A Birthday Wish

The last two weeks I've been in a deep depression. I've slept 13+ hours a day, I've had dark dark thoughts, and the idea of harming myself has come to mind a few times. These depths are something I haven't seen in well over a year's time, and never have they lasted this long. At least not in the last five years. To say 2018 started out rough, would be a big understatement. Especially when I had such high hopes for this year.

No, I'm not giving up. . . Far from it. A few awful days don't ruin a whole year.

Those that are close to me have been asking the same questions they always ask when this mood sets in—why?

What's wrong?

My therapist asks the same thing, or rather she asks why I think I'm having a hard time. Analyzing your feelings and reasons for depression is. . . upsetting. . . overwhelming, and it forces you to face a lot of things you've been running from. However, these things need to be felt. The wound needs to drain the infection before they can heal, and while I spent most of my life running from the depression—the emotions: Pain, fear, shame, betrayal. For me to continue to heal, I can't run anymore. I need to feel these things, and it sucks ass!

But I'm stronger for it.

So why have I fallen into the worst depression in five+ years?

My only conclusion is that with therapy a lot of crap comes up. Memories I never wanted are coming back to me. They've been manageable the last few months, but with my birthday looming it's simply too much.

I've become flooded. Which is never a good thing for someone like me. Or anyone really. Emotional flooding is. . . Well. . . Imagine the most intense emotion you've ever had, whatever it is. Happiness, joy, grief, ect. Now let it consume you until you can't breathe—until your heart stops and you become disoriented. Up is down, down is up. Good is evil, and nothing makes any damn sense. The world stops, the world speeds forward. All you want is for it to stop—to escape the awful sensation.

That's the whole I've been in, when not sleeping.

Tomorrow is my birthday, which has been a wonderful day since I married my husband. He always makes it special, but this year the only thing on my mind is the past. Those phantom thoughts of all the birthdays I put behind me are clawing to get out. They want to be remembered—they want me to grieve all those moments where others tried to break me.

That's the heart of my depression. . . my past. . . my anger that I hold in until it comes out in sorrow and pain.

There is one birthday—one memory that is playing on repeat this January 12^th.

~My 15, it was a small event. Me, my mom, and her boyfriend, Dan. I liked Dan. He restored my faith in father figures. At this point in my life I left like the father was overrated in a family, all a child needed was their mother. This is because my mother, Dani, made me believe my father wanted nothing to do with me. ( I have since learned otherwise. Her cruelty knows no limits.)

We had a wonderful coffee chocolate cake Dani made, super rich. The kind you need a full thing a milk with. We laughed and had a good time, no gifts. I often didn't get gifts because Dani never had money to spend on gifts until after tax season. Even then the gifts were. . . “family gifts”. Nothing just for me. Not that I cared that much. I liked spending the time with Dani and Dan. I loved Dan like he was my father, and I hoped him and my mom would get married. She was less focused on me when he was around (meaning she didn't yell and neglect me when he was around).

That autumn (months after my birthday), on a Sunday, Dan sexually assaulted me while my mother slept with her head in his lap. He touched and groped my breasts pretending to be interested in my Japanese symbol necklace I got from a 25cent machine at the grocery store. He told me to keep playing the video game I was playing, and that everything would be alright. “It's all good,” I hate that phrase till this day. Within minutes he was moving to my pants and to my panties. I felt his fingers brush the waist of my underwear, and I hated that I felt excited—turned on. I wanted him to stop. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. In my mind if I sat still—if I closed my eyes and ignored it, it wouldn't happen.

It would be okay, but it wasn't.

My mother woke up, Dan stopped his assault and they both left the house. I didn't say anything, like all the other times in the past when I was sexually assaulted. But this wasn't like all those other times, the trust I placed in Dan. . . It was like a father trying to rape me, and I called my best friend for comfort.

So why does this memory come up on my birthday if it happened months after?

When I told my mother what Dan did, at first she thought I was lying. That I just wanted to ruin her happiness with her boyfriend. Then, she started to believe me and asked if he raped me—if he took my virginity.

I told her no, and this is exactly what she said. I can never forget her words.

“Thank god, I could never forgive him if he did that to you. If he took that from you.”

Let that sink in for a second.

This is where I feel shame about calling myself a sexual assault victim, because I wasn't raped. In my mind, and Dani's, it's not that bad because I wasn't raped.

From there things went mental. We were at the police station, men were surrounding me, demanding to know what happened. All that awful stuff. It was. . . There are no words for how awful it was. . . how awful it was handled. There was no compassion.

Later that night, after my mom and I returned home, the detective called and informed us Dan had been charged, but was released. He confessed to assaulting me, but at first he lied. Said he thought I wanted it, and I was 18.

It was in that moment—that second when he told that—lie betrayal cute me to the bone. I thought back to my birthday that year, how he sat there and smiled at me. I had to reevaluate every hug—every look, smile, well wish. I had to rethink everything and face the fact a man I trusted completely had lied. . . betrayed someone who admired him. My hatred for males, mainly fathers, reached a whole new level.

A few months later my mom was seeing him again, I guess she couldn't forgive him if he raped me but touching was fine. She forgave him awful fast, and restarted her relationship with him. Or rather her affair. See, this whole time Dan had a long time girlfriend.

What a wonderful birthday memory to have—a great series of thoughts. This is my world. . . My hell.

Here's the thing. I never asked to be born—I never wanted to be in this world, and Dani throwing me to her lovers (this wasn't the first time one of her boyfriends abused me). I never deserved that, and I don't deserve these memories.

The only thing I want for my birthday this year—the one thing I want to do more than anything—is to drive to Dani's house. Charge in, and rip her a new one. I want to yell, scream, and blast her for all the shit she made me live through—all the times she put herself before the welfare of her children. I want to ask her how she could let a man that sexually assaulted her daughter—a man that would have went farther had she not woken up—back into a room three doors down from his victim!

I want her to feel a fraction of the pain, betrayal. . . soul deep agony I live with every day.

I want my mom to know she's a piece of shit, but most importantly I want everyone around her to know how much of a piece of shit she is.

Because despite all this truth—this reality of past events, she thinks I'm the fucked up one. That my mind is twisted, and I don't remember things correctly. I will admit for most of my teenage life I thought just that. I honestly believed my memories were messed up, but there is one thing you can never distort or alter.

How you feel.

The emotions that boil forth when I remember these periods in time are the only honest handhold I have. They are real, true, and un-waivering. They speak the truth when my lips can't.

So while I want to see sorrow and pain in my mother's eyes as I tell her all these things, I will never get it. To this day Dani will tell you I'm overreacting. That she did nothing wrong, and was the greatest mom ever. All I want is some acknowledgment she fucked up, but she will never give me that. Because that's the woman she is.

#BirthdayWish #MothersDenial #SexualAssault #FeelingTheTruth  

~Jax