Wanderer

    There is a difference between wanting to have someone and wanting to be with them. As I've reflected back on my relationships of all sorts, I see a pattern. There was a lot of me wanting to be with someone. I gave my time and asked questions. I tried to talk, even if we were just fucking; I wanted to know something about them, really anything. Isn't humanity based on connection?

Many of them though only wanted to own me. For a night, a week, a few months, a year and a half, or maybe even 3 fucking years. I was never truly living with those that claimed to like me the most and for always. Much of my time they locked up inside; controlling what I wore, doing something to ruin my mood if I was about to go out without them, shit-talking my friends, then shit-talking me. This was acceptable to me over and over and over again. I accepted the love I'd always observed and was told I deserved.

My father set me up for failure. Zackary was always going to come into my life. It could have been Nicolaas, Camron, Parker, Britt.... all of them breaking me down. I was being prepared for The One of Many Names. Nobody believes they are capable of falling madly-in-love with a monster. However, the normalization of predatory behavior, drunken abuse, love-bombing, and drug use are exactly how Zackary and I came to be. My bar was so low that he entered my body after just a shrug of his shoulders.

I was so much more. I am so much more. It's how I'm here now: alive. I grew and shifted; chose to open up to those scary parts within myself. I stared at who I'd become. Who I was still becoming.

I stood up. I fucking got out.

The Three of Us

I didn't know when I reached out to C, that M would join us in this hard, messed up, sad, devastating journey. Fuck, I didn't know there would be a journey. I didn't know if I'd be doing more harm than good. I lost balance on those fears. I thought of every scenario, different starts and middles, but always the same end: Z harms again.

So I reached out, and C reached out, and WE stood up together.

Since then, 3 have become 5.

Nobody wants to find out that someone they are dating has taken advantage of....

Nobody should be harming us.

So I had a break down. I've been having a lot of those. The number of predators in my life..... has had an impactful effect. And yeah, Z (at the age of 24, sexually assaulted/raped an 18-year-old). He moved on to the next target and she learned to live post-Z. It's a new normal. When I think back to how many nights with him, I remember vs. how many nights I do not, I get shivers. He dated me, so what about the girls he only took advantage of once. How evil has he been? I never thought I'd be hearing from someone who was only 18 when Z garishly entered her life. I never allowed myself to think it.

Every day, I get further and further away from myself. How could I have been in love with him?

I am not sleeping well.

Motion Sickness

 

I Forgot About Nae

I did it again. I got caught up in my head. I was so busy putting everyone else first that I started riding on fumes. The light was flashing and I just kept cruisin'. Last night choked me harder than Zack could have ever: people are awful.

Right now, though, let's talk about men, baby. They tell us we suck because we are too loud, too sexy, too ugly, too dumb, too pretentious; basically, we are too much of something -anything- that they feel like spotlighting at any given moment.

Some men figure it out. They realize that they need to do a little better. They read some shit and get into deep, meaningful conversations with Feminists. Give them a boundary, and you'll figure out how much respect they actually have for you. Oh, how quickly the mighty become simple and predictable.

My father had a black book of names. The men I've dated and truly cared for had their own lists to make them feel important. Nick was blatant and screamed Predator, girls were ranked and showcased as trophies. He had a type: young. The next a list of adventures; Parker wanted everyone to think he was brave and had seen the world while carrying so very little. He was a trust fund baby. He never actually experienced a single-fucking-moment-in-time, he just expected and collected. Then there was Zackary, my perfect imperfection. He was a mix of them, but we also shared the trauma of a horrible childhood. I had to love him. While he loved to destroy women and then add us to his list of "Crazy Cunts".

The guys that were old enough to be my father though; they taught me the most about men and those broken parts of myself. I feel as if I definitely need to point out that trauma gifted from the first man a daughter is to love and learn from then being coined "Daddy Issues" kind of solidifies how fucking warped the world truly is.

Red is my color. Rage is my pain.

Relapse & Recovery

I relapsed again last night. I both want it to remain my dirty little secret and for it to be shouted from the rooftop. I guess a blog is that unhappy middle.

In a meeting the other day the topic was recovery vs. recovered, and how those words make us feel. When I spoke, I mentioned that I no longer felt I could be comfortable in my recovery from substances, until I have recovered from my childhood. I said it's all too hard.

Last night I pictured myself jumping from the balcony. I felt that real feeling of the fall. I scared myself. My fear of heights isn't just imagined, it is known. I allowed myself to consider it so deeply that I had to get out of the apartment. I had to get out of myself.

When living in Nevada everyone used the dump to throw out shit. It was an "activity" for some. Small towns are weird. When we had driven out that day, I remember being very cautious of the drop, but intrigued by it. When he came from behind and grabbed me, I felt pure terror. As he hung me upside down over that plummet, I just remember thinking: He could do it. He could drop me. My mom begged him to just bring me back over and put me down. Her fear caused me more fear. He loved it. He was laughing and that's when he decided to let go of my legs for just a split second. I dropped a few inches and screamed. My mom pleaded for me back. Then he got angry and said she was making him the bad guy and he was just joking. I clung into my mother the whole drive home.

I know the fall. I know that darkness that comes into my mind. I am very familiar with it. Keep your friends close but....

So when I heard all of those people talking about what a good person my dad was. Laughing about his little black book of women's names, written as conquests. Saying that he had decided my mother was perfect. As if his thoughts are what validated how much pain she must be in, sitting there beside me. I wanted to scream. I wanted to burn that place down with all of his enablers within it. Instead, I held my mom's hand and cried. I cried for my mother. I cried for my brothers. I cried for my sister. I cried for all that he had taken from us. That funeral was a final nail in the imaginary coffin of a Narcissistic Prick from Ohio.

Only now, I have his little black book. I know my father a little bit more than before. His darkness knows no bounds. I know with certainty; the world is a better place without this man. I had to put it away. I was obsessing over his codes and what the numbers meant. He crossed some off, circled dates, kept track of the masses of lives he'd walked in and out of. He hates women. We are something to own, and not someone. What can I do with this pain?

It's all too hard.