I often find that it is easier to understand people better when you know where they are coming from or have some idea, and I have always been fairly open about my past on other forums, in hopes that even if it makes people uncomfortable, it might help someone else to feel they are not so alone...so here is a potted history lol...which I don't think anyone will manage to read all the way through. Judge me if you will for it, those worth my time wouldn't judge me.
I have a history of sexual abuse. I was first abused at age 8 by a friend of my older brother. This was repressed until I was 10, when my piano teacher, who taught in my house's front living room, abused me for several months on a weekly basis. I will not go into any details, but shall merely say that he caught me at that vulnerable time of puberty and at a time when I was seeking to feel special due to my brother always being the admired one in my family. This left me with guilt that has never gone away, even to this date. After this, several other males took advantage of my situation at that time, before I finally firmly slammed shut the doors and kept away from males. I did not go near males, I did not trust males, and for the most part, for the next 10 years, I hated males and would scream if they so much as looked at me.
School was bad also. I was bullied very badly. Most seemed to hate me...a few loved me and would do their best to defend me... I never forgot them. Kids would kick me, or call me names...block the seats next to them so I couldn't sit down. People would use me and take advantage of the fact that I would give anything to have friends, and was a giving person anyway. They only stopped the bullying when I became ill.
At 11, I started self harming to deal with my feelings. At 13, I started dieting, and was full blown anorexic by 14/15. That lasted for 10 years and almost killed me many times. I took my first overdose at 14, which between that age and 26, was followed by another 30 or so overdoses. I also started drinking before school at 14 in an attempt to beat the bad feelings I had and deal with the misery of my isolation. I would go and gulp from my parents drinks cabinet and go to school in a nice stupor. I ended up in hospital frequently, and when not in hospital, I would spend as much time hiding away with my poetry in my room. I left school at 17, just 2 weeks before my A-level finals, having got very good grades in my mock exams. I just couldn't deal anymore and my weight was by that point very low.
At 18, I hit 70ibs and my parents were told by my doctor that I would die within 24 hours if I didn't eat as things were failing. My lips were blue and I could hardly move. I did start eating again, but it never went and I abused laxatives heavily on and off until I was 25. At 22, when my parents had divorced and I was living with my mother in London and working in theatre, I had what I can only term a breakdown really. I became almost psychotic with my weight issues, to the degree I would scream if I sat on a chair and it creaked..or lay on a bed that made any noise. It was insane... I couldn't rest at all and resorted to abusing sleeping pills and herbal sedatives to try and just sleep through it all.
I was taking 70 laxatives a day, vomiting up everything I ate and even drank, and finally my kidneys failed...3 times. It took 3 times before I started doing something about that...hell, the hospital staff even had to give me laxatives because my addiction was so bad and I would pull my drip out if I didn't get them. My heart had already gone into failure once when I was walking around London at 19, as I found out the day after. I just did not fear death much then.
I took to walking the streets with the homeless and drug addicts...my mother found out, and was totally shocked. I almost got into cocaine myself. I spent up to 8 hours a day just walking the streets of London, even as my body was failing beneath me. Finally, my mother found me poised on the window ledge of my bedroom in our top floor mansion flat and she couldn't cope anymore. I was harming myself at every opportunity to deal with my overwhelming feelings of self hatred and anger and she was constantly putting me down. I was sectioned(forced into a private psych hospital) for 6 weeks, where I was not treated well. I was kept in my room 24/7 and once stitched up without any anaesthetic as punishment for harming myself. They tried to keep my mother from visiting me... I was surrounded by anorexics on all sides. They let me out as they couldn't cope with me. I was worse than ever by now and wouldn't go anywhere without my mother at my side. It was an irony as back at her flat, I couldn't bear to be around her. I wanted to be left alone.
At 24, I met my aspie ex and left my mother to stay with him a few days...to give her a break. I had thrown my word processor across my room as she had basically accused me of being a slut because my ex and I were both sitting on the floor of my room! I had done nothing and wouldn't have dreamt of it given my past issues. It was not the first time...once when I had not changed my clothes due to depression, she had called me a dirty slut. Life with my ex was hard. I sort of went there and didn't want to go back to my mother, and by the time I changed my mind, my mother wouldn't have me back.
The house was shared with his mother...and had not been cleaned in 16 years. It was filthy. His room...our room had maybe a metre of space to move in, if that. The rest was taken up with his things. We slept on a pile of duvets on the floor. There were holes in the walls and no heating. It got so cold in Winter, even with a gas heater. Without the internet, I dont think I would have survived it at all. The kitchen was appalling, the bathroom... it was just all full of stuff and dust. Indescribable really, but I had never been alone and was too afraid to make an attempt to be on my own...I didn't have the means anyway. There were endless serious rows where I would end up on the streets in tears. We would have 3 week silences where neither would talk to the other and the atmosphere would leave me too afraid to move from where I was sat in the evenings.
I developed severe panic attacks that crippled me. I could not go out...even taking a shower was a no go... I would panic in there, and the idea of passing out naked would make me panic even more. I would often just crawl around the floor trying to cry...but I couldnt cry because I was too busy hyperventilating. I had a nurse to visit for a time to try and help, but it didn't do anything. These panic attacks would be almost back to back every day. It was a blessed relief when I didn't have one. I also found out I had Copd, which is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, from my heavy smoking. It just was not a nice time.
I did manage to go back to college and get 3 A-levels, getting an A* in English, B in photography and a B in psychology and went onto university to study English...this was some feat, given I had to take a boat and would have a panic attack as soon as I ventured out. Fortunately I had good personal tutors...but regardless, I missed a lot.
I left my ex in oct 2004 and have been alone since then. That is my past...well most of it, anyway. I don't expect pity. I don't expect sympathy. It is the facts of my life...the bad parts...thus far... and maybe explains why I get such highly negative moments. I was, as a child, apparently, very lively and giving and curious...and all those positive things, so I am not innately this misery guts person you see frequently these days.
Last edited by Graelwyn on 05 Jun 2007, 9:38 pm, edited 5 times in total.
25 Apr 2007, 5:31 am
