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I'm in the second to last semester of my bachelor's degree, but I can't find the motivation to do anything. It feels pathetic because I'm so close to the end, and I can't keep the end in sight. I guess that might be a normal reaction, considering how bleak the possibility of getting a good job off the bat with a liberal arts degree.
But, also, I have been tackling so many issues at the same time. Therapy is exhausting. Bringing up the worst parts of my life and bringing them to light, and then absorbing the information is hard. For so long I just disowned my past, I pretended that it wasn't mine. I even got to the point where I couldn't remember any of my past before 2006. People would ask me what I did before I went to school and I would blank. I had travelled through Australia, New Zealand, Russia. I couldn't recall any of it.
The entire time I was in high-school I was aching to escape. I wanted so badly to be free from my father, from my abusive mother and stepfather. Watching my mother slip into deeper and deeper psychosis was traumatizing. She was constantly high or drunk or both. My stepfather abused me from age 11. He would tell me he was in love with me and when he was drunk he would force his tongue into my mouth. He grabbed my legs and my butt. At 15 I got bronchitis which developed into pneumonia and my father got me antibiotics, but he was too shy to do anything but that. I stayed at my mother's house, sick on the couch, my mother and stepfather smoking the whole time. I would have asked them to stop but they had gotten mad at me so many times before for suggesting that smoking was hurting my lungs that I didn't bother.
My father didn't understand why I was doing so terribly in school, and he told me I wouldn't amount to anything, that I would end up working at McDonalds at the rate I was going. I got straight C minuses, but never failed I guess because the teachers could see I was having a tough time. I had one good friend and we spent all our time together, but we were social pariahs and it was tough to find someone brave enough or unpopular enough to hang out with us. She would make fun of me for being stupid, and when I told her I wanted to go to college she laughed at me. She said I could never go.
Life changed when I changed schools in grade 10. With a fresh start, I made lots of new friends. I became outgoing and adopted a carefree persona. I decided I was going to start again and leave everything behind. I started dating a cute, nerdy guy. He tried very hard to convince me that I was beautiful and worth loving. I never really believed him, but his family bought me clothes and took me in a little bit.
I told him bits and pieces of what happened with my family. Never the abuse, but just about how my stepfather and mother fought and how my father resented me.
I would steal food for my mother and stepfather because they didn't work and were too poor to go shopping.They spent my mother's government cheques on drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. My dad asked me if I was taking food to them and I said no. He got angry, I think only because I was lying.
I would help them clean the house, as much as I could. My mother would just sit at the table, smoking and staring into space. One day while I was cleaning around her she turned to me and called me a lazy bitch. I had no idea what to say. She was like a person I didn't know anymore. There was no point in retaliating because she was already gone. There was no one left to reason with.
My life became split between trying to manage their lives and trying to manage mine. I think trying to feed them and take care of them helped me feel more "in control" of the situation. My stepfather was the only parent who actively wondered how I was and related to me in a way that was caring. My father would provide for me, but had no idea how to connect emotionally. We would fight constantly. My stepfather would feed the idea that no one understood me but him, that I shouldn't talk to my sister because she was evil. He accused her of being in a cult, and said that he saw her eating raw ground beef. For some reason he said that made her a satanist. The distance between my father and me grew as I became more and more convinced that my stepfather was the only person who cared or understood me.
My sister helped raise me when I was a kid, to the point where we would accidentally call her "mom", but my mother and my stepfather both convinced me that she was in a cult, that she was cruel and vicious.
Even now, I sent my mother an email saying I couldn't stay in contact with her until she got help, and she replied saying that my SISTER is the one who needs help. Not her.
My sister is one of the saving graces of my life. If I didnt have her as a kid who knows how fucked up I would be now.
Anyways. I think he was distancing me from her because he didn't want me to talk to her about our "relationship". He kept telling me that he was going to make a "left turn" some day and drive me to Mexico where we could live and have sex and no one would care. This still seems unreal to me. It still seems unreal that he said that to me. The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.
--- to be continued ---
But, also, I have been tackling so many issues at the same time. Therapy is exhausting. Bringing up the worst parts of my life and bringing them to light, and then absorbing the information is hard. For so long I just disowned my past, I pretended that it wasn't mine. I even got to the point where I couldn't remember any of my past before 2006. People would ask me what I did before I went to school and I would blank. I had travelled through Australia, New Zealand, Russia. I couldn't recall any of it.
The entire time I was in high-school I was aching to escape. I wanted so badly to be free from my father, from my abusive mother and stepfather. Watching my mother slip into deeper and deeper psychosis was traumatizing. She was constantly high or drunk or both. My stepfather abused me from age 11. He would tell me he was in love with me and when he was drunk he would force his tongue into my mouth. He grabbed my legs and my butt. At 15 I got bronchitis which developed into pneumonia and my father got me antibiotics, but he was too shy to do anything but that. I stayed at my mother's house, sick on the couch, my mother and stepfather smoking the whole time. I would have asked them to stop but they had gotten mad at me so many times before for suggesting that smoking was hurting my lungs that I didn't bother.
My father didn't understand why I was doing so terribly in school, and he told me I wouldn't amount to anything, that I would end up working at McDonalds at the rate I was going. I got straight C minuses, but never failed I guess because the teachers could see I was having a tough time. I had one good friend and we spent all our time together, but we were social pariahs and it was tough to find someone brave enough or unpopular enough to hang out with us. She would make fun of me for being stupid, and when I told her I wanted to go to college she laughed at me. She said I could never go.
Life changed when I changed schools in grade 10. With a fresh start, I made lots of new friends. I became outgoing and adopted a carefree persona. I decided I was going to start again and leave everything behind. I started dating a cute, nerdy guy. He tried very hard to convince me that I was beautiful and worth loving. I never really believed him, but his family bought me clothes and took me in a little bit.
I told him bits and pieces of what happened with my family. Never the abuse, but just about how my stepfather and mother fought and how my father resented me.
I would steal food for my mother and stepfather because they didn't work and were too poor to go shopping.They spent my mother's government cheques on drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. My dad asked me if I was taking food to them and I said no. He got angry, I think only because I was lying.
I would help them clean the house, as much as I could. My mother would just sit at the table, smoking and staring into space. One day while I was cleaning around her she turned to me and called me a lazy bitch. I had no idea what to say. She was like a person I didn't know anymore. There was no point in retaliating because she was already gone. There was no one left to reason with.
My life became split between trying to manage their lives and trying to manage mine. I think trying to feed them and take care of them helped me feel more "in control" of the situation. My stepfather was the only parent who actively wondered how I was and related to me in a way that was caring. My father would provide for me, but had no idea how to connect emotionally. We would fight constantly. My stepfather would feed the idea that no one understood me but him, that I shouldn't talk to my sister because she was evil. He accused her of being in a cult, and said that he saw her eating raw ground beef. For some reason he said that made her a satanist. The distance between my father and me grew as I became more and more convinced that my stepfather was the only person who cared or understood me.
My sister helped raise me when I was a kid, to the point where we would accidentally call her "mom", but my mother and my stepfather both convinced me that she was in a cult, that she was cruel and vicious.
Even now, I sent my mother an email saying I couldn't stay in contact with her until she got help, and she replied saying that my SISTER is the one who needs help. Not her.
My sister is one of the saving graces of my life. If I didnt have her as a kid who knows how fucked up I would be now.
Anyways. I think he was distancing me from her because he didn't want me to talk to her about our "relationship". He kept telling me that he was going to make a "left turn" some day and drive me to Mexico where we could live and have sex and no one would care. This still seems unreal to me. It still seems unreal that he said that to me. The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.
--- to be continued ---
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