The End

1997-Thurs, April 28 (Night)

Here I am, just back from 5 days on 3 East after overdosing on Mon. night (last week). Nobody found me until Wed night (Don’t tell me I don’t mean a lot to my family) Anyway, 911 got called. I got taken to Penrose Main ER (don’t remember this) I do remember drinking 2 glasses of activated charcoal. Then I was at 3 East (don’t remember that, either) Got fired Thurs. morning (I guess it wouldn’t do too much good to tell an unconscious person you were firing them..

There are a few more entries, 1 in 1997 and 3 in 1998, but not many. An undated slip of paper, from sometime in 1997, is printed with hot-air balloons. She says she needs to blow off some hot air. At the end of the entry, she says her therapist wanted her to promise her (the therapist) and me that she’d never try to kill herself again. She promised her therapist, but couldn’t promise me.

At least two more times my mother went into the hospital. I know there were more attempts; she told me about them when she was compromised, perhaps confession-prone, before she died.

And when I came home from work that day, to her white and gray and cool (too fast, far too fast, like she had been dying before she actually died), I told myself she did not kill herself.

She did not kill herself.

She wasn’t taking her pain meds (I had them, anyway). She was making plans for the future. She was eating and drinking OK. Maybe she skipped her insulin or shot up with too much.

It was a possibility.

And all of the years and years—almost 20—from the first time she tried to kill herself and now, I waited and waited –and always received—the call that she had tried again, or had gone into the hospital for trying.  In fact, the Monday before she passed, I had to “rescue” her from conditions eerily similar to the ones in this entry: she was in bed for days.

Back then, I was so angry with her that even though I knew she was in bed for days, I went to work Wednesday anyway after school. Mom’s friend called me at work and told me she had called 911 because of the smell in Mom’s room and because the door was locked. I made arrangements to stay with a friend.

That was when DSS wanted to take me away from her, and send me with my abusive father.

I told them I’d run and they backed off. I had my own car, a job, a place to live. I was OK.

But I was never OK.

I was always waiting for that call.

For three months after she died, I waited for the call. The call from the Coroner saying she had killed herself.

But she didn’t. Her death was natural.

Mom,

You didn’t kill yourself.

I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is. I can’t describe what it was like, first knowing you couldn’t hold your suicide over us anymore. I was—and continue to be—devastated by losing  you. You were my friend as well as my Mom. Someone I could always talk to, once we got through the emotional fallout of your suicide career. But I am relieved to be out of one kind of pain.

I am glad you didn’t kill yourself, that you went out on a high note. That you were finally planning things you wanted to do in the future. That you had killed the woman in this journal by confronting some of your fears. I remember the day I visited  you, and you came out of your bedroom crying. “Was I bad mother?” you asked me, and my heart broke.

I can’t answer that. Only you can answer that. I know I love my Mom, even now. I know she had real problems. We all do. I spent so many years angry at her. But everything I love about myself comes from her.

My creativity, humor, intelligence, kindness. Even some of my weaknesses and strengths, they all come from her.

And her battles prevented some of my battles.

I’m ready to let it go, Mom.  Your family does care about you, and you do mean a lot. You did then, you do now, you did in between. I have always loved you, like you always loved me, even when you thought I was a burden, even when you were too sick and selfish to see how much pain I was in, or what your actions did to me. If you would have been able to see me, you would have cared. If I had been able to see some of this back then, I might have been at least a companion in your darkness. I could have said, “Hey, Mom, you sure sound like a molestation survivor like me.”

Our secrets are our pain. I think you knew this, and that’s why you were so adamant I read these journals when you died.

No more secrets. No more waiting for life to start. I hear you.

I love you.

Peak Experiences

Hospitalization--Again

You have a lot of good entries, where you are feeling OK, getting involved, doing better.

Until April 20, 1996.

April 20th (I think)
This last 2 weeks have been hard. On Monday, April 8th, I called Scott and asked for Ron--He said he didn't know if he'd be back. I asked him if Ron was still living there--he said no and he had a phone #, did I want it? I said no. I cried that night but mostly I felt numb an dmy mind wanted to scream no, oh no! Tues. morning I tried to get my mind on work but then at noon I was talking to Edwina and Cathy. I asked them if I should try to know who this woman was or if I was better off not knowing. I started to cry and then I left to go to St. Francis [Hospital to work] but couldn't quit crying. I drove around and tried to stop but couldn't. I wanted to get on the highway and keep running. I went to Lydia's and and sobbed & sobbed. I didn't go back to work or call. I know G. called while I was at Lydia's. When I got home I cried more. I started throwing up, I called G. and she took me to the Emergency Room (1st I called the 24-hr line but no one called back). They gave me a shot to help me stop throwing up. I slept until we went to St. Francis [Mental ward]. I wanted to go there to be safe.

Sun May 5th
I did feel safe at St. Francis because it was a locked ward and no one could get in unless I OK'd it at the front desk. They took away belts, shoelaces, pens and pencils-anything we could use to hurt people with (or hurt ourselves with) I felt a strong urge to kill myself or kill Ron and then myself. At the same time I didn't want to hurt myself or Ron. The guy seemed disgusted by me--he said Biodyne had already seen me for a year and here I was in the hospital again. I got really mad at him and drew pictures of him lecturing me.

I got out of St. Fancis 1 1/2 days later. . .I just can't get any interest going in the future. I know this is not healthy. I still just want out--away from the pain of life.



I don't even remember this. This one, in the line of hospitalizations and attempts, didn't even make my radar.

Past Hauntings

Fracturing

Sat, Nov 11 DREAMS: I dreamed I was at my Mom's house --(no house we've ever lived in) and we were cooking turkey and I was making potato salad. Mom handed me a big bunch of onions that looked overgrown and rough like the tops had been in a wind storm--They had iris-like flower remains on their stems which I cut off. Mom was talking about she "always" used fresh products and field grown versus cultivated. I felt in shock as I chopping up the onions for the potato salad. I didn't remember her ever saying any of that or doing it either. But I had the feeling that she was right and I hadn't remembered correctly. She was washing the turkey (one that had been free to range) and I moved my stuff to another sink in the kitchen. I kept watching my Mom and Dad as I peeled boilded potatoes. Even my Dad was carrying on about liking fresh fruit and vegetables. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I looked down and I had the whole turkey roaster full of peeled and quartered potatoes. I started mixing in the mayonnaise but the pan was so full that it was very difficult to keep it all in and not let it fall out. Then I realized my Mom was about ready to bring the turkey over to put in the roasting pan and I had it all filled up with potato salad so I asked her if she had another big bowl or container and she said to put it all in a metal bowl. I didn't think it would all fit but it did. I told Mom I didn't remember her always wanting "fresh" and "organic" food and she looked at me strangely and said yes--she always had. I felt disoriented and sad.

...It's hard to live sometimes. I wish people understood how hard it was.

(Tuesday, Nov. 14th)
I am afraid of running out of money. I am afraid to be the strong one. I want to be sheltered.
I try to be normal but I can't quite remember how. How did I use to buy groceries? Get clothes ready for work? How did I manage money? How did I get ready for the holidays?

Sun. Nov 19.
I am still sleepy and down. I went to Lydia's to get some Xanax after I was at the library and looked at a book on childhood abuse--it had listed symptoms that I have. It made me feel very anxious and odd and I put it down. Linda wasn't home so I have no pills. I feel like this: FRACTURED or like this: a fractured child or a a fractured pyramid. I don't particularly understand these images bu these are the images that come to mind. A child--vulnerable--shattered yet stying together--
A pyramid--a place of piritual energy--shattered. a tomb of kings--shattered yet still holding together. A pyramid is also a place that protects dead people. I'm the pyramid--am I protecting a dead person? My father, my uncles, my cousings? Women? Friends of the family? I don't know.
Maybe I'm protecting the dead part of me and I'm facturing--the protection is fracturing.

Dear Mom,

Wow, this part is hard. This is, in fact, the part you didn't want to face; you just kept putting the potatoes in the bowl, knowing that the image presented by your parents was complete crud, but internalizing it into you "remembering it wrong".

Your parents were not who you thought they were, that is what this dream is telling you. You can keep it all "in", but you can't do what you need to do (roast the turkey), with all of this inside of you. You transfer your pain, and it fits! but it doesn't change what happened.

Indeed, you are protecting the dead. And that protection was shattering, but it was still holding. Mom, I wish you trusted your mind. You were so bright, so imaginative, so creative. If only you could have listened to the little girl. The adult had to die because the little girl was dying, would rather die, than face what was "remembered wrong".

You are right, too, that *you* were shattering. Your image of yourself was based in this "protection", and when it shattered, so did you.

When I was a child I thought I was telepathic. Come on, we all believe we are special as children. I felt I could lift my mind through the layers of mental static, like cloud-layers, and go up and up until I reached other minds strung out like veins and arteries across the sky. I met some very interesting people this way. The image was always the same: layers of clouds I floated through, up or down, and veins and arteries of thought. I could open one up and place a thought into it, or I could touch the vessel and communicate with its owner.

When grandpa--your father-in-law--was dying, even though I was 30 years old, I closed my eyes and went through the clouds and the layers to find his vein. It was still strong, the vein, even though, when I entered it, the thoughts were fuzzy and unclear. And I spoke with him, as he lay dying. I told him about the relationship he could have had with me, ruined by his molestation and inappropriate touching and his thinly veiled desires to do more sexual violence to me. I talked to him about how we could have been so close, how I loved him so much, but that we could never be close, and he could never be around my sons, his great-grandchildren, because he had chosen to behave like a monster. I mourned the loss of a potential friend, the potential relationship. I showed him how it could have been, and I realized that this was Hell for him: in this moment of death, he would see how he screwed up his one and only life.

And then, I could let him rest. I could even wish him peaceful rest, because all I had wanted--ever--was for him to understand what he had lost by choosing his actions. I felt him die, so it was no shock when my father called me and told me he had passed. I knew because I was right there with him when he died.

Does it matter that this was all in my head? No. We live in our heads, mother. Our reality is what we say it is, what it is inside our minds. And your mind was screaming at you: your memory is a lie you told yourself! But the little girl is still there, in your mind, and she needs to speak with you!

I am glad you told me details you knew of my molestation. It must have been so hard for you, when you could not face what happened in  your life. I am convinced, Mom, that you were molested, too. And you turned a blind eye and "forgot" about it, which is why you were able to deny, even to yourself, that I was still in danger as a child. You learned to deal with it by denying it, by re-remembering, by maintaining the image that the only way your family ever hurt you was by making you feel plain. But that wasn't it. You were trying to be invisible.

Your protection was fracturing, Mom. We'll see it in a few more entries from now. But it held up. It held up your whole life, the denial and the protection of the dead. I think it had a hand in killing you.

Next

Forgotten Shadows

Tues Oct. 31^st—Halloween

Yesterday I forgot Jen had Writers’ Club and would be at the school at 4. I didn’t get home until 6 and it was 6:30 before I found her—still at the school—crying. I felt so guilty and sad and hurt for her and mad at me and despairing over my mind. . .

I want to stay home tomorrow and read my book—no more pressures, expectations or pain.

I remember that day. One of the few days from this whole period of time that I remember well. I didn’t remember that it was Writer’s Club that kept me after school, but I remember waiting to get picked up. When I realized she wasn’t in the parking lot, I walked around to the street to watch for her car. Other cars came and went. The sun was hot, but the weather was pretty fair. I walked around on the grass. I sat. I stood and shook out my legs.

A car stopped and some other student’s mother offered to give me a ride. I thanked her but said no, my Mom was on her way. That was at about 4:30.

The sun started to creep toward the mountains. The temperature dropped, as it does in Colorado once the sun weakens. I wasn’t dressed for hanging around outside at night; I would get far too cold. My throat swelled up and my eyes started to leak.

One of my teachers saw me as he walked from the outbuilding to his car. He offered to drive me home, too, or call someone, or bring me something to eat. I thanked him but said “no.” I said that she’d figure it out, that she had forgotten me, and she’d race here first before checking messages or anything, so the best thing to do was wait. That was probably after 5 o’clock.

I thought about walking home, but I had just made that walk a few months ago, and it had taken me 5.5 hours and I was severely dehydrated. It’s farther than it looks—about 10 miles as the crow flies, but more than 20 by road. In reality, I was 4 or 5 miles closer to my house than I had been that other day, but I didn’t know it.

I sat down, pulling my extremities close to conserve body heat. The sun was settling in behind the mountains. I don’t even remember if I watched the sunset, but I probably did in order to distract myself.

To keep myself from wondering if she’d tried to kill herself again.

Maybe no one was coming for me. Maybe she’d succeeded this time, and no one would realize what was wrong until tomorrow morning. I’d be here all night, then. There are no taxis, no convenience stores. There are houses not too far away. I could knock on doors until someone could let me use the phone, but I didn’t know my sister’s number, only my mom’s.  I don’t think I even knew my soon-to-be-boyfriend’s phone number by heart back then.

And if my mom hadn’t tried to kill herself again, and had just forgotten me, what was that about? Does she *ever* think of me? She didn’t when she ran off, that’s for sure. And she didn’t when she laid around the house for days on end, not going to work. It was always so hard to get her attention, even when she was awake, and it was nearly impossible to wake her up if she was sleeping. What if she’d gone home and taken a nap? I wouldn’t see her until tomorrow then, either.

Perhaps it was time to trek those 10 miles again.

I was taking my time deciding, wondering if I could make it through the pastures in the dark, or if I would tick off the bulls by trying, when I saw her car. I ran out to her.

When I opened the passenger door, all I could smell was KFC. Mom had stopped on her way to get me. As much as I recognize the gesture now, at that point, I wished she would have skipped the KFC or waited until she got me. That was 10-20 minutes of waiting and feeling abandoned that she could have spared me.

She apologized, but in a way that said that it wasn’t her fault. So it was never a real apology.

Unfortunately, this episode wasn’t the last time she forgot me. It definitely etched itself into my mind. Whenever someone is supposed to pick me up, but is really late, I am 15 years old again, stuck, abandoned, wondering if anyone will notice I’m stranded and alone. Now, I start walking home after about a half an hour of waiting. But I still cry.

It’s silly, because now that I’m older and can afford to call myself a cab, I still cry. I hate that feeling of abandonment. I hate it. And I felt it so acutely my whole life. I’m happy to be alone, but extremely unhappy to be forgotten. Perhaps that’s why I developed a wild personality—so people wouldn’t forget me, or couldn’t forget me.

But if your own mother can forget you, so can everyone else.

Mom, I don’t want to seem overly harsh, but that was coming just 6 months after you really abandoned me with your suicide attempt. I did not make a lot of trouble for you, contrary to your beliefs. I was almost self-sufficient and about 8 months away from my driver’s license, which was when I became completely self-sufficient. But when I needed a mother, you failed. Over and over again.

I know you know you failed, since you asked me if you were a bad mother last year. I told you no. I know you tried. You didn’t intentionally forget me. But you also didn’t consider me. I was a burden to you. Over and over again, in your diaries (and I know I felt it in real life), I was a drag to you. Do you know Dad told us that it was our fault you tried to kill yourself? Yep. And I walked around with that.

For twenty years, if I didn’t hear from you, or if you were late, I wouldn’t know if you’d finally offed yourself for real this time or not. I lived with this fear of suicide over my head. That part was relieved when you passed, because you couldn’t do that to me anymore. It sounds terrible, I know, but it hurt, Mom. It hurt every day. You can’t undo trying to kill yourself.

You complained more than once that no one ever forgave you for what you had done. But the truth is, you never stopped doing it. Every day you died a little death. You chose to hide instead of confronting your fears. You chose to lose yourself in things instead of thinking about your family.

That day became a poster of every day. You were hardly present; either sleeping or just not around. And I was perpetually abandoned. Not just once, not just that one time you forgot me, but every day.

I know you tried.

I tried, too. And we survived it. We are haunted by these moments that seem to sum up our life experiences. You, as the little brown girl. Me, as the girl pacing in the grass of her high school, waiting for her mother who never seems to arrive.

Shadows.

Next

Blanking Out

Saturday, Oct. 28^th,

Today I had an anxiety attack. I had watched the John Bradshaw tape and he said a suicide attempt was not an adult acting but the inner child reacting to a previous hurt. His speech was in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I don’t know if it was that or what he said or if the anxiety was covered up before but I suddenly wanted to “black out” or “blank out”. I wanted to take pills to forget—forget what? I wanted to lay on the carpet and be numb in the bookstore, but I didn’t. This afternoon I cleaned house and tonight I took Jen and Asia to “the Scream” –a fun house for Halloween. I went to the bookstore and got Rosamund Pilcher’s new book-Coming Home. . .

I’m feeling, again, like I don’t know why I’m living and I would like to be someplace quiet with very few demands. I forget a lot of things. I wonder if my mind is fried or if this is depression or stress doing this.

Dear Mom,

You are someplace quiet with few demands now. I don’t know if you got there by your own hand, or if God just brought you to Him (super) naturally, but I do remember the “good-bye” dream I had, of walking through dogwoods and cherry trees, the petals falling on us like velvet rain. I remember the sense of peace, of you telling me that you were “really OK.” I remember you smiling, and I remember thinking about how long you wanted exactly this, but couldn’t have it.

I wish you didn’t bury your anxiety here. Of course you were anxious about a lot, but did you not see the synergy here? If God Himself were to say, “Yo, Elaine, how much clearer can I make it?” Would you turn to Him and say, “Make what?”

A suicide attempt is the inner child reacting to a previous hurt. You know my theory, but even if my theory weren’t sound, I *know* you felt unloveable and plain. I *know* you never felt good enough or accepted. I *know* you felt you were never getting enough of the right kind of attention. And then the divorce comes, and you lose your safety, your sexuality, your loveability, your attention, your everything. And the inner child cries, and cries, and cries, and feels unwanted. And if the child is crying because her basic trust is betrayed, well, that makes sense, too.

It wasn’t the location: although that should have clued you in to listen.

It wasn’t anything else that happened in the day.

It was the statement “I don’t want to remember” that you made.  What don’t you want to remember? If you had remembered it, you might have healed.

Next

Comfortably Numb

Friday, Sept. 15,

…Yesterday, Jenni said, “You’re supposed to be taking care of me, but I’m taking care of you.” It is true-I feel so fragile at times. I’m trying to get better. Some days I drop back almost to the starting point again. I get mad at myself when I feel so afraid that I want to get in a fetal position and pull the covers over my head. What am I so afraid of? Pain? Painful thoughts? Ends of dreams?  Right now I feel full of dread. I’m so tempted to take a lot of pills (Xanax) and just numb out –of course that doesn’t stop the pain—just delays it. This whole past week I didn’t hardly do any work. I want to pull my weight but I feel nervous, extremely tired, and afraid.

I feel like I just keep repeating cycles—so that I feel like I fall back. Jen said she and Cathy have had this discussion and even though you cycle you do one thing differently each time.

It’s hard for mentally healthy people to understand the “divergent”, or the Neuro Atypical. In my family, we refer to mentally healthy people as Neuro-typicals or NT’s. 

NT’s look at us funny if we say something like ordering take-out is “hard” today. They look at us funny if we say that a certain word has been resonating with us today, or we’re stuck on a thought, or characters are talking to us. My mother crossed the line into mentally ill, obviously, but prior to being mentally ill, she was just atypical. Words had flavors and colors (they do for me, too), concepts can be bright or dark in our minds, regardless of what the concept was about.  For example, the concept of mutilation, say, could be “bright” in our minds, meaning it had focus and a strange type of beauty, even if the subject was abhorrent. Think of a painting: it can be beautiful and you can flood it with light, even if it’s depicting something gruesome.

My mother was going through a period of difficulty, where everything was “hard”. It means there’s a chunk of Slow-time, or of inertia, around an activity, and it is very difficult to break through. Difficult mentally, emotionally. For me, ordering take-out is “hard”. I know the steps are easy, but motivating myself to call, instead of pawning it off on someone else, is difficult. Overcoming my fear and dread of the task is difficult.

Mom,

I don’t know when the illness took over, but I remember you before the illness, and after the illness, when you were NA like me. I remember how the illness robbed you of the best bits of being Neuro-Atypical.

I know what it’s like not to be able to do something. The ability is there, but not the oomph. I know what it’s like to not just feel apathetic, but antipathetic, toward an activity.

I wish I could feel bad about my younger self calling you out on not watching over me, but you really weren’t doing your job. I wish, in some ways, you could have stayed in the hospitals a little longer, learned more skills. I wish I could have been older and been better able to take care of myself.

But what you were afraid of remembering was happening to me. I wish you could have seen that I was being exploited and abused by people, sometimes not much older, and sometimes more than a decade older, than myself. And I didn’t even know that people shouldn’t treat me this way, because it was how I was treated my whole life.

Mom, I wish I could feel sorry for you. My heart aches, and I wish you didn’t have to go through this, but damn it, woman, some people have had so much worse. Worse than I had, which was worse than what you had. 

I know you were sick, then. And the helplessness and fear you felt was all a part of the illness. But the more I read, the more I truly believe that your brain was trying to help you, and if you had just let it help you, you would have been better. It would have sucked to know what you’d have found out—what I suspect—but at least you would have known, and you wouldn’t have had to hide. You used to say I was stronger than you, and I think I know why now: I face things. I admit they suck, I face them, and then I just go on. I don’t think it’s strength, but I think you did. And, ultimately, I think your hiding is what killed you.

You were never the same, once you got on the medications. You took a permanent vacation. For almost 20 years,  you were like a zombie. You’d drift off mid-sentence. You’d stare vacantly. You’d lose track of where you were or what you were doing.

Hiding.

Numb.

Perhaps you got what you wanted, in those drugged-out 20 years. You got your numbness. Only I think I would have rathered (and you would rather, if you were alive), you lived two real years, knowing whatever it was your brain wanted to tell you, than 20 years of the half-life you led. You weren’t you. We were scared all the time that something would happen to your meds and you’d kill yourself. You weren’t sad, but you weren’t happy, either. You were numb, dead.

Which I guess you never stopped wanting.

Next

Something's Coming

Wed. Sept 13^th,

Last night I went to the Divorce Recovery Workshop. I cried when the leader read the story about the wooden dolls who got stars or gray dots*. . .

I finally got the oil changed in the car! Yea! Yesterday I felt about 80% here and 20% apart. I told Dr. H about that and he said I had feelings or issues about to surface—and I was afraid of them—well, afraid of the pain—and it would be good to be prepared by [upping] the Paxil. He said I was still in the acute phase so don’t worry about having to increase the medication. . .

I sometimes feel I have seen some woman being beaten by a man. I also have those strange “dreams” of feeling someone is coming over to sit on my bed and who touches my arm and I am very scared & throw the covers over my head& try to scream but I never can go more than AAA! Then I wake up. I had one when I was pregnant w/ __ and alone in bed with Sandy, the dog, lying on the end of the bed. I had the same dream when I was poisoned by the Calan after the suicide attempt. I didn’t think the person was good (like coming to tuck me in) I though the person was evil.  I also feel like I “lost” someone when I was young. Did I fight with them and then they died? I just don’t know who I lost. But I always feel if people go away then they don’t love me anymore.  The leader last night said that a scar not only reminds us of pain but of being healed, too.

* “You are Special” by Max Lucado.

Dissociating. I wonder how many people live with this? I’ve done it my whole life; I think it’s partly responsible for creating an active imagination. I know for sure it is one of the few ways we survive the toughest things in our lives. When Mom and I took our vacation to Austin, TX one year, we had a discussion about dissociation. I was relieved that she felt it, too, because I was young and afraid of what I was experiencing: as if my life were a movie I was watching, and I wasn’t “present” in it to make decisions or do anything else. The episodes would last anywhere from a few minutes to over a day. I had one while we walked on the Riverwalk, and when I told my mother about it, she knew exactly what I meant. That was after I told her about the rape when I was 11.

Of course, knowing what I know now, I’m not relieved. I wish my mother had never gone through something bad enough to make her “break” like that. But I was a child.

Dissociation is often, often, often, often related to sexual abuse in childhood.  Often. Not all the time, but often enough that it is a HUGE red flag.

HUGE.

As in, if you feel this way, please talk to a psychologist. Now.

And my mom felt this way. And I felt this way. The dreams, the memories, the dissociating, the loss of someone. . .Mom, you lost yourself. The person you lost was you.  Could you have lost someone else? Of course, but this sense of loss, the low self-esteem, the sense of betrayal that eats you alive, and that sense of mourning your youngest childhood: red flags.

Mom, I don’t want to tell you that you were abused. I don’t. I don’t want to speculate on who could have perpetrated the abuse, if you experienced it. But if half a dozen councilors could look me in the eye and say, “Who molested you in your childhood,” long before I ever knew I had been molested, can I do the same to you?

Something was coming up, Mom, something you would have rather died than face. But did you have the courage to face it?

Next

Wish You Could Have Seen It

Mom,
I don't have one of your diary entries for today; I've been busting my tail so hard getting the two books out.
But they're done.

Remember how I told you about Scales? I thought it would be a 3-book series, and it turns out, it is. I finished book one and got it out on Amazon and others.

I did it.

This year was supposed to be my break-out year. I suppose it is, but I wish you could have seen it. I'm sorry I took so long to follow my dreams that you only saw the start of the changes.  But I did it, Mom, and you would be proud. I did justice to the story. It was a little sexier/romantic than I had planned it to be, but it works out, I think. There's a dearth of Sci-Fi Romance out there, so I think it'll work.

I remember telling you all about it on the phone. I told you "This is the one, Ma. this is the one I *have* to publish. I *have* to do right."

And I did it.

Remember when we went out to Panda Express, and I got the "Everthing will soon come your way" fortune? I have it hanging up in my cube, right over the invitation I made for your memorial service. I didn't expect the "everything" to include losing you. I thought it meant that God or Fate or Luck or whatever would start to turn all of the terrible, horrible things into good. Maybe he/she/it will yet. I can't see what good can come out of losing you. Except it put a fire under my ass to "Get busy living or get busy dying," and I'm chosing to live.

I wish you could read it, Mom. I know Sci-fi isn't your thing, but you did like your romance books, and this was right up your alley that way. I wish you could have seen it.

Next

Burning Down the House

Mother, your house is burning.

I'm almost relieved you aren't here to see this. I know that you sold the house twenty years ago, but it was a house you loved dearly. I think you would have been distraught to see it go. I will post pictures of whatever is left once it's safe in the forest.

So far, they've managed to save my elementary school. How many times did you have to go there because of me? How many times were you called out of work, or late for work, because I had some sort of disciplinary issue, or award, or something else?

I remember you got sick of it and told them they couldn't call you unless it was a physical emergency. And then one time, they called because I complained I was sick, but I only had a 99-point-something-degree fever, and you came from work to get me, because a 99-degree fever for me was 100+ for a normal person.

I still, by the way, hardly ever get above 97.4.

What used to be the General Store is gone, I think. They heard explosions when the gas tanks blew. A picture from an airplane showed how hard this is to fight:

There are a million fires, all unpredictable.

We knew the forest had to burn sometime. I wish it hadn't happened this year. It was like it was waiting for you not to have to see it.

Mother, your house is burning.

For you, did it ever stop burning? Has it always been? Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. No more reminders of what you went through. What we went through.

I'm still sad, though.  I'm sad for the good childhood memories of playing outside almost the whole day.  I'm sad for my sister.  I'm sad for you.

Mother, your house is burning.

Next

The Beginning of Understanding

Sun July 25, 1995.

..The 5 yr. old me—

I remember I always wanted to hide like a missionary who had to hide from bad people. Even though I was in the open I would squeeze into a small place between the wall and the china cabinet—I never hid under my bed or in a closet—just in a tightly confined space.

I had an imaginary friend, a bird, who lived in the post at the end of the stairs. I used to feed him smashed bread which I stuck into the hole in the post.

I remember being sexually excited when I was rubbed with a towel between my legs by ___ after my bath. I slept upstairs in my bed by the windows—Pete slept in his crib on the other side—or maybe in a small bed. I was afraid of my closet—it had a curtain across it and I was afraid it moved at night.

…At some point (3, 4, or 5) my Mom burned up my lovey (a stuffed animal) and when I woke up I had a new rag doll but no lovey. I cried and cried and went around looking for it.

…Friday, Aug 11th

I’m trying not to feel something tonight I’ve taken ½ a Xanax. I thought about taking 4. I feel very anxious but I don’t know what about. Is it about not being a couple anymore? Is it about my friendship with Kathy being less? Is it fear of being alone? …I don’t know—All I know is that I don’t feel really here and that I want to escape even more.(we read Wed Aug 23)Friday Aug 25

Dreams-

…about a week and a half ago I dreamed I was returning to college. When I got close I became afraid that I wouldn’t remember the locker combination. When I actually got there I discovered the locker was opened with a key, so I didn’t need a combination, and I remembered where the key was and was able to open it. Then I went to the apartment where I lived (I think with Ron) but he wasn’t there—when I opened the door I saw all my familiar tools laid out—they were all made out of wood—like rotor drill blades—and even though I didn’t know what I used them for I knew they were mine and they were dear and familiar and all in order. Then I looked out the window and the rope bridge that went over the swamp was frayed and falling apart. I felt really bad because that was the only way over the swamp. Then the apt. supervisor stopped by and told me that he had already called the workmen and they would start repairing the rope bridge tomorrow.
So this entry is a two-parter.
My mother was working though a self-help book in her journal. I'm not sure which self-help book, as several are mentioned in quick succession. But these entries struck me. The first set, about the 5-year-old self, I think are important. She does mention a happy memory (the stories are in My Mother's stories), about visiting her Aunt and Uncle in California and going to DisneyLand, but these stories are the most revealing, to me. They are the ones that provide some understanding. Firstly, the sexualized response to an activity, and secondly, the "trying not to feel something" and the hiding.

And never hiding under the bed, because that wasn't safe.

Mom, maybe it's my own history that makes me jump to certain conclusions, here. Or, not so much jump to a conclusion as to wonder if what happened to me happened to you. I know that children often confuse romantic love-gestures with other gestures, but sexualized responses/play are also a symptom of molestation. The wanting to hide, but not wanting to hide under the bed. . .

I know that, if you were molested, you didn't remember it. You would have told me, especially when you finally told me about how I was molested.  But it "snaps in".

Just like the day you told me about what you had seen happen to me, and all of the sudden, every suspicion of every counselor I ever saw snapped into place--because every single one of them questioned me intently about possibly being molested--just like that day, reading these pieces makes things snap into place for me: How you could have been in denial about my molestation for so many decades, why you feel so badly about yourself, how betrayed you felt about Dad, why you wanted to hide and why you needed approval so badly.

I know it was tough for you, even without the possibility of being abused that way. You felt shamed about your body your whole life, about dancing and the way you looked. Your mother was amazing in some ways, but completely lacking in sympathy in other ways, and she was so beautiful and so good at everything, and I think you felt you never measured up. But if this happened. . .

It would just explain a lot.

And I think, if what I think happened, it would explain why you'd rather have died than face it.

Because this is something big. This is something bigger than your friends being shallow flakes. This is something different than just being tossed away by a man who was supposed to have loved you. Whatever it is that drives you to kill yourself has got to either be something fundamentally wrong in your brain or something so terrible that you couldn't look at it.

And if there wasn't something fundamentally wrong with your brain (and I don't think there was), then I wish you could have looked it in the eye, and maybe talked to me about it so I wouldn't have felt so alone. Maybe you would have recognized the symptoms in me earlier. Maybe you wouldn't have denied what you didn't want to see.

Which brings us to your dream.

God, Mom, could you have had a better invitation from your subconscious? I mean, really, did you ever interpret this dream, or did you just think it was odd? Because when I read it, I see so much hopeful symbolism I can't believe you didn't march into your therapist's office and say, "OK, I'm ready for anything."  Your dream, as I see it, told you that you have the tools to be healthy, and you will remember how to use them. The bridge is being repaired and soon  you will be OK. You just have some work to do. But, Look! Everything's been prepared for you. And the things you've been worried about aren't really a problem after all (combination worry vs. key lock).

I wish, so dearly, for a Time Machine.  I'd kick your ass if I had to, Mom, and tell you that you had the tools you needed, you just needed to get to work. And the tools weren't Xanax and antidepressants. The tools were inside you.

But you buried this dream among other dreams, and hid it away in your journal. And hid from it, and hid from everything else. As you got older, you hid in your bed, even though you knew--at some point--that beds aren't safe.

You always said I was stronger than you, and I think, at this moment, I understand why. I hide, I deny, I do everything you did. But I do something else, too: I face it eventually. I get tired of running from horrible memories, and I turn around and say, "OK, let's do this." The beginning of understanding is facing what others have done to us, and what we have done to ourselves by running from it.

Next

What I'd Like to Be

I know the previous post was harsh. I would apologize, but it is the authentic reaction to reading those pages in my mother’s journal.  In those pages were far more things than my miscarriage. There were sad things and good things, touching things. Things that remind me how much like my mother I am, in a good way.

One of those things I interjected into the last post, because I didn’t want the whole thing to be so terrible, and the other thing is a secret so terrible that my mother never even understood it. Because I read so many pages in one sitting, instead of discovering it with me, I’m going to split it out into two more posts.  The first post, this one, is about who my mother wanted to be.  The second post, which you can read here, is about big bad dark secrets.

Sat July 15

…I’m reading a book about how to get yourself from where you are to where you want to be.

What I’d like to be:

A creative person who uses her creativity and life experiences to create a safe, fun place for people to learn—to empower people to transform their lives…

Some more synchronicity for you: I am reading a similar book. I’m not sure to which book my mother is referring here, but I’m reading one of mom’s books:

Something More: Excavating the Authentic Self by Sarah Ban Breathnach (available via Amazon, and no I do not get paid for endorsement).  This book is what actually convinced me to write the last post. I didn’t want to, even though that was what was pressing into me as something I needed to do. But I read two parts of the book: the first, about the choices we don’t make, which are choices (of course) we do make (or, in the immortal words of Rush, “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice”); the second, about how, for some reason, we glean more from other people’s suffering and rebound than we do from just reading about the (jealousy-provoking) good stuff.

So there’s a heap of bad stuff for you in the previous post. Salacious, even. 

But this post. . .

This post is about wanting for myself what my mother wanted for her. I actually broke out in goosebumps when I read my mother’s words. This is, in fact, what I want to do with my life and who I want to be. Word for word. I want to use my creativity and my life experiences to create a safe, fun place for people to learn, to empower people to transform their lives. Mom and I would join SARK and others in this endeavor. I went so far as to inquire how to start up a communal farm for domestic violence survivors to teach them basic life skills and more complex skills at their leisure, somewhere where they would be safe from men while they healed (because battered women tend to be codependent, they usually need some time away from men).

I wouldn’t count this project, Talking Back, as fun. I do hope it shows people that we cope with anything, if we give ourselves permission to do it. I wrote at the beginning of this project that I cannot and will not feel ashamed of the things others did to me, and I am working so hard to uphold that.

But I do feel ashamed, of course, and always have. I do spend countless hours on the things I could have done differently. But another item in Something More caught my eye: That just because life would have been different if we had chosen differently doesn’t mean life would have been better.

I have two children. I have a husband I love more than sunshine and ice cream. I would never, ever have been able to connect with him if I had not been through deep, terrible trauma. I just wouldn't have the depth.

Is it worth it? Who’s to say? If Garth Brooks can say his life is better left to chance, perhaps mine was, too.  What I do know is that, having come to this point, having used this evil shit to have 3 blessings, I would like to have more blessings.

I’d like to give something to women whose eyes shut at my past—not in horror, but in flashback.

To you women, whose memories have clamored because of my words: There is hope. There is change. Stick with this project/book/blog (however you are experiencing it). There’s a vital difference coming up in how I handle the past and how my mother did: the difference between acknowledging the acts of others, and giving yourself permission not to wear the Monsters’ shame for them, and hiding the pain. There’s a fungus that infects some ants that makes them crawl up to the top of the grass, then die as the fungus breaks through their heads. The fungus releases its spores from this height and infects new ants, spreading all over this way. Shame is like this, too. It will drive you to go somewhere you can spread it, such as within your own family. And it will kill you.

For all the business-minded people out there, the takeaway from today is “shame=zombie fungus”.

I am exhausted for today, and there’s so much to share tomorrow.

Next

Willful Bleeding

July 10 (Mon)…I took Jenni to the doctor—she was running a fever—she probably has a sinus infection. She also feels dizzy and nauseated. Thank goodness for insurance. Her bill including meds was just 17.00.

The moss roses (in the 90+ heat) are gorgeous!!!

Sat July 15

I called the hotline at Biodyne on Wed. because I saw I was doing 3 things on my “smoke signals” list. It was hard to reach out and I cried while on the phone but it was a great feeling to do something self-respecting for me—self-loving—I was nurturing myself. *I* was taking care of me.

___Come back to this part later: I’m reading a book about how to get yourself from where you are to where you want to be.

What I’d like to be:

A creative person who uses her creativity and life experiences to create a safe, fun place for people to learn—to empower people to transform their lives.________

(Moving ahead about a month, will go back in time again on the next post):

Wed. Aug. 23^rd.

I have been avoiding writing in the journal because I didn’t want to face my feelings. I have been down and getting angry. I don’t know how to deal with anger. I’m angry at Ron—angry at what he did to me and angry that he doesn’t want to win me back. I’m angry at Jenni for running away on Fri. and causing me to worry for so long on Sat.

. . .Jenni is letting the dog use her bedroom for a litter box—last night she bled all over the couch and rug up here. I slept 10 ½ hours last night and I’m still tired. I’m just tired of this life. I’m tired of all this responsibility. I want to go to the library and read—escape into books.

I read ahead this weekend, because I knew some of these entries were likely to come up. When I saw the first, I had to keep reading until I read Aug. 23^rd.

At least now I know the day I lost my first baby.

My mom actually asked me that night, “Jen, is there any chance you could be pregnant?” and what I thought to myself was, “not anymore,” but what I said was, “No.”

Dear Mother, what’s coming next is not something you ever, ever wanted to hear. It’s not anything I wanted to live through, either, but it happened.

During this summer of 1995 (and I didn’t remember it as the summer right after you tried to kill yourself) I snuck out of the house a lot.

I just wanted to get away. It started when Dad still lived there with us, so that might have been the previous summer, and, in fact, probably was.  I had recently met Andy, recently begun seeing him as more than a friend, but we weren’t exclusive, or even sleeping together.

Mom, the Friday night you think I ran away, I suppose I did run away. I went to a party.

I don’t even know if I can write this.

I had a friend, who, looking back, is better classified as a pimp. I had a pimp who curried favor with people by loaning me out. I wanted him. I wanted him so much. I was drunk on a deep voice and the greenest eyes I had ever seen. We talked all night long, sometimes falling asleep on the phone. He was the only one who knew how much I hated my father. He was the only one who knew that I wanted to die, but he never gave me permission to end it. He wasn’t even attractive. But I wanted him and he nearly always said “no.” I used to skip school in the mornings and walk to his house to curl up in bed with him, even though he would barely let me do anything. I wanted him to love me and take care of me. I wanted him to protect me. Instead, he whored me out, put me in positions where I was surrounded and woefully outnumbered, where to get out of the situation, I’d have to play the role they wanted me to play, because they were going to take what they wanted whether I cooperated or not.  Over and over he did this, always as if he were doing me some kind of favor by “inviting” me out to go under the bridge (and I mean under, as in under the concrete “floor” of the bridge that the creek ran over) where the cave was on Union, when really I had no choice. If I wanted his attention, I had to go. I had to do what was asked, or I would suffer it being done anyway and losing a man who (I thought) cared about me in the process.

You have to understand, too, the psychology of someone molested and then given an abusive father. I was DYING for  male attention and approval. I literally would have killed myself for it.

Anyway, Mark had a new friend, Derek. It was probably the first time Mark had ever been invited to a party at Derek’s house. The whole gang, who had been doing me all summer long, and one of whom was probably responsible for the dizziness and nausea of July 10, was going to be there. And so were several of Derek’s friends.

It took about 10 minutes into the movie E.T. for the first of Derek’s friends to realize why I was there. In fact, I think it was Derek’s little brother. I was led to a room. I swear there were two beds in the room, but it could have been two separate rooms I was in that night. I spent a lot of time “away.”

Derek’s brother turned on his CD player. Apparently he was fond of the song “Gangsta’s Paradise,” this little wigger who would  have pissed himself if he ever saw anyone darker than a Mexican. He put the song on repeat.

I put myself on repeat.

As guy after guy came through the room, parts of the song would break their way through the haze:

“Why are we so blind to see /

that the ones we hurt are you and me?”

and

“I’m 23 now will I live to see 24? The way things are going, I don’t know.”

I was 15 years, 40 days old.  I didn’t know, at times during that night, if I would live to 15 years and 42 days.

Friday turned into Saturday. At one point, two guys who had already had me once wanted to do me again, but tag-team, this time. The terms had to be negotiated. Mark negotiated them down to separate visits.

I actually sat at Mark's foot during this, and he petted my head like a dog.

Eventually, we all slept. I was supposed to catch a ride home via Mark before the sun rose. This was important, because although I had left a note on my pillow (I always did) saying that I was out, it did say I would be back on Saturday.

When Mark and I woke up Saturday, most of the people were gone. At one point, Mark and Derek got into a fight, and Mark ran out of Derek’s house.

And left.

And now, I was stuck at Derek’s house, with only the two guys who had wanted to tag-team me and Derek, who was a big scary guy who had given me rugburn on both of my shoulder blades and my ass.

I had had nothing to drink but one beer the night before, and bodily fluids.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. Jay can take you home.”

I looked at Jay and knew I’d never make it home alive. “I’ll fucking walk,” I said.

And I did. And it took 6 ½ hours. I got so thirsty in the dry Colorado heat that, when I finally made it into Black Forest and chanced upon puddles by the road in the shade, I drank straight from them. Two of them. Drank them down to the mud.

And still I had to keep walking.

It was almost 7pm by the time I made it home. I remember my mother telling me something, but I needed a drink and to go to bed.

I knew something was terribly wrong.

And something continued to be terribly wrong until the 22^nd, when I was having terrible menstrual cramps. Andy was concerned; he’d never seen me in such pain. A few times in the hallway, I dropped down to my knees from the pain of the cramps. But I always had terrible cramps. Usually not drop-on-the-floor bad, but not-able-to-speak-bad.

And then I felt a chunk of something fall out of my body.

By the time I got to the girl’s room, with Andy hot on my heels, I was covered in blood. Pieces, giant clots, kept falling out of me. I begged him to drive me home, which he did.

He put me on the couch, and I laid there all night.

At one point, I took a bath, more for the heat than for the water. For those of you who are familiar with menstrual cycles, you’ll notice that the cervix usually closes up in the bathtub. You might get one or two nasty surprises, but that’s it.

Not so for miscarriages.

Piece after piece flowed out of me. Every time I pushed, a red cloud erupted. Chunks of clot expelled into the tub. By the time the cramps eased at all, The water was so full of blood that I could not see my hand even ½ inch below the surface of the water.

I was in agony. I had taken at least 8 ibuprofen in a shot to dull the pain. I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t go to bed, couldn’t do anything.

Whenever we were sick, we slept upstairs on the couch. It’s just what we did. Mom’s bedroom was upstairs, mine was downstairs.

I had never been sicker in my life.

I realized before too long that I was miscarrying, that I had been pregnant, which I had guessed at before, but I knew for sure now. The next day, in a fit of grief, I gathered the towels and the dirty pants and washed them, then searched through what was left in the washing machine to find my baby.

I never did find my baby. I didn’t even know how far along I had been.

My mother confronted me about the blood on the couch and floor. “Jen, is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

“No.”

Mom, why did you ask such a ridiculously easy question to duck? Why did you use that tense? You knew better. You just didn’t want to know.

“I’m just tired of this life. I’m tired of all this responsibility.”  But what responsibility, mother? You ducked the responsibility of taking me to the doctor, of knowing the truth of the blood. You ducked the responsibility of actually seeing and dealing with how Dad treated us. You caught Grandpa molesting me and yet still allowed us to be alone with him afterward.

What responsibility, mother? You sit here, in your journal, blaming me as if I had willfully bled upon your couch.

You’re tired of this life? Really? Because your husband left you? I’ve been gang raped all summer long, not knowing any better and with no one to protect me or to help me or even to tell me that it was wrong, or that I had a choice about anything. That I could survive being without a protector?  Don’t you think I was tired, too? I was killing myself, mother. Don’t think I wasn’t.

You know that PSA announcement from the 80’s where the father goes into the boy’s room and finds the cocaine, and he yells at the kid saying, “Where did you get this? Who taught you how to use this?”

And the kid finally shouts out, “You, alright? I learned it by watching you.”

Mother, I am so angry with you right now. I am so angry with Mark. I am so angry with me, with my grandfather, with my father.

But I didn’t bleed on your couch or your rug to add burdens into your life. I hope you know that. I wasn’t trying to be a bad daughter. I didn’t mean to run away. I was trying to go somewhere I was wanted, because God knows I wasn’t wanted at home.

Next

Persona non Grata

The goal of this project, Talking Back, is to be honest. To post my real reactions. But now that I know it’s out there for everyone to see, it’s hard to be authentic.

So we’re going to try again:

Continued from  July 8 (Sat), 1995

I made out my suicide prevention card and put it in my wallet. I wrote a letter to Paul G. Quinnett, Author of Suicide, The Forever Decision, because I was grateful for his listing reasons why suicide is not a good idea.

When the police and paramedics were swarming our barren apartment after she passed, they needed to gather all of her current medications. I tried looking in her purse, but it was so full of half-used tissues, candy, diabetes equipment, and old receipts that I simply apologized to the people around me and upended the whole thing on our table. Some of what I found were cards she had made for herself. I found these in the pile that had come from her purse, in her wallet, and later—when we cleaned out her apartment—all around her living spaces.

Throughout high school and college, I had this persona. I was brash. I was independent. I was an unrepentant freak. I dressed up every Friday the 13^th as if it were Halloween, usually in a Vampire Bride costume of some sort (My mother was not opposed to this; she even picked out a few wedding dresses for me). Part of that persona is real; I am weird at the best of times, but I’m generally repentant about it, or at least dreadfully sorry about my fears of embarrassing those I love. The thing is, no one I loved was around back then. My mother was lost, gone, either out with dad or, after the Attempt, sleeping. I didn’t love my father (who was absent anyway when he wasn’t a jerk), my sister lived elsewhere when she wasn’t caring for me. For two years I had a boyfriend I loved, but he was as much of a freak as I pretended to be.

So the persona held.

Part of this mask I wore allowed me to believe I had some control over my life. I pretended to be predatory, seductive. I flirted with everyone and everything, and I always, always thought I wanted to have sex with people. But the wrong people would be seduced. There’s always a “Howard Wolowitz”, but creepier, everywhere you go. People who have decided that if you so much as breathe in their general direction, you are “asking for it.”

You know the oldies song “Lightning is Striking Again” by Lou Christie, where it sounds like the singer is date-raping the girl? Yes, that is the excuse men use: I can’t stop. You brought me here (sexually), we’re past the point of no return.

Well, this brash persona would crumble right about then. I didn’t know how to defend myself. I took a guy on a date once, when I was in college, and I drove him in my car up a mountain with a barely-maintained road. There was a hatchet in my trunk (there was always a hatchet in my trunk).  And those were the only terms I would go out with him. I was even very clear about it to him. I said, “I’m driving, because if you fuck with me in any way, I’m driving your side of my car into a tree and killing you. And if you’re not dead, I’m going to grab my hatchet and cut off pieces until you are.”

But would I have done this? No.  As soon as he did anything I didn’t want (and he did), I just went passive, like I always did. Like you do, when you have a history of men ten times your size holding you down. Like you do, when you are used to having your ass kicked.

Many people asked me why I was so quiet during sex. 

I’m not. I’m quiet during rape, right when I shouldn’t be.

I despise—completely despise—people when they say, “If that had happened to me, I would have. . .”

You don’t know what you would have done. You are not that person. You probably have never been in that position. And if you were in that position, you might be just as frozen as the next girl.  I applaud women who find it in themselves to fight off their attackers, but I sympathize strongly with women who freeze, or who go along with the act just to get it over with. I sympathize with that moment where you believe you have absolutely no control over your life or even your body, because I’ve been there. Many times.  Hell, I lived there for probably fifteen years.

When my Mom tried to commit suicide this first time, her persona got ripped away in a very public fashion. The person she sometimes was but always pretended to be—happy, funny, joyful, powerful—froze, and the person who left was “The Little Brown Girl” as she called herself.  She couldn’t stand to fake it anymore, and I think she was starting to realize she had even been fooling herself about the person she was, like I had been doing for almost my whole life.

I’m glad my mom made these cards. I look at them all the time; they are put on display in our house.

 I just wish they hadn’t been necessary.

I wish my mother had known that suicide was not a good idea, and didn’t need someone to tell her. I wish she knew she was strong, instead of hiding her natural strength with a false shell. I wish she had always been this vulnerable, so she’d have learned to live with her true self long before the persona was taken away from her.

I wish she had known the wounds she needed to heal before we all dumped salt into them.

Personas are needed, sometimes, to get through lifes requirements. But Personas are not welcome--non grata--when we are alone. We should be ourselves. We should be present. We should count ourselves "in" when it comes to life. We are here, personas non grata.

It's up to Me.


Next

Synchronicity

Let's get one thing very straight: I loved my mother.

I still do.

I loved her when I was a kid, and after she tried to kill herself, I learned to love the woman she became. About a year before she died, a change in medication brought back the mother from my childhood, of whom the mother for the last 20 years was a pale shadow. The real deal was back, full of questions, regrets, jokes, and smiles.  She cried at minor chords again, became curious about everything again, and began drawing again.

She shared her art with me, her love of Garden of the Gods, the great things she learned, and she also cried with me about things she wished she had done differently. She listened intently as i told her of the person who had been wearing her clothes for 20 years; also a funny, sweet person, but not always present the way she was bursting out with life.

I loved every incarnation of her, and I think my need to understand her helped me get to know her very well.

We even talked about sex, which was a little weird at first but we were both able to discuss it, and how powerful and spiritual the right sex could be. She, like I, wanted other women to know that they could have sex that was more than two bodies slapping.  And we could say that it took us years and years to learn this about sex.  We never went into details, but we could talk about it generally like this.

I want you to know, as you read this, and read my reactions to this journal, that my mother was not all bad. She was not a bad mother. She had difficulties in her life, and my hope is that, by the end, you will see and understand better.  But for now, just take my word for it: She was a wonderful lady.

July 8, 1995 (Sat).

                I hope I read all the above if I ever date again. I'm feeling better all-around. I still feel like being quiet and by myself more than with groups of people. One or two would be nice--but not a group.

                I said goodbye to Anne (psych) this week. Another Goodbye! 1995 is one hell of a year! Lesley seems nice, I won't see her for 2 weeks but I can go to the crisis class any day if I need it.

                Last night I stayed by myself for the first time while Jen was at Arry's for their joint birthday party sleepover. I slept for 14 hours. It was so nice.

                On the 4th of July I went shopping and bought 2 outfits--the pastel green and the jungle outfit and a couple of summer blouses. Then I realized the day was slipping away, without me doing anything about it, so I bought barbecue from Bennetts and Alice came over. Alice didn't want to go to the fireworks so Jenny and I went by ourselves and saw the fireworks. I realized I could do it--go to public places. It was so cold we wore winter coats, blankets and the old bedspread.

                I still wish for someone to take care of me and take these burdens off my shoulders. But I don't wish for it as hard as I did. Then, I even wanted to be admitted to the mental hospital. Now, I don't. I wish Bass would call me and seem to want to take care of me but I have to accept that *he* doesn't want that.

                I scoffed inwardly at a woman in our self-esteem class who said she wanted a man to feel complete, but then I realized I was having sexual fantasies about practically every man that I saw, talked to, etc. Isn't that dependency on a man, too?

                I got a card from Genie and Lydia called to invite me to a barbecue next Sunday. They are so good to me.

                I can even eat crackers and red hots now.

No one is ever going to believe me that I didn't write my comments before my knowledge of the entry for the day, but I didn't. I mean it.

I never meant to be a "burden" to my mother, but I think, at this point, any responsibility was hard. After she passed, for the first three weeks or so, I wanted a standing ovation whenever I did *anything*, including taking a shower by myself. When I didn't get the applause, I got angry and hopeless.

People don't know what depression feels like, but I describe it as this: everything is so damn hard. Calling someone on the telephone is hard. It's like picking up a boulder one-handed.  Getting out of bed is the worst possible thing you could do. Your whole head is screaming at you not to do it, but you force yourself and then there's absolutely no reward; only more criticism.

Everything is squeezing and pressing on you. Not just physically, although there is physical discomfort involved, but mentally. People's expectations and judgments are pushing at you and pushing at you, shoving you into paths and courses of action you would not choose on your own.

There's just no point in fighting, because you're not fighting anything tangible. You are fighting inertia. You are fighting antipathy. You are fighting apathy, too. How do you fight apathy? You don't care. How do you fight antipathy? The more you hate that you hate doing something, the less likely you are to do it. It's a terrible cycle to be in.

When I was 10 I was put on anti-depressants. Partly it was for bedwetting (hello? sign of abuse?). Partly it was for behavior. I took myself off at 11.

I went back on anti-depressants at 20. Took myself off again. I may have gone on one more time.  I hate them. Not only because I don't want to be like my mother, who was on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and anti-psychotics, but because I don't like to be so blunted.

I fight depression all of the time. Sometimes it's worse than others. I have a lighter case than my mother, I think, but the same processes go through my head. Probably not just as intensely, or perhaps I learned to manage my thoughts more because I hated drugs. My point is, I know whereof I speak. Mom knew I knew what it was like to live with depression.

What Mom didn't know, because I never, ever told her, that I, too, had a problem sexualizing every relationship I had. Well, almost every one.

It's not uncommon for victims (survivors) of abuse, especially sexual abuse, to have this as a long-term side effect. In fact, you show me a slut, and I'll show you someone who was abused sexually at some point in her life. It's not hard; 1 in 6 is the official number. In my experience, it's 1 in 2.

I hear you, Mom. I hear your journal. I know it was hard. You can't hear me, but I'm giving you a standing ovation right now. You did good July 4, 1995. I still remember it. We went to the Air Force Academy. We had a great time. I loved spending that time with you. It was one of the first of a very many good memories of just you and me.

Good job.

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