4-21-04

During Sole I finally talked without being pushed to. I talked about how much anger I had at my grandma for not doing anything. I just vented and was more talkative. Our activity was the Trading Post. We gave up one of our stumbling blocks and got something in return. I thought about it and decided on what I wanted to trade. I sat back and watched closely at how they (Joy and Courtney) were doing it. Before now I have had such major trust issues, I was only willing to trust Joy. I wouldn't even think about talking to, opening up to or trusting Courtney. As I watched others go I noticed that Joy and Courtney would take turns doing the trading post. I made 2 huge steps, I volunteered to go without being forced to and I decided that I was willing to open up and try trusting Courtney. I told Joy and Courtney I wanted to trade being closed up. Joy asked if I was ready to & I know I am. Joy and Courtney would leave the room to discuss what they were going to trade. I was expecting Courtney, but Joy is who ended up talking to me.  I go a banner and a string. The banner I wear around me and across it reads "I don't know" (my go to, I don't want to talk about it phrase). I tear the banner off and pull the string. When I pull the string I let my feelings out and open up "I don't know" is gone. For the first time I have been comfortable joining in conversations in group. Every time Joy and Courtney left the room I would talk with everyone else. I feel like I can tell Joy anything without being pushed now.

4/13/2004

Today at SOLE I was picked on twice. It did make me realize things that I do have a lot of anger built up & I'm mad at Grandma. The week before we were to write a list of people whom we have hurt. My list included myself and Hayley. Beneath that I wrote my parents with a question mark. The activity we were once again blindfolded. I'm pretty sure we were blindfolded every single week! The blindfolded person sat across from a counselor, the counselor would pick a person off their list and they would then talk to that person (from their list). The first time I was up they had me talk to both my parents. At first when asked if I was mad at grandma, I said no. The more we talked the more I realized that I was! Everyone feels sorry for her, I don't. Everything she did, or didn't do was all her own choices. The second time (I was the only one who had to do it twice) Joy sat across from me and told me I had to talk to Anger. At first I was confused, Wait, this isn't a person. How can I talk to an emotion? As we got started I realized that I hurt anger by denying it to exist! When I got home I wrote: I have so much anger, hurt and pain built up inside. I don't know what to do with it all. I want it all to go away, if it were only that easy. I don't know how to let it go, how to get the anger out or how to get rid of all the pain. I try not to think about it or deal with it. My family's theory is ignore it and it will go away. I know that doesn't work. I have tried. All if does is stuff it down deeper. The one thing I feel like I cannot get over is my mom's death. For a while I blamed all my problems on her. If only she hadn't died, then I would not have had this life. I wouldn't have been raised by them. Most of all, I wouldn't have gone through the abuse. No one in my family even knows what my life has been like because of her death. They don't know what happened that morning. No one understands how hard it has been for me. A lot has changed in my life lately, but I feel very confused and not so sure of things.I still feel very empty inside. I wonder if that will ever go away, it feels like it never will. I said I wasn't mad at Mom B, but now that I think about it, I am. I'm mad that she never did anything about my dad. She would just sit there. Sometimes afterwards, she would come to my room & tell me what he said wasn't true.  Other times she would come and blame it all on me. Once after I moved out I went over there to get something and my dad ended up yelling at me. I told him I wouldn't come over if he was going to do that and I left. Mom followed me to my car and yelled at me that it was my own fault he yelled at me. I made him mad and he was being nice until I was mean to him and mad him say those things. She won't talk to me. I'm so mad at my dad for the things he has done to me. He was always comparing me to my cousins that he thought were perfect. If I didn't do something his way, it was wrong, even if the outcome was the same. None of my accomplishments were ever good enough. He denied or justified in someway everything he ever said to me. Mom B did too. It made me feel like I was going crazy or really imagining things. It drives me nuts that my family will never acknowledge the fact that my dad is verbally abusive. I lived with my uncle for 2 1/2 months. The first night I moved in I ended up talking to my aunt and told her why I had moved out. I asked her if she knew my dad was verbally abusive. All she said was "No duh, he is!". Then I told her that the main reason I had to move was because I was cutting to deal with my dad's abuse and to take away the pain. It didn't matter how many times after that I told her and my uncle that's why I was doing it, they always told me I was doing it because I was depressed and not because of anything my dad was doing. When I finally told my parents and aunt and uncle that I had been cutting they all made me feel so ashamed and like I was the biggest disappointment. My dad even told me I had a devil inside me and that I was really messed up mentally. I couldn't tell him that he was the reason I was cutting. I've hurt myself so much more then I ever really though I had. I was always trying to please my parents & would have to drop everything i was doing to please them. I never know how I really feel, because it was always how other people told me I felt. I wasn't allowed to have an opinion. One year for my birthday they asked me where I wanted to go for dinner, I told them PF Changs. Dad responded with, "No you don't! You want Olive Garden." It is ironic because the one thing my dad called me the most was selfish. If I ever did anything for myself he would yell at me that I didn't care about anyone but myself. A few weeks ago I realized that most of the time I feel nothing. I have no feelings, no emotions, just nothing. I tried talking to Brad about it, but he didn't understand how you could feel nothing. He told me it was just Satan trying to make it so I couldn't feel love. I didn't understand what he was telling me. The next day we did an activity where we tried to get from piece to piece bling folded & then with people trying to deceive us. After we talked about what the object of it was. I realized that it was exactly like what Brad was trying to tell me. Satan is trying to make me so confused about Brad and life itself. He doesn't want me to be happy for once or to be able to feel as though Brad really loves me and cares about me. My whole life has changed in the past year. Sometimes I feel very confused & not sure what to do.

Spring 2004

The untold story... I just realized that I never wrote it in my journal and thus it hasn't made it way into a blog post. So many times growing up I wondered if maybe I was just crazy. Maybe I imagined the abuse or blew things out of proportion. After all, no one else ever saw that side of dad. Then something happened that made me realize that I did NOT making it up. My aunt called me to give me directions and the time of her grand daughter's baby blessing. While talking to her she told me, "I gave direction to your dad, but he couldn't find the chapel on a map. I tried explaining that it is new, on a new street and it wouldn't be on a map. He told him turn by turn how to get there so he wouldn't even need to find directions.  He told me I was giving him wrong directions on purpose because I don't want him to be there and I don't want him to join the church! I've never seen him like this before!" All I could do was laugh and tell her, "Oh, he's like that ALL the time!"