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As my mind is currently exploding with things I need to get off my chest and out into the void, I should probably at least make an introduction.
I'm sleepy, you can call me Sleepy. I'm in my 30s, I make art, play games, I can code kinda. I have PTSD, autism, BPD, extreme depression and anxiety. (I'm still trying to figure myself out) Last year I recovered from conversion disorder in which I lost use of my legs and was stuck in a wheelchair for almost three years. I live with my dog and my cat… and my childhood abusers.
I'm in this position because when I lost my legs I couldn't take care of myself and I had no one else to fall back on.
My mother is both the villain and the victim of the "Drama Cycle". Her husband used to abuse me and my brother. Verbally and physically.
I didn't always live here. I used to have my own apartment for a few years. I felt like the "Adult Police" were gonna show up at my doorstep and tell me "Okay, the jig's up. Only adults can have an apartment and pay bills." because imposter syndrome was so heavy in my mind.
But I think I did okay until it all went wrong.
I should probably start at the very beginning and say that when I was really little- like- toddler little, my mom had another child. Before this I was her whole world-- because I was her doll.
Dressed me up, did my hair, showed me off to her friends, entered me in local "prettiest baby" contests. Would constantly snuggle with me, shower me with gifts, talk to and spend time with me.
But then my brother came along.
Kids are gonna be jealous- but 30yo me sees what really happened through all of this.
My mother was obsessed with babies.
Flash forward to the current age- she's literally making reborn dolls after getting through a phase of constantly trying to afford to buy them.
Back to little me- little me didn't understand what was going on exactly. So forever little me felt broken. Like I had done something wrong.
Why did mom keep pushing me away? Why was she only always paying attention to my little brother? Why wont she play with me or do my hair anymore? Why don't we do anything together anymore? Go anywhere?
She married a good few times. Not that it's not normal-- but she never stopped her husbands from treating me like an alien.. and eventually hurting me.
My real father was nowhere in this picture until my teens when I was going through the worst of my abuse- the abuse that caused the worst of my PTSD.
I cried to him and told him how terrible the abuse was. I went to live with him and was happy in school, I had friends for the first time- my grades were doing well. But I didn't know he was on drugs.
His girlfriend left him. A night or two after he tried to have his way with me.
I wont get into that even though it's still a vivid memory and a fresh opened wound that I never healed from.
When my mother came to get me from school and take me away from him I told her in front of the counselor and meant it that "I'd rather be r*ped every day than go back with you!"
As intensely fucked up as both scenarios were.. I did mean it… I didn't know my father. But at one point my mother was my world. Her hurting me was too much in comparison.
But I had to go back.. and the abuse only got worse.
At this point I'm showing signs of PTSD. My mother starts sending me to boot camp because she refuses to understand why I am the way I am. (hi, it's me 20+ years from then- it's because I'm autistic)
She and her husband would dump a whole pitcher of freezing ice water on me and my whole bed to wake me up at 3am almost every Friday morning. Almost.
Imagine the fear that you go through every weekend of not knowing if you're going to go somewhere that's going to terrorize you-- imagine no one caring either way.
They'd throw me in the car and drive me out of town to this awful place where people would scream at me and invalidate what I was going through. No one would listen or care. You just had to run and exercise until you threw up.
Why was I there? Because I didn't get along with my mother's husband-- you know, the one beating me and my brother, I had all F's in school even though I was smart because my home life was a disaster and slept all day in class because that's the only place I felt safe and was exhausted in every which way possible- oh and of course I was a "trouble maker" because people didn't understand me.
When I was 17 I ran away from all of it. Into more abuse-- but that's another story for another time.
Eventually I ran away from that. At some point I found myself with my bestfriend at the time. We were tired of being hurt and just wanted to settle down with a family so we got married and pregnant.
We didn't realize it would go so badly. We both were depressed and my PTSD was full flare. I was terrified to even open the door outside. We didn't know what was wrong with me- he got tired of taking care of both me and the baby but couldn't tell me. So instead he just stopped helping me.
I couldn't work, couldn't drive- I was getting to the point where I wasn't even taking care of myself-- so I gave him a month in advance ultimatum. I told him that if he kept ignoring our problems, not helping me when I desperately needed him to- I was going to have to leave.
I didn't expect him to not try at all for the entire month.
Leaving my child. That wound is still fresh and I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But it's absolutely a trauma.
After I moved back in with my abusers until I could get my apartment I met someone online.
We got along perfectly until we didn't. They lived overseas. They could visit me but I couldn't visit them because of my own issues. I wanted to but I needed someone to hold my hand through them.. something I couldn't get.
I felt too much pressure from not being able to. They'd have depressed episodes where the guilt I had would grow every single time.
And my heart just couldn't take it anymore. My body decided that it was time to start shutting some things off because I'm probably dying due to these amounts of stress and anxiety. So my legs went.. and the fainting started.
Fainted at everything. Fainted at needles, fainted at heat, fainted at bathing, fainted waking up from nightmares, fainted from standing too long- even had a seizure a few times. I've never had a seizure until then.
I spent years seeing doctors and fighting to understand what was wrong with me. It wasn't until one day it clicked with me that sometimes when people jump out of airplanes- their brain processes that they're about to die so they shut things off.
I'm now heavily medicated, walking and for the most part taking care of myself again- but I'm still struggling with some things.
Any type of heat still makes me feel faint. Including bathing. Going out. Exercise. I'm still trying to understand why that's still happening. Maybe it's part of the conversion disorder?
While I try to understand myself, figure out what's going on with my brain and body and find a way out-- I want to post here to remind myself. Good and bad.
Some days are hard, some days are less.
As for my abusers. They don't physically abuse me anymore. However the things they say and don't say, the things they do still trigger my PTSD.
But I'll talk about that some other time.
