Have you ever listened to a song or heard a poem, watched a movie or seen a picture and it brings up a whole bunch of emotions, memories, thoughts, and just a sense of being overwhelmed?! Well, recently this happened to me.
My husband and I were driving in the car when he decided to put on our wedding album! (super cute I know!) Anyways, we were flipping through the songs when the song "I loved her first" By: Heartland came on. This is the song I danced with my (adopted) dad at my wedding. And listening to the song I got so many emotions and thought through my head. I realized a lot of things in that moment...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDeV3GHDlgQ
(the link to the song on YouTube. Lyrical version)
The first thing that came to my mind was how I didn't have what the song talks about growing up. I never had a dad that read fairy tales to me or tucked me into bed. I never felt the love of a father growing up. I didn't have any of that and it made me so happy to know that my kids have that. They have a dad that kisses them goodnight and plays on the floor with them. He reads to them and plays games with them. He says he loves them often. Our kids run up to the door when he gets home yelling "DADDY!!" And it's so amazing to see the love a kid can have for a dad at such a young age and a dad for their child!
However, This also reminded me how although I didn't have all this has a kid growing up, I did have this has a 16-year-old and older. I had a mom and dad that wanted me. That checked on me. That spent time with me. They said "I love you" often. They were there for me when I was in treatment and a total mess. I then realized that I had never thanked my dad.
You see some girls don't have a dad at their wedding. No one to walk them down the aisle. To dance with them for the father-daughter dance. Some girls don't have that for whatever reason.. but I DID! I had a dad to walk me down the aisle. A dad to dance with me at my wedding. A dad that is now grandpa to my kids. I might not have had a dad growing up. But I had one at my wedding and I still have one in my life today. And I never once thanked him.
So I did! The moment we got home I went to my room and called my dad. I called him to tell him that I love him. That I am so grateful that he is my dad, that he is here for me, that he danced with me at my wedding. I thanked him for everything he has done for me. I also said sorry for all the wrongs I have done. He said he was proud of the women I had become and that I have no idea how much he appreciates hearing me say all that I said. I could tell that he was choked up and that It meant a lot to him to get that phone call. But what he doesn't know.. Is that it meant more to me to make that long overdue phone call!!
We have had our problems and our fights Even went through a whole year of not talking to each other. But in the end, he is my dad. He is here for me. And I was so selfish and stubborn that I didn't see it.
I didn't see that the one thing I always wanted as a kid was here the whole time as an adult! I had a dad. I had a family, My kids have a dad. They have grandparents. And I have taken it all for granted.
I am so grateful that my daughter and son have someone to call daddy. To tuck them into bed at night. To tell them that they are perfect the way they are and that He loves them more than anything in this world.
Sometimes all it takes is one song, one picture, or one memory to change how you treat others. To appreciate the things and people you have taken or do take for granted. To change you!!
MY DAD IS MY HERO
THANK YOU, DAD, FOR ALL YOU DO AND HAVE DONE!
I LOVE YOU!
Monday, July 13, 2015
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
In One Year....
In one year my life can either completely change or not change much at all. But I guess that depends on how I handle everything!
On March 5th of 2016 (in one year!) one of my abusers is up for parole. I am angry, outraged, worried, torn, but mostly terrified and scared. My biological mom is up for parole after only 5 years! She took away a decade of my life and more.
She is a child abuser. She raped, sexually assaulted, beat, starved, and destroyed me. She took more than just years from my life. She took away my childhood, my trust, my commitment. She has made me fearful and doubtful. She is a child abuser and I believe that child abusers should never be released especially in a world full of children!
I am so terrified but not for me, but for my kids. I am scared that if she gets out on parole that she might want to get revenge. I'm scared that she may take one of my kids from school or a grocery store. She is defiantly not one to go quietly. She found a way to manipulate the system to draw out the trial for 4 years by changing lawyers constantly. She smiled in her mug shot picture, and she never even said sorry. She lied about what happened, she denied it, and only pleaded guilty when they reduced her charges for you to plead guilty.
I read some of the articles that were printed out to read other people describe what I went through, what my siblings went through, is just heartbreaking! The way others described it, how they perceived it...
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/convicted-sex-offender-gets-up-to-years-in-prison/article_95e0e32b-2319-59f2-abd1-01cbd7ad75c6.html
On March 5th of 2016 (in one year!) one of my abusers is up for parole. I am angry, outraged, worried, torn, but mostly terrified and scared. My biological mom is up for parole after only 5 years! She took away a decade of my life and more.
She is a child abuser. She raped, sexually assaulted, beat, starved, and destroyed me. She took more than just years from my life. She took away my childhood, my trust, my commitment. She has made me fearful and doubtful. She is a child abuser and I believe that child abusers should never be released especially in a world full of children!
I am so terrified but not for me, but for my kids. I am scared that if she gets out on parole that she might want to get revenge. I'm scared that she may take one of my kids from school or a grocery store. She is defiantly not one to go quietly. She found a way to manipulate the system to draw out the trial for 4 years by changing lawyers constantly. She smiled in her mug shot picture, and she never even said sorry. She lied about what happened, she denied it, and only pleaded guilty when they reduced her charges for you to plead guilty.
I read some of the articles that were printed out to read other people describe what I went through, what my siblings went through, is just heartbreaking! The way others described it, how they perceived it...
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/convicted-sex-offender-gets-up-to-years-in-prison/article_95e0e32b-2319-59f2-abd1-01cbd7ad75c6.html
"It reads like an X-rated movie," Johnson said.
"The acts that were perpetrated against these children are beyond belief," she said. (Laycock)
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/woman-headed-to-prison-for-child-sex-abuse/article_da890314-16eb-5d73-9af5-3ddba5e0df8a.html
Johnson said Currie had allowed two other men to abuse the children before she married James, and described her behavior as cruel and depraved.
"She truly ran a house of horrors with these children," he said.
Before pronouncing the sentence, Laycock disagreed with the defense, stating that the abuse had been truly terrible.
"These children have been abused and sexualized in ways that no one can understand," she said.
To read these and read what they said is sad but it honestly didn't feel like anything else! They have affected me from childhood to adulthood. Why the hell should they only get 5 years in prison only to be released? To breath fresh air when they took mine way. To have freedom which they so cruelly deprived me of. To eat fresh food when they would starve me and deny me food?! I believe people can change, but I do not believe that child abusers especially sexual child abusers should ever be let out. Treatment or not they took advantage of a child. A defenseless, vulnerable child and they destroy them simply because they can. It's disgusting. I have kids and I need to make sure they are safe. If my abusers are let out, am I safe? Are my kids safe? In one year nothing can change, or everything can change. I will take precautions if my abusers are let out, I will do all in my power to keep my kids, to keep my family safe. I will not let what they did to me in the past affect how far I have come to be who I am today. I hope in one year, I can attend the parole hearing... I hope that I can have a say. I might be a survivor of terrible abuse but I am their victim. And I hope I will have a say or a voice in how their decisions affected me. And how they still affect me today!
Friday, January 23, 2015
Inside My Own Depression
Darkness, emptiness, loneliness, despair! Fear of people, fear of light, fear of seeing, fear of believing, fear of living! He is one thing we all suffer from at one point or another. He haunts us. He surrounds us. He is there when we are sleeping. Even more when we're awake. He takes a hold of us. The more you struggle, the tighter the cuffs become. Chained to the ground, nowhere to go. Locked in a dark room, all alone and scared. He feeds us through a slit in the door, controlling what and who comes and goes. He controls us. He feeds off of our fear. He breaths in our tears. He is depression!
Depression is a bastard. He's the devil in disguise. Depression is the one thing I fear more than anything and face with all the bravery in the world. Depression was my friend. He accompanied me when I would hang out with my friends Mr. Weed and Dr. Vodka. He was there when I met my friend Sr. Meth and he was there when I would have nightly routines with my the one guy I could always count on, De' Razor. Depression was the one thing that kept me together as a kid, a teenager, and even as an adult.
Depression is a scar I will never get rid off. No therapist will help and no medication will treat. Depression is the one thing that was consistent in my life. He was my best friend when everyone else was gone. When my back was stabbed by my lovers or friends. When Mr. Weed ran out or De' Razor was too dull.
What is depression?! Well to me depression comes in many forms and intensities. When I was a kid depression was when I would be hit and learned to no longer feel anything at all. You could hit me over and over again and no tear would fall. No fear came. I learned to go deep into what wasn't real. I learned to let what was happening to disappear and fall deep and deeper into his world. I let the darkness take over. I would then be alone with Depression. I would talk to him, listen to him in my head, and would just get through the day and the abuse that I knew would follow.
As a teenager, it was constantly being in and out of foster homes and treatment centers. It got to the point that I wouldn't unpack my bags. I'd pull a few things out but the rest, the rest would stay in the bags I came with. I wouldn't stay long. No one wanted me. I would be gone in a month or so at the most. And the homes where I did stay long came with their own troubles from other foster kids, or even their own kids. I would fall back into the world of depression when I had to pack my bags and move again. When they would sneak into my room at night, cover my mouth, and tell me to be quiet.
It came when I did drugs, drank, or cut. It was there when I attempted suicide. Depression was a constant friend during my teenage years. I feared him, I hated how he made feel, but I loved what he didn't make me feel and live through. For the longest time, I never had to deal with the rape(s) I went through or the abuse as a kid. I didn't have to deal with knowing that the one person I was supposed to count on raped me night after night all because she married the stepdad. I didn't have to put emotion to the men that came and went or the babysitters that would come, abuse and go.
Now, today, Depression isn't my friend. He hides away what I'm really feeling. He makes me distant from my husband and kids. He tries and tries to pull me back in. To show me what it uses to be like back a few years ago. I see him in the shadows of stomach folds when I look at my body naked in the mirror or in the outer edges of my stretch marks all over my stomach. I see him in the apartment I live in when it's dark and quiet. I see him in the bank account that is followed by a dollar sign and zero. I see him when I look in my closet and see the 4 shirts that fit and the pants that are too small. I see him when I go shopping and break down in tears because I'm odd shaped and nothing fits me right.
Depression is a friend that I don't want back in my life. I struggled with him my whole life and I know that I will always struggle with him. How do I keep him contained today? Easy... I think of how far I have come as a person and in my life. I have two amazing kids, a great husband, and I've got what I need to survive and live. I've learned to look at what I have and not what I want. I focus on the good and deal with the bad as it comes. I've learned to deal with the struggles that life throws at me. I no longer run and hide. I no longer wish for death or meth. And I will no longer let the darkness of Depressions chains surround me. I am me and I am who I am.
Depression is a bastard. He's the devil in disguise. Depression is the one thing I fear more than anything and face with all the bravery in the world. Depression was my friend. He accompanied me when I would hang out with my friends Mr. Weed and Dr. Vodka. He was there when I met my friend Sr. Meth and he was there when I would have nightly routines with my the one guy I could always count on, De' Razor. Depression was the one thing that kept me together as a kid, a teenager, and even as an adult.
Depression is a scar I will never get rid off. No therapist will help and no medication will treat. Depression is the one thing that was consistent in my life. He was my best friend when everyone else was gone. When my back was stabbed by my lovers or friends. When Mr. Weed ran out or De' Razor was too dull.
What is depression?! Well to me depression comes in many forms and intensities. When I was a kid depression was when I would be hit and learned to no longer feel anything at all. You could hit me over and over again and no tear would fall. No fear came. I learned to go deep into what wasn't real. I learned to let what was happening to disappear and fall deep and deeper into his world. I let the darkness take over. I would then be alone with Depression. I would talk to him, listen to him in my head, and would just get through the day and the abuse that I knew would follow.
As a teenager, it was constantly being in and out of foster homes and treatment centers. It got to the point that I wouldn't unpack my bags. I'd pull a few things out but the rest, the rest would stay in the bags I came with. I wouldn't stay long. No one wanted me. I would be gone in a month or so at the most. And the homes where I did stay long came with their own troubles from other foster kids, or even their own kids. I would fall back into the world of depression when I had to pack my bags and move again. When they would sneak into my room at night, cover my mouth, and tell me to be quiet.
It came when I did drugs, drank, or cut. It was there when I attempted suicide. Depression was a constant friend during my teenage years. I feared him, I hated how he made feel, but I loved what he didn't make me feel and live through. For the longest time, I never had to deal with the rape(s) I went through or the abuse as a kid. I didn't have to deal with knowing that the one person I was supposed to count on raped me night after night all because she married the stepdad. I didn't have to put emotion to the men that came and went or the babysitters that would come, abuse and go.
Now, today, Depression isn't my friend. He hides away what I'm really feeling. He makes me distant from my husband and kids. He tries and tries to pull me back in. To show me what it uses to be like back a few years ago. I see him in the shadows of stomach folds when I look at my body naked in the mirror or in the outer edges of my stretch marks all over my stomach. I see him in the apartment I live in when it's dark and quiet. I see him in the bank account that is followed by a dollar sign and zero. I see him when I look in my closet and see the 4 shirts that fit and the pants that are too small. I see him when I go shopping and break down in tears because I'm odd shaped and nothing fits me right.
Depression is a friend that I don't want back in my life. I struggled with him my whole life and I know that I will always struggle with him. How do I keep him contained today? Easy... I think of how far I have come as a person and in my life. I have two amazing kids, a great husband, and I've got what I need to survive and live. I've learned to look at what I have and not what I want. I focus on the good and deal with the bad as it comes. I've learned to deal with the struggles that life throws at me. I no longer run and hide. I no longer wish for death or meth. And I will no longer let the darkness of Depressions chains surround me. I am me and I am who I am.
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