Inside my mind is a bad neighborhood... I really shouldn't be here alone!"
When I am all alone with myself, the quiet is too much to bear. I am physically paralyzed by emotional pain...To own my part seems foolish, as I did not ask for this life and the fucked up childhood which I did not have a choice in living. Apologizes don't remove scars. Living amends work well for me and those I hurt who are interested in actually being connected to my life somehow. My mother hasn't ever been interested in me, what I wanted to be, or what I strive to do. She rejects me, refuses to see me, and when I show up, never misses an opportunity to point out just what kind of piece of shit I am, or how my status in scumbag-ville has so appropriately manifested in my child, who is nearly an adult, and a very positive specimen at that.
After 17 years of chaos, filled with calculated emotional and physical abuse, my ex-military one time psychologist father, removed himself from my life, and has made very seldom a cameo appearance since. The only contact I have had with him in the past 22 years, I have initiated. Only one conversation has ended with a positive feeling, it was the most recent, and the odds of it happening again are so slim, it may very well have been our last one ever.
Repeatedly, I have tried to be a part of my family. Like touching a hot stove, burned my hand, and beat myself up about it. Time went by, I thought I was to blame and that it was going to be different, because of the work I have done on myself, I gave it another shot, and OUCH! That fucking stove STILL burns, go figure. Most recently, I have made a conscious decision to make no effort toward first contact with either of them, and of course there has been no attempt from either side to have any contact with me. I say that I do not hold any ill will or resentment... This is true as long as I am busy, working, going to the gym, attending meetings, out with friends, listening to loud music, spending time with my daughter, but the pain is there behind all of these band aids that I use to masque it.
The cut is too big for band aids now. It's torn up and the surface isn't sturdy enough for stitches. My hurt feelings and sadness used to only worsen during times when society calls for togetherness of "family", and holiday cheer. The word FAMILY is a hot button, which sends me off the deep end at times. It's safe to say that the pain is now constant and debilitating. I believe it is cutting off my circulation, I cannot breathe, it's stunting my growth. I can't act out in my old childish ways, as I would be incarcerated or hospitalized indefinitely. Medication is not an option for me, as I don't believe chemicals are an appropriate treatment of the root issue, but the outer symptoms... let's start with one chemical then add another, then add one more, then something for the side effects of the first, now the second and so on... defying all logic.
SO I write...
To both of you:
My poor choices were made after yours, yet mine have always been the ones criticized. What did we do about our precious child trying to slit her own throat at age 7? I know what we did, we suppressed it, after all what would the neighbors think? I have come to accept that once things happen in life, they cannot UN-happen. In my quest for validation, love, affection, nurturing, and emotional stability; I've sought temporary relief in sex, older men, older women, crime, drugs, and when I still wasn't satisfied, dominance, power, and violence. My relationships have been no healthier than the one that brought me into this world, and I recognize today that nothing else in my life can improve until I have successfully released this pain from my heart.
To my mother:
Keeping up appearances was your facade manufactured to keep people from getting close enough to see the sickness inside of you. In a sense I was raised in a lie and forced to lie. Feelings, affection, comfort, were dismissed, discounted, and disallowed. Love and respect were purchased. Trust was a foreign commodity, traded for leverage on the most believable fable. You are cold and calculated, and as you have aged, it has become more clear. When I was a child there was one parent that saw through you, as a teen, a second parent and a third, as an adult I notice that your friends have disappeared, you have just one left, and she will inevitably see through your veil of deceit. You had them all snowed for so long, as if you were some sort of "Mother Theresa", high regarded in your clique of church folk who had no reason to suspect that any kind of evil would lurk in their sacred house of worship.
You are 71 years old, headed in the direction of dying alone, and I don't feel bad, not one iota. Fuck you, for continuing to treat me like I am lower than buried dog shit. I've fantasized about hanging myself at (Your Church)'s altar with a giant sign that reads simply, "(Your Name)'s Daughter", if only the video that plays in my head playing all the fucked up things you say and do could project out to ensure that you wouldn't be seen as a martyr. When I needed a mother, you needed to perform for your audience. The older I got the less fun it was, the promises of fame and fortune were as empty as my soul was becoming. I knew nothing of life, of being a woman, of sex, of my body. I sought your approval through all means possible. The more desperate I became, the less you had to do with me. You have been ashamed of my existence since I was able to form a thought that was different from yours.
To this day you are uncomfortable when I begin to speak in your presence. If you admitted that you've ever had ANY single human struggle whatsoever, I would recoil from such an emotionally angry, and aggressive posture and I would embrace you in MY arms, as you are my mom and I am biologically wired to love you. Even though you have consistently used my need for your love as a way to crush my exposed, unguarded, heart. When I had cancer, you wouldn't even drive me to my surgery, I was in prison, you wouldn't take my calls, rehab, still nothing. Again, fuck you, you sick fucking depraved sociopath. If I outlive you, I will drop trow and shit on your headstone!
To my father:
My role in your family remains undefined, says the grown up forgotten child.
When I needed a Daddy, you needed to chase pussy. You finally divorced from my mother after dragging me around from situation to situation cheating on her for 18 years. Promising me a happy life and a loving family. You never bothered to look at the lifetime of destruction you left in your wake. Your abusive and explosive temper left it's devastation in the form of physical and emotional scars, your cruel and horrific words cut far deeper than that. I was selfish and self centered at 6? Really? You bastard, you knowingly placed blame on me and robbed me of my childhood by insisting that I grow up and accept the fact that I was never going to amount to anything. I sat at your bedside while you threatened to blow your brains out, I cried myself to sleep at night afraid that you actually would. You turned me against my mother who was equally crazy, insured me that you were going to take me somewhere that life would be better for both of us. At 7, you fucking abandoned me with family I never knew and haven't seen since. Then at 17 you fucking bailed on me completely. You left me behind. I was very sick, having surgery in the hospital when you packed all of your shit and the day I got out, you left. You fucking COWARD. 9 months without a call, no forwarding address, not a birthday or a Christmas card. 20 years later, and you've contacted me ONE TIME. Let's not forget about the 17 years of abuse, the holes in my bedroom walls and the scars on my face. Don't worry, the school nurse knows I just fell, but Daddy, why are you mad at me? You never came to see me in jail, rehab, or any hospital, you never took my calls begging for your help. You have never visited, you have never invited me to spend time with you. You and your ex wife both act like once the magic number 18 is achieved, your child is no longer existent. Fuck you.
Not only did you make a million promises you did not keep, you left me DAD, you walked out the door and found yourself a pre-fab-family, then you forgot all about me and made them your 2nd chance! Those kids grew up loving the fact that they have 2 fathers, and now an extra grandfather to their kids. Do you ever wonder how your biological daughter feels about not having a father at all, or your biological grand daughter wondering why she has a grandfather, but he never talks to her or sees her or sends her cards on her birthday? FUCK YOU. I often wonder how my life would have been had you died from taking my penicillin instead of your percocet on the plane that day... what a convenient oversight it was for you to be having an allergic reaction in the hospital while I was running the streets of Oakland at 15. I've always had a knack for finding ways to have my kinda fun.
I made my amends and you claimed that you too had made some changes and found your own program and way of life, funny how nothing has changed for you and I, but what a great man you are today. When holidays come, use your fucking head... I don't want your fucking photographs of your family and your happy life. I don't want to hear about the wonderful family vacations you've taken with my grandmother, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I don't want to know about how much better a Dadda you are to someone else's kids, or "grand kids"... You have ONE grand daughter, you piece of shit, you didn't even bother to acknowledge her when planning for your mother's 80th birthday celebration. YOU sure as fuck don't want to hear how I struggle every day of my life with the strength to not put a bullet in my own fucking head. Yeah Daddy, just like you did when I was a little girl, I sit in the dark on the edge of my bed contemplating suicide. Thanks for the inheritance, shove it up your fucking ass. I should blow my brains out all over your dining room during your beautiful loving family's Christmas dinner!
Perhaps there is an abundance of things I would like to change about myself starting today. How to I know what things take priority? I feel like I need to understand things in order to put changes in place. I need to know a process before I can find more efficient ones, and the only way to know a process is to be a part of it. So if you hired me to help improve efficiency on your manufacturing floor, I would not be doing you any service to just tell you to speed up the line, if in fact there is are issues throughout the process. I am always looking for root causes...
Keeping up appearances is about the worst habit I could have picked up along the way. I have perfected the art of creating and presenting a false persona, one far different from what I am or how I feel under my skin. My insides do NOT match my outsides. Like an actor on a stage, I portray a likable and friendly, fun-loving, smart, strong, and well rounded individual. Internally I am antisocial, sad, angry, I spend a great deal of time in the clutches of an agonizing depression. It is like a bad neighborhood that you wouldn't want to be in alone. My gut tells me that these feelings have roots in living this lie which may not be unlike living a double life. A life and a lie which I don't believe I can continue to carry on. 
That is why I started this blog, and it is virtually unknown to people who think they really KNOW me. I want my fresh start on an empty canvas, a clean slate so to speak. I want to be me, without walls, with no aggressive defenses, and no bullshit. I want to make true friends based on who I am inside and that I am working to help myself heal from there, rather than continuously trying to put on a show. Such honesty would be sure to render me powerless over the cruel and calculated predator known as the human animal.
Knowing this, one may presume, is instrumental in getting a handle on it... If only I knew how to view things for what they are as they are happening. I sometimes feel that I am at an extreme just before I hit a wall and dramatically, I turn radically into the opposite extreme. So when dealing with people and the way I cling to the good and bypass the bad... In that exact moment of discovery, after extracting all possible inner goodness real or imaginary, the only alternative that my mind can see happens in the immediate and turns to complete suspicion and skepticism. Sniff out the conspiracy and go to any lengths to prove that there is one in play. 
I go through phases where I will pass this negative judgment upon any and all who I encounter. Therefor the slightest thing set's my neurosis of intolerance in motion. (As a post-conscious observation... especially relevant in the event of my own misunderstanding). If it defies logic, or neglects to make practical sense in my thought process, my tendency is to adamantly reject it, aborting all other protocols, casting it out as alien, and publicly voicing my displeasure. My sharp wit morphs to a razor tongue which aids in the personal dissection of character. I'm on auto-pilot, spinning beyond my own control, while systematically, my cyclonic behavior constructs the soapbox that I stand upon while I emotionally execute my newly manufactured enemy.
Sometimes I think I can completely accept all of this. In actuality, it is but a momentary thought that allows me to believe any of this it is within the limits of my own comprehension. I am told to let it be as it is, but I cannot. At my core I'm a fixer, a problem solver, a puzzle finisher, and I won't stop until I've connected the dots. At this moment, I am in fear I may be losing my grip, I am shredded inside, the pain, it burns deep today, and I fear that I may be falling apart completely.
Sometime around 9 years old I discovered the art of cutting. Come to think of it, this may ave started with picking Mosquito bites, I remember those being problematic when I was young. I cut my thighs, my arms, my stomach, my hands, even my face I carved words into my arms and the words "fat bitch" into my belly, backwards so that when I looked in the mirror I could read it. In the beginning, it was simply because physical pain felt better than emotional pain. Toward the end, I was doing it because I hated myself and I "deserved" the pain. Around 11 or 12 I had sex, with a boy my age, it didn't do anything for me, it would be years before that was done properly and became an unhealthy addiction of it's own. Home made and underground tattoos took the place of cutting temporarily, while Cocaine on the other hand, provided me with EXACTLY the relief I was seeking. One small line and within an instant I saw pure anarchy, and felt my body release the pressure of fear, doubt, shame, insecurity, and rage as fast as an untied balloon being let go. I loved it, I sensed mayhem, I sensed evil, I sensed depravity, and I was overcome by the need to chase it all. Side effects of my regular use of stimulants were: increased focus, weight loss, decreased appetite, loss of moral or spiritual values, increased interest in crime, mood swings, increased irritability, emotional instability, propensity for violence, increased rage, decreased artistic creativity, developed a mastery in the skill of manipulation and the art of lying. Now my parents would not trust me, they would not speak to me, they would not want me to be a part of their lives at all. I felt rejected by my own family, misunderstood, and cast out. 
All of my choices were unhealthy, and stemmed from the original Daddy issues... I needed to prove myself to men, I needed approval, I needed validation. I did EVERYTHING I could to feel appreciated, loved, complimented. I believed all I had to do was love. If I loved my Dad, he wouldn't blow his brains out. I've been in ALL of my former relationships thinking, "if I just love him right he won't drink so much" or "if I can prove how much I love him, he won't be so angry" or "if I love him the way he needs to be loved, he won't hit me" or "if I love him enough, he'll never cheat on me"... Yet my track record will show, I've been cheated on, beaten on, screamed at, and I've carried the drunk into the house at night. So for the sake of my own mental and or emotional health, I needed to change my behavior around men.
I'm not a victim of anyone else's behavior. My own poor choices have been the catalyst behind the pain, chaos, and drama in my life. I've been a willing participant in my sordid past with relationships. hat is the pattern I need to break for myself. It appears that I am attracted to the wounded ones... never the actual needy ones, but the scared and defensive, and often dangerous ones. Even today, while working on real recovery, I am able to see that I STILL make these foolish choices. I am now realizing that my own father will never give me an ounce of what I thought I needed from him. I recently stopped chasing him for approval, I stopped seeking validation. I turned and faced him, at almost 40 yrs old, and I demanded his respect. He froze, he laughed, he agreed and I was given validation, I felt empowered and emancipated at the same time. 
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it does it make a sound? Of course it does, if it makes a sound in front of me it will make a sound when I am not there. How ridiculous, or even arrogant a thought is it that a human needs to be around to witness an event in order to acknowledge that it ever happened? Yet that is our arrogant nature. We are so simple at times we don't consider any species but our own when we scratch our heads with such absurd wonder.
Perspective is our view, the actual angle or vantage point that we see things from. Perception is how our mind translates that view to us. Think about this concept and sight specific instances when you were seeing a far different picture than others or that the final outcome. Now how extreme was the case? For me, the differences between my perception and reality have been radically disconnected, dangerous at times, perhaps even deadly. I realized my mind was trying to kill me when I was about seven years old. I didn't know how to harness it, I didn't know how to protect myself from it. I've spent a lifetime learning, and today I've taught myself how to live with it. I've addressed the depths of my innermost wildly vivid, yet unorthodox imagination, I've pretty much come to embrace it. I am convinced that this is my mind, someday it may be what defines me, nonetheless, it will remain with me for the long haul.
Discovering that my perspective differs greatly from my perception, I have also found that I actually have a level of control within the situation. Not in changing it, but in changing how I see it. The more I know, the more likely I will make an informed decision in what I might do. So changing my stance or vantage point, is like adding perspectives. Looking at things more openly, widening my lens helps me to obtain a much more open perception. For me, a variety of angles are needed prior to coming up with a definitive solution to potential obstacles or issues which may present themselves along the way for me. In my experience, to effectively plan something can be very difficult. I am overwhelmed with the infinite combinations of variables. There is uncertainty and clarity needed, especially when there is someone else reliant upon my direction. I need to step back, climb higher, familiarize myself with the terrain, and remain agile in my mind and on my feet when these variables do arise to potentially push me off course. When any one of my five senses are incorporated with the perspectives that I allow, processing becomes easier. I feel more confident in my responses, reactions, and intuitively knowing my next steps. 
An example of how my mind is playing tricks on me is illustrated here while I was walking to an important appointment at a local place that I'd never been to. I could see it up ahead, only about 1000 feet away. Although I could barely make out the dog sitting on the front porch, I was comforted in knowing they had a dog at this place. My vantage point was too far to see clearly enough to be able to recognize what breed the dog might be. As I got closer to it, I noticed it's behavior, it was not moving, the image still rather fuzzy. I suddenly felt somewhat puzzled and even a bit frightened. Immediately my thought process and inner dialogue goes to, "Why isn't this dog moving? Surely he can see me coming at this point, is he blind? But wait he would be able to hear me, unless he is deaf too. Wow, this old deaf blind dog sure sits pretty rigid at his age and deteriorated condition. Oh that's stupid, this dog is not deaf, blind, or old, he's studying my movements." 
I wanted to whistle or call out to it, but was afraid that it would come running at me. As I continued to get closer, my other senses kicked in, I know what it's like to live with dogs, I did not smell dog shit, or notice anything in the area that reminded me of having dogs in the past. The lawn wasn't patchy or stained. I listened carefully, and thought to myself, "This dog is so still, it's not even growling". I stepped to the right about 8 or 10 feet and continued to watch the dog, his head did not turn I squinted and adjusted my glasses, but I was still too far to identify what this beast on the porch was up to. When it registered to my logical mind that which I had already identified... This dog did not follow me with it's head when I stepped off to the right. It was not even staring at me, I began to feel safer yet more confused, questioning whether I was even looking at a dog. Nothing was making sense anymore.
I brought myself forward, closer to the porch, the dog suddenly disappeared from my thoughts. Understanding my own mind, not unlike the Matrix... I realized that once my perception made no sense, my brain sent emergency calls to my other senses ordering a full investigation of the matter. Suddenly mind went blank. It was if my signals had gotten jammed and my mental website had crashed. Following a quick mental reboot, my brain had re-engaged as it was wired to. It was now impossible for my mind to be able to manufacture an image of a dog. I am close enough now, everything comes into focus at once, within an instant I could see clearly that it was not a dog at all I had been fixated on, but a potted plant. 
Things in my mind no longer seem to make sense. Maybe we really ARE living in a virtual reality, maybe there is a Matrix, maybe I see only what my mind and my programming allow, and occasionally some free range thoughts creep in, perhaps they are fragments and remnants of that which was conducive to the survival of the previous inhabitants of this vessel? Could it be true? Am I exactly where I am supposed to be right here, right now, present in this very moment, right down to this very breath?
When I am all alone with myself, the quiet is too much to bear. I am physically paralyzed by emotional pain...To own my part seems foolish, as I did not ask for this life and the fucked up childhood which I did not have a choice in living. Apologizes don't remove scars. Living amends work well for me and those I hurt who are interested in actually being connected to my life somehow. My mother hasn't ever been interested in me, what I wanted to be, or what I strive to do. She rejects me, refuses to see me, and when I show up, never misses an opportunity to point out just what kind of piece of shit I am, or how my status in scumbag-ville has so appropriately manifested in my child, who is nearly an adult, and a very positive specimen at that. 
Repeatedly, I have tried to be a part of my family. Like touching a hot stove, burned my hand, and beat myself up about it. Time went by, I thought I was to blame and that it was going to be different, because of the work I have done on myself, I gave it another shot, and OUCH! That fucking stove STILL burns, go figure. Most recently, I have made a conscious decision to make no effort toward first contact with either of them, and of course there has been no attempt from either side to have any contact with me. I say that I do not hold any ill will or resentment... This is true as long as I am busy, working, going to the gym, attending meetings, out with friends, listening to loud music, spending time with my daughter, but the pain is there behind all of these band aids that I use to masque it.
Keeping up appearances was your facade manufactured to keep people from getting close enough to see the sickness inside of you. In a sense I was raised in a lie and forced to lie. Feelings, affection, comfort, were dismissed, discounted, and disallowed. Love and respect were purchased. Trust was a foreign commodity, traded for leverage on the most believable fable. You are cold and calculated, and as you have aged, it has become more clear. When I was a child there was one parent that saw through you, as a teen, a second parent and a third, as an adult I notice that your friends have disappeared, you have just one left, and she will inevitably see through your veil of deceit. You had them all snowed for so long, as if you were some sort of "Mother Theresa", high regarded in your clique of church folk who had no reason to suspect that any kind of evil would lurk in their sacred house of worship. 
To this day you are uncomfortable when I begin to speak in your presence. If you admitted that you've ever had ANY single human struggle whatsoever, I would recoil from such an emotionally angry, and aggressive posture and I would embrace you in MY arms, as you are my mom and I am biologically wired to love you. Even though you have consistently used my need for your love as a way to crush my exposed, unguarded, heart. When I had cancer, you wouldn't even drive me to my surgery, I was in prison, you wouldn't take my calls, rehab, still nothing. Again, fuck you, you sick fucking depraved sociopath. If I outlive you, I will drop trow and shit on your headstone!
When I needed a Daddy, you needed to chase pussy. You finally divorced from my mother after dragging me around from situation to situation cheating on her for 18 years. Promising me a happy life and a loving family. You never bothered to look at the lifetime of destruction you left in your wake. Your abusive and explosive temper left it's devastation in the form of physical and emotional scars, your cruel and horrific words cut far deeper than that. I was selfish and self centered at 6? Really? You bastard, you knowingly placed blame on me and robbed me of my childhood by insisting that I grow up and accept the fact that I was never going to amount to anything. I sat at your bedside while you threatened to blow your brains out, I cried myself to sleep at night afraid that you actually would. You turned me against my mother who was equally crazy, insured me that you were going to take me somewhere that life would be better for both of us. At 7, you fucking abandoned me with family I never knew and haven't seen since. Then at 17 you fucking bailed on me completely. You left me behind. I was very sick, having surgery in the hospital when you packed all of your shit and the day I got out, you left. You fucking COWARD. 9 months without a call, no forwarding address, not a birthday or a Christmas card. 20 years later, and you've contacted me ONE TIME. Let's not forget about the 17 years of abuse, the holes in my bedroom walls and the scars on my face. Don't worry, the school nurse knows I just fell, but Daddy, why are you mad at me? You never came to see me in jail, rehab, or any hospital, you never took my calls begging for your help. You have never visited, you have never invited me to spend time with you. You and your ex wife both act like once the magic number 18 is achieved, your child is no longer existent. Fuck you. 
I made my amends and you claimed that you too had made some changes and found your own program and way of life, funny how nothing has changed for you and I, but what a great man you are today. When holidays come, use your fucking head... I don't want your fucking photographs of your family and your happy life. I don't want to hear about the wonderful family vacations you've taken with my grandmother, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I don't want to know about how much better a Dadda you are to someone else's kids, or "grand kids"... You have ONE grand daughter, you piece of shit, you didn't even bother to acknowledge her when planning for your mother's 80th birthday celebration. YOU sure as fuck don't want to hear how I struggle every day of my life with the strength to not put a bullet in my own fucking head. Yeah Daddy, just like you did when I was a little girl, I sit in the dark on the edge of my bed contemplating suicide. Thanks for the inheritance, shove it up your fucking ass. I should blow my brains out all over your dining room during your beautiful loving family's Christmas dinner!
