The worst moments of my life

The point of this blog was to be more honest and more revealing. I know I cannot do this without this post. I've been intentionally avoiding it, but I need to do it. So, without further adieu, the worst moments of my life:

Watching my mom in the hospital hooked up to tubes barely able to breathe and wondering if she was going to make it another few hours. She pulled through, thank God! Meanwhile, my dad was out partying and didn't know where I or my two younger sisters were the entire time.

The night my father hit me across the face so hard, it left me with a swollen lip and my mouth bleeding. He then proceeded to call me a little girl. I went to school the next day like that and no one asked. I doubt anyone knew.

The night I heard my dad threaten to (and he tried) to kill my mom and instead of trying to save my mom, I left her to die and took my sisters to my friend's house. He tried to throw her off a balcony and to choke her to death that night. He failed. I always felt guilty for leaving her. She's always told me I did right with getting my sisters out. I know I did, but I felt like a coward and still have a bit of guilt over it.

Every single time I watched my dad beat my mom. Countless nights that is what my home life consisted of.

Losing everything we had to my father's drinking. No money, very very little food, lost two houses, and worst of all, I lost my sense of security.

When my dad skipped town and I realized I had to stay strong while everyone else broke down.

November 17th 2006. The day my 9 month nervous breakdown began. I remember it because it was on the anniversary of my grandpa's death. I just sobbed uncontrolably for an entire night and day then entered a horrible depression where I drove people away and couldn't face life. During this time, I gave up my will to live. I never thought I'd be happy again.

Having to stay at a friend's house for 3 weeks because I was scared to go home to my dad. Every night wishing my mom would chose me instead of him. At the end of the 3 weeks, she chose him, and I ended up having to move back in. Later, after another tirade, I lived in our other house in West Point for seveal months with no fridge, furniture, money, or transportation. What's ironic is I felt safe and at peace there and for that time, I was happy.

These are the darkest moments of my life. There are many more, but these are the ones that still haunt me today. They don't hurt as badly as they did before and I've dealt with them as best I know how. I think given time, they will hurt less and less, but always carry a bit of a sting.

"I'm not scared at all..."

"Pennies in a well. A million dollars in the fountain of a hotel. Fortune teller says, 'Maybe you will go to Hell.' But I'm not scared at all of the cracks in the crystal, the cracks in the crystal ball." -Pink

I often wonder about the future. I'm scared of it really. Everything I ever thought the future would be has dematerialized. I realized a while ago, that life never really pans out the way you want it to or even plan for it to. Right now, I'm developing a 5 year plan to try to give my life direction. I wonder how much of it will come to fruition and how much will be scrapped. But, as funny as it is, I'm going to take a lesson from Pink and try not to be scared of the future. My life may end up in hell, but it may turn out better than I ever expected. All the wishing and hoping won't change it. I can plan and I can prepare, but I can't change it, not really. I can influence my future with my actions, but it's still largely out of my hands. So, I'm just going to live my life and hope for the best.

Idiots

I am constantly surrounded by a never ending parade of stupidity! Today, I saw a guy with his daughter. His daughter was looking at a magazine and the magazine had a picture of the Taj Mahal in it. The daughter said, "Isn't it pretty, daddy?" And the father responded, "No, daddy hates mosques." I stared at him for a minute unsure of what to say. First I was offended by his statement of hating mosques. Second of all, I just wanted to walk over to him and say, "Listen you douche, the Taj Mahal isn't a mosque, it's a mausoleum. Since I'm sure you don't know what that is, it's a giant tomb. If you're going to be a bigot, at least know what it is you're hating."

And if you don't believe that there are stupid and crazy people all around you, I invite and encourage you to look around at all the Tea Party nutjobs around you.

Coming out of depression

I had a nice chat with the ex today. We're fine though we're not reconciling. We're being very mature about it. I miss him and love him dearly, but I have to let him go so he can become a better person, and so that I can as well.

I'm starting to slide out of this depression ironically as I'm recovering from a break up. I'm starting to feel it pass. I hope to get a job soon. That I think will really help with a lot of this feeling.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words and support. I love you all. I truely have awesome friends.

The break up

Well, it's been an interesting day. Tried to text the ex to wish him happy birthday. (Fun breaking up right before that.) He just ignored me. It was his idea to break up, and I agreed it would be best. I am not as upset as I thought I would be. I am still hurt by him telling me to just get over being depressed and just to "quit having panic attacks" or my personal favorite he said right before calling it quits, "I can control my emotions, why can't you?" That's on par with telling a cancer patient to just get over it and my body isn't eating itself away, why is yours? I thought it was really unfair that I had to be there for all of his problems and try to understand all of them, but the second I have any problems, it's an inconvenience to him, and I just need to get over it.

Well, that's the extent of my rant about him that you'll get, because that's all I have to rant about. It was a good relationship. I gained a lot of knowledge and life experience. I felt love for the first time. We just weren't compatible enough at the end of the day. I don't regret it one bit.

Broken up

So today, my boyfriend and I split up. I've been feeling it coming for the past week or so. I think that's added to the depression. It was a fairly mutual split. As mutual as those things can be. What's weird is I'm not as bent out of shape about it as I thought I was going to be. Maybe it's because for this past week I've been anticipating what it would be like and it wasn't nearly as bad. Out of it though, I got my first love, 4 awesome months with him, and learned a lot about myself.

I'm fine. Nobody worry over me.

Happiest Moments

I don't focus enough on the positive memories I have, so here's a list of my happiest memories:

The first time I fell in love. Strangely enough, that was only 5 months ago with the man I'm currently with. It was everything everyone had ever told me it would be like and more. All the songs and the poems suddenly made sense to me.

Standing in St. Marks Square in Venice at sunset. There was a light rain shower that was a warm welcome after the hot day. My group leader took me by the hand and started dancing with me while she sang Singing in the Rain.

Seeing the Sistine Chapel Ceiling right after it's restoration.

The night I lost my virginity. I was almost 16. It happened with a friend of mine. Afterward, I remember listening to the Enya song On Your Shore and feeling like everything was new and open to me. I knew I should have felt guilty. I had had sex with a man which my religion condemned, but that night, I didn't feel it. I felt complete and deeply spiritual. Everytime I hear that song, I'm taken right back to that night.

Standing amongst a crowd of 1.5 million people as I watched the end of the Bush Administration and the innauguration of Barack Obama. That week with my friends in Washington DC was the best week of my life.

Christmas 2000. The last year that I remember having a happy Christmas with my dad. I savor the memory of that Christmas.

Summer 2000, my summer of ignorance. I felt completely carefree and happy that summer in a way I never had before. I was unaware of the problems between my parents, and was wrapped up in that moment of teenage bliss, and absolute certainty about everything that a teenager has.

Senior Cottilian Weekend. My friends and I were fighting, but for that weekend, we put asside all our differences and had a fun, drama free weekend. I don't remember sleeping more than 3 hours those 3 days.

All of these are moments I remember not feeling any sorrow, pain, or fear. These are the purest moments I have. I will treasure them forever.

Here we go

This past week, I've been feeling myself sliding back into depression. I hate the fact that I suffer from this and panic attacks. What's worse is trying to explain it to people who don't understand it. I constantly have this nagging feeling almost like a voice in my head (NOT A REAL VOICE) constantly telling me that I'm worthless or that I should give up because nothing matters. There's this overall feeling of sadness that suddenly consumes me. Medication, therapy, and mediation have helped immensely, but I still have what I guess you could call depression spells come over me periodically, usually when I go without my pills, but sometimes even when I'm on medication. I also have this feeling that everyone hates me or is talking about me when I'm depressed.

If depression were the extent of it, I think I could deal with it. But I also have anxiety. I don't just mean that I worry, I mean I panic over things that I shouldn't. There is this constant feeling of fear I always have. It's just to what extent I feel it. That has never really been controled by medicine, therapy, etc. I've had fewer of them before, but they never have gone away for very long. When I have an attack, I feel helpless. I'm scared I'm going to die, or that everything is going to be ripped away from me. When I have a really bad one, I am brought literally to my knees and usually hyperventilate and cry uncontrollably. Not many people around me have seen a bad one except my family and a few close friends. I've been lucky enough not to have one in public. Once, I had one that was so bad, the only way I could calm myself down was gnawing on the corner of a rolled up newspaper as I tried to catch my breath. I don't know why I even thought to do that, but it seemed like something that would comfort me or get some of my anxiety out. It's a weird thing, but I couldn't breathe or control myself. It was like I was running on survival instincts and that was something I had to do.

What is weird is that in the depression and in the anxiety, there is this rational part of myself that seems detached and merely observing. I look at myself and think, this isn't me. This is weird. Why are you acting like this? Get a grip? Life isn't that bad. But no matter what this rational voice says, my mind and body still continue being depressed and anxious.

So, that's a start I guess. I'll be more specific about things later on, but I wanted to get in writing what depression and anxiety feel like. I guess so that others could get a little taste of what it's like, and so I could make sense of it myself.

Until next time

A new start

I've had a few blogs before, but I never felt like any of them really reflected me. They were all essentially me spouting off essays about what I believe and speculation. Anyone reading them wouldn't have a sense of the real me. So I've decided to create an open and honest blog. I will be very blunt about myself and reveal a lot I don't usually expose to the world. This is kind of scary, but I hope it helps me continue to heal and to be a better person.

First blog will be up shortly.