Pretty Girl Lost

I know what you're thinking, or maybe I don't, maybe this is just what I'm thinking -- I think to myself a lot and often get trapped inside my thoughts in my own head. But, I know what you're thinking, what's wrong with 'her'? How is she so lost. I guess, I wasn't always lost, there was a time when I was myself. A kind, compassionate, helpful young girl instead of the cold, monotone young woman that I am today. But I wasn't always this way, you see, I was made into this. What's this? A lost young woman desperately seeking safety inside my own head.

You can tell someone's lost by looking in their eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul, and I believe that. You can see the journey, the lost little girl that still remains unloved on the inside, a love that seemingly feels like it can't be filled, a void of sorts. It's not that I'm unloved, I have a wonderful partner who loved and takes care of me. She dedicates her life to me, and I'm eternally grateful for her.

Our love story is actually kind of sappy and terrible at the same time. We met on a university Cuisine and Culture class trip to New Orleans. Which, if you know my spouse, she's not an adventurous person. She just wanted a class to take that would fulfill our cross- cultural requirement. I on the other hand, wanted to run away, run away from my shit life and shit family and death that seemed to come out of nowhere, except, I knew it was coming. I guess I didn't though. Anyways, it was love at first sight. We met at a jazz club that we were in, but the jazz was shitty, and I walked up to her eating a piece of bread; she called me a "mouse." I thought that was cute. I pretty much knew she was gay by looking at her, but I still wasn't sure, so I probed. We walked with our class back to the buses and sat together on the way back to the hotel. We were in different rooms because we didn't know each other before when they were assigned and she was wanted by other people, people that she hated. She gave me her number right off the bus and told me if I ever want to talk or hang out to shoot her a text. Well, I walked straight into my hotel room and texted her asking if she wanted to go on a walk around the hotel. Later that night, we were still walking (what felt like hours later, but I'm not sure how much time actually passed by) and saw a cat, which she tried to pick up, so I could pet it. Well, that went so unsuccessfully that she ended up tripping over a curb, into a parked car, and successfully fractured her ankle, lucky she was wearing stiff, leather boots. We actually went to the Denny's next door after that with a few friends and she had a big bag of ice on her ankle while we were eating. She got a double bacon BLT and a mango smoothie. She was still so sexy. After that, I was a bitch to her because I was scared of feeling in love or letting my emotions control me. I regret how I behaved.

I behaved in an undiagnosed BPD and Bipolar driven way. I was hard to get close to, I was skittish, and I was flaky as hell. It was hard for her to even get me to see her after the trip ended because I was so afraid of my feelings and letting someone have a hold over me that way. We fought for the first 2 years of our relationship. I was screaming, angry, yelling, and self-absorbed. She was quick to temper and didn't understand mental illness. What a pair, right? Being with someone who is Bipolar is difficult though, extremely difficult because at the flip of a switch, I can go into a low for months, and then just like that, I can go back into a high after months. It's extremely unstable being with me, not to mention I harbor a lot of anger, that I externally take out on my spouse. I don't mean to, it just sort of happens... It seems like I can't control how I feel a lot of the time, which makes me feel like I live in chaos.

I was shocked when I woke up to find my mother struggling to breathe (she had aggressive breast cancer, stage 3, and a double mastectomy surgery just a week before her final destination. I had woken up that morning, sensing my mother needed checking up on. She did. She quickly scribbled on a note, "Can't breathe, get Dan." Dan is my father. I ran down our wooden, but carpeted steep steps to the basement where he was working at and thrust the note over to him panicked. Something was wrong, my body knew it; I sensed it. He ran up the steps to check on her and rummaged under the bed for the blood pressure machine to check on her.

I wanted to dial 9-1-1 for help because at this point, I knew she was dying. We needed immediate help, not her blood pressure taken, Dan. He was so determined to get a read that he didn't realize she was sweating, turning red, and struggling to breathe. I rushed to get her sneakers, when he commanded me to get her shoes, he was determined to take her to the hospital. I was determined to call 9-1-1, we didn't have time to get her down the steps, she couldn't even move. All the while, he's still trying to get her blood pressure, wouldn't listen to me when I said that her blood pressure was probably too low to read anyways. He kept telling me not to call 9-1-1, but after 5 minutes, I said "fuck it, I'm calling them and you're not going to stop me."

So, I called them frantically, and within 3 minutes the EMTs were over there trying to save her and get her onto a lift to take her to the hospital, but by this time it was too late. Her heart had flatlined on the 3 minute drive over to the hospital. It was too late. I knew it. She had suffocated to death. I was 18.

I sometimes think to myself what life would be like if she were still alive. Awful. Not any better, in fact, probably worse. We always had a rocky relationship, more like she was abusive and neglectful. My father wasn't much better. My brother was the main abuser. Call me what you want, but she's in a better place now. She always told me she wanted to die, so I believe she's in a better place. She never had to go through radiation or chemo therapy, that's a blessing to her. She didn't have to suffer that pain.

Now, spiritually speaking, in my mad-woman ways, I believe that she had cancer because she was always attacking herself and her body, a lot of pent up toxicity in herself. I also believe that she had breast cancer because the breasts represent maternal instinct, which she had none. Or maybe I'm just a nut, but I choose to believe this. I believe in many spiritual illnesses, in fact, during Biblical times, illnesses were linked to faith.

I harbored various mixed feelings toward my father and mother during this situation. Sometimes, I wished my mother and I would have been close, but with being close to her came her putting me down often and not listening to me or making any time for me. I also felt like my father killed her with his ego and narcissism, but fuck me, right? I'm being a bitch, but I was angry with him for much more than just me believing he had part in her death (which, he did). I was angry at my childhood. I. Was. Angry.

Scary title, right? Well, this isn't just for shock factor, in fact, it should make you feel a certain way, whatever it is that you feel. I, myself, feel strength. I have overcome so much in my twenty-two near twenty-three years of life. But why do I feel strength when I associate rape with personal strength? Because I was violated, pretty brutally, and drugged at the same time. I blocked it out for months (it happened in April of 2016) and by September of that year, I had remembered pieces of the rape. Flash backs. It felt like it wasn't me, like I wasn't watching my own life. It was like I was watching a video game and the picture was hazy in a dark bathroom with a locked door being violently pounded into and came inside. Complete violation of a woman's body. But it didn't feel like me, it never felt like it happened to me, but I was left with physical trauma and emotional trauma of this event.

The next morning after that, I came into work still fucked up, but feeling like I'd been violated. I told my boss, "I think I've been raped." She told me her own story and instructed me to go to the hospital and request a rape kit. I got it done and they gave me a Plan B pill, which I'm forever grateful for because he actually had come inside of me! I was furious when I found that out. He had actually messaged me while I was in the hospital or around then and told me he "needed to explain some things that happened last night." There was nothing to explain. He drugged and raped me and abused me. My partner stuck by me through all of this, my future spouse. She has been the only person in my life to ever listen to me, to care about me and love me correctly. She helped me cope. When you've been raped, there's really nothing you can do other than moving on past it. Admit, it happened and move on. This is not to say to avoid what happened. Admit you were wrongly violated and that you, yourself shouldn't feel ashamed of your own self or dirty. What happened to you was awful.

I, myself, feel strength because I overcame this traumatic event. I can yell, "I've been raped" across the metaphorical mountains of Cornville, USA and feel a release. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel bad about myself. It's something that happened to me, but I will not let it define the rest of my life. I will not have PTSD about it. I'm not saying those who are still hurting are weak, though. All my sympathies go out to you. You were harmed and you've got to now get through that. Therapy and self love, that's the only way to get through it.

It's now November of the same year, 2016. November is the month my mother died. I'm feeling emotionally unstable, my relationship was rocky, I was feeling insecure, and I was feeling overcome by emotions, emotions I didn't know how to cope with. I had just been hit in the face by what my life has been like (all the abuse I had suffered, watching my mother die in front of my very eyes, being raped, and remembering my twin brother had molested me from ages 3-7).

I felt lost. I felt in distress. I felt hopeless. Most of all, I felt like the Devil, himself, grabbed me sharply by the mind and worked through my hands to grab pill bottle after pill bottle. I then proceeded to take pills in handfuls, something I'm not normally able to do. I remember feeling the coarseness mixed with the warm water down my throat. I wanted to die. I was tired, tired of living. I wanted an out to life. I wanted to press cancel. I wanted to hit the delete button.

During this time I was undiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar 2 with rapid cycling. I was also unmedicated and not seeing anyone for help. No one could help me though, I was just done. Life was too hard, I thought. I wanted an out of things.

My partner came home from work to find me asleep, but thought it was unusual, so she recruited the help of our friend who was crashing on the couch with us who had been nursing student for a hot second. She held up a flashlight to my eyes and they were unresponsive. Both of them had realized I had overdosed. It was completely unexpected.

They rushed me to the hospital, where the same doctor who declared my mother dead a year ago was working on the daughter a year later. I was in a coma for three days, brain hemorrhaged, it was pretty much determined that I wasn't going to live, be able to walk, or have severe brain damage. All of which I was saved by the power of Jesus Christ. Doctors told me medicine had not saved me.

You know how they say that when you're in a coma that you can hear people talking to you. Bullshit. Bunch of it. Not true. I couldn't hear shit. I was alone and in a physically dark place. But I survived. I survived with a pretty major sleeping disorder for about a year. I was sleeping 22 out of 24 hours of the day, only waking up to eat. I felt compelled to open the Bible one day, and I flipped to a Psalms about healing and at that moment, I felt the fog go away from my head. I was cured. I still have a mild sleeping disorder by being pretty tired, but I'm able to stay up and drive. I have freedom again.

Throughout that treacherous journey, I was pretty lost through it. I didn't know which direction to turn in. Just now am I finally able to see a light at the end of a hopeful tunnel. But I'm still very lost emotionally.

Through all the years of abuse that I suffered, it created a pretty emotional, but non-expressive person; a chaotic soul. One that I'm trying to heal. So, that's where I am. That's where I stand.

If you happen to relate, share your story below. Share your pain. Let. It. Out.