Can anybody find me?

Bluebird1 wrote:Hi Bella, sorry to hear you have had a bad week but so pleased that you have made it back. I am so looking forward to hearing the rest of your story when you feel up to continuing it. A huge smile to you if you are not comfortable with a hug. Take care.

I don't mind receiving them, it still feels strange to give them, but I'm getting better at that!

I hope you feel better soon Bella - feeling this way sucks doesn't it?

In that case have a huge hug cause I love giving and receiving them. Plenty to round in this home.

Being in a city where I didn't know anyone was good at first. But I soon became lonely. I'd started to hate going out, except for work, but missed not talking to people.

I'd never had close friends, and avoided too much social contact during my life, but it was still nice to have conversations from time to time.

I threw myself into fitness regimes, joined a gym, and tried to embrace single life head on. But again this felt totally unfamiliar to me. Nothing I did felt 'right'. No matter how good I was in my job, or how fit I got, life still seemed out of balance.

To fill the hours between work and sleep I started to talk on the internet in a chat room. It was fun, and NEW! Technology had always enthralled me, and the internet fascinated me.

It wasn't long before one particular man started to pay me attention. He seemed nice, he seemed "familiar". He offered to help with some problems I was having with my car and things. I agreed to meet him, and following all the warnings, did so in a public place. He seemed a nice guy, (as if I would know how to judge that!!!) He offered to garage my car, free of charge, and seemed genuinely ok. I decided to move slowly, surely I'd learned something from my history!

It didn't take long, within a week I realised this guy was using my car for his own personal use. The relationship hadn't gone beyond one or two public meetings, and I felt unease with his explanation and attitude towards me. In the end I demanded my car back and when he refused to give it back, I went and collected it myself. I warned others in the chat site to be careful of him.

I thought that would be then end of it. It wasn't. Two nights later there was knock at my door. I was living in a secure apartment building, funded as part of my job. Other employees of the same company lived in the building, so I opened the door, presuming it to be one of them, as no one else could enter the building without being let in or having the code .

I was wrong. He was drunk, and he was going to make me pay for making him look stupid. There are no guesses for how he made me pay. I woke up in the shower the next day. For three days I stayed there. On the fourth day, a colleague, concerned at my absence found me. I was hospitalised, but so traumatised I couldn't think/feel or respond to anything or anyone.

When I started to feel again, all I felt was shame and responsiblity. I hated myself so much. I was so dysfunctional nothing I had done had been right. Even my birth had been a mistake, I had driven my mother to violence, and encouraged my fathers sexual advances, hadn't he always said he loved the way I used my eyes? I had deserved this. I knew better but I had 'flirted' with danger/strangers and got just what I deserved. . . . and on and on the thoughts went.

My doctors suspected what had happened, but I refused to talk. My job made it even harder to be part of Court/police action. All I wanted to do was shut the door and lock the whole world out. And that is what I virtually did. I cancelled my contract, and locked myself away for six months. Not seeing anyone, going nowhere, and absorbing myself in self hatred and blame.

But yet again, my life took another turn. I received a letter from CYF's. My young son was behaving abnormally, and his school had contacted them. They had discovered his fathers convcitions for sexual offending, and my son was not allowed to live with him. They suspected by his behaviour, that my son had been molested, however nothing was ever proven.

So I rallied myself, I returned to a different job, and tried so hard to get on with life, for my son. It was so hard, he looked like his dad, he spoke like his dad. As much as I love him, being with him is so hard.

I had no trust left in anyone or anything. I tried so hard to get my life together, but everyone annoyed me. I argued with my boss, I abused people who stood in my way in shops, I hated the world and was determined to make the world declare how much it hated me. I became more and more withdrawn from the world. I moved my desk into a corner so I didnt' have to see people.

After a few inappropriate burst of anger, my job hung in the balance. I wasn't able to perform the tasks i was employed to do. I couldn't go anywhere because anxiety and panic attacks became part of my everyday life. I just didn't want to be here anymore, but had enough love for my son to know he had nobody but me, so like it or not, I had to find someway to exist beyond the black hole I'd put myself in.

That was six years ago. The beginning of a roller coaster ride, that is still not over. I sometimes think about it all, not everything is included above, because some things just aren't important enough at the moment, - so many therapists have been overwhelmed by my life. I ask that they don't be, because it is my life, it is all I've known. I know now I'm not to blame. I never had a chance to learn how to 'be'. I have that chance now, and somehow I will find 'me'. I once had a favourite colour, a faviourite song, a special dress I liked. Right now I don't have any of those, but some how I will find them, and learn to love them, and use them. And when I have those things again, hopefully I'll be able to find 'me'.

WOW, I've never actually written it down before. Surprisingly writing it doesn't effect me emotionally, like talking about it does. Even reading assessements written over the years, is hard for me.
It will be interesting to read over what I've written and see what emotions and thoughts come to mind.

I am so blown away by what you have been through and although my experiences have been very different from yours I can so relate to the way you have dealt with it by retreating from the world. I don't know how you have had the courage to go over your past and write it down the way you have, no self pity but just the facts of how it was and is for you. I admire you so much and hope one day I can finally talk and write about my life the way you have done about yours. Take good care of yourself and please don't run away from this site. Huge hugs for you, you deserve them.

Bella wrote:WOW, I've never actually written it down before. Surprisingly writing it doesn't effect me emotionally, like talking about it does. Even reading assessements written over the years, is hard for me.
It will be interesting to read over what I've written and see what emotions and thoughts come to mind.

writing is more objective dont you think bella?
Sp[eaking it out the emotions come up and out with flow.

Writing, sometimes we are above the mind
looking down upon ourselves.
Higher mind/above it all like.

A wee poem for you bella, with hugs attached.

Touch my heart,
Feed my soul,
Now to mend this gapping hole,
Love and light descend on me,
And lift me up so I might see.

Bluebird1 wrote:I am so blown away by what you have been through and although my experiences have been very different from yours I can so relate to the way you have dealt with it by retreating from the world. I don't know how you have had the courage to go over your past and write it down the way you have, no self pity but just the facts of how it was and is for you. I admire you so much and hope one day I can finally talk and write about my life the way you have done about yours. Take good care of yourself and please don't run away from this site. Huge hugs for you, you deserve them.

Years of therapy, counselling, medication and lots of other intervention, has allowed me to relise that, despite having made some very bad decisions in my life. None of it was my fault. I was bound to fail from the very beginning.

I feel so empowered by being able to finally write it down. I have tried before, but never been able to go from start to end (or today). One day, I may be able to write it properly. I would like my children to know why they 'lost' their mother, and the feelings involved. I'm not able to do that yet. But maybe in the future.
Thank you so much for your caring.

greasemonkey wrote:

Bella wrote:WOW, I've never actually written it down before. Surprisingly writing it doesn't effect me emotionally, like talking about it does. Even reading assessements written over the years, is hard for me.
It will be interesting to read over what I've written and see what emotions and thoughts come to mind.

writing is more objective dont you think bella?
Sp[eaking it out the emotions come up and out with flow.

Writing, sometimes we are above the mind
looking down upon ourselves.
Higher mind/above it all like.

Yes, it is so objective. It has allowed me to see the 'fact's' and the actions for what they were. Although our emotions have a purpose, sometimes they can prevent us from moving forward. This exercise has really helped me. I'm so glad there is this 'safe' place for us to be able to do that.

peterpam wrote:A wee poem for you bella, with hugs attached.

Touch my heart,
Feed my soul,
Now to mend this gapping hole,
Love and light descend on me,
And lift me up so I might see.

Thank you so much for that. It is great, and I've added it to my other daily inspirational quotes. I often read them to 'lift' me up, when I'm feeling down.

I need to add this last 'bit' to my story. I am lost, although, I'm not sure lost is the right word. I'm not sure, I've ever had the chance to be 'me', and so my journey is now, finding out who the 'real me' is, and what I want and enjoy in life.

Despite the events written above, I can say that after a few years of therapy, medication, and intervention, I do (mostly) accept I am not responsible for the things that have happened to me. I made some really bad decisions, but I was never given the tools I needed to be able to make the right ones. Hopefully now, I do have those.

I have been able to forgive my abusers, hard as this was, it has been necessary for me to move on. HOWEVER (isn't there always one of those)
there is another part to my story that I cannot forgive. A part that makes me so angry that this anger physically manifests itself, when I think of it.

This is my nemesis. The one thing I attribute to my history., and the one thing I cannot overcome.

When my Aunt heard of my appending adoption, she approached the governments Child Adoption authorities. She begged them not to go through with the adoption, as she had witnessed inappropriate behaviour from my father, with her own children. She was supported by her husband, who had also witnessed this behaviour. Together they had made the decision to never allow their children to be alone with him.

Her pleas were ignored, and no investigation appears to ever have been conducted. The adoption was allowed to proceed.

I wish I knew who that person was that said it was ok. I'd love them to read my story, I'd love to see the look on their face when they saw what their 'neglect' of duty, cost me. A deliberate act of incompetence cost me the chance to grow and mature to the person I could have been.

I have trouble with authority, I have trouble with government departments, I blame them for my life and no others. The rest were victims themselves, in their own various ways.