It's all about me...

So I've always said "I could write a book about some of the things I've seen and done in my life" I have never written a book, mostly because I don't have the confidence and I put my writing down as just gibberish.

Anyway I thought that every so often why not blog about me? Why not blog a little about who I am and what made me? I mean there are reasons we all turn out the way we do, right?

So I was born in Warren County Ky, my mother worked in a factory and my dad, well he worked where ever they were hiring. We moved to Louisville when I was about 2, moved straight to the projects, funny I can still remember the way the duplex we lived in looked and who my neighbors were. We lived next door to a stripper, and her kids were always at my house. I have a sister who is 10yrs older then me, I had a brother too who was hit by a car and killed when he was just a few weeks from turning 4 but before I was born.

My dad who was a serious alcoholic blamed my mom for my brothers death and watched me like a hawk so I wouldn't get hurt. One of my most vivid memories there (and this is really messed up) was one night when my dad got drunk and pushed my mom down on the couch and tried to stab her in front of me, remember now I was only 2yrs old almost 3 and I remember this like it was yesterday. I ran out of the house and next door, the neighbors already knew why I was there and I just sat and waited for the police to come get daddy...again.

He always came home within a few hours though because he "knew" people. It was funny how a man who was born and raised in the poorest part of Ky. knew so many powerful people.

He had this thing some called it a passion, I call it for what it was, it was his way of yet having more power over people. He was a member of the KKK. He took me to meetings and things when I didn't know what I was seeing.

Anyway he was a great dad when he was sober but bless his soul he couldn't keep a job for anything. My mom worked in a sewing factory and saved enough to move us to the suburbs believe it or not when I was 5. Man that neighborhood had no idea what was moving in..lol..

It was hard sometimes, we didn't have much money at all and my mom was working herself to death and my dad was drinking it up. Sometimes the only thing we had to eat was bread but my sister always found a way to make whatever we were having taste better. She had to always babysit me so she was in charge of feeding me. We weren't allowed to tell anyone anything so getting any kind of assistance was unheard of. I can still remember going to bed with hunger pangs at that age.

We didn't celebrate holidays or birthdays because my mom was a Jehovah's Witness so there were no holiday parties or presents to worry about or wish for. Heck we didn't even have a phone or even electricity sometimes. But that all seemed normal to me...

I guess I should explain my dad..He was okay if he drank a beer but anything else and he was a total different person. It was almost like he'd morph into this horrid monster in no time. The bad thing was he always wanted to fight and since mom wouldn't fight with him he'd start on me and my sister so mom would defend us and he then would get to fight her. And I don't mean argue, I mean full blown man beating a woman! My sis, because she was 10yrs older then me used to huddle over top of me so when he would throw punches she'd get the brunt before me. Then when mom stepped in my sis would grab me and we'd run to call the police. Those were very common things in my life growing up, dad morphing into the monster hitting us and finishing up with beating mom and passing out. My whole childhood memories of my daddy are of him being that monster more then he wasn't that monster.

Sure mom would take us and we'd sleep in the car for a week then dad would find us and promise to quit drinking and he would, for a little while anyway. She always took him back. I asked her once when I was 15 why she never just left him and she said "Because I wanted you to have your father because I didn't have mine"...her dad was killed in a coal mine when she was 2 yrs old. So I respect her for that, she did what at the time seemed the most logical thing. She had no idea really what kind of trauma it was causing us.

When I was 6 my sis joined the Army and moved out. She joined so she could get away, she hated leaving me there in that mess alone and so she wrote me often. I once saved a bunch of pennies and put them in an envelope and had mom mail it to her in Korea so she could come home. I really missed her so much. Things were the same with mom and dad when she was gone except there was no one there to huddle over me anymore so I then had to fight on my own. I remember riding the bus home from school everyday and knots forming in my stomach because I didn't know when I got home which dad would be there waiting for me, sober dad or drunk and mad dad. Once my mom had to stay in the hospital because she had an operation, my dad tried to make me drive him to the hospital to see her, I was 9 yrs old.

He was mean not only to us but to animals too and most of the time we witnessed it. He deliberately killed some of our pets either because they were in his way or to teach us a lesson. I believe that is the main reason animal cruelty affects me the way it does to this day. I get so angry when I hear about it...I can't stand it because I've heard the screams and yelps of an abused animal...My animals and any animal I come across will be cared for the best that I can. I'd give my last penny to help an animal or even a person that I care for.



One yr my daddy decided he was gonna get me a Christmas tree for the first time ever, I was excited but had no idea why..lol..Mom wasn't thrilled with it because it went against her beliefs but she let him do it anyway. That year on Christmas day I woke up to a couple of presents. I got an off brand barbie doll, a dress and a used tape recorder. I felt so proud of those things even when my friends were talking about the millions of dolls, toys and clothes they got. My sis came home to visit us and she took me shopping and bought me a brand new outfit and a nice pair of shoes and then took me to lunch. She made me feel so important and safe but her visits were short because she had to get back to her duty....

I don't like writing about my dad because I don't have a lot of good to say and it hurts. I loved my dad very much and still do to this day so I am going to try and finish my story about how he affected my life.

Around the 3rd grade I started to self mutilate myself, small little things like picking my skin. I never though of it as being anything bad but I did it because it eased stress for me. If you're thinking I'm crazy then hell you may be right but at least I know it. I never really put the facts together, how in a way what my dad did by drinking himself into a forgetful monster was actually self mutilation until a few years ago. He self mutilated himself from the inside, every alcoholic is a self mutilator if you stop and think about it only you can't see their scars like you can mine. So I guess what I did was no different then what my dad did. I started with picking my skin then moved on to cutting my stomach, legs and arms. I have scars on my arms and on my back and probably on my head under my hair, I self mutilated until I was 27 yrs old. I'm lucky I haven't cut since, don't get me wrong there are days when I want to..I want to so bad I can almost taste it but I don't.


It's an addiction, a way to cope with stress except instead of picking up the bottle and drinking myself numb I would mutilate myself and feel a rush. I can't even believe I am talking about this, I am ashamed of it. So, I am weak or at least I was...I mean I am able now to stop the urge, I meditate or play with my dogs and I can manage to get the urge out of my head, almost feels sometimes like "If I could just do it this one time I'd feel better" but in all honestly I know there won't be "just one more time" because if I relapsed I'd never stop. I never mutilated to kill myself though, that's what people don't get...I didn't want to die..I just wanted to feel that rush and get rid of the stress because you know self mutilators don't feel physical pain like other people do.

When I was about 11 dad started to not drink as much because he ended up needing a bypass. In a way that was a blessing, I mean it meant he would only get drunk on holidays and once a month which was a little less stressful. I started middle school and everything was so confusing at that age I'm sure you remember..lol...One month before my 13th birthday I got up and got ready for school, that day my dad drove me..He dropped me off and told me bye.

Later that afternoon my sister picked me up from school and told me our house hand burned down, I mean to the ground. I immediately blamed my dad but later found out it was a coffee maker that did it. I didn't see him though because my sister took me to her house to stay the night while my mom stayed there waiting for my dad to return because he had left and no one knew where. Apparently he showed up in the middle of the night and was drunk and passed out in the bedroom so my mom laid down on the smoke covered couch and slept until morning when my sister came to bring some coffee after taking me to school.

My sister woke my mom up and went to check on my dad, he was dead. She tried to do CPR but he had been gone for several hours, he died of a massive heart attack. Everything after her picking me up and telling me he was gone and me breaking completely down is a blur, I don't remember the funeral or anything. I wish I could have had him longer though, I wish he could have had the chance to sober up and met my kids. I wish I would have had a chance to get to know my dad w/out the alcohol, I wish I could have at least said "I forgive you"



Until next time,