My Story.

[Faith2Change]

As I began to write this, I have no idea where it will lead. I am still trying to understand what I've been told I'm diagnosed with. You'd figure when you are 18 you are just beginning your life and you are on your way to becoming a well adjusted adult who goes through college, get's a career, and then eventually get married and have a family. That's what I hoped for growing up. I've always known I was different from everyone. All through out school I never fit in anywhere. I moved around so much that I wasn't able to keep many friends. Sixteen schools in twelve years. And on top living with an alcoholic drug dealer father didn't help me to fit in any better, considering I could never have friends over and I was never allowed to leave and go play with friends. I new about that kind of world since I was six. I was raised to lie and keep secrets about drugs and that people who wanted you to stop were the enemy. My mother and father seperated when I was three and my mother took my little brother who was about six months old and my father had gotten me in the custody agreement. And my mother left him because of abuse. She had hoped that he would never do the same thing to his little girl, but she was so wrong.

That's where it all began. I'm not writing any of this as a sob story, but it could be taken that way, considering I was handed a ****ty deal from the beginning. As I grew I raised my father. I learned how to cook for myself by the age of seven and never had to have a babysitter. I stayed in our little one bedroom tiny apartment. My dad went through a lot of women, and i learned a little too young what sex was, considering we shared a bedroom and a bunk bed. I always prayed to the picture on my wall, that the angel would take care of me. We eventually by the time i was nine settled in a house with a woman named Tillie. She and my father dated. Of course we moved again when they broke up and I was taken to another city to a brand new school. I found myself taking care of my dad with his hangovers and times when he would get drunk and be with me. All the times he put me in his car and was drinking and smoking weed, while I sat right next to him, I'd be the one holding the steering wheel so he could take another hit. By the time I reached sixth grade we moved back in with Tillie and they were together again. My brother came out to visit at the end of my sixth grade year. Dad got really drunk and Tilllie and him got into a fight, she pushed him into a tv, so he pushed her back. My brother and I were up the street at a basketball street, my brother left for a few minutes and then came running to me and said "dad's going to jail" so I ran to the house and approached my dad as he was getting in the truck to hall ass out of there. He said I'm leaving, I can't get arrested. When the cops came I was questioned about where he might be, and I told them he'd be down by where we used to live. They caught him down there and that night plane flights were made for me and my brother to leave at six A.M. the next morning.

When we arrived in Louisiana, this was the first time I had the opportunity to live with my mother. I was twelve years old and my prayers had finally come true. What I cried myself to sleep about for years had finally happened, I had my mommy. I stayed with my mother and chose not to go back to my dad's. My mom was so excited to have me with her, she set up my entire room with Claire's accessories and a purple bed set, all ready for me. We moved to another city by the end of that summer, because the neighbor's son and I did not get along, and I was screamed at by the mother's neighbor, who was friends with my family there. So we moved to Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge was where I learned about guys, sex, drugs, and friends. It was the longest I had ever stayed in one place, three years. By fourteen I had already lost my virginity and when my mom found out she just cut me out of her life. She emotionally put up a wall towards me, and we'd go for months without a hug or an I love you. By the way, my mother had me at seventeen, not knowing she was pregnant she was on crystal meth, weed, speed, and drank all the time. She didn't know she was pregnant until four months in. I'm a very lucky person not to have turned out with any of the statistics of mother's who use while pregnant. When she put up that wall, I went straight to drugs and guys who would use me. At fifteen we moved because the area we lived was becoming very unsafe. Within one month of living in the house I'm in now, I was kicked out and sent of a plane a day after skipping school and had my boyfriend at the time over.

So then at fifteen I was back with my father, which the circumstances were no different. He would let me smoke, smoke weed, and drink, but I was never allowed to go anywhere. I got hooked on weed there. I was smoking before I went to school, when I got home, and up to the time I went to bed for months. This is where it get's bad, so be prepared. In February of 2004, one night my dad had began drinking at six in the morning, picked me up from school at six, after drama practice, and made me drive him home because he said he was too drunk and had been continuously drinking at the casino he spent the day at. Then when we arrived home he left to go sell some weed, and never came back. I drank a beer and smoked and at eleven I went to bed. He came home around 12:30 in the morning and entered my room with the intentions of getting on my computer. I asked him to leave, since I needed to be up for school at six in the morning. Then he just went over the edge and began throwing everything around in my room and before I knew it he was on top of me hitting me and screaming at me calling me a whore who would end up like my mother and that I was worthless and many more things I've blocked out. When Tillie arrived she came in the room to try to help me and get him out of there. I cried until about 4 in the morning and finally went to sleep and my dad came in at six in the morning and said you don't have to go to school if you don't want. I didn't and he didn't remember anything that happened the night before. I called my mom the next morning and she said that wasnt what she sent me there for and asked if I wanted to come back. I said yes, of course. My dad got so depressed at that point, he threatened me , that he would commit suicide if I left. By the next morning I couldnt' trust that he'd take me to the airport, so my mom's brother met up with me and took me to his house, where my father had no idea where it was. I called him that night and told him I had to leave and that I was sorry.

I flew back Sunday, and all that had happened on Wednesday. I felt so depressed and that I was in this dark black whole where no one could save me from. I took a week before getting back into school. But one thing didn't change, doing drugs. I still smoked weed. I had my birthday and in March I met the guy I am with still to this day. We got into heavy drugs by the summer. I became addicted to ecstacy and coke. We used for about six months, and usually I did ecstacy one to three times a week for six months. We quit together, realizing how much it wasn't helping our lives in October of 04. I got my life back together and was making straight A's in school and working and becomming responsible for myself. At seventeen Jarrod, my boyfriend had some issues about living at home with his parents, so I talked to my dad, who was in California, about the situation and he offered to let us come live with him and get on our feet.

That was another mistake. I put my hope out there and thought maybe this time it'll be different. Well we drove across the country and moved there, with my younger brother. My brother became the child to start being verbally abused and got addicted to weed out there. He went back to Louisiana with my mother after my graduation in summer of 06. Jarrod and I stayed, then I became the victim of the abuse again. Jarrod and I moved out and picked the wrong roomates, who got us evicted exactly one month after living there. We stayed with my father until December, when he came home so drunk and pushed me over the edge, while screaming at me how I am the reason that his life is horrible, worthless, need to get the hell out, and that I am his burden and can't do anything. This was shortly after I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I only had to stay there one more night. Then I was on the plane back here. Jarrod, my boyfriend, had to pack up all he could and send boxes and drove all the way back here right after new years.

As of now, I'm dealing with alcohol in the family again. I'm still being treated for my disorders, but now am diagnosed with bipolar type 2. I share this as my story. I am in college and am working on my associates degree in Early Childhood Development. I believe all this happened for a reason, and it's the reason I want to work with children. But I still feel the pain and sorrow for the 18 years of abuse I went through. I am not a happy person, although I try to pretend to be. I am thankful to be with my boyfriend. We just made three years two months ago and I do plan on marrying and starting a family with him. I just search for a way for the pain to go away. I started using again after I arrived here. I am two weeks and five days sober of weed. I know that drugs aren't going to take my pain away. And won't take the nightmares I experience every night away. But I'm still in search for peace that let's me enjoy life and find happiness.
I want to add to the story a little bit. At fourteen I also began cutting myself. I just went into black outs where I'd slash my arm and not even remember doing it. Also at fourteen I overdosed on pills I found under my parents sink. I took over fifty and no one knew except me, my family thought I had the flu. I am so thankful that I didn't die from that, but it's something I feel that should have been included.

[Kellie]

(((BREE)))

Thank you so much for joining our site and for so openly and beautifully (though painfully) sharing your story. It is overwhelming when they apply so many different diagnosis's and labels to our life conditions.

I look forward to getting to know you and hope that you will make yourself at home here.


Big Hugs,
Kellie

[Faith2Change]

Thank you very much. I look forward to it too.