Just Doing Me =)

When I was 12 years old I turned my parents into DCFS. I don't regret it an am thinking about writing a book about it because I pretty much have been treated “different” by my parents and a few other family members since then. Which makes me more comfortable out in the “real world” then in my original family. I don't regret protecting my two younger siblings from being beaten. It was the right thing to do at the time. An when we where returned to our parents, my father specifically promised me hands wouldn't be laid on any of us ever again. He kept his word. None of us where beaten again.

But they both treated me different after that. Always have. An they both where assholes to me the remaining years I lived at home. I got rode hard, an put to work a lot. An when one of them would talk to me shitty, usually my mother: I'd end up on the phone with my grandmother, who would talk me through it saying: You just have X amount of years left. You'll be able to leave soon. An when I left at 18, I was pretty happy to do so.

Everything turned right.

It caused me to drop out my Senior year, but I returned. Finished working a part time job an finishing the two classes I had left to get my high school diploma. I was in love as well. The whole world just seemed right. Except when I would run into my parents. During that time they forbid me to see my siblings. Using them as some kind of leverage over me. An I worried about them after I left but it was also nice to just be a “normal” person. That didn't have to adult anymore then the people my own age.It was physiologically abusive. The whole five years following turning them into DCFS was. So I was pretty damn okay with being outcasted out of my own family.

I didn't have to play parent to them anymore. I wasn't worked to death anymore. I was so accustomed to having to work for every little ounce of approval for them: I about went into shock when my future mother in law, told me I didn't have to pay her rent or work a part time job to live with her. She told me, she just wanted me to do me. That it would be all right. Take the time, be a kid. Just work on getting over it. I have never been more grateful to another person in my life then in that moment.

And the following three years after that where magical to me.

Because the world out there, didn't treat me poorly. It welcomed me an the things I could do. So I've always been more comfortable out in the world, then with my original family. I did stay close to my grandmother though because she was my rock all through the nightmare years. I did slowly come around to speaking to my parents again, an try to mend what I could of those relationships. My dad did try to repair the relationship, through my grandmother. Offered me a cheap smaller apartment. Divorced my mother. My sister moved in with my grandmother, so didn't have to worry about her anymore. An I tried to talk it out with my mother on several occasions an get past it. I forgave because family is important to me. I wanted us all to get along but the being treated different never really did go away. I kinda gave up on that idea that it ever would.

I've kept my distance.

I showed up on holidays for my youngest sister an that was about it. I did what Patty suggested. I worked on me. The most sound advice I've ever gotten from anyone. I've always done better out in the real world, not associated with them. Until my dad bought that bar and tried to bring us all together again. I didn't have much to do with either of my parents. Working together again did go a long way to mending things broken between me and him. It was in an odd way a “coming home”. Using the skills I had learned while gone. He really didn't try to abuse me physiologically anymore. Appreciated what I could do ect.

But I do want to write a book about survivors of abuse. And how they are treated by the family after having the guts enough to confront a family member on it. More so now, then ever. Because after my grandmother died, an my father:

The attacks on me started again.

An this time, it I was being gaslite out in the real world.

Mostly so my younger sibling could get her hands on more of the estate then was hers. A big get even from my mother or any other family member that had a bone to pick about what happened back then. I was being outcast again. But truth is: I didn't care. I didn't want to be around that. Didn't want my children around it. An with them both gone wasn't going to be subjected to it any longer. Especially over Greed. Cause the truth is: I loved them. Not the things or the money I could acquire.

But I have been “orphaned” again, several times.

I've been attacked on the work front, the social scene, financially, as a mother. I've even been subjected to a mental hospital when I wasn't crazy but going through a breast cancer scare. Just about anything you could think of to discredit me out in the real world has been pulled. Lord knows I've tried to get along with “that side”. An it's sad, because my mother is old. I'd like to spend the last few years she has left in peace with her. But the truth is, she hasn't changed. An “that side” of the family that thinks it's okay to knock another down when they are at their weakest in the name of “helping” them isn't really a side I want to be involved with.

I love them, but I don't like them.

An I'm probably never going to if it means I have to put up with being less then I am to appease them. I don't have these problems out in the real world. Only them. Only when they become involved. It's why I moved into another career. Literally traveled out of the area to work because so much bullshit was been thrown around about me. My children can be involved with them if they want to. They are old enough to choose what they want to put up with. But I'm not going to subject myself to philological abuse because of them. I wish that side well, I hope they outgrow it. But I'm 50 years old an haven't seen much of it yet. An like always perfectly okay with keeping my distance to protect myself & embracing the world without them in it.

I'm just gonna do me =)

I think I want to write the book, just so my children understand me, my life and what I have gone through. Or so it can help others who are going through it, gone through it or trying to recover from it. So they know they are not alone. Even though when your experiencing it: It certainty does feel like it. Or that you will never get past it or over come it. You can, you will. I have. If you’ve had simlar experiences groups you might be interested in are: http://www.naasca.org/ http://www.ascasupport.org/