It Started with Nick...

October 13th, 2022; what was supposed to be three years without alcohol and my drug of choice. To understand today, I need to understand what led up to October 12th, 2019.

So I'm starting with him. Before him, sure I had dealt with boys wanting to have sex with me. My second "boyfriend" cheated on me because he knew I wasn't ready to have sex. So did my third "boyfriend".  Nick though, he was my first relationship. He discovered me when I was 15, quite close to being aged like a rotting egg. He saw me before I ever saw him. It was before my sophomore year had even started. Me and my best friend at the time had shown up to find our lockers and get our schedules. We were so excited and definitely goofing off. I remember us laughing. That's what caught his attention. The senior boy across the lawn was drawn to my innocence and my fun. So he waited.

In my first few weeks of school, he'd stand outside the band room. The same place where he first saw me. He'd watch me. I noticed this but didn't think much of it. I was busy with my friends. I was enjoying what little time I had with them before I'd be required to arrive home. I was free, but it never could last. My "dad" kept track of when I got home from school.

The day he first came over he ignored me and talked to my best friend. He later told me he was trying to make me jealous. It didn't work. So jokes on him, he had to work harder. He used MySpace to do just that. We began to send messages back and forth. It was his playground. His personal obsession (whom we shall call Nicole) became my obsession. He constantly told me why I could never be her. She was also younger than me. This went on for all of my sophomore year and into my junior year. The back and forth. He liked me, but I was his fourth choice in his ranking system. Yet, I stuck around waiting for his breadcrumbs. I can't explain to you what that poor part of myself was allowing or why. It doesn't make sense to me even now. He'd never date me, just absorbed my affection. So I started talking to other boys, and he didn't like it. When "my virginity" was coerced from me in the back of another older boy's car, he decided to make sure I knew that I was a slut and not pure enough for him. He would send me this dude's picture randomly via Instant Messenger. He knew I was having a hard time processing what had happened to me. He didn't care about that. He only cared that it wasn't him. He resented me for something that I never wanted in the first place.

He went away to college, failed out, moved back to Utah County, and then all of a sudden: he wanted to date me. I was finally chosen. And I had to make up for the fact that I was "not a virgin". Him dating me was a gift and it was made very clear that he was better than me. I believed him.

I believed him for a very, very long time. Years after, I would still think: If I could have just been enough. If I could have just figured out how to be better.

That’s all for tonight… fuck.

Almost 32

More and more 

people who party 

are moving 

into the apartment complex.

This is going to be another test. 

Can I sit through loneliness? Can I one day be by myself without the constant fear of never being happy, and okay? I tell myself that "drug friends" can never be real friends, but I've met some pretty amazing people. I think we always ended up talking because we were there for some of the same reasons. We just didn't want to be alone, because it hurt too much.

Am I able to pass up the excitement of meeting a stranger and having a magical moment? I don't know if Disney movies fucked me up. You hear people talk about that shit. No, I think all of the Romantic Comedies prepared me for my idea of "Love". If a boy is mean he likes you. The bad boy always reforms and falls head-over-heels-in-love with the wallflower. There are meet-cutes, and they never lead to anything truly awful, outside of hilarious drama. And in the case of Enough (my favorite movie when I was a young girl) you end up like J-lo and you kick the abuser's ass. You beat them at their game.

Do I wish I could go over there and make friends, if only for my nights off? Sure. That's an old part of me that I must dig out. The fact that I'd rather escape than deal with what sits inside of me, it's a hard spot. Every time, (which is often) that someone in AA talks about how they drank for fun and shirking off their kids, families, commitments; I think: Geeze, that must be nice. I drank to escape myself. I stopped feeling comfortable in my body at such a young age, I was never allotted boundaries, and the trauma kept piling on. 

I don't know if I will ever be okay. Which is all the more reason I should get used to being with myself. I don't ever want to be the monster in someone else's story. I don't want to see my father. I don't want to belong to Nick. I don't want to be Camron. I don't want to think like Parker. I don't want to be as broken as Zack/Zach/Zackary.

And quite frankly, I don't want to be anything like most of the people I have dated. That's fucking sad.

I’ve often been alone.

30 Days

People expect me to move on, I'm sure. I don't know how much longer I can talk about Z before everyone gets sick of it and I become isolated all over again. Going public with his name and my experiences has just led to more people coming out about things he has done. It hasn't stopped. For most it's a sign of solidarity but that solidarity will only last for as long as a FB status stays visible. For me, it never goes away. Every damn time someone comes forward about something else he has done I feel stupid, pathetic, and either devasted or filled with rage. I feel sick. My brain is decaying. I can barely hold on to information and I always forget what the fuck I was about to do. I stopped crying. I know I need to cry but once again something has shifted inside of me.

I know this means he is getting everything he ever wanted. He feeds off of destruction. It doesn't matter that I know this. It does not matter that I am far away from him. It doesn't matter that he will never touch me again. I still feel him on me. I feel him inside of me.

I can't peacefully exist knowing he is harming someone else. How am I supposed to move on? How has he gotten away with this for so long? A part of me already knows that answer. It's because of people like me. We believe him. We fall for whichever character he decides to play. He finds people who want to be loved and he gives just enough, but not too much. Z hates to give anything. It was the hidden violence that gave him life.

He used to take my arm and twist it behind my back and push it up until my shoulder would almost pop out. Afterwards, whenever the pain showed up, I would say it must be from sleeping on the couch or from wearing a bra. That's how fucking broken I was. It's a gift I carry with me today, the pain that won't go away. When I'm stressed or I've been lifting something "too heavy" I am reminded of how I couldn't fucking understand then, but I do now.

One day I noticed he wasn't paying attention and I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back and pulled up, just hard enough that he couldn't move. He was so angry and annoyed that I had the control. I didn't even hurt him. He was just stuck. Under my grip. For less than 10 seconds, and those are the seconds that help me hold on. When you come at him head on, you see him for who he really is. He is weak. He is familiar with his darkness, and he is okay with that. He's okay with empty promises because he is empty. I don't know if he was born that way or if he was made that way.

All I know is I won't ever completely understand why, and I have to be okay with that.

I made it 30 days.

Believe Womxn

I belong in this space.
You belong in this space.
Trauma is not a competition.

PTSD #1

PTSD pops in when you expect it, for sure. The worst moments, however, are when you do not expect to be blasted from inside your chest. PTSD, isn't just about loud bangs, although those sure fuck you up too. PTSD changes the way in which you walk, act, listen, and speak. PTSD makes you more aware of the changes in voice patterns of others and notice when a pace becomes a trot. Victims are able to latch on to any sense of danger. Survivors learn to work through it and panic attacks happen less often. Do they ever go completely away? I can't tell you.

I heard that I suffered from PTSD from the therapist I saw after being robbed. I heard it from the therapist I found when I was trying to reassemble a relationship, I truly believed I was destroying. I heard it from Kathy.

When I walked into Kathy's office for the first session, I didn't waste any fucking time. I got to the point. I said, "I'm fucking crazy, or my boyfriend is a Narcissist. I am losing my mind." Then it all came out: my father, Zackary, my substance abuse issues, the robbery, my time in Mormon Corp., and again my father. I told her of how I could get angry. Sometimes I just wanted to fucking end it all. I said fucked up things that I didn't ever want to feel inside. I cried, she asked questions, I cried some more. I didn't want to be a bad girlfriend. I needed help so that I could be better. I didn't want to have anything in common with my father. I didn't want to be cruel. ** Did you know that "trauma dumping" is a sign of trauma? Well, the more you know. ** She knew I was obviously a mess and I figured she would tell me to check myself into the loony bin and warn Zackary to run. Instead, she asked me if I was saving any money.

Kathy helped me save myself. It was something I was completely unable to do up until that point. She asked me questions. I could talk to someone. When she told me I had PTSD, I didn't just hear it, I felt it.

That seems like so long ago, and ironically, I cannot say now if I feel worse or better off as I type this out. I think that truly shows how fucked up my brain is. It's why I can't go back out there. I don't trust me. I don't trust men. I have no motivation to.

The reason I started writing this out is because I heard a man screaming with nothing but rage outside my bedroom window. I shut my laptop mid-episode and stopped breathing. I waited. Then I got up, ran to my back door, threw it open and got ready to beat the shit out of any man that was harming one of my neighbors. By then it was quiet. Too late though, because Mr. PTSD had arrived.

This is why I sleep with a baseball bat right by my side.

You can't have us.

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.