Moved my blog over to Wordpress

I moved all my blogs for sparks of the soul over to wordpress. I am not sure if that is a good idea or not. I was trying to get more traffic and have better opportunities but I cannot buy my actual domain name because someone has it registered already. I was trying to think of a different domain, maybe a shorter one but cannot come up with anything fitting. I hear wordpress is much better then blogger so I am not sure, we shall see. I am trying to stay motivated to continue to write about life and my memoir but I feel like time is eating up my soul right now. Anyways check out my blog at sparksofthesoul.wordpress.com

My mother

My mother never showed me how to be a girl, she never showed me how to be a women.

My mother never taught me how to be a good wife, she never taught me how to be a good mother.

She didn’t teach me self love, self care, or self respect.

My mother yelled at me the first time she caught me drinking at the age of five, saying it better not be her last wine cooler.

My mother didn’t even seem mad that my father was the one who allowed me to drink at such a young age.

My mother was my example, my mentor, a role model I quickly despised.

My mother was a like a porcelain doll shattered on the floor

It’s okay momma we can fix this, we can glue the pieces back together,

Broken porcelain can still turn out beautiful with the correct supplies

I became the fixer, the helper, the parent, the mother, the wife,

While still being the problem, the student, the child, the sister, the daughter.

I was going into puberty, mom never talked to me about that. Mom never told me anything about sex, or staying safe, or that some people would use their body parts to harm my body parts, some people would use their authority to harm my spirit

I wasn’t warned, only taught the take, and obey, accept, and please

Years went by and mom changed some of her ways, but being a nurturing mother wasn’t ever her thing.

I forgive her anyways, which was definitely not something I learned from her.

As I became a parent it became apparent I didn’t have a real great back ground to fall back onto

I didn’t have a motherly mother to teach me how to become the type of mother I wanted to be

My mother is self projecting her own guilt onto my parenting skills and styles.

When my daughter decided to stop eating I tried to reach out to my mom for advice

Several days went by before she even seemed to care

My mother insisted something bad happened

That could be the only explanation as to why my daughter was on a hunger strike at the age of seven.

Take her to the doctor have them do a FULL physical make sure nobody harmed her she insisted

My mother was only feeling guilty because she didn’t protect her own children.

Mom it isn’t like that, I have the safe talk at home, I ask my children questions, I know what is going on in their lives, she would tell me if someone harmed her.

But you never told me she says.

That isn’t even the point, I never told you anything, you never asked.

You never even knew I had constant stomach aches growing up.

I tell you things now about my childhood and you seem so surprised.

Like you weren’t even there..Wait…were you even there?

That’s right… my childhood wasn’t about me it was all about you how could I ever forget.

You were the victim,

You didn’t know,

It was your husband,

You did the best you could.

Never mind I was the survivor,

Never mind you ran to my father feeding him information about my puberty allowing him to be more curious then a father should have been.

Never mind he was my dad..Yeah your husband… but still my dad who harmed his own children

My dad who taught me all about sex, all about what is expected of a wife, all about anger and hate, and personal hygiene, and what looks attractive and what doesn’t, and how to drink, and how to numb away the pain,

I guess he taught you that too and I guess you taught me that this is how life goes.

Never mind I did the best could too.

My mother didn’t teach me how to change, I taught myself, I seek out help from others,

I am breaking the cycles of true dysfunction when it comes to raising children.

When my mother makes wise ass comments about how much worse things will get with my kids behaviors such as when they are teenagers I feel annoyed because I don’t believe she has any room on telling me how to raise kids when she couldn’t even raise her own.

My mother locked me out of the house and then called the cops reporting me as a run away

My mother chose getting to know a man over getting to know her own teenagers

Two out of three of her teenagers ended up teen parents

While the third ended up with an eight year prison sentence

My mother never explained the importance of education, or of building a life, or how to be independent.

My mother doesn’t know how to be independent, she has always counted on others It isn’t her fault.

My mother’s mother taught my mom the same lessons, and her mother taught her the same before that.

This gives none of them the ability on telling me how my kids will turn out, when I am clearly raising my own differently. They will not be a history repeat.

I had a major women problem and silly me attempted to ask my mother about it

Why did it even hurt that she completely brushed it aside when I knew good and damn well this is just who she is.

My mother doesn’t know how to be a mother yet she still cries in guilt for her mistakes.

Mistakes she still makes,

Mistakes that simply slip through the cracks of the broken porcelain doll

I forgive my mother because she needs it. I accept who she is because she needs that too.

I am the child parent, and I choose to not to share the details of my life with someone who can’t even seem to accept the responsibilities and details of their own life.

How do share your life with broken porcelain? You glue it, and paint it, and improvise.

I can only hope my children will feel close to me, that they can be children and I will continue to learn how to be a better parent. I will continue to learn to be a better women, I will always continue to learn better ways.

A parents medical history shouldn't effect their children.

I have learned the hard way if you are “labeled” with any sort of mental disorder on your medical records; sharing a doctor with your child and wanting to be taken seriously is a joke. Of course at the same time having these records hanging over your own head and wanting to be taken seriously is also a joke. None the less I learned my lesson on ever sharing the same doctor as my children, and this mistake will never happen again. My seven year old daughter decided she wasn’t going to eat anymore. I couldn’t figure out why, I was questioning her trying to get answers for which she told me a boy called her fat. I was so upset and so unsure how to handle this and had nobody to reach out to for support not even my own mother who also turned it into something else that it wasn’t. My frustration with my mother and her lack of motherly skills is a completely different post that you can read about here; My mother . We went to the emergency room with no real answers except she had become dehydrated. This was followed up with our family doctor who has been famous for labeling and prescribing me whatever medications she can convince me to take. My medical history hunts me and seems to follow me everywhere I go, never do doctors look at anything as circumstantial, but rather labeled as disorders that follow you for the rest of your life.

I am explaining to the doctor what is going on with my daughter and the not eating and the information I have gathered. The doctor looks at my daughter and says “okay now that I have listened to your mom go on and on about why you won’t eat, can you tell me why you won’t eat?” Then not even giving my daughter a chance to explain she starts asking her questions such as if her stomach hurts or if she hasn’t been able to poop etc. I felt brushed off and not taken very seriously. I am the mother, I know more about day to day issues that are going on and of course if a seven year old has diarrhea all day yesterday it will feel like it was for longer then a week. Just because I have anxiety listed in my medical records, just because my parents have history of depression and mental issues that have now become a part of my medical record doesn’t mean I am exaggerating what is going on with my own child. None the less I took her to a different doctor who knows nothing of my history, I got a real diagnoses for her and was taken way more seriously and she is now better and I realized at that very moment I will never again share the same doctor as my children. My circumstantial labels should never effect or jeopardize my child’s medical issues.

I am a walking piece of survival art.

A long time ago I wanted to be a nice girl, a girl who loved the world, a girl who didn’t get hurt, a girl who trusted parents, teachers, doctors, lovers and adults. I wanted to believe in the good in people and trust that no harm would ever be done to me or others. With all of that I also wanted to love, I didn’t want to cause harm, or pain, or create any type of negativity. I saw and felt the good in so many people around me, I didn’t judge and I could see the potential in even the bad people. Forgiveness, understanding, and loyalty I had, and I wore my heart on my sleeve. I was nice, too nice, I did love, I loved the world, I trusted to easily, and had way to much faith in others with the assumption that everyone had at least some good qualities. Little by little people started stealing pieces of my heart. Maybe they needed the pieces more than I did, maybe they were just borrowing the pieces to get them by. The weaker I become, the more co-dependent I grew on these people that kept stealing from me. Hurt by men I was suppose to trust, hurt by lovers who I thought were true to me, hurt by parents, by doctors, by teaches, adults and several other types of situations, I had to figure out my own way to keep from breaking with all the hurt and pain I felt. Underneath my ink covered arm are layers of a self relieving pain relievers I used as a crutch for many years. Each drop of blood that seeped out of the self inflicted cuts were the silent tears I never cried, the only way I could feel alive, the only way I had to calm myself in a panic, adrenaline and natural opiates were at the tips of the carving utensils I controlled…the only thing in my life I controlled. Each cut turned into a memory, a reminder, a story that so many didn’t even know. Years later I was constantly ashamed and unsure how to answer when others would question me about what the cuts were. They are none of your business I would think. Oh you know I fought a tiger once, or got into some gang knife fight, a car accident, a fire, I feel off a building, I pushed the garbage down and didn’t know there was glass and it sliced my arm.  I would tell these people whatever just to get them to stop asking me questions of painful times in my life I didn’t want to remember, besides why would I give a stranger a true explanation anyways? Just one more person trying to steal pieces of me rather in story form or needing to know my life or what the hell ever, it isn’t their place, but again maybe they needed the pieces of me more than I did anyways. Not to even mention the scars of the times my father used me as an ashtray to smudge out his cigarettes. These memories are mine, they are mine to share with others if I want and they are mine to lock up underneath my skin if that is what I choose to do. Life continued and I stopped creating stitched and healed over flesh pockets to bury my secrets in and I tried to forgive and move on.  Then once upon a time I trusted a man more then I should have, he wasn’t right for me and I gave him more of myself then I ever gave anyone willingly. I was used as a trophy, I was used as a filler to his cavity, a cover up to his mentality. He took and took and took from me, little by little I lost myself in the marriage and by the time our divorce was final I decided to tattoo my heart on my sleeve hanging in a noose to cover up my past scars, pain, concealed secretes and abuse as well as a reminder to myself, to never ever again allow love to be suicide. This is my story, I am a walking piece of art scars underneath ink and all. I healed, and I survived and I have visible reminders that it’s okay to be a nice girl who loves the world, but with that it’s still okay to be myself and not give anyone pieces of me that I do not want them to have. To the stranger who claims my tattoo is racist how fucking dare you!! It’s men exactly like you that destroy perfectly good human beings with your labels and judgments, but I will not let you break me down. I will never again allow anyone to break me down. Three and a half hours of crying over your most assign assumptions was a great soul cleanser and a perfectly good reminder that you are just a stranger who knows nothing about my life, you know nothing about me being a walking piece of survival art, and you know nothing of my story. For your cruel judgments and harsh labels of me I forgive you because you obviously need more love then I do.

Floating jar of a disturbing event

In my head there is a mason jar filled with one part of a disturbing event, floating in a lake. With the help of my EMDR therapist I took this situation of a comment made about my body image by a man who was suppose to be a trusting adult, and I traveled through the steps of emotions until it didn’t feel as shameful today as it has made me feel for the past 18,19, maybe even 20 years. I took the emotions, along with the stupid ass nightgown I was wearing and I shrank as small as a mouse, like in Alice In Wonderland. I scooped it all up climbing up the ladder until I reached the top of the jar, I tossed it all in and it flowed and poured and continued filling the jar like raging river during a flood season. I grew back to my normal size, placed the lid on the jar until it was tightly sealed. I tied a rope around it and walked out of my driveway into the road and down the street. I continued walking until I reached the lake where I found a tree against the waters edge. I tied off the jar and there it floats in the lake until I need to address this issue some more. Then I took my spirit to my sanctuary that I have created. A place with moss, birds, and butterflies, along with streams, flowers, and waterfalls. I danced, and played, and washed out all the negativity hanging from a vine leaning my hair into the water as the elements carried away these feelings. 

Dissociation

Dissociation, it’s a defense mechanism that I mostly have under control now days. But sometimes it hits, and most often at the most inconvenient times. One minute you are talking with someone the next you are waking up feeling like hours have passed yet the person is still in front of you talking and you never really fell asleep. You feel confused and scared. Terrified. Dissociation can come in many forms, from what I have I read it is a personality disorder with several different categories. With the information I have read I seem to struggle with the depersonalization side of things. The very first time I realized it or was rather aware of it was when I smoked pot in the back of my grandparents car. I was 14 or 15 and I didn’t understand what was going on because I had been smoking pot for years already at this point with nothing like this happening before. It was dark outside and as we drove down the highway the lights started blurring into one constant stream of lights and I felt like I was losing chunks of time as I was talking with my grandparents. I felt embarrassed and confused I didn’t know what was happening so I laid my head down and went to sleep and never thought about it again.

Then it was New Years Eve and I was celebrating with my friends, I had a couple of drinks, and smoked such a small amount of weed. I went into the kitchen to help my friend wash dishes and all of a sudden everything became black, tunnel vision I could not see anything but the floor. I was terrified and confused I had no idea what was going on. Everybody was talking and I was losing grip on their words, I was fighting to hang on to the moments, scared to let go and slip into an unknown dimension of a world I was unaware existed. That particular situation got worse, I went home and had seizures, convolutions and even memory loss over the course of the next few weeks. I went to the emergency room at one point, I had to have brain scans, test after test was done and nobody could link it to anything. All I could think was it had to be the pot, so I didn’t smoke anymore, I could never risk that again. Slowly I came out of this weird in-between world’s type dimension that I felt. For years and years I wondered what caused this reaction, was it laced, was it a traumatic thing, was in the mix of the booze and the weed, was it just anxiety from what was going on, was it PTSD from my abusive father living at my grandparents with us when he wasn’t supposed to be because of the abuse he was found guilty of in the eyes of the law? Was it the strobe lights at the party? I never really found out and every so often even when I didn’t smoke  the dissociation would creep up on me, although never quit as bad as the New Years eve time but still it could become pretty intense.

When I was 17, 18, and into adulthood I could get away with small amounts of using THC rather it be others shot gunning it to me, or if I consumed it in cookies or tea, and a few times I tried smoking. It was always hit or miss if I would slip away thought. Still it never got as bad as it did during that New Years Eve, most times I could sleep it off.  I feel like it’s a cruel and unfair joke the universe plays on me to not be able to use a natural medicine that grows on our planet in a way to help me. I struggle a lot with anxiety and pain and some strains of marijuana can help but I cannot risk the chances of increased dissociation with never knowing or not how it will effect me. I have spent years and years working out traumas to not disappear. Because even without the use of THC I would still dissociation just not as intensely I suppose, and each time it would still be as scary as ever, between that and sleep paralyses I would have to say they are the two most scariest things that happen to me. I will try and figure out what triggers it or sets it off. I will try and tell my brain to stop jumping around in time. It’s like a weird time vortex, or losing grip on the reality that I am in at that current moment. It’s hard to explain and people look at me like I am insane when I attempt to explain it. Often I will refer to it as disappearing, because that is essentially what it feels like.

The other day at work I all of a sudden realized I have gone through several customers and feel like I cannot even remember. I work in a busy retail like setting as a cashier. It hit me out of nowhere and for no reason that I could even think of. All thought sometimes my social anxiety can get bad so maybe it was related to that and my mind decided to check out I am not even sure. It felt like my skin was on fire, I felt like I was drenched in sweat, and the world I was standing in felt miles away, such as if I was standing on the ground and gazing up at a big bright moon that appeared to be exceptionally close to earth yet still too far to reach out and touch it. Everything was so far away, my customers’ voices and the co-workers standing next to me all just felt like echoes and far. I needed to get out of there, I wanted to ask to go home but my shift had barely just started. I was scared to ask to go home. I was just scared that this was happening at work, and at a new job, a job I cannot afford to lose at this time. My arms felt tingly numb like and my legs felt like they weren’t even attached to my body. Was I a robot?  Is my world melting away right around this body that I am standing in and no longer have control over? These thoughts they are mine yet they are not at the same time, is this a dream? It feels like a dream. I am scared and unsure how to react or what to do. I have done this before in a less public setting but still around other people. Onlookers don’t realize or recognize it’s happening. Can I fake my way through the day until I can get home and safely crawl under my blankets? Will they notice, maybe I will pass out thought, what if I start having seizures, it feels like I am having many under my skin and in my mind, I’m shaking and clammy and slurring my speech but nobody seems to notice, so maybe it will be okay. I am screaming at my inner sleeping self to wake up, this is real, stay here, stay in reality, stay in the present, just stop, Stop STOP!! Don’t look up, don’t make eye contact with anyone, just get through this day, come on, you have made it before just keep going, I think to my robotically controlled self. If I pass out I can never return here, the shame and embarrassment will be too much to bare. Am I moving in slow motion? They seem annoyed, maybe I am, am I not being nice or social enough, maybe my coworkers notice, maybe they will think I am just sick, please someone tell me to go home that I don’t look so well. But nobody seems to notice, I struggle hanging on to this rope to keep from falling right out of this dimension of a world. Should I let go, where will I go? I question everything in my existence, the lights dim, then they get bright again, do these people notice the fog that is in the store, the dimming of the lights then the brightness? Nobody seems to notice, it’s just me, am I going blind maybe? Is my blood sugar low, if I eat maybe it will help. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. I walk to clock out, I can’t feel my feet, I’m floating to the time clock, just go with the motions, just let the robot controlling your body guide you, it’s like pretending to be sober when you are completely drunk. But I am not drunk, I am not under the influence of anything, what if they notice thought and assume I am and I get in trouble?  Once I got home safe and buried myself under my blankets I felt a tiny bit better, and after sleeping I work up more in touch with reality. Still feeling off for a few days but nothing like the first day at work. I question myself on what happened, if I was set into an anxiety, or if there is just still too much I need to deal with. Has me been working on my writing and emotions been affecting me and how do I make that not happen again? I have so much more work to do on myself to continue my journey of healing. I hope I can figure out the emotional triggers of the dissociating and prevent it from happening.

Addicted to Anger

Growing up with dysfunction taught me a lot; from coping skills, to survival instincts as well as emotional addictions to name a few. My anger is a major struggle, not really for me but for those around me. I personally don't mind my anger, I have a very workable love hate relationship with it in fact. The problem with my anger is it hurts other people's feelings, which truthfully I never really gave a fuck about until it was my own children's feelings I hurt. Anger has been a very useful tool for me. Only the closets in my life get to be the brunt of all my hate and rage. Pure true raw fuck you and fuck the world, I'll slit your throat with my words type of hate. The type of  hate that so quickly comes over me like a junkie who just got her next fix, with one less interventionist standing in my way, because this hateful rage is my tool to kick people out of my life. You see...I feel very passionate about my anger as I've always been able to use it in such a way to help me create words, to express emotion, to change, adapt, evolve, and even to protect myself. Of course with that I've also gotten to points in my life where I've felt completely and insanely out of control with my anger and I'll admit I didn't want to feel angry anymore. Yet like an addict I'll still reach for information to piss me off just enough that I can feel justified for my cruel and hatful words just to watch someone I feel hurt by breaking a little inside, to hurt just as they hurt me if not more. Why do I do this? Because I'm fucked up! Because I'm addicted to anger, addicted to pain, addicted to emotion in its purest forms. Yes my mother taught me not to say anything if I didn't have anything nice to say. At the same time my father taught me that daddies aren't always so nice to their children. When you're a child trying to survive you don’t always have choices. You have no control. You're stuck in limbo trying to plan your escape. Every person has a different method that works for them. For me I wrote my way right out of insanity... Or so I thought. Well kind of in some ways I suppose. I spent years and years writing my feelings, well mostly all about my anger and hate for everyone and the whole world. By the time I was able to regain my own independence and control I was actually controlled by this emotion that those people with those fancy college degrees like to call "just a secondary emotion" yeah uuuhh huh..”fuck you and your stupid degrees” is all I ever thought. They don't know me or how I feel! None the less I spent years stewing on ways to word things in such hurtful cruel ways I'd be sure to protect myself when I was able and needed to. So off into destruction of all man kind in the literal since that “men hurt women and I'll hurt them back’ mind set I stomped right into. But you see, right behind my cover of cold icy pent up rage was my loving, warm side. I realized quickly they were at war and I had a major conflict living inside my soul. 

Going into my teen years my anger was constantly labeled as psychological disorders, left and right medications were tossed at me. In counseling they would try and teach me to figure out where in my body I felt angry. To look for the signs on and on but these methods never worked. I went from calm to pissed within seconds, to quickly to catch any warning signs. My anger gets me high, a type of high I cannot explain. I tend to float away so to speak, or detach myself from feelings of a conscience to feel sad or bad for my rage or the nasty words I'm about to spew all over the place. “I have control now” I’d think, “I don't have to take this shit from anyone”. So I got with men who treated me bad because I thought it's what I deserved and I'd teach them! I'd destroy them with my hate. Of course that was never my first intentions, just my second one after they would hurt me. All of this in some type of subconscious coping mechanism I taught myself long ago. This all backfired of course, and I was left with nothing but failure after failure, guilt, and shame for all the damage I caused on the ones I loved. What was I teaching my children? Nothing good was really coming out of my anger when I used it in a way to attack those who hurt me.

I would be lying if I said I am cured from all anger, or even half of the anger I felt. I still am very much an angry person, and I still feel extremely passionate about my anger, with the love hate feelings going on all around it. I still get a rush so to speak when I’m angry. Sometimes I can use the emotional high in a creative constructive way, other times I still have no control and I take it out on those who don’t necessarily deserve it. While other times I can still use it as a protective tool to kick people out of my life and most of the time I am okay with that. I am still working out the wars inside my soul. I see an EMDR specialist counselor who has been helping me work through my anger. The first session that we addressed anger in I had to pick an image of some sort that wasn’t me or directly connected to me that represent anger. I picked the animated Tasmanian devil. I had a buzzer in each hand and my counselor timed the machine causing each buzzer to buzz opposite of each other like a clock; tick tock, tick tock, kind of deal. It helped me to close my eyes, and she said “okay just notice your image” and I could imagine Taz destroying things, yelling, spinning around like he does on the cartoon. After so long she stopped the buzzers and said okay now what do you notice, I told her. Okay good she said, now just notice that, and I realized after so many times of stopping the buzzers and taking a deep breath Taz would change in my imagination. He went from angry, to a little less angry, to sad, and confused, and even lonely, to angry again, to hurt, then confident, and peacefully walking down the trail whistling and hearing the birds sing. It was extremely bazaar to feel the emotions change and evolve. For the following weeks I noticed a difference in what was small triggers to set off my anger didn’t seem to matter anymore and it felt easier to just let it roll off my shoulders. All thought I have so much more work and improvements to make, I feel grateful for this opportunity to learn a better way to aim my anger so it isn’t hurtful to those around me.