October 13th, 2019-October 13th, 2022

    The day before I prepared to leave from California, I told my therapist that I was fucking scared. I told her I was scared to come back here. I was scared I was going to fuck up. I told her my biggest fear was that I would relapse. I told her I couldn't relapse because of Zackary. He wasn't worth all of that time I'd gathered. She told me that I could do it. She said she believed in me. She said a relapse would never mean she didn't believe I could do it.

I didn't relapse because of Zackary. No, it was after getting punched in the face while protecting a child, after losing my best friend, and after finding out my "dad" had died and that my mother had found him in their closet. Then going to a funeral for a person I never got the chance to talk to about the impact he had on my life. I lost my path to forgiveness. Not for him, but for myself. Then after realizing that still, to this day, nobody truly cares about what he did to me. I have to forgive my family. It's heavy. It's fucking hard. And yes, Zackary, but he didn't cause me to relapse. He just gave me a reason to cry once I did.

Today was a really fucking hard day. I should have made it 3 years. Today I wanted to drink. That's how fucking devastating alcoholism+trauma is. It's why I don't know if I'll ever be okay. Too much has happened. Too many people have entered my body without permission. I've been torn from for too long. I wish I could say something helpful to whomever could one day come across this.

I just don't know if there is anything to say.

-D

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.