Keep Your Imagination
I have always wondered why I have always warranted different treatment than anyone else I have encountered in life thus far. I, without exception, have always been the unwanted, expendable, unworthy person in other people’s lives. I am the one they do not mind cutting lose never to think of again. Am I that replaceable? That unoriginal? The one thing I have always searched for in others is the fight, the desire to keep me. I want to be worth it to someone, be important and loved, unique and treasured; someone you do not want to lose. This has never happened for me in my thirty eight years of existence in this lonely world. I was raised by a narcissistic, histrionic mother and a sociopathic father and was born in 1982 as the second child to this unique couple only preceded by my oldest brother whom also turns out to be sociopathic as well. I have spent my entire life trying to treat people opposite of my family and it has always come naturally to me. When I was eight years old I was in Tijuana, Mexico and I kept asking my mother for more money to buy more chiclets from these children that were selling them. My mother asked, “Why are you buying more chiclets? You already have a bunch of them.” I stated, “Those kids selling the chiclets, have you looked at their feet? They only have cardboard on their feet held on with rubber bands like a sandal, they need my money so they can get shoes.” My entire existence has been spent trying to make the world easier for people by helping in any way I can and being kind and by listening to their stories to find out how I can help or to just let them know they are not alone and their story is important to be told and heard. I want to make an impact in a positive way in this world, it is my calling I believe, an innate trait to help others. I have frequently felt like a vessel that is here solely to help others achieve happiness, acceptance and to feel cared for while my needs are non existent and unimportant. I do not mind really as I prefer to be useful in the world and to others. I have experienced significant abuse being raised by my parents and then having a cruel and aggressive brother. I have experienced physical and emotional abuse and later in life sexual assault and more emotional abuse. I also am overweight and have experienced nothing but discrimination, judgment, disgust and shame due to this. I have been treated like less of a person due to this and go frequently with my opinion or needs disregarded because I am “fat”, the most undesirable quality to have in a person, everyone’s biggest fear and what they actively work to avoid. I have been openly called names and shamed in public from 6th grade until present day. It hurts to be considered a leper and less of a person because I am overweight. This plays no role in the person I am nor what I have to offer this superficial world and the people in it. I desire two dreams in life to be loved and to be accepted for who I am just as I am. It is hard to live with any hope or purpose when the only thing I have been shown is how truly little I matter to anyone in this world. Like a ghost or garbage to be thrown away disgusted by the remains of your discards. I must ask, what have I done to deserve this treatment? I could have become my parents or my brother cruel, selfish, and fake but unfortunately I am the most real, human and genuine person you could meet and want only one thing for the people who come into my life and that is to know you matter and are valued. My life began like a perfect ceramic plate only to be thrown to the floor to shatter early in my life. Frequently, my life falls apart and I stand looking at all the broken pieces trying to figure out what can be salvaged and what just must be thrown away due to no hope for repair due to the severity of the damage. I picked myself up and have overcome social phobia, physical abuse, sexual assault, self harm, emotional abuse and rejection by the world and each time I pick up a piece to create anew I have succeeded to finally have been able to complete college with a Masters Degree four years ago. I look acceptable possibly even slightly higher than that on paper but inside my plate keeps crashing to the floor and I am running out of energy, hope, desire and purpose to salvage anything this time. It gets tiring rebuilding your life every couple of years. I have engaged in therapy, medication, attending school to attempt to improve myself and my capabilities and daily engage in a fearless moral personal inventory of my imperfections trying to continually improve myself and it finally feels like I keep falling backwards these days. I am losing the the idea of the possibility of being more than just what I am and with no one in my life I exist all alone in a bleak existence that leaves me feeling as though somewhere throughout all of my perseverance I have just failed miserably at a life kit worth living and showing up as the disappointment that everyone has always looked at and treated me as. I wish there was more for me in this cold, unforgiving world but I can say I have learned, I have experienced and I never gave up. I kept trying, trying and trying to do better and improve myself and to try and make the world a better place by doing for others. I was able to overcome social phobia and progress to working on a psychiatric unit with people struggling with mental health and addiction issues and provided support, understanding and care to people who often felt as I do and did. I performed this job for eight years and then progressed to becoming a counselor with my masters degree and running groups, making eye contact with people instead of averting my unworthy eyes to the ground hoping no one would notice me. I completed school after dropping out. I met every type of person I could experience in this world and did not judge and accepted them for who they were at face value. What I found out is that people do not always present at face value because many are hiding behind a mask of love and acceptance and understanding only to be what I have experienced in most of my relationships to be-a cruel, abusive and manipulative human in disguise. I have been used in every relationship I have been in because I never had discretion or criteria for who I would let in my life because I did not judge people and accepted them. Also, due to my past history of trauma allows for much risky and reckless behavior often times placing myself back into situations where I am likely to be traumatized again as many abuse survivors do. I found myself to be very naive and idealistic and have found that this has not served me well and the wolves smell my blood I bled nearby and came to feast on my heart and what remains of me. Throughout these experiences I was held at gun point with a loaded AK47, been in trap houses, allowed men I had never met into my home in hopes of meeting someone who would love me and accept me and all that came of this was more abuse and failure and unworthiness. Proving to me I am what they all think-garbage. I went wrong somewhere. Sometimes I wonder where and then I remember that it was the day I was born. Right now I am just trying to appreciate that I am still alive. Alone-Worthless-and barely breathing but I’m still here to tell the story. I’m alive. I wish wish so much that this was a scene from my favorite childhood movie The Neverending Story where the kid has one grain of glowing sand and was allowed to use all the boundless imagination he had to create a new Fantasia to live in that would be better than the one he had experienced. If I had my wish right now someone, anyone would be holding me wrapped up in their arms, rocking me to soothe the sobs that wrack my body and telling me it is all going to be ok because they love me and accept me just as I am.
