ms.mermaid
New Here
Hello. I'm Ariel. 24. Midwestern USA, unfortunately.
I don't know why I'm doing this, because I never keep up with things, but I'm trying again, now that I've been back in therapy for a couple of months.
I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011, as the walls closed in on me, and I was staring at the end of a year and a half relationship, trying to fix my crazy to fix my relationship.
I had jumped into living with my Friend-with-Benefits only a few months after graduating high school. I had to get away from my parents. My mother was a victim of many traumas that led her to mental illness, and part of that meant being a very abusive totalitarian at times. That part is harder to sort out. The messiness of abuse is staggering. Aren't we supposed to love our mothers? How confusing it was to need her because I was helpless, to love her because I could see she was in pain, to fear her because her rage and cruelty so often fell on me, and to watch my fear grow to hate, because her voice was ingrained in me, telling me of my worthlessness and my failings, picking my body apart and setting fire to my fragile self-image. When I was small, I hid the bruises she left on my skin and my soul, and as a teen I hid the scars I left on my skin, and I didn't need her help to hurt me anymore. I would secretly hope for her death, so that I could save myself, my two youngest siblings, C & D, from all the pain.
I ran away a few times, but my feelings of obligation to C & D kept me there, trying to protect them, but unable to protect myself from her.
At some point, their father, who'd married my mother when I was 7, stopped loving her by the time 13, and had adopted me by the time I turned 15. He'd been so nice for so long, only ever spanked me once. He was Daddy as much as I understood. I guess the abuse took a toll on him after the years. He had a lot of sympathy for me. I had a lot of sympathy for him. But, good things end, and his own mental health was unstable. Warped by time and loneliness, the hours of time I craved with him began to take on a different tone.
I'll be very clear, I was a child. I had begun experimenting with sexual things, but was naive, and terrified of pregnancy. I was a virgin, and had very low self-esteem. When he began giving me sexual compliments, I didn't understand that wasn't him just being nice. He'd touch me a lot, not inappropriatly, but often, and sometimes by suprise. I had questions about sex, and he'd give me far more information and details than I was expecting. He then, offered to buy me a vibrator. He assured me that he just wanted me to not be out f*cking boys, which there had been no threat of. He also told me not to tell my mom, which made sense given her reactions to even a small infraction.
Up to then, I just thought he was being the cool parent. I didn't become suspicious until I used his computer one day, and the search history had my name attached for searches of nudie pics. Then, he started asking me, how my vibe was, if it felt good, did any of my friends need one. It began to creep me out, but he was the only parent in my life who didn't beat me or tell me I was possessed and going to hell.
I tried to pretend things were normal, ignore the suspicions I was beginning to have that maybe he wasn't just being a good dad. But then, I woke up on the couch one evening with his hand up my shirt, in my bra, fondling my breast. And I was in shock, I pretended I was sleeping and then tried to act like I was waking up, and he slumped quickly, pretending to be asleep. I got up, walked to bed, and silently cried myself to sleep.
I haven't recovered from that. It wasn't rape, but later in life, when I actually experienced rape at the hands of two older boys, I still felt more violated by the actions of the man who was supposed to protect me.
By 17, I was a pack a day smoker, hiding it and getting kicked out of the house when I'd get caught. I was done being good. I was clinging to sanity. Graduation night found me giving up my v-card to my best friends older brother, in the back of his truck. Small towns love stories like that. They like to hear them and then tell your mom at church.
So, after hearing that I was a slut who'd shamed the family, I finally let go of trying to protect anyone but me, at least for a little while, and bounced around friends couches for the summer. I had no job, I wasn't going to college in the fall. f*ck, sometimes we had nothing to eat, and my friend and I would go crawfishing, just so we could eat. Freedom was deep fried crawfish, dollar packs of cigarettes, and no one telling me anything anymore.
But my friends couldn't support me. I had never had a job with a w2. I had no car. I had spent all my graduation money on being fun and free. I was boning my bff's brother regularly and his parents knew me. I had to get a job and go on the depo shot to live there.
I thought that I would make him love me if I just did everything I was asked. I went above and beyond. I woke up in the morning with him to make his lunch. I was a dutiful 18 year old desperate for a family, but not fitting in with his.
We moved after he was in a really terrible car accident with our friends. It was very traumatic for me to deal with. My gross overreaction and need to be taking care of him and with him pushed him away from me. I was accused of being manipulative and making things about me. It's crazy how you'll just be trying to be what everyone needs, only to have people interpret your actions as selfish and manipulative.
We moved in with friends. I tried a semester of school, after reconnecting with my biological father, who learned that my mother and her husband had sold the car that was supposed to have been mine, and gave me his car.
With my wheels, job, college classes, and house, I was ready. But I wasn't. I wasn't prepared to be working two part time jobs, commuting 80 miles a day 4 times a week, dealing with an emotionally distant and disturbed partner whose depression after his accident made him cruel to me. He spoke to me in ways that made me feel small again.
The wounds began tearing open. Sanity left as I watched myself sink into depression. It didn't take long for me to realize I couldn't do it. I had too much homework that I couldn't focus on. I had too much anxiety, about my fear of failing. My money started disappearing to spice or k2. I finally folded when my car broke down the week before finals. I missed all my finals and failed all my classes. I retreated fully in devastating humiliation.
We couldn't afford to continue to stay in our place. We had to move back to his parents, but not in their house. We would have to remodel the trashy single wide at the edge of their property.
I spent 6 months unemployed, trying in vain to repair a trailer with floors that had rotted out, no windows, no exterior doors, not even plumbing or wiring. It should have been in a landfill, but it was home.
When I finally got back to work, it was as a full time evening nursing assisstant at a nursing home that frequently made its cna's pull mandatory stay over shifts. I had no social life. I worked and came home to the guy I called my bf.
I was living in a dilapidated trailer in the middle of winter, no windows, no running water, no electricity, save the cord that ran from the ex's parent's house to our room. It powered a small space heater and the ex's PS3 that he loved more than himself.
I always knew he was bi, we were close friends in high school. I didn't suspect it was an issue at first, but we were sexually infrequent, except for blowjobs. But I guess my crazy couldn't handle the uncertainty of throwing my life away for someone who didn't seem to like anything about me but my oral sex skills.
I ended things poorly (cheating) and found myself only a little less empty handed than I'd been when I left my parents. I drove my car to my biological father's and begged him to let me stay with him.
I was in poor mental and physical health. My body had morphed on the depo shot, and I was 80lbs over the normal weight for my size. I sank into depression for six months and began cutting again. My father told me that I had to find a job in 30 days or I had to leave.
Even with a diagnosis, I couldn't make anyone understand how painful living had become. I couldn't escape my faults. I had no control. I just wanted to be free again.
Four years later, I am not dead, as I thought I'd be, but even the happiest I get is bittersweet. I struggle to maintain perspective, I find myself either dealing with flashbacks, intrusive negative thoughts that lead to hours of negative ruminations about myself and my life. I've been smoking for years, but hiding it from my partner, who believes I quit with him three years ago. I lead a double life.
I have a side that makes everyone comfortable and tries to reassure them that I'm okay and so are they. This is the side that the toddlers I spend 40 hours a week with know, and how I am with the majority of people I meet. Compassionate, ever ready to soothe a child in need.
The other side of me is an empty shell who feels nothing good for myself and can't visualize a future for myself. The other side of me watches my story everyday and cries because no one around understands that I'm not happy and this is why. This is what I spend my selfish time thinking about.
So, is there anyway out of here? I don't want to die, but living broken and empty really isn't much better.
I don't know why I'm doing this, because I never keep up with things, but I'm trying again, now that I've been back in therapy for a couple of months.
I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011, as the walls closed in on me, and I was staring at the end of a year and a half relationship, trying to fix my crazy to fix my relationship.
I had jumped into living with my Friend-with-Benefits only a few months after graduating high school. I had to get away from my parents. My mother was a victim of many traumas that led her to mental illness, and part of that meant being a very abusive totalitarian at times. That part is harder to sort out. The messiness of abuse is staggering. Aren't we supposed to love our mothers? How confusing it was to need her because I was helpless, to love her because I could see she was in pain, to fear her because her rage and cruelty so often fell on me, and to watch my fear grow to hate, because her voice was ingrained in me, telling me of my worthlessness and my failings, picking my body apart and setting fire to my fragile self-image. When I was small, I hid the bruises she left on my skin and my soul, and as a teen I hid the scars I left on my skin, and I didn't need her help to hurt me anymore. I would secretly hope for her death, so that I could save myself, my two youngest siblings, C & D, from all the pain.
I ran away a few times, but my feelings of obligation to C & D kept me there, trying to protect them, but unable to protect myself from her.
At some point, their father, who'd married my mother when I was 7, stopped loving her by the time 13, and had adopted me by the time I turned 15. He'd been so nice for so long, only ever spanked me once. He was Daddy as much as I understood. I guess the abuse took a toll on him after the years. He had a lot of sympathy for me. I had a lot of sympathy for him. But, good things end, and his own mental health was unstable. Warped by time and loneliness, the hours of time I craved with him began to take on a different tone.
I'll be very clear, I was a child. I had begun experimenting with sexual things, but was naive, and terrified of pregnancy. I was a virgin, and had very low self-esteem. When he began giving me sexual compliments, I didn't understand that wasn't him just being nice. He'd touch me a lot, not inappropriatly, but often, and sometimes by suprise. I had questions about sex, and he'd give me far more information and details than I was expecting. He then, offered to buy me a vibrator. He assured me that he just wanted me to not be out f*cking boys, which there had been no threat of. He also told me not to tell my mom, which made sense given her reactions to even a small infraction.
Up to then, I just thought he was being the cool parent. I didn't become suspicious until I used his computer one day, and the search history had my name attached for searches of nudie pics. Then, he started asking me, how my vibe was, if it felt good, did any of my friends need one. It began to creep me out, but he was the only parent in my life who didn't beat me or tell me I was possessed and going to hell.
I tried to pretend things were normal, ignore the suspicions I was beginning to have that maybe he wasn't just being a good dad. But then, I woke up on the couch one evening with his hand up my shirt, in my bra, fondling my breast. And I was in shock, I pretended I was sleeping and then tried to act like I was waking up, and he slumped quickly, pretending to be asleep. I got up, walked to bed, and silently cried myself to sleep.
I haven't recovered from that. It wasn't rape, but later in life, when I actually experienced rape at the hands of two older boys, I still felt more violated by the actions of the man who was supposed to protect me.
By 17, I was a pack a day smoker, hiding it and getting kicked out of the house when I'd get caught. I was done being good. I was clinging to sanity. Graduation night found me giving up my v-card to my best friends older brother, in the back of his truck. Small towns love stories like that. They like to hear them and then tell your mom at church.
So, after hearing that I was a slut who'd shamed the family, I finally let go of trying to protect anyone but me, at least for a little while, and bounced around friends couches for the summer. I had no job, I wasn't going to college in the fall. f*ck, sometimes we had nothing to eat, and my friend and I would go crawfishing, just so we could eat. Freedom was deep fried crawfish, dollar packs of cigarettes, and no one telling me anything anymore.
But my friends couldn't support me. I had never had a job with a w2. I had no car. I had spent all my graduation money on being fun and free. I was boning my bff's brother regularly and his parents knew me. I had to get a job and go on the depo shot to live there.
I thought that I would make him love me if I just did everything I was asked. I went above and beyond. I woke up in the morning with him to make his lunch. I was a dutiful 18 year old desperate for a family, but not fitting in with his.
We moved after he was in a really terrible car accident with our friends. It was very traumatic for me to deal with. My gross overreaction and need to be taking care of him and with him pushed him away from me. I was accused of being manipulative and making things about me. It's crazy how you'll just be trying to be what everyone needs, only to have people interpret your actions as selfish and manipulative.
We moved in with friends. I tried a semester of school, after reconnecting with my biological father, who learned that my mother and her husband had sold the car that was supposed to have been mine, and gave me his car.
With my wheels, job, college classes, and house, I was ready. But I wasn't. I wasn't prepared to be working two part time jobs, commuting 80 miles a day 4 times a week, dealing with an emotionally distant and disturbed partner whose depression after his accident made him cruel to me. He spoke to me in ways that made me feel small again.
The wounds began tearing open. Sanity left as I watched myself sink into depression. It didn't take long for me to realize I couldn't do it. I had too much homework that I couldn't focus on. I had too much anxiety, about my fear of failing. My money started disappearing to spice or k2. I finally folded when my car broke down the week before finals. I missed all my finals and failed all my classes. I retreated fully in devastating humiliation.
We couldn't afford to continue to stay in our place. We had to move back to his parents, but not in their house. We would have to remodel the trashy single wide at the edge of their property.
I spent 6 months unemployed, trying in vain to repair a trailer with floors that had rotted out, no windows, no exterior doors, not even plumbing or wiring. It should have been in a landfill, but it was home.
When I finally got back to work, it was as a full time evening nursing assisstant at a nursing home that frequently made its cna's pull mandatory stay over shifts. I had no social life. I worked and came home to the guy I called my bf.
I was living in a dilapidated trailer in the middle of winter, no windows, no running water, no electricity, save the cord that ran from the ex's parent's house to our room. It powered a small space heater and the ex's PS3 that he loved more than himself.
I always knew he was bi, we were close friends in high school. I didn't suspect it was an issue at first, but we were sexually infrequent, except for blowjobs. But I guess my crazy couldn't handle the uncertainty of throwing my life away for someone who didn't seem to like anything about me but my oral sex skills.
I ended things poorly (cheating) and found myself only a little less empty handed than I'd been when I left my parents. I drove my car to my biological father's and begged him to let me stay with him.
I was in poor mental and physical health. My body had morphed on the depo shot, and I was 80lbs over the normal weight for my size. I sank into depression for six months and began cutting again. My father told me that I had to find a job in 30 days or I had to leave.
Even with a diagnosis, I couldn't make anyone understand how painful living had become. I couldn't escape my faults. I had no control. I just wanted to be free again.
Four years later, I am not dead, as I thought I'd be, but even the happiest I get is bittersweet. I struggle to maintain perspective, I find myself either dealing with flashbacks, intrusive negative thoughts that lead to hours of negative ruminations about myself and my life. I've been smoking for years, but hiding it from my partner, who believes I quit with him three years ago. I lead a double life.
I have a side that makes everyone comfortable and tries to reassure them that I'm okay and so are they. This is the side that the toddlers I spend 40 hours a week with know, and how I am with the majority of people I meet. Compassionate, ever ready to soothe a child in need.
The other side of me is an empty shell who feels nothing good for myself and can't visualize a future for myself. The other side of me watches my story everyday and cries because no one around understands that I'm not happy and this is why. This is what I spend my selfish time thinking about.
So, is there anyway out of here? I don't want to die, but living broken and empty really isn't much better.
