My memory starts at the age of 3. The kitchen wall were yellow. I was in my high chair next to my sister. My mother was getting us milk. The phone rings and she puts the milk and two sippy cups on my tray then turns and answers the phone. At this point I decided to pour the milk. I ended up spilling the milk all over the tray. My mother hangs up the phone and seeing the mess that I've made she snaps. She takes me out of the high chair, throws me on the ground and proceeds to stomp on my stomach. The next thing I remember is being on a stretcher.
To you cynical ones. To be completely honest I exactly remember the color of the walls, the view of my mother above me and her foot coming down on top of me, and being on the stretcher while a lady in blue with curly blonde hair says "You're gonna be alright, honey."
From there my sister and I went to the Odren's house. They were our foster parents. They had approximately 6 children of their own. Here, if my memory serves me right, I had good times and I had horrible times, to be honest I only have very few memories of the Odren's house and they really aren't that important. To sum things up: I did not get the love and attention that a 4 year old child needs.
When I was 5 I was adopted. When I was six my older brother began sexually abusing me. I'm not going into details. I don't think that's important.
The rest of my years up to the age of 14 had been filled with parental disagreements and backstabbing friends and wonderful things like that. When I was 14 I decided that I couldn't take it anymore. I hated how I was treated at home and I hated having the constant memory of being physically and sexually abused within the first 7 years of my life. I was sick of feeling like I was everyone's after thought. I wanted once and for all to make sure that everyone knew the impact that I actually had on this life. I decided that I was going to kill myself. It would be really simple. I'd just overdose. Obviously I'm still here so you know that I didn't do it. I decided that in all reality the person that would find me would be the person I wanted to hurt the LEAST. My little sister, Annie. And I couldn't do it.
Now I'd like to tell you what all this means to me.
I'll be completely honest, until the past few months I'd never really thought about it. To be completely honest I can't really think of anyone that wants to dwell in their own past, let alone mine.
First off I want to just say that the most difficult part of living with my past is that I have absolutely no idea how to talk about it. Because for me its just so normal. In all honesty I'm so used to living with it that sometimes I assume that its not big deal to everyone but it is and I just can't understand that sometimes. I mean abuse is such a big problem in this world that it takes me by surprise when people become uncomfortable. I'm saying this because I need you to understand why sometimes when I talk about this I'm blunt and sound like I don't care. I DO care. I'm just so used to it being a part of my life that it comes naturally to talk about it like it's an everyday subject because for me it IS an everyday subject. I constantly live with a video of my brother touching me playing over and over and over again so forgive me if I talk about it flippantly and I don't talk about it like it's a huge secret.
Second I've learned since then a few extra details. My parents didn't want me. They didn't want me. My biological parents didn't want me. Sorry, sometimes I feel like the more times I say this the easier it will be to accept. Think for a moment if you can (which you probably can't, but just try) about what it would feel like if the only people in this world who's duty it is to love you no matter what you do. . .imagine if not only did they not love you, but THEY DIDN'T WANT YOU. With every friend I make and every family I meet I can feel the rejection of my parents. I can feel it in anything and everything that anyone ever tells me. Because it's not just rejection that I feel. It's distrust. It's abandonment. I feel like at any second my friends could leave me. I feel like if I don't work for the relationships that I have established, if I don't make my friends feel like I'm worth it, then I have failed. And that's not true. It's an awful way to live. I know I've been living it for the majority of my life.
Third. As much as I want to refuse to believe it. The happenings of my past do, in one way or another, define who I have become. I know that without the abandonment issues I wouldn't put my heart and soul into the relationships that I have established. I know that I wouldn't doubt almost everything that anyone ever says to me. These may seem like small issues to everyone else, but it's part of the reason I seem clingy and stalkerish.
Fourth. I know that this has all happened for a reason. And I believe that God allowed it to happen. Okay please don't misunderstand me. I don't think God WANTED it to happen. I believe that God loves everything he created and wants no harm to come to it, but Job is an excellent example of when God ALLOWS things to happen. And I firmly believe that he allowed these bad things to happen to me. I refuse to believe that everything that happened to me was just for fun. I plan to use every experience that I've ever been in to further my relationship with Christ and to further the Kingdom of God.
Over the past year I've been in counseling. I've been trying to figure out exactly how I plan to do this. So far I've discovered that it's not going to be easy. At all. And I'm prepared to work my way through the challenge of finding myself. My whole self. My whole, unbroken self. I'm slowly picking the pieces of my messed up life and putting them into a nice pretty picture. Some of the pieces are battered and destroyed. Some of the pieces are lost. Each and every day I'm working to reshape these pieces and to find the ones that I have buried deep within myself. It is not an easy task, but I thank God every day that all of this is not written on my face. I thank him that I have the option of telling my story. I don't know what I'd do if every time someone looked at me they knew something was wrong. I couldn't bear it. In some ways I am thankful that I can hide a lot of what I am feeling and thinking. I think this job would be infinitely harder if I wore my progress on my face.
Now that you've read this I want to ask you for a favor. It's actually more of a command. Do not pity me. I do not want your pity. I do not deserve your pity. There are people all over the city, state, America, WORLD. That have dealt with things that are infinitely more traumatic than I can even imagine. And the worst part, is that they haven't found the love and peace that I have found in God. Pity those people, but do not pity me, for I have found the Heavenly Father that will not reject me. And I have brothers in Christ that will never touch me inappropriately. I have a support system that will stand by me through thick and thin. And I am, in some ways, thankful for what I have been through because I know that my story, this story, has and will help someone.
