Survival and Aftermath

Nineteen years ago on this day, when I was just barely eight years old, my mother ended her life with an impulsive and literal pull of the trigger.

November 25th, when I was younger, was a day that I missed her almost mercilessly, shedding tears every year, racked with sobs that shook my heart into my ribs, for nearly a decade. Today, the pain of not having my mom here is still ever-present-- contrary to popular belief of the uninitiated, that is not a void that can ever be completely filled-- but the pain of her loss has been very nearly replaced with the pain of all that I endured and lost in its wake.

Today, my heart aches in a way that never really stops, but I choose to reflect on where I've been and how far I have come.

I love my mom. She gave me life, she passed her magnetic and gregarious nature down to me, as well as the way my eyes crinkle when I smile. Like I said, I will always be all too aware of her absence, as those around me talk about, receive calls, draft texts, and see their own parents. I will always love her. But in this last year, I have gained a new emotion that I did not experience toward her at all in the eighteen years prior.

Anger.

Almost anyone who knows me thinks first of my strength and resilience. This is not an incorrect appraisal of Ash, but what you have observed has most likely been around 90% facade. Strength is not taking everything in stride and just being okay with it; it's only partially endurance. It's mostly an ability to feel what you feel, which I have lacked for most of my life when it comes to pain. When you have spent an enormous portion of your life fighting to survive in any aspect, you learn that emotions have to come later. You can't stop to take a breath or process what has happened when you still have to fight. You learn stoicism when your heart feels like it's surrounded by razors that on fire but you have to keep moving anyway.

I say this because what I'm about to say may come as a surprise to you.

The last nineteen years broke me.




Before you disagree, let me explain.

Before my mom died, I was a fairly happy kid. I was born into a family that was not exactly impoverished, and even after my parents split I wanted for nothing. I loved reading, Barbies, and Care Bears. I was pretty much square in the middle between a mama's girl and a daddy's girl; I adored both of my parents immensely. My dad was my best friend. I was a proud sister, head over heels in love with (if not a little jealous of) my baby sister. I was in love with everyone, and I knew that one day I would be a successful woman with a family of my own. I had anxiety issues even then, but life was swell for the most part.

When my mom committed suicide, it tore apart every single thing I had.

My sister was taken from me, adopted by my aunt and uncle and moved across the country not long after.

My dad was taken from me, scarred by what he had witnessed, guilt-ridden with his inability to prevent this tragedy, heartbroken at the loss of the love of his life and best friend, despite their divorce and her remarriage. He was replaced with a madman whose very veins seethed with rage and sadness. He gave up on him. He gave up on his life.

He gave up on me.

He wasn't there. He was haunted. I dealt with my mom's death by first trying to talk to him about it. When he rejected me, I dealt with it by sitting in my room late at night, crying my soul out to no one, screaming at God, screaming at her, screaming at my father, screaming for my broken heart. My dad never knew, as he was dead to the world when he slept. Again, I was eight years old.

He wasn't there for me in almost any way after that. He would come home, go in his room to watch TV, come out to make himself dinner, and return to his room. I sat alone, made my own food, entertained myself. Sometimes he was lighthearted and funny, my daddy again, for hours at a time. Very often, he bought me things or just handed me money. But usually he bellowed, sounding like a furious bear, told me I was worthless, stupid, unlovable, and would hit me hard enough to show me lights over such crimes as spilling water on the floor. He rarely hugged me, and for a long time, he only mumbled "I love you"s until they stopped almost completely.

I stopped doing my homework, because any time I asked him for help it was another fight, being told I was stupid, being hit, being screamed at, because I didn't know the answer (which was why I asked for help in the first place). He left responsibilities to me including sorting the mail, preparing the bills for payment, breaking up with one girlfriend, deciding if he should stay with the next, cleaning the house, moving furniture to the basement, packing his lunch, and taking his shit when he'd had a bad day at work. All of this had been well underway by the time I was twelve years old. I had to be the adult, after losing my mommy.

He told me this was what love was, that he was the only one I could ever trust, but he also told me he didn't care about me (in those words), that I was a bitch that no one would ever want to be around, and once that I didn't deserve to eat. That I was selfish and cruel. That I was lazy.

He accepted accountability for nothing. If others tried to take me for a while, he was indignant and hurt. If anyone told him to take some time off to spend with me, he said he could not take the time off and no one understood him. He preached to me at length about how little he was understood and how alone he was, never even considering just how perfectly I did understand.

My father was not a complete asshole. He was a good man with a killer work ethic who loved his daughter, and from his point of view he was doing everything he could but fighting something greater than he was. He wasn't wrong. He was destroyed by her death. We all were. No one could blame him for being wounded by what he was forced to witness, what no one would ask to see. But he still blamed himself for her death.

And I blamed myself for that and everything else.

I blamed myself for being selfish, dramatic, and attention-seeking enough to go to my daddy with the pain from the loss of my mama. For being a bad kid and a terrible daughter.

I blamed myself for the way my babysitter beat me, had me sleep on a wooden floor without blanket or pillow and fed me soggy cereal that made me gag, pulled my hair, told me I was nothing, punished me for everything her kids did, encouraging them to talk to me like a dog as well, and told me my father had murdered my mother when I was barely nine years old, which terrified me until my grandma told me she was just crazy. My father knew and did nothing, he assumed he was powerless and that it was better than me being home alone. To this day, hearing my full name, especially when paired with the last, evokes the disgust with which they spat it, always using my full name because one daughter was also named Ashley. My name still tastes like something wrong.

I blamed myself for the kids at my Catholic school, who for four years told me my mother committed suicide (I didn't know for a fact until years later), laughed at me for everything I was and mocked my pain, and for the staff that joined in, until it had gotten so bad between the bullying, my father's abuse, losing my mom, and that fucking babysitter, that I began considering suicide at eleven years old and failed a grade. I'd been an honor roll student for years, and I never got back on the bike. I was placed back into public school, and though my grades didn't exactly impress, it was at least a bit easier on me socially.

I blamed myself for all of the shit I caught for wearing clothes from Hot Topic and dyeing my hair weird colors. It was the first time in my life that I was just trying to be who I was, and my own family was disturbed enough to call me trash, to renounce me over my wardrobe, to presume that I was Pagan or Atheist and a bad kid.

I blamed myself for all of that and more, eventually developing psychologically atypical symptoms and thinking that even those were just more evidence of my inherent badness, my gross flawedness. As relationships and friendships deteriorated I blamed myself for each and every one. As I experienced more abuse at the hands of others, I presumed myself an idiot for allowing such things to happen to me over and over, decided I must deserve it as I was the common denominator. I accepted some really, genuinely horrible treatment because I didn't know better. I didn't know what I deserved, or did not deserve. Remember, love meant someone who hurts you.

I blamed myself for dropping out of high school, even though my persistent anxiety attacks and depression made it impossible for me to continue, even in a school that claimed to specialize in emotionally impaired kids. Maybe because they told me I was just fucking around. I still feel bad that my dad never got to see me graduate or finish anything.

All of these events occurred under the extensive umbrella of my father's continuing abuse. Long after he had dismissed the babysitter (over a financial disagreement, not her treatment of me), long after I reached adulthood, long after I first suspected that I could not hold a job because I am terrified of everything involved, long after I'd given up on having a normal life, his constant barrage of abuse rained down on me, with no one to take some of the heat or stick up for me. I came to believe that I was incompetent and worth nothing. Even on vacations, he would scream and hit me sometimes.

For fifteen years I endured this, until I found his body one night. He died of a heart attack in his sleep. He had been diagnosed with severe hypertension, but didn't keep up on it because who can make time for the doctor when you're working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week? Shit, who can make time for their daughter? I had come to hate him and for a while I was numb to his loss.

But then I began to understand, and I began to blame myself. He had told me if I didn't do enough, he would have a heart attack and die. For months I was crippled by the pain and loneliness he must have felt, by the guilt and shame of all I didn't do for him, flaws in logic be damned.

Realistically, I think the fact that he was still spending time with my aforementioned former babysitter, who was continuously extorting money and shopping sprees, threatening to tell my grandparents that he was a murderer, using his pain and neurosis to manipulate him, had more to do with his early demise than I did. She told him I was going to other countries to screw older men for drugs. She told me he was stalking her. Every day I heard him bellowing at her over the phone, like he did me. She wouldn't leave him alone, and he wouldn't stop her. I tried to threaten her to stay away. I told him I'd get a restraining order to keep her away from us, but he rejected me once again. He wanted me to do everything, but wouldn't let me protect my family.

Nevertheless, at 22 years old I was orphaned and had to make funeral arrangements and decisions about the disposal of remains, early in the morning, after 20 minutes of sleep post finding my father's body, with no help from the family members present. I was not left in caring hands, either. I entered into another bad round of abuse, totally alone.

At 23 I took in my sister. That didn't work out either, though I tried hard. Our relationship is nonexistent today, which kills me more than words can say, but I won't get into that. Obviously I feel loads of guilt and responsibility for all things involving her as well. Suffice to say that is part of the reason for the current state of our relationship.

At 24 I sent her back to Idaho and lost the home I had grown up in, the house I'd always come home to. Lots of horrible memories rested in those walls, but it was a place I knew. I had thrown myself under the bus for someone who didn't care, like I have too many times.

After leaving the abusive situation I was in, I spent the next year lost. Without a family, without a home, without roots to support me. I tried, and I tried hard.

At 25, I even moved across the country, attempting to give myself a fresh start. When that didn't work out, I felt absolutely defeated. In retrospect, I needed the hard reset. But upon my return, I don't think I would have made it another year without some excellent friends that had my back in probably the darkest period of my life yet. I count myself among the fortunate for the people in my life that have helped get me through. Words can't describe how grateful I am or how much I love them.

Near the end of my 25th year, I found my way home. I found pieces of myself that I had all but lost, picked myself up, began to rise back to my feet, and began to claim for my own the stability and support I needed for the chance to catch my breath and begin to understand.

This post covers some key points, but is not at all exhaustive of the events I am about to work through in therapy. I have seen some shit, experienced horrors, and I have endured instead of lived for a majority of my life, and now I have to-- and will-- face them all, after almost two decades of avoidance. I know now that this can change, that I possess the strength, faith, willpower, and fortitude to live my life. In a couple of decades, I will be able to say that the majority of my life has been lived as opposed to survived. I am sad for all that I have lost, the things that have been taken from me that have profound effects on my life today, like the ability to support myself financially. I am still haunted, still there are more days than I'd like to report where I feel the wounds full force and it feels like I've been eviscerated. That's okay; I have to. The best days are the days that I can cry.

I'd love to hold a job, build a career, earn a degree. I'm going to try, and it's going to be hard as hell. It isn't easy fighting for disability when you think you should get off your ass and get a job, but having a job is worse.

You can heal from a life like this, but never can the things you have lived through be erased. You will always have those parts that don't function quite like the same of anyone around you. The healing process is brutal, because you have to come to terms with your history and face the reality that these things were your reality.

I am still a person who is capable of love. I am still a person that believes there is good in this world. I am a person with strong values, morals, and convictions. I am patient and I am real. I am loyal and I want the best for everyone and everything. I can be happy for you, or I can be your shoulder to cry on and weep for you as well. I am not whole, but I am proud of my parts.

I never became an addict or lived on the streets, never went into a life of crime, and I never thought that I had earned the right to hurt other people because I was hurting (although I'm sure I've unintentionally hurt people, but that's a part of life). I never tried to blame anyone else for anything that happened.

From here, all I want is to try and live my life as normally as I can. A lot of people may think here, "Well, what is normal?" The only answer I can give you is, it isn't anything like this. There are pieces in the puzzle that will never be recovered. I have found love, built a family that cares and loves me in return, and rebuilt my life to the best of my ability.

Today marks almost two decades since everything went to shit. I lost my family, my self, everything I had and believed. I was abused physically, emotionally, mentally... and more. People have tried to destroy me, and it seems that life has as well.

But what has emerged from the shattered remains of a life full of promise, a life that richly afforded possibility and opportunity, is someone that proves beyond a doubt that we can survive and thrive through the worst. The only person who was there with me through every step, through every excruciating wound, was me. There are still things in my life that hurt very badly, but now I'm handling them. It still isn't easy, but I'm aware of the ball in my court now. I'm aware that I deserve respect. I'm aware that I don't have to take shit from anyone. I'm aware that I am not crazy, after years of believing it and having that belief reinforced (by people I took shit from).

Nineteen years ago today, my mother's choices propelled me into a world of pain that could have very well ended me. For that, I am finally angry with her,

Nineteen years ago today, I began kicking ass, and never stopped believing. For that, I am amazed with myself. Now I can start living.

Thank you for reading. Stay tuned.