Kelly Jo

Tags

death, grief, Kelly Jo, time

This is a confession.

An apology, 1 year, 8 months, and 25 days too late.

634 days that scream It’s never too late is a truly stupid phrase.

Yes, sometimes it is indeed too late.  And now is one of those times.

Dear Kelly Jo,

You left this as your last address, although you had moved from my daddy’s house 3 years ago.  You received a registered mail notice today.  As soon as I saw your name on the tiny little peach rectangle, I felt guilty because I still owe you money from 3 years ago.  I went to your Facebook to message you that I could finally pay you back!  Your Facebook was gone.

I texted you, then googled you…  And found out today that I’m too late.  You’re gone.  Neither of us knew when we met that “too late” is my life motto.  You couldn’t have possibly known.  I, on the other hand, should have understood that by the time our paths crossed.  I’m sorry I couldn’t see it then.

I’m listening to the words of your soul in your music as I write this to you.  I feel I owe you that.  Your Youtube playlist consists of only 6 songs and that brevity speaks volumes to me of your lack of fussiness.  Unlike me, you didn’t spend hours adding songs to playlists in desperation to define, express, and convey the screams of your soul to the world, begging to matter or pleading to be heard.

Your playlist,   Kelly’s playlist, had no followers until today, but I follow you now.

1.  1. ♫My head’s under water
   But I’m breathing fine
   You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind♫

~All of Me by John Legend

I’m listening now, Kelly.  Right now.

Today is too late.  I’m too late, but I’m following you now.  I’m listening.

2. ♫Staring at the bottom of your glass
Hoping one day you’ll make a dream last
But dreams come slow and they go so fast♫

~I Let Her Go by Passenger

I make no excuses.  We both have travelled a hard road and that’s no excuse.  Timing is such a perfect imperfection.  When I came back from Atlanta, we spoke so many times on the phone about you being a tenant in my daddy’s house while I was away.  You were suffering.  You were struggling.  You needed me.  I needed you.  We should have developed a deeper and more active friendship.  So much of our lives were paralleled and we understood each other’s pain from so many miles away talking and texting on the phone – you, struggling here in my dad’s house – me, lost in Atlanta out on the break patio at my work.

3. ♫I feel the love and I feel it burn
Down this river, every turn
Hope is our four-letter word
Make that money, watch it burn
Old, but I’m not that old
Young, but I’m not that bold
And I don’t think the world is sold
On just doing what we’re told
I feel something so wrong
Doing the right thing
I could lie, could lie, could lie
                               Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly♫                                                        ♫Lately, I’ve been, I’ve been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I’ve been, I’ve been praying hard
Said no more counting dollars
We’ll be counting stars♫

~Counting Stars by One Republic

When you were in crisis and turned to me, right before I was returned to my dad’s house, I was so happy to be able to be there for you, even just on the phone.  I was so happy I could listen, albeit helplessly.  I heard your pain, I felt your suffering, I understood your struggle.  I didn’t share much of my own journey or struggle because I felt you needed someone more to listen and be there rather than talk, but I was happy the timing was that I’d be returning and I could be your friend, real and up close, rather than a voice or texts typed over the phone.

I am sorry I wasn’t more, though.  Sometimes when you called, I couldn’t understand you very well because your words were slurred and occasionally hysterical… So, I didn’t answer the phone the times when my patience was being tried and stretched in my own life.  I never wanted to speak to you from my frustrations.  I sensed you’d been treated as small and burdensome in your past fighting through your pain and suffering and I never wanted you to hear my patience being stretched trying to understand your slurred and mixed up words over a cell phone.  I never ever wanted you to feel you were a burden or trouble to me, so when my patience was too thin (from my own struggles), I didn’t answer your calls, but never was it because I felt impatient, judgmental, or burdened by you reaching out to me.  Not even once.

4. ♫And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all♫

~Say Something by A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

I was excited that when you told me you were arrested in August of 2014 and really needed a friend the most, that I would be soon back here and sharing a home with you, where I could physically hold your hand and slurred, jumbled words and simplified texts would not interfere in my understanding.

5. ♫Curtain’s call
Is the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you’ve made♫

~Demons by Imagine Dragons

You moved the week before I returned though because you didn’t want to “screw me over not able to pay rent if you went to jail”.  So we never shared the same house.

But I still owed you money!  You were entitled to get your deposit back.  You never screwed me over like so many have with renting my dad’s house from miles away since he passed.

We still could have been friends.  You only moved a few miles away.  Due to the chaotic circumstances of tenants I’ve experienced, I didn’t have your deposit to refund you then, though.  And I felt like a piece of shit because you’d been so careful not to screw me over and I knew you were struggling financially every bit as much as I was.  You not only needed that deposit back, you deserved to have it back. I owed you that.   I distanced myself only because I was ashamed and guilty that I owed you money and I didn’t want to face that until I could pay you what I owed you…

I always intended to pay you back, though.  I thought of it every time I paid my bills…crossing my fingers that there’d be enough left over this month to call you, check on you, offer my friendship, and pay you what I owed you, what you were more than entitled to for being an honest, compassionate, considerate person.

6. ♫These labels that they give you
just ’cause they don’t understand
If you look past this moment
You’ll see you’ve got a friend
Waving a flag for who you are
And all you’re gonna do
Yeah, so here’s to you
And here’s to anyone who’s ever felt invisible

Yeah, and you’re not invisible
Hear me out,
There’s so much more to life than what you’re feeling now
And someday you’ll look back on all these days
And all this pain is gonna be invisible
It’ll be invisible♫

~Invisible by Hunter Hayes

Kelly, I’m sorry if you felt invisible.  I feel invisible and forgotten too and it’s the worst pain of all.

Being forgotten (or invisible) is worse than death.

I did not forget you though.  You were not invisible to me.  I’m too late to tell you that in person.  You’re gone now – at the young and unfair age of only 43. And I’m too late.

I’ll be forever too late to tell you now – or to pay you what I owed you; that ridiculous tiny senseless thing which kept me too ashamed to maintain active friendship with you when you needed me…and I needed you, too.

I don’t know where we go after we die.  I don’t know where you are, but I hope with everything inside me that you can hear me now, that you feel no pain and know that you’re not now and never were invisible.

I envy you.  I’m so ready and eager to join you.  Now…now that it’s too late to call or text or pay you back.    I hope wherever you are now that I’ll join you soon and some how pay you back then.  You deserve that.  I never forgot.  I promise you, I never forgot. 

Kelly Jo, I am sorry.  I love your heart.  

And thank you for saying you loved mine too.

Where the f*ck is it anyway?

Tags

Abuse by proxy, child abuse, Cruelty, Darlene Higgins, Domestic violence, gaslighting, heartless, Lies, Malignant Narcissism, manipulation, Mark DeDeaux, monsters, narcissists, parental alienation, Predatory, Sick Fucks, Thieves, triangulation

To whom it may concern:

I’m somehow to try to understand that the people who have destroyed my life, my mother, Darlene Higgins, and my children’s father, Mark DeDeaux, are hurt and angry at the destruction they allege I created in their lives.

Apparently, these people of whom I have zero (read zilch, nada) recollection of having done any damage or inflicted any pain upon were able to convince my children of what a horrible, awful, undeserving, worthless human being I am.

I haven’t seen either suffer or lose material property, or finances, loved ones, jobs, or their dignity at my hand.  I’ve not been at all aware of this “destruction” which has caused their hate for me.  Hate so big that they relentlessly poisoned my children against me, apparently because of the awful things I’d done to them?  These things I’m totally unaware of and can’t find a single memory of…

I’ve wanted to understand the hate, the burning desire to punish, the massive cruelty…  God, I’ve wanted to understand.

Being that I’m that person who once got angry at a virtual stranger and merely said ugly words to her… and still carried the memory, guilt, and remorse for those words 20 years later.  Being that girl who accidentally ran across this virtual stranger twenty years later and immediately apologized for this misdeed I enacted upon her so many years earlier.  I apologized to a woman who didn’t even recall what I had said, so futile and apparently non-damaging was this “heinous abuse” I heaped upon her of which the guilt I carried twenty years later still.  I guess the “cruelest” I ever intentionally was, was not only enough to cause all those years of remorse and regret inside me, but not even close to enough for this woman to even recall.  It is flabbergasting to try to wrap my head around the awful things I must have done to my mother and my ex to make them both hate me enough to destroy me.  How can I not recall what I did?

I recall being a child.  A desperate for love, desperate to please, pathetic for approval little girl.  I remember that.  I remember praying every night that God would show me how to earn and deserve my mother’s love. I remember not getting any answers and I remember trying everything my little mind could think of :  I just had to be perfect.  And after all, my mother was perfect in my eyes, so I could be perfect too, right?  I came from the goddess of perfection so if I tried hard enough and never quit trying to be pretty, funny, smart, polite, obedient, loving, sweet, and deserving, I could get her love. I remember that not working.  I remember lying to protect myself from punishment and getting in big trouble.  I remember telling the truth because my mother “hated liars” and still getting in big trouble.  I remember trying to be pretty and getting in trouble.  I remember trying to be intelligent and getting in trouble.  I remember not lying for her when she cheated on her husband and getting in trouble.  I remember painting my nails and getting in trouble.  I remember shaving my hairy  legs like every one else in my gym class did and getting in trouble.  I remember forgiving my friend for being mean to me and getting in trouble.  I remember sticking up for myself with others and getting in trouble.  I remember not sticking up for myself to others and getting in trouble.  I remember being noisy no matter how hard I was trying to be quiet and getting in trouble.  I remember trying harder to be even quieter and still getting in trouble.  I remember missing my daddy and getting in trouble.  I remember a babysitter giving me a piggy back ride and getting in trouble.  I remember writing my aunt a letter telling her how much I missed her and getting in trouble.

I also remember sneaking to use the phone to talk to friends and getting in trouble.  I remember sneaking boys over on Halloween to play Atari and getting in trouble.  I remember having vaginal discharge in my panties before my period and getting in trouble.   I remember trying to overdose on alcohol and getting in trouble.  I remember having people over when mother was out of town and getting in trouble.  I remember getting a C in geometry and getting in trouble.  I remember asking for help with my math homework and getting in trouble.

I remember using the wrong tone of voice and getting in trouble.  I remember having the wrong look on my face and getting in trouble.  I remember defending my sister and getting in trouble.  I remember not defending my sister and getting in trouble.

I remember letting my first boyfriend beat me and getting in trouble.  I remember smoking cigarettes and getting in trouble.  I remember not eating for 12 days while pregnant and being told to “go get on welfare”  I remember caring about the father of my child and getting in trouble.  I remember getting sick because I was pregnant again by the same man and getting in trouble. I remember wanting to have the same last name as my two children and getting in trouble.  I remember almost dying and getting in trouble.  I remember the psychiatrist who was supposed to tell me I was worthless defending me and telling mother she had serious parenting and mental illness issues and getting in trouble.

I’m not sure what I’ve forgotten.  I’m truly clueless as to which of these awful things I did as a child made me deserve hate and cruelty; made me deserve to have my whole world ripped from me; or made me deserve to take the only love I had in the world.  I’m not sure of the damage I did with these horrible acts.  I must have done some serious damage, though to spark the punishments I received and continue to receive.

I would like to apologize for my worthlessness, for my awful acts which caused unbearable pain and destruction to my mother, but I can’t figure out where/what/how I caused any damage to her. I would gladly take responsibility for being born, breathing, being a child, being immature, being lost, being desperate for love except that I did not cause any of that.  Please tell me what to apologize for?  Once upon a time I was just an innocent child begging and desperate for my mother’s love and acceptance.  I suppose I could apologize for stopping the begging?  Only, I never stopped begging or trying.  My mother decided at my second pregnancy that I no longer existed.  I begged for a few weeks after that and finally had to stop begging because I was trying to raise two children with a handicap all on my own.  I had to accept that nothing I ever did would make me worthy of her love or else I would have killed myself and left my two children with no mother at all.

In spite of the hatred you had toward me, I remember wanting my children to have the chance at you loving them. I remember Christmases and Thanksgivings alone so that you could be a grandma even though I didn’t have a mother.  I remember my dad suddenly and unexpectedly dying and thinking she would care about me maybe then. I remember trusting her out of desperation again (like when I was a helpless child) and her filling my children’s heads not only full of shit, but fabricated half-truth shit…not even shit that was mine to own and take responsibility for.   I remember meeting your first husband at the funeral (the one you told me all my life “beat you”) and feeling uncomfortable that after hating and punishing me for accepting and allowing myself to be abused by men all my life, that she would bring this man who “beat” her to my dad’s funeral.  If I punched him would she love me?  or would she hate me more?

I remember her hating everyone who made me feel loved.  I remember her hating anyone who made me feel hated.  I never understood what I needed to do/be/say/feel to be loved.  I still don’t.

But most of all, I don’t see where all these horrible things I supposedly did ruined her life? Or even hurt her?  Or how I knew what might hurt or upset her on any given day, as it changed so fast and often, I could not make sense of it.  I would like to apologize and own my mistakes because I acknowledge I’m fucked up and worthless, but I honest to fucking god don’t know how I caused damage, except for being born, being a child, being confused,  being desperate for love….  I wasn’t born with those things and I didn’t want them, how do I apologize for them?  And if I do, will I finally deserve your love?

To the father of my children:  What did I do to destroy your life?  Please dear God tell me because knowing you has ruined everything I ever dreamed of.  I lost my hopes, my dreams, my dignity, my health, my possibilities, my house, my lifetime memorabilia, and ultimately my children…. Because?  What was it I took from you?  What did I destroy and damage so much for your life?  I gave you two children.  I gave you 24/7 total access to them.  I gave you holidays with them.  I gave you carte blanche to their lives and their hearts. I gave you good stories to them about our past (which were lies).  I gave you my last hope of my childhood innocence.  I gave you my health.  You took my house and every happy memory I had from before or since I knew you.

What was it I took from you?  Where is the misery I caused?  What did I do to you?  Yes, I left you.  I left you after you destroyed (what I then thought was total destruction at least) and tried to save my children from growing up watching their mother be treated like a worthless, useless piece of shit.  Yes, I did do that.  And I still gave you 24/7 carte blanche access to their lives, their love, their time.

Please tell me what I took from you?  Please tell me how I’m an awful person? Please tell me where the damage I did is that destroyed your hopes and dreams, your health, your past, present, or future?  PLEASE????? Please tell me???????????

Because I’m not prideful or stubborn about being wrong or making mistakes like some I know.  I actually prefer to address and acknowledge my errors, and apologize, especially if they’ve hurt someone or damaged their life in any way.  I would love to apologize for all the things I did but I can’t bring myself to apologize for trying to live, for breathing, feeling, or wishing to be loved rather than abused.  I would love to say I deserve every bit of what I’ve gotten.  The strange thing is, these people can’t seem to tell me what cruel, awful, unforgivable things I’ve done to them.  Not a single thing.  Not now and not in my entire life.  Yet their hatred flows and flows…and no one seems to think that’s abnormal except for me.  Apparently, I’m the awful person because I can name what’s been done to me…to my children…to my health…to my life…  I can name every single thing.

To the father of my children:  you were lucky after all you had done to me that I even was willing to move to Vegas with our children and give you that chance.  From the first week, our children were crying about your treatment of me and them.  They hated it and I wasn’t going to subject them to everything I left you to protect them from.  You didn’t pay for our house in advance.  You didn’t lose any money.  We lost all of our lifetime belongings, the innocence my children had for what kind of man they’d been raised to believe their father was, our car, and our home when you stole it “for our own good” in spite of the fact that you hadn’t been paying for it.

So if my big “crime” against you was leaving you back in 1997, again in 1998, and a third time in 2009 in Vegas after “only 3 months”, that’s bullshit.  The third time my youngest came home from a day with you bawling and putting herself down was the final straw for me. That, after my oldest had cried her heart out the first weekend we’d arrived and was devastated we came all that way and you’d planned a weekend rendezvous with your latest flavor of the month for the day after we arrived from moving our lives literally across the country, leaving the only home and friends and family and foundation we’d ever know in our lives,  because “you wanted your children closer”.  Then told me “her heart was NOT broken” and that she could just “get the fuck over it” and she’d cried her heart out nearly every single day after that, hurt and miserable at how you treated us and at moving away from her friends and family at your whim just to be treated this badly by you , as well as watched you insult and belittle me, her mother,  for what I wore inside my own house to clean on a 102 degree day in the desert, even though you’d entered our home unexpected and uninvited…apparently just to hurl insults at me and our daughters for the type of clothes I was wearing to clean in.

I will never apologize for your choices.  You had choices to hurt us or not to.  You had choices to treat us with the respect we deserved for uprooting our entire lives for you or not to.   You, on the other hand, gave us only two choices: the choice to stay and put up with being disregarded, devalued, and mistreated or leave and protect ourselves from more.

That was on you and I will not apologize for it or own responsibility for how much it “hurt you” that we left.  You gave us no choice.  None.  You cared only about your latest girlfriend and having all of us in your control at your beckon call or whim to play daddy…or not to play daddy.  I didn’t do that “to you”.  You did that to us.  All three of us.  Savannah and I definitely got the worst of it, but it hurt Lexi too, watching you do that to us

Although you like to play neurologist and tell people why I had a stroke when you’ve no clue why I had the stroke because even my actual neurologist couldn’t discover why I had the stroke, you know nothing.  And you surely didn’t step up to the plate afterward when I was severely handicapped and rehabilitating so I could give birth to a healthy child and be well enough raise our children while you climbed the ladder to your success.  You didn’t step up to the p[late to lend a hand with our children.  You were too busy chasing money and women.   Darlene didn’t step up to the plate.  Only my dad stepped up to the plate to help us.

And for the record, the cause technically given for my stroke was stress.  I’m sure in no small measure stress which stemmed from years of abuse at the hands of the very people who run around crying what an awful person I am.  Stress from the fear of having to tell Darlene who hated your guts that I was having a second child with you.  Stress at once again not having a mother to hold my hand through my pregnancy.  Stress at being dependent on you as the co-parent to my two children.  Stress at the disappointment of not giving my children or myself the one thing I most wanted for them: a mother and father raising them together in their home…a happy, loving home with both their parents for my children.  Again, due to your choices of sex addiction, cheating, and abuse.  Darlene’s hatred of you and shunning me from her life because of my relationship with you in addition to your abuse, lies, and cheating in our relationship was the stress I had that caused me to have a stroke and become disabled for the rest of my life.  I do not owe you an apology for that.  I did not do that “to you”.  Once again rather, you assisted in doing that to me.  Leaving me with two options only:  to stay with you and let my children grow up watching their mother treated horribly or to leave and protect myself and my children from growing up in that environment.   As usual, you were the one with the ample choices.  I will not take responsibility for how that “hurt you”.

Stress from a literal lifetime of abuse at your hand and the hand of my mother are what caused my stroke.  I do not owe you or anyone an apology for that.

I have to wonder how your life is exactly what you wanted.  Darlene’s life is exactly what she wanted.  Yet, I’m the bad guy who’s worthless and awful, with some string of alleged “crimes” done against you people…the very people who have taken everything I ever worked to have.  My family, my health, love, jobs, future, hopes, and dreams.

Please do help me to understand how I’ve done any damage whatsoever to your lives?  Where is the abuse I heaped upon you?  Where is the place where I screwed you over to get better for myself?  Where is the fucking place that you needed or wanted me for anything and I did not show up?  Where in the fuck is it?  Where in the fuck are these damages done for my plethora of heinous crimes against either of you that you claim as you ripped my heart from my body, my children’s love from my life, and my life belongings, my home, my happiness, my hope, and my only joy left out of the desolate destruction of life I had left in the wake of you both?

Where the fuck is it?

A Big WOWSA Thank You…

Tags

being real, grieving, healing, spilling it straight, thank you, venting, writing

Gosh, I just read over a few of my posts and I’m shocked anyone reads my depressing crap…much less chooses to follow me on here! I’m depressing, pretty pathetic, whiny, and overwhelming on so many levels. That’s what real looks like to me . And after a lifetime of being forced to fake it, it feels good just to have a place to let all that yukky out! It also (in some strange way) feels validating that anyone would choose to follow me in spite of the ugly truths I post about. I don’t know why it makes a difference really, but some how, it just feels like someone either really gets it or else maybe has a bit of compassion and caring for someone as lost as I.  That means so much. More than I could ever explain…

So, I just want to take a minute and thank every single person who has so far read my 40+ years of hidden, suppressed feelings spilled out on this blog… Every one who has taken the time to read, to comment, and to follow me here.

Thank you all so much for bearing with me through this cleansing and venting I so desperately need. God bless every single one of you.

RIP… and Fuck You!

Tags

adapting, childhood, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, jealousy, life, nostalgia, sadness, trust, unacceptable

Death comes in so many forms and wears many different disguises.  I just lost another dear friend.  That’s five in only two years.  I really can’t wrap my head around this, much less my broken, tender heart.  It seems I can’t catch my breath from one til the next. I know people die and that’s a part of life.  I know, I know, I know….  I guess I just never imagined that it would start at this age.  I really always figured maybe around 60 or so, I would have to start dealing with multiple and/or possible frequent deaths. Wrong.

At the same time as this, I was fortunate that my first love who first introduced me 27 years ago to this man who passed happened to be in town when Andy passed.  Or, so I thought it was fortunate at first, when I found out Wednesday morning…

I can’t figure out if it’s just me or if I happen to be surrounded somehow by non-sentimental people.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging them for that.  If anything, I am deeply jealous of their disconnection from emotion or maybe it’s just that they have a “healthy” disconnection/connection to their emotions while mine is not?

Death makes me cling almost fervently to the people I love: those I once loved, those I currently love, those I love as friends, loved as lovers, even those I love as good acquaintances for who they are in this world.  It has hit me like a vehement sucker punch to the heart that beyond the distance life creates naturally as people grow up, mature, and develop lives totally separate from the people who were once a daily piece of your life – which feels like a death when you reconnect with them and you experience that awkwardness that distance, time, and change has inevitably created…that canyon between you that formed while you were just going about life.  I mean, the friendship is still there… sort of…  Or, is it not really friendship?  Maybe it’s just that space you once shared together of memories and good will?  More like a mutual honoring of the past that’s gone and dead and stands in the exact spot where the actual friendship, as a living, breathing, growing thing of its own once stood?

Several phrases have grabbed me through these past two years and feel particularly poignant to me with this loss I experienced while also reconnecting with my first best friend ever who also happened to be my first lover as well:  “Not friends – just strangers with memories.”

 

And the other I can’t recall or find because although I posted to Facebook to remember and use for later (which is now), Facebook’s new idiotic “selective” post recollection is freakin preventing me from finding it unless I want to spend all day hunting for it through the “hidden” areas of my timeline. FUCK YOU FACEBOOK!  YOU STUPID IDIOTS…WTF?! Good Lord, that is frustrating as hell!

Anyway…  I feel like a freak because losing my daddy really made me realize that I don’t have forever with the people I love.  It made me want to cherish them more and commit to making more efforts to keep in touch and keep communication ongoing and regular.  Strangely, it apparently did the opposite to every other person in my life and in my daddy’s life.  The other people closest to him withdrew from me(my children) or shit on me (my children and the rest of my blood relatives).

And now, again, I feel like I want to hold close to these friends from my past whom I’m reconnecting with on George’s visit here.  I feel sentimental and enthusiastic to institute a new, solid bond like we once had.  I realize that we all have separate lives now as adults so it can’t be the same…but you know, just establish that the connection, history, emotion, and experience is significant and matters enough to not want to resume the disconnection with this person, but to establish that it’s too important to let it slip back into the borders of oblivion (infrequent and rather formal texts now and then saying “how are things” or the yearly “happy birthday” contact).

So, in my little ways, I have tried to do this and met with an apathy which really hurts.  Hurts like a death.  Like it says to me, our bond as a primary, living, and cherished thing is dead.  I’m content with our surface contacts and will wait til you die to think of making an effort to cherish what we share(d) between us.

Is there something wrong with me?  Am I the only person who feels the pang of regret at allowing distance from those whom were once so important to maintain and grow bigger?  The only one who feels the overwhelming bigger picture of loss and thus, the deep desire to at least make an effort to express the importance, the love that lingers, and hope to reestablish something less fleeting with this once so-important relationship?

I recognize that I’m typically more sentimental than the average person.  I know that’s a fact…but I’m just surprised at a deep level that I seem to be the only one I know whom feels this when a death occurs.  That, to me, feels like apathy for the relationship – past, present and future.    And then, I can’t help but think to myself if the relationship and the connection is NOT worth that….then was it ever really of the importance it once seemed to hold at all?  I mean, I’ve come to realize that if you are willing to dismiss a person you once loved so completely, then it’s most likely you never really loved them at all.  Of course, I’m not talking about the toxic people you must remove yourself and emotions from for self-preservation, sanity, and mental health; I mean, the ones you loved so dearly and you parted or separated just due to life and circumstance.  I’m talking about those people who once said things to you like, I would die for you…you’re the best friend I ever had…or, you showed me what love/friendship/happiness really is.

Does this not remain for most people?  Do pieces of that – important pieces- not remain in the hearts of most people?  Am I truly just a sentimental, freak of nostalgia?

As the numbers of those whom I love, past and present, continue to stack up in this, I’m really reflecting on has anything ever mattered?  Does it just die in all ways for most people?  Like, yeah, I’ll feel sad when they pass away, but not sad enough to hold onto the bonds we share or give them a little more time and attention than I have been prior to losing this most recent friend or loved one…?

Does anyone in this world really mean it when they say they love you?  Do those words carry any depth beyond just that moment in time anymore?  For anyone but me?

RIP Andy.  I regret letting our lives distance as it did.  I’m sad you are gone and I hadn’t made an effort to stay better in contact with you over the past few years.  You were a bright spot of encouragement and genuine friendship in my world so many times.  A friendship I cherished enough that I wish I could go back a week ago and make an effort to reconnect and catch up with you and your world…and be sure to let you know exactly what you meant to me. And that you meant enough to me to not let life keep growing the divide without making an effort to bridge it. You were my friend. Thank you.

I hope you can read this from wherever one goes after death…and I hope that place is the Heaven I believe in.

And, I guess…to all those whom are still alive that I cherish and hate to think of you passing away…those who seem apathetic toward this concept.  If this isn’t important now, then I don’t know why we’d bother to reconnect here and there anyway.  What’s that even for?  And maybe, just fuck you.  if I don’t matter much at all now, not even in the wake of losing a childhood friend , then I couldn’t have mattered much back when you told me so often I did.  That makes me sad and it hurts, so yeah, fuck you.

The scariest of all to me in this sad realization, is that if none (and I mean none) of the past relationship ever had any real importance, then how do I not filter every new and blossoming relationship or friendship through that knowledge? I mean, if I already know nothing lasts forever for other people …not even love or friendship…then what is any of it worth as people say the words “I love you” or “you matter to me” important even as they speak and claim they feel them?

Exposing your children

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black sheep, child abuse, childhood, children, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, Mother, nightmares, parent issues, rain, sadness, sociopath, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

I’ve reflected a lot on the “exposing your children to your narcissist abuser” issue. As stupid as it sounds (and it IS sheer ignorance), I was shocked to find that meme!   To know that someone else in this world made even that critical, senseless, ridiculous error after living a lifetime of abuse, just astounds me. In the same way that I’m still frequently overwhelmed with disbelief (literal “OMFG” moments) when I read someone’s words that explain situations, feelings, events, etc. that I truly not only believed were unique to MY life, but also never discussed because describing and explaining the sometimes subtle nuances of narcissistic abuse feels impossible.

…Then you read words that actually sound like they’re coming from your own life…your own thoughts…things you’ve never discussed…and thus, couldn’t possibly be copied! It’s a real contradiction. I always feel shock first at identifying so well with someone’s words, then I feel guilt that those words from that persons torturous hell actually make me feel validated on so many levels. Then, I feel horrified that ANY other person experienced ANY thing like my life and I’m overcome with gigantic waves of compassion for that person and my heart hurts for them and my head rages with their injustices.

It’s a strange process.

As far as the exposure issue, I don’t feel, for myself, that’s forgivable. I sadly have realized it’s one thing I may never totally absolve myself from. And worse yet, it makes me furiously angry at God! Madder at God than maybe anything else I’ve been mad at God for.

My narcissist mother made this choice easy for me. I can actually thank her for that. Yes, I was still living mostly in denial (desperately trying to blame myself for all the senseless pain she inflicted in my lifetime and the life handicaps that result from that). I was still praying for the miracle that it WAS my fault, I could fix me, and she would someday maybe love me.

She made that easy. Her cruelty during my first pregnancy was blatant. Or perhaps, it was the same as it always had been and I simply was becoming more aware with wisdom, experience, therapy, and age? In spite of that blatant cruelty, I still desperately begged…and begged…pleaded and jumped hoops, essentially shoving my head so far up her ass in the desperate need for a mother’s love while experiencing all the fears a soon-to-be mother experiences. In short, I had never wanted or need a mother more than I did while pregnant. The sheer terror of being a mom, knowing how to be a mom, and ironically the fear of ensuring I didn’t repeat my mother’s example…all made me pathetically desperate for her love and acceptance.

And as any true narcissist will do, the more they sense that power of your desperation, the more cruel they become. And she did become more cruel; more openly, hatefully shamelessly cruel. Which of course, pushed me in said desperation to REALLY step up my efforts to be loved by her. Which is a snowball effect of endless insanity right there. The harder I begged, the crueler she became…the harder I begged…the crueler she became…and on and on and on…

I stupidly never intended to keep her from my child. Even when my sister gave me a blatant, chilling warning of what would happen someday if I didn’t. I STILL kept praying maybe we would FINALLY bond in motherhood. FINALLY!  I might have a mother at last…and my daughter might still have a grandmother!  YAY!  There was hope!

No. she used it all to hurt me more even while I was finally the adult who could be and should have been safe at last from her terror…independent and ready to become a mother myself. At the time when she finally no longer held ANY power over me (other than that desperate for a mother’s love thing), I willingly HANDED that monster all the power to continue hurting me.

I called her when my narcissistic sex addict fiancé (identical to my mother) was cruel or abusive. She would antagonize and aggravate those feelings. I called her when I was reflecting on my fears of being a mother. She would pick, pick, pick at those fears…deepening them into absolute gaping terrors. I called her when I was scared of my baby’s safety in my womb, she would encourage that fear and add a few more for good measure. I called her over trivial little struggles pregnant women have, like, Mom…I stood in the shower today and cried because I couldn’t reach to shave my legs….knowing Mark (Narcissist fiancé) would tell me how disgusting I was because I was fat(i.e. 8 months pregnant) and couldn’t shave my legs. My mother said, “Most husbands would be happy to help with that. It’s too bad no one loves you enough to help you with that.”

I called her when my cheating violent fiancé went into 30 day sex rehab treatment and I had no food. After almost four straight days without food, I started having nightmares about my starving fetus. I would literally picture those kids on the Ethiopia commercials inside my womb, crying and begging for food.   So I finally felt scared and guilty enough to swallow my pride and call my mother to ask if she’d send me $40 for food for the remaining 3 weeks my fiancé would be away dealing with the fact that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants or stop beating me up after he put it inside yet another chick. My mother said, “Oh, you don’t have any food? That’s too bad. That’s what welfare is for. Go apply for welfare.” I said, “I only need a little bit of food, Mom. Mark will get food when he gets released. I feel bad applying for welfare.” She said, “People like you are why welfare was created. I don’t know what to tell you except to apply for welfare”. I got really quiet because I didn’t know what to say to this and so she changed the subject. She started telling me how she and her wealthy husband had bought too many Omaha steaks that year and they had had to give a TON away to his employees. Following that up with, “I thought about sending you some, but you don’t eat very much red meat, remember?” Which threw me into confusion because I had been a part time vegetarian TEN YEARS earlier for about 6 months.

I then had to spend the next year hearing my step-father talk about what a real piece of shit my fiancé was because a “decent human being wouldn’t let a dog go hungry, much less a pregnant woman”…and always wondering how he could say that with a straight face, never realizing that mother certainly hadn’t told him I called her asking for money for food when I was pregnant and hadn’t eaten in nearly a week! After all, he would have wanted to help me! We couldn’t tell him that kind of thing…we were “blaming that on Mark”. So, I blamed that entirely on Mark too….all but forgetting that excruciatingly painful and humiliating “go get on welfare…I can’t believe we bought too many Omaha steaks” conversation I’d had with her. After all, it was only Mark’s fault.

Fucking cruelty. And I let that monster around my children.

Ain’t no sunshine

Tags

adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, parent issues, rape, sadness, sexual abuse, sociopath, suicidal, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

http://shadowness.com/maria-amore/between-faith-and-doubt-2

Loss – true, deep, profound, crippling loss – is a loss beyond imagination and to a great degree, that loss is more profound and crippling when it’s an unnatural loss. The loss is exponentially pervasive into one’s life when it’s a loss brought on by betrayal, deceit, hatred, or brought on with the sheer intent to punish you for some unknown and/or unintentional “misdeed” of sorts, even sometimes a “misdeed” that’s merely fictional – a fabrication created solely from the dark billowing folds of a sick and twisted mind of a sociopath. I mean, there just ain’t no sunshine after this kind of loss.

People say; move on with your life. Let go of the pain. Recreate yourself. Recreate a life for you that you love. Have faith.  Everything happens for a reason.

(Which by the way, I could now happily punch myself in the throat repeatedly for EVER thinking “everything happens for a reason” is EVER appropriate to say to ANY one!  Except maybe (big maybe here) in the case of divorce or breaking up with a sociopathic narcissist.  In THOSE cases of using the term “loss” so loosely, then yes, it really does happen “for a reason” and you are truly better off.  Other than that, then everyone who falls back on that phrase (myself included), can fuck off!)

So, you look in every hidden corner of your life, your heart, and your mind…stretching your limbs and your definitions to find that possibility. You become a detective of possibilities, looking for them anywhere and in anything:

Maybe this book will help. Maybe that book will release my mind from its torment for a moment…or this movie…or a conversation with this person about the struggle….or a conversation with that person about anything but the struggle? Maybe art, perhaps painting or coloring or creating a DIY project will provide a moment of relief?
Maybe God? Worshipping Him, being grateful for the many wonderful things you know are there but no longer bring any joy, forcing yourself to look for that joy and insist it is there?  Maybe singing to Him, or listening to music praising Him?

Maybe a new pet, a colorful squawking bird or an innocent playful puppy or a soft fluffy cuddly kitten?
Maybe reminiscing? Or not allowing yourself to reminisce, removing as many painful reminders of all the places joy once stood? Maybe cleaning until your skin is raw, bleeding, and cracked and looks like your heart feels? Maybe not cleaning? Living in squalor, letting everything get and stay as messy and unkempt as your life and your thoughts feel?
Maybe music? Country music? Classic rock? Reggae? Heavy metal? Classical? Gospel? Hard rock? Really loud music? Really soft, subtle background music?

Maybe gardening? Putting your time into cultivating a beautiful plant which signifies life? Or growing tomatoes to remind you to survive, you must eat? Maybe plotting the revenge you don’t believe in and would never seek?  Maybe imagining karma or refusing to allow yourself to believe you “don’t deserve” this kind of pain?  Or forcing yourself to think you deserve this and much worse?  If “much worse” exists?  Maybe fantasizing about how “much worse” might be or feel?

Maybe too much time on Facebook or Twitter or blogging or Pinterest? Maybe joining support groups and reaching out to help others who are hurting? Maybe volunteering for a domestic violence shelter or the humane society? Maybe do daily affirmations in the mirror? Or practicing the Law of Attraction?

Maybe drinking too much wine? Or not allowing yourself to have any alcohol? Maybe writing letters? Or emails? Or joining causes you believe in? Laughing foolishly about the silliest stuff your brain can think of?

Maybe planning your suicide? Writing your will? Organizing vast piles of paperwork? Maybe dancing like no one is watching? Playing in the rain? Hand writing letters to lonely souls in prison? Reaching out to long-lost friends? Reconnecting with friends you’ve grown distant from? Maybe having sex with an old boyfriend? Or going on a date with someone new? Maybe drinking more tea? Making infused waters? Maybe browsing through hundreds of old photos? Or hiding every reminiscent photo?

Maybe living in another state? Or another state again? Or the same state where you lost everything? Maybe changing your name? maybe writing of the abuse you’ve never spoken of? Maybe writing of anything but your grief, sorrow, pain, or past abuse? Maybe writing the stories of your multiple rapes? Your mounting dealings with injustices? Maybe giving compassion to others who’ve endured similar experiences and not even speaking of your own?

Maybe get a tattoo? Alter your flesh somehow to tell yourself you are now officially and physically not the exact same body who experienced these things at all?

After a while, you listen to everyone tell you how to move on, let go, live again.  And you are a detective of joy survival; madly and frantically searching for brief any flashing moment of joy happiness serenity peace relief to alleviate the pain and sorrow that has somehow infused itself into every recess of your brain.

Maybe beg for a lobotomy?

Daddy’s hand

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adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, life, loss, mean mothers, nostalgia, parent issues, sadness, safety, sociopath, trust, unforgivable

Dad let go of her hand but she never let go of dad’s hand.

Humans of New York (http://www.humansofnewyork.com) posted this photo with the caption “Dad let go of her hand, but she never let go of Dad’s hand.”

My earliest and perhaps most innocently poignant memory is of having to let go of my dad’s hand. I guess myself at around three. My mother and father were viciously arguing. My sister and I were hiding on the stairway. My heart was racing; scared of the fighting and petrified I’d get caught for sitting on those steps listening to all the loud yelling I didn’t understand and be punished for my curiosity. Two policemen showed up. They appeared larger than life and what frightened me most was the Billy club each had dangling from his belt. Menacing, baseball bat looking clubs as big as my leg, which I knew were there to be used. In my confusion for sitting on the stairway…or maybe it was the automatic assumption I’d carry with me for the rest of my life that as usual, I’D done something wrong …whatever it was, somehow I knew instantly that Billy club was to beat me with. The minute I saw it, I ran as fast as my legs could fumble themselves up those stairs in my panic, too scared now to even worry about being quiet!

I ran straight to the top of the stairs and turned into the first door on the left, my parent’s bedroom. My bedroom was straight ahead and the same distance to run, but somehow I felt sure that Billy club would come looking for me in MY room. So, I thought I was quite clever to hide in my parent’s room where they at least wouldn’t come first looking for me, maybe buying myself a few precious seconds before the beating.

The yelling downstairs had ceased. I could still hear talking; the policemen and my parents’ voices, but no more yelling. I wanted so much to hear what they were saying…to know what I had done this time…and get a clue as to how bad the Billy club beating might be….ohhhhh, how I wanted to know! Sheer terror kept me hiding behind the leather rocking chair in the corner of my parents’ bedroom, though. I didn’t DARE peek out and be nosy with the Billy club policeman man there, no matter how overwhelming my curiosity was!

My sister had gone under their bed. I stayed behind the chair for what felt like my last eternal moments before my inevitable death, making myself as small as I could to hide completely and occasionally putting my head sideways against the floor to peek under it and see my sister under the bed.

That lasted forever and I must be missing some time in there because the next thing I recall is my mother standing in front of my dad by the big wooden front door downstairs. My mother facing my dad directly, his face looked sad and hurt, not angry and mean like my mother’s and I knew something was horribly awfully wrong. My dad smiled and laughed perpetually. I’d never seen this look on his face ever. Not once on my entire three years! My mother held mine and my sister’s hands on either side of her, facing him and saying to us, who do you want to go with? This was a hard question. I didn’t want to hurt either of my parents’ feelings and I didn’t know what the right answer was. I love my mommy so much and I love my daddy too! And forever without one of them seemed an impossible choice. At that moment, I really believed this was the most final and permanent decision I’d ever have to make in my lifetime. My sister immediately piped up with, I’m going with you, Mommy. She either knew the right answer because she was an older, wiser five years old or it simply wasn’t the dilemma for her that it was for me? I didn’t know. I was looking at my dad’s face right that moment, still that sad look that was hauntingly unknown to me and I knew I couldn’t leave my daddy alone no matter what. My sister had already picked mother. I couldn’t leave my daddy alone with that expression on his face and I could feel the hot anger seething off my mother, while my dad felt quietly just hurt and defeated maybe…somehow seeming much safer than the alternative. I stepped over to my obviously wounded gigantic daddy and said, I’ll stay with you, Daddy.

It was decided. My sister left with our raging, seething mother and I stayed with our wounded, broken hearted Daddy, just knowing I could love on him enough with hugs and kisses to chase that sad look away and bring back his usual jolly smile. Strange that the few seconds it took me to make that choice feeling afraid because I believed it would be forever and I’d answer wrong, was immediately replaced with as much confidence as any three-year-old could have after answering such a question. I knew I belonged with my daddy. I loved and adored my mommy like crazy as any child does, but I knew the minute I took those few steps over to stand by my daddy’s side, that that was exactly where I belonged in this world, even if it DID mean I’d never see my beloved mother’s face again. I felt sad, but I was no longer afraid that I’d answered the question wrong. Yes, I belonged with Daddy; my happy, laughing, loving daddy with the smile that lifted my heart high in the air full of joy every day.

I didn’t understand this was only for the night…or a few days…or whatever it ended up being. I can’t recall. The last thing I remember is feeling that odd confidence that I’d made the right choice and knowing I would be safe forever right next to my daddy, holding tight to his great big warm hand.

But it wasn’t forever. Not too long after this painful choice…a night…or two or three days…my mother returned and took me with her and my sister far away from our house any my dad (to be with another wealthy much older man whom I’d later in life discover she had already been seeing and cheating on my dad with way back then). And, my daddy had to let go of my hand. I never let go of his though. Over the next 14 years, I held onto my daddy’s hand once in a while in person when I was allowed to see him, but every day and night I held onto his hand in my prayers, in my dreams, in my thoughts when I was scared, and in my heart when I felt unloved and unwanted or confused and beaten. And I continued to hold it the 27 years following that as I trudged my way through life, love, rape, abuse, and many scary choices.

Forty-one years later from the year I made that first great big life choice to hold my dad’s hand, I’m still holding that big warm hand in my mind and my heart. My daddy is gone. He let go of my hand again to go to heaven but I haven’t let go of Daddy’s hand.

Complete culpability

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adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, generosity, grief, hopes, invisible, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, parent issues, rape, sadness, safety, sexual abuse, sister, sociopath, suicidal, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

I miss you, Daddy.

It’s pity party time… I’ve officially spent my second birthday and the second anniversary of my dad’s death alone. Without one single phone call on either day…not a “checking in to see how you are”, not a “hey, I’m thinkin of you”…not a single friend or family member thought of me on the two most significant days of my life.
After 44 years of life, millions of friends, several boyfriends, one husband, and two children of my own, I now realize what I feared most from my earliest days is literally true. My mother, my sister and all those other people over 44 years couldn’t ALL be wrong about me; I’m not someone who can be loved. I’m just not…
I suppose I could write of how it’s my mother’s fault. How being raised by a narcissistic sociopathic woman damaged me so cruelly, left me with huge holes in my soul that can’t be filled, making me so desperate and needy for the one thing that scared me most, love. I found it crazy ironic to discover at 26 that I have a flap in my heart which doesn’t close properly. What a perfect description of me…it was almost an explanation at last for what I am that I can’t seem to help or change. The pieces of me that are so just wrong that they’ll never be right finally made literal, physical sense when the doctors told me that back when I was pregnant with Savannah Grace.
I suppose I could write how it’s other people’s fault, as well. How being so painfully insecure and desperately needy for love and approval for as long as I can remember being alive led me directly to the kinds of people who would manipulate and abuse that…furthering the unlovable clause I was born with. Seriously, WHO gets molested as a 6 year old by a teacher and a babysitter? And WHO is ridiculous enough to get raped *three* times in 44 years? And WHO is blessed enough to have had so many wonderful men profess the most beautiful depths of undying love and still ends up alone? What kind of idiot runs so fast and so often over a lifetime from the very thing she has been praying for since the tender age of 4? I certainly could never convince myself that it was all THEM…that there was something inadequate with every one of THEM. No, the common denominator there is me…and only me. I chased, pushed, argued, and crazied every one of them away from me, even the most tenacious of them. I could try to blame any one of a hundred girlfriends who shit on me, stabbed me in the back, devastated and used me…..but again, who’s the common denominator there? Me.
And what about my daddy? I was fortunate that my mother kicked me out with just a trash bag full of clothes at 16 for lying about smoking a cigarette. Thus, I spent the majority of my life, from 16 to 42, with a most amazing parent who demonstrated love, acceptance, kindness, honesty, integrity, and joy. So many children don’t have that kind of example or love in their life from ANY where growing up, at ANY age. Hell, I was fortunate that my daddy somehow always found the strength and ability to love me at all. Why didn’t that fix those fucking holes I was born and raised with? Not everyone who is unloved by her mother is blessed enough to be unconditionally loved by her father. If the cause of this unending and irreparable unlovability issue isn’t ME, at my very core, then that shower of my daddy’s true blessings would have repaired that. It should have, right?
Yes, it should have. It would have. If it wasn’t me, my fault, my issue, my fault, my inadequacy…mine, mine, MINE.
I’ve never felt good trying to blame any of this on other people anyway. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, I’ve just never been the person who could blame someone for anything at all really and feel confident it wasn’t really my fault. When the teacher molested me at 6, I even felt guilty when he got in trouble…even at that tender age; I felt it was me, my fault. After all, I had actually appreciated the special attention he had always given me, hadn’t I? I had looked forward to his smiles in the elementary school hallways that made his face beam whenever he saw me….it actually made me think of my daddy’s huge grin whenever I got to see HIM! And my favorite was the day he lifted me up to drink from the big drinking fountain. I had appreciated feeling special to a grown-up who saw me every day and still seemed to think I was someone special in this world. I would have never told on him intentionally. Not EVER! And I really didn’t want him to get in so much trouble either. Somehow, even way back then, at such a young and innocent age, I just knew it was my fault. Everything was my fault, so that had to be too. All three times I was raped, no matter how cruelly, I still felt deep down it was my fault…that I HAD gotten what I deserved. And I think I was always afraid to tell my mother because I knew she would be sure to bring that to my attention immediately and then all doubt of me “not deserving” to be raped would be totally eliminated. Hell, somehow I’ve been “asking for it” since the age of 6! I’m sure at 17 and older, I was REALLY asking for it. I just wanted to blame them because I never figured out HOW I “asked for it” and thus, couldn’t figure out how to stop “asking for it”. I only blamed them in my own mind out of frustration that I couldn’t fix what had always been wrong with me.
I’ve never minded taking the blame for things, actually I usually prefer it. After all, if it’s MY fault, then I can fix it. If it’s not, then I’m powerless to ever get it right. And yet, in spite of years of therapy, and so many wonderful years with a loving father, a zillion self-help books and strategies, I’ve never been successful at fixing it. And I still don’t feel satisfied trying to put the blame on other people for anything really… It’s been my life problem as long as I can remember; therefore, it’s still MY problem. My ex-husband even said to me once, “NO one in this world has such chronic shitty luck as you. The shit that happens to you regularly, just doesn’t happen to anyone…not even one of then usually, much less a lifetime of them!?” He was so right. I’ve always known that deep inside too. It’s me…it’s GOT to be. There is no other logical explanation. Hell, my mother abused the hell out of me physically, mentally, and verbally for 26 years and I was STILL desperate for her to love me. I’ve counseled so many children whose parents were fiercely abusive and still, they loved them and would do anything for their love. Me? I have two children who tossed me AND my love in the garbage without a second thought or one single look back to just wave good-bye….just threw me in the trash like the worthless garbage I’ve always been. And in spite of all my mistakes and failings as a mother and a human being, I gave those two children the very best of anything good I have ever had inside me to give, which was still apparently utterly worthless.
And since it seems to get worse the harder I’ve tried to repair whatever this is I was born with, what does that even really mean? If I own it all, I still can’t fix it; if I blame everyone else, I can’t fix it either.
I have so many of my daddy’s amazing qualities…deep down I think, where most can’t see them, but I have them damnit! So, why don’t they make me and my life even a fraction as valuable as my daddy was in this world to almost everyone who ever met him? Why can’t I fix what’s wrong with me?
Why?
I realized recently that I’ve never really been afraid to die… Well, as a mom I was because I felt my children deserved to know the love and nurturing of a mother…the love I never knew and started my desperate journey toward a life of failure lacking. Other than that, I never was afraid to die though. Obviously, my greatest fear is living. And figuring out why I’ve been forced to do something for 44 years that I’m just not able to do well. I’d rather not do something at all, than try for 44 years just to get worse and worse at the effort.
I did always hope that someday, before he passed or I did, I’d have the opportunity to deserve to matter in this world by giving back to my daddy somehow. I always told him, “someday Daddy, I’m going to get myself together and do something REALLY amazing for you to repay all you’ve ben and done for me over my life time”. It still wouldn’t have ever been enough, but I really always hoped I’d have that opportunity and ability someday. I didn’t. He is gone and I’m still fucking alive and every bit as unworthy, useless, and unlovable as I was born.
I’m sorry Daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t get it together in time to return your wonderfulness to you even a little bit. I’m really sorry. I know it made no difference to you whatsoever, but it really would have made the world of difference to me.
It seems so cruel. So much death all around me over the last two years since my daddy passed. All these beloved people and children dying and leaving behind heartbroken masses of hurting folks who loved and admired them. Yet, on and on and on I go…. 44 years of nothing but worthless efforts to somehow give the world what I always dreamed of. A life of nothing; worth nothing, for nothing, meaning nothing. No one notices or cares I’m alive and who can blame them? I don’t. So, why does God take the cherished ones and leave the insignificant failures to continue being a burden.
Yet, on I go…

Futile thoughts & senseless prayers

Tags

adapting, children, Daddy, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, hopes, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, nostalgia, parent issues, sociopath, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

April, 14, 2013

Hi Mark,

I’m really missing my dad today. At church this morning, I prayed so hard for him to communicate my love to him and to feel his for me and I remembered when my church did a huge renovation in 2010/2011 right after the girls and I came home from Nevada. When the floor was stripped, they invited people up during the service to take a marker and write the name of a person you wanted to bless and wrap in the grace and love of God. I debated and prayed for a while on whose name I most wanted to write since there wouldn’t be time to include my entire list…and I wrote your name. I was so hurt and angry at you during that time in our lives, watching my girls hurt so badly over the choices you’d recently made, but I knew those were choices you made from your own hurt…so I forgave you and gave you entirely to God. Your name is still written on that huge devotion of blessings to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I hope that might bring you some comfort and peace.

The strangest thing came to me immediately after my prayer and the subsequent memory of that Sunday morning at church with my dad and the girls and I all taking our turn writing on that space… I suddenly knew what my dad would say to me. So, I lighted a candle of blessing and healing for you. I’ve kept you in my prayers for years, as did my dad and we often prayed together for your well-being. I know he was grinning at me as I blessed you. I know God was smiling at me as well. It was a powerful moment and I hope you sensed the love and grace I sent your way.

I know maybe more than anyone how you struggle with your own demons. I’ve always tried to give you my full support and compassion in that fight. I suppose that’s why it hurts so much more to have you so cruelly and unmercifully engage in this vicious attack on me in my weakest point and at my most vulnerable time ever. No matter how painful your choices sometimes were or how deeply they hurt me, I never used your personal pain or personal challenges to hurt you in vulnerable moments. It seems like another lifetime ago when I felt any kind of personal love for you as a man, but I’ve never once stopped caring deeply about the man who is the father of my children; or praying for you in your endeavors to become the man of integrity you once told me you wanted to be. You may have hurt me in a billion ways when I was still quite young and naïve and directed my life far from the path I desired and dreamed of…but I always redirected my perspective to the human being you were when you were doing everything in your power to overcome your painful challenges and prepare yourself to be a father to our children and a good partner for me.

I was young and naïve of many things you and I went through together while we were going through it all, but I know I truly did everything in my heart to love and support you through the pain of all that you carried around with you from your life, even when you hurt me personally. Not one of the choices I have made even once since that fateful day you first asked me out were ever with the intention of hurting you or causing you any additional sadness.

Although I am absolutely devastated at your choices over the past few years and how deeply they’ve damaged my life and the lives of the people who mean the most to me, I still pray for your personal struggles and maintain hope that you’ll someday be free from the pain those things bring to your life.

Anyway, today is nostalgic for me… and within that, along with these thoughts and memories, I recalled that tape I made for you when I was pregnant with Savannah and how you called me when you listened to it and we were laughing because I had included that song by Paul Anka, “Having My Baby”. Also the night before Savannah was born when you got here around midnight and I couldn’t sleep because I was so deathly afraid for her safety during the birth…and you rubbed lotion on my huge belly because it was so sore and ugly covered entirely with bruises on top of bruises from all those months of injections I had to give myself to keep her safe…and afterward, you just lied next to me with your hand on my head until I fell asleep.

Those have been valuable memories of you and glimpses of why I believed in you in the first place and they are precious moments for me from our relationship. Thank you for those.

I’ve considered you along with our children as my primary family for many years now. Although the hurt I feel right now is far worse than any pain I could have ever imagined I could survive, I remembered you today when I prayed for those who have meant the most to me throughout my life, and I wanted you to know that you were still one of the first to come to mind. No matter how much you hurt or attack me, I will still always care about your personal struggles and continue to pray for peace in your soul and healing for your heart.

God bless you,

~chloe

Letter to the father of my children

Tags

adapting, children, Daddy, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, gossip, grief, history, integrity, life, loss, manipulation, Mark D, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, sociopath, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

Mark,

I can’t imagine or even fathom what is going on right now. It’s like the moment when I became conscious, was told I’d suffered a massive stroke, realized I was paralyzed, and then it slowly dawned on me that it wasn’t just a nightmare. This situation is so similar in that this feels like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I rise each day, think about my children, start to go to wake them and tell them what a horrible dream I’ve just had… and then as it dawns on me all over again fresh, with all the betrayals, hurts, and ugliness, I have to reflect for a few minutes to convince myself this is actually the reality.

I’m up praying my morning prayers as I’ve done for years, and of course, I include you in them as I’ve done for just as many years. As I speak to God about my gratitudes, hurts, struggles, and blessings from past and present, I can’t help but to reflect on my dad and other life-transforming factors of my 40-some years of existence.

I have never been one to blame others for long for my individual hardships and life challenges. I’ve found over the years that doing so simply held me in that difficult place. So, rather than stay there stuck, I’ve learned the practice of deeply reflecting on such issues, discussing them intimately with God and asking Him what my part and responsibility is in whatever matter. I do this in order to effect change within myself – the only place I know with certainty that I have the power to effect change at all. I’ve learned that for me, it’s much easier to always blame myself rather than others because if I can find my fault in the issue, I can attempt a repair. If it’s truly another’s “fault” entirely, then I’m powerless to actually fix anything about it at all. Thus, I actually tend to prefer to take blame on myself, both from within and without.

I think this is an excellent practice. However, I also have learned that my willingness to do this is a dangerous setting within relationships involving others who are still stuck in the blame-others game. Somehow from their perspective, I’m an easy scapegoat because I’m so willing to take on the blame and do the work required to change the situation. I’ve learned to discern these particular relationships as those which stay stagnant within those negativities. After all, if I’ve accepted the blame and then done the work to change and the issues remain the same over time, then the logical explanation is that it was not actually my issue after all. As again, the only person and situation I have the power to effect true change at all is within me; thus, my efforts are truly futile…and I’m simply spinning my wheels attempting to change that which I can’t – others. This wisdom of discernment has proven very accurate and powerful over a lifetime through which I’ve regularly found myself involved with people who sit on the other side of this change-fence; those whom prefer to blame others rather than take responsibility for the change required to affect the situation.

I was beyond fortunate to have had a father like I did. Since he passed a year ago, I’ve noticed something recurring. When I talk of him I’ll occasionally have someone remind me that no matter how wonderful my father was, there’s no way he was as “perfect” as I remember. You know, that’s absolutely true. He was not perfect. He was amazing, wonderful, and maintained an integrity to which I aspire, but he certainly was not perfect. And in this time, I’ve come to realize something about why some people tend to think I’m describing my dad as “perfect” when I’m simply speaking the truth of him, my dad was perfect. He was absolutely perfect in his willingness to admit his imperfections and perfect in his motivation and ability to accept responsibility for those things and effect the changes he needed to correct whatever situation which brought the issue to light.

One of my favorite earlier, “grown-up” moments from childhood was once when my dad, whom I saw infrequently, made a poor choice while my sister and I were with him. I think I was only around 8 or 9 and my dad was my ultimate hero. This made his poor choice (the first I recall him making ever that I was old enough to have some understanding or awareness of) that much more horrific and confusing to me being that I was so young and had a pristine, impeccable vision of my dad. However, that frightening incident turned into one of my earliest favorite memories and lessons from my dad. Upon fully realizing his poor choice, my dad took my sister and I aside, sat us down, and apologized. He made no excuses for himself, although I’m sure he could have made many and we being so young wouldn’t have doubted his excuse for even a moment. He made none. He simply apologized sincerely and that was that. He didn’t fall all over himself apologizing and begging for forgiveness as I tend to do when I know I’ve made a mistake. He didn’t blame anyone else or simply refuse to admit he’d even made a mistake like my mother chooses in such situations. No, he just apologized one time from his heart. This instantly restored my vision of him as my hero. Do you know how I know he meant it? It never happened again.

It’s truly ironic that one of the last conversations I ever had with my dad was something similar. We sat in his car on my morning break at work. I was a little hurt and disappointed over a choice he had made just the day prior, but I wasn’t talking of it. And he said to me, “Chloe, I’m sorry. I want you to know and you to tell those babies that they’re going to see a change in Papa.” I almost cried, Mark. My dad didn’t even really owe me an apology. What he had “done” was so minimal and unintentional, it’s not as though I could have ever been angry with him over it. My dad was then 75 years old and still maintained the well-deserved acknowledgment as my biggest and greatest hero.

Another huge lesson in integrity I learned from my dad, in spite of the fact that my mother practiced the literal opposite, was his absolute unwillingness to speak down about or to others. In all the years between you and me, all the struggles and hurts we’ve experienced together and the heartbreaks my dad watched some of that create in his daughter and his two grandchildren, he never once spoke an unkind word about you. And beyond that, in spite of the horribly hurtful and life-altering behaviors my mother did to my dad, no matter the heartbreak she caused, or the depth of disappointment he felt from it, I never once heard him in 42 years say one unkind thing about my mother either. And as an adult, I realize there must have been more than a few times when his heart just ached from her choices; still, not one unkind word or hateful gesture in return. Not one. Not ever. This truth means so much more to me when I think of the horrible things my mother told me as a child about my dad. Things I doubt were true, but strangely enough, even if they were at all true, they’ve never once changed my perspective of my dad.

I believe these two points of character he chronically demonstrated over the span of my lifetime are the very reasons there’s just not much anyone could say negative about my dad, true or otherwise, which would be reason enough to see him as less than the wonderful example of a man, father, and human being that he was.

I may never fully understand your choices or this vendetta you seem to have waged against me as a woman and as the mother of two of your children. And you might even delight in knowing that although I’ve felt no romantic love for you in a very long time; your choices in this situation have broken my heart beyond any kind of heartbreak I could have fathomed possible. I truly thought I’d experienced the harshest of heartbreaks before, then I realized what the true depth of what heartbreak could be when my dad passed last year, and still, you’ve effectively exceeded any threshold of pain I’ve experienced prior. I don’t know what kind of man you are anymore Mark and I wouldn’t presume to know much about your character for certain these days, so I can’t know if sharing that truth brings you some sense of peace, joy, or closure which you may have been seeking or not. Truth is, I’m no longer affected on any level by what drives you to do what you do. I simply know that what’s true and real is true and real.

In all this, as heinous as it’s been and remains today, I willingly accept my responsibility in naively presenting to you the ripe opportunity to induce this level of life-shattering pain you’ve inflicted and I’m not sarcastic when I say, I do hope you’ve at least received the satisfaction you were seeking with the “pounds of flesh” you’ve attained with it.

I’m deeply sorry you feel the need to spread untruths about me and speak so ugly of my character in general. Over the past 16 years, I can honestly tell you, I’ve always diligently attempted to avoid that choice. Regardless of your choices, how confusing or painful they’ve been… regardless of the efforts it required to find excuses or veils adequate enough to cover the transgressions and their effects on my life, I have strived to hold onto the basic respect I felt you were entitled as the co-parent of my most valued treasures God chose to bless me with – my children. I realize over the years of our association, I’ve probably disappointed and perhaps even hurt you at times as well. I can honestly say that it was never my intention either to do so or to gain any personal satisfaction or gain from it. If I’ve ever caused you a fraction of the pain and depth of destruction you’ve created in me with all of this, “deserved” or otherwise, I offer you my sincerest apology.

And finally, regardless of how this situation plays out, I will always strive to maintain the integrity my dad demonstrated throughout my lifetime. I will continue to attempt to find his kind of perfection within my many imperfections.

God bless you in your own struggles and life-challenges past, present, and future,

~C