I'm a Survivor (standard:non fiction, 2884 words)
Author: Lori	Added: Apr 30 2007	Views/Reads: 3285/2141	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Taking another look in the mirror, a woman gets a new perception on whom she is. She looks back at the demons from her past and faces them for what they are and what they made of.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

Asking for it, to me, was wanting the affection from the boy who raped 
me. I wanted him to love me, but I didn't want him to have sex with me. 
Growing up I had heard the old saying, “Why buy the cow when you can 
get the milk for free?” I thought that if you said no then the boy 
would chase me and make it a game. He looked at it as a game all right, 
but one he would be the winner of at all cost. I had already been 
through the abuse thing, so it didn't make much difference to me at the 
time. Now I know that I didn't ask for it and it wasn't a game to me. 

I've hurt everyone in my family with my illness, my parents, my brother,
my husband, and my children. My parents, God love them, were so 
understanding when I look back but in different ways. My mother, having 
made bad choices in her own life, was the easy going, friendly parent. 
She taught me that I had a mouth and to use it to defend myself. She 
divorced my real father when I was very young. When he died, she 
thought she had to make it up to me and my brother. She gave us 
anything and, almost, everything we desired. My stepfather, who I call 
my Daddy, was different. His grew up with another old saying, “Spare 
the rod, spoil the child.” My brother and I were abused by him, but 
only because he loved us and didn't know any better himself. He didn't 
have the ideal childhood himself, so the choices he made were to make 
us a better person. To tell the truth, I don't know where my brother 
and I would be today without his influence and his belt on our bottoms. 


I took for granted my parents love and used it against them. I knew with
my mother all I had to do was argue with her long enough or if I played 
the guilt card, I could get my way. With my daddy, all I had to do was 
cry, to this day my Daddy can't stand to see me cry. I think it's that 
way with all daddies. Daddy went through a period of not being able to 
trust me. I lied my way through my younger years. When I became an 
adult, he didn't know when I was telling the truth and when I was 
lying. 

My brother wasn't affected much by my illness. He thought it was just
the way I was. When we were growing up, I didn't act out much with him. 
I knew he was the only one I could really count on for honesty. If I 
wanted to know the truth on something, he was the one I would go to. As 
we've grown older, we've drifted apart. Mainly it is because of me, but 
it's also a sibling thing of we grew in two separate directions. We've 
had our falling outs in the past, going days or months without talking. 
Mostly, I kept him in the dark because I didn't want him to see the 
real person I was. My brother is eleven months, two weeks younger then 
I am, so I wanted him to see me as the big sister, not as the nut case 
I really was. That's the way I hurt him and I regret not sharing those 
things with him. I think it would've changed the way we see each other 
now, maybe it would have made us as close as we used to be as kids when 
we had to look out for one other. 

My husband has had his own fight with depression, so thankfully he can
understand me. He too was sexually abused as a youngster. When we got 
married, I saw his as my saving grace, he was going to save me from my 
past. He was also going to get my children back.  My ex had taken them 
away from me because a downward spiral time in my life. Chuck, my 
husband now, was going to be the rock I needed to lean on and help me 
to conquer my fear of my ex and give me the courage I needed to go get 
my children back. I have put this man through hell since then. I've 
cheated on him, lied to him, and tried to destroy him in the nine years 
we've been married. Through all of it the only thing he's done is to 
love me. 

The second time I tried to kill myself, ( I can't say the real words
because then it would become real to me and I can't face that yet) was 
during my marriage to Chuck. I was cheating on him with someone I had 
been chatting with online. I thought this person would be the person 
Chuck wasn't in my eyes, or the eyes I was using at the time. This 
person wasn't only going to save me from my life but he was going to 
save my life. Now I see I was looking through those rose-colored 
glasses. I was seeing what I wanted to see and not what it really was. 
The person I was cheating with had no intention of doing anything but 
using me for what he could get. You know the saying, “The grass is 
always greener on the other side.” I beg to differ with that! I know 
it's not greener on the other side because you can't get any more vivid 
then it is on the side I'm at now. 

My husband gives me what no other man can give me, unconditionally love.
I can't ask for more then that. He's been my angel in disguise, my 
rock, my salvation, everything I need he is to me. I love him more 
today then when we were married, but not as much as I'm going too in 
the years to come. I know people say that all the time, but with us 
it's true. I thank God every day for giving Chuck to me. God proves to 
me, through Chuck, that I did something right in my life. 

The other thing I did right in my life was to have my sons. I think as
parents our children are the ones we hurt the most. As we are trying to 
be the best parents we can be, we tend to forget that they aren't 
looking to us only for love, but for guidance too. The things I regret 
most in my life are hurting my children. I've used them as pawns in my 
urge to get their father back, and as things to hold against him to 
keep him away. I've used them to live the life I wanted also. I've 
always believed that they are my anchors, but they shouldn't be used 
that way. I need to let them lead their own lives and not lead the 
lives I want for them. At times, I wonder if I'm a good mother. I cry 
at times knowing that I'm not one. Where my mother gave me the freedom 
to live my own life, I've smothered them to keep them anchored to me. 
For me they were instruments I used to keep me living in the world of 
darkness I created for myself. Selfishly, I thought that by smothering 
them and keeping them in my dark world, I was showing them that they 
couldn't be hurt if they lived in one too. 

My children are now teenagers, they've seen things they shouldn't have
in their short lives. My youngest saw me in a drug induced suicidal 
attempt. My oldest has seen me at my lowest over losing his father's 
love. As parents we supposed to protect them from the dangers of the 
outside world. I thought if I wrapped them in a cocoon of love I was 
protecting them from the dangers they would face growing up. How do I 
protect them from the one that's hurt them the most? I can't protect 
them, but I can teach them that at the low points in my life they're to 
ignore what I do or say. I can inform them that I'm not always going to 
be this way. I can let them see the real person I am today with all the 
demons, all the scars, and all the pain I care inside. And I can let 
them know that no matter what happens I will love and stand by them. 

Depression doesn't have a cure, but it has periods of being okay. I
chose not to medicate myself, but mostly because the treatments can be 
costly. Not only do you have prescriptions to fill, but you have to 
relive your demons in front of a total stranger. I can do that in the 
privacy of my own home. When a demon, from my past, rears its ugly 
head, I deal with it in my own way. I face down the problem and see it 
for the way it really was and not the way I've always looked at it. 
Then it becomes a tamed animal I can pull out and discover in some new 
ways. I can experience it for the positive aspect it has on my life now 
and not the negative one it had at the time it occurred. 

Three things have happened to let me do things this way now, besides
growing up and realizing I was acting like a child, two of them were 
traumatic. The first one was my daddy had open-heart surgery. The 
thought of losing my daddy was something I don't ever want to face 
again, even though I'll lose him for good one day. Seeing my daddy in 
so much pain, and being that sick, changed the way I see things in my 
own life. I understand the positive things I can be now. I can be the 
woman I've dreamed of becoming. I don't have to be a woman dying with 
depression, but a woman LIVING with depression. The second thing was my 
husband getting high blood pressure. It's not a major thing these days, 
but it changed the way I look at him. Knowing that I could lose him 
also has changed the way I feel about him, I now know he's my soul 
mate. I can't live without him in my life, nor do I chose too. The last 
was my getting offline for a while. When my daddy got sick I chose to 
be the one to stay with him in the hospital and get him on the road to 
recovery. I decided he was more important then being online. I haven't 
gotten back online yet, it's been almost three years since Daddy got 
sick. Then my husband got sick and I chose to stay offline to grow old 
with him for a while. 

When I search in the mirror now, I can still see the demons in it, but I
also receive so much more. I sense the love I have for my family and 
for myself. I can appreciate my parents the way they really are and not 
the way I've imagined them to have been all these years. I spy my 
brother for the man he's become and love him for that and the child he 
was back then. I envision the man who saved me from a life without love 
and I discovered the children I'm proud to say I'm the mother of. I 
also glimpse something I've never seen before, a survivor, because more 
than anything that's what I am today. I've survived the agony of losing 
a parent before I got to know him. I've endured being abused by the 
ones I was using in return. I've abided the love of an abuse 
ex-husband. I've suffered  the feeling of being unlovable to another 
man. But, most of all, I've survived myself. That may not make much 
sense to you, but to me it's the thing I'm most proud of. I can hold my 
head up high and say I've come through the worst life has to offer and 
I can't wait for the abundant things that is yet to come. 

© January 22, 2007


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