Through the looking glass...

[meoww]

I'm getting so tired of being caught up in my mother's issues. In fact, it's almost getting boring, if I wasn't so afraid for my safety. Only 3 months to go until I cut her off for good. I can't believe what a long road this has been.

 

It's weird, because I have detached over the years and become a very different person, but she has become more dangerous and twisted in many ways, especially as her mental grip on me continues to weaken.

 

There is so much to let go of. I know I've done things in my life that I regret, to friends and boyfriends, nothing resembling abuse but I know that my entire way of relating to the world was really, really off.

 

I think I was actually more healthy as a kid in the thick of the abuse than as an adult trying to deal with the myriad ways I was damaged. That's probably not true though, I think I was always an utter mess inside. That is so sad.

 

Anger is such a strange emotion. I don't know what purpose it serves because it doesn't seem to have ever done any good for me.

 

I still feel superstitious that I'm under a curse. Observing things though, a lot of bad things have logical explanations behind them. When it comes to dysfunctional relationships, it really takes two, even if the victim has to do everything in their power not to fight back. You have to treat the other person's issues with respect, no matter how immaturely or destructively they lash out. Being a victim is a role we accept, and it never has to be that way, no matter how bad things are. It really tests my composure and my character and I know I have limits too, to what I can handle. It's a balancing act, honoring your limits for tolerating abusive behavior but also trying, on some level to help and have some compassion for your abuser.

 

I know I can't totally help her because she abused me so I don't have that love or patience for her. I am actually ridiculously patient with her. But for example, I never talk to her about how she loved my dad once and how he hurt her. I try to talk to her about how her family mistreats her though, and how her one friend treats her like a doormat. So I do try to make her aware that she doesn't keep the best company.

 

I don't think she should suffer. It's weird how she actually seems cursed and doomed to self destruction. It's hard for me to see that because its so unnecessary. I wonder how it feels to destroy your whole life and hate other people who don't. It's the saddest thing I have ever seen.

 

Yeah, I feel a sense of survivor's guilt because she didn't survive her own self destruction, and I know she cares because she hasn't killed herself. There is something in her that wants to survive.

 

But I can't take the pain anymore. I've made her house nice, dressed her up in nice clothes, and that's about the best I can do for her at this point. This way I don't feel so bad leaving her behind and never letting her meet her grandchildren or being aware of my successes. It's just too risky for me and I'm barely sane and surviving myself.

 

I'm still scared that on some level I will always be a victim.

 

I used to be afraid of never receiving enough love that I would feel cured or whatever. It was like no one's love was ever enough.

Now I guess I have reframed that need. I don't know what not getting enough love really means anymore. I have myself, I take of myself and that's totally fine. If someone chooses to love and treat me well, that is also great.

 

Now, I'm just tired. I'm tired of her, not even angry. I'm just so tired of her boring problems that she just makes up and that have persisted for over 20 years and she doesn't get help. I can't feel guilt for that. I offered to mend our relationship so many times. I am just not going to care because I feel so much happier when she's not part of my life at all. She's just not good for me at all and she makes me feel hopeless. She sucks out all my energy like a developmentally disabled child. I can't be her caretaker, toy, doll, and personal stress ball anymore.

 

So I'd like a week or at least some time that I haven't had in the past three years to not think about her at all. I don't think a week went by or even three days where her actions have not haunted me.

 

I wish I could be done documenting her heinous actions on my phone because then I could just let go and not let it get to me. But it's like I have to remember everything because it's the truth. She really did all that stuff to me and she really is that crazy and the only way to explain is to remember and record all of it. Then it will be clear to anyone that she is a monster.

 

But I'm so tired and I want some time off from this hell. I'm taking some time off from her obsession. I can't take it.

[meoww]

My abuser wants me to stay focused on her, constantly.

 

I feel violated, but unlike how i normally feel, I don't completely want to crawl out of my skin or give myself a blood transfusion in an attempt to cleanse myself.

 

I just feel detached, it's just finally become bearable.

[meoww]

The worst is finally over. I just have to think of a way to stay mentally healthy until I can leave her crazy house. I have to be on my absolute best behavior and I can no show no signs of being hurt or anything. I remember how she used to guilt trip me constantly, and berate me for crying when I first arrived at this house. No wonder I was so numb, I wasn't allowed to express anything, even sadness.

 

It's just hard not to internalize the bad things she says about me.

 

However, at least I have some degree of control over it and I'm way more aware of the fact that I can't trust her.

 

I am just amazed that I got through this. I made it. I keep saying it, this was the worst experience of my life.

 

I honestly don't care too much about justice for me anymore, all I want is out. I don't want to be around her sick, twisted mind anymore.

 

I really survived this time. This time I'm not even worried and I'm starting to realize all the excuses she made for verbally abusing me were completely inappropriate. Nothing was okay.

 

Well, I just wish I could feel a little bit more comfortable in my own skin. I need a bit more peace of mind if I am going to stop being a bundle of nerves all the time.

 

Full blown PTSD is what I had until like 3 weeks ago. I was constantly trying to figure out how I could fix myself, I don't see things that way anymore. I'm a whole person, I am not broken and I don't need fixing. Next I'm going to get a secret therapist, even if we only meet once a month. I am finally savvy enough to take care of myself and protect myself. I brought the truth to the surface in my mother's community and I definitely need to proceed carefully so that my credibility doesn't get undermined.

 

I'm no longer on a mission to right all if her wrongs, I'm ready to resume the fight for my sanity, just in a totally different much more effective way. During these last few months, I am going to do everything in my power to exercise my patience. Not that I've been out of control actually, these past 2 years I have hardly provoked her and I've been out of her sight most of the time. But of course. I've had the occasional slip up. No more slip ups because I have hope now and I don't need her to drag me down to her ugly level.

 

I am safe within my own body if not my home. I have to be totally patient and not rush the next few months. The time will come, no matter what. I just need to sleep restfully and try to keep my stress levels down as much as possible.'

 

I read an interesting article about how self-identified victims tend to be more pathological than people who don't identify as victims. I need stop identifying as a victim and create a new identity for myself.

 

I also realized the reason I have such difficulty expressing anger is because I was never forgiven if I ever expressed it and endlessly punished for expressing it. Not to mention, they could never be wrong and I was forced to deliver an apology if I wanted my parents to even consider forgiving me. So therefore, I think I have been trained over time to feel that other people are just as unforgiving and as not understanding as my parents. Some people aren't good at expressing anger or being on the receiving end of it, but most people aren't that bad.

 

I feel like wow, I was seeing things so much more negatively than I actually had to.

 

Shared psychosis is also something that really affected me, as the person on the receiving end of what amounts to brain washing.

[meoww]

Wow, I feel in control of my emotions! I don't have an eating disorder, I don't secretly hate all the normal people in the world for their good fortune and lack of empathy, I don't feel tormented by guilt that maybe I somehow dreamed up this abusive environment and that I deserve to be institutionalized or something. I feel secure in my sanity.

 

I am still worried about my past actions being misinterpreted by my mother's friends that I am unstable and making up these allegations against my parents.

 

At the end of the day, somehow I'm going to have to let that go. To some extent it's not their fault she has been feeding them misinformation for years and I haven't said anything to counter act it at all. I didn't even tell them when I stopped speaking to my father which gave him plenty of time to make up some ridiculous story up I'm sure.

 

I really will soldier on and I will never stoop to their level ever again, not even once every 6 months to let off some steam like I used to, and I will never even entertain an argument with them, their favorite activity and only hobby in life.

 

That's done!! I am feeling like using exclaimation marks.

 

Now, perhaps I could mend things with them if we could have a truly honest talk. I could forgive them, right? Would that be the right thing to do?

 

It would take away all my self righteousness and victim identity. To love people who treated me horribly and totally got away with it.

 

I guess, I should, something inside me is saying I should. To err is human, to forgive divine right? But that could mean that humans just aren't capable of forgiveness lol.

 

But hatred could bite me in the ass someday. I should forgive.

 

It's the hardest thing I think I will ever do. It was so wrong but I think I can forgive on my own terms.

 

Such as, I control the level of communication. I don't accept money from them, I don't sleep in the same place as them, I don't see them hardly ever.

 

I guess this could be deemed low contact. Even if I go no contact, I can still forgive them. Even if they never own up to it.

 

Forgiveness isn't really a positive feeling is it, it's more like an acceptance of circumstances beyond our control and commitment to live up to our morals no matter how bad things get, no matter how strongly someone tries to crush your spirit and enlist others to do the same.

 

I am tired of trying to win their games. I can't win, the damage to my reputation in their very small community is done. I can't get them all to immediately see me as a good or honest person. I have to let that go and forgive my parents for that most of all.

 

I think I have just evolved again. This is forgiveness, it doesn't mean wishing your abusers well. But I want more than anything to put this in the past because I reason to live now.

 

I have too much I want out of life to let any of this effect me. I need to let it go, to really let it go on an emotional level. I used to do this when I was stuck at my mother's house. It was the only way...let me finish in a sec

[meoww]

I think I am really ready to forgive. I am ready not to add anymore to this burden that I carry. If anything the bm says to me is abusive, I'm just going to forget about it and not let it add to my suffering.

 

In the past I could forgive temporarily, so that I could enjoy her company and try to live up to the ideal family I had in my head. This made me feel like she wasn't taking responsibility for her abuse of me and I grew very tired and resentful. The peace wouldn't last long because in her mind, I was always doing something wrong, even back when I'd spend entire summers trying to please her and cater to every whim. I used to push her up hills when I'd make her jogging with me, she came to expect that and I think that's a good metaphor for my relationship to her. Me always pushing her up hills, trying to bring out the real her that she'd given up on but expected me to bring out. She'd never tell me what she wanted, she expected me to figure it out and deliver it to her. Her shame was my shame. I was expected to give her the success she always wanted but she struggled with resenting me for having many more opportunities in life.

 

I think the way she saw it, it was only fair to give me an education and opportunities if I was miserable. She was miserable and she was too old to change her career. The least I could do in exchange for being spoiled, as she called it, was to be unhappy.

Her dreams were my dreams. She couldn't just say what she wanted herself.

 

And if she was honest with herself, she felt guilty. So she'd scream, pick fights, hit, lie, neglect me and belittle me to force me into messing up myself. Then at least the guilt wouldn't consume her completely.

 

She accomplished this very well I guess.

 

I can't be angry though, even if that's the truth. Because I really can't get that time back.

 

She really did win. I wonder how that feels. She must feel slightly triumphant, but she must feel slightly ashamed of herself. No bad deed goes unpunished, I know that firsthand. I don't get to make the rules about what's right and wrong to some degree.

 

I will try to listen to my moral compass and hope that brings me the happiness and success I feel I deserve.

 

I carried this burden too, in relationships. I could never really express what I felt was missing or what I needed. So I always felt unsatisfied.

[meoww]

Back to forgiveness and all the toxicity I've unlearned.

 

I know now that trust is earned, not freely given, and that applies to me too. I can't be untrustworthy and expect others to trust me.

 

Life is strange because as far as I know, there is no justice. The closest thing to the piece of mind I feel justice would give me, is forgiveness and moving on.

 

This is what I've learned through a lot of trial and error and so much moral exploration.

 

I am going to be free soon. Nothing can be as bad as this right? For instance, even an abusive boss at work couldn't be this bad, right? I know how to protect myself right?

 

I need to be strong enough to have optimism. I want to be optimistic but not in a fragile way that is totally dependent on what others think of me.

 

I need to move mental mountains and eventually real ones too.

 

I need structure again. I crave rhythm. But I don't want to be a slave to convention again because convention is generally hostile to survivors of child abuse and other traumatized people.

 

Forgiveness. What about me? I am tired of the feelings of guilt and shame, do I need them?

 

I can't be cruel to myself when it was me relaxing and bending conventional rules to even get to this point of healing. I wish to honor that.

 

I will be strong if not happy. I will stable if not creative. I will choose to only look forward and I will not let my mother's friends judge me because they need to continue to label me.

 

On fighting back physically: which I have done on 4 occasions. These occasions were traumatizing enough that I made note of the dates so that I would never forget how horrible the situation was. july 4th was one of them, i called it my independence day, i made a video in the tiled bathroom at work. But then my old camera broke so I don't have much recollection of those incidents anymore.

 

Now I'm aware of her slandering me, and claiming I'm abusive, which is the most absurd and hurtful accusation. I'm not surprised but it's definitely really cunning and sly of her considering I only ever fought back when she made a literal prisoner. She just makes me so depressed...how low can she possibly go?

 

it is equivalent to bullying if they insist on believing her, and even if I accept it, and don't get angry. Bullying is wrong and I don't need to accept bad treatment however well intentioned it may seem.

 

This will be difficult to rise above, but I am not a delicate, unstable person who hides from their problems.

 

I have been aware of the abuse for over 12 years. My main problem was fear and sadness. I have been strong enough not to lay down and accept verbal or physical abuse. This is a good thing, and don't let people try to convince you that your boundaries and safety were not violated enough to justify a response. If you ever fought back, it was only ever completely 100% in self defense and you can count on one hand the times you were pushed to that point. This doesn't make you culpable in any way and never forget that.

 

Don't let your mother's few friends and allies ever convince you that you deserved to be hit and yelled at constantly and never defend yourself. That's crazy. You deserve to be safe, period.

 

Now you can let go of that uncomfortable feeling that they just don't understand and think that her abuse was acceptable because you fought back literally 4 times in total. That's nothing.

 

If someone heard your horrific story I don't think they would judge you, not if they had clarity and a moral compass.

 

This is not a grey issue, the wrongness of the abuse is very black and white and you really have to stop blaming yourself. You have been conditioned to believe that on some level you deserved it. You've broken free of most of that.

 

The last thing to let yourself off the hook for is that.

I forgive you. She treated you like an animal that she wanted to slowly kill and torture.

You didn't know how low she would stoop. That's not your fault.

 

Now it's time, to just express yourself when necessary and stand up for the truth.

 

It's just hard because it's such a bad situation. It's almost so bad I don't think it really happened.

 

They are both monsters. I need to make that clear to the people she lies to. But not at the expense of my sanity.

 

That's why I have to let that go. It's just so twisted.

Now I'm the abuser? How did that happen?

I know it's just her and her very limited number of allies but it's just such an insult to my experience

 

That's the ultimate denial and the ultimate lie.

I hope that they know deep down I'm nothing like that. That's just so wrong.

[meoww]

The allegation that I'm the abusive one, that I'm now aware of my mother making against me, amongst the people she knows, is very unsettling even if I know it won't go far.

 

She's really been getting worse as she realizes I'm preparing to leave and put this abuse behind me. I had a bad feeling she would make these last years hell on earth for me, and she didn't fail to deliver in the least. When I was most afraid of her power over me, most afraid that I had no one to trust with the intensity of my family problems and violence, she took advantage of my obvious vulnerability and dragged me into her pit. Now she's telling others that I'm abusive. Luckily, there aren't too many who actually believe her but it still hurts so unbelievably much.

 

She is so cruel. The only good thing about this is that it makes it even more clear that she is not a good person and I should not trust her.

[meoww]

I can't believe it turns out I'm a completely different person from who I thought I was. It turns out I might be way happier not being an artist or a creative type all the time. I don't want to label myself or other people though. I used to think labels were good, they were helpful in choosing who to be friends with, and the decisions I wanted to make. Now I get why people get so stuck on not wanting to label people.

 

I am including this realization in this journal because I think it relates to how my parents always made me feel like I had to be better than other people, or that I wasn't allowed to be the way the majority of people are. So maybe that's why I started to feel like I had to be an artist, if I couldn't be ordinary, then I had to find some kind of fulfilling identity.

 

People who a bit different are more open minded sometimes, but not really. Their morals are not any better. They are not anymore accepting of my history as a child abuse survivor or any less dysfunctional.

 

I just want to be able to make the decisions that make me feel the freest. Ironically, I felt more trapped in my artist identity than my emerging identity as a regular person.

 

I know that I can't let the pendulum swing too far in any direction.

 

Being unmeshed from my toxic mother, it's like my brain fog is clearing. It's taking too long but I'm feeling totally grateful. I have enough time to be happy. I like the world the way it is, in some ways.

 

My mother, she is really disturbed. I can't think about her too much because I will feel so confused about why she destroyed her life. I guess if she is as mentally ill as I suspect she does just have a different brain.

 

You wouldn't force someone with a physical disability to be normal, I can't force her to get better. It's like she could have autism or something. I just have to deal with that. She is so sick that she lies without even trying. She is just a sick person.

 

Maybe she doesn't even know. She is very crazy, so it's possible that her fantasy world is where she lives most of the time.

 

I'm going to leave her behind. It's hard to abandon someone who is so unable to care for themselves and only seems to invite hatred, chaos, and despair into her life, but maybe she really will be happy without me. It's annoying, it didnt even have to 95% as traumatizing as she made it, but that is her choice, and I need to let her make her own decisions.

She made all of these decisions, and she is very hostile. But that's the end.

 

My life can't only revolve around her and trying to figure why she is so insatiable.

 

I have to have a life and I need that as a independent human being. That's what humans do. So I'm going to go do that. M

 

I am done being raped, colonized, and violated by her.

I am not available in that way anymore. I am not going to let her rape my soul anymore and I'm not going to be her prisoner anymore.

[meoww]

We are all capable of abuse, but some people like my parents are actually able to follow through. Some of us fantasize about murder and fewer still go through with it. Some people, like me, procrastinate more than they should. That last example is kind of lame but I guess I'm just going to keep it in here. So we are constantly making mistakes that someone somewhere is not making.

 

So I guess, my abuser is caught in a cycle of guilt, rage, humiliation, loneliness, regret, despair and fear. This make sense because she projects this onto me instead of being accountable for her feelings and loving herself enough to take action. It has been so long and the guilt is so toxic and repressed that it would take a lot of courage for me and perhaps time on her end to take responsibility for her abusing me. It's a shame because I actually think it would be good for her, because when you lie to yourself it never works out.

 

Ok I guess I figured it out. I am getting better and better each day.

[meoww]

I think my mother's (semi)ally is somewhat sympathetic to me now that she knows how my mother lied to her and everyone for 7 years about something extremely important.

 

I don't want to write it all in here, but I reached a turning point on Friday. I'm scared to write it down, because what if someone finds my journal and knows all my private thoughts and tries to use it against me.

 

In my life, the times I have been vulnerable and honest are the times I have been either completely betrayed or at least let down by other people.

 

For my own piece of mind, I want to air this out. What

I realized is that denial is a really natural human response to things and sometimes it doesn't matter how direct, calm, and non threatening you are when revealing an uncomfortable truth.

 

I am becoming much more sophisticated in the way I deal with my problems. I need to not forget my suffering though because I never want to play mind games or be manipulative even though its impossible to escape your own agenda.

[meoww]

I feel really calm, and not as scared as I was at the beginning of this week. I know now that I handled one crucial situation with poise and that really helps me feel like I can continue to not let the negativity and denial around me undermine me. Sometimes, acting stoic and rational in an absolutely insane situation gets way better results than acting the way you honestly feel, which is hurt and totally vulnerable.

 

Ugh, I'm just freaked out that someone has access to my journal and will try to rationalize my whole healing process away and call me crazy or something. So this is me really hoping that is just paranoia and fear.

 

For the first time in my life I was brave enough and savvy enough to ask the right gentle questions. The responses made me realize how immediate the denial is, and in some ways certain people can't control it. It's like their brain is trying to protect them from more than just my words, but from other problems in their life too.

 

That's why no matter how much I hinted that something was wrong at home to my extended family, they never asked me much about how I felt about the situation. As long as I protected them from the situation, they could continue living like they had no part in it, even though I was silently begging for help.

 

I used to think that if I didn't fight back (I mean this in a mostly spiritual sense, not condoning fighting back by being verbally abusive or physically abusive), that if I could just keep myself separate from the drama, not spread slander and reputation destroying gossip about my mother, that my goodness would show through to other people. That is a cute idea I guess but that's so naive and kind of immature I guess. Ugh I was so stupid. It's not low to protect yourself when someone is doing everything they can to destroy you. Being strong and taking a stand, by informing others and quietly but firmly asserting my identity as a normal and good person is exactly what I was entitled to do and required to do if I wanted to be healthy.

 

She was so evil that I didn't want to be even remotely associated with her underhand tactics.

 

I know it's common for abused people to take on the shame and the guilt of the abuser. I think I did this too, I felt so bad for her, because people seeing the ugly side of her are totally disturbed. I felt secondhand shame and embarrassment for her actions.

 

When I was a kid, I used to literally cry for people like Hitler (oh god) and I used to think he must have had such a bad life to have become the way he was. I was really sad for victims of the Holocaust obviously, but I had a weird sympathy for him in addition to that. Or George w. bush!! Lol

I see how that is obviously connected to my abuse. I don't know if those people deserve my sympathy.

That's not something I can figure out in a day.

 

The people who believe her are often the ones who have other serious interpersonal issues themselves or have experienced painful things in their own families that they haven't fully dealt with. It is frustrating for me, but I have to accept my lack of control over everything. Telling, making the abuse known, isn't necessarily going to be a positive experience.

 

I lived with the shame and guilt because no one helped me in the first place. Telling isn't going to magically change the victim blaming world I live in. Being strong, being loving and maintaining my power and credibility over time is the main thing that is going to influence that.

 

I've learned that through telling and not living with the secrets anymore. I see it's not as simple as the websites make it seem.

 

I thought, oh you tell and everything is perfect. That was wrong, because no one is perfect. I can't become perfect so that I can prove what a victim I am and how wrong she is. I set up an impossible standard to which I always fail and feel like I deserved the abuse and project a image of a person who thinks they deserve to be mistreated and betrayed by other people.

 

What a mess...what a disaster. There was always a couple steps and crucial understandings missing in my mental process.

 

For me, my insane mother has taken so much from me that in some ways, my main denial function was broken. I stopped having healthy denial, the kind that helps you overcome your own flaws and helps you forgive other people when they let you down.

 

I also think I'm not susceptible to certain kinds of denial because I want to have a lot of knowledge about things in general.

 

It's hard to cope with people who have totally different morals. It starts to feel like you are the one that's wrong until they become culpable for serious wrongs, or you meet other people who think like you and realize you're not alone.

 

Well, I guess I have mined this for what it's mostly worth.

 

I'm tired, and I want to be part of a community that feels healthy for me. Can't wait to get out of this country. I feel overwhelmed though,

 

As I become more aware of reality I guess, the scarier it is.

 

Me standing up for abuse is like showing other people that their families are extremely dysfunctional too. It undermines and insults the unchecked power of families.

I don't want to challenge that, I'd rather bury my head in the sand than realize that there are whole communities where abuse is prevalent. It's so scary!

 

Ok not going to think about that. I'm just going try to feel safe and optimistic that someday ill have a lot of friends that I really feel are good people, like really good people, that don't view kindness as a weakness and love life and love enjoying life. Not friends that if I think hard enough, I start to worry about what our friendships are really founded on and that deep down they aren't so awesome or empathetic or that they are capable of doing or condoning horrible things. I will have to be strong until I get there. I will be secretly strong.

 

So I think I can hide my disappointment and fear and try to live. I can't think myself out of depression, or whatever this is called. I don't want to lie to myself to try make my life bearable. I'm going take that leap of faith that if I keep trying, in my own way, being true to myself on the inside, I'll finally find where I can belong and that ill start to understand what exactly is going on on this planet. I don't even mean that in a cheesy way, I really think I have to deal with it otherwise I am going to trapped in this weird, problematic world forever..

Ok time to stop, one step at a time. I need autonomy first.

[meoww]

I am beginning to think I set up some very unreasonable expectations for myself when I moved in with my mother.

 

What I had thought initially was that while living there I would just lie low until I could get out, never do anything fun, because I was afraid of her wrath and that if I didn't survive it, I would never be able to free myself from her grasp.

 

I should have realized that no matter how abusive she is and no matter how inhumanely she treated me, I have normal human needs and I can't deny that. If I needed to go out, travel, have hobbies, I should have just done them in secret instead of just waiting to get out of her house.

 

Ahh well at least I survived this total madness!!!

 

Now I know it is appropriate to distance myself from her.

 

I honestly don't care that much because I'm finally getting comfortable in my own skin. Despite the fact that I've made huge, horrible mistakes in my exit strategy, I'm plenty prepared to free myself and I am so proud that I have managed my PTSD really well, and now I have hope for the first time for normal relationships with people instead of feeling like a freak inside.

 

Soooooo happy. It's like all coming together, my understanding of her motives, finally developing healthy coping skills as an independent person, feeling beautiful

 

And I got this super nice message on okcupid that said 'you are so beautiful I can hardly believe my eyes' or something like that was the most flattering compliment on my looks ever. But I haven't responded to anyone on that site in over a year But now I kind of want to!!! Even if I am very plain without any makeup on and so I guess it's false advertising lol. I don't know why even just mascara and lipstick changes everything about me. Anyway, I might not be a natural beauty but I want to use what I have to my advantage so that I can be happy for once in my cursed life. I feel like a beautiful person inside anyway, whatever.

 

So I have almost all my ducks in a row...took care of a lot of my major flaws inside and out.

[meoww]

So I finally feel like I'm the person in supposed to be, even if I'm still in beta.

 

I'm not living with paralyzing guilt, I finally realized it was seriously not my fault at all. Even though I know I made a big mistake not sending the laptop to help the police catch my father. That was wrong, and I was old enough to know why I needed to be braver even though no one else was as brave as I was, bringing the issue to light in the first place. I wish I could go back and fix that. That is the only thing in my life that I truly regret. Even though I would have faced harsh punishment from my mother, lost my educational opportunities and other people in my life, I had the power to prevent other innocent people from getting hurt. I don't even know what the real story is.

 

What I should have realized was that my father was sick, and that he was not seeking help nor was he remorseful. Therefore, betraying him to the police was justifiable, and I was not wrong for cooperating with them in the first place. So I didn't need to be scared when they asked me to send in the laptop.

 

Why did my therapist NOT tell me this either? She is the one who is supposed to be a professional and know to handle these type of things. It's so frustrating, it's like no one cares except for me.

 

Anyway, I know that I'm not innocent. But the collective insanity of my so called friends, and the people employed by my parents is just bizarre. The number of unprofessional therapists and doctors I have met in my life are also bizarre. I might have been a coward, but at least I'm not a liar or I don't know how to explain it, it's like they are robots and certain equations just don't compute, so it's like every time I told them they'd act like they were hearing the story for the first time!! I have never heard of this before but it just must be one of those true things that no one talks about.

 

It's just so crazy to me because I swear I've never done that to anyone.

 

But then again, 3 of my friends have been raped but did I do anything to get those guys in jail? No I didn't. In fact I didn't think of that at all until just now.

 

If I saw their rapists on the street would I be nice to them? Probably not but I probably think of them as not criminal though because on some level I don't believe them. I think they just regretted it after the fact

 

But if that were true, wouldn't they have just said that? Why would they say they had been raped? It's not like they haven't had other sexual experiences they regret.

 

I always forget about the dark things that happen in real life.

 

Like the night I had beer goggles and hooked up with that guy with cystic acne out of pity and let him come on my boobs. And that he happened to be my new FWB's roommate. Oh my god!! I always forget about that. But if he didnt have cystic acne it would have been kind of hot.

 

It's really funny how I think of myself as this huge nerd, which is true, but on some level how I view myself is not is not how I really am at all.

[meoww]

One of my goals in healing was to nurture and bring out my core self, and to feel like I am a real person separate from my value to other people and not just this blank canvas for other people to project their values onto. I would say I'm 75% there! This was previously unimaginable for me. I am so grateful to have achieved this level of stability and clarity and sometimes I wonder how I managed to get here at all from such a horrible starting point.

 

I feel like I am starting to do that, because I don't feel like I am pretending to be someone I'm not anymore. I finally don't feel like this huge impostor, who has to pretend to like so many things I don't, dumb myself down depending on the situation, or cover up for my family situation. I don't feel like I am juggling the expectations of all the people around me and changing my personality depending on who I am around at the moment.

 

That juggling act was clearly a coping mechanism forged out of years of abuse at the hands of my parents. They are such failures. It's just so incredibly irresponsible and so wrong, that they created such hardship for me and didn't even do anything to help me after the fact.

 

Most of the time now I feel like I know what I'm about and I don't feel guilty.

 

The knot in my stomach, that has been there since I arrived and since I realized I had some major psychic work to do, has just dissipated.

 

I sleep. I can actually sleep for the first time since I've been here. My thoughts are no longer racing.

 

The questions that used to paralyze me no longer do.

 

I act like myself. I don't put on a happy face just because I feel like I'm supposed to. I no longer feel like I have to justify myself to unfair and uncaring people.

 

I love being alive now and I didn't really before. I feel like my emotions are deeper and more authentic. I am much more multi faceted and interesting as a person.

[meoww]

I have personhood now. I can't believe I spent most of my life not having it. As if I was nothing, just a toy for other people. It's so hard to explain, now that I know I'm a female human with a unique identity I no longer feel reactive and programmed.

[meoww]

I feel real emotions now. I get how some things can be bad and good at the same time. I don't feel the need to resolve everything to every last detail, because I know that is futile. Not to discount my exhaustive healing project to get in touch with myself, but I know that finally. There was a time when it seemed like all I could do was parrot cliches by accident when I was trying to be deep.

 

I feel love more and more, rather than sentimental need. I feel less and less like a narcissist, or my mother's mutant mini me.

 

I'm not an identity gypsy that is too transient and delinquent to catch.

 

I mean, it is easy for me to say this now, but how can I say I know how to help anyone or even myself when it was the hardest most confusing process of my entire life that required me to shed all of my previous ideals, my supposed strengths, defense mechanisms, and dreams?

 

I don't know but I'm here now and I have decided to sort of be this kind of person and it actually feels somewhat right so I'm going to go with it.

[meoww]

I am going to retire this journal a bit prematurely

 

I think it does a good job of conveying my thought process after the initial healing, but I think that it was poorly named in a way. I mean, I get why I felt that I was going through the looking glass at the time

 

But every day is like that, I learn more about other people and my world changes little by little every second.

 

So if I made a new journal on here, I wouldn't give it a name like that. I am capable of merging the past and present (and I guess future) together and I don't believe I live in a post healing world anymore.

 

It's confusing because I could never reject my previous thinking if I hadn't written all my thoughts down and taken everything I was feeling really seriously.

 

But it turns out I was wrong anyway?

[meoww]

So I guess, the messiness of healing is over now. After the big breakthrough, I realize I really, really could have trusted my instincts in the first place about people I know being in denial. How much less painful would these last years have been if I would have had concrete evidence of that? I think I was right to give people the benefit of the doubt and even take the blame and be so hurt because at least I didn't jump to conclusions the way they did. Denial doesn't just affect one aspect of your life, it permeates everything, so I know that in some ways, the people who hurt me by not reaching out, are getting what they deserve.

[meoww]

I want to close this mini chapter, this very brief but significant ending to the worst 3 years of my life, on a somewhat positive note.

 

Fundamentally, I am just moving on. I have honored my suffering greatly. It's surprising how demanding victimhood is. You have to give it all your time and nothing or no amount of attention ever feels like it is enough, until one day it is. I am not sure why I reached my limit, but I am so grateful I did.

 

I finally have a chance to stop being tormented by the echoes of past abuse and by my present living situation with my mother. I don't even really mind calling her my mother anymore because I have free will and I won't allow that woman, whatever label someone would give her, be it mother or monster, I won't let her destroy my life nor will I ever take responsibility for any wrong doing or crime committed by her.

 

Nor am I going to let any society tell me that this is okay. Never again.

 

I'm mostly at peace, and as time goes on I feel more and more secure in my position.

 

I'm ready to let this go for the most part.

[meoww]

So, I want to state to myself and in this journal, that I'm letting go. I'm letting go of my anger most of all. I let go of my neediness and grief first, that took the longest. It took a year and a half, maybe longer.

 

Now, my inner rage has dissipated without much effort after I just told 2 people who previously didnt know. The truth is, I don't even know how much they believe me, but it changed everything for me.

[meoww]

My healthy self and my unhealthy self are merging into one, it's beginning to feel like I don't have so many secrets to hide. My health is my number one priority, and it no longer feels like such a chore to be healthy nor does it feel so taboo, like I'm being the most selfish person the world. I forgot I used to feel that way! I don't spend time nurturing feelings of grief, guilt, fear, anger and hopelessness to the extent that I used to.

[meoww]

I want to close this journal because it's the last chapter in the story of my abuse. I am more than this, and I personally feel that I deserve to create an identity away from this. Not as I have in the past, being ashamed and constantly afraid my house of cards would come crashing down, but as a person who has moved on to better things.

 

I'm finally ready for those better days. I used to miss the lonely child inside me that cried for her parents who never came, but I think I no longer see her as separate from me. That is me, I am not a lost little girl, but a confident and loving woman. The lost girl isn't gone, she just grew up and became me.

 

That is just how it is. The sooner I accepted how things are, the sooner my suffering could be alleviated.

 

I don't feel like I have to work so hard just to stay stable, just to keep from completely being overwhelmed by how bad this could all be. It really is bad, it is really is unbelievable, but I'm still happy. There are lot's of things that I can enjoy, I can't really be broken like an inanimate thing, I have the capacity to heal.

 

I have the right to move on with my life. I've reclaimed a lot of my rights. My mother created a fantasy world among her friends, family, and employees that I was an depressed, unstable person. No matter how much validation I got from the outside world, the fear that she could be right never left me. As easy as it is to say now, who cares what they think? It was hard to not let it consume me. Now I understand so much more about human nature and how none of us are innocent, I see how power works too. I realize you can't stop anybody from slandering you, and you can't even get mad when they do because the only thing worse than being an abuser's target, is being an abuser's victim. You become a victim when you engage with them, care about their well being and try to get them to stop.

 

I no longer identify as a victim. In these last 3 weeks, not being silent has taught me that I am wiser than I realized.

 

Time to move on!! I'm just ready, I don't feel hung up on the situation anymore. I see her actions rather than who I wish she was or who I think she could be.

 

I guess that's the biggest change for me. It may be almost impossible to stop loving her completely but I can just force myself to see the way she treats me without the fantasy of someday having a functional family.

 

I live for I can control. I can control my own happiness if not hers. I have control over my life.