Colorful and hopefully optimistic but maybe hateful occasionally

I am so frustrated at having to clean this entire house, suddenly. Now that I'm aware of all the stuff I was responsible for as a kid that I shouldn't have been.. I want to rebel, out of nowhere.

I'm still sad and confused at my mom's reactions. How come she never came to protect me? Why am I so afraid of her? Why was she always brought up when someone was trying to make me do something against my will?

I think I can figure out why her being angry terrifies me? Maybe it's because I know how fast that escalates? Maybe it's because it makes me feel like my dad is going to come attack me at any moment?

I don't get why my mom never protected us. Never. Even after my dad was gone -- thanks to me, not her. I'm very thankful that she loves us; I'm very thankful that she chose to try to get rid of Alex instead of put me into foster care.

But when my little brother had his breakdowns, it took him almost dying to get her to actually do something. That haunts me so much. I can still smell blood when I wake up, and see how bright red it was, and see my mom walking way too fast and looking panicked even though she can't actually walk.

But before that? I tried to f*cking warn her. It's not like it wasn't obvious. He was cutting himself, even more than I had been. And while mine was secret, we could see his. He was clearly reaching out for attention. For that reason, my ex told me he should be sent to a boot camp.

My mom just ignored it. She also ignored his violent tendancies even though it was a clear sign of depression. And even know I asked her to do something because I was terrified.

For me? Cutting got me hospitalized. It turned my life around. For my little brother? It got him ignored.

My mom neglected us even after the danger was gone, and it really bothers me because I don't know why.

I called it, too. I did on so many things, and my mom never listened. I was just a stupid teenager. I went to her office upstairs while she was working, which was scary to me. I told her I was worried about my brother and his cutting. I told her that to get the same releases, he was going to have to cut more and deeper, and it was only a matter of time before he accidentally cut too deep and got really hurt.

She dismissed it. She told me I had taught him to cut, so I ended up feeling responsible.

Literally a couple of weeks later, he did it. He also screamed something about wanting to die. My mom didn't go comfort him, and I didn't know how to react. But when he cut himself too deep at 3am, that got her up.

Later, she said something about her epiphanies that something really bad must have happened to him, because SHE had never cut or tried to kill herself.

I don't know why she was telling me that. I had told HER, and also I had a similar history. It made me so angry.

I was supposed to take care of her when my little brother lashed out, too.

She never did anything about his lashing out. Never looked for help, never did anything useful to handle the situation. Just ignored it.

Like she ignored this house, except to yell how she hates it and encourage US to clean it even after trauma. And being told that everything we did was useless. Especially compared to my sister and her husband, who were working us so much that we literally broke.

She never helped us. She just made it our responsibility. I spent my entire teenage life in guilt. Being forced into a fantasy world of my own creation and being unable to escape even at home. Dealing with animals that were dying and my little brother.

My dad pit us against each other often, while my twin brother could only watch helplessly while citing over and over again that we needed to stop because violence was wrong.

And you know what? Even after he was gone, it didn't stop. It got worse, more complicated. I love my little brother and he loves me, but as teenagers we were still pitted against each other. Mostly emotionally. My mom kept it up, never did anything to f*cking change it.

Why did she never do anything?

My former kidnapper and rapist was in our front yard one time. I didn't even think she called the police.

Later, she vomited out that she had, but the police didn't care.

What am I even supposed to think? Was she even supposed to tell me that?

I wonder if she was even doing her best. She was always avoiding everything. I lived no childhood at all because of that. I'm so angry and confused about it.
 
My mom didn't protect, nor guide my sister, either.

She witnessed my mom getting pushed down stairs, and my mom beg her to call 911 even though my sister was trapped in the garage, where my dad made her live. Where my sister later tried to make me live.

My sister developed a drinking problem at age 14 or 15. Maybe even younger, at 13 or later. My kidnapper and rapist had actually picked her, not me, and at least managed to molest her. My dad HATED my sister. She lived in terror here and was forcefully separated from her siblings constantly. I frequently finished her dinners because she'd be too stressed to eat.

My mom didn't help her. You know why my sister got help for her drinking? My sister was found outside of the rapist's house, dying of hypothermia. Dying enough that I hate the taste of the dinner we were having that night, never have had it again. I probably hated it then too, but was afraid to say so.

My sister was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where my mom was told that my sister was unrecoverable, but they'd do their best. She was unlikely to make it through the night, due to high blood levels of alcohol and severe hypothermia.

She managed to live. My sister got punished for it. My dad told her that she was not to get his best friend, the rapist, in any trouble. Or else my mom would never hear the end of it, I guess?

So, instead of saying that the kidnapper/rapist across the street gave her straight whiskey? She told the court that she stole it. She lost her lisence and had to take classes. She was stuck living with my dad again.

If the state had not stepped in? My sister might still be drinking. But right now, she can't stand the taste of beers and whiskeys. Too traumatic.

And I don't know if the pedophile across the street was angry. He had wanted her, and likely had drugged her. He had dragged out outside into the cold by a stop sign, supposedly after being upset that he was somehow refused.

I didn't get to refuse anything.
 
Bright side?

My windows are currently open and the room is being aired out for the first time in ten years or more.

When I first cleaned out the corner, I ended up needing an inhaler and a hot shower in order to breathe.

I managed to clean it. Now my bed is in the corner. It's nice to have more floor space. My service dog likes that she can look out the window.

I have very little stuff to go through now. The main problem is figuring out what to do with the stuff I want. I still haven't figured it out.

I've been between wanting my mom to notice and be impressed, and hiding it from her and being angry about it. Not fully sure why. Maybe because I feel like she should have been helping me with this. It was an overwhelming amount of trash. Dangerous trash, at that. A straight up health hazard.

I'll be happy when I can put up some posters and I tapestries on these walls. Make this space really mine. :)

I would also like to change the doorknob on this room.

I changed the doorknob on the bathroom that comes off of this room. It was broken. Couldn't lock, and if you closed the door all the way, you'd get locked in. Scary stuff.

When I was a kid, my dad changed all the doorknobs to all the bedrooms in order to be able to have the lock on the outside. I grew up thinking that was normal. He'd frequently take my toys away and lock me in my room.

The lock is still on the outside. I've gotten used to sleeping with the door open. I'd like to be able to close the door at night without being terrified of being locked in, without food or the ability to socialize with anything but the toys I stole, or the cat I brought into my room.

I might re-introduce a small food stash -- one that'll be cycled through occasionally so it doesn't go bad. Maybe bread? Cans of soup? Cans of vegetables? Applesauce? We'll see.

Maybe I'll put my mini fridge in here and make a non-weird habit of keeping some foods to myself. Not allowing my mom to store her extra stuff in it.

I'm NEVER allowing my room to become storage for the rest of the house, ever again. I'm tired of being responsible for other people's stuff.
 
I watched some ants treat their wounded warriors after fighting a spider and losing. I gave them sugar to compensate. They wouldn't get my pity... I feel weird for watching.

I have known that spider for at least a year. Good guy, really. Nature is weird.
 
There's a chunk of fleshing missing from my pubic area, and I really don't like to think of it, but occasionally the pain is strong enough that I can't ignore it.

Which is odd, because honestly it wasn't a deep wound. I've had worse.

I cooperated as well as I could through the whole thing. I knew it needed to be removed. It actually didn't, but I couldn't say no. I felt curious? Terrified and waiting for it to be over.

I was reassured it would not hurt. Weirdly? I mostly wasn't lied to. There was a sawing and cutting sound that still freaks me out. I remember being terrified to shower that night, unsure how to dress the wound and unsure if it was even okay to walk.

I put hydrogen peroxide on it, which as an adult I now know was a bad idea. It caused new tissue growth to die. I eventually figured that out.

At times I can feel sharp pain going through there, and I can hear that cutting sound. Mostly feel the motion of it. It's incredibly distracting.

A surgeon removed moles from my breast in my teen years, and that spot is oddly numb and occasionally painful as well. So I feel a little bit like I'm just too sensitive.

In good news, I managed to do an ultrasound today, as well as physical therapy directly afterward :) The ultrasound was incredibly painful, but having gotten it over with, I know a treatment option will be available soon :) Some of this pain will go away soon, or at least be managed. And PT went well too! They say I've at least got a nice range of motion. I'll have to really stick to the exercises I was given, but I think that won't be hard once I make it a habit. It may even be really grounding!
 
So, uh, mentioning the sharp pains in my pubic area that were cut out. I'm glad I did that, because apparently it needed some attention.

After talking about the experience, the pain got worse. It's done that in the past, but much of the time I could ignore it long enough to forget about it. Repressing.

Since bringing it up, the sharp pains have amplified while I'm trying to rest. I can even smell blood and feel a sawing. It's made me incredibly nauseous.

I keep putting my hand on it to remind myself that that part is over. It's healed now, and walking is fine. I'm a little afraid to touch it, though. It's like I'm acknowledging that it's really there, and I'm also a bit worried that I'll actually feel a wound :/
 
I've been plagued with a huge sense of urgency.

It's surrounding all the things I have to do, that I let myself forget about so I could clean my room.

I've already missed at least one deadline, but I NEED to take certain exams. I need to schedule them. I need them to prove I've earned my BA in biology, and I need them to move ahead into that career-building stage of my life.

I think I'm just overwhelmed, but at least I'm not also surrounded by piles of junk while being overwhelmed. I mean, there's still a couple of piles, but it's not as bad.

I've been asked to clean the rest of the house. We'll see how that goes. I think the teenager in me has come out and gotten angry about everything. I repress most of my anger. I view anger as a bad emotion. It's really a marker of fairness, though. I care so much about fairness :/
 
Feeling urgency makes me think of my ex, B.

I've mentioned her already. We were a thing though she says otherwise. As in, she denies our entire relationship. I think she feels shame over it. Not for the usual reasons, mostly.

She found me disgusting, first of all. At least, that's what she told me. I was used to being called disgusting so I didn't question it. When we had sexual interactions, she would be fine with my chest, but not my groin. She'd look at it curiously, curious about the scars and marks. She'd even compliment healing. I told her some honest things about it. Like involvement of a needle. Something that's very hard for me to recall, so I trust my brain (for now) and I don't try.

I also admitted once that I was washing my vagina in rubbing alcohol and hand santitizer. She commented that it sounded like something I'd do, when I tried to back track and hide what I'd said. I was so ashamed of how dirty I was.

If she wanted to do anything to me, it had to be through plenty of clothing, or a blanket. She didn't really want to touch me, most of the time. That was because I was weird.

However, she would grab my hand and have me do things directly to her, without protection. Sometimes against my will. I'd feel forced and unable to say no, unless I wanted to face repercussions.

She had that sense of urgency. It was extremely powerful, like she was missing out on her own life and like she needed to hurry up and get shit done. She was too overwhelmed by a severe fear of failure, though. So she never was able to apply to college, or do professional jobs, or even save money. I'm not sure she fully realized how much it was affecting her.

I tried for years to help her, though I'm obviously not a therapist. She had told me, very honestly, what kinds of things she was going through. I sucked at blunt honesty -- I was increasingly more afraid of her reactions and her judgements, and I also didn't want to acknowledge what I'd been through. No, more than that -- I couldn't make myself do it. And she'd try to force me, which made it even worse. I stopped telling her details only a few months into the relationship, except for what was occasionally forced out of me. Though I got good at distracting her.

I showed her everything I knew. I did everything I could to try to help her grow and recover herself. She hasn't been diagnosed with anything, though my own therapist suggested possible BPD. She's been through trauma, and was scared she had bipolar disorder. She was never diagnosed with PTSD and I don't know that she qualifies (not like I'd ever know), though she had certainly been through some shitty stuff.

I feel terrible and wish I could have helped her. Although, helping her prevented me from getting treatment.

She would ask me for every detail of my therapy, asking me to recite exactly what happened, especially if I talked about her. I spent my therapy sessions memorizing my therapist's sentences.

I also, since 2008, had to continuously built a fantasy world for her use. That was fun at first, when I thought it was just a game. Then she took it seriously. She asked me to prove it again and again and again, and I was starting to believe in it too. I also got to a point where interacting with her through alternate personalities was easier. She treated them differently, and I never understood what to make of that. I never thought I'd live a life like that.

I get weird thoughts about how my own mom would like me more if I were other people. I notice that people she doesn't get to interact with as much, like my twin brother, get much happier hellos. I feel like she's tired of me. I've gotten so used to being able to interact with invisible characters at a second's notice, and I feel like they're more interesting than I am.

I still interact with them on paper -- which is what they were for. They weren't B's.

Reality feels too simple and less complex at weird moments, when I'm talking to people. I think only my thoughts, and don't have to focus on tiny details that another species would notice. Or a husband would notice, or a second husband would notice, or what a fungus would notice.

It feels freeing and depressing at the same time. Having no urgent need to keep tabs on someone else's life.. leaves a lot of free time to consider my real self.

The worst of it was recently. It mirrored the very beginning of it. Which only made me crave an ending to it, because I wanted to leave fantasy behind me and focus on the real world. Also, myself. The only thing stopping me from getting better? B herself. She was becoming so incredibly toxic -- that is, even more than before, and not even for the reasons people are normally toxic.

Since I'd gone to college? No assaults, less verbal abuse. The same amount of emotional manipulation. I honestly don't believe she was even doing it consciously. I was afraid to make friends, afraid she'd feel abandoned also. She needed a phone call every night. And if she texted, she needed instant answers.

She fell into a horrible depression that was even worse than before. I did everything I could, but she started to hate me. She sent me texts at early hours saying so, saying her family was comparing me to her and saying she should have gone to college.

She didn't improve over a three year period. She was not considering therapy.

She hated me too much to talk to me about it, and I was getting fine with that. She was cutting herself off, which I understood, but lashing out at me, and I had gotten to a point where I didn't accept that kind of behavior from people anymore. I was starting to resent the way she had treated me, especially how she treated me like a slave. I did her chores, her laundry, made her food, provided instant translations to her invisible husband, I gave her sexual pleasure. I was trained to do these things without hesitation. Hesitation resulted in trouble, usually in her reacting strongly, saying how I didn't love her and how I'm crazy and full of myself and she wasn't a good friend.

On my birthday in 2016 I finally cut her off. I didn't tell her I had, and sort of hoped she'd breach it. I really did love her. Very much. But I had called her with a minor problem. I had no expectations of the call except to have a nice chat. I had been in a classroom and despite warning the professor, the professor brought up talk of rape and I had been lead out of the room by my service dog. As I calmed down and felt well enough to go back, my dog felt it would be best to wait a moment. I decided to call my friend A, who is always understanding and easy to chat with, so I could have a nice conversation. I'm rather social, so a quick chat would be sure to pick me up (though I was already feeling well enough, if not just shaken up).

When A didn't answer, I decided, what the heck, I'd see what B was up to.

I regretted that instantly.

It was my birthday, and each year I hear from her and actually I think I'll finish this later if I feel like it.
 
Thinking of the nearly full year where my worth was wrapped entirely as my ability to be a fungus.

I feel like a fungus. It felt freeing to be a fungus. I didn't realize how trapped I was.

But she didn't call my vagina or my body disgusting when I was a fungus. God, does anyone else know what that's like? I'm so confused.
 
Of course you are confused!!! Good grief it's confusing to read all that you have been thru....And that is just reading it. You had to LIVE it.

After talking about the experience, the pain got worse. It's done that in the past, but much of the time I could ignore it long enough to forget about it. Repressing.

Maybe it's ready to have its time to share? It wants to heal but for that to happen you need to understand what it went thru?

You are doing so much hard work.... The house, school, boundaries with others, dealing with B, physical therapy.... Yikes. That is a lot for anyone to deal with. No wonder it's all jumbled up in your head. Maybe it's time for some deep breathing and grounding excercises?
 
Of course you are confused!!! Good grief it's confusing to read all that you have been thru....And that...
I think you're right. Maybe I'll do an EMDR on just that? It probably wouldn't hurt anything, at least. :)

I'll do some random art. Probably coloring in a complicated coloring book. That always seems to be relaxing.
 
Why can't I keep up with things like deadlines normally when I'm in this house?

I think I missed a job opportunity I've been looking forward to since last year...

I've emailed my would-be boss to ask -- she's a very understanding person -- but I'm so mad at myself and sure I lost this job. Which sucks, because I was planning to use it to get enough money for a cheap car :(

I might be upset because I'm so tired? Exhausted, which is especially bad today. I was supposed to be well rested.

If there's anything that triggers me more, and anything I'm more OCD about than anything else? It's sleep. You know, the hardest thing something with PTSD can try to control. :/

I'll be babysitting my nephew today so no naps. Unless he naps. He is a year and a half, about, so I'll have to wait to see if he wants to nap.

I was ready for bed at a reasonable hour, but I got OCD problems while showering and then chatted with my twin brother, who keeps bringing up how me being gay is bad, and how all other churches but his are bad. Sigh. Not that that was all we discussed, obviously, or I wouldn't have stuck around.

I was enjoying the chat, but he wouldn't stop talking? Until 2am.

Then I got that controlling feeling and obviously lost sleep instead of gaining it.

I hate being exhausted, so. much.

I'm not supposed to have caffeine but I might?
 

2025 Donation Goal

Help Keep MyPTSD Alive! Our annual donation goal is crucial to continue providing support. If you find value in our resource, please contribute to ensure we remain online and available for everyone who needs us.
Goal
$1,600.00
Received
$470.00
29%

Trending content

Featured content

Latest posts

Back
Top