and the Blog Goes On...

Recently a friend on Facebook was also friends with a relative, which I didn't realize when I accepted her friend request. She's someone I trusted, have been friends with on a knitting site for quite some time & knit with regularly on Thursday nights in a knitting group. Although the link to my blog is only open to friends, this person chose to provide members of my family of origin (FOO) with a link to my blog. I'm still not sure how this person felt this was an okay thing to do but it really doesn't matter in the end. Eventually someone in my family would've stumbled upon it & the reaction would've been the same.


I first realized that my FOO had access to my blog after receiving a very sarcastic, angry email from my father who felt that my last post painted him as an abuser. He has a point since he isn't an abuser, at least I didn't think of him as that when I wrote the post. I wrote of an incident where he was verbally abusive to my children, but did not specify it was an isolated case as I should have. I think even more confusing is the fact that I have spoken about being abused so naturally he might've felt people would think it had been him when it actually wasn't.


At first I admit I was angry, angry at the way my father handled it, angry that someone had given personal information, angry even at what that person may have been told about me so that she'd feel better about breaking my confidentiality. After the initial anger though came the sadness & realization that I had a decision to make. I had made the decision to bare all on a blog long ago and even discussed it with my therapist, naming singer/songwriters I greatly admire for writing songs about their personal lives. Trust me, if I could write songs & sing then my songs would be about what I know, my life. Instead, I can write & a blog was a great outlet for me. The question now is do I keep going on this blog knowing my FOO has access to it or do I create a new blog & start over. You can only imagine how appealing starting over would be!


So, I sought the advice of a few people & truly the best advice I got was from a great friend who reminded me that this blog was started as a way to help me & if I found myself changing how I wrote or even writing with an intent to hurt/get revenge on members of my FOO then it would be better to start over. Others offered me the much needed advice to keep going in a blog because "I have done nothing wrong" except in the eyes of my FOO for breaking the unspoken rule of sharing secrets that never were to be told.


Ultimately I've decided to continue with this blog. So far its been a truthful picture of the path my life has taken since I realized life as I knew it was changing. Having a physical illness requires introspection into all parts of one's life including mental health. I'm reminded monthly by my primary Doctor that people who aren't supporting me in a mentally healthy way are not good for my physical health & they need to be cut from my life. It reaffirms my decision to break away from my brother & sister was a good one. But, it causes me untold sorrow & grief as I decide what to do about my father, who even after all these years still believes he might get his way if he gives me the cold shoulder when he's "disappointed" with me. The incident with my children was a harsh wake up call that even if he can't get to me, he subconsciously could take his anger out on them because they are extensions of me.


As for my childhood abuser, it was my older brother. I don't know when it began but I do know that he sexually abused me from as early as I can remember until the time I was 12. After that came the emotional, physical, & verbal abuse. He was very successful at grinding my self-esteem into the ground and making me hate myself. I hated how I spoke, looked, acted, felt uneasy around other people & generally unsafe. Unfortunately, just identifying the person who abused me & the type of abuse leaves out years of subsequent trauma & the re-learning of how to feel comfortable about myself around other people. I realized many months ago that I must've been suffering from PTSD for years but more recently realized I was probably even suffering from it as a child. All of that takes time to explain and help others understand the magnitude of the work that has to be done to become not only a survivor, but a healthy survivor living within the spectrum of what many consider "normal", with healthy relationships not only with others but myself. Since my illness & the vulnerability that caused its been difficult to get back to & even get better at loving myself again.


One thing is for sure, while my family remains unhappy with my openness about this, I do not feel any shame or guilt. I wonder if its their own shame & guilt that makes my openness so upsetting?

It's MY Story

Too much time has gone by, largely because I set myself up to do more & write more than I can and when I don't get it done, the blog post goes unposted. I'm learning, but I feel like sometimes I'm learning too slowly and then gosh darnit I forget what I've learned! Now I've set a goal to be more aware of what I CAN do and to just be okay with doing that much. So what if I can't say everything I want in my post, at least I said something and that will definitely feel better than not posting at all.
Life these days is in no way close to how I imagined it would be, even after I left my job & knew I'd be home. Finding a new "norm" for life was supposed to happen about a month after I left my job & then things would settle down. I even believed that without the stress of working that my health issues would stabilize & I'd find myself at least helping more around the house, cooking, cleaning...nope.

My health is still like a crazy roller coaster ride & I'm still trying to figure out what makes it worse, what makes it better. I'm still fairly clueless. Although, I have to begrudgelingly admit that emotional stress does have a very negative impact on me, but I only recognized this about a month ago. After a bad, very emotional scene with my father verbally abusing my children as Eric threw the van into reverse, speeding away & out of earshot as quickly as possible. The van where I sat in slack jawed disbelief, unable to even turn my head & look at the 3 children in their seats behind me, cataloguing away in their brains a moment & words that will never leave them. I can get into that in detail in the future, but for now I just want to acknowledge the toll that brief moment in time took on my health. It was as though I was watching a movie in slow motion & the sequence of events were perfectly timed. Two days of crying & blowing my nose led to me getting congested & a slight cough on days 3 & 4 so that by days 5 & 6 I had a cold the likes of which I've never seen before. It's been a month & I'm finally getting better but I'll always wonder if I didn't suffer from my 1st case of pneumonia.

Being sick for the past month & the reason why is definitely setting the tone for this post, which I recognize is much more pessimistic, sadder than how I usually post. I try to be positive & look for the silver lining & I'm pretty sure being in that "okay" place was what gave me the strength to take a hard look at & experience the painful emotions that I need to in order to accept things from my childhood. Yes, I've mentioned before things weren't great but to really be truthful, I believe I suffer from PTSD & my illness has allowed me to recognize better not only that this was happening to me but also what some of my triggers are. Why PTSD? It's a long story that I know I couldn't possibly tell right now but the difficulties I endured as a child spanned years (into adulthood) and included all the makings of a classic V.C. Andrews novel. How's that for holding you in suspense?

It was only recently when I realized that although this is the story of my life, I'm allowed to tell it. It has been a hushed thing for so long & of course the guilt trip that I'm trying to hurt other people, specifically my parents has been dangled over my head by none other than my abuser. He knows my weaknesses & that I don't want to hurt anyone, unfortunately what's best for me may end up hurting other people. This is MY STORY, what happened to me. I have every intention of telling my story even if I can only do it 2 paragraphs at a time.

For now I at least feel like I've opened the door to blogging again & most importantly shown the sad side of me, which I normally keep well hidden. The happier side hasn't gone away, its just taking a break as I work through the latest of PTSD triggers & what it all means. I'm glad that I have friends who are deeply supportive & can be there for me as I work through this dark stuff. Thank you all for being just who you are!!

P.S. I think it's going to rain, I just killed the BIGgest spider who had the audacity to be walking on my couch. I'm so glad it didn't touch me & that I didn't scream :-)