struggle

i want you to know this. i don't know why. i realize now it won't help me. i don't want pity. not anymore. that does fuck-all. i pursued that for years, from anyone who would listen, and got it a few times. it did not give me the relief and healing i believed it would. it did nothing at all. it was meaningless. so if you feel it, don't tell me, i don't want it, don't want to know it.

the cruelty i was subjected to. and these people were not unique. you have or will have children, and you have no idea why you must teach them not to do this, but please do. don't just tell them. teach them.

i was damaged to begin with, by an evil mother who withheld love and protection, and a mentally ill abusive father who crippled me. do you remember, if you did not do it yourself, you saw it, the ones who picked out the weak and the different for their special attention? i was that one. and you did not help me.

it wasn't my fault. i have to tell myself this now. this did not happen because i was less than any of you. i was hurt already, and struggled through that as best i could, already feeling i was someone who wasn't worth loving, and this on top. it wasn't my fault. i wasn't worth less. i wasn't that i was not worth loving or liking or protecting. it wasn't my fault. i tell myself this finally, and i struggle to know it in my heart. i know it in my head. but not in my heart. because of this, i have continued to hurt myself, sabatoge myself, not worked for things i wanted, for the life i wanted and should have had. i could have flown.

i didn't fight back. i was beat up twice, i didn't even fight back for that. i just let them hit me. i was afraid. years of being attacked by my father emotionally taught me i was weak and could not win. that i deserved this abuse. i did fight back once in grade school. third grade i think. a boy always tormented me on the bus, every day. i still remember his name. vicious fucker. there were days i didn't go to school because i couldn't face it. i would cut school, put on my uniform and pretend to get on the bus, and spend the day in the woods behind my house. one night before school i sharpened my fingernails. when he started, i grabbed his arm and dug in as hard as i could. it felt so good. and the look of shock on his face was a beautiful thing. he was used to me just taking it, just being hurt. i was a shy child, quiet, afraid of nearly everything (read my blog entitled shyness is nice...). no one seriously looked into what would make me do something so out of character. i was interrogated like i was a criminal. treated like i was the guilty and wrong one. that took away all of my triumph. i believe he gloated. that was the last time i fought back. the years of the emotional abuse by these children was worse, cutting deeper, ingraining in me more deeply how repulsive i was, how worthless. the shunning, the abandonment to these torments with not one person indicating it was wrong, ever.

i know now in my head that they were far lower than i ever was. but i still can't feel it. yet.