confessions and story time
i know i haven't posted any of my art in a while. im sorry about that, but i feel inspired after watching a few youtube videos about depression and suicide awareness and i want to tell my story. and its LONG.
A lot of what im about to say no one but my closest friend of 15 years knows. My family, my other friends. no one knows. but here i am about to tell my story, poor grammar and all. so here's your TMI and trigger warning. Let's dive deep
Let me give you some back story. I am 29 years old. I suffer from Depression, Anxiety and Suicidal thoughts. I have 2 amazing little boys, a beautiful daughter who passed away (more on that later). I have a very supportive and understanding fiance. And my family, although a bit dysfunctional at times, is an amazing support group for me and loves me unconditionally.
That being said, there are things that i never told anyone because im one of those people that dont like to burden others when there's so many other, more serious issues that are going on around me to others that i care about.
When i was a little kid, i was adventurous, curious, a little shy. I was 100% a daddy's girl. In my eyes daddy could do no wrong. My mom and i were close too, but in a different way. Dont get me wrong, i LOVE my mom, i always have but it took my mom and dads divorce and a lot of self reflection and hearing stories to know my "do no wrong" dad was anything but.
That, however, is not my story to tell, but its where my story starts.
When my dad left us, we had just moved to Ohio from Alabama. I was young, 6th grade. Of course i stayed with my mom, and my dad moved back to Alabama. I took this hard, i stopped taking care of myself. I didnt shower, i didn't brush my teeth, i didnt want to. my mom would have to force me to not be the smelly kid. my grades in school plummeted, i just didnt care.
a few years passed and then BOYS. Now, since i was young, even in Alabama had "boyfriends". But when i say BOYS i mean preteen-teenager hardcore "im in love and will never love anyone else!" kind of BOYS.
That's when i started taking care of myself again. I would hang out every Saturday night at the local skating rink. thats where i met him. my beginning to my end. my first "love". For protection, we'll call him Steven.
Steven was 2 years older than me, so cute, a sweet talking, gangster wanna-be. the bad boy your mother warns you about. He and i started a relationship that lasted on and off for 4 years.
He cheated on me a lot. Not sleeping around, because he was only 13 (at the begining, i was 11) at the time, but writing notes to other girls, kissing etc. Everytime it would break my little heart, but every time he would sweet talk his way back to me and I'd fall for it EVERY TIME.
lets fast forward a bit, i was now 13, he was 15. My mom is now seeing someone else, who would eventually become my stepdad/little sisters dad. We went to this little town for a semi monthly street fair. While my mom and her new boyfriend stayed at the booth he was working Steve and i started walking around. We walked down this ally way to take a short cut to a store we wanted to visit that sold albums, records etc.
He stopped me in the ally way, and to not become to graphic, things happened. Things I was not ready for, but convinced myself was okay at the time, because i "loved him" and we'd be "together forever ". i cried the entire time, he assumed it was from the pain. It was really because i knew, at this moment i was not ready, and no matter how i tried to convince myself, i KNEW it was wrong. i never said no. i never tried to stop it, that time.
Fast forward again a few months later. My mom drops me off at his house so we could ride to the skating rink together. his parents were home, in the living room and we went to his bed room and i insisted on leaving the door open. he and i had not been alone since that day and i wanted to keep it that way. we started to talk and he asked why we never fooled around after that. I told him that i just didnt want to. i was scared of my mom finding out, or getting pregnant...
He.. got.. PISSED. i mean, he was ANGRY. he held his hand over my mouth so i couldnt scream, grabbed my arm and held me to the wall in his room. He then said "You're tall, fat and stupid. who else is going to love you like i do? So why won't you give me what I need?"
Those words.. stabbed me in my heart like a million daggers. Thing about it was, i wasnt fat.. i was healthy. Yes, i am tall, always have been my dad is 6"7' what do you expect? I also was NOT stupid. i may not have gotten good grades in school but thats because i was not doing homework or turning my work in. not because i didnt understand it but because I didnt care about school.
He then closed, his door, locked it, covered my mouth with his hand, and had his way with me, again....
I sat on his bed and cried until his dad drove us to the skating rink and i found my best friend at the time and told her almost everything that happened in his room that day. She protected me from him the rest of the night. wouldn't let him near me and she and i danced all the anger and pain away.
Of course, im a sucker for punishment and he used all the right words and came back into my life weeks later.
around this time, I started lying to my mom, i stole from my cousin, worst of all i stoped eating. there was a nagging thought always in the back of my mind that i was fat and needed to lose weight. this was actually pretty easy for me. my mom worked A LOT to support me, anywhere from 8-12 hours a day so i would be left at home alone and simply not eat until she was around. I didnt even eat luch at school. id sit with my friends while they ate lunch and i would pretend to have eaten a lot of snacks during the day, or a large breakfast.
Now, remember when i said that i started lying to my mom a lot. It got to a point where she wouldnt believe anything i said. Which, i cant say i blame her, i was being a bitch. But this caused some abuse from my now ex step dad to go unnoticed. I dont blame her for that, looking back now i know she believes me when i would tell her about the time he punched me in the stomach and i think at times she feels bad she didnt believe me when it happened. so i hold no grudges against her. I only bring this up to explain how truly fucked up i was around this time.
So between having to pretend to like my step dad, to Steve getting inside my head, basically starving myself and having my mom not believe a word i said to her about anything. i started to feel so alone....
if you're wondering, the situation with Steve never went any further than those 2 times mentioned. other than that he was the "love of my life".
Eventually the situation had gotten so bad at home that my mom made me start seeing a therapist. He was the 1st person that knew everything, aside from the ally way no one knew about that until I met my best friend Jeff years later.
Fast foward again. My mom gets pregnant with my sister, so we move to a house with my step dad to a new city.
This is where things changed for me, in a positive way. i met Jeff, he became my best friend, my therapist, my brother, my world. He helped me work through a lot of things that i didnt know how to handel. he was there for me when my step dad started abusing my mom. He was there whenever i needed him. he was my saving grace. my angel. He made me stop talking to Steve and preoccupied my time so Steve couldnt weasel his way back into my life. 30 mins isn't much of a drive for a teenager thinking hes about to have sex. Jeff knew this and protected me from it.
Fast forward again, i am now out of high school, im living with this guy who i started dating my senior year. we had been together for 3 years at this point and it was fading fast. we didnt love each other anymore and did everything we could to not be around each other. Thats when i met Chris. My ride or die. the 2nd closest friend i had beside Jeff. I was seriously over weight at this point, and hated myself. i was living with a guy i didnt love but had to pretend i did around everyone else. She was there for me. offered me a roof to live under if i decided to break up with this guy. She would work out with me to help me loose weight, not because she thought i was fat, but because she knew i wanted it. and she gave me the motivation to want to change. then it eventually happened. my boyfriend and i broke up about a week before Easter in 2011.
This is around the time i met my now fiance. my ex and i decided to make it official and move out of the apt my ex and i were living in about 2 months after we broke up, because i wanted things to be official with my now fiance. I moved in with my mom, he moved in with his grandma and that was the end of that.
In November of 2011 after being told i could not have children since i was 19 i got pregnant, with the most beautiful little girl Kairi. Man was she loved. By everyone. not even in the world yet and she was so.. so loved. August 7th 2012 she was stillborn. her cord wrapped around her neck, with a trueknot. she had been dead for a few days before my body decided it was dangerous and needed to come out.
Sept. 1st we burried half her ashes and kept the other half, she is here with me now. My fiance and i decided that we were ready and we needed to try again.
on August 5th 2013 Quin was born. a beautful healthy baby boy, that looked so much like his sister it hurt at first. but that was my baby, the one thing in my life that i was not ashamed of, the one thing in my life that was missing.
Then, to everyones surpize July 25th 2014 Came Silas. my 3rd baby. My beautiful baby boy whom has made ny life and my home so complete.
Happy ending right? Not really. I love my children, i love my fiance, but im scared. im so broken from so many things. im still tall, fat and ugly in my mind. I still try to fix everyone elses problems before my own. I still keep to myself. social situations make me nervous and scared. everything i do feels wrong. im not happy with myself, im not happy with my job, my living situation. Im just not happy.
And yes, at times i have suicidal thoughts. I would never do anything to harm myself, but theres always that thought of "what if". if not for those 2 little boys and their hugs and kisses and just the fact that they need me. i would welcome death with open arms. but for now. telling my story, finally getting everything off my chest is what i need.
im starting Therapy again on March 1st, so hopefully some real professional help will make a differnce.
I felt like i needed to tell this story, not only for myself but for people who know me. for people who get annoyed that i apologize all the time. people who think i hate them because i wont hang out with them. Im trying. i am. im trying to better myself, for me, for you, for my family.
i love each and every one of you so much. i truly do. i dont hate many people. believe it or not Steve and I made amends a few years ago, and even though i would not call him a friend. i forgive him for everything. if i can forgive him and have peace and closure, i can truly say that i believe in my heart of hearts that i am not this terrible moster that i believe i am. I will give chances after chances. I will forgive people fatser for hurting me than the people i love. maybe thats my problem, i dont know. i know ive made mistakes and if the people ive wronged didnt forgive me, i would truly have no one right now.
I want to help people because i cannot help myself. thats my curse.
sorry for the super long post. and thanks for reading my story.
