Where: 3 Wise Monkeys, George Street.
When: 8pmish. Friday, July 29th, 2005.
Why: I turn 21, Adam's leaving for Mexico the next day, alcohol!
Bring: Yourself.
[add] My birthday is actually on Wednesday, July 27, for those playing at home. Sorry about the confusion.
Bloggers who might be making an appearance: Jerkface, Misha, Nailpolishblues, Adrian, Johnny the Horse, Glen Fuller, Spleenie, Mark, Muffin,
Please leave a comment if you might be able to make it and your name's not on the list, I'll add your name so people attending can check out your blog and see what you're all about.For the last three weeks or so, I've been having nightmares every night. They include corpses, rape, clowns, the dark, being chased, and being beaten to death. The people I love become the people I fear, and I wake up more tired than I was when I lay down to sleep. After nearly nine years of chronic nightmares, I have a feeling I know where it's all coming from.
I have not come to terms with who I was between the ages of 12-16yo. I abused friendships, relationships, and after I found out I was adopted, I was emotionally cast out of the family. It was only two days after Christmas that I made that a physical reality, and despite my rape, my life has been on a steady upswing ever since.
Contrary to what I've told certain people in my life, I lost my virginity when I was twelve years old to a man twice my age who knew better but didn't care. He knew I came from a potentially abusive home and he abused the trust I put in him. I learnt quickly that I was able to use sex as a means of manipulation, to get whatever it was that I wanted. I was overtly sexually promiscuous, and I was very NOT careful about it. In all the time I have been sexually active, I have not slept with anybody under the age of twenty.
To the best of my knowledge, NOBODY knew about my promiscuity -- they just thought I was truant and loitering around the local shopping centre or something silly, so my life was spiralling out of control and I had absolutely nobody to turn to. I degraded myself to feel wanted for a few minutes by people who didn't care. My mother thought I was a virgin when I left home. What can I say, I was a great liar. I also came to believe that promises were made to be broken, and I felt that whatever happened to me, I deserved it and brought it on myself. I suppose I still believe that to this day, but in a more positive way.
To stay out of strife with my family, I lied about nearly everything. I even lied about the little things that didn't matter, and after a few years, it was coming back on me. My fantasy blurred with reality and I was caught out on several mammoth lies, which only brought the physical and emotional abuse to a new level. I found comfort in my friends and teachers at school, but it was only a matter of time before I started lying to them, too. Eventually, I found myself feeling so detached, resentful and jealous of the simplicity they were living that I burnt my bridges there, too. I was hurting and felt it was only just that everyone around me should hurt as well.
When I left home, the first thing I did to change myself was to change the way I looked. I dressed up like some anime cartoon and hung out with the wrong people in the hopes that I would scare everyone off so I never had to be close to anybody ever again. I lost trust in everyone, and I didn't trust myself. I honestly believed that I would abuse any relationship I would have created with anybody new, because that's all I knew. I was beyond hope, and nobody gave a shit, not even me.
I was comfortable being socially uncomfortable to deal with, someone you saw walking down the street and averted your gaze so as to not look like you were staring. Children pointed, and people snickered. I thought I was happy to stay that way, but I'm glad I moved on. I still bear a few scars from my childhood up until the rape, and while I have yet to overcome the instinctual and immense self-loathing I deal with when I get to thinking, my perception of certain issues including my sexuality, my femininity, my family, my friendships, and my role as a mother, has matured immensely. I can't change who I was back then, but I can definitely learn from it.
With my birthday coming up, I'd really like to appreciate and celebrate the positive changes I've made in my life to become who I am today, shameful bits included.
To the people who know me personally, who read my blog regularly, who check in on me through email, snailmail, or on the phone... you remind me that I am loved because of everything I am, not despite it -- thank you.
After twenty-one years of feeling so out of place, I have finally found people that appreciate and understand that I have a lot of demons in my life, and while I am coming to terms with the fact that I may never resolve a handful of them, these people will help me get through the problems I go back to, rather than chastise me for the sins of my past. These people are all the family I need.
Today I sent someone very special to me a series of photobooth photos I took when I was seventeen. I freely admit that I didn't scrub up too well in it, because that was my intention at the time.
It took a while, but he finally said, 'I'm trying to figure out how to say this best... I really love the Rinna of the Present.'
I do, too.
