bio and backgroundFor the first time I feel like I'm in love with life. I love feeling the wind in my hair, the rain on my face, the feeling of air moving in and out of my lungs. I love the sky and the earth. I love learning new things, and going new places, and falling in love with people just because. For the first time I feel free. For the first time I feel happy. I can focus on my future instead of my past. I can enjoy the present. I love being alive.
I was an unexpected baby. But wanted, nonetheless. I caused a lot of trouble when I was in the womb. My mom was very sick for months. I was born on July 2, 1984 at 3:13pm. I was 3 weeks overdue. I was named Edith after my great-grandmother, and I look a lot like her.
I was 3 years old when my parents divorced each other. I remember very well the fighting, the yelling, the holes in the walls and the furniture. And of course I remember the custody battles. I became a piece of property to be fought over on weekends and holidays.
I was an only child. I played by myself and entertained myself. I liked it this way. I was the little princess, and no one stood in my way.
I was a pretty sick little girl. I was hospitalized 3 times for dehydration. All 3 times the hospital staff couldn't find my little vein, and they spent terribly long amounts of time poking around my arm with needles. I have been terrified of needles ever since. I became terrified of hospitals, and terrified every time I felt sick that I would have to go there.
My dad got married again. And divorced again. This was when I started feeling angry sometimes. My mom was very bitter from her divorce, and she talked bad about my dad and men. My dad got a divorce from his second wife, I can still remember waking up to the sound of dishes being shattered, or things being thrown around the house when they fought.
Nevertheless, I might have been unnaffected if things had righted themselves right here. But this is where things went terribly wrong.
My dad remarried for a 3rd time. My new stepsister abused me, emotionally and sexually. (There, I said it. That wasn't so hard.) She was so terribly intimidating, and my stepmother backed her up all the way. I was so scared of both of them. My dad didn't listen when I said I didn't want to go to his house, he thought I just wasn't used to having a sister for the first time.
I had to go every other weekend. On friday's I would be sick all day. I would be in tears when I had to go. If I cried in front of them they would put me down. My stepsister used to tell me I was selfish and that I didn't care about them at all. She was jealous of the attention my dad gave me and she put down everything I did. There would be times when we were alone together that she would give me these long lectures about how selfish and horrible I was, and how everyone hated me but my dad.
I had anxiety attacks every time I went to my dad's. I became obsessed with the fear that my mom would die and I would have to live with my stepmom and stepsister. My dad sent me to a psychologist for depression. I won't go on with the things that happened there, it would take all day. This whole sickening ordeal lasted six years, from the time I was 6 until I was 12. My dad had another baby, my half-sister, and I love her dearly.
Finally, things sort of blew up and I refused to go back to my dad's. I don't know what sparked it, but my dad finally divorced my stepmom. I was so happy. I was free from my tormentors.
Backtrack a few years. The summer I turned 8, I developed giardiasis. Basically, little parasites that lived in my intestines and ate all of the nutrition out of the food I ate. My growth was stunted, I became so skinny I looked like a skeleton. I had a hundred unpleasant tests, most being blood tests (remember my needle phobia) and many more unpleasant medicines. I had to drink a lot of Ensure. To this day I refuse to drink any more of that stuff. In the following years I was also diagnosed with asthma, scoliosis, and lactose intolerance. I tested positive for Cystic Fibrosis twice, before testing negative. Faulty testing devices or something.
Meanwhile, my mom and I moved closer to my Grandma. My mom met a guy and married him, and in less than a couple months after the move, I had myself a new stepdad and 2 stepsisters. Quite a leap from being an only child. I hated it, really hated it. I guess that was pretty normal. And things were ok until I was 13.
The next ordeal is an ordeal I can't write about now. Its still too fresh, it still hurts. I feel shame, and regret, and self-blame even though I know it wasn't my fault. I was abused in probably the most creative way my abuser could think of. Perfect to put the blame all on me. The only one I've ever told about it was a counselor, and she didn't do anything. Maybe she didn't believe me. Anyway, that's all I'll say about that for now, until I'm ready.
Anyway, my mom began getting very sick at about this time. She developed severe depression and bi-polar, and a lot of other inflictions that I can't spell. She had to quit her job and we had almost no income.
Things got very bad when my mom moved to my Grandma's for a year to get away from it all. She left me all alone for a long time with my stepdad and my stepsisters. I was miserable. One of my stepsisters has a lot of problems, and they basically make her behave very meanly. Everyone in the house was constantly fighting. I was always afraid of my stepdad and of his moods, we never knew when he was going to blow. I had nothing to cling to and nowhere to turn. It was such a cold, dark time in my life. I was depressed and I would cry all of the time, even at school. And no one even noticed. I couldn't handle the constant cruelty, and plain meanness that existed between every member of that household. It was turning me into a very mean, uncaring person. I was teetering on the edge of moving in with my grandma. I didn't know what to do. I went to see a counselor, but she basically just said it was up to me.
I finally couldn't take it anymore. The pressure built and built until one day when I came home and found out that my diary had been read, and accusations were being made against me based on some things I had written. I felt like that had been the ultimate betrayal of privacy. I broke down and called my grandma, sobbing, and she and my mom came and picked me up. I decided to stay at my grandma's house and not go back. Her house was a safe place, protecting me from the emotional turmoil that had been ruining me. I could almost hear the spirit of my ancestors who had lived there whispering to me that they wouldn't let anything hurt me, that they would protect me.
My mom decided she was going to move back in with her husband, and she wanted me to go with her. There was NO WAY in hell I was going back to that war-zone, I had finally found somewhere I felt safe. I was not leaving. It was a big fight. My mom blamed me for being selfish and making things difficult for her. My stepdad accused my grandma of horrible things. But in the end I stayed at my grandma's, and now my mom and my stepdad are getting a divorce.
So now it feels like for the first time my life is completely stable. I feel like I'm living in this perfect soap bubble that might burst any minute. I thank God every night for my life now and pray that it won't be temporary.
Now I'm dealing with some things I can't write on here, because I know people I know will read this and they'd make my life living hell if they knew. But it's pretty obvious, if you've seen my site. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I feel like I have a lot to offer the world but no direction. I know that all of my past ordeals have made me stronger and older than I should be. My mom says I was born old. I'm just happy to be alive right now, and I'm happy to be happy, finally.