Get to Know Me

I’m not really sure how this sort of thing works, but I’ve always enjoyed writing short stories and my previous therapists were always suggesting I just “write it down” but sometimes writing down you inner most thoughts can be quite difficult, especially when your thoughts are as self destructive as my own. I mean I’m dating the most wonderful man, a guy my previous self could only dream about being with, he’s kind, funny, a little sarcastic, fun to be around and we never get sick of each other. I mean this quarantine thing isn’t even affecting our relationship, because we’ve been around each other all the time since the first day we met. It’s so strange, but a wonderful strange. (Side Note: I get off topic a lot, which is probably why I’ve started writing five million and two short stories with no ending) Anyway, back to being a little self-destructive and by a little I mean a lot, I’m in this happy and wonderful relationship, but I keep creating these perceived scenarios in my head; that he’s going to leave me or start disliking me because I can’t be happy or content most of the time, and I unintentionally start pulling away. I don’t mean to do it and I hate that I do, because he always tells me that he’s not going anywhere, that he plans on spending the rest of his life with me, but my brain just goes into fight or flight, and flight always seems to win.

Hold on… I’m getting ahead of myself, this is a get to know me and if there is anything you need to know about me it’s that I’m open and honest about myself. I wasn’t always like this, back then I never said anything, I just kept it to myself, but after my second therapist, suggested I just talk about what was going on in my head, instead of bottling it up, (She was just trying to get me to stop cutting), I decided too and it worked sort of, just that I didn’t really attach my emotions to what I was saying, so I still felt angry, sad, miserable, ugly, horrible, fat, and whatever other emotion I would feel (Trigger Warning) that would place that razor blade across the skin of my arm, until I saw five distinct cuts there, always five and if I didn’t do five it had to be five more until I got it right, or felt silence. It wasn’t about pain for me, it wasn’t about that brief moment of silence, I still crave it from time to time, but dear reader you will be happy to know that I haven’t done that in over a year and what a hard year it was, but most of my life has been hard with few moments of happiness and relief here and their. It wasn’t until college that I was diagnosed with OCD with Intrusive thoughts, along with Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorder that would later develop into Panic attacks, PTSD (that’s later), and multiple forms of Disordered Eating from some childhood shit. Imagine having that for a brain! It sucks!

I’ve been in and out therapy since I was eleven, my mom noticed I was eating too much and expressed some concerns, and instead of talking to me about it, they put me on a diet without my knowledge, or so they thought and placed me in therapy with a lady that was older then my grandma that would in no way understand my problems I was dealing with in middle school and she didn’t. It didn’t help that she constantly told my mom everything, who threw it back in my face, calling me a liar and then trying to prove me wrong by talking to my therapist behind my back.

My mom wasn’t a bad mom, my mom was young mom who didn’t have a very good upbringing herself, so while a lot of the things she did growing up were more damaging than I’d like to admit, she did the best she could with the tools she was given. I mean she became a mom at 16 and had me at 20, I was a month old when she turned 21, so my parents were basically kids raising kids, because I don’t care who says it, you are not an adult when your 20, your still figuring shit out. So, sometimes my mom was a parent that was too strict and too hard on her kids, and expected nothing but perfection and other times, she was a friend, but their was no real happy medium, which is what made it hard and for a long time my older brother and I held a lot of resentment towards our mom, because emotional abuse can be just as damaging. But I confronted her about it a few years ago, and things are good now between us, we did discover recently that we get a long better with some distance between us and by distance I mean states away but that’s just because I’m her spitting image both in looks and personality.

Anyway, needless to say the old lady didn’t work out. I started to lie about my recovery and she bought it, and started thinking I was healthy and didn’t need therapy, fast forward a couple years and I met a much younger female therapist that I really did resonate with, she taught me mindfulness and awesome breathing techniques, and also ways to get control of my anxiety, but the problem was when I started to show signs of getting better, she didn’t think I needed her anymore and I stopped seeing her. Turns out those moments, of Euphoria and Happiness were actually signs of Bipolar Disorder. Who knew? I sure didn’t.

I didn’t see someone again until the summer of my freshman year of college I hadn’t really needed too, I didn’t see him long because he believed that chocolate was the cure for depression. I mean… chocolate’s good but it doesn’t suddenly make me want to live again and it was also around this time I started my first antidepressants, which didn’t go so well, because I walked out holding a knife to my wrist and telling my mom  I had the sudden urge to kill myself, needless to say i was taken off that medication and placed on something else. Sophomore year of college the first time is where things started to get dark.

You see I’ve always strive for perfection, in my looks, in my grades, in my attitude, and in my relationships, was I perfect not in the least bit, but no one is, people who strive for perfection only ever seem to be greeted with disappointment, because they are trying to achieve the impossible. I’m sure that need to be perfect came from my childhood, a lot of this shit has. When your raised by someone with extreme OCD, your greeted with anger when your not perfect. A particular time really sticks out for me, I was about 4 or 5 years old and I wanted to get a glass of milk, but I wanted to try it on my own, you know that saying don’t cry over spilt milk, well when your screamed at and spanked for it, you tend to cry over silly things like spilt milk. Literally on my first date with the guy I mentioned before, I had bumped my tea and spilled it on the table, and without even meaning too I cried, he then spilled his drink too and told me he would do it every time, if it made me feel better and it did. He’s amazing.

So, for someone who cared so much about being perfect, when I stopped caring and slept all the time, skipping classes, not doing the work, not even bothering to look at Blackboard. Honestly the only thing I cared about, was how much I was eating and to be honest it wasn’t even a handful a day. My disordered eating had gone from binging to eating practically nothing everyday, my arms looked like I was attacked by a cat but hey I lost 50 pounds over a few months, and when I told my parents during thanksgiving that I couldn’t do it right now, they begged me to stay in college, I then ripped up my sleeve and told them “Fine but I’ll be Dead before Christmas!” I think they took me seriously then, though mom was still upset I had asked my friends mom for advice, the same woman who told me to stop calling her because she had her own shit to worry about. She wonders why I went to someone else.

I know people say I have no regrets in life, cause it makes me who I am today, but I think it’s a load of crap. I would give anything to take back that year. That year I had lost my virginity to a guy who treated me like shit since I was 15 and still did after sleeping with him. There was no romance, it was just “So you wanna do it” and then we did it, I literally said, right after “That’s it.” Cause it was so anticlimactic. I then slept with 4 other guys after him because well I wanted to know if sex just wasn’t good with him or it was everybody. and for a long time that was the case.  You see I didn’t know this then, but you know that old saying that you need to learn to love yourself before loving anyone else, it’s not a load of crap. See I didn’t love myself, I hated myself and so when someone gave me only 10 percent more then what I was giving myself, I thought that was how I was meant to be treated, that was my worth and now I know, those guys pieces of shit. I wish I knew what I know now, because Maybe none of the stuff that happened would have ever happened in the first place.

Anyway, when the guy I had been “in love with” I had no idea what love was back then, rejected me completely I Overdosed on my sleeping pills, it was around then I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, I was in a psych-ward for 7 days, remember that thing I talked about, about not attaching my emotions to what I’m saying, well that applied hear, they wouldn’t let me leave until I cried. I cried because of a war scene in a MMA movie, because it reminded me of the times my dad was gone, he was in the military for 24 years, he was deployed for about 10 years of my life and I don’t resent him, but it was hard growing up without him around, too no fault of his own.

So after, the OD I started seeing a therapist and a Psychiatrist again, I was placed on so many meds that I was half-asleep most of the time. My mom knew something was up when I fell asleep during a Jason Stathem movie. My meds got changed, too only about 3 instead of 9-13, and I was starting to feel better, so better in fact I thought I could handle going back to school, well I was wrong about that. I ended up ODing again and ended up in another Psychward for 5 days, this time I had no one, my family wouldn’t visit and my parents were too far away. It was really hard, but the people I met there were pretty cool and made it easier.

I stayed in school despite my overdose, I slept with more guys, was on and off my meds, ended up in a relationship that ended in summer, had a summer fling, discovered I was anorexic, honestly didn’t realize that I was, until someone pointed it out. I mean I was eating, just not eating nearly enough. Then started dating Erik. So remember how I said if you don’t love yourself then you can’t love someone else. This applies.

Eric he’s hard to talk about, because I was getting better when I met him, I wasn’t even close to 100 percent, but I was starting to feel better. When you tell someone you were in an abusive relationship, the common response is oh I would never put myself in that situation, I’m smarter then that. I thought I was too… but see you don’t start dating someone because their abusive, because if that was the case, you would be doing it for your own self destruction. People who are abusive are controlling, manipulative, and damn good at their sweet talk. They know just what to say to get you to stay, he sure did, otherwise I wouldn’t have been with him for two years, I wouldn’t have wanted to marry this sick fucking piece of shit. It started out like a dream, he said all the right things he was a true prince charming, now that I look at it, he was manipulative from the start. He knew I was insecure about my weight, so he chose me instead of this really skinny girl Courtney at the time I was by no means, over-weight, I did gain weight while I was with him and he used that against me, buying me workout clothes, encouraging me to get thinner more attractive, always talking about how skinny all his other girlfriends were, saying I wasn’t usually his type. See when a guy like that knows your insecurities he knows how to make you feel better and how to hurt you and keep you in your place, he reminded all the time that I was lucky to have him, and if I tried to leave, I mean pack my bags and walk out the door, he would cry and show his “vulnerable side” to get me stay. But the longer I stayed, the worse it got. I didn’t know that it was considered Rape if your boyfriend doesn’t ask to have sex with you and just forces himself on you, over and over again even though you beg him not too, but holds you down cause he thinks it’s your kink, and forces himself in places you hate, telling you, you really like it. It never got super physical, at least I didn’t think it did, he’d grab me from time to time, or hold my arm behind my back till the point it hurt, or hit me, if I lightly tapped him, but it was never more than a light bruise here and there, so I didn’t think anything of it. What really woke me up, from my insecure stupor, was when we were in a fight and he threw a screw driver at my head so hard, that if I hadn’t slammed the door, moments before I might not be here, because it was stuck inside the door directly where my head would have been, scary thought just saying. The worst part of it all, is he made me think that it was my mental health that caused him to act this way. The best thing I did, was gain some balls and kick his ass out. It was my apartment after all, why should I leave.

Those three years were hell for me, not even a month later a coworker of mine, raped me in my own bed. You see my mom suffered from sexual abuse when she was younger and didn’t tell anyone until she was 27, and I thought that if told someone, if I reported it, maybe I wouldn’t hate myself for the rest of my life. So I did, I told my roommate first, it was that night, she was comforting at first but when someone who constantly seeks attention, doesn’t receive it, they become toxic towards the person who does, and that was me. Then I told my parents and they convinced me to press charges, so I tried, I did the police report, I did the rape kit, I even told my boss and he got fired, but I still worked with his twin brother, I still had to see his face everyday I went to work at that pizza place, and that’s when my panic attacks started.

A few weeks after it happened, I saw the cop I had done the police report with at my job ordering Pizza, he avoided eye contact and didn’t say anything. He then told me I didn’t say no enough, because I froze and didn’t fight or push the bastard off of me, and he had the nerve to say, “Next time make sure you say no.” Next time… who the fuck says that to someone, who the fuck tells you, that?! It destroyed me, I drank all the fucking time cause when I wasn’t sober I didn’t feel it, everything was silent, just like when I cut.

I’ve never wanted to die more in my life, then I did then. I thought about it all the time… Maybe if… I drive my car into a wall, if I jump off the bridge, slit my wrists, drown myself, OD, die of alcohol poisoning, all I knew was death seemed a lot easier then living back then… don’t worry if your still here, I got help.

December 22nd, 2015 I ODed on one of my medications and I took it with a large sum of Alcohol, according to ER docs, my BAC was .2%. The moment, I had downed the last pill I knew I had fucked up, I immediately ran out of the room, to tell someone. I lived with two roommates, both girls. One was at work, we all worked at the same two jobs, and the other was getting ready to leave with me actually. I told her she needed to call 911 I just ODed, I had tried to puke it up, but it didn’t work, thing about this particular medication is it was fast acting, and had already started to enter my system within 15 minutes, I had taken 20-25 pills of a high dosage. She thought I was doing it for attention since the night before I had slept with a guy for the first time since my rape and my roommate got pissed when I told her and that was her best friend (They were best friends before we started living together). She posted it all over social media, she was the passive aggressive type and verbally attacked me through text while I was at my first job. So instead calling 911 she called her best friend and our other roommate, the one that was passive aggressive and super attention seeker. So I called 911 for myself, I was scared I didn’t want to die, I just felt… hopeless. In the ER, My heart-rate sped up to the point, of almost heart attack, when my roommates and my parents came, my roommate started screaming at me so much, the nurse kicked her out and screamed at her that she was going to kill her friend. I don’t remember much after that, I remember being scared and I remember waking up in the MCU and watching a lot of supernatural and charmed while my vitals went back to normal. I was there for 3 days, with a 1:1. I had my phone but no charger and a TV that only showed TNT, I was the admitted to a psychiatric Ward for 2 weeks, my longest stay, my hardest, but probably the most healing cause I did the work.

I spent Christmas in a psych ward and during that time, I realized my roommates were just as Toxic as my abusive ex and that if I wanted to get better and to heal I needed to get out of my environment. So I did, I moved in with a friend of mine from work, we got a place together and things went well until I got a job that he wanted, and then about a month after working at that Job, I received news of training to be a supervisor and wanting to celebrate with my friends, so invited my old friends from my old retail job over, and we drank and I had drank with them before and didn’t think anything of it, then May 18, 2016 it happened again, two people I trusted, stuck themselves inside of me at the same time, after I had just talked to them, about the first time. I was raped again. This time, I told no one, I pretended like it didn’t happen, because why should I tell anyone? The first thought I had, was I said No this time and they slapped me for saying it, “Was that enough for you.”

It felt like bit by bit, a piece of me was taken, first by the guy I lost my virginity with, then by Erik, then by my coworker at my pizza job, my coworkers at my retail job, my roommates. I felt like there was nothing left, that I was just existing, I was too afraid to die, the last time really scared me, so I just sort of escaped my reality.

I did that by writing short stories with my best friend, it started as an every week thing, every Sunday we would write together over the phone. It was fun creating characters and living a life other than my own, then it escalated to an every day thing, and it soon became my world and started becoming less of coping skill and more of something toxic towards my well-being. It destroyed my last relationship, I was selfish and not at all there for my boyfriend who had just lost his father, he did some things too, but I wasn’t entirely innocent this time and I admit that and I’m sorry for it as well.

It was after our break-up that I had decided for myself, I wouldn’t date for a year. I would focus on me and that was the best decision I ever made. I moved in with my parents, even though I hated the idea because I knew it wouldn’t work out and it didn’t, but it also was the best decision for me. I did a lot in 2019, I went to my first concert which happened to be the last warp tour, I then went many more after that with my best friends, I went out every weekend, I made knew friends, started hanging out with old ones, I started really working on myself, I paid off all my debts, I started saving money, I started losing weight, I started exercising, I really dug deep in my soul, I discovered my issues of control and started to understand it’s triggers with chaos, for the first time in my 26 years I felt complete and happy, I finally understood what it meant to love yourself and realized the people I thought I deserved, didn’t deserve me. I stood up for myself and I made the biggest and probably hardest decision of my life. I picked up and I moved.

My dad didn’t understand why, I wanted to leave so badly, but you see even though my friends were there and a lot of my family was their that place would never be home, because that place holds a lot of haunting memories, a lot of parts of myself that I hate, and I want to be able to go somewhere, without having a fear of running into someone I know or being triggered by something I see. That place wasn’t home and I don’t know if where I live now is home, but I knew in my gut I was meant to come here and it was because of him. He’s everything I never knew I needed in my life. He has shown me what real love is and he is the man I hope to spend the rest of my life with.

I didn’t get better for him, but because I got better I met him.

So that’s my life story, that’s me in 4,000 words, and I don’t know if you stayed the whole time or if anyone would really read this or not, but for the purpose of writing these Journal entries, you need to know the history behind the words.

It was nice talking to you

Sincerely,

A BipolarHufflePuff