can’t believe that among all our extended family, nobody says anything to her or to you about it. You’re in my house now – so I’m saying something. My kid has started copying her pouting, victim, whiney, everybody-is-to-blame, zero-responsibility, I’m-the-center-of-the-universe thing, and I’m just not going to have it. By the time you leave, she’ll at least know what she can’t get away with in this household. And hopefully I’ll set an example for you, her mother, of what she can’t get away with in the real world.

I also wanted to talk to you about that wishy-washy thing you do when I ask you what you’d like to do each day. This vacation is for you, not for me. Just answer the fucking question, ok? Don’t leave it up to me to guess what you would like to see and do in the big city. When I give you a list of 10 options, pick one, and we’ll go with it. If you do that crap again today, we’re going to stay home. I’ll sit right here and work, and you can watch TV, entertain my kids, do my laundry, make dinner for everyone and then clean up afterwards! That sounds like an awesome vacation to me. That would be my choice. So, seriously. Fucking pick something.

One last thing, as long as I’m writing a letter to you that you are never going to read. I fully understand that it is 8am right now, where you live, and that you went to bed really early last night. But it is 6am here. So shut the fuck up.

When I came out and asked you to please not clink your spoons like that and to keep your voices down, because it had just woken me up and I didn’t want it to wake up the kids – and you said, “There were no spoons! You imagined it! Go back to sleep!” That shit was not funny. At all. I tried to go to back to sleep, but I was too pissed off at your non-funny “joke.”

Then, when I came out to get a cup of coffee too, and you cracked another covert joke about how I looked like I needed some sleep? Not funny. When I said, “That’s really not funny, the “humor” is actually pissing me off, so I can’t sleep.” And you looked all horrified? That’s nothing compared to what I wanted to say to you. So suck it up and be happy that I didn’t tell you to fuck off.

In about half an hour, I’m probably going to feel like I should apologize to you, in order to keep the peace and let you have a pleasant vacation. And I’ll do that. Then I’ll decide what you want to do today, and I’ll pack us all a lunch and load up the van so we can go. I’m a nice person, see? I take responsibility for the feelings of those around me. I don’t think I’m the center of the universe. I don’t whine and act like a victim. I don’t pout and blame other people for the situations I find myself in. Oh wait. This sounds familiar. I’m beginning to see why your daughter gets away with all that.

Ten more days!


Love,

Me

Monday, October 27, 2008

My So-Called Life

Posted by Anonymous.

I hate my life.

I’m very aware of how teenaged that sounds, and I probably need a slap upside the head for thinking it and two for typing it. And that is exactly why this is the only time I’ve ever said it to anyone.

It looks good on paper. I’m 21, in a major university, and working a part time job that by all accounts, I should be in love with. I live with two considerate roommates, and I live in a good area of my city. I’ve got two parents who would do anything for me. Where’s the downside, right?

I. Hate. It.

I’m miserable being this far away from my parents, my family and my friends. I miss having that support system at my fingertips, and physically there. My parents are always a phone call away, but it’s not the same as a hug from my dad. In 21 years of life, I have never felt so alone. It’s ridiculous of me, because that family is not gone, but it’s not there physically and I don’t belong anymore.

There are days I can’t bring myself to drag myself out of bed, shower and get to class. I just can’t. I want to but I just can’t. There are three things that inevitably follow that: me crying, me feeling absolutely numb, or me eating more junk food than any person should. The repercussions of the first two aside, the third is resulting in weight gain. I’m not at the point of obese yet, but it’s getting to the point of chubby around the midsection, which (call me vain, if you’d like) isn’t helping with the self esteem levels.

I’m also not a typical university student. I don’t drink to excess (I have never been drunk in my life; believe it or not), I’ve never smoked or tried any drugs. That puts me on the outside of the university social life right from the get go. Everything revolves around alcohol, so it seems, and when that’s happening, I’m uncomfortable and desperately want to leave. I last all of 5 minutes in a bar before I’m searching out emergency exits to make my escape.

The last three years of my life have been, by far, my least favourite. I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t know how much longer I can stay above the surface. I’m not a crier, but I’ve burst into tears too many times without knowing what caused it. I’ve spent too many hours feeling terrible and not knowing why, and I’ve had far too many mornings where getting out of bed and keeping up the happy public face is impossible.

In my mind, I’ve got the perfect picture of where I want my life to go, and it’s the one thing that keeps me going. I want to be a teacher and it’s what's keeping me in university. I want to get married, have children and create my own family where I belong. But that dream is slipping further and further away, and I don’t think I can keep swimming.


Thursday, October 23, 2008

My Secret Past

Posted By Anonymous.

Alright, I have to confess. A few months ago I was searching something online and came across a link that lead to another link to lead to a blog. Then I was hooked. I clicked on blogs after blogs. How I wished I could do this. How I wished I could go online and air my secrets. Then just today I stumbled across this site. It took me no time at all to know I was going to post.

I know you are suppose to look around first and make sure what you are about to post will not offend anyone. (I think you are?) But my fingers are aching to type. To type this secret. To get it out there. So here it is.

I am a mommy. I am a mother of a 20 year old son, a 17 year old son and a daughter that is 14. I have been married happily at times for 18 years. And I also was a high paying escort for 9 of those years. Yes that is a pretty name for prositute or charging whore. ( I just had to pause to read that statement. Just to see it on this screen is sending mixed emotions already)

I stopped escorting 2 years ago. I thought everything would fall back to its place. But I was wrong. Very wrong. Don't get me wrong, when I was escorting I made sure my kids had EVERYTHING. All of my money went on them and my husband. And yes, before you all ask he knew. I guess I felt guilty for doing it so I couldn't even imagine spending it on me. We went on trips, had the best clothes, toys etc. But it was at a cost. The cost being, I lost myself. At first I loved LOVED the attention. To know that guys thought I was so hot that they would actually pay me high dollars just to spend time with me. When in reality, all they cared about was getting sucked, fucked or whatever.

When I turned a trick, I was under a different name, a different personality. I made her up the first time I went to a shady motel and met some guy. A nameless, faceless guy. I had the whole story of my life made up. If they asked, I had this life down pat. I knew what to say. Somehow my mouth would open and out would pour the lies. I was great at it. Never got mixed up on my stories once. But the problem is that I lived being her for some many years that my true self started to fade. And pretty soon I didn't even realize the voice that came out or the face that I saw as I past the mirror. I was the life of the party though. Everyone wanted to spend time with 'what's her face." But now that I turned my life around and started on a new track.... I am finding it so hard to find me again. And if truth be told, sometimes I miss the chick that turned those tricks. She was fun. She knew how to have fun, she was always happy, she knew what to say and how to say it. She was confident and made you feel at home. Now I am stuck with just me and not very happy with just me. I find now I don't know what to say to people and I don't feel so confident.

I could go on and on with this story. But I just wanted to get this out there. I know many will judge, many will have their mouths open, many will want to know more details. All is fine. I have lived with all of those for years. I am really not wanting anything. All I wanted to do was to get my fingers busy and type this secret.

Signed,
Hoping to find my true self soon.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Cheat

Posted by Anonymous.

I cheated on my husband 4 days ago.

Two weeks before our 10th anniversary.

We agreed before we got married that if one of us cheated, it would be the end of our relationship. As many times as I've said that I'm going to run away from home, I can't bring myself to do it. I realize that I could be in a lot worse situation - at least he doesn't drink, or beat me, or run around with other women. But I'm tired of being last on his list. Everyone and everything else in his life comes before me and the things that need to be done at home. If his one of his buddies calls or one of his parents call, he will drop everything he is doing and run right over to the house. But I can't get him to run the vacuum, help me keep the house clean, walk the dogs, fix the dryer - NOTHING. And if it isn't his family or friends taking precedence, it's that damn computer game that he plays during every free moment that he has. Even if he only has 15 minutes before he leaves for work, instead of spending that time with me, he's out there shooting with his online 'friends'. When I fall asleep in the chair in the evening while he plays with his online 'friends', he tells me that's why I don't get any attention. It's all my fault, all the time. If only I'd stay awake, then he would be happy to take me to bed - when he's done playing. He tells me that I don't understand how difficult I am to wake up. Jeebus, man, I'm freakin' tired after working all day and then coming home and having to take care of everything that needs to be done here. Once I'm asleep, I don't want to be bothered until the alarm goes off the next morning. Maybe if you'd pay some attention to me and engage me in some conversation instead of ignoring me, I wouldn't be so prone to falling asleep early all the time. Maybe if you weren't just one more thing that needs to be taken care of around here, I wouldn't feel the need to seek out someone who will pay attention to me.

Over the past 16 years, he has had and lost his fair share of jobs. After the last job loss and no good prospects in sight, we made the decision for him to go to college and take an accelerated program where he could earn a Bachelor's Degree in 3 years. We're now in year 7 of that 3 year plan and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. He's got a job, but I'm still paying all the bills, including his car payment. I have made so many personal and financial sacrifices in order to help him succeed and he doesn't appreciate any of it. I supported him financially the first couple years he was in school so that he could concentrate on getting good grades. We lost our place to live and I had to stay with his dad for a short time. All the while, he got to stay in nice hotels because there was no student housing available. Even though he knew how miserable I was being in that house with his father, he still wouldn't get a job to support himself so that I could put my money towards a new place to live. I ended up taking out a loan to cover my moving expenses just to escape from that hell. Then, when he did finally get a job, it was a 3rd shift position and that was his excuse for his grades falling. There won't be any children because it's too embarrassing [his exact words] for him to go to the fertility doctor and see if he is part of the problem. But it was okay for me to undergo every embarrassing and awful test and procedure out there to see if I was the one with the problem. And he's content to let me be the reason why we can't have kids. One more thing to add to the list of things that are all my fault. Some days I feel like such a failure as a woman because I can't bear him children, but I realize now that being unable to have kids is a blessing in disguise. It will be a lot easier to decide who gets the dogs than who gets the kids.

So, now I've hooked up with an old lover. I've only kicked it with him the one time and I don't know if it will happen again. The sex was weird, awkward, and boring. The whole encounter was surreal and totally lacked any semblance of passion. He laid on me, wiggled around for a minute or two, then jumped up off me, apologized for 'going early', said something about needing a hot shower, and left the room. I laid there on his bed for a moment and wondered what the hell just happened. Then I realized that he had 'gone early' on me [ew] and I really could use a hot shower myself. However, I had to make do with a quick toilet paper whorebath in the guest bathroom and hoped to make it home in time to get a real shower before my husband came home. This guy wouldn't look me in the eye afterwards, kept finding little things to keep him preoccupied so that he didn't have to deal with me, and the day ended with us both reminding each other to be careful on the road as we went our separate ways. It was all so very strange. Not at all what I imagined. I really don't know if I want there to be a next time. It's a lot of work to get out of the house and keep the story straight so that I can stay out late when my husband is used to me always being around and never going out. And I'm not sure it's worth all the work.
A really strange result of this encounter is that I have been insatiable all week. I have had to have my husband again and again and again. Of course he doesn't mind, but I wonder if it is all because deep down, I feel guilty or remorseful. I don't feel like I feel either one of those, but maybe deep deep down they're there. I know that he thinks sex makes everything better. Am I just subconsciously trying to keep him happy so that he doesn't suspect anything? I wonder if in some strange way, this encounter with the old lover showed me the true value of what I have at home and that I have to keep trying to make it work - no matter what.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Do I Need A Little Patience, Or...?

Posted by Anonymous.

My hubz has been off work since mid-May.

At first it was okay... even nice! But now the money is getting low, my patience is wearing thin... he NEEDS to go back to work! We've been married for eleventy-hundred years (okay... 28) and he has always managed to take care of his family, so I probably shouldn't worry... but I am FREAKING OUT! He has spent the last month sitting on the couch watching movie after movie. Once a week he files his unemployment stuff online and every once in awhile he might check his e-mail, but there has been no effort to find a job. I find myself losing respect for him. I'm noticing that I don't look at him with the same love & adoration as I have for the past eleventy-hundred years.

Am I being too picky? Is it just MY problem? I don't know! I have no one to talk to about it. Ugghh! Some times I feel like I just want to run away.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

What I Am, What I Never Was

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm a lesbian. Did you know I was? Can you tell? I have the perfect life to you, to everyone. But I'm not perfect or at least not to you or my husband or to my child. I'm a lesbian and no one knows but you. I love someone I can never have and am loved by someone who will never receive the full love he deserves. My whole life is a mess. It's all a lie and why? Because of you. Your judgment, your need to control, your love.

I want you to be proud of me. I want you to accept me. I resent you and yet worship you. I tell you you're the one that needs help but I need help.

Mom, I'm not what you want me to be. I never was.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Fat

Posted by Anonymous.

I love my mother. She understands me better than anyone in the world, because we are the same. She calls me her heart

About eight years ago, I had to tell my mother that I had an eating disorder. I pulled away from her. I didn’t want her to take the news so hard, so I tried to be distant and mean so that maybe she wouldn’t feel it.

I felt embarrassed and guilty. I tried to make it about me.

She approached me, crying. “It’s my fault.” I showed her anger, told her not to be ridiculous and to get her own problem. Stop meddling with mine.

I lied to her. It, of course, was my fault that I was not taking in enough calories. It was my fault that I was throwing up on the hour. It was my fault that I was costing my parents thousands of dollars in therapy bills. It was my fault.

But it was about her, too.

I can remember the first time my mother called herself fat in front of me. I was 4. She had just had my sister, and was depressed. She cried. I understood then that being fat was one of the worst things in the world. It was to be feared and hated. Skinny people were worthwhile. Fat people were not.

I grew up scared to mention anything about my mother’s appearance, even if I thought she looked pretty. I knew what the answer would be: “Oh, my rolls are showing. My butt looks big.” Though she always told me I was beautiful, talented, smart, loved and worthwhile, I knew differently. I, after all, was just like her.

And I felt those feelings festering inside myself. And I hated myself for being weak like her.

I don’t have an eating disorder anymore. I told myself I’d had enough, and I am very careful to eat well, exercise and enjoy everything I denied myself.

The eating comes easily, but the fear still lurks inside.

I cried this morning because I gained five pounds in a month. I just started a new birth control pill. I knew this could happen, and it should not bother me. These things always straighten themselves out.

I am healthy, strong and beautiful. I live with a man I love, and who loves me always. We have a nice home, jobs, family. And I cried over five measly pounds.

I’m scared to get married to the man I love, the man I have lived with for nearly three years, because I’m scared to have children. I want them desperately, but I don’t want to see the click in my daughter’s eyes the first time I slip up and she, too, equates fat with worthless.

I refuse to let this carry on into another generation of beautiful, talented, smart, loved and worthwhile women. But I don’t know how to go about changing. Yet.

The victories come slowly. The first time I looked at myself naked without judging. The first time I bought a swimsuit without sobbing. The first time I went months without weighing myself.

But there’s always the accompanying sweetness of knowing that, maybe, the next one will be the last first time.

Scared

Posted by Anonymous.

My husband is a loving, caring person, who spreads himself very very thin to try and provide for everyone who more or less depends on him: myself, his daughter, his sick father, his family, work.

A few weekends ago we started talking about this daughter, as she is going through a phase of crying for just about anything, and doing a lot of emotional blackmail to get attention. She is six and when she is with us she is the center of attention, as she is only with us 4 days a month. We try and make that time as enjoyable as possible, and we all get on great and have a good time together. However, the crying is there every day, for one thing or another, normally "small" things (like spilling her juice, or the sound of cars on the street making her afraid) that is, things that have always been there before but did not ensue tears till now).

During our talk, I realised for the first time that my husband is afraid of this ex-wife, for the simple reason that she has custody of their daughter, and that she has the power to hurt him (like she has done many times in the past). She constantly uses her priviledge to hurt my husband, as she knows his daughter means the world to him. She has done it before, even to the detriment of her own daughter's emotional health, so she can do it again. And he is becoming one of those divorced parents that I always criticised: saying Yes to everything and spoiling his daughter just so that the girl has nothing to say to her mum that could put his rights in jeopardy.

I have set limits to the girl as it's my life and my house as well, and she is a very good kid in general, she loves me dearly and as I said we get on very very well. But, as the father, my opinion is that he should be educating and preparing her for the world, and not spoiling her like he is, specially not due to fear that his ex will do something against him.

I just wish there was something I could do to help him in this situation but I don't see a way. It's a long way until his daughter is old enough to make her own decisions and to see through her mother's actions, and I'm not sure how he will manage this long-term.

And I also fear for how our (future) children might be affected by this. I don't agree with how he brings his child up and my children will be brought up differently, and I wonder if this will cause issues among the siblings.

I don't know anybody in my situation who I could talk to. I've read many books on the subject, but nothing has enlightened me so far.

I love him dearly and I want to help him if I can.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Broken

Posted by Anonymous.

My dear mother-in-law,

I don't know that you realized this weekend how much your cavalier comments regarding the abuse that I endured as a child have wounded me. Your flip responses and unwillingness to hear what I was saying have thrown me into a tailspin, causing me to recall many of the painful, humiliating, terrorizing events of my childhood. I feel that I need to clarify exactly what I mean when I say that I was abused, so that you can make your own decision whether or not to believe me.

This weekend you repeated to me, multiple times, that you assumed that my father was "only" verbally abusive. While "only" being verbally and emotionally abusive may seem like a trivial matter to you, the fact is that those are the wounds that never seem to heal. The bones that have been broken and the bruises that I've had are long since gone, but I deal with the after effects of the emotional abuse to this day. While you may have convinced yourself that I was "only" verbally abused, I can recall several occasions where I discussed with you about exactly what my childhood was like and described the abuse that I endured. The fact that you don't recall these conversations forces me to believe that you did not take my history seriously, and dismissed it. If you once again choose to disregard my truths, I'm afraid that for the best interest of my marriage and my child, I will have as little to do with you as possible. I simply cannot tolerate your type of negativity and close-mindedness – I have worked too hard to build a happy, productive life.

For your edification, I will give you a few examples, and a bit of history:

My very first memory is of my father lunging across our kitchen table to try and strangle my mother. She had made some sort of financial mistake, and written the wrong number in a ledger in pen. He pulled out a large clump of her hair – she never even fought back. I was sitting on the floor, playing with the dog. I couldn't have been more than two and a half when this happened. Shortly thereafter, his attention and anger shifted toward me. I bore the brunt of his abuse until I left home at 18.

In another of my earliest memories, Dad had made me cereal for lunch. He was taking care of me that day, because he was in college and preschool was expensive. I was eating the cereal out of a bowl that stuck onto the table by means of a big suction cup on the bottom. While trying to get the last of my Cheerio's out of the bowl, I accidentally upended it, spilling the milk all over the kitchen floor. Dad made me lick the milk up off the floor, telling me that I had to get every drop or he would beat me. He then made me spend the rest of the afternoon crawling on all fours like the "animal I was." He didn't like messes, you see.

When I was in elementary school and had gotten in trouble for something (I don't remember what) Dad forgot to hit me where my clothes would cover the bruises. I lipped off, and he hit me with a balled fist. I got a horrible black eye – I had a laceration on my eyelid and my eye itself almost swelled closed. My Mom, who was teaching in the same school as me at the time, told everyone that I had fallen down the steep stairs to our basement. They believed her. I learned a hard lesson that day. Adults were quite willing to believe a story told to make them feel better, at the expense of the well being of a child. Of course, I was too scared to tell anyone what really happened. Sadly, it seems to me that you, too, would rather invent for me a happier childhood than the one that fate dealt me.

The day that I was graduating from high school, I spent the afternoon home with my father and grandmother. Dad decided that I absolutely had to change the oil and filters on my car before he'd allow me to go to my graduation. I was graduating 8th in a class of four hundred and something kids, and receiving several awards for academic excellence. He said that he "didn't give a fuck what I'd done in school, that I would always be an arrogant little bitch, and he was going to teach me a lesson." He did. He knocked me around, pushing me to the ground in the garage and shoving my face underneath the car. I somehow managed to change the oil and the filters and still make it with minutes to spare to the graduation ceremony, though I remember still having grease on my hands. It was a hard day for him. It's always been difficult for him to see me succeed where he'd failed, and he dropped out of high school at 17. All I could think about was how the end of high school and my childhood meant that I could get away, far, far away, from him.

I thought that leaving home would be the answer to all of the problems that I had with my father. I had always baited him when he was angry and spoiling for a fight, because, quite frankly, I was the only person in the family who could endure his wrath. I always figured that if I diverted his rage towards me, my mother and sister would be safe. And it worked, until I left home. As soon as I left, he turned his abuse more towards them, and I was powerless to do anything about it from thousands of miles away.

I accepted plane tickets from him to come home from college over spring break; despite the fact that I knew it was a bad idea. By this point in my life, I realized that everything he'd ever given me came with strings attached. But I was desperate to see my mom and sister, to make sure that they were doing all right, so I came home. Within a few days of my (two week) vacation, he decided that I'd broken his computer. And when I couldn't fix it quickly enough, he threw me into a wall, then another, then a chair. When I reached out to hit him back (by this time I was in therapy and realized that I could not let him abuse me and retain what shreds of dignity I had left), he grabbed my wrist. I heard it snap. I got in my car and called a friend from the the out-of-state college that I was attending who was in town visiting high school friends at the local University. She told me to go to the doctor, and I did. I had 3 broken ribs and a hairline fracture in my wrist. While this was the first time that I'd had x-rays to show that my ribs were broken, I remembered having the exact same pain many times as a child. The x-rays showed that my ribs had many previously healed fractures. I can't say that I was surprised. I spent the rest of my break staying with a stranger (a friend of a friend) in the dorms, because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I swore then that I would never let him hurt me again.

The next year, I returned to my hometown to attend the state school there. I knew that, academically, it was a poor decision. I had a 3.95 GPA and a great scholarship at my out-of-state school – it wasn't as though I'd had any trouble succeeding there. But the suspense of worrying about my family day in and day out was wearing on me, and I made the decision after the spring break incident that I needed to be closer to my sister. At that time, she was only 10 years old. I wanted to be able to provide that safe haven for her if she ever needed it, the one that I'd never had. So I rented an apartment with another student, rather than moving into the dorms. If she needed a place to stay, I wouldn't be allowed to take her in with me in the dorms. An apartment had no such restrictions.

At school in my hometown that fall, I met your son. I was, when I met him, prickly at best. I was just learning how to live on my own, and dealing with many more issues than most other kids my age. Nevertheless, his kindness and generosity helped convince me that every man was not necessarily out to hurt me. Quite simply put, he restored my faith in the opposite sex, and taught me that the way I was brought up was the NOT way it had to be. I fell in love with his kindness first, because I was unaccustomed to a person who genuinely cared for someone else without expecting something in return. Without feeling the need to hurt them. Until I met your son, I had thought that pain and love were inseparable, at least in my life. I credit his upbringing with the majority of his kindness – you should be proud of him. He is a truly good person, in a world where such character is increasingly rare.

That brings me back to why I'm writing you this letter. Because, you see, I have worried for years that I would not be able to break the cycle of abuse. And now that we are expecting a child, it weighs increasingly on me. I know in my heart that I would not intentionally hurt my child, but I still fear it. That was what I was trying to express at breakfast the other day. But you chose to misinterpret what I said, to twist it. I don't know if it was your ignorance that prompted your comment about "having to set my child's bones" or some sort of hubris, but I want you to know that it was out of line. That it hurt me deeply, because to me, that comment and those that followed proved to me that you either never listened to my story, or have chosen not to hear it.

With a child on the way, I will again be in a position where I need to protect someone other than just myself. I will not allow anyone else to again twist my childhood to make it appear something it was not. I lived in a house where irrational anger and unexpected tirades ruled. I learned to cover bruises with makeup before I was 10. I have risen from that upbringing to become a generally positive, productive, successful adult. Your son has played the major role in my transformation. He, too, has sacrificed so that we could live near my sister and create a home for her, should she need it. He, too, has deflected my father's anger many a time.

I know that it is difficult for you to reconcile my relationship my family with how I feel about the abuse. Simply put, I abhor the sin but love the sinner. While I have managed to forgive everyone involved, I still would not trust my father not to hurt me or someone else again. That isn't ignoring the abuse, that's just being responsible. He has proven over and over again that he is incapable of controlling his anger, and it is only prudent for me to take the appropriate precautions to protect myself and those that I love.

By denying the conditions that made me who I am, you are ignoring what I consider to be one of my greatest achievements. I stood (close) by and bore witness to my father's abuse – to the extent that I was able, I did not allow him to pass that abuse on to my sister as he had to me. I have protected my mother whenever I could, despite the fact that she was, at best, complicit in most of the abuse. I have been there for them. My mother and sister have known that I would do everything in my power to protect them. My sister always knew that if she wanted me to, I would sue for custody of her. For the last eight years, she has had a safe place to go, with strong locks on the doors. She had a haven to run to when he was being irrational and she was afraid. And she needed that safe place, many times. She never had to sleep in a car when it was below freezing outside, as I did. I am proud of that. I think that your son is, too.

In the interest of maintaining a relationship with you, I can't allow you to insist that I am lying about my childhood. I can't allow you to twist my reality to fit the mold that you would like all families to fit. It is simply too important to me that I remember, so that I can bear witness against it should I ever face that demon again in my life. So that I can stand up for others who do not have the resources or fortitude to stand up for themselves. You can choose either to accept my less-than-perfect upbringing, or not. But if you continue to dispute me on it every time it comes up, I will have to have as little to do with you as possible, for my own self-preservation. I still fall apart when these memories are called, unbidden, from the deepest recesses of my mind. I have been a mess for days. I am hoping that clarifying what I have lived through will help you to be more compassionate, and less aggressively argumentative when I discuss such things around you. If you can't handle it, I understand that, too. But it means that you will play a seriously limited role in my life, and that of my child.

Sincerely,

Your daughter-in-law

Friday, October 03, 2008

Tears And Fears

Posted by Anonymous.

I have a confession. I cry. A LOT. And I'm angry.

My husband and I are trying to get pregnant. Like most people, I thought it might take 3 or 4 months max, and that was 9 months ago. In the mean time, everyone around me is getting pregnant. I've been to more baby showers in the past 9 months than I've been to in my 28 years of living. I get angry every time that someone else makes their announcement. I break down every time another baby is born. It makes me nauseous to hear that they got pregnant the first month that they tried. These people are close friends and family. I'm supposed to be happy for them. Part of me is happy for them, but the other part wants to steal their baby and run! (Only kidding. I haven't gone that far over the edge!)

My big sister tried for 3 months and got pregnant right as I started trying. 3 months....and she thought she was having serious problems. Went to a specialist and everything. She's having her baby tomorrow. I've had 16 breakdowns in anticipation...and that's just been this afternoon. Her c-section is scheduled for early tomorrow morning, and I'm expected to be at the hospital right after work. How am I supposed to do that when all that I really want to do is curl up in bed, cry for a few hours, screw my husband, and go to sleep?

Did I mention that I'm terrified, too? 3 more months and my doctor will officially stamp me "INFERTILE"!! What does that mean, anyway?