Some Very Personal Background

This is a hard post that I've been debating for a long time. I want to keep my blog fairly anonymous, but at the same time let me readers have some background. Yes, I post our first names and 99% of people can figure out our last name initial and possibly even a vague idea of where we live. I've talked mostly about our current lives and about our journey in trying to conceive our first child. I thought I'd talk a little bit about my past that even some of my dear friends don't even know about.

I haven't had the best life, but I've tried to make it better by any means I had and make the most out of my life. I'm not looking for pity or sympathy or anything like that. This is just something to write about myself. I've seen others do this and it helps me understand them and I thought I'd not only do it for myself, but for my readers, too. So here goes...

From the beginning, I was an accident. Plain and simple. My mom found out she was pregnant with me and they thought the right thing to do was to get married. That lasted a few years, but then my mom met F. Now, I can't be certain she was having an affair, but less than 6 months after they left my dad (and took me) to move in w/ F they married. I don't know specifics on this, but know they were married in August and my brother was born in February, but I'm not sure if she was pregnant at the wedding or if it happened the next year. All that really matters is that we are 4 years apart. You do the math. I don't remember much about my childhood except bits and pieces. I know that during the time w/ F we had a garden and I used to eat onions straight from the dirt. hee hee We also had a husky named Star that stole my babydoll and while trying to get it back I got bit. I have feelings like it was a violent household, but can't be certain. I know they were heavy into drugs and alcohol. My dad wasn't a saint either though. Anyway, they weren't married very long either before she met and married R. My sister Ashlee is only 4 years younger than my brother. And Lindsay came along 1 1/2 years after that. The marriage to R was very bad. The both drank and did drugs heavily and it was, I clearly remember, a very violent household. I remember very bad things about getting spanked so hard I had welts on my butt and back. I can remember watching my kitten get punted into the wall b/c R just didn't like it. He was very abusive to all of us kids. Why did my mom stay? Well, every time she got beat up or anything she also got something new (ie. car, tanning bed, pool talble, 4 and 3-Wheelers, and the list goes on) It was the worst time in my life and they were married 9 years. I spent many days and nights alone w/ my brother and sisters, babysitting, while mom & R were out partying or whatever.

If you think that is bad this is the story of my life that is just beyond belief. I was going through a really rough time in my life over the summer before my freshman year in HS. My dad and my stepmom had been married probably close to 10 years and she brought her daughter from a previous marriage. To make a long story short, sister K was having some health problems and in the doctors recommended my dad adopting her to help these problems. This just ripped me apart. Both of my worlds were somewhere far off away from me. I only saw my dad every other weekend already and couldn't stand this stranger anway. She had called him dad for as long as I can remember though. Anway, I retaliated and decided to ask R to adopt me. It was the worst mistake in my life. I called my dad on a Saturday before my school was supposed to start on Tuesday and told him that R was adopting me and there was nothing he could do. I completely broke his heart and it kills me to this day. The next day R took me shopping, just him and me, and he spent a shit load of money on me buying me new clothes for school. I thought everything was going to get better. Boy was I wrong!!!

One week later, a Sunday night, mom & R got into a huge fight and they each left me to babysit. We went to bed at some point. I woke up in the middle of the night to R, drunk and in my bedroom. He started by just talking to me, but ended up trying to rape me. Thankfully and who knows how, I convinced him not to and he realized what he was doing and stopped. It still haunts me to this day, in fact. I was 14 years old. Supposedly my mom dialed 911 when I was screaming, but the police didn't show up until the next morning. I went to school that day. After school we went and filed a police report and talked to child protective services or something like that. We went home that night and didn't speak a word. I got up the next morning & went to school, however when I got home, guess who was also there? Yep, she had let R return... I called my dad, who as you recall, I hadn't spoken to since I told him R was adopting me and requested he bring his truck and pick me up immediately. We never really talked about it and I guess he just assumed R was no longer adopting me. I packed my stuff up, confirmed that my mom had made her decision of him over me and left. We spoke rarely and I missed out on several years of my younger siblings lives. I was a mess after moving back in with my dad. I hated my stepmom and even more so my step sister, who did eventually get adopted. We had screaming matches, slamming doors and everything in between. I spent most of my evenings down the road at my boyfriends or really anywhere but home.

Eventually, my life got a little better and I realized it wasn't so bad at my dad's. My stepmom and I one day became very good friends and she helped me through so much in my life. I'm still not particularly fond of K, but I have accepted her into the family and do acknowledge her as my sister. I understand that her dad is worthless and respect what my dad did for her.

Anyway, I didn't talk to my mom much throughout the rest of my HS as you can imagine. She and R didn't last but less than a year maybe after I moved out. We in fact never even talked about it until recently when I brought it up and told her that what she did was wrong, but deep down I knew there was essentially nothing she could do that night and I had moved on in my life. I don't imagine she will talk about it again to me. I only found out a few years ago that my dad never really knew what had happened either. He had read about it in the paper, but no names were given and he had just assumed it was my mom and not me. He and I have still never talked about it. I discussed it with my stepmom.

I dated the same guy all 4 years of HS. The only good thing I have to say about him was that he was not violent. ha! He cheated on me and belittled me in a lot of ways. Finally after spring break my senior year I dumped him. I was about to graduate and decided I was not going down that road in my life. Well, the next few years didn't go so hot. I moved out (for about 9 months) and dated around a lot, which also means I slept w/ some of them. The good thing is that I didn't waste too much time on any of them after I realized it was going nowhere. My friends used to joke b/c they couldn't keep up with my guys, but I was finding myself I think. I had finally given up on men after dating a guy for about 9 months before getting my heart ripped out. I was dating a couple of guys just for "something to do", but was not determined to stop sleeping with any of them when I met Eric. In fact I even dated him and a another guy for about a month before decided Eric was something special. He was still is, and will always be the best thing that happened to me in my life.

I know events in my life have messed me up in a lot of ways, but it has also made me who I am today. If it wasn't for that attack I would have continued to live in that shit hole and I'm positive that I would not be where I am today. I graduated HS (my mom did not), I got an Associates & Bachelors degree (neither parents went to college), I don't work in a factory (both parents do), I own my own home (my mom will never) and I have a happy life. I went through therapy and it helped, but I still deal with it a lot b/c R is the father of both my younger sisters. It is a constant struggle that I live with almost daily. It scares me sometimes to start my own family, but I just keep telling myself that I am so much better and fully capable of raising a healthy and happy and most importantly STABLE home with my husband, kids and pets.

It feels good to write this down and know it's out there for anyone to read. I am a fighter, a survivor and am not ashamed of what happened to me. I am so proud of myself and what I've done in life in only 26 years so far! I can and WILL accomplish so much more in my lifetime.