"I'm Not a Pretty Girl"

I have a chip on my shoulder. I know this. The problem is getting rid of it. I have a hard time admitting that I need help and often accepting it. It didn't used to be that way, though.

I moved out on my own at 17, the summer before senior year in highschool. I needed a lot of help then and I took it when I got the offers. I had been living with the only foster parent that wasn't shocked by my behaviors. She was an amazing lady that grew up rough in her time as well. She was a wayward girl in L.A. growing up, had done drugs in the '70's and had been a groupy that had some fun, i.e. she slept with the Roger Daltrey of 'The Who'. Nothing I did shocked her. She had a VERY nice home complete with rescue animals. She actually had a little room built in the back yard completely enclosed with 5 sided fencing. Inside this room that was completely heated and cooled, was a pack of cats. She had six or seven of them in there, with their own radio and lights she left on all day. She was a truly neat person that I had the privilege of having pass through my life. Nothing fazed her.

A pretty shocking day in our lives was the day that DSHS called a meeting with us and my mom. This wasn't really unusual, we had them periodically. But when we got there they announced that it was time to reconcile our family. Collectively our jaws dropped. Ok. I know that none of us expected it but on top of that I don't think that any of us wanted it. I finally lived in a home, after 16 years of hell, where someone WANTED me to be there, set firm but reasonable boundaries and  loved me even when they drew a hard line and punished me. I know she was disappointed in me when I did wrong but she never made me feel like she was angry with me. And it was a breath of fresh air. To this day when she visits this state she asks for me at Fred Meyer and checks up on how I'm doing. She lets me know that she's proud of me because she knows from my history and her own life experience how hard it is for me to live a structured life.

When I moved home with my mom we clashed, as was normal. She didn't want to let me out of her sight and although I lied and found ways to get out of her house it felt like returning to hell. She didn't know how to deal with me after 3 years of being the mom I visited on occasion and I didn't know how to deal with her after being in a home where I fit so well. We didn't like it, in fact it seemed like a long few months. What eventually happened was that she agreed I could leave home as long as I checked in and as long as I attended school when it started. So I took myself, my bike and the puppy we had the last falling out over and went to Matoon.

I had friends that took their campers there and I thought it would be a good place to sleep.
The first day I was out there I met a couple on the run. She was underage and he was too old to be her boyfriend hence ending up in Ellensburg on the run. They had a tent and they invited me to stay with them. It was fun, they showed me how to clean up in bathrooms, how to steal St. Ides and get drunk. We met a few people along the way. I enjoyed it.

Eventually out there I ran into an older friend that used to own a music store in town living there with his gypsy band. When I say gypsy, I mean that they traveled in his motor home, lived in tents around it and played belly dancing music at fairs for a troupe of belly dancers. There were 3 of them and I lived in a tent with one. I was 17, thought I was wordly and I was willing to do whatever. The man that owned the motor home sold pot to make his living and I helped him with that. There were usually branches hanging around the ceiling of his trailer, drying. The only time I smoked opium was with them, they had picked it in Yellowstone and saved it. I didn't notice that it did much, though.

The motor home man was a grumpy old fucker and he tended to make us all a little miserable. His big problem was that his shitty personality interfered with getting women and he wanted me to recruit them for him. I tried but he sucked as a human being and that made it a mission impossible. So for about a month and a half I lived at the wonderful Matoon. One thing that really stands out to me was one time the girl from that original couple came and found me. She was afraid, her older boyfriend was losing it on her and he was big guy. He was threatening to hurt her. I remember standing up to him, knowing it was the right thing to do, telling him he would have to get through me to get to her. I was 17, skinny from lack of eating and 5'2". I really have no idea what I thought I could do to protect her but it's an instinct I feel like I've always had. I went to the gypsies for help and the response I got was that it was 'their' business. That they didn't want to get involved. I had 3 able bodied adult males and out of us all the only person that wanted to help was me. I still don't understand that.

One day when i had ridden my bike into town to hang out at The Four Winds I ran into my best friend's ex. I didn't care much for him before but this time something clicked. We smoked pot in an alley and he offered to let me stay at his place. It was a good offer. I had been living in the woods with these men long enough, was tired of having rules put on me by someone that also expected me to bring them food. So I went. That first night was amazing. I knew that there was something between us but all that really happened was we slept on a couch together. But as the night of uncomfortable couch sharing wore on, we kissed. It was sometime after the sun started rising, we were half asleep, cuddling from lack of space and we kissed. I fell, immediately.

That summer was incredibly hedonistic. Everything was about sensory fulfillment. We moved so many random people into that house that we hardly knew. It was genuine hippy commune living. A few people I will likely never see again, one woman I keep in touch with on Facebook and adore from a distance, one person is a man that helped me in the worst of my eventual drug use and maintain contact with to this day. One person I met there is dead, murdered by a close friend and remembered as well as celebrated by many people he may not even know he touched that deeply.

In that house I conceived my first child, which I lost shortly after we moved out. I met the first people I ever knew that traded food stamps for weed, fell in what I thought was love for the first time, took showers with multiple other women in a non sexual way.  It  was a very adventurous summer. I spent the bulk of that summer checking in with my mom but refusing to tell her where I lived. I let her know I was still alive and in return she let me have my freedom. When I told her I was pregnant, however, that was another story. She threatened to call the police, threatened to press charges against this 23 year old man. So I lied and said that I had lied. Said I wasn't pregnant, just wanted to see what she would say. Later, when I miscarried I probably needed my mother but I couldn't call her, because I had said it was all a hoax. I was pretty alone when I miscarried. He was relieved and I was devastated. I had named 'her' Elora Anastasia. Elora means "sun ray, shining light" and Anastasia meant "Resurrection". I picked Elora and he had chosen Anastasia. By the time I had miscarried though it had all already fallen apart.


We had been evicted from the low income housing apartment because there were too many of us there. We were living with a woman we had met through a tweeker we knew. They had decided that I was a killjoy (I was) because I was moody. Truth be told I had quit smoking pot as soon as I found out I was pregnant and I resented the lifestyle of those around me for continuing as usual. The day I started to miscarry I remember well. I was in class and felt what seemed like a rubberband snapping in my uterus. It was very noticable and made me nervous immediately. Later that night I had cramps, I knew what was happening. I may have only been seventeen but the horrible feeling I got from it was that of a mother. I knew my child was in danger, knew something was wrong. We went to the ER and they saw nothing during the ultrasound, we had to do a blood test to even confirm I was pregnant. They had me come back the next day to do another blood test for comparison.

That day was a long day. It's hard to explain the immediate bond a woman feels the moment her mind wraps around the fact that she's pregnant. The moment the realization set in I WAS a mother. I began to have dreams for my baby, set out to find a name worthy of this child that I absolutely knew was going to be a girl. I made life changes to make sure she would be healthy. I felt so close to her. And the blood test results came back. My HCG level was dropping. She was gone. They were in fact surprised that I caught the pregnancy in the first place, it was so early. They said it would seem like a normal period and then would be done. but it felt like failure. I felt like I knew this little person, had carried her in my young body and tried so hard to do the best for her. And I had failed. I think that every woman that miscarries feels this way, feels like she hurt her baby, caused it to die. The 'what ifs' run rampant. We find every angle we can to hold ourselves explicitly responsible. But the truth is that in his family there are mental retardation s.  Many of these children are never born as a natural defense against defects. This was possibly a case of that. But I took it hard.

Conflicted interests.

I am two very different things. I'm an isolationist and I am a social butterfly/people pleaser. This is a very awkward combination to be stuck with. I think it comes down to nature versus nurture. The natural me is very social and outgoing, very self confident. The side of me that reacts to the nurturing I received tends to isolate and stay distant from people.It's probably a driving force behind my feeling insane most of the time. The part of me that is the 'real me' wants to hug people, wants to be loved. The part of me that adapted to life wants to stay a careful distance away from people, steps back physically when people step towards me.

I'm trying to find a way to balance these two sides of me. It's hard, though, when the life I want to believe in is a purists ideal; when people love you it's concrete and forever. But what I grew up with was the realization that nothing is forever, nothing is real. One misstep and everything is gone. While that is true in some extreme cases I know the reality is that it isn't how things really are. Shades of gray are hard to interpret when everything was so black and white growing up.

It's funny how writing this all down, exposing myself to a general audience is forcing me to deal with things I have thought I dealt with so long ago. But really I've been hoarding all of my issues and memories, keeping them private as a way to justify not accepting the world as it is. The one long term relationship I ever had was a big part of my hurt. We were both twenty somethings that kind of got forced to stay together because of my pregnancy. All the years of therapy I had really only taught me how to verbalize what had happened to me without feeling it, it tricked me into thinking I was cured. But I wasn't cured. I was just calloused.  When me and my ex fought it was dirty, no holds barred. He has a past of hurt and disappointment as well, he has his reasons to run from life, which I realize now but at the time I didn't see that. I confided in him my past, one of the few times I had gone into detail or really trusted anyone with it. Because I loved him, I thought he would understand.
Instead he used it as ammo when we struggled through our dysfunctional relationship. The worst thing that anyone ever said to me came from his mouth during one of our many fights. It was so bad that it was as damaging as what my father did to me. He said that I must have liked getting 'fucked' by my father because I became a slut. That taught me a few things. One was that I had been right to never trust anyone with the details of my past. The other was that people would think what happened to me was parallel to being my fault.

I may never have been successful at committing to relationships prior to being with him but I think that and that alone was a nail in the coffin of really trying again. I know now that I shouldn't be ashamed of these things, that I lived a life reactive to the lessons that I had learned but he convinced me that the only way I could be with anyone was to not relate the story of my past. And the part of me that believes in a black and white reality learned that I could never be with anyone. Because no one would love someone like me if they knew everything.

What I am learning now is that if people love you then they love you even more when you tell them your history. Because when people love you they understand when you reveal the facts. I'm lucky. I have a lot of people that love me, not out of obligation but rather because they accept me in spite of my flaws. Because they know my intentions and see them beyond my reactions. I feel like the best thing I have done for myself in this life so far (besides having my kids) has been to expose my secrets in this blog. I've removed the barriers that keep me from everyone. I WANT to be an open book, secrets aren't my strong suite. Secrets have been the worst part of most terrible things I have experienced. I hate secrets. Whenever I have a secret I know I'm not living my life right.

Sometimes the past creeps up on me and I can't do anything to protect myself but push everyone away. I get angry and suspicious. I close myself off and stay at home. I let a few people become my lifelines, my connection to the world. It isn't fair to these people, they take on roles beyond simply a friend. They become therapists and parental figures. And that isn't fair to them. I'm trying to find a way to avoid this sick pattern, but it's hard. I'm finding this blog therapeutic because it gives me chance to talk about all of this, face it, without having it feel overly confrontational. And it helps. Because after people read this they either love me or they don't. I don't want to hide my secrets, never have wanted to. I just want to be me and eventually a better me. So thank you for being a part of this.

The Rain.

The rain always reminds me of Napa, California. The last year that I lived in Napa as a kid was during the flood of '86. It was a pretty crazy flood and I remember witnessing none of it. But I do remember the sound and the smell of rain. It reminds me of being small and not afraid, not safe but unaware of how unsafe I was. You always think that your life is the standard that most people's lives are modeled after until you begin to witness firsthand that it isn't so. So for a few years, until I went to Headstart and then kindergarten I lived a normal life. It may not be anyone else' version of normal, but until I knew better it was mine. And so I was happy.

The sound of rain makes me nostalgic for that feeling. Of my mother singing to us, of sneaking into the neighbor's backyard to play with their puppies, or camping in our backyard in a tent with a flashlight and a tube of cookie dough with my sisters. Being in the country visiting my grandparents and getting a foxtail stuck in my ear. I think they had to take me to a vet get it out. Climbing a tree in the backyard only to realize that I was afraid of heights. I was so afraid that all I could do was stay still until my grandma climbed up to get me out. She refused to ever babysit me again, poor lady. There are so many tiny memory clips that run through my mind, of grilled cheese  sandwiches we got up early and made so we could give our parents breakfast in bed. Eating peach Quaker Oatmeal and mimicking the commercial saying "Peachy Keen!" as I grinned like I thought the actress did.

There is SO much there that I played over and over again in the years after I was separated from them for good. I hung on to these memories so I would never be alone because I knew at one time someone loved me like that and one day we would be together again. The scene with the song 'Somewhere Out There' from "An American Tale" was a song I loved because it was so similar to how I felt with my memories. The scene from "Dumbo" when the mother cradled Dumbo in her trunk through the bars of her cell as she sang to him always made me ache because I knew what that situation felt like. I felt like I lived in a strange limbo after I was with my adoptive mother. I had a new family but I had a heart full of the family I felt like I had been stolen from. There was a lot of frustration in the relationship with my adopted mother stemming from the loyalties I had for my biological family. She was supportive of my love for them at first but I think she had the expectation that it would fade. And it didn't.

I can see now how it must have been painful for her to compete with the memory of a woman that couldn't take care of me, didn't protect me. But even now as I picture my biological mom with short, curly brown hair and a face that looks so much like mine it makes me long for her. Not her now, but what she was then. My safe place. When I was a teenager and life continued to get more and more complicated I would close my eyes and imagine I was small and in her arms. I would drink Sleepy Time tea because she used to give that to us a bedtime. The smell of that tea makes me feel a fragile kind of peacefulness.

The last time I saw V (biological mom) was right before we moved to Ellensburg when I was 13. We met at Chuck E. Cheese. My 16 year old sister Heather and her were saying goodbye to me. Heather was 3 months pregnant with my nephew Dylan and she was excited. It was surreal, I didn't really know them, they had become almost god-like to me in the 7 years since I had been placed with my adoptive mom. Her hair had turned gray and I felt that same craving for them but barely recognized them. And then it was goodbye for the next 5 years.

I think missing them only became worse, only got stronger. As the life with my mom went downhill I idealized their memories even more. It was a means to survive, a reason to have hope and keep pushing because I knew that as soon as I was 18 I would return to my 'real' life and they would be there with open arms awaiting for their prodigal daughter to return home. So I wrote. For years and years I filled notebooks with poems and then songs. Everything came out of me and on paper it became something tangible and real to keep me company. I sang. I found that when I felt trapped in a situation I could sing or close my eyes and 'play' music in my head. Words and music became an insulation for me against the world. I knew from the first time I remember singing in kindergarten thinking that this was it, this was what I was going to do with my life. I was going to be a singer. And through the rest of my life growing up that was what I worked towards. Writing songs, performing in talent shows and choirs. I think that was the only thing that got me though all of those years.

It was a shock to me the first time I realized that it might not happen. My whole life was based on this dream and it hit me when I was strung out, thinking I was going to be a junky for the rest of my life. It was such a radical concept to me that it actually took the air out my lungs. I don't know when I laid it to rest completely, got over the fact that that dream wasn't one that I was going to live out but at some point I did. Now when I think about it, it's with a kind of disconnect and really no feeling of loss. It really did get me through most of my childhood and in to adulthood. I'd say that it was a very well lived dream based on that alone.

This Birthday I will be 31.

This year I will be 31 but I feel just as confused, frustrated and in over my head as  did when I was a kid. Only now, when things go wrong it's my fault. I have two beautiful boys that love me because they know no better, because I'm the only mom they've got. As I exist here selfishly running from my ghosts they sit patiently and wait for mom to be okay. And that's not right. I remember growing up thinking that adults were insane, selfish people that got all of the choices and none of the repercussions. I remember wanting to be dead. Suicide was an idealized thought that developed in my mind over the years and attempts manifested on occasion. The first time I remember was when I was 13 or 14. I took a lot of over the counter pills and remember the feeling of disappointment when nothing happened. I remember crying in the kitchen of my mom's house as I washed dishes, as the lyrics of a Duran Duran song wailed
"Words playing me deja-vu like a radio tune I swear I've heard before
Chills is it something real or the magic I'm feeding off your fingers
Can't ever keep from falling apart at the seams
Can't I believe you're taking my heart to pieces
Lost in a snow filled sky we'll make it alright to come undone now
We'll try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside
Hey child stay wilder than the wind and blow me in to cry"




And all I could think was "Let me out!!!!"








I don't think anyone ever knew about the times I tried to do myself in. I was careful, never spoke about it or someone might stop me. The next time I remember was when I was 14 at the group home, I was coming off of Prozac cold turkey and it was rough. I stole a butter knife with a slightly serrated edge and went on a walk. I think it was around the time they found out I was bulimic. I went to the park across the street and sat under a tree, then sawed away. I wasn't into pain, it was all action with purpose. I sawed at my wrist making sure to saw downwards and across the veins, sobbing, because I wanted nothing more than to end all of this hurt. I wanted to be free.   

The next time I remember was when I was 17 and in the only decent home I ever lived in. I got into her medicine cabinet and got her cold medicine, took it all with a feeling of relief. It was all going to end now. I don't believe in heaven (though I DO believe in ghosts, hypocrisy much?) and I was ecstatic that the pain and frustration was going to end. But I woke up the next morning. I was so disappointed.  

Even now I see it as an easy out, a pressure release when I am over whelmed. When I was on meth the only thing that kept me from doing myself in was the image of my family telling my nephews why they would never see me again. I couldn't do that to them. But honestly when things get bad even now, I consider it. I look for that easy out, consider that easy out because I'm not sure about my strength.

Current state. As of today, since it changes constantly.

Today I'm a human being, someone with many flaws and many weaknesses I haven't wanted to pardon myself for. I have been a hard critic, self loathing, miserable. And recently something amazing happened. I thought of myself, of my problems and I felt empathy. It's been easy up until now to look at the child I was and feel compassion but for the adult I am I haven't cut any slack. I may have been a great defense attorney for myself all of these years but I've never rewarded myself with the understanding that I would have given to anyone else that I love. Then one day I thought "You are this way for a reason". And it clicked. I was human, my flaws were forgivable. Wow. That's a HUGE fuckin' relief. The way I've lived is as a neurotic people pleaser, with concrete loyalties and a self righteous streak that has crippled me. I've been slowly training myself to be more objective. I feel like a kid that's learning the art of socialization and it hasn't been easy. In fact sometimes it just plainly and simply hurts. The thing about me is that I get short sighted when it comes to people that I care about---I get a superman complex. I can fix it! I can fight it! I can save them!  But how the fuck can I save anyone else when I can't even save myself? When I am constantly beating myself down for real and fictitious failures in my life?

I'm an asshole, that much I will admit. I'm a dirty, old, pissed off man stuck in a 30 year old woman's body. But I'm also a few other things. I'm child-like, I have a streak in me that lets me engage other people in ridiculousness and I think it carries people sometimes. I have a huge heart, all I need is a good sob story to get my mind going and my body moving on ways to help. I'm such a fucked up mess that has enough life experience that I can relate to a lot of people because in a lot of different cases because I have really, truly been there. I don't harshly judge the people I love because I love them and I offer that pretty openly. There isn't much I wouldn't do for the people I love. In fact there isn't much I wouldn't do for people I loathe if they come at me from the right angle. I often put my own inconvenience to the wayside to help people if the situation seems dire enough, as long as they seem sincere. And I will also admit: I am one HELL of a cheerleader. I genuinely want good people to succeed, whether I know them well or not. I'm a good person to tell your problems to because generally it will never go any further and I can offer decent advice. Because I care. And I will never pussy-foot around the truth just because you are my friend. I will tell you what I honestly think because I think that when you really love people you take the risk of making them mad if the point I make might drive them to improve their life.

So there it is. I'm admitting I'm a decent human being. And this is new to me. I've made a lot of mistakes and have hurt people when I really would have rather not. But I can't change any of this now. I can only try to be a better person. So I guess the state I am in is forgiving myself. I am only human and much of this I've had to learn on my own, the harder way. I'm doing ok. Because I'm growing.

It happened.

I've had so many moments that have left me standing, shocked and rocked, thinking "If I could only change just that ONE moment, that ONE decision". But I can't. Admittedly most of them fade away, the pain dulls and the memory gets much less sharply edged. But some moments hang around forever, highlighted by a song that plays on the radio, in a face that I see, in a person that I run into from time to time. They never fade, never burn out--always raging away in my memory, waiting to be triggered and resurrected in to full form. When people say they are haunted by a memory it's a very literal use of the word.

I don't have many things that I regret with that much conviction or that much commitment. But some things I do. The things I've done to hurt my self, which most things are, don't phase me. I don't look back and think "I wish I could take that back." Those things were relevant to me at those times in my life. They didn't fulfill me, didn't make me happy or proud necessarily but they do make me myself, so that makes them relevant. The things that stab me with regret are the problems I've caused for other people. Because I can't absorb that shock, can't heal that hurt. The biggest weakness I have is my immaturity. It hinders me daily, is evident in my black and white perception and in my live in the moment reality. There's more to life than feeling good but I forget that daily. My goal seems to be to feel good. Or more realistically to just not feel bad. There's more to life than this. I have a huge guilty conscience, probably from not being believed when I've told the truth for a lot of my life, maybe just from my low level of self worth.

The person that I TRY to be is very honest (even with myself), very ethical, very brave and unwavering. In some ways I am that person, I always want to do the 'right' thing. I tell people what I really think because it's the only way to communicate and come to see eye to eye. I don't like to assume that I am always right and talking is the only way to walk towards discovering this. The person that I perceive that I am is awkward, overbearing, self righteous, impulsive, oversensitive and brash. I'm trying to learn to be humble, have temperance. And finally it's happening. The negativity I cast out at the world to keep it all away is leaving me.

I relaxed today, really and truly for the first time in as long as I can remember. I feel a lot of guilt today, don't get me wrong but today I'm not running. I'm not chasing away the memories and thoughts that hold me accountable for the choices I've made. When  I say 'today' I really mean this actual day. Getting on antidepressants has improved my life immensely in so many ways and facing my life is one of them. I still have a hard time getting out of bed most days but my inner voice that is honest with me has gotten louder. And I've let some of my walls down, I'm feeling pain instead of rage. It's uncomfortable to say the least but it's real and very valid. Instead of Syndea the warrior I'm feeling like Syndea the person and that makes the world a less hostile environment for me. Shades of gray are starting to appear and the barrier that kept me from most people is starting to thin.

 Does it feel good? No. In some ways it is more hurt than I anticipated. Is it a good for me? Yes. This proves a few points: Feeling good isn't always good for me or those around me. People are people, forgive their flaws. My anger only drains me and very rarely anyone else. You get what you give; put out negativity and rudeness and it will only be returned. I've stopped carrying around these burdens, my grudge against the world was a self constructed prison and I'm done committing myself to this term.


Here's the thing I'm working towards: I don't want to pass my misery on to my kids. I don't want them to be jaded on mankind before they even get a chance to experience it. I've put enough on to them, given them enough weight to pull through this life. The pain I've suffered has all been passed on to me from unhappy adults acting out on their bad lives and I don't wish that on my boys. I feel like a failure as a parent daily. I want them to know they are a priority and not a chore but I don't think I'm doing it well. Nothing hurt like it does when it's hurting your kid, nothing feels important like it does when it's important to your kid. I don't want to be that hurt to them, don't want to be that important thing that failed. i need to fix these things NOW.

Today my baby is 4.

Today my youngest baby is four. I'm elated, over the moon with excitement about the meager birthday he's had today. Being a mom was a natural wish that I had before I had children. I craved motherhood in the naive way that lonely, dysfunctional females typically do. In my sick little mind I thought that having a baby would cure my loneliness, make me forever linked to another being's soul. And I would be loved.

The way that my oldest son came to be wasn't ideal. I blame cheap beer and feeling lonely on the longest relationship I ever had. Most of my relationships were very short and anxiety ridden, it's hard to commit when you don't believe that anyone could truly love you. I'm slowly changing that belief but I have a ways to go before I really believe it. My approach is still to push people away because if they love me they will fight for it. Problem is that I can't recognize when it's been proven. There's no way for anyone to win.

I had lost my job in Santa Rosa due to drinking, no one wants to have a shaky alcoholic employed as the body piercer at their shop and I was a 22 year old drunk. I would drink a 12 pack every night, without fail, because when I drank that much it was the only time I didn't feel pain. It wasn't rewarding, I did humiliating things and slept with questionable people all in the name of numbness. Numb was a great feeling. Numb is the closest thing I have found to peace to this day. One day it led to my dismissal from a job I loved and I felt the only escape from this was to come 'home' to Ellenburg. I had gotten the number for an old friend that was crazy as hell but reliable for a place to stay and she welcomed me back. My plan was to come 'home' and make enough money to get back on my feet and return to California. California is the place my heart feels most comforted by, a place I really feel like I belong. I'm comfortable being a 'freak', someone that stands out by blending into the colorful and diverse Bay Area scene. I like being in a place with hookers, junkies and punks. I like feeling not extraordinary in my diversity.

When I lost my job I took out my facial piercings, drank enough booze to deaden my grief and sucked it up. I thought I would be back soon. What I didn't count on was ending up pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I wanted a baby---but I wanted a family, too. There was this huge part of me that thought I could replace the family I never had but always wanted with a family of my own. And I settled.

When I got to Ellensburg there was a guy I had known living in the trailer park (yeah, I said trailer park) that I had once flirted with and I knew we would be a couple. I thought that at the ripe old age of 22 if I couldn't make it with him then there was no one. So I tried. There were so many red flags, so many warnings but when you haven't experienced or believed in good things than you settle for what you get. What I wanted was love, but I was his rebound. I forever heard of the ghost of his meth crazed ex, someone he loved and loathed. I would never be enough because of her but because of her, his massive feelings of inadequacy kept me around. I had so many reasons to run during our relationship but my 'bulldog' personality kept me persistent, sure that my 'love' would keep us strong. It was a bad relationship, we got drunk and fought, made up and started over. I fell for his honey moon period sweet talk and he kept me around, I'm sure, because of my submissiveness to him.

And one day I knew. It wasn't a great time to find out--I left to visit Cali for a week and he slept with my room mate and a junky. Every time I called him from California he was unavailable. When I came back we broke up. But we were tossed back together when my room mate threw me out because of their affair. I had no place to go but he took me in. And eventually, one day, I felt funny. I walked to my work after drinking a few beers, as per the norm, but the smell of bacon made me puke. That was unusual. I thought about the cramps I had for a few days and started asking the other waitresses about pregnancy symptoms. I called a regular and asked him to bring me a pregnancy test. He brought it, I took it. I was fucking pregnant. I was pregnant. Oh my god, I was pregnant. Pregnant. Fuck.

I didn't tell him. I just didn't drink that first night, which was unusual. I remember him putting his hands over my nose and mouth, cutting off air as he told me this was what he had always wanted, me not drinking, but it was too late for us. I was so afraid.

I didn't tell him I was pregnant until the growing pains drove me to explain that the reason I wanted the password to his computer was to look up symptoms of a miscarriage. I was sure I was losing our child. He begged and pleaded, asked me to have an abortion, told me that he would pay for me to get artificially inseminated but PLEASE don't fulfill his family curse by having  this baby. According to him his second born would signal his death. His father had died when he was a baby and me having this baby would kill him. I was his death sentence. 

Needless to say, he didn't die.

Drugs part 2

I remember how triumphant my friends and I were when I came back with that money. The guy was a sleazy bastard, anyhow, I didn't feel bad for conning him simply because I knew he was a shitbag. The funny thing about this story is that the group I was living with and getting high with was a family I had met when I was 14. I used to eat at their house, play barbies in their basement. We had stopped hanging out when I moved away to Oregon but when I was 19 and getting high we reconnected. Their mom was a provider, she was the one that had introduced me to the prof, he was her sugar daddy. The deal they had was she had sex with him on demand but he didn't pay her, he was supposed to provide things to her as she needed them. Trouble was, he never provided, always kept her waiting. She was doing the best she could to keep her real family and drug family afloat and he continually was dicking her around. It made the initial scam an easy deal for me. I wasn't destined to survive in this group of people basically because I did meth like I do everything, excessively. When you are in a house full of meth heads and THEY think you're too far out there: they're right. I got to the point where it stopped making me numb and just made me neurotic. Instead of killing my insecurities it fed them. I would sit for hours drawing, never moving from the couch. When they were back in their bedroom I would feel as though I was physically unable to go back there with everyone, I felt like I was unwelcome, which I wasn't.

The first time I was shot up changed everything. I remember sitting in the bathroom while he injected me, as the rush hit me tears ran down my face. They asked why I was crying, worried that he had missed (it's very painful to get it anywhere outside of the vein) but I was crying because it felt so fantastically, amazingly, out of this world GOOD. In fact I didn't know I was crying until they pointed it out to me. It was a full body orgasm, I swear. And that is officially when I lost it to speed. I was a girl with a lifelong fear of needles and suddenly they were my best friend. I was hooked. I don't really remember how soon after but they wanted to cut me off. I think the excuse they had was that I was too good to be doing it, that they felt they had ruined me and soon he refused to shoot me up. But I'm stubborn and soon was spending hours trying to hit a vein on my own. It seems like it would be easy, but really it's not. Veins 'dive' when you are trying to hit them all willy nilly. It took a long time before I finally drew back blood, finally gave myself that release I used to depend on getting from someone else. But I did. And I fell further into my strung out mind, further away from being a human being. For me the goal of getting high was to sleep as little as possible, to escape through losing my mind as much as possible. I had full on hallucinations so many times, of people trying to harm me, or people talking about me. My hallucinations were so real that I had no qualms about complaining about them to people that knew damn well there was no one on the roof next door talking shit about me. My insecurities were manifesting in my waking hours instead of falling away behind my high.

The very first time I actually had sex for cash was traumatizing. A friend and I had agreed we would try it out together. The prof had a friend that was also a dealer and they wanted to 'double date'. My friend and I agreed that we would charge a hundred dollars an hour, we thought that we, at the wise age of 19, were in control. These adult men were our puppets and we were going to be in charge. What the reality of the situation was that it killed me inside. I went over there in my '90's pleather pants thinking that I was the woman in charge being as I was in possession of the vagina and in the end the cash. But when I left I knew I was a whore. It was something I was accused of growing up and in a way it was a big "FUCK YOU!!" because I was fulfilling the prophesy of someone that should have never called me such things. And here's the kicker: I lost the rolled up hundred dollar bill I had tucked into my waistband.

The next day when I came down was surreal. I was crying, self loathing. I wanted to die. My friends brought me morphine pills so that I could sleep. Everyone knew that I was a whore. I knew that I was a whore. I didn't feel in charge anymore. But I had already done it and in some part of me I felt like I was paying some penance by doing what I was doing. I deserved this and nothing more. So it continued. The drug dealer seemed to think of me as one of his girlfriends, it became regular thing. We traded sex for drugs, he took me with him to Yakima to re-up, I met his contacts. I was in the game. I had a boyfriend at the time, a guy I had gone to school with. He knew what I did and I imagine he hated it. The thing with me was I provided. People wanted cigarettes? I would steal them or buy them and hand them out. People wanted weed? I would call everyone I knew, work up fake tears when necessary and we would have it. People wanted speed? I fucked for it and I shared. In a sick way I felt like these people were family. I was naive. I thought that they felt as much fealty to me as I felt for them and I provided for my 'family'.  I was a sucker. But I was the one with carpet burns on my back and I was the one carrying around the mark of a whore. So I did more, because the darkness didn't fade so easily anymore.

I remember a time when the prof had a friend in town. He wanted to show him what a 'baller' he was and had his whore come over to service him. He had never had a prostitute before and it was more of a mark of shame to him than the mark of a 'baller'. I quoted him my usual price and it was too much for him. We debated, eventually the price went from a hundred dollars to thirty five. I was livid. But I was desperate. In the end he gave me the money but the whole time he was fucking me I resentfully said "You get what you pay for". I don't think either of us walked away feeling as though we had won.

Drugs.

Oi. Drugs are a long, graffic story. It involves sex at some points and quite honestly I doubt that I will be able to explain it all in one blog. With my first few experiences I was still pretty young. I was 14 abusing my anti-depressant and smoking pot with my best friends. Also at 14 getting into an argument with my mom that ended with me kicking her in the shins led to my first experience with prescription painkillers. She called the police, I got charged with 4th degree assault and she tells me to find someone to stay the weekend with. I was living with her Brook Lane friends at the time but they were out of town for the weekend. There was a 20 year old girl in my choir class, she was coming back to school after having a baby with her slightly older boyfriend. They lived in the trailer park over on University Way and she had always been nice to me, had given me her number. When I called her she said I could come stay with them, no problem!

Her man was a total creep. I was a 14 year old girl that was at that time still a virgin and still very afraid of men, he was in his 20's and saw me as an easy target. The first night I was there they offered me vicodin. I had never tried anything like it before but I was feeling worldy and hardcore. He used to go to the E.R. faking a sore throat and it must have been successful because they fed them to me like candy. "Take 3 of them at a time, that's the best high!" they told me and being worldly and hardcore, I complied. While I stayed with them I was taking 9 a day. The first night I took them they took me cruising around Ellensburg, bought me a banana split from Dairy Queen. I was in the back seat of a two door and had to have them pull over on Main Street so I could launch my head out of the back seat and vomit. They thought it was funny, this high 14 year old losing her shit. We went to Carey Lake the next day and had a picnic. I remember her man trying to rub his feet against mine under the table, remember pulling my feet away saying he was with my friend and I basically thought he was a sleaze. Eventually it was time for me to return to Brook Lane, and stay with Kiku until my mom's friends came home. I remember vomiting in their bathroom in the middle of watching "Schindler's List" even though it had been a day since taking any vicodin. When I saw her next in school she shunned me, told me her man had told her about how I had hit on him after they had taken me in. That was another black mark against men in general for me. I can't remember if I tried to explain to her, I just remember it felt bad.

For the next few years as I bounced through different homes and different friends, I got high. I was a fairly innocent little rebel girl, in 3 pairs of shredded nylons, 2 layers of torn up hippy skirts and a variety of blue, orange and black lipsticks. I was a short, loud thing, cussing out groups of people for being bullies, railing against injustice and getting high. I was becoming me.

I went to a few more group homes, wrote angry songs and jammed with my crushes. It was where I wanted to be. Fast forward to 18. At 18 I moved to California. My biological mother and sisters, the people I had clung to the memory of for years in an attempt to survive came and picked me up. We headed to California. At some point I will go more into what that was like but for now I will make this very quick: I went down there chubby, rediscover bulimia from the emotional stress of trying to deal with it all, became anorexic and tiny, obsessing about food but only eating a bagel a day and doing 300 stomach crunches first thing in the morning then again right after work. And when it all became too much I flew back home to Ellensburg.

That was the end of 1999. I came back here with a horrible dread in my gut, knowing I was being weak by returning home. 2000 started with an overbearing feeling of doom. I just knew that that year, 2000, was going to be BAD. And it was. I got my old job back at Dairy Queen, I worked my ass off. But I was to become very close friends with a drug I had only dabbled in before: meth. Now the allure of meth is probably hard to grasp for people that know how to deal with their emotions, but for me it was glorious. I died the day I flew away from California with my nephews crying as I left.  I loved them more than anything but I couldn't be strong and stay anymore. When I got home I missed them in ways I can't translate. I was missing parts of me. The memories from my childhood that I was staving off were always in the shadows of my brain, suffocating me. And along came speed. Meth was the first time I could think about these soft spots and not feel like dying. When I was high---I could face ANYTHING. My body issues became nothing because I shrank away, revolted by food. I felt cold and soulless, I loved it. But at the same time I felt like a creature of the night. The eyes of formers friends upon me was unbearable. Time lost all context, when you come down after being up for three days, five days. You sleep through your shifts at work and people seem like aliens.

I had a new group of friends, friends that used with me. Tweeker friends, though, have no loyalty. Because we smoke, snort, shoot away our souls. It started as snorting I believe, then gave away to smoking. I was SOLD. For the first time in life the white noise of my unhappy sub conscience was abated and I felt free. I was in it to win it. I wanted this game. It didn't feel good but for fucking once it didn't feel BAD. One thing I that I learned was this: I had something that men wanted and would pay for. I thought that, well, hell--I have been giving it away for free. Why not? I could dominate them for once. For once I could set the cost and they would pay for it all. I thought it would give me the upper hand on men in general. I was an idiot.

The first time it happened it was a prof from YVCC. He was a guy that lived in Ellensburg and I was afraid. I got shot up with shitload of meth that night and I went over to his house in full scam mode. This was the only night I truly won, the only night the money was free.  I had it ALL planned out. I told him he paid upfront, $100 an hour just to DISCUSS the possibility of a business relationship. It was empowering at the time---I didn't put out and I came home with $300.00. He was pissed and I was triumphant. And that was the last time I had my dignity for a long time.

Insanity and me.

Genetically I might be doomed. So many mental illnesses run in my biological family that it's a pretty good chance that a degree of the problems I have in life are naturally occurring. My biological mother was a diagnosed schizophrenic, that's the reason she had to be hospitalized so much. In an incident of coincidence she was frequently admitted to the same hospital that my eventual adoptive mother worked at. I never saw any of her 'craziness' that I can remember, in fact most of the memories I have of her back then are most likely idealized over the years that I grew up without her. They're of her singing "My Little Sunshine" to me while we looked at the moon after my very first trip to the ER, of her reading the 'Little House on the Prairie' series to my sisters and I. She used to make bologna sandwiches with lettuce, tomato and cheese on them. I thought they were fancy because they were sandwiches with 'everything'. There was the time that our car broke down and she joked that we should hitch hike so I stuck my thumb out. I remember her intensity when she told me to stop it as a car pulled over to pick us up, which she sheepishly waved on. I remember how hard it was for her to break me of sleeping in her bed, the very first night I slept the whole night on my spot on the floor in between my sisters' beds they cheered for me. We had a sitter that once burned mac and cheese to the bottom of the pan, the same sitter I got fired for narcing on for letting my preteen sisters smoke. We used to run the neighborhood while she played softball, exploring creeks and catching crawdads that we fed hotdogs to. I remember the boy they pulled out of the lake by my grandparent's house, crying and shaking and the rusty bike they pulled out of the lake that he had injured himself on. I remember the prayer circles we attended to pray for the woman in our church that was hit by a car. In fact I believe I remember us seeing the accident but I really can't  swear by that.

Whenever she was admitted to the hospital it seemed so sudden, that might just be because I thought her behaviors were normal, I don't know. I would get dropped off at Head Start by her in the morning and in the afternoon a social worker in a state issued car would pick me up, say my mom was sick again and it would be off to an unknown home full of strangers. It was scary every time. We wouldn't know the rules, nothing there belonged to us and we never knew how long we would be there. We had to band together the best that we could, my sisters and I. The most consistent caretaker I had in those first few years was my sister Heather. She was groomed for the role of caretaker, I think. I can't imagine how hard it was for her being the oldest, being just as afraid as I was but feeling that she had to protect me in these homes even though she couldn't in ours. She used to call me Honeybun and when she said that I knew that somebody loved me infinitely and everything was ok. She didn't have a person like that and I can't imagine what that was like. When we met up as adults I still had that hero worship for her which was unfair to her. As we got to know each other as adults I found that she was a blond haired, blue eyed version of me. To this day even though we don't talk much I feel like I have a twin that knows that I'm a good person.

The way that it usually happened was that when my mother got out of the hospital she would get us back, one at a time, just to make sure that she was up to par. I was always the first to go back, reason being that I was the youngest. What I remember the clearest about those times alone with her were marked with days in front of the t.v. watching the black and white Mickey Mouse Club shows and eating frozen cool whip, or one time stepping on a fly and watching little white things crawl out of the body. It seemed like these times didn't last long. The only things that I remember of my father was getting spankings and not knowing why, him building a swingset in the backyard, swearing with his ass crack hanging out and the sexual abuse. He was an Alhambra Water delivery man and for years I couldn't see an Alhambra truck without getting a bad feeling in my gut.

I have good memories of a church in the country, visits with my grandparents and cousins, visiting Fuller Park during an art fair to see my aunt's booth. I remember crying and being made to stand in the corner at Sunday school, catching salty tears with my tongue as they rolled down my face because being separated from my mom was the most unbearable feeling in the world. What the attendants there probably didn't know was that I cried because I had learned that when my mother left me it was never guaranteed that she would pick me back up. When she left me somewhere it felt like I would never see her again because that might be so.

My family is ridden with bipolar disorder, depression, manic depression and schizophrenia.
After this last year I'm not sure where I stand in all of this. I tell people that I'm crazy in a dismissive way because then it makes it okay to me if they think that I am. It's like a preemptive strike more than anything. It's okay- I'm just crazy! You want to judge me? Well it's okay because I do that too. It's a way of tricking myself into thinking that people aren't REALLY judging me, you see---because I'm crazy. But the thing I'm realizing now as the anti-depressants do their job and I'm feeling more human is that I'm terrified that I AM crazy. I'm in my thirties now and a lot of disorders don't manifest until later in life. Around the age I am now. Like schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be hidden and dormant until this age. Sometimes it pops up as early as childhood but a lot of people don't experience it until they're older and under a great deal of stress. I am terrified of what my mind might potentially do to the lives of my children and I. I think that I might just be depressed but I'm never really sure. Trying to explain myself to 'normal' people is hard because I'm never really sure what reflex is motivating me. It could be fear, it could be anger and it could be insanity. I have no idea.

I'm having a hard time today. It's really hitting home that the acting out I've done this year has caused damage. I've lost friends, some of which I don't mind losing because they never really cared about me beyond a person to shoot the breeze with and I can cope with that. What is killing me today is losing friends that I gave my heart to, people I really cared about and felt a certain amount of security in. It's hard to look at someone I felt like I knew really well and see in their face that I am garbage. There is this tiny child inside of me screaming "THAT WASN'T ME!! I HAVEN'T BEEN MYSELF! I THOUGHT YOU KNEW THAT! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!!". It's that kind of sad that makes my throat ache as I fight back tears and choke back snot. The last week I've had people I've loved turn their backs to me so they didn't have to see my face, afraid of what I might say if I approached them. Or other friends that I've been there for, even when they never knew I was, disregard me with a look of disgust. And that little kid inside of me is shouting "Please don't LEAVE ME!!!! Can't you see that I've been crazy! I wasn't myself!". But I can't say anything because how can I explain all of this in one conversation? The demeanor I've been putting off isn't me, I've just been falling apart and falling apart badly. I don't know myself right now. So much rage was coming out of me because it was easier than dealing with my pain. I didn't want to feel sorry for myself so I've been angry, because anger is empowering, made me feel stronger than I feel when I just submit to the pain. And now what I'm feeling is pain. A lot of pain.

I can't control the tears, can't control the feeling of failure I feel inside. I know realistically that this is healing, because I'm finally feeling instead of fighting. But it sucks.

Men in general through the eyes of a untrusting child.

I remember a very strong belief I had when I was a kid was that men weren't capable of love. I couldn't fathom it even being possible. I believed in Santa Clause until I was 10, but the idea of men loving anything was impossible to me. I didn't have a father figure in my life growing up after I came to live with my adoptive mother, until I was with Dick and Gayle. The only fathers I knew were the ones in the foster homes. A. and L. were the parents at the home my sisters and I lived at and after meeting them when I was an adult I know L. is a very nice man. A. is batshit crazy and I'm sure some day I will understand why they didn't let me stay with my sisters. I know I was a defiant little shit, I'm sure that I was more difficult than I remember. I know they tried to keep me away from sugar because it made me hyper, so I would sneak Oreos from the cookie jar when everyone was sleeping. The black crumbs gave me away but I had no idea how they always knew what I had done. One thing I don't remember is the day I was sent away. It's really surprising that I don't, considering the other things I do.

One thing that is consistent in my younger childhood is complete suspicion of men and their showing of affection or attention to me. I was in karate when I was 6 and my teacher picked me up and held me, told me I was cute. My little 6 year old brain was wondering if he was coming on to me, but not with such a sophisticated grasp on it. I just wondered if his being affectionate with me was safe. Or when a neighbor held me steady on a step stool at their house--I was afraid that his touching me would lead to more. There was a time my mom left me in the car while she ran into the bank. A scroungy looking guy leaned on a pillar in front of our van and I was terrified. Was he going to try to take me and hurt me? Would my mom get back to the van before he could? I was always on the lookout for danger, always sure that someone was going to get me and no one would protect me.
 
I still feel that way. I think the reason honesty is so important to me is that I told the truth so many times and no one believed me or would help me. I have a very black and white perception on honesty. Good people tell the truth, bad people lie. But even now when I tell the truth I worry that people won't believe me. Not because in recent history that's the case, but because it's the basis of the first lessons I learned in life. I think it's also the reason I have such a stubborn, bulldog personality. I feel like I HAVE to defend myself because no one else will. My sense of loyalty to people comes from that too, as well as my expectations from friends. When I was placed with my adoptive mother she was told that I made false accusations of sexual abuse and it was her job to get the truth out of me. She told her male relatives to not be alone with me and would try to get me to admit that I had made things up about the boy in that earlier home. I think that's where the dreams about soundless screaming came from. No matter what I said the response I got was that I had ruined HIS life, that he would carry that stigma forever because I had lied. Only I hadn't lied. I was 6.

She found out a few years later that I didn't lie when an attorney showed up at the door of our Fairfield home. She wanted to talk to me, wanted me to testify in court. There were two other girls with the same claims and they finally wanted to hear what I had to say. My mom told them no. She did it to protect me, didn't want me to go through the same thing I had with my father. But in my mind and heart the damage was done. I had a voice that I saw as useless, no one would listen.

Lately that same feeling has popped into my life, the feeling of distrusting men. I think it's just a result of all of the stress I've had the last few years--most caused by my own choices. I resent being hit on by men but I resent being alone. It's hard because what I want is nurturing and love but I have no clue how to accept it. When I was getting my chestpiece done Ben was telling me at the end when it had become painful, that he was almost done and that it would be over soon. I kept interjecting that it was okay, even though I was obviously in pain. He said "I'm just trying to make you feel better here." It really hit home that my defenses don't allow other people to comfort me. That's sad. I sit here feeling alienated from other people but it's because of my own actions and words, not mankind in general.

Promiscuity.

Healing is something I don't think I've done much of yet. I'm not even sure when I admitted to myself that my past left me scarred. I know now looking back the signs that I was bearing after effects. When I was 14 I got my first and second kisses. They were boys my age and they were perfectly normal, enthusiastic teenage boy makeout sessions with two perfectly normal, attractive boys that I knew and felt (obviously) a certain amount of familiarity with. The feeling I got in my stomach was terrible. Even now finding the right words is hard. Maybe horrified? I felt violated  even though I wasn't. I felt fear, even though I knew I had no reason for it. It's pretty typical for sexual abuse victims to become promiscuous and it would be another year or so before I did, but eventually I did.

The year that I was 14 I came out of my shell a bit. I had a group of real friends for the first time in my life. It was probably because that's when I started hanging out at the 'stump'. Back then the space where the new high school is was a field and us kids would simply walk over there, right off of school property and smoke. My best friend was a very sweet and loving person that socialized well (unlike me) and is probably the reason I ended up having friends at all. I was learning to socialize, finally. I was also learning that the more sarcastic and aloof I acted the cooler people thought I was. I was learning to sell myself.

The year before I had gone to three different schools, I started off here in town until I told the school councilor that I would kill myself if I wasn't removed from my home. And I meant it. That resulted in me going into a foster home briefly, then being shipped off to Oregon to live with my cousins. My behavior was awful, I was really unhappy. I ended up getting sent home to Ellensburg after I got caught shoplifting and my mom sent me to school in Kittitas. It was then that my mom had me put on anti depressants. She used to work in a psychiatric hospital and I think unfortunately that was the view she had of me, in some ways, was as a patient. I don't want to go into a lot of detail about our relationship right now, the relationship we have now has evolved into a very good one and she does everything she can to help me, so I would like to talk to her before I post anything about our life together.

She had some friends, Peggy and I want to say Bob but I really can't remember their names. She asked them to take me in because I wasn't doing well at home. They were the apartment managers at Brook Lane back then and the summer before freshman year was fun. There were a lot of kids my age that lived there and that's how I met my best friend Kiku. One thing that was nice was that they let me be my own person, let me pick out my own clothes and I think that really made fitting in easier. I played outside with my friends all day, I didn't have to be home all of the time. We spent a lot of the summer as a group of kids exploring the graveyard on the other side of the fence and up the hill behind Brook Lane. My arms would be clawed up by the wild cats that lived around there that I thought I could tame. It was a happy summer.

14 was tough for a few reasons. A big one was the flashbacks. One day, out of nowhere, I remembered a scenario with my father that I hadn't thought of for years if ever. We were home alone one day and he called me into his room. There was a half eaten apple on the nightstand and it had turned brown, so I asked him why. He explained that the sugar in it made it turn colors when it was exposed to the air. I'm not going to go into detail about what happened next but it's the only time that I can really remember the specific incident. I was the youngest kid and I probably got the brunt of his abuse at that time because I was the only one that didn't go to school, I was 3. I remember being stubborn even back then. I used to prevoke him just to show him that even though I knew he was going to spank me he wasn't in control of me. I remember scaling down the wall outside of the window one time by a cable wire when I was supposed to be in bed just because I knew he was home. I hid in our back yard behind a tree while I heard him shout for me, knowing damn well I was going to get my ass beat and not feeling sorry one bit.

So the flashbacks triggered two self destructive urges in me. The first one being a need to numb my feelings. I found that if I took an extra amount of my antidepressant/sleep aid it made me feel high. That was my first brush with recreational drug use. The second reaction was to become bulimic. I haven't evolved much since then, over the years my drug use got really bad and eventually became alcoholism. Bulimia and anorexia have been a consistent reaction to immense stress to this day. So, now you know.

14 was the year my mom sent me to a group home. It was right before school let out, I was in detention and my mom pulled me out saying that I could do it another day, we had an appointment. Well, the appointment was at DSHS and they were taking me to a group home in Yakima for a few months. In order for her to do this and not pay she had to relinquish me to the state. She had every intention of getting me back after I had learned my lesson but while I was there I used the system to save myself from her. I had gone to OIC when I was 14 to get extra schooling and a summer job. I bonded with the woman that ran the program and while I was in the group home I called her up and asked her to become my foster mother. Her and her husband, bless their hearts, got licensed to become my foster parents. At the end of the summer I went home to them instead of her.

But while I was at the group home I lost my virginity and had my first real boyfriend. Those guys were not the same person. If you know me then how I lost my virginity will be no surprise. He wasn't a guy I knew very well, he wasn't a guy that I even liked that much. He was a guy willing to do a job that I thought needed to be done so I could stop being afraid of men. When I was afraid of heights I used to climb to the tops of trees, hang out on roofs reading books, climb the scaffolding on skyscrapers, because if there is one thing I hate it's being controlled by fear. I spent a large portion of my childhood having nightmares of faceless men chasing me to kill me while I tried to scream for help but no sound would come out. Or I would be in the middle of a crowded street, like one in New York, and I would open my mouth to cry for help and all that would happen was my throat would ache and no one would even look at me. That's probably why I would stay up all night reading books by the light outside my window, or line by line with the light from my clock radio.

But back to the tale of virginity. His name was Rich, he claimed to be a Hilltop Cryp, he was a tall, slender, blue eyed, blond, tough talking creep that probably made up most of his rapsheet. I'm not sure how we even got on the topic but needless to say when he found out that I was a virgin looking to get it out of the way he offered to help. There was a park across the street and being the classy broad that I am that is where I lost my v-card. One night I ran away and he ran away right after me. They called the cops whenever kids 'ran' but we had a solution for that. I hid in a tree and waited for him. He whistled when he got there, I climbed down and he climbed on. It hurt, but I gritted my teeth. His exact quote was "You're a SOLDIER, most girls puss out on it." Gee, thanks Rich. It was July 13th.

The second boy was Mike Phillips. He was beautiful. He was a year younger than me and he loved me. We had the same case worker so we often got to spend time together away from the home. She bought us cigarettes, she was cool. We had to stash our smokes in the park across the street and were allowed 3 10 minute walks a day, but not at the same time. At the beginning of summer they had no idea that we could sneak from room to room by way of the roof (eventually our windows were bolted shut except for about two inches) and so he became the second person that I had sex with. I think it was the first time I wasn't afraid of a boy and didn't get that feeling of intense suffocating from intimacy. I really loved that kid. But as all things must, it came to an end when I went home to Dick and Gayle's at the end of summer and all I had left of him was a baseball hat that he had sprayed with Brut to remember him by.

That wasn't the end of my promiscuity because as I came to discover I was still afraid of boys and men. I don't think that it was the fear of sex but the fear of being abandoned that caused me to break up all of my boyfriends within 48 hours. The sad thing is that I still have the same pattern. The most I can give to most relationships is a night in bed. The men I have been with for longer were out of necessity, except for the one time I fell in love in Santa Rosa.

I could write forever but Cade has homework and it's time to get things done around the house. Thanks for reading, this is the first time I have felt excited about something in awhile and I think it is helping me a lot to get this stuff out.

Sooo the day after I let it all hang out.

Yesterday was a strange day for me. The defense that has been my go-to has been anger for awhile now. If it hurt me, I was angry. If it offended me, I was pissed. If it in any way challenged me in a way that I was uncomfortable with then stand back, because I was likely to blow. But the past year has been a rough one. I can't pinpoint exactly where I fell apart, but I did. I don't know if it was as simple as hitting thirty fucking with my head, or if everything from the past few years collectively encompassed me and caused this emotional collapse. But I collapsed. I stopped eating and sleeping, started drinking more and really and truthfully was hopeful that a truck would run a red light while I was crossing an intersection. And this left me with one basic survival skill when it came to dealing with people. And that survival mode was 'STAY AWAY FROM ME!' I really don't think I have ever been as aggressive and angry in my whole life as I have been the past year. I'm sure that those of you who have seen my status updates this year will understand what I'm saying.

So back to yesterday. Yesterday I was a mess.  Making that blog was very spur of the moment, I didn't think it out and I'm not sure what my purpose really was. Except maybe as a plea for compassion. I'm not sure that I deserve it but I know that I need it. Maybe I just wanted people to finally understand why I'm so insane, so untrusting. I would imagine that some people that read the blog were uncomfortable, even. But it is what it is. My best friends didn't even know all  the things that I shared with all of you. I realize now that I was in a kind of denial for a very long time. And let me tell you, letting down that wall and sharing these things with you goes against everything I've done, right or wrong, to protect myself.

At work yesterday I spent a portion of my morning crying in my office with the door shut. This is new. I don't cry often, much less at work. I felt so exposed, so vulnerable and a little awkward. All of my secrets are out there. But what happened with all of you was amazing.
I got messages of empathy and encouragement both publicly and privately and the resounding message was "You are not alone." I heard from people that shared the feeling of mourning a lost childhood but also from people that shared nothing about their childhood but just wanted to encourage me. And it felt amazing. I took a huge risk on impulse and shared the most dark secrets of my past that even I don't want to face and you guys showed me love and compassion. You made me feel like maybe there is a way to use this forum to heal but also to allow others to be a part of it.

So here is my proposal: I am going to blog religiously and share with all of you the fucked up innards of my brain. I realize now that what has happened to me is something I have allowed to define me even though I have been in denial about it. I am going to spill my guts on here, tell you guys everything from the horrors of my past to the daily grind. What I ask of you is that if you relate and want to share you use the comments section below the blog. I know that I'm not alone because you guys shared with me. But if you aren't comfortable with being public I would still like to hear from you in a private message on Facebook. I will never betray your trust by sharing your name but I might use relevant information from our correspondence in this blog. I think every single one of us have a tale to tell and that everyone can benefit from the response that I received after that first blog. 

What I promise is to give to you guys a blatant, forthright dialogue about my life as a survivor. This is going to include very detailed descriptions of my life past and present relating to sex, drugs and alcohol. I hope that some of you feel comfortable sharing but it isn't required.

Thanks guys


Syndea

Transformation

I've had an interesting life. I've done things, seen things, caused things that people shouldn't experience and think of as normal. I've suppressed a lot of it by living life day by day, not thinking in the long term. But the sad truth is that I can blame only 17 of 31 years on being short changed. The other 14 years I've chosen my own roads.

I was a foster kid, anyone that has read my previous blogs knows this. What you may not know is that I am a survivor of incest. My father molested me until I was four, the only reason he stopped is because I told my biological mother and she turned him in. It was back in the early '80's and times were different. While the court system was on our side the normal, judgmental society of my mother's support system wasn't. Her church ostracized her for the accusations. No one wanted to believe that one of their 'brethren' could do that. I have a lot of broken memories from that time in my life, so far back that my biological family has expressed surprise that I can recall it. In my home I had two sisters, both older. I loved my mom, she was the earth, the moon and the stars. She was the best mom any kid could want: when she was ok. When she wasn't ok my sisters and I were in foster care and she was in mental institutions.

I want to make it clear now that I am not writing this as a plea for sympathy but rather to give people an understanding of why I am this way. I'm not happy with the way I relate to the world but am trying to change.

The bond with my family was strong and beautiful, but tainted. My sister Heather is my other me. She knows me and understands and loves me in a way that no one else ever will. To this day I know if I talk to her she will never judge me and will always know what I mean because we are the same.

What happened in the case of my father sucks. His name is Gordon Prentice Palmer and he molested me since I was a baby, most likely. It's not just that I KNOW this, it's that I remember it. It was always there and it really hit me in full force when I began having vivid flashbacks at 14. The thing that kills me is that for years, until I was in my 20's, I thought that I testified against him bravely in court. But the reality is that what really happened is when they sat me, at 4 years old, on a stack of phone books and swore me in in court--I froze. They took me into the judge's chambers and interviewed me. They decided I was an unreliable witness. He got out of it, got a new girlfriend with kids. My mom got committed to psychiatric care again and my sisters and I ended up in foster care. Again. I destroyed my family by telling the truth.

For awhile my sisters and I were in the same home. But I was a wild child (imagine that) and eventually I was too much for them. They sent me away.

I ended up in a home, Judy and Bob were the parents there. I was there for roughly two years. They were a great family from the distance, big holidays where we all got spoiled, three natural kids, three foster kids. I was pretty happy there. I was seeing a councilor-- Connie Callahan, I still remember her name. There are a ton of photos from that time in my life of me smiling with a pinata or an Easter basket. But what you don't see in the photos is that their teenage son was molesting me. Every day in the middle of the day everyone still in the house took a siesta. And everyday he would wait until everyone was sleeping and come find me. I guess I was used to it, it took me over a year to tell. I think I remembered what had happened to my family when I told on my councilor and I was afraid of bad things happening. This I also remember vividly. I can't remember what he looked like but I remember the things we did. His name I think was Kevin.

Eventually I told Connie. My protector.

If you want to know more stay tuned...it's happening on my time.;

What happened next I'm sure is cause for a class action lawsuit. She told my social worker ([Janet Ford, I will NEVER forget that name.] When my sister Heather and I revisited a later social worker [Katie Brown] and heard she drove off a cliff and died we REJOICED and I don't feel bad for my joy to this day) and my social worker told the family. At the age of six she made me face his parents and 'admit' my accusations. They chewed me up on side and down the other, told me how ungrateful I was and sent me to sit at social services until they found emergency placement for me. And they did.

Where I ended up killed my hope for religion possibly forever.

The home I ended up in was super religious. And their idea of punishment would be alienation. What I mean by that is they would make me sit under tables or in between beds and walls to make me realize that I had fucked up. I would watch them treat their kids like gold while I would be punished for the same behaviors by being islolated enough that I couldn't interact but close enough that I could see how they treated their own kids. The dad didn't like me because every time he saw me I had to pee. I have to assume he made me really nervous.

But my relationship with god was forever screwed because of my association with them.

Stayed tuned...

So I've decided that Facebook isn't the best forum for blogging about my personal crisis so I'm creating a blog to delve into these deeper thoughts and issues.