April 2, 2005

• More of my history, continued from March 15, 19, 29, and 31st entries.

  
  

  Now comes the part of my life that I am not particularly proud of, but yet, it is important to tell because I made many mistakes. If someone reads this and changes their behavior, then it is worth writing it. What happened is that I really lost hope, had given up on God, and was in self-destruct mode.

  
  

  If anyone has volunteered at a suicide crisis line, my hat goes off to you. While at my sister’s and at my mom’s I often called them and I think it kept me close to a bit of sanity and preserved my life.

  
  

  I moved back with my mom. She was a serious drinker by now, and even wanted me to share drinking with her and occasionally would force me to drink Mogen David wine with her. Hated the taste. I was in my last year of school, and was very smart, so made the National Honor Society. I lied a lot to my mom to get to do things by telling her I was going to National Honor Society meetings.

  
  

  Once I settled back in, I got a job working in a dry cleaners. All my money went to my mother as well as the social security that I got from my father’s death. My mom did not work, so she was on a very tight budget.

  
  

  At this time, I was very suicidal. Continuing on from the tradition of what I did at my sister’s house, any and every pill I could take I took, I drank cough medicine to get high, chewed morning glory seeds (same as on the news, learning later that they did have a poisonous coating, so I threw that up ) and up the street from us was the hippie house (this was in the 70′s) and they would sell me drugs. I just wanted to be out of it as much as possible.

  
  

  My focus was death, and I didn’t care about life, there was nothing to live for, my life was ruined by my parents, no one really loved me, my sister didn’t want me, and I was hurting and reeling from the abuse that I received, I hated myself, was sure I was the one who caused what happened to me, must be awful for why would a father rape his nice daughter, so what was wrong with me. I only fit in with the few outcasts at school, and turned much into myself.

  
  

  I did get to keep seeing the therapist, and spent time taking buses to get there. That was the best thing that happened for I really thought maybe they cared.

  
  

  All I wanted to do was to die, or to be so blocked from the hurt that nothing touched me. Songs like I am a Rock, or Sounds of Silence were my mantras, and I just wanted to die. Early in the school year I miscalculated what I took, went to school acting peculiarly, and was brought to the hospital for a foiled attempt at my life. I should have taken the stupid pills earlier in the evening, for then I wouldn’t have waken up. But while at the hospital my sister-in-law made me promise not to kill myself until my 18th birthday. I promised her, and for some reason held onto that promise. From that moment on, I counted the hours, minutes, and seconds until my 18th birthday. Most of my free time was spent in this calculation. I still took drugs that I acquired from the hippie house, and still did things to block the pain, but the good news was that I was given sleeping medicine and anti-depresent medicine. I took it for awhile, and when they stopped paying attention, I stopped taking it and started storing it up until my 18th birthday. I swore I would not make the same mistake of undercalculating the medicine. I was afraid to cut myself, but did research the proper way to do that in order to make sure I would die, and had a whole plan worked out of taking the medicine, being in a tub of hot water and cutting myself vertically along a vein. I hated myself for making the promise to my sister-in-law, but for some reason could not bring myself to lie.

  
  

  One evening I was listening to the alternative radio station (I really identified with hippies, they were my source of alleviating the pain of the hurts through drugs), and I heard a person speak who was a neo-pagan. I am not going to name names here, but it currently still is in existence, and this person may still be alive. I was so attracted to the philosophy, and found that their religion was based on a book by Robert A. Heinlein called Stranger in a Strange Land. I read that book, and looked up the person’s name in the phone book, timidly called them, and they arranged for me to get rides to come to one of their meetings (of course my mom thought I was going to a National Honor Society Meeting), I went every Friday night to those meetings. They were rather wild things, for nudity was present (not mandatory), and all sorts of free sex, drugs, drinking, a regular back to nature sort of lifestyle. Some group marriages, and incredibly interesting conversations.

  
  

  During this time I basically was like a wallflower, turned so far inside myself, arms protectively across my chest, quiet and as I found out later, people actually took turns sitting next to me. They did it in shifts because I was so depressed and hurting. Honestly, it was the first place where I found unconditioanl love and kindness, people genuinely cared for me and it kind of cracked the hurt a tiny bit. Churches could learn from the kindness of these people and maybe some of the hurting kids that leave the church for alternative religions wouldn’t leave. It took about six months of this kind of kindness and one day I realized that instead of dying, I really wanted to live, sort of. So I timidly pointed that out to one of the members, figuring they would be disappointed because much of my existence was so focused on death. Instead they rejoiced because I made the decision to live. That does not mean that I still wasn’t practicing self-destructive behaviors, still wasn’t hurting myself by my poor choices but it is here, in this part of my past that I can finally see a few glimmers of God.

  
  

  I wish I could have found sitings of God in my past from say the age of 8 – 18, but at least I do see the hand of God in my life from 18 on. God was there when he gave me this group to love me, I am certain His heart was broken at their philosophy, but they could have exploited me, harmed me, or hurt me, instead they loved me.

  
  

  At one point a person came through that wanted me to drop out of school and leave and go with him and his wife. I told him I wanted to finish school first, then I would come with him. In retrospect I suspect I would have become a street walker if I had left with him.

  
  

  The various drugs that I took with abandon did not cause damage in my mind. And after awhile I realized that I did not need drugs, and I did that without becoming addicted to the drugs, of course my drugs of choice were speed, acid, and grass. Fortunately, I gave up on those after a few years.

  
  

  One shocking thing that happened is that one day I decided to give up my virginity (I had repressed my father’s rapes) and it was then that I found out I wasn’t a virgin, and that brought on cascades of horrid memories pouring into my mind. It was there I started regretting my decision of life. I almost lost it again. And of course, I made the stupid decision that since I was already ruined, might as well sleep with anyone who wanted me anytime they wanted me and get it out of the way. I did not become pregnant, did not get a disease, and would boast that if they took a notch out of the bedpost for everyone I slept with, there would be no bedpost left.

  
  

  How I abused my body and mind at that time, it is a real miracle that I came out intact.

  
  

  I actually went to my high school graduation stoned on acid, sigh, and then my mom took a trip to visit one of her sisters leaving me alone in our house.

  
  

  I don’t think she had a clue what was going on with me, she was so besotted with alcohol, and we were sort of just roomates.

  
  

  Well at this time my first husband offered to marry me, and I accepted. I really didn’t love the guy, he was the spitting image of my father less the gunshot wound on the forehead, he was nice, but immature, and I figured that no one else would ever want to marry me and I would get out of the house. Not very elevated reasons for marriage, but I was still messed up. We had a hippie wedding in the park in matching long green tie-dyed robes, and had a huge party afterwards.

  
  

  I will continue this later, I still did stupid for many years, I am in tears thinking of how grateful I am to God for preserving me when I was so bent on self-destruction. Of course at this time I was worshipping mother earth, father god, and a whole pantheon of characters, and walking around saying thou are god. Yet God was so faithful when I wasn’t.

  
  

  Heather

  • 3:09 pm
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