I suppose I can confess that I have been very horny. Of course this is not easily taken care of when you just stay home alone all the time. I don't like being around people, I'm shy, I weigh too much. I don't know anyone. I live in a very small town. I don't know how I would ever find single men. But I know that there are men who would enjoy my company, if only I could hook up with them! I look on the computer. Actually, I think the computer could be a good place to meet people if more singles would use it. I have met guys on the computer before, and it's worked out OK. But mostly the men I meet on the computer are married and looking to play. I don't play with married men. Is there a point to this post? I don't know.
A Woman Alone
October 23, 2003
8:19 p.m.
Let's talk about blame and responsibility. (And by the way, I welcome and encourage your comments.)Do I blame my mother for me getting involved with Mr. Wonderful? I blame her for making me vulnerable to someone like him. She taught me that I had little value, that everything that goes wrong in the world is my fault, that sick behavior is normal. She knew I was going to leave home, I told her so, and she didn't care. In fact she made it clear that for my 18th birthday I was moving out. And very importantly, she denied me any help when I tried to get some- which was often. Mr. Wonderful was far from perfect, but he paid lots of attention to me. And he made it very clear to wifey that I was important in this family and I was treated like I was important, even though that was also a very sick family dynamic. My mother was always cold and distant and I was nothing but a troubmaker and a bother. So you see how I could fall for Mr. Wonderful pretty easily. Plus, he was a good liar, and very persistant, and rather charming. Still, I made the choice to be with him, and to stay with him, and I take responsibility for that. After the first child, I surely knew another would be coming along soon if I continued with the same behavior. I actually left when pregnant for the first, and he followed me to another state, tracked me down (I don't know how he did it), and begged me to come back, said he wanted me and our child. I believed and followed. I now know my mother is a sick woman, and was a sick woman when I was a child. How much does that excuse? I think most criminals could be rightly classified as sick individuals. Why did she even have children? Did she want children? Did she feel social pressure to marry and have children? Why did she marry a man who hated both women and children? Why did she deny me help outside of the family, if she was incapable of giving me what I needed? She was, and remains, very much in denial of the fact that she ever did anything wrong. She didn't want any outsiders looking and seeing her imperfections, that might mean she would have to face them. Better to let me suffer than to admit any imperfections in her character. And it's THAT which I really hold against her. It will be very interesting to me in 20 years to hear my own children's assessment of me and their childhoods. They have had some rough times, I have been very sick. I never denied them help, though, never blamed them, never claimed myself to be perfect. I have not been the mother I wish I was, the mother I tried very hard to be. They do think they have been quite abused (which I disagree with; hard times, yes; but abused, no), but I want to know what they think after they've grown up and had their own families and are able to see things more clearly than they can right now. Sometimes I wonder if I ever should have had children. I wouldn't have had them at all, had I not had them the way I did. I didn't choose to be pregnant when I got pregnant, I didn't want children at that time. I've been very sick and that has undoubtedly affected them permanantly, and there is the added concern of genetically passing on my mental illness. The last thing I wish for them is the depression I've suffered. But I did have them, and I did absolutely everything I could for them (beginning with the heart wrenching decision to leave their father), and that's just the way it is. I don't blame my mother for anything in my life now. That would be silly, I'm much too old to still hold her responsible for my choices. I thank God that I was finally able to get rid of my anger towards her, and the idea I'm responsible for everything bad in the world. What a huge load off of me. Sometimes I think that it's possible that I have good times in my future. What if my depression were gone? Controlled with medicines, and I didn't have to feel it anymore? My children are grown, I can go where I want to and do what I want to, I'm not tied down to anyone or anything. I'm only 39 years old. Is it possible that I have some good years headed my way?? Or is that too much to hope for? I'll tell you yet another secret... it's kind of scary, after these years of depression, and isolation, to think of NOT being depressed and isolated. SShhhh, don't tell anyone that. It's kind of dumb.
A Woman Alone
October 23, 2003
1:40 p.m.
Wow. I finally went out and bought some heaters! I hope they work well. It was costing me a ridiculous amount during the cold months to run the furnace, so I decided to try this instead this year. I also went and bought some food. I left my grocery list at home, so I just got a few things. They will last me over a week for sure. I put my jeans on today and they had a little room to spare, they had been very tight on me. I hate that. So starving has it's benefits. There was a man I dated last year. He broke up with me abruptly for a perfectly good reason. At the time things were going great between us, he was so much fun, I did things with him I had never done before and I was having a great time. And he broke up with me and wouldn't talk to me at all after that. It was hard on me because it felt like the relationship hadn't run it's course and come to a natural end. It left a big hole in my life, an empty space where our relationship had been. A couple of months ago, a year after the breakup, I found an e-mail from the last day we were together. It was all "baby, sweetie, honey..." I sent it to him and added a note saying that he hurt me and it was really hard on me the way he just stopped talking to me out of nowhere. He didn't write back, and I didn't expect him to. I don't even know if he read it. Even so, it made a difference for me. Now when I think of him, there's no pain. I had been hurting the whole time, but now I don't. It's so strange psychologically that we need some "closure" to our relationships, we need some specific ending. Why did sending that letter take away the hurt? I don't understand it, but it did. It has nothing to do with whether or not he read it, it's just me. Having sent it, then deleting it forever, somehow closed that chapter for me. There is a woman who used to be my best friend for years. Somehow we drifted apart, I don't know exactly what happened between us. It was at the time I was becomming very depressed, and could really have used a good friend, but she drifted away rather than sticking by me. After a time I called her and said that I missed her and couldn't we see each other? We had lunch and went shopping. She was so distant, it was weird. It was very uncomfortable. Sometimes at night as I lie awake I will think of her and want to write to her and tell her that she hurt me. I never have done it. Why would I do that? What would be the point? But after the experience with the man, I'm thinking maybe a letter to her would put that ghost to rest for me, also. I don't understand why she still lingers around my mind. Apparently it's the closure factor, I never had closure with that relationship. What about you all? Are there ghosts of people that linger in your mind? and how do you get rid of them?
A Woman Alone
October 22, 2003
3:58 p.m.
Sometimes, when I sit here alone, in the quiet, in the middle of the night, I can hear the house breathing. It's not scary, but it is weird.
A Woman Alone
October 22, 2003
2:38 a.m.
OK well, there I was 17 yrs old and on my own. I took off hitch-hiking around the country. I felt free and was full of hope for my future. Eventually I met a truck driver who took a liking to me. He was impressed because I refused to have sex with him. At the time, nearly all the girls hitch-hiking would have sex with the drivers as payment for a ride, or a meal or two. I wouldn't do that, and sometimes drivers would pull over and put me out when they found out I was not going to have sex with them. I was very fortunate that I was not raped.But anyway, here's Mr. Wonderful who has taken a liking to me. He begins to fill my little head with lots of crap which all sounds reasonable, and I fall for every bit of it. Turns out he has a woman that he lives with (he says she's his wife, but she isn't). So the plan is to tell her that I'm his daughter. I'm 17 and he's in his 30's so the math barely works out. I guess he was a real teen stud. Of course he got into my pants before getting me home, all that "love" talk worked it's magic on me. (I was not a virgin at the time.) I wonder if the average 17yr. old girl is as gullible as I was. I hope not. He was an older guy and he promised to take care of me and all that stuff. And he did take me home and I was with him for the next three years, so in a way he did what he said. He threw out my birth control pills, he said he couldn't get me pregnant. It wasn't long before I was pregnant. "Wifey" thought I was just a slut who didn't even know the father of her child. I don't know how she convinced herself of that since I was never allowed to go anywhere. I went with him on the truck a lot. He still picked up hitch-hikers and still fucked them, even with me sitting in the front seat. He lied about it. I knew better. At home he slept with her, obviously, in the next room from me, so I could hear them. It was all very painful for me, I loved him. Sometimes he would sneak in my room during the night and we'd mess around while she slept in the next room. That was fun. She was pretty stupid. She ended up bringing her own teenage daughter to live with them, right around the time I left, and that young lady also was pregnant before long. I left before I could know how that little drama played out. After my baby was born, I had to stay home most of the time while he was gone on his truck. Home with the wife. Not a good time. I almost left when I was pregnant for my first son, but Mr. Wonderful talked his magic love talk, and I stayed. He was an abuser beyond what I've already described. He insulted us constantly, and cut us off from the world. We weren't allowed friends. We did everything he said, immediately, no questions asked. He hit me a couple of times. I never saw him hit her, so I don't know if he did. But he acted like we were just so stupid you would wonder how we knew to wipe our own butts. Yet, I loved him. When I was pregnant for the second time, and I'd had my first child for a year, I did decide to leave. He never held the baby or was nice to him, the baby was a bothersome thing to him. He made me take the baby outside in the freezing cold on more than one occasion because he didn't feel like hearing him cry. So I would sit out in the cold and try to soothe the baby. And with another one growing in my belly, I finally woke up enough to say to myself- I am not raising my children with this man. So I did leave. And he did beg and talk the magic love talk, but this time it didn't work.
In order for me to decide to leave, I had to decide that I would rather give my children up for adoption and live in the streets than stay with him. I had no where to go and nobody to help. I had a baby and one on the way, there was no way I could work. It was a very serious decision. But I knew I wasn't going to let this man raise my children. As it turned out, my mother's sister, my aunt, and her husband agreed to take me, pregnant, and my one yr. old son in. So once again I was fortunate. I was 20 years old. These memories suck, I hate thinking about these times in my life. I realize as I write this that there are very few times I can look back on with fondness. My life has mostly been crap. Why did I stay with this lying, cheating man?? Life with him was emotional pain every single day. I was used to being treated like crap. I was young and had nowhere to go and was pregnant soon after hooking up with him. Maybe he got me pregnant to make me stay with him. I never could figure out why he purposely threw out my birth control pills, knowing full well I'd be pregnant soon after, and knowing he didn't want a baby. Hmmmm... do I blame my mother for putting me in a position of being 17 and alone in the world and accustumed to being mistreated? You bet I do. Am I wrong?
------------------------------------------------- The tuna helper the other morning was gross. I took about 3 bites and threw it away. Ick. At least I fell asleep when I went back to bed. I have not been out. I have not bought food or heaters. I have not even checked the mailbox across the street in a week and a half. Today I did take a long bath, and washed my bedsheets, so I'm looking forward to being comfortably snuggled in bed soon. I currently have yet another migraine that's been around for about three hours now. I took medicine for it an hour ago.
A Woman Alone
October 22, 2003
1:05 a.m.
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