An Open Letter To My Bullies

Sometimes I wish I could go back and ask the people who bullied me (my dad included) why they bullied me.  I just want to know why.  Why did you pick on me?  What did I do to you?  How did I hurt you by minding my own business?  Why did you lock me in the girls' bathroom?  Why did you make me beg for forgiveness at your feet for something as trivial as talking to a boy?  Why did you go through my belongings with no respect for my privacy?  Why didn't you encourage me, no matter what I was interested in?  Why did you ask me, in front of everyone in class, "What is that on your head, it looks like bird poop?"  For the record, it was a ribbon or a bow.  I didn't wear bows for about five or six years after that.  My husband helped me to love being myself again, which included wearing flowers in my hair.  I still don't totally love myself.  In fact, sometimes I don't like looking in the mirror.

Why did you tell me that no one would ever love me?  Why did you tell me that I was the equivalent to the bottom of your shoe?  Why did you hit my mom in front of me?  Why did you make fun of me?  Why did you make fun of my name?  Why did you tell me that some guy liked me, when you knew he didn't, because in your mind, I was hideous?  Why did you have to break my heart?  

What pleasure did you get from torturing me?  Why was it fun for you to make me eat lunch by myself?  Why wouldn't you leave me alone after I turned 18?  Why did you insist on following me everywhere I went?  Why didn't you defend me?  Why didn't you stand up for me when I needed you most?  Why couldn't you ever choose me?  Why didn't you love me when I needed you most?  Why did you rape me?  Why did you ask me out, when you knew that I was looking for a relationship and a best friend instead of a one night stand?  

Why couldn't you ever understand that my family was poor and that's why I wore the clothes I wore?  Why was it so easy for you to tell me that none of the abuse happened?  Why is it is so easy for you to forget me?  How can you live with yourself on a daily basis when you know that deep down, you've hurt someone who has always loved you?  

Why, bully, did you treat me the way you did?  I never deserved it. 

I'll say this.  I hope the cycle stops with me.  I sincerely hope that if you have kids, no one treats them that way.  I hope that you don't treat them that way.  I hope that your kids don't do that to some child.  I hope the cycle stops with me.   To my rapist,  I hope that if you have a daughter, that no one does that to your child.  To my dad, I hope that you can live with what you did.  If you're so delusional that you think you did nothing wrong, I hope that someday, you find clarity.  To my mom, I know that you think that you need him and maybe that's why you do what you do.  I don't think you know how much it hurts me to see you waste away.  Maybe you stay with him out of religious duty.  I don't want to know, to be honest.  Please know that I love you.  I always will.  

-Cookie 

Clueless

 "She is literally the Polaroid of perfection.  She has everything and she'll give it to you in a second.  Looks can deceive.  She wears her heart on her sleeve.  She'll steal you away.  Not just one day, one day, is an ordinary day.  In her world, she's an ordinary girl." -Theme from TV's Clueless

I may not be popular, I may not be pretty and in the grand scheme of things I may not matter to anyone but I am a human being and I owe it to myself to love me.  I owe it to myself to put a band-aid on my wounds and let them heal.  I owe it to myself to let the past be in the past and the present my gift.  I just can't get over how hard it is to watch everyone around me get married and have babies and have the family that I've waited my whole life to have.  If NB's brother's SO gets her baby too, I'm positively going to scream.  Why don't I deserve to be happy?  I'm not getting any younger.  I'm actually getting older.  Every single freaking day.  Why don't I deserve anything?  I have to skip my birthday.  I have to skip Christmas.  I am afraid to find a job and at the same time I need a job that will make me feel better about myself.  My brain feels like its on overload.  Quitting depression pills is the hardest thing I've ever done.  But I'm doing it for me.  I'm doing it for the 15 year old me that was told she was ugly, had people look at her and go eww, the girl that was told she didn't deserve to be loved, ate her lunch in the bathroom in 9th grade, got locked in a bathroom by some bitch who thought it was funny to torment someone she didn't even know.  This is for the girl that was made fun of for being poor, made fun of for being a nobody.  This is for that girl who never in her wildest dreams thought that she would get her wishes to come true.  There is a someday.  There has to be or else there is nothing to hope for.

End of random rant about random crap.
xoxo

Making Peace

So today I came to the conclusion that in order to move on with my life I had to gain some closure with my mom.  I asked her point blank if she thought I was a bad daughter.  She said no.  But she did say something really damming that caught me off guard.  She said that she hated that I had left so fast.  Leaving meaning moving out of her apartment.  She wishes she would have had more time with me, but since my dad showed up, and I had no good job holding me there, I upped and bolted.  Perhaps things might have been different if I had found success in Orlando.  To be honest, I'm glad they didn't.  I would trade a minute of my life that I got to experience living on my own and learning from my mistakes and going through the hardships that I did.  Perhaps it was my hasty leaving that created the wound I bear from all of it.  Or a part of it anyway.  I will always love my mom, it just breaks my heart that she chooses to live with such a deadbeat snake.  And that's like a disgrace to snakes everywhere.  I think it is what it is.  God has a plan for everything and everyone and at this point, I don't think I want to know why.  I don't think anyone can know why.  We have free will.  And she uses her free will to be with him and be miserable.  That's her choice.  I didn't abandon her.  I moved away to be with someone I love.  Someone who has stood by me through the good times and bad.  I talked to her on the phone for like an hour.  However, I think I may be on the road to making peace with what happened to me as a child.  I don't think my mom knew any better. Not that is a valid excuse.  It just seems to make sense.

Until next time,
XOXO

Old Relationship vs. New Relationship

I suppose every relationship has its phases.  Of course, you have the passionate beginning.  The middle hum drums and the struggles to keep it all together.  Last but not least, either the relationship survives and moves forward or it the final embers burn out and you're left with memories.  I wonder where we are.  It almost feels like we're at the end.  I hate writing about that or even putting that out there but the passion is more or less gone.  I don't want to jump his bones.  I don't want to make out with him.  Even if I wanted to, his reaction is all I need to lose my "erection"  I wear the pretty lingerie under my clothes.  Almost like a present.  That no one seems to care to unwrap.

I have counseling appointments set up to deal with the issues that I've been battling since I was twelve.  My dad still manages to play mind games with me and my less than bright mother.  My mom tried to send me some money to help me out while I look for a job.  Guess who stopped her?  My dear old Dad.  I don't think he mailed the first envelope.  And on the second one which she wasted five dollars to mail via priority mail, was empty and purposefully mailed to the wrong address.

He think this is funny.  He could care less that I've been struggling with depression for over a decade because of him.  He's probably proud of it.  Proud of the mess he's made even perhaps.  He wants to isolate my mom, and through the bullshit stunts he's pulled, he's going to be successful.

My mom loves someone who is a sociopath.  And even that is insulting to the sociopaths.  The man has never worked a day in his life.  However, like Dr. David Hayward on AMC (a soap) he's got a sadistic passion for manipulating whomever he can and he won't stop until he issues your breakdown or a win against you.

He has this villainous quality to him.  Mind games are his speciality.  He will fuck with your head if he can.  I have no choice but to really let go of my mom this time.  He operates through her.  I will never be able to figure out why he is more deserving of her love.  Or why she thinks I'm the villain for moving.  Or why she's stayed all these years.  All I can hope for is that he has to answer to a higher authority.

God gave us free will.  What you decide to do with your life is all up to you.  I'm starting to think that God can't make you do something.  Nor can Satan.  However, do I think they put people in your path?  HELL YES!!! You make the final decision to do whatever it is that you deem fit.  I guess in my dad's mind, he is perfect.

I'm starting to think that NB is slowly but surely turning into his dad.  His dad is a hard worker and all, but he is a total snob.  Slowly but surely, the things I loved so much about NB seem like fleeting memories.  Do I think its possible that the flames can be reignited?  Sure.  However, there is a part of me that now starts to see the fact that he seems to hate hanging out with me as a sign that this may be less of a sure thing.

There are no guarantees in life.  There are no promises to be made.  Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.  The same goes for love.  For now....xoxo.

Out Here It's Like I'm Someone Else...

If you didn't know it already, you should know that I love country music.  Not all of it mind you.  But a sizable chunk most definitely.  I'm what you would call a typical Southern Girl.  I was born and raised (for the most part) in Florida.   I loved it there....for better or for worse.  I met my best friend there.  I survived my parent's abuse there.  I broke out of their cage there.  The hardest thing for me right now is dealing with the resurgence of my depression.  I was the victim for such a long time that now I don't know what else to be.  It's much easier to be the victim than to attempt to fight back.  If you fight back, you may get hurt.  However, now I'm starting to see that if you don't fight that image....fight that box or corner you paint yourself into, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life. 

I'm sure it would help you to understand if I provided a little background about me before I go into weekly posting mode.  So here goes.  I don't feel comfortable sharing my real name so I'll just go by the moniker S.G. for southern girl.

I was raised by Muslim parents who thought that abusing me and keeping me away from the world was the answer.  Guess what.  It wasn't.  It only made me like a wounded vet that comes back from a war so destroyed that he can't cope with what he has seen.  He still sees it everywhere.  Those booby traps.  Those pitfalls.  The need protect oneself.  The victim slowly goes from being the victim to the victimizer taking in causalities in the process.

I was robbed of most of my childhood.  I was robbed of my teen years.  I've never gotten over it.  I was a cutter.  A self-abuser.  Worst of all, I had no faith in myself or my abilities or my value as a person.

The last two decades have been a battle.  I've had my good times and I've had my bad times.  I've lived through so much hell and I am most definitely stronger for it.

While the gatekeeper of my personal hell (my dad) was away, I went through a string of bad relationships.  I was date-raped.  I was abused.  I was cheated on.  Then, I found this guy.  We'll call him Northern Boy or NB for short. 

We fell in love while I was struggling through my Senior internship to become a teacher.  The teacher I had was hell bent on making sure that I failed and with the grace of God, his support and my adviser, I was able to graduate.

By the way, I'm not a teacher.  And for good reason and one of these days, I'll tell you that story.  But not today.

Anyway, last night I let my inner demons push me to the point that I pushed NB to the point of wanting to kick me out in a state where I have no friends, no family and no where to go.  I ALMOST LOST HIM.

Right now, I'm fighting to keep this wonderful blessing in my life and I don't know if I can do it.  But I know that I have to.  I have to save my own life.  I'm racing against my own demons and this time, I've got to outrun them or I will lose the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life.

Until next time....xoxo...