I'm Ok - 2

Have you ever answered the question, how are you, with *ok*?  I know I have and I bet most of us have.  Has anyone then asked you, what does *okay* mean?  I have been one who asks that question and been asked it as well.
In my younger years, okay, often meant simply that I was not feeling fear.  I can't say that I knew what any other emotion actually felt like.  If I did, I didn't have a name for them.  I am sure I had moments of happiness and joy.  To describe my feelings in those times, I had only the word, *fun*.
Asking a survivor of childhood abuse of any sort, what they are feeling, you may likely be answered with a blank stare.  In so many cases, emotion of any kind has been denied.  We were not allowed to have them.  We were not allowed to express them and we often were told they were not even real.  What we knew were fear and pain.  What we learned was to answer, * I am okay*.
Trusting my own feelings was impossible.  An abuser hurting my body was often accompanied by the words, *you like this don't you?*.  Pain, fear, disgust, confusion were all real things that I felt, but I was told that I like it.  Talk about adding confusion to confusion!  Adults can easily convince children that lies are truth.
Tears were not allowed.  They were not allowed by some of the adults.  They also were not allowed by me.  Holding back something to myself that they could not take from me.  When I was 11, I jumped out of a tree and landed on a board with a nail sticking up.  It hurt like hell but I didn't cry.  I hopped home with the board attached to my foot and the nail sticking out of the top of my shoe/foot.  Sometimes, this is the life of a survivor.  Even when there is a real reason to cry, we have no emotional response.  We try to smile and respond by saying that we are okay.
Next time that you find yourself responding with *I'm okay*, take a moment and ask yourself what that means to you right then.

Abuse

Most of the time, I am hyper aware of my surroundings.  For me it has very much been a learned behavior.  At an early age I learned to read other's body language.  I could tell by a glance who in the room I needed to stay away from.  Those that molest children often have a certain look on their face.  I do not know how to explain it at all.  Inside me, I just know.  In my life I have spent a lot of time with men who molested me and others.  When they are working up to acting on their urges, they change.  They do not all have the same patterns but so far they have all had the same sort of aura about them.  It is something palpable that I can feel.
Some of them would become very friendly acting like they were my new best friend.  Others would start gifting me things.  When any one got overly nice, all of the red flags would fly up.  I saw and knew the signs but could not do a single thing to stop it.
Trusting others is not easy for me.  Simply accepting that someone wants to help me or even just be nice always sets off warning flags in me now.  I have known way too many people who always had ulterior motives.  That early learning and conditioning is hard to overcome.
A sex offender may use and harm the physical body for a short period of time.  It is the emotional effects that tend to hang on for so long.  In some cases it goes on for years and years.  The whole person is affected, not just the body.    There is no, *just get over it* when it comes to abuse.  It is something that has to be tackled head on.  It takes work, hard work to work through what was committed against us.  We may come to terms with it and still have triggers that can set us right back there in to that horror.
Some of my abusers even blamed me for the abuse.  They told me I looked at them a certain way that told them I wanted it.  Or I was wearing their favorite color, so that told them I was asking for their attention.  Their reasons are sick.  Their justifications, even sicker.  So many survivors blame themselves.  As children we were too often told that it was our fault.  It is NOT!  It WAS not!  Survivors need to reclaim their innocence.  And, first, we have to actually believe that we were innocent.

The Monster

That is how I refer to the first man who sexually abused me.  I call him the Monster.  My first image of him and the abuse is from before I was 2 years old.  Without mentioning the monster that was a part of the memory, I described what I remembered to my mother.  I described the empty room, looking out a big window and that it was only my father and me there.  My mother told me that I could not possibly have remembered that because I was around 18 months old!  She told me it was the house that the family was moving into then and that my father had taken me with him when he went to sign the lease.  I described to her perfectly the room and the low window.  I just didn't tell her about the monster..

See, *the Monster* was something that I had a few nightmares over.  It was a long necked red haired monster.  I was very tiny, looking up at my father but all I could see was the monster.  I couldn't see my father but he was there.  I was afraid of the monster.  My first therapist after talking to me about this a few times, asked me if I knew where the monster had come from.  I had no freaking idea.  She asked me to tell my mother about it (The empty room, etc) and see if she could pin point how old I might have been.  Armed with that information, proof that it was a real memory and my age, my therapist did something horrible to me.  She asked me if I thought I could draw a picture of the Monster.  I knew I could and so I started drawing it for her.  When I was finished drawing and coloring it, she looked at it.  Then she showed it to me and asked me what I saw.  I started to say *The Monster* from my nightmare and then I was floored as recognition hit me.  I was staring at a drawing of a man's erect penis!  My father is a red head.  Seeing  it from underneath and looking up because I was so tiny, it was my father's erect penis and it was my Monster!

Right now I refer to this abuser as the Monster.  My therapist continually corrects me and says *your father*.  I continually get angry with her over it.  She keeps pushing my buttons, which is not usually a good thing!  So far, I have needed to keep the Monster and my father separate.  I just haven't been ready to really embrace the fact that they are one and the same person.

Healing & Closure

Today I was little.  I spent the day with Mommy and Daddie.  I was not told that this was going to happen.  It was planned without my knowledge.  The day was perfect.  Going out treasure hunting at different stores.  All of us found something too.  I even got taken out for ice cream!  Daddie dropped Mommy and me off at the house.  I got to color some while Mommy did dishes.  Then, well, things didn't go so great.  Mommy told me it was time for a nap.  After a day of playing and being silly and having fun, taking a nap is not what I wanted!  I wasn't a good girl at all.  I didn't like being told what to do and Mommy didn't like me not obeying her either. I got angry.  All of a sudden I just sort of blew up.  Before I knew it, I had hit her with my stuffed elephant!  My elephant is softer than even a pillow but that is not the point.

This was a re-enactment session of something that happened a long time ago.  Daddie Mickey and Miss Jenn, walked me through this masterfully.  For years, hitting my mother has tormented me on multiple levels.  In the past, I was the only one that was NOT in trouble.  The horror of seeing my mother spanked because of something I had done, as well as watching her punished because she just tried to discipline me, has been excruciating.  I can't describe the guilt the grown woman has felt over this incident.  Today, I experienced that guilt from the mindset of the little me.  That little me broke down and cried over and over again while over Mommy's knee.  The scolding that has been decades in coming, broke me.  The spanking has me still not wanting to sit down.  I am red and bruised and swollen and deserved every bit of it.  I will never ever forget it.  After *Mommy* got me calmed down and tears wiped away, she informed me that I had to tell Daddie too.  Daddie came home.  As a little girl in the past, things were so messed up back then that by the time my father came home that day, I couldn't wait to get my mother in trouble.  Not this time.  I cried again trying to tell *Daddie* what I did and that I was spanked.  Then, Daddie spanked me for it too!  I was told to go apologize to my Mommy.  I know I got the words out and then I sobbed.  I have never cried like that over something from my past.  I never cried as a little girl.  It all came flooding out of me, and that WAS the point.

This is something that the 3 of us had talked about for months.  The two of them had a very clear understanding of what had happened back then.  They both knew all too well what that memory was doing to me now, the impact on my life.  They knew the places where I was stuck.  We had talked about it many many times. We went over all the *what-ifs*  Then, I put it all in their hands.  I wanted no control.  I didn't want to know when the session might happen.  I didn't want any say over any part of what was going to take place.  The two of them honored that.  My biggest fear was that I might actually slap Miss Jenn.  This was talked out over and over and over.  I would have been devastated if I had actually hit her, or anyone.  I am not like that.
Today was about healing.  Today was about closure.  Today was about a new beginning.  Today was about stepping forward unhindered from the guilt.

 Thank you Daddie & Mommy (Mickey & Miss Jenn)

Alcoholism

The abuse of alcohol by others has affected my life in horrible ways.  I saw first hand how it could change the personality and mood of others.  In my experience, it was not in a good way.  Instead of becoming an alcoholic, I became afraid of what it might do to me.  I didn't even have my first drink until I was well into my adulthood.  I was not curious about it.  I already knew the horrors it could bring.  Every male that abused me had alcohol on their breath.
Everyone pretended there was no issue.  Even neighbors that would come out and gawk at night, went about their business the next day as though nothing had happened.  No one stepped in to help.  Police were called.  Whispers were spread from person to person.  But help?  Actual help?  Totally non-existent.
Going to Alanon or Alateen meant admitting there was a problem.  No one would admit it.  It stayed a nicely wrapped package that filled the house.  No one wanted it, no one would remove it and everyone pretended it just wasn't there.
Having friends over was the equivalent of playing russian roulette.  Never knew what would happen on that day and most likely it would end badly.  There was no way to count on anything.  Just because plans were made did not mean that they were carried out.  Usually they were not.  The reason was usually alcohol.  You learn to expect nothing and to hope for even less.

I am Nothing

I don't need anyone else to tell me that I am nothing.  I do a pretty good job of saying that to myself on a regular basis.  Bashing myself.  Going as far as kicking myself when I am down.  Becoming mean and hurtful and meaning every word of it when I speak it to myself.
I am nothing, echoes through my thoughts on a regular basis. The meaning so strong that it is tattooed on my soul.  The voice of the original speaker of the words became unrecognizable long ago.
I am nothing, mean nothing, worth nothing...The heavy brass links of every letter from every word, tightly wrapped around my neck.  The weight is suffocating.
Get your disgusting worthless ass out of my sight!  The words of my parent to me as she pulled my sister across her lap to spank her.  I had convinced my sister to sled down the small hill at the side of our house.  Our snow covered path ended in the middle of the street.  No one was suppose to sled there.  I wanted to because it was faster.  I got her to do it with me.  She got in trouble.  I got called names and sent away. Dismissed.  Rejected.  I was the bad influence.  I was nothing.
I was also 7 years old.

Being Triggered

Honestly, I hadn't thought about this incident in a long time.  Today it came up and slapped me in the face.  Instant tears were running down my cheeks.  There was no way to hold them back.  All the pain of loss and remembering completely took me over.  My partner was with me.  We were simply watching a television show together.  She saw the same image I did, saw me and knew exactly what had happened to me.  The television was shut off and she got in my face, telling me I was okay, that she understood, that she saw the tears and they were ok too.  I could not speak.  She told me that she knew I had loved this other person.  She held me, she helped me up and swatted my backside.  Might sound crazy to someone else, but she was breaking through the flashback and bringing me back to her.  I am glad that she did.  Staying in that pain would not have resulted in a good outcome.
When I started this journey of healing, I was in pretty bad shape.  I didn't understand what was happening to me.  I couldn't think straight.  Fear and anxiety hit the roof and I was not functioning well at all.  Friends were finding me literally under the dining room table curled up into a ball and fighting them if they tried to get me out of there.  I thought I was going insane.  For me, I couldn't think of any other reason that this was happening to me.  I would double over in physical pain or curl up on the sofa.  When I could speak again, all I could say is that it felt like someone just raped me.  Every ounce of me hurt.
See, I have PTSD.  My mind protected me while all the abuse was happening.  When I was in a safer place emotionally and physically, my entire body decided that it was time to deal with the traumas.  Very early on, I met a woman named Ruth.  She was at least 10 years older.  She also had been dealing with almost identical issues for much longer.  Over the next year we became best friends.  We both faced suicidal thoughts frequently.  That made us make a suicide pact.  If we couldn't keep ourselves alive for us, then we would know that if we went through with it, we would also be killing our best friend.  If one of us killed ourselves, the other one would follow within 48 hours.  It actually became a strong deterrent.  I didn't want to be blamed for my best friend's death.  I looked up to her at times.  She was older, stronger and in the lowest of lows we encouraged one another to keep fighting.
I am not strong enough right now to tell much more about Ruth's story or mine.  Ruth did not make it.  She committed suicide.  My therapist at the time, knew of our pact.  When she heard about Ruth's death, she immediately put me in the hospital.  If nothing else, I AM a woman of my word.  Those who knew me, knew that I would follow through.
The picture on the television today was of a woman sitting on a bed and dumping a bottle of pills in her hand to end her life.  It sent my mind and emotions straight back to the moment when I was told that Ruth was dead.  She also had taken all the meds that she had.
Being triggered, is not pleasant at all.  Feeling the original pain all over again doesn't lessen when it is brought up like that.  In that moment, for me, I had just been told that Ruth killed herself.  And yes, our pact slapped me in the face.  I am alive.  I am still fighting.  I am still living and breathing and hurting and growing.  AND, I miss my friend.

Is He Dead?

I saw my father, on the floor, just his legs coming around the end of the bed.  As I looked in the room, I had one thought.  Please, let him be dead.  I was somewhere around 7 or 8 years old.  I didn't really know what *dead* meant.  I knew for sure it meant that he wouldn't come back.  By then, I was done.  I was so over all the violence and the drunkenness and the abuse.  I wanted it to end.  I wanted him to end.  That didn't mean that I didn't love him.  I adored him when he wasn't drunk.  By then, I knew the difference.  I was tired.  Tired of all of it.  Behind me, in the rest of the house, a war had taken place.  The war had consisted of one man versus everything else in the house.  Things were broken or up ended.  There was food all over the floors and walls.  He had had a one man violent temper tantrum.  Why?  Because my mother had left that night instead of waiting to get the crap beat out of her and had taken me with her.  Where was I?  I was across the street, shoved into an upstairs closet under a bunch of blankets.  The neighbors were protecting my mother.  I was upstairs when all the yelling and banging started.  When the man wouldn't let my dad get to my mother, he started yelling for me.  That's when this woman came and shoved me into a closet hiding me.  I did not know who these people were even though they were across the street.  I honestly don't think my mother did either and I think that's why that is where she ran to.  She didn't have a car then to get into to get away.  There had been many a midnight trips of her running from my father.  But, that's a different story.

When I went around the bed to look closer at my father on the floor I saw that he had thrown up everywhere.  He was a mess and the smell was sickening.  My mother wouldn't even go in the room.  It was up to me to see if he was dead or alive.  I am pretty sure that we both wished he was dead.

Seriously, a child shouldn't be that tired of life.  Neither should an adult lean that heavily on a child.

Regardless, that was my life.
During the day things were more *normal*.  When the sun set, monsters came out.  During the day things were cleaned up, new furniture replace broken pieces, walls were washed or painted.  At night screams were heard, punches were thrown, monsters ruled.
That night I knew he was the monster trying to tear down the door of that neighbors house.  He was the monster that was yelling for me. He was the monster they were hiding me from under all those hot and heavy blankets, just in case he broke through the door.  I slept in that closet. Alone. With the door closed.  In the morning, going across the street when the sun came up, going in the house...he was my dad, on the floor, filthy and I wished that he was dead.

Taking Hard Steps

I am at a place in my life where I have to take some hard steps.  They include looking at the man that my father was.  My perception of him has been built around a little girl's struggle to survive.  I know the horror of it.  I remember more than I have ever said.  Some memories never faded.  My sanity insisted that I hold onto all the good that I could.
The hard steps are not fun.  Today I took a few steps.  I hated every minute of it.  Thank God for the safety net in my life.  I was faced with unpleasant alternatives until I did take that first hard step.  Stubbornness ran in and stood firm for awhile.
Now that the first couple of steps have been made, I am not sure exactly what I feel.  Vulnerable is the first word that comes to mind.  It is not easy to say that my father raped me.  It is even harder to call him a rapist.  The little girl part of me wants to scream.  No one is suppose to say anything bad about my daddy!
Why am I trying to protect him?  Am I just trying to protect that little girl image of him?  Can I face the truth?
Taking hard steps.  The man that I adored most of my life, is a rapist.  I always knew he was violent.  This is even more personal.  I was one of his victims.

Violence

 A journey from the heart.  It is me, my journey.  I have come a long way in this journey.  The fact that I write openly now, not caring who reads it.  Everything is a piece of me somehow.  The pieces all fit together.  In the same way that the pieces from my past all fit together to form the woman I am today.
I had to fight to survive.  Strange thing though, I didn't know I was fighting.  All I was doing was living.  I was getting through the days and the experiences as best I could.  There was no one for me to talk to.  No one was there to protect me.  I did the best that I could under the circumstances.  I found a way to deal with the confusion.  I found a way to deal with the fear and the anger.   Instead of breaking under it all, I became more stubborn.  Did that happen because I was living two lives?  In one life no one was allowed to harm me or tell me what to do.  In the other life I was brutally sexually assaulted.  My father was present in both of them.
Sex before 8 or it's too late.  I do not know where that phrase comes from.  It rings in my head over and over.  I know what it means and it is not speaking of time.  My body holds the physical scars of what they did to my body.  Those can be seen but no one can see the emotional ones.
I am no longer a victim.  I would fight to my death before allowing anyone to ever assault me again in that way.  I have no fear in facing a gun or a knife.  That I have no fear there is something that scares the hell out of Mickey.  I have seen so much violence, been faced with so much, that I no longer fear it being directed at me.
I don't see myself as bullet proof.  I just don't fear death.  I don't have a healthy respect for danger.  I am the dummy that steps out in traffic.  Sometimes, it is on purpose, just like when I was little and it made me feel powerful.  Mostly though, at least now, it is more from the fact that I don't perceive the danger.  I sometimes have an *I dare you* attitude when it comes to cars coming toward me.
 I have stood as a little girl in the middle of the living room as my father picked up everything he could lift and threw it breaking it apart.  I did not move, cry or make a sound.  He did not throw anything directly at me until the very end.  Everything was thrown around me and I did get hit with pieces that broke off.  Every piece of furniture was broken.  Lamps were shattered.  At the end, he threw the telephone at me.   I don't recall it hitting me.  What I do recall is him yelling at me to get my mother on the phone.  I stood my ground silently.  He got more pissed and left the house.  I heard his car squeal away.  That is when I picked up the phone and called the place my mother was working at.  I told her what had happened and that he was looking for her.  Then, the calm in me shattered and I started hyperventilating.  I have no clue what happened after that.  I don't know how old I was, just that I was under 12.  I had already become accustomed to standing up to him when he was drunk.  I was the only one that could.
His wife was terrified of him when he was drunk.  Most people were actually.  If she met him at the door as he came home drunk, she would be back handed across the room.  If I met him at the door, his hand would fall and he would see his little darling.  How sick is that?  My mother learned quickly that if she encouraged me to stay awake I usually could prevent him from beating the living hell out of her.  She would beg me to not let him hurt her.
Violence was just a part of my life.  I wish that it hadn't been.  I accept that it was my normal.  Today, I fear it much less than some folks.  I have some triggers that seem to transport me back in time.  When it happens, I feel fear sometimes.  I feel a child's terror.  While it was happening in childhood, I am not sure I really felt any of those things.  They got pushed aside so quickly, apparently so I could survive.

Do I Need To Spank You?

"Do I need to give you a spanking?" 

 Why is that a sentence that reaches in and grabs a hold of my heart?  What is it about those words in that order that have so much power over me?  It really isn't even a question that expects an answer.  It is much more a question with intent.  I know that I am not about to answer.....why yes, you do need to give me a spanking. lol!  I might be thinking it.  I may even be wanting it.  But I sure in the heck am not going to say it.
That question coming from one who does spank, wields a lot of power. It is definitely a reminder of their authority in that moment.  It does tell me that my behavior is pushing the edges of the bratting boundary.  It is a question that asks me to check my behavior or attitude.
Wonder what would happen if the little brat part actually did answer, yes?

I have my times of just being over the top silly.  So often it happens on a day when we are out and about.  It is not that I don't know when to quit or tone it down.  It is that I don't want to.  Sometimes it is just so damn fun that I don't want to stop and I don't care if it is irritating.  I don't care because I am having fun.  I may be being naughty but on my end, I am just playing around.
The first time I ever heard those words, I was about 11 years old.  I was *sort of* helping clean and fix up a house for my grandparents to move into.  I had found a piece of a belt and I was snapping it over and over.  God, how I loved the sound it made.  I wasn't thinking anything.  The thought of spanking never entered my mind.  I just thought the sound was so cool.  Apparently, my Aunt didn't agree with me.  She asked me a couple of times to go throw it away.  I did put it away and go back to working but I just couldn't resist the damn thing.  It seemed to her that every time she came back into the room I was playing with it again.  She had quietly come up behind me as I was snapping it and very quietly whispered in my ear, "Do I need to spank you with that?"  Holy shit!  That was the farthest thing from my thoughts.  I was totally startled and when I looked at her, she had a grin on her face.  There was a panic in me for a moment, wondering if she knew my secret.  She simply told me that she would just go throw it away for me.  I didn't protest.  I was too in shock to actually respond.  Someone had actually said to me... do I need to spank you.
Oh I had heard threats of punishment from many other adults before then.  They were mostly serious threats even though not one person carried through.  Here was my Aunt saying something that wasn't a threat and it took my breath away.  She was teasing me of course and had no intention of using that piece of belt on me.  I have to say that those words became a part of my fantasy world after that.  She had no idea what she had caused inside of me.
Being out somewhere public and just messing around is so much fun for me.  I will admit, I am the one who wants to be spanked in public.  I am the one who wants to be taken from the table to the restroom and given a reminder of who is in charge and how I am suppose to behave.  I am the one that will push right to the edge but rarely go beyond it.  I want to see that warning look.  I want to hear the whispered threat.  I want to push to the point that the hairbrush gets taken from the purse and set on the table.  But, I also want to know that the threat is actually a promise.
I have this fantasy rolling around in my head of being out shopping and being taken to the women's dressing room and spanked.  Oh, and at the Tacoma mall there is this restroom that has a whole room off to the side for mothers with children, for breastfeeding, for women to just sit and relax.  It has chairs and couches and stools.  I have never seen any one actually in it using it for anything.  I do dream of being taken there because I have been so naughty while shopping.  Ahh, a girl can dream.

F-ed up Family

Just one of those days.  Don't feel much like writing.  Exhaustion is tugging at me.  If I am not careful, that can mess with my emotions.  It is strange.  I am not much of a drinker but I find myself really wanting one right now.  I do drink socially.  Can't say that I have ever been drunk.  Mostly, I think it is because of my father that I never picked up that habit.  I have been on my own completely since I was 17 and rarely lived under my parent's roof after age 12-13.  When I finally left all of that family behind me, I had one goal.  My goal was to be absolutely nothing like them.
I had started smoking when I was 11.  Tried drugs for the first time then as well.  I used drugs off and on into my late teens.  I liked the warm feeling I felt from them but I hated the feeling of being out of control.  If the high I got made me forget what was happening, it scared the hell out of me.  I had to be in control.  I had to be aware.  Really it came from a need to keep myself safe.  I was still being sexually abused, raped and molested as a young teen.  My uncle got to me when I was 11.  I actually did tell someone, his sister, my mother, who told me I was a complete liar.
Strange, when she passed away a couple years ago, my first thought was... NOW, you know I wasn't lying.  Funny how the mind works sometimes. I guess I thought that in her death all the blinders would be removed and that she would see the whole truth of how things really were.  I don't know where that thought came from.  It is just how I felt at the time.
When Don was raping me that first time, the only words I remember him saying were, it doesn't matter because you aren't family anyway.  That didn't make any sense to me then at all.  It sure does now.  It pisses me off right now that he knew this secret about me all my life and that I didn't.
My bio mother actually was in and out of my life while I was growing up.  I recall being introduced to her a few times.  I never remembered who she was in between visits.  She was this woman named Aunt Evelyn who came to see me and my father.  Like any other adult in my life, I just wanted her to leave me alone and go away.  When I was older, I knew my Dad was having an affair with her.  He had an affair with her all of my life.  I can't imagine that her visits to the house were very pleasant for anyone.  I sure didn't stick around. The fact that they wanted me to stay there and visit with her was enough for me to tell them to go to hell and go do my own thing.
  Luckily for me that back then I didnt know what she had done to me when I was 7.  The person who helped in that first rape was my Dad's girlfriend.  I didn't realize that it was my bio mother, this Aunt Evelyn.  My father dropped my sister off with our mother's best friend and then dropped me off with this woman to stay with.  I didn't know who in the hell she was.  She was just Evelyn, dad's friend.  Now I know that Evelyn Wooliever is my great aunt and my bio mother, and the first person that I have any memory of sexually abusing me.  I don't know if she is dead or alive.  I turned my back on all of that and all of them a long time ago.  I believe I am better for it.

Self Harm

Anger does not feel good.  I am not an angry type person to begin with.  Until about 15 years ago I don't think I could have described to anyone what anger feels like.  Probably because of the continual sexual abuse and the f*cked up world I lived in, anger was not an emotion I knew.  It was not safe for me to express it, so it got buried along with a lot of other things.  I had moments of *losing* it toward other people.  I know now that it was anger, but |I did not know it then.  For me it was the thought that I was just not going to take it anymore.
When I started harming myself at age 11, it really happened by accident.  My father was in prison and my mother had told me I needed to do the dishes.  I refused.  Then she told me I was grounded.  I actually stormed off to my room and flopped down on my bed.  I sat there fuming.  I know now it was anger.  For me, it was a light bulb that went off in my head.  Grounded?  Who the hell did she think she was?  She couldn't ground me!  I don't have to take this!  I got up and marched down the hallway.  She was in the living room, if I remember right, there was some lady there with her.  My mother asked me what I thought I was doing.  I told her I was leaving.  She of course dared to tell me that I wasn't going anywhere.  My response was, *watch me!*  I went out the door and slammed it behind me.  Every part of me was shaking.  At that time we were in a third floor apartment.  I made it to the stairs and went down just a couple of them and sat.  I could still see the bottom of our front door.  My whole body was tense.  I wanted her to open that door and say something to me.  I wanted her to follow me.  My thought wasn't for her to try and stop me or try to enforce her authority (she had none and we both knew it)  I wanted the satisfaction of defying her again before I actually left.  That is what I was thinking as I sat there.  In my head daring her to come to that outer hallway.  While sitting there watching the door, whatever I was feeling shifted.  To me, she was just a bitch who didn't give a shit.  For a brief moment anyway, I wanted her to give a shit about me.  I remember standing up and giving the door the finger before running down the stairs.  I no longer remember where I went or what I did.  Not sure how long I was gone either.  When I came home it was dark and the house was quiet.  Dirty dishes were still in the sink.  I don't know what I was thinking or feeling, but I decided to wash them.  As I did, a glass broke with my hand inside it.  It made a small cut that bled.  I rinsed my hand and went to throw the pieces of glass away.  It had only broke in two.  But, I looked at the small spot of blood, I looked at the dishes I had finished.  There was a sense of peace inside me.  I don't know if I even know why I did it, but I took the jagged glass and cut from just above my wrist to halfway down my thumb.  I did not feel physical pain.  I felt a release, a warmth, I felt something so incredibly different from anything I had ever known before.  I stopped the bleeding as best I could and finished the couple of dishes that were left.  At that moment, a cutter was born.

Whenever I felt something that had my body tense or shaking, I found that if I harmed myself, it went away.  I learned quickly to hide the cuts on other parts of my body.  I did not want anyone to know or to see.  I did not want their attention.  I found that banging my head against the wall a few times had the same effect.  I also found that doing this made a loud sound and drew attention.  I wasn't after attention.  I used hammers on my arms and hands, thighs and shins. I picked at the nails on my little toes until I could pull them completely off.   That outside pain, took away the pain inside.  Understand, that there was no way I could have explained this to anyone back then.  I had no concept that I was using physical pain to take away emotional pain.  I didn't know a better way.  I didn't even know a different way.
As I got older I used it less.  It wasn't until I finally went to therapy and started dealing with some of my past that this behavior raised it's ugly head again.  My therapist back then helped me understand what I was doing and why.  Understanding self harm for what it is, did not help me.  Dammit, for me it worked!  It kept me from falling over the edge to suicide.  I was scared to death of all the emotions that overran me.  I was honestly afraid that feeling the emotions would kill me.  I wasn't trying to kill myself with cutting, I was trying to stay alive.
Cutting myself or harming myself through the years also sort of morphed into punishing myself.  No one else was correcting or punishing me.  When I felt that I had really messed up, I harmed myself.  I wish I could explain it, I just can't.  As screwed up as it sounds, it was a survival tool for me.
I am dealing again with things from my past.  I am experiencing emotional pain from time to time.  I have better tools for survival now.  That doesn't mean that the thought of self harm has gone away.  It is still very much an ugly monster I struggle with.  I don't remember for sure the last time I purposely harmed myself.  My hope is that I never choose that way again.