Shame

I feel:: dirty
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Blue October~Conversation Via Radio

1985. I was 15. My dad had just discovered my new smoking habit. He found my cigarette pack in my room and flushed them all down the toilet. Angry was not the word for what I was at that moment. I was incensed that he would go into my room and pilfer through my things. It was an invasion of privacy and I hated it. What was funny about the fights that my dad and I had was that there were never many words spoken. He would tell me what to do or what not to do and I would comply, but with a growing rage inside of me. I realize that most all teenagers experience this, but my rage was a bit different. I didn't know why at the time. I just knew that I got so angry sometimes. I had no outlet because in my dad's house the showing of any emotion was verboten. So, I cut myself; I burned myself; I held Satanic rituals in my bathroom; I did drugs; I drank; I smoked; I was promiscuous; I even dated a drug dealer; I stopped eating; I threw up what food I did eat; I constantly pulled skin off my face and other parts of my body. So, on that day when my dad flushed my cigarettes down the toilet, I quietly turned and started to walk towards the door. I had in my mind that I was going to walk down to the corner gas station ( At that time it was a Citgo, I think.) and buy another pack of cigarettes. If he flushed those, then I would just go back and buy more and more until he realized that I was going to do what I wanted to do no matter what he said or did. On my way out, he yelled at me from the hallway,"Where do you think you're going?" I said calmly,"I'm going to buy more cigarettes." He replied,"Like hell you are!" Challenged, I raised my eyebrow and threatened,"Oh yeah? Watch me." I turned, went through the door, slamming it behind me and walked down the street in a silent rage. I always think when I'm faced with confrontations that I could have handled them better. I think things like,"I should have said..." or "I should have done..." I always seem to just shrink into my shell during stressful confrontations. My walk to and from the Citgo was filled with these thoughts and what I would say to dad when he saw that I had indeed bought another pack of smokes. I walked in the house. He was sitting in his recliner in the living room. I had a pack of Marlboro reds in my hand. He saw them and demanded,"Give those to me now!" I said,"No." Getting angrier, he said again with more force,"Give those goddamn cigarettes to me now!" Finally, I raised my voice and yelled,"Why don't you take them from me?!" He rushed at me, his hands out to grab my throat. I managed to get by him somehow and I ran for my room. I was going to lock the door, but he was too quick for me. I tried to push against him to get the door closed to no avail. He pushed his way in and went for my throat again. This time, he got a grip and threw me into my dresser. My back hit the dresser first, then my head snapped back and hit the mirror. The mirror shattered into a million little pieces. I fell to the floor beside my bed. I didn't know what was happening for a few minutes. Suddenly, I realized that my dad was sitting on top of me. He had his hands around my neck and he was leaning on me, choking me. I couldn't move. I tried to kick him off of me, but I couldn't. I couldn't breathe. I started to get really dizzy and everything was going black. I guess my dad realized that I was about to pass out because all of the sudden, I could breathe again. He was moving to get off me and I pulled my leg up through his legs and kicked him hard in the exact place where he had stitches from a recent hiernia operation. He doubled over in pain, grimacing and cursing. I saw my chance and pulled myself off the floor while he was holding his stomach and ran out of the house. I took off through the bushes in the back yard and made my way to the street behind our house. I was intending to go to my friend, Tara's. Her mother was a school counselor and I figured I could talk to her. I hadn't made it even halfway there when a car pulled up behind me going really slow. I turned to see that it was my dad. He followed me for a little while, but then, abruptly turned off on a side street and disappeared. I made it to Tara's house and all of the emotion I had been holding in burst out of me. I was angry, sad, and furious all at the same time. I could barely talk, not only because I was so emotional, but also because of the pressure my dad had put on my throat. My voice came out all raspy sounding. I managed to get the story out in between coughs and through tears and hiccups. Tara's mother immediately called the local child protection agency office. A woman came to pick me up about thirty minutes later and took me to a dingy office. There, she called my dad, who showed up looking like he had no idea why he was called there. The child protection agency lady asked my dad if he knew anything about what I had told her. He denied everything. When asked about the burgeoning bruises on my neck, he said he knew nothing about that. He said my boyfriend had probably done it to me. I listened to all of his drivel with mounting anger. At the end of the conversation with my dad, the lady turned to me and asked me if I would like to be put into foster care. That prospect scared me more than going home with dad. My head fell and I talked to the floor as I told her that I didn't want to go into foster care. She said,"That's what I thought." My dad took hold of my arm and guided me outside to the car. I got in. He got in. We drove home. On the drive there was complete silence. When we got to the house, there was complete silence. I went to my room and turned on some music so I could drown myself in it. I sat in my room all night. My anger and rage seeped into my heart and I held onto it as if it was some sort of precious jewel. I don't know what I was thinking actually, but sometime in the middle of the night after dad had been asleep for a few hours, I walked down the dark hallway towards his room. When I got to the door of his bedroom, I dropped to my knees and crawled to his bedside. Every breath I took sounded like it echoed off the walls. My heart sounded like a drum in my chest and I was sure he would hear it and wake up. My skin was prickly with goose bumps and slimy with sweat. I stood up and looked down on him sleeping. I knew that he kept a gun underneath the pillow that he didn't sleep on. It was a .357 Magnum. I had played with it as a child. He had showed me how to take it apart, clean it and put it back together. I used to take the bullets out and practice pulling the trigger while looking at myself in the mirror. I remember being a little girl and trying to pull the trigger with one finger. I couldn't, so I would use both index fingers to pull the trigger until it clicked. As I stood over my sleeping father that night, an arm that was not my arm reached for the gun under his pillow. A hand that was not my hand picked it up. I held it there in the darkness, my hands shaking. My whole body was shaking. I hated my dad in that moment. I hated him so much, that I wanted him dead, but I couldn't pull the trigger. I just stood there sweating and shaking. Thoughts of juvi and prison raced through my mind. Thoughts of what my dad's head would look like if I pulled the trigger made my already churning stomach threaten to give up its contents right then and there. It seems like I stood there forever. Eventually, I put the gun back underneath the pillow and crawled out of his room back to the hallway. I walked to my room numbly. I fell into my bed and just lay there for the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, thinking nothing. I think my brain just switched off. I didn't feel like I was in my body. Morning came and I had to go to school. I had to act like everything was alright. My dad and I have never spoken about that choking incident. He has tried to choke me a few other times.

This is the first time I've remembered this incident. It's been buried for a long time. As I sit and think about this now, this memory seems very unreal. I feel my mind turning off again. I'm losing my focus. Is this a defense mechanism? I feel pretty shaky and nauseous. I feel so ashamed.

My therapist said this would be good for me.

I feel:: awake

She said that I should do more art; more work with fractals so I have. Here's the results:

Baby Phoenix


Black Eyes


Black Eyes Blue


Shell Heart 1


Shell Heart 2


Mandala




I keep having this partial memory of the house my grandparents lived in on King's Row Drive. I remember the downstairs den and how the staircase was so narrow. I also remember looking up at the velvet Elvis picture. I asked my dad today how old I was when they lived there and he said that it was before my mom and him got divorced, so it had to be before 1974. He said I was about 3 or so. I'm thinking it was in that house where the abuse started. I must have concentrated on the velvet Elvis to keep my mind occupied while other things were going on. My body is reacting weird to this memory. I've been shaking alot and right now, I have a headache that is so bad I feel like I want to vomit. I'm supposed to go to church this morning, but seeing as it is now 3.20am and my headache is still so bad, I don't know if I'll be going. That's another Sunday that I didn't get to go. Last Sunday, it was because of the muscle I pulled in my back. What else? I really want to see my old friends especially now that I have agreed with God not to hold anything against them from the past. It seems like now that I have forgiven them, there are all these things preventing me from seeing them. I'm frustrated and that is not helping my headache any at all.

Mea Culpa?

I feel:: angry
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Sixpence None The Richer~Melody of You

I don't have the words. I've been acting like everything is alright all day. It's not. I feel like a hypocrite and a liar. I can't even tell when abuse is being inflicted on me. I fucking hate drama. I can't even tell the whole story here either, that's what is eating me up. I can't talk to anyone about it. I was supposed to hang out with Tanya tonight. We were going to go see some bands. She said she would call me, but no call. I'm trying to do some art to take my mind off of everything, but it's not working. I feel trapped and I fucking hate it.

Agony of Stillness

I feel:: anxious
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Cornflake Girl

I find myself feeling frustrated again. Like there is something I'm supposed to understand or see that I'm not getting. I've been this way before and I went so long with it that I wound up feeling like a failure. That had long-term consequences. I guess I should just relax and let things happen as they happen. I just want to find some answers so badly. Maybe there are none. That thought scares me. I've been restless all day and I tried to read Scripture earlier. I read 1 Timothy, 1 John and part of John. I got frustrated and quit. After that, I tried putting laundry away and watching tv, but I keep on thinking that I should be reading. Maybe I'm OCDing. I'm just so restless, but yet I don't really want to leave the house. I probably should though. It would make me feel better to take my mind off of everything. I love to brood. It's what I'm comfortable with. It's hard to change because change is scary. It's easier just to slip back into old habits. I am stuck in a movingnonmovement. I hate this feeling. I like for everything to be certain. I guess that's me wanting to control things. I know that nothing is certain and everything is mutable, but I reach out my hand and try to make it into what I want it to be. What is wrong with me?
I had a dream last night that I was driving in my car and saw my friend Libby in another car. I waved to her, but she didn't recognize me, so I rolled down my window and yelled to her to follow me. We pulled into this little park with swings, a seesaw and a jungle gym. We hugged and started talking. Then I looked up and my breath caught in my chest. There was this huge funnel cloud approaching us. The wind was lashing the trees and there was hail the size of golf balls. We clung to each other and tried to outrun it, but we couldn't. We made a decision to try to make it back to our cars. We did and drove off in opposite directions. I was so scared and panicked. I couldn't drive my car straight because of the wind. I kept swerving all over the road. The funnel cloud kept following me, never overtaking me, but just close enough to freak me out. I'm deathly scared of tornadoes.

I feel like my memories are trying to overtake me. My heart is aching and I don't know what to do. I'm thinking now about the time my mother caught me eating ice cream after school. Backing up a bit, she had gone on the Pritikin Diet back in the late 70's/early 80's. It's a very restrictive diet. The end all-be all of macrobiotic diets. I think I was about 10 when she decided to do this. Well, she thought I was too fat, so she insisted that I join her in it. (I don't think any child should be made to diet. It gives them a bad self-image. I wasn't fat anyway, I was just a normal kid with normal kid baby fat.) After about a week of this, I was starving. I came home from school one afternoon and she wasn't there. She hadn't gotten home from work yet. I was so hungry that I grabbed the first thing I saw in the freezer, which was the half-gallon ice cream box. I scooped up a bowl full and sat down at the dining room table to eat it. When I was about halfway through, my mother walked in the door. She saw me at once and got this look of utter disgust on her face. She put down her purse on the sofa and walked over to me. My heart was in my throat at this point. I didn't know what she was going to do. She started pinching me on my arms and face and in a child-like singsong she taunted,"Fatty, fatty, fatty. Want some more ice cream?" She picked up the bowl and shoved it in my face. I started to move to get away from her. I was thinking I would go to my room, but she grabbed me by my shoulders and kept singing that damn little ditty. She was pinching me on my stomach, breasts and bottom.(I did have breasts at ten. I was an early bloomer.) I finally wrangled myself away from her and ran to the bathroom where I at once locked the door. I stood there looking at myself in the mirror of the medicine cabinet with her words echoing through my mind. I started to cry. Then, I heard a male voice. I knew it had to be her cop boyfriend, Truly. I listened through the door and heard her tell him what had just happened. I heard the clink of ice as they were making drinks and heard their derisive laughter. (Truly had tried to feel me up the week before. I told my mother, but she didn't believe me.) I felt so afraid and so unloved. I felt like I wasn't even a person. I went to the toilet, bent over it, stuck my fingers down my throat and vomited. That's when I started with Bulimia/Anorexia.Oh God, that memory cuts right through me.

When I was 20, I moved in with my mom ( I still ask myself why I did that.). I had been living with my dad in Camden because I had gotten so depressed at college that I had had a suicide attempt. I didn't tell dad about it, I just told him that I wanted to come home and that I didn't want to go back to school for the next semester. He was very dissappointed with me and over the months I lived there, he began to get mean. He would say things to me that would just send me spiraling downward. Once, I spent about 2 hours walking in circles in the kitchen repeating,"It's not my fault. It's not my fault." So, to get away from him, I moved to Little Rock with my mom. (Out of the frying pan into the fire.) After I moved, I got two part-time jobs so I could save money to get my own place. One night after I got off work, I came home and passed out on the sofa. (I didn't have a bed.) I was awakened to the sounds of banging and shouting coming from the kitchen. No sooner had I shaken off the sleep, when my mother came stumbling into the living room. Gesticulating wildly, she screamed,"Did I wake the baby? Oh, I woke the baby. So sorry! So fucking sorry!" She turned to go back to the kitchen after that still banging pots and pans together. So, I was freaked out. I thought to myself,"I am so fucking out of here!" I went to my room and started grabbing clothes. I didn't even take them off the hangers. I was just in a rush and throwing them into the trunk of my car. I just kept thinking,"Get your stuff and get out before she gets any worse." She caught me outside at one point as I was trying to go back inside to get more of my clothes. She went to my car and started throwing my everyting that had been in the trunk in the street while screaming incoherently. So, I went inside and proceeded to get the rest of my belongings. I figured I would just pick up the things in the street when she had gone back inside. She stopped me in the living room as I was about to go outside with an armload of clothes. She wrapped my hair around her hand (my hair was waist length at that time) and jerked me off my balance so that I landed in the floor. She then hit me wherever she could find a spot open. She hit my breasts, my back, my head, my face, my legs. I don't know how, but I managed to get away from her and pick my stuff up from the floor where it had fallen and make it out to my car one more time. When I came back inside, I couldn't see her anywhere. As I walked into the hallway, to go back to my room she rounded on me screaming about calling the cops because she said I was going to kill her. So, I yanked the cord and jack right out of the wall. I told her, "Call them now, you fucking bitch! I dare you!" She dissappeared in her room for awhile after that and I had unfettered access to my things. On my last trip inside, she confronted me in my room and was saying things to me like I was fat and disgusting and that I would never make it on my own. Then, she started with the hair yanking again. Well, after the beatings, the taunts and her general psycho-ness, I lost my temper.. finally. I grabbed her by her shoulders with more strength than I thought I had and pushed her back against the wall so hard that I could feel the floor shake. I got my face just inches from hers and then I screamed. I screamed for all of the things she had done and said to me. I was having all these flashbacks and I couldn't control them. Everything was just spewing out of me. When I ran out of breath and couldn't scream any more, my mother started singsonging,"You are Satan's Child! Satan's baby!" I blacked out. The next thing I remember is sitting in the middle of the street in front of her house crying hysterically. My clothes and other things were scattered everywhere. There were about 6 cops there and a couple of them were putting my things into the trunk of my car and one was talking to me trying to figure out what had happened. I told them everything. They were dubious at first and were giving each other doubting looks. Then, I told them that she had all these illegal drugs in her bedroom. Their eyes got sharp then. I told them that she had been working for a psychaitrist as his secretary and had stolen some of his prescription pads. She had been writing her own prescriptions for months. They asked me if I had any more stuff in her house. I told them I did, so they escorted me to the door and she answered it and spoke to them through a tiny crack. She wasn't going to let them in, but she had called them and now that they had suspicion that she had been illegally writing prescriptions, they went in. What they found was a cornucopeia of drugs on her nightstand. There were so many bottles of pills that they covered the entire top of it. Then, they believed me, not her. She had been telling them that I had tried to kill her. They just looked at her like she was a crazy woman and arrested her. She called me the next day and told me that I had beaten her pretty badly. She said that she couldn't move her right arm or turn her head. I said,"So what. So fucking what. You don't even exist to me." I didn't see her or speak to her for a year after that.

Cleaning, Pain and Self-Mutilation

I feel:: anxious
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Baker Baker

I've spent the last two days cleaning house. I've mananged to do all of my laundry (even though I ran out of hangers), clean my bedroom and my tv room. I still have to vacuum. I got out all of my Christmas presents and looked through them and finally put away all the Christmas pillows. (I still have Christmas lights stapled to the insides of my windows though. Yeah, I'm pathetic. Although, there is a family around the block from me who still has their Christmas lights hanging on the outside of their house, so I guess I don't feel too bad.) I have a 32-pair shoe holder that I still have to put together. In the meantime, most of my shoes are in a pile in front of my closet. At least they're all in one place now instead of scattered throughout the house. (I think I brought 6 pairs out of my bathroom.) Well, all that cleaning and rearranging got my cyatic nerve irritated and my hip was hurting really bad. I also had shooting pains down my right leg. I was laying in bed with Ryk last night when I got up to go to the bathroom. When I was in there, my back said,"I'm going to hurt you now. Badly." I couldn't breathe or move. I just stood there gasping for air and grimacing in pain. I think I stayed in the bathroom for about 15 minutes. I made it back to Ryk's room and told him through gritted teeth that my back had gone out on me and that I was going to go home to lie on my heating pad. He said,"Are you sure you'll be able to drive like that?" I assured him that I could, even if I couldn't have I really wanted to be alone with my pain. I am one of those people that holes up when I get sick or am in pain. I don't think Ryk understands that. He loves me and he wants to be there for me. He wants to help me. I love him for wanting my pain to go away, but I just can't stand being around anyone when I'm like that. I drove home wincing in pain everytime my car hit a bump or took a curve in the road. When I got home, I fell into my bed and tried to get comfortable. Well, that was a thankless task. No matter what position I moved into, my back hurt. I eventually fell asleep for about an hour. I woke up gasping for air again. I lay in bed for a few minutes trying to move to some sort of semi-comfortable position. I couldn't manage it, so I got up, came into my tv room and vegged out with a news program until about 4am. I did fall asleep after that for about 3 hours. I've been up and down ever since.

I have mixed feelings today. I feel good about myself for finally getting my rooms clean. They look so nice now. I'm also sort of depressed because I really wanted to go to church this morning. I thought about it, but when I started to get out of bed, I thought to myself,"You can't even change position in bed without pain. How are you going to drive to church much less sit in a pew for two hours?" (We also stand for the praise and worship. I couldn't have done that either.) It just seems like everytime I start to make progress, something happens to set me back. I guess I did too much yesterday. Whose back goes out on them cleaning house, for Pete's sake? My back sucks.

Reading the Scripture has been on my mind all day. I keep telling myself that I'll do it later, but it just gets later and later. I realized that I'm afraid to do it. I'm afraid of what I'll feel. I'm afraid to face myself. What I really want to do is hide my head under the covers and go back to sleep, but I know that I can't because 1) my back hurts too much to be able to go to sleep and 2) if I laid down and tried to go to sleep, all of this would be on my mind and it would just keep cycling through over and over again. I would never be able to get to sleep. Avoidant behavior, anyone?

The goal set in my last therapy session was to take a bath everday. I have managed to do that. I forget how much I like being clean. I guess when the depression takes over, I just don't see anything else and I forget a lot of things. I have also gone back to the very bad habit of pulling skin off my fingers and toes. I pull it down and down until it starts to bleed. My fingers and toes look like they've been gone over with a cheese grater. I'm ashamed to wear sandals or to show my hands much. I also have started to pull the skin off my top lip. Same thing. I pull it until it starts to bleed, which means that my lip always looks mangled. I have discovered that I do this unconciously. Tanya, Sally and Ryk have all mentioned it and caught me in the act of doing it and told me to stop. I don't know why I do this. I do notice, though, that this happens when I'm stressed or agitated. I'm pretty much always depressed, but I don't always pull the skin off my fingers, toes and lip.

Culpability

I feel:: accomplished
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Mother

I was thinking on my way home from Ryk's last night about my line of reasoning about who is at fault regarding the bad things that have happened in my life. I thought to myself,"Are the bad things only supposed to happen to non-Christians? What makes you exempt? Is God only supposed to protect Christians and no one else?" I realized that I was being arrogant in my faith. There are people who suffer worse things than I on a regular basis and still keep their faith strong. I don't know what is wrong with me. I suppose I just really wanted to blame God for everything because He is the creator of the universe. He is supposed to be in control of everything. I am not a Deist. I don't believe that God created the universe and just sits back in his recliner and watches everything that goes on here without intervening (Creation Television. I have a weird sense of humor, I know.). I believe that God is intensely interested in His creation. I believe that He is here with us all the time. If He wasn't interested, and didn't care about what went on with us, why sacrifice His own Son? Why have Him go through all of that torture and be separated from God the Father? If nothing else, that convinces me that God loves me and everyone else. I guess that was the starting point for me initially. I feel a little better about my relationship with God now, but I still have that little tinge of wanting to blame Him. (I guess I just had a breakthrough. Wow.) I'm still angry. But, back to the whole question of who is at fault: my grandfather, the four guys who raped me, the guy who assaulted me. I will take responsibility for my culpability in these matters. I trusted people I shouldn't have trusted. The only exception is my grandfather. I take no responsiblity there. I was only a child and he violated me in the worst way. It wasn't like I could tell him,"Take your hands off me! Take your finger out of my asshole!" It all started when I was about 2 or 3, so I couldn't fight him off. By the time I was old enough to tell someone, I had blocked all of that abuse from my mind. It only resurfaces now through dreams and flashbacks. I never see his face, but I can smell him. He smoked a pipe. I can also smell his hair pomade. I don't know what he put in his hair, but it was always jet black and slicked back. (There I go with the smell thing again.) My grandfather was a serial molester. He molested my mother and her two sisters for all of their childhood and into their adulthood. They used to have to sleep under their bed huddled together because they were so afraid of him. (Incidentally, I also did this to try to escape my mother.) He also beat my grandmother and was a raging alcoholic. (My grandmother wasn't a tiny woman. She was almost 6 ft tall, so she hit him back. One time, she even cut off his finger with a kitchen knife. But still, that's no excuse for violence. She was also an alcoholic. She died from it.) I don't know if he molested my cousin Shannon, but she did live with them until she was in high school. So, there is no telling. I would bet that he at least tried. Dysfunctional family? Yup.

Therapy Day

I feel:: full
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~God

So, yesterday was therapy day. I'm always a bit anxious before I go because I expect that something will come up during the session that will cause me emotional pain. I'm willing to take that chance, hence the therapy, but that doesn't mean that I will like it. Who likes to be in pain? I don't. Because of the nasty dream I had about being in that dark place, I was sort of twitchy when I woke up and remained that way for most of the day. I felt like I was in a pretty good mood, but also that I was forcing myself to be that way. I finally realized it when I called Tanya and my voice sounded like it was about to shatter. It was the happy voice, but sad things were coming out of my mouth. I felt like I wasn't maintaining very well. Like I wasn't very stable emotionally. I felt like the twitchiness/shakiness was a symptom of something wanting to come out. What it is, I have no idea.

Well, during therapy, Anne asked me how I was feeling and I told her about the twitchiness and about the dream I had. She said she thought that it represented some form of abuse. I kind of already figured that out on my own, but to hear her say it gave me confirmation. Then she had me go through the details of all four rapes again. I still don't know why she had me do that. I told her about them on my first visit. I guess I just sort of glazed over them that time.

The first one was in 1984. I had just turned 14 that May. My dad, my cousin Shannon, and me were on vacation in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. My dad always liked to go at the end of the summer after everyone had left, so I'm guessing it was sometime in late July or early August. (That used to piss me off to no end that he would wait to go until everyone had already left. As a teenager, I didn't want to wander around the hotel and beach alone.) Anyway, it got to be a habit of mine and Shannon's that we would get up midmorning, eat breakfast, put on our bathing suits and walk the beach. We were teenagers, so we were into seeing who was at the beach (looking for boys mostly) and being seen (by boys). So, we would start on the beach in front of our hotel and walk almost the entire length of the beach on one side and then turn around and walk back to the hotel. I don't know how many times we would do this during a day, but we both wound up with really good tans. Well, one day, as we were walking, some guys approached us and asked us if we wanted to play frisbee with them. One of them was named Dexter and the other was named Shannon. (As I think about it now, I think that it's weird that my cousin, who is a girl, was named Shannon and then we met a guy named Shannon. I have never met another guy named Shannon.) So, we hung out with them for awhile playing frisbee. They offered each of us a beer. We were too young to drink, but we took them anyway. I hated beer, but I drank it I guess because I just wanted them to like me. I think I drank about half of it. Well, I am notorious still for having to pee all the time. When I go on road trips with Sally, she kids me about having to stop to pee every 30 minutes. So, after a few hours on the beach, I had to go really bad, but our hotel was all the way down on the other side of the beach. I didn't think I could make it that far without peeing in my bathing suit, so I asked Dexter if I could use the bathroom in his hotel room. The hotel he and Shannon(the guy) were staying in was called The Carousel and it was just down the wooden walkway and across the pavillion from where we were standing. He said it would be ok, so I took Shannon(my cousin) with me. She went to the bathroom first, then I went. When I came out, she wasn't there. Dexter was. I felt a little nervous about being in the hotel room with him and I felt sort of naked with only my bathing suit on, so I made to go out the door. (I also wondered were my cousin had gotten to.) He stopped me and started kissing me. I didn't know what to do so I kissed back. After a few minutes, I tried to pull away from him and get to the door, but he held me there and kept kissing me. I didn't know why he was doing this, so I tried again to get away from him. He pushed me down on the bed and started to kiss me harder. I tried to push him off of me, but I couldn't. He was so much bigger than me. Somehow, despite my struggling, he got my bathing suit off of me. By then, I was completely freaked out. He kept trying to kiss me and I kept turning my face away from him. He was trying to get me to spread my legs, but I wouldn't. I remember him saying,"Open your legs." Then I said through tears,"You can't do this to me. I'm a virgin." What he said next I will always remember. He said,"I know." Then, he just pushed himself into me. The pain was something that I can't even describe. I screamed and screamed, but there was no one to help me. He kept telling me to be quiet, but I kept screaming. I tried to get away, but he had my wrists in one of his hands and my body pinned with his body weight. God, that hurt so much. I still remember the way he smelled. My face was pressed into his shoulder (I guess he did that because it muffled my screams.) and all I could do was breathe in his scent. Sometimes, I still smell that and it brings me right back to that moment. Isn't the sense of smell supposed to be the strongest sense tied to memory? I believe it. He went forever and ever. I thought he would never stop. He finally got through and told me to get my shit and get out. He wouldn't even look at me. I sat up on the bed and was shocked to see a large amount of blood on the sheets. I knew that women bleed when their hymens are broken, but I didn't think it would be that much. I had blood all over my legs. I took a clean part of the sheet and wiped off as much blood from my legs as I could and put my bathing suit back on. I couldn't walk very well, but I managed to walk back to the hotel. My dad and Shannon were there. My dad asked me where I had been and I said something about wanting to walk on the beach by myself. I told him that I was going to go to bed because all that time on the beach had given me a bad sunburn and I was feeling sick from it. I guess he believed me because he didn't ask any more questions. I went into the back room and took a very hot shower. I just stood in the shower and cried as puddles of blood formed on the shower floor. I got into bed and stayed there for the rest of the vacation. I think my dad thought I had sun sickness or something.

I can't write any more right now. I'm starting to twitch again.

Numb and Eating

I feel:: indescribable
No music playing. Just the sound of mastication.

I just woke up from having a dream of me being in a dark, tight hole with bugs crawling all over me and screaming over and over and over and over again,"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" I don't know how old I was, but I felt like I was about 3 or 4. My screams were so loud that now, my ears hurt. So, as I sit here at my computer recounting this, I'm pretty numb and I'm eating a butload of cinnamon licorice that Sally got me for Easter.

Superman Underoos

I feel:: lazy

Another day spent inside. I got a call this morning at 9am from the employment agency that I'm registered with. Ginger, the girl who is trying to find me a job, asked me if I would be available to work a one-day temp assignment as a receptionist. I said,"Well, considering that I'm sitting in my bed in my pajamas right now, it would take me about an hour to get ready and about 30 minutes to get where ever I'm going." She was all,"Weeeell, let me keep looking." So, I hung up and laid back down. I was irritated that she would call me for a one-day assignment. I told them when I first registered with them that I needed one day's notice for temp assignments. How fast am I supposed to be able to get ready? Am I supposed to wake up at 6am every morning, get ready and wait for her to call me? I'm not doing that. That's ridiculous. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was so irritated that I gave myself a headache. I remember thinking,"God dammit!" So, I got up, ate Pop-Tarts, made coffee and fed the cats. Ever since then, I've been sitting at my computer thinking about the things I need to do today, which are pretty much the same things I needed to do yesterday and the day before. I can't stand myself right now. Why am I like this? Why can't I just resolve to get something done and just do it? I guess it's easier to complain than to actually do something about what is bothering me. I should have never sat down at the computer today. I should have just drank my coffee this morning and gone about what I needed to do. Shouldacouldawoulda...my life is filled with those.

I dreamt last night that I went to an outdoor concert and, of all the bands that could have been playing, Poison was about to take the stage. (Yes, I am a child of the 80's.) I remember that I was sitting on a sloped, grassy lawn with my friend Chris. For some reason, we were holding hands. Anyway, Cece Deville got up and walked by, but Chris didn't know who he was. I thought that was pretty funny given how famous Poison was in the 80's, so I stopped Cece and told him,"Hey, my friend Chris didn't recognize you." Well, I guess that was the wrong thing to say because he got offended. The next thing I remember is all the members of Poison standing over me with their crotches right in my face telling me how ugly, fat and out of style I was. I tried to make some lame excuse for myself and Chris by saying something like,"Well, you know, you look a lot different now than you did back then. Your hair is even a different color." The abuse continued, but Chris didn't come to my aid. He just sat there in his lawn chair and smiled at me. I remember thinking,"Why are all these penises in my face? Why do men always put their penises in my face?" I woke myself up crying and hyperventilating. I realize that it was just a dream, but I felt so bad afterwards. I felt devalued, like I wasn't worth anything. I fell asleep again and this time I dreamt that I was living in Ryk's apt complex , but connected to it was this business school. It had a name in my dream, but I can't remember it now. Well, some girlfriends and I decided to go out to this gay club to watch the performers there. I remember carrying a plate of cookies with me and standing outside of the club eating them. Then, I put the empty plate in this bin that had a sign on it which read,"Donate your used dishes to the gay needy." (Why I would go to a club and eat cookies is beyond me.) Well, we went inside and for a few minutes I couldn't find my friends, but I spotted them on the other side of the club. There were a lot of tables situated inside and they were rather close together, so it was hard for me to make my way from one side of the club to the other. I remember bumping into a lot of people and saying,"Excuse me." while they looked at me like I had just ruined their favorite pair of Manolo's. Suffice it to say that a straight woman in a gay club sometimes is not well received. I was carrying this pink, squarish purse and I remember having to fumble with it a lot. I kept having to put things into it. At one point, I was squatted down in the floor doing something with my purse, when I realized that my legs were wide open and that I was wearing a mini skirt. Embarrassment. To make matters worse, this guy commented on the fact that he could see my punani and that that was the last thing he wanted to see being a gay man. The next thing I remember is seeing Steve Martin get up on stage and start to do a comedy monologue. (Steve Martin? Random.) Anyway, we left, but somehow, when I left the club, I was naked. I had my shoes on, though, and I was carrying all of my clothes in my arms. I got in my car and drove to my apt. I remember thinking,"You can't get out of the car naked. Find something to put on." There were all these people milling about, kids playing, adults doing yard stuff. (Those apts. don't have yards, so where did they come from?) Anyway, I put on this long, brown, courduroy (sp?) coat and buttoned it all the way down starting at the neck. It looked sort of strange, me wearing that coat and black high heels, but I figured at least I was covered. I got out of my car and started walking to my apt with all of my clothes still in my arms. Then, I realized that I had parked in the wrong place, that the apt I was walking towards wasn't my apt. So, I went back to my car and drove up the hill and parked again, but this time, I was in front of the school. The rest of the dream was me walking around inside the school trying to get to the other side, because evidently, my apt was on the other side. I couldn't get anyone to help me find my way. They would either ignore me or start up a conversation with me about something inane. I guess that contributed to my bad mood and headache this morning.

Ryk came over last night after his classes were done and after he had gone to Conway to spend some time with his kids. He got here about 9pm. He cooked me dinner. Steak and veggies with pasta. That rocked. He cooks for me all the time and I just love it. He fell asleep for awhile in my big tv chair while I was sitting at my computer. I woke him up at one point to ask him how long to cook the cookies he had brought over and he scared me. His eyes looked glazed and unfocused. He seemed like he didn't know where he was. I kept asking him questions and he kept saying,"Yes, ok, it's going to be alright." I was confused and scared, so I put my hands on his face and asked him if he was alright. He put his hands on my face and then he came to. He assured me that he was ok, but I was still skeptical. I sat with him on the chair for a few minutes caressing his forehead and scanning him for any possible signs of distress. I don't know what I was looking for, I was just looking. He assured me again that he was ok and told me to go and bake the cookies. After the cookie eating, we laid in my bed for awhile, snuggling and talking. We talked about our future and about our honeymoon. I told him a funny story that I had read a few years ago about this couple who was honeymooning in Eureka Springs. The husband had tied his wife to the bed and went to the bathroom to change into his Superman suit. When he came out, he took a flying leap for the bed, but lept to short and cracked his head on the bedpost knocking himself unconscious. The woman was unable to do anything but scream, so eventually the cops were called, but no one could unlock the door, so they had to break it down. What they found was a naked woman tied to a bed and an unconscious man in a Superman suit on the floor. We thought that was tremendously funny and laughed about that for awhile and Ryk said,"I'm out on the Superman suit." I said,"You mean you aren't going to wear that for me on our honeymoon?" He was all,"No way!" Then I said,"You won't even wear Superman underoos?" By then we were both giggling so hard that neither one of us could speak. That was a great night.

Sleepiness and Laziness

I feel:: drained

I slept for most of the day yesterday. I had taken some Benadryl Severe Allergy and Sinus Headache medication Sunday night because of my allergies. All I wanted to do was crash and sleep that heavy medicated sleep. The strangest thing happened, though, about 2 hours into my sleep. I woke up feeling like I needed to twitch. I felt like I needed to flex various muscles. Actually all of them, but I couldn't manage to flex every single muscle at one time. I lay in bed for the longest time flexing and releasing, flexing and releasing. I thought that might give me some relief, but it didn't. The urge just got stronger. I felt like I could have run around my block a couple of times. Thirty or so minutes went by and I was still laying in bed-flex, release,flex, release. I guess I just fell asleep after awhile, I don't remember it, but I do remember waking up the next day.

I got up on Monday at about 11am. I felt exhausted. There was so much I wanted to do that day. I needed to do laundry and put up the clean laundry that I washed several weeks ago. There are so many clothes in the floor of my bedroom that I have to kick them aside just to get from the door to the bed. This is not how I was raised. It's also not how I live when I live alone. Living with my dad makes me feel safer in some respects: I know that there will always be food to eat; there will be electricity; there will be gas; I will always have gas to put in my car; I will always have a place to live. Living with my dad makes me more depressed, though. Well, maybe not more so, but in a different way. I can't explain it.

I also wanted to mail off my broken cell phone yesterday. It fell out of my purse about a month ago when I was getting out of my car, going into a job interview. I had it in an outside pocket and when I slung my purse over my shoulder, it just slipped out and crashed onto the concrete parking lot. I've dropped it before and nothing was wrong with it, so I cursed my clumsiness and picked it up. While I was putting it back in my purse (on the inside this time), I realized that it had broken. It was a flippy phone and the flip top was just hanging on by one side for dear life. I also couldn't turn it on. I have insurance on it, so I filed a claim and the company sent me a new (read: reconditioned) phone. I thought it was kind of shitty that I pay every month for insurance on my phone and then they tell me that I have to pay 50 dollars for a reconditioned phone. I have to have a cell phone, because my dad disconnected our landline service. A couple of months ago, he was having one of his bad days and he dad been really cranky and testy towards me all day. So, I tried to stay out of his way and spent most of the day in my room. He decided that he was going to lay down in his favorite recliner sometime that afternoon to take a nap. Right as he was falling asleep, the phone rang. The next thing I heard was the phone cord being jerked out of the wall and a blue streak of curse words. The next day, he called and had the service disconnected. I don't know what the difference is between the house phone ringing and his cell phone ringing when he is asleep,but whatever.

I was also going to make a trip to the post office to get a Federal Tax form. I got the state tax form last Tuesday when I was running around with Tanya. I didn't work last year, but I thought I might be eligible for the low-income tax credit. Well, as I was sitting at my computer contemplating doing all this, I realized that all I wanted to do was go back to bed. I did and I slept for about an hour. Tanya called and woke me up. She asked,"What are you doing?" Sleepily, I groaned and said,"I was sleeping." Then, she said,"It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon! Why are you still in bed?" I found this comment to be funny because she sleeps as much as I do, often missing classes to do it. She said she wanted to know if I wanted to go eat with her. I told her I didn't have any money, so she said she would go by herself and that I should call her later. Before we got off the phone, I told her that I had been really groggy all day and that I figured it was because of the Benadryl I had taken the night before. (I realize that this seems weird, because Benadryl is only supposed to last like 4 hours, but it always makes me feel groggy long after it is supposed to have quit working. There's nothing like being groggy and sneezing your head off.) She told me that the reason I was probably feeling that way was that I hadn't taken any Prozac for two days. I realized that she was most likely right about that. I told her that I needed to go to the pharmacy and pick up my prescription that I had called in on Friday. She admonished me and told me to get my ass out of bed and go do that. I figured that was fair, since I do the same thing to her when she runs out of her meds and neglects to go get them refilled. So, we said goodbye and I got up, got dressed, and headed out the door. I called Tanya back and was all,"You did it! You got me out of bed!" She just laughed at me and told me I was crazy. I asked her if she wanted to meet me at Books A Million after I went to the pharmacy so we could hang out and have coffee. She said she wanted to, but she had to take her mom to work. At this point, my mood, which had been excellent, fell drastically. I really, really didn't want to be alone all afternoon, but I told her that was cool and we got off the phone.

I sat at my kitchen table for a few minutes and then I called another friend of mine, E. She was really surprised to hear from me. We haven't seen each other for a few months. (She got a boyfriend, I got a boyfriend.) Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes and I asked her if she wanted to run around with me for a few hours. She said that would be cool, so I left to go and pick her up. After that, we went to Starbuck's to get coffee. (I really needed some coffee at this point.) When, we got there, I got a Caramel Mocha and we sat down at a table. We talked about our sex lives. Girl stuff. Then, one of the barista's yelled out,"I have a [enter name of coffee drink here] for anyone who wants it!" So, the obviouslygayman got up and was all,"You mean it's free?" The barista said,"Yes, we are training, so this one is free." I told E that I should have waited on getting my drink. I could have gotten one for free. Then, a few minutes later, the same barista yells again,"I have a [coffee drink here] for anyone who wants it!" So, E got up and got it from the bar. Why does this kind of thing always happen to me? I never get anything for free and I never win anything. Dammit. So, as we were talking, she told me about her first experience of putting a condom on a man. She said that her and her boyfriend (who is 41, she's 24) were having a problem with their sex life because he ejaculated too soon, so they got these condoms that were supposed to help him go longer. She said the first time they used one, she put it on him and then proceeded to give him oral sex. Then, she realized that she had put the condom on inside out. She got all that stuff from the inside of the condom in her mouth and it made her mouth all numb. She said she was laughing and trying to explain to him what she'd done, but she couldn't talk all that well because her mouth was so numb. So, I'm sitting at the table trying not to guffaw and snort coffee out of my nose.

After that, we went over to Arky Barky. They still had the Teacup Poodle I want. I still can't afford to get her, though. E told me that she had been looking for a dog for her son for awhile, so she got a business card from Rebecca, who is the same girl who helped me last time I was there. She's really sweet. We walked around and looked at puppies for a little longer and then we decided to drive to Tanya's. Tanya had told me earlier that she had to take her mom to work at 6pm. I looked at my phone and it was right around 6, so we started driving. We got there, and Tanya wasn't there, so I called her. She just about bit my head off. She was all,"Why are you at my house? I told you that I had to take my mom to work." I was a bit taken aback by this, so I told her since I was already in NLR, that I would just come to her. Then she said,"Well, I guess I can just turn around and come back there." I told her not to, but that I would drive back to NLR and we could just meet at Books A Million. We got there about 20 minutes later and found her looking at the new fiction section. It was about 6:30pm when we got there, but I didn't realize it. I don't wear a watch because I keep losing them, so I just look at my phone for the time. We walked around for awhile and then I looked at my phone for the time. It was 7:19pm and I had told Ryk I would be at his house at 8pm so we could watch "24" together. It's his favorite show. This has become sort of a routine of ours. I had to take E back to Benton,which is 30 minutes away from LR and then drive back, which would take another 30 minutes. I knew I was going to be late, so I called Ryk and told him what was going on. He was cool with that.

A Gift, Anger and Forgiveness

I feel:: cranky
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Mother

I managed to go to church today despite my stomach. It did threaten to keep me at home, but it suddently got better. I got to church a few minutes late ( I missed Communion and the music had already started.), but everything was ok. Some old friends of mine, Perry and Siobhan, were there. I haven't seen them since the days of Ground Zero. It's been over 10 years. It was amazing to see them. Perry actually spoke to me and gave me a hug. that was nice and another surprise. He would have never done that when I knew him before. Siobhan looked amazing. I have never seen her look so pretty. She was glowing. We talked for a bit and she told me that they have a 2-year old son, but he wasn't with them this morning. Shame, I would have liked to have met him. Perry gave the serom. It was on Ecclesiastes 1-3. First, he gave some history of the Jewish people on a timeline and basically skimed over Chps. 1 and 2 because of time constraints. He focused on Chp. 3. He said Chps 1 and 2 were a thesis and were Solomon asking himself questions about the nature of the world. He said, after you state a thesis in a paper, you go on to prove or disprove your thesis. He said that Solomon disproved his thesis. He was trying to figure out the nature of the world through his natural, philosophical mind. God had given him great wisdom, so I guess he figured he could do it. His conclusion: All life is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. In Chp. 3, he brings God into the picture and he then says that the best thing people can do is enjoy their lives and rejoice in the work God has given them because these things are gifts of God. The point being that without God, life is meaningless, but with God, life has meaning and purpose. I got something else out of it too. I noticed that between Chps 1 and 2 and Chp. 3, Solomon completely reversed himself. He contradicted himself. I can identify with this because I vascillate and contradict myself constantly. It's like I try to reconcile the world with my belief in God. God doesn't submit to the world's rules though. I guess that's the problem. I should probably just focus on God and forget the world. (Duh.) The hard thing is that I live in the world and I have to be a part of it to survive. I have to work and I have to make money. I have to go to classes because I know that that is what God wants me to do. (I have known that I was supposed to go back to college since 1992, but it took me until 2001 to do it. Hmmm, that's another 9 year increment. Is it significant? Maybe I'm just a stubborn ass.) This is confusing to me. I wish I could find a resolution. I don't really have all of this sorted out in my mind. Anyway, the sermon was great. I forgot how intelligent Perry is. I was amazed that he actually got up in front of the church and taught. He must have changed a lot over the years.

Church today was like a Ground Zero reunion. Everywhere I looked, there was another person I used to know/work with. After the service was over, I got to talking with different people and all of them said basically the same thing: Welcome to the Ground Zero reunion! It was weird, but not in a bad way. I kept having all these memories of being at Ground Zero and being with all of those people. I felt a feeling of family and belonging that I have never felt before. I felt like they were my family before and I loved them before, but I never felt like I really belonged with them. I isolated myself most of the time. This feeling was 100 times stronger than it ever was while I was living at Ground Zero. I felt more equal with them, whereas before, I always felt like the blundering student. Today, I felt like I really belonged with them and that I had gotten my family back. I can't explain how happy this made me. God gave them back to me and me back to them. It was an everythingisrightiwiththeworldandthiscannotgetanybetter moment. I feel so humbled that after everything I've done in the past 10 years, despite of myself, despite how long I've stayed away from them, that not only would God give them back to me, but that they would accept me. Amazing gift. He just let it fall on me. I felt like God was holding me in His arms and I was warm with His love. I really felt like He was there with me. (I realize that this sounds an awfully lot like "warm fuzzies", but it was something totally different and way above that.) I hope I can always be as grateful for them as I am now. I get frustrated so easily and I tend to have high expectations of people. I hope I don't get caught in that trap again of expecting people to do things I think they should. I hope I can just accept them and love them for who they are. Flaws included. What an awesome day.

There is something that marred my day, however. Backing up to yesterday, I masturbated twice. That's not really what disturbs me. What does is that during both times, I had fantasies of a father figure raping me. I called the man in this fantasy "Daddy". This is the first time I've ever had fantasies like that. Although, I have had rape fantasies many times before. Considering what I've been through, I think it's odd that I would fantasize about someone raping me or gang rape. I feel so ashamed every time this happens, as I did yesterday. In fact, I still felt dirty as I was driving to church this morning. I wish I didn't have those fantasies. Why do they excite me? This makes me feel ashamed of myself. What kind of a freak am I? Who fantasizes about being raped? That is so sick and so perverse and so wrong. As I sit here, I am still shocked about the Daddy/rape fantasies. These fantasies come to my mind unbidden, as if they were just waiting there for the right moment or trigger. This makes me feel like inside I'm really a dirty person. Like I don't even know myself or the full extent of what I'm capable of. What is really disturbing to me is the thought that I might be fantasizing about things that actually happened to me. I had a dream/flashback of my grandfather repeatedly putting his finger in my anus when I was 3 or so. This happened just last week. Is it that far of a leap from there to a masturbatory fantasy? I don't sit around and think of sexual things to fantasize about. I realize that's hard to believe, but I don't. The fact that when he was alive, I called my grandfather "Daddyboy" also connects this for me. Also, scenes like this are in my mind when I'm having sex with Ryk. Sometimes I even hear the voices of my attackers. (I told this to Cathy during my last therapy session and she was concerned that I thought they were outside voices. I assured her they were not. They are just memories fo things I have heard before. Sometimes I can't control their emergence.) I stopped trying not to masturbate a few years ago. I have been doing this since age 4. I remember also that I used to masturbate in public and I would get in trouble for it. I finally realized after all these years that it is a part of who I am. Even though I was a victim of incest, assault, and rape, I still feel like a sexual person. I still have desire. I used to try to choke it down and stifle it because I was taught that masturbation is bad and that the only women who felt sexual desire were sluts and whores. That's the way I felt for a long time. I felt like I was nothing but tits and ass. A cum receptacle for men to use. I hated that feeling. Sometimes, I still have that feeling, but thankfully it goes away for awhile now. (I'm getting that cry-knot in my throat now just thinking about it.) How does a person learn to value themselves? Everyone wants to be valued and respected for who they are. Everyone deserves to be respected for being human. Our society is so focused on sex that it is hard to find my identity apart from it. I feel like I have been brainwashed my whole life and I'm angry about it. I'm angry at the injustice of it. Not only for me, but also for everyone else it happens to. This anger makes me want to lash out, but I have nothing to direct my anger towards. So, I'm castrated. Again. As I look back on my life, I wonder why all of these things have happened to me. If I wasn't afraid of being labled a paranoid freak, I would say that it all seems like some sort of insidious plot to keep me under control. Am I the only one who feels this way? I hope not.

Reconciling With God

I feel:: calm
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Rattlesnakes

I was going to go to church last Sunday. I even left Ryk's early last Saturday night instead of spending the night there so I would be able to get up early enough to get ready and go. Well, as per usual, my stomach got upset and I spent all morning in the bathroom. By the time the whole episode was over, I only had 30 mins. To get ready and drive to church. I don't think you have to dress up to go to church, but I would have at least liked to have bathed and washed my hair. I really don't think God cares what you wear to church. He knows what's in the heart and there is no way to hide that or to make it look better. I keep forgetting that God knows what is in my heart all the time. It's kind of scary for me to think that there is nowhere I can go to hide from God, but at the same time, the thought comforts me. I have this dual-ness with God because of everything that has happened to me. It is hard for me to trust Him. On the other hand, I believe in Him totally. I believe that He can do anything, just not in my life. (That's kind of arrogant, isn't it? To think that I'm so messed up that not even God, the creator of the universe, can fix me?) I doubted my salvation at one point in my life, but I don't now. I pray every day now, but I don't read the Scriptures hardly at all. I know I should. I just can't bring myself to do it. The last time I tried to discipline myself to study the Scriptures with prayer and an open heart, all this pain started surfacing. Really intense emotional pain. I couldn't deal with it, so I just stopped. This has been the pattern with me ever since the last rape. I guess I'm scared to face the pain. For some reason, I feel like I want to keep it close to me and not give it to God. I guess my holding on to my anger with God makes things easier for me, because I can just blame God for everything that happens to me. It's a lot easier and more comfortable not to have to accept responsibility for things. I have a friend who does that and I sit and think about her and wonder why she can't see what she is doing, when the sad and obvious fact is, I do the same thing. I used to be so certain of things. Everything for me was black/white. After the dissolution of the ministry, the rape and everything else, it got uncertain and gray. I couldn't figure things out. I didn't know who to trust. I was just lost. People around me even noticed it.

I remember thinking after the rape specifically this: If the rape wasn't God's fault and is wasn't my fault, then who is at fault? That only leaves the devil. I know from studying Scripture that the devil is a created being, not equal to God and can only go as far as God will let him. So, if it is the devil's fault, then God let him do it, because God is in control of the devil. So, God did let this happen. Not only that, but He also let happen all the other bad things. I just realized that in this line of reasoning, I am leaving out the component of the world. (According to what I have studied in the Scripture, the Christian has 3 enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. I don't think I have a good explanation for these in my mind right now. I'm going to look them up later. My theology has become a bit rusty from disuse.) In Scripture it says that the devil is the god of this world because Adam forfeited his dominion when he sinned in the Garden. So, doesn't that mean that the devil controls what goes on in our world? Doesn't God have control over the devil? Now, I'm back to where I started. Confused. I've been trying to figure this out for the past 9 years with no luck. I've presented this line of reasoning to several pastors and Christian counselors. None of them had any answers for me. What's worse, is that I think I put a seed of doubt in their minds about the goodness and faithfulness of God. That makes me feel so bad. I don't want to bring anyone down or to cause anyone to fall. I just want some answers. Several years into this, I came to the conclusion that maybe I wasn't supposed know the answer. That seemed cruel to me, but I had to admit that God doesn't have to explain to me why He does the things He does. It keeps bugging me, though. I want answers to these questions. Answers that I can understand. I guess I should start reading the Scripture again through prayer. I should face the pain and move past it. It's about time, but what if I don't find any answers? What if there are none? Or worse, what if God has the answer, but chooses not to tell me? What if I decide again that I can't face the pain? Then I'm stuck in the same rut that I've been in for the past 9 years. I don't know what to do.
I plan on going to church tomorrow. I hope my stomach acts right. I went to church on Easter with Ryk and I saw most of the people that I had worked with in the ministry. I suddenly realized that I still loved them just as much as I always had. So, I decided right there to let go of the things I had been holding against them. While I was in different conversations after the service was over, I prayed and told God that I didn't want to keep holding on to all of that resentment and unforgiveness. I asked him for forgiveness for being so stubborn and I just gave all to Him. It was so easy that I wondered why I had held on to it for so long. I felt so free afterwards. I could talk to them without having all those painful memories and without thinking what they were going to do to hurt me next. Now that this has happened, I think I might be ready finally to begin new relationships with them. I hope, in the future, that I can always be as forgiving with them as I was that day. I don't want to be a double-minded person anymore. I want to feel like a whole person. I want my faith to be strong again.

I haven't bathed all week. I told Cathy on Thursday that I was going to go home after our therapy session and take a bath. I realize that is SO disgusting. I can't stand myself right now. I'm not making any excuses for myself. It seems like even when I think I don't feel depressed, that I really am. At least I have managed to brush my teeth every day. I think this will get better once I get a job. When I was working temp at Stephens for two weeks about a month ago, I felt a whole lot better about myself. I felt useful, intelligent and capable. I got up every morning and got dressed in nice clothes. ( I even ironed them. Wow. Domesticness.) I put on make-up and fixed my hair. That made me feel good about myself. I felt attractive. I don't want to feel attractive to have men look at me, I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say,"You are pretty." That doesn't happen very often.
Today is the day I hang out with Ryk and his kids. I love them so much. I love to hug them and hold them. The youngest, Richard (1 year), gives me little baby kisses when I make smoochy sounds at him. Xiana (3 years) always runs to me when she sees me and tells me what she has been doing that day and then wants me to play with her. She holds me close if she gets scared of something like she did at the park the other week when she was scared of the ducks and the geese. Melt. I just love to be around them. I don't care about poopy diapers or screaming tantrums. (Xiana is prone to have those. I just let her cry when she's acting spoiled.) I just miss them so much all week.

I am going to make myself bathe and wash my hair before I go over there today. I don't know how Ryk has stood to be around me this week. He must really love me. I'm surprised that he hasn't told me to bathe or at least dropped a hint. I can be really disgusting sometimes.

All She Needs Is Therapy

I feel:: contemplative
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Tori Amos~Scarlet's Walk

I had a therapy appt at 1:30 pm yesterday. I was supposed to see Ann, who is the therapist I saw last time, but she met me at the door and told me that she had an emergency meeting to go to. She asked me if I would talk to her intern, Cathy. (Ann is the main therapist at the Dorcas House, so there is no telling what kinds of emergencies she has to deal with every day.) I was kind of disappointed that I wasn't going to get to talk to her, but Cathy seemed genuine and nice, so I agreed to talk to her. She told me that she wasn't very far away from having a Master's Degree in Social Work. (I wanted to ask her about her schooling before the session started, but she started asking me questions, so I didn't think to ask her about that until the end of the session.) I don't remember everything we talked about, but she did ask me how old I was when I had my first suicide attempt. I told her that I was 10 at that time. (I remember telling Ann that in my first session, so it must have been in her notes, because Cathy said something about seeing it there.) She asked me if I had ever had any other suicide attempts and I told her that I had tried again in 1997. She wanted to know why and how I did it. I told her there were several things going on at the time.

First of all, I was still dealing with the breakup of the ministry I had been involved with from 1990-1995. Those people became really important to me because they were my family. I had never really felt like I had had a family until then. So, when the building we were in was sold to Dick Van Dyke, I had to find another place to live. The ministry disolved and I moved to Camden to live with my dad. I did not hear from most of the people who had been with me in the ministry after I moved. I was living 2 hours away and I felt very alone, abandoned, and I felt like they had all lied to me when they told me that they loved me. In my world, words don't mean as much as actions. So, when I didn't hear from them, I figured they had all just given me lip-service friendship. that hurt a lot because these were Christian people, I didn't think Christians would act like that. We had spent 5 years working together and suffering together. Even the couple I lived with and who discipled me in the Christian faith stopped talking to me. That hurt the most because I had lived with them and even called them "Mom" and "Pops". They became for me the parents I had always wanted. I loved them with all my heart and I thought they loved me too. (I found out later that Pops was really sick and had to have an exeperimental back surgery. After that, he had to have a TENS unit strapped to him to relieve pain. I think he recovered for about a year. Now, he is disabled and can't work.) I remember many, many days and nights spent with my heart aching and crying out to God,"Why did this happen? I wasn't ready to lose them! I can't do this on my own! Where are You?!" I felt like God was far from me and couldn't hear me.

That December, I was raped by a guy named Coby. I had come to Little Rock to hang out with a girlfriend of mine that I hadn't seen for awhile, Alisha. I was staying the weekend with some other friends of mine, a married couple, Scott and Renita (They had worked with me in the ministry.). I called Alisha on Saturday night to see if she wanted to hang out. She said she wanted to go to a club called Midnight Rodeo. It was a country club and I wasn't too thrilled about going there, but I missed her a lot, so I agreed to go. When I got to her apt., I remembered that I had another friend in Little Rock that I wanted to see, Rebekah. I called her and asked her if she wanted to go with us to Midnight Rodeo. She said she would go and she was all excited about it. Alisha and I left her apt. in my car to go pick up Rebekah. We got to the club and I immediately hated it. It was a total meat market. I can't stand country music either, so mostly what I did the whole night was sip my drink and pretend to be having a good time. While they were line dancing, this guy came over to my table and introduced himself as Coby. He said that he was going to the police academy and that he was there with his roomates who were both cops. We sat and talked for awhile and slow danced a couple of times. I thought he was a pretty nice guy for meeting him in a bar. He stayed with me for the rest of the night. When it came time to leave, I said goodbye to him and Alisha, Rebekah and I started walking to my car. When we were almost there, Coby came running up to me saying that his roomates had left him there with no ride and he wanted to know if I could take him home. I thought about it for aminute and I figured it would be ok since Alisha and Rebekah were with me. Well, we all got into my car and as I was putting on my seatbelt, Alisha looked at her watch and said,"Oh my God! I didn't know it was this late! You have to take me home now! Paul is going to be so mad at me for staying out so late!" I told her that Coby's house was the closest and was on the way to her apt, but she pitched a big fit and insisted that I take her home first. I was irritated that she was acting like such a baby, but I did drop her off first. As Alisha was getting out of my car, it started to rain. I have never seen it rain so hard before or since. Rebekah got in the front seat and started freaking out and telling me that I had to take her home next because it was storming so bad and her daughter, Hailey, was scared of storms. I said,"Your mom is there with her. She'll be ok and besides, his house is closer than yours." Nonetheless, she insisted that I take her home next. Ok, I was highly irritated at this point. I couldn't believe my friends whom I had known for years were acting like this. Sighing loudly, I started to drive to Rebekah's house. I couldn't drive faster than 10 or 15 mph because of the rain, so it took about an hour for me to take her home.(She lived in another town across the river.) When I dropped Rebekah off, it was still raining as hard as it had been. Coby got in the front seat and I started driving to his house, which incidentally, was only about 10 minutes from the club where we started out. About an hour or so later, we got to his house. Before he got out of my car, he asked me where I was staying. I told him I was staying in Benton with some friends of mine. (Benton is 30 miles away from Little Rock.) He told me that I shouldn't try to drive to Benton in that rain because it would be very easy for me to wreck. (Why wasn't he concerned that I might wreck while I was taking Alisha and Rebekah home? That took 2 hours. I should have seen his intentions right here, but I didn't.) He asked me if I wanted to come into his house to wait out the rain. I thought about it and figured it would be ok since his two roomates were there and both of them were cops. We went inside and he offered me a towel to dry myself off and got one for himself. We were both soaked to the bone even though it was a short walk from my car to his front door. At this point everything gets fuzzy. (As I was telling Cathy this, she said that it is very common for victims of sexual abuse to not have the ability to recall all of the things that happened to them. This made me feel better. I had thought my memory was just bad.) I remember being in his room. I remember there was a desk on the left wall and the bed was on the right wall. There were windows, one right after another, along the left and far wall. It was that time of the morning right before the sun comes up and I remember hearing the rain hit the windows and watching the drops fall down on the sills as he was raping me. I kept telling him "No" and to stop, but he wouldn't. I fought him off for a bit, but he was stronger than me and eventually he was on top of me and had me pinned to where I couldn't move. While he was raping me, every so often, he would whisper in my ear things like,"You are so beautiful." or "Stop crying. You know you like it." Other times, he would hum something in my ear. I could never recognize the tune. It's amazing the things you think about while you are being raped. I remember looking at the ceiling and wishing fervently that he would stop and thinking to myself,"What the hell am I doing here?" I don't know how long it lasted, but it seemed like forever. After it was over, he rolled off me and just lay beside me looking satisfied. I was in so much shock that I didn't really know what to do. I got up from the bed, got my clothes and went to the bathroom. I sat down on the toilet and cried and prayed. I remember asking God,"Why did this happen to me? Where ARE You? Do You even love me? Why?! Why?! Why?! Why did this happen to me AGAIN?" (It's been nearly 9 years since it happened and I still ask why, but I have not yet gotten an answer.) I finally came out of the bathroom red faced and tear stained. There was no way he would not have known that I had been crying. I am one of those people that cannot hide when I've been crying. My face gets red as a beet and my eyes swell and get red. My skin is very fair, so it's very easily noticeable. He came up to me as I was getting my purse and kissed me and asked me if I was feeling frisky. I realized with incredulity that he wanted to go again. I think I just stood there and stared at him. I was too much in shock to even be afraid. He gave me a piece of paper with his phone number on it and told me to call him. I didn't say anything and just turned to the door and walked out. ( I don't know why his roomates didn't wake up from all the commotion going on. Maybe they heard it and just didn't care. Maybe they were used to it. Maybe this was a habit for him. I don't know.) I got into my car and started driving to Benton. I was hysterically crying the whole way there and still praying frantically. I thought that somehow this had been my fault and I was begging God for forgiveness. When I got to Scott and Renita's, they were just leaving for early church and they asked me if I planned on going to church that day. I mumbled something about going and went to the room where I had my stuff. (Why didn't Scott and Renita notice that I had been crying? Why didn't they ask me what was wrong?) I took a shower and cried all during it. I got dressed while crying. I managed to stop crying long enough to put some make-up on. As I was driving to church, my eyes kept welling up with tears and it was all I could do not to get hysterical again.I kept having to dab my eyes with Kleenex to keep the tears from streaking my make-up. I figured if I could just get to church that I could find someone to talk to and then I would feel better. Then everything would be ok. ( I realize now that this is irrational thinking, but I figure I was in a state of trauma and that is the reason I was thinking that way.) I went to Sunday school and the teacher pulled me aside when she saw me and asked me what was wrong. I told her that something really bad had happened to me the night before. I couldn't bring myself to tell her the whole story because I was afraid that she would think the whole thing was my fault. I figured she would tell me that I shouldn't have agreed to take Coby home in the first place. She told me when bad things happen to people it's usually because they have unconfessed sin in their lives. She told me to pray to God and ask Him for forgiveness for being in rebellion. I couldn't take being there after that. I went downstairs and out of the church hysterical and in tears again. I got in my car and drove home to Camden. I didn't hear from anyone in the ministry for a long while after that. When I did finally go back to Benton, I went to a bible study and saw Mom and Pops' daughter, Lori. I got up the courage to tell her that he raped me. I don't remember what she said exactly, but I do remember that she changed the subject really quickly and started talking about herself. I felt alone again and betrayed again. I went home to Camden and for months I tried to find a church there where I felt like I fit in. I never did. I just church-hopped. I kept trying to find my comfort in God through prayer and study, but I felt like He just wasn't there. That's when I began to doubt my salvation.

A few months after the rape, things began to get tense with my dad. We were arguing a lot, which means he would say mean things to me, I would cry and retreat to my room for several days. Finally, one night, I decided to talk to him. I found him in the back yard on the patio drinking his nightly Jack Daniel's and smoking a joint. I got right to the point and told him that I felt like he didn't want me there. He said he really didn't because I was too much trouble, too emotional, too churchy (my dad is an Atheist), and it cost too much to feed me. (What's funny about that last comment is that at that time I was having a relapse of anorexia and I was only eating like once a month. After about seven days without food, I just don't have hunger pangs and it's easier not to eat.) When he told me that, I was so hurt and I felt like not only that he didn't love me, but that he had never really loved me. The next day, I called Alisha and asked her if I could move in with her. Within the next two or three days, I had all of my stuff moved out of dad's house and into Alisha's apt. (Paul wasn't living there at that time. They had a weird relationship before they got married. He used to break up with her all the time and then he'd want her back when he started missing her. When I moved in, they were broken up.) After I moved in with her, I got a job cocktail waitressing at a bar called Juanita's. At that time, Alisha told me that she thought Paul was going to ask her to marry him so I had to find another place to live. I didn't know where I was going to go, but I went apt hunting anyway. I found an apt in downtown Little Rock that I absolutely loved. It was a huge two-bedroom with a lot of windows ( I love windows.) and shiny hardwood floors. I couldn't afford it on my own though. I needed a roomate, but I didn't know that many people in Little Rock. It so happened that one night I was at a bar called Slick Willy's hanging out with my friend, Adon, who was the manager. I told him what was going on and he said that knew of a person who also needed a roomate. His name was Jim and he was homeless. He had been living and working at Slick's for a couple of months. I wasn't sure about him, so I told Adon that I would have to think about it. I met Jim and he seemed nice, although he smelled pretty bad. (Reeked is a better word.) Adon said he was a really good employee and that he would vouch for him. (I've known Adon since grade school, so I was inclined to trust him.) Jim and I became roomates and everything was fine for awhile. He didn't have a bank account, so he would give me his half of the rent and utilities in cash. He would also give me money to buy him groceries. Come to think of it, I did everything there. He just occupied his room. He pretty much stayed in there all the time. (He never could completely get rid of that smell though. I went into his room once and was bowled over by it. I never went in there again.) Anyway, he got a second job at another bar called Midtown, which was an after-hours bar open till 5 am. It was only two doors down from Juanita's. Well, I was over there one night after work and was talking to the manager who had become a friend of mine. She asked me if Jim was still my roomate. Confused, I said yes and asked her why. She got really serious and told me in a quiet voice that one night the previous week, Jim had been there drinking when he was off work. She said he got really drunk and was groping this one girl and he wouldn't leave her alone. At one point, she went to the bathroom and Jim followed her. She said he assaulted her while she was in the bathroom. She didn't know if he raped her, but she said the girl was pretty banged up when she finally made it out of the bathroom. (It's not a big bathroom. Only one toilet. I can't believe he assaulted her in there. It's so small.) The police were called and he was arrested for assault. I told her that I remembered him being gone for several days, but I didn't think anything about it. He always stayed with his girlfriend because she had a car and would take him to and from work, so I just assumed he was with her. After she told me all of this, I was pretty freaked out. I thought to myself,"What if he comes home one night shitfaced drunk and assaults me?" I couldn't deal with that. The next time I saw him I asked him about it. He said it was all true, but he didn't rape the girl. He said he was too drunk to do that. I asked him why he did that and he said he didn't know. Then, I asked him why he didn't tell me and he said that he was afraid that I would move out if I knew and that he couldn't afford that apt on his own. He was right. I moved out the next week. I moved into these really crappy apts downtown on Sherman St. I hate the apt, but I was glad to be on my own and away from Jim. I was getting more and more depressed, though. My job at Juanita's wasn't going very well. When I first started working there, I was making up to $500 a week in tips. At the end, I was only making like $100 per week. I couldn't survive on that little money, so I quit.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find another job and I was jobless for two months.
During that time, I ran into this guy that I knew while I was out at a club. His name was David MacDonald. We hung out all night at the club, and when it closed, I agreed to take him home. (What IS it with me and guys with no vehicles?) Well, when we got to his house, he wouldn't get out of my car. He kept insisting that I kiss him. He said that I owed him at least that much for the drinks he bought me. I didn't want to kiss him, but he grabbed me and tried to force me to kiss him. Thank God for consoles. He was having trouble reaching over it to get to me. We fought for the next couple of hours. Sometimes it was physical, sometimes it was me telling him to get out and him telling me what a bitch and a slut I was. What is weird to me is that he finally stopped when I stared crying. He said he couldn't stand bitches who cry. He said that he was disgusted with me and that I was weak. He finally got out of my car and slammed the door so hard that my ears popped. I drove off with him in my rear view mirror screaming obscenities at me. I was crying so hard that I could barely see the road. I stayed in my apt for the next week or two taking pain killers and muscle relaxers (They were left over from a car wreck I had had when I was living with Alisha. I have scoliosis, so any time I have a wreck, my back is screwed up royally.) because I wanted to be numb. Well, eventually, I ran out and I couldn't get anymore. I started to think about things and to see things more clearly. I was remembering everything that has happened in my life and I got so angry. Then I got sad and depressed. Everything seemed hopeless, like no matter what I did, nothing ever changed. I felt like men were some sort of alien species who did nothing but prey on girls and women. I had no money. I had no food and I was being evicted from my apt. I didn't know what I was going to do. So one day I found myself sitting on my bed with a knife repeatedly stabbing my mattress. I had laid out a bunch of Benadryl tablets in rows on my mattress and I kept looking at them while I was stabbing my mattress. I started to cry, knowing what would happen if I took them, but feeling like I had no other choice. So, I took all of them. I put on a cd of a band called Breedlove and laid down on my bed. I eventually fell asleep. I woke up puking. I don't know how much time had gone by. I stumbled to the bathroom and puked/dry heaved in the toilet for awhile. Then, I think I passed out. I woke up again laying in the bathroom floor.

*Sigh*

I feel:: exhausted
What song is on a loop in my head right now:: Buena Vista Social Club~Pueblo Nuevo

That interview was so bogus. First of all, it was at this guy's house. I feel really stupid for actually going through with it considering what I have been through in the past. I was really nervous about going in there. That should have been my cue to leave. The guy even told me that I looked nervous. Anyway, he talked to me a bit in his kitchen and then he took me downstairs to his office. He showed me his computer and then showed me that he was running his Norton Anitvirus software. It was scanning for viruses. He said that when it was through scanning, if it found any viruses that he wanted to be able to delete them, but he said that the program had not let him do that previously. He wanted me to show him that I could make his software to where he could delete possible viruses if any were found. I was like,"You'll have to wait until it finishes scanning first to see if it even finds any viruses." Then, someone knocked at the door and he went upstairs to see who it was. He came back down and said that it was the UPS guy or the Fed Ex guy. I can't remember exactly which. Anyway, he asked me the same question again about wanting to be able to delete possible viruses. I told him again,"You'll have to wait until it finishes scanning." I thought,"All software comes with a 'Read Me' file. Why don't you just read it and fix it yourself?" Then, he told me to cancel the virus scan so I did. Then, he wanted me to look at these websites that he has that are like city guides. It has listings of several different cities and you can click on 'Restaurants', for instance, and it will give you a list of restaurants in that city, phone number, owner's name and a map to show you how to get there. All he wanted me to do was to click on these links and look at the different companies that had paid him to let them have their info on his websites. The previous day, he had mentioned that he needed someone to upload these adverts onto his websites and that he had this software that would do it for you. So, I asked,"Did you want to show me the software for uploading the advertisements now?" He didn't answer me and kept wanting me to click more links to more advertisements. Then I turned around to face him (He had been standing over my shoulder the whole time. I hate it when people do that.) I said, "You had mentioned yesterday something about travel. What kind of travel did you have in mind?" He said that he was building houses and that some of them were in Fayetteville, Rogers, Texarkana and Dallas. He said that he needed someone to travel to the worksites to make sure they were being built properly and to take pictures of them once they were completed and then upload them on to another of his websites. The first thing I thought was,"I don't know how to tell if a house is being built properly or not." I don't have any experience in that at all. Then he asked me how much money I was looking to make, so I told him about 20,000 per year. He said that was fine. Then, he said that he would let me out of his house by the downstairs door, so that I wouldn't have to go back upstairs. On the way out, he stopped at the door, and before he opened it he said,"Look here, someone tried to kick in my door not too long ago." So, I looked and I could see where the door and the doorframe had been fixed and that there was also a new lock on it. Then I remembered that while we were upstairs, he made sure to lock all the doors before we went downstairs. He said something about being paranoid of getting robbed. I didn't think much of it at the time, but later I did. I told him,"Wow, this seems like a pretty nice neighborhood for someone just to randomly kick your door in." He said something like,"Well, you never know about people these days." It was a REALLY nice neighborhood. The houses were huge and so were the lots they were on. I could tell that the people who lived there were wealthy. So, later when I thought about it, I realized that someone was probably mad at him for something to have come all the way out there (His house was out past Maumelle) and tried to get into his office. So, I left not really knowing if he had hired me or not. He told me to go home and to look more at his websites and if I had any questions to give him a call. The first thing I did when I got in my car was to call my dad. I told him all about the interview and he said that the only trouble would be the traveling. I can't go to school and travel. So, then I called Sally. When I told her about the interview she was like,"Who interviews at their house? He should have met you somewhere. That would have been more professional." She also mentioned the problem with traveling and school. She also pointed out that I have no experience in how to tell if houses are being built properly. She said,"What are you going to do? Walk up to a construction site and tell those guys how to do their jobs? They'd laugh at you." I couldn't help but to agree with her. Sally also said that he wasn't offering enough money for what he wanted me to do. She said that the whole thing sounded really loose and that I should keep looking for another job. Then, I called Tanya and told her all about it. She agreed with my dad and Sally about the travel thing and school. She then started asking me all kinds of questions like,"Will he be providing you with a travel car, travel expense account, camera? Will you have to work out of his house? Does he provide insurance?" These are things that I never thought to ask him, so I told her that I would write all these questions down and ask him later. I guess I was too much on my guard while I was there to think about that stuff. Tanya and I went to eat lunch and while we were eating, Ryk called. I told him all about it and he said that the whole travel thing made him uncomfortable because I would be traveling by myself. I thought about it for the rest of the day and I decided not to take the job. There's too much that is unanswered and when I thought about the man himself, I realized that I didn't trust him. I told my dad later that when you meet someone, you usually know within the first few minutes of meeting them whether or not you can trust them. I remembered that he seemed kind of shady. So, I guess I was lucky on that one. Nothing bad happened to me, but it could have. I feel so stupid for going out to that guy's house. That's something I will never do again. If he calls me, I'm just going to tell him that I've thought a lot about it and that I don't think I can do what he wants me to do regarding the job and keep my grades up at school. I kind of doubt that he will call me though.

After Tanya and I went to luch yesterday, I went to her therapy appt with her. She asked me during luch if I wanted to go with her. She said that her therapist had said previously that it might be a good idea if either me or Sally went with her one time so that he could get a better picture of her life. So, we went. I met her therapist. He was nice. He had her sign an agreement saying that it was ok for me to be there. I think it went well.When her therapy was over, we drove into Jacksonville and went to a place called Safari Pets, because Tanya was looking for a stand to put her birdcage on. They didn't have one, but told her to come back in two weeks. Then, we went to a place called Arky Barky in NLR. They have AKC puppies there. I've been thinking for a long time about getting a dog. I just don't know what kind of dog would be best for me. I don't want to get a dog and have it be unhappy with me. Well, this girl who was working there, Rebecca, showed me this 14-week old Teacup Poodle that had red hair. Ok, I fell in love with her. I carried her around the whole time we were there. When I tried to put her down, she came right back to me. She was so sweet and my heartstrings were tugged HARD. I wanted her so bad, but she is $900 dollars. There is no way that I can pay that much. I can't even make my own bills. So, now, I'm kind of sad. I can't stop thinking about her. I even dreamt about her last night. After that, Tanya and I went to McCain Mall so she could pay a couple of bills. Amazingly, I didn't buy anything. I was proud of myself. I was tempted to though, consdering that I've just paid off one of my credit cards. By the time we got to the mall, my allergies were in over drive. I think it was handling all those puppies. The poodle doesn't shed and doesn't have dander, so I know it wasn't her. The lady at the store said she would be perfect for me because of that. (Ok, I'm going to stop talking about her now.) Anyway, I held/petted two Cairn Terriers, Italian bloodhounds, Pomerainians, Yorkies, Daschunds, Mini Pinchers, a Snoodle (a mix of a Poodle and a Snauser (sp?), a Teacup Chihuahua, and a Maltese. I think that's it, but it took a toll on me. I loved it though. By the time we got to the mall, I was sneezing violently, my nose was bleeding, I was having trouble breathing, I was sweating like a whore in church. I even had it running down my legs. Tanya asked me if I was running a fever. I told her I didn't think so. She felt my forehead and said that I felt really clammy. By the time we were walking out, every time I sneezed there would be a spray of blood and I would get this searing pain in my arms starting at my shoulders and going all the way down to my hands. Then, I would be unable to move my arms for a bit without severe pain. Well, I took Tanya home. I decided I was hungry on my way out of Cabot, so I stopped at a gas station to get some snacks. I didn't have any cash, so I put it on my dad's gas card. (Thank you dad.) I freakin pigged out. I don't know why, but every time my allergies get bad like that, I want to just binge. On the 45 minute drive from her house to mine, I ate half of a large bag of Lay's Ranch chips, a king size 3 Musketeer's, and 6 of those little Dolly Madison chocolate doughnuts. Actually, that only took about 30 minutes. When, I got home, I immediately went to bed. That was at about 6:30 last night. I didn't wake up until 10am this morning. I've been shaky all day, I guess because of all the sugar I ate yesterday. And now, I've got the cold sweats again.

It stormed last night so bad. I remember vaguely hearing the rain land on the roof of my house. One time, I heard it thunder so lound that the house shook and our alarm went off. That was so weird. I was so tired though that it really didn't phase me. I just went right back to sleep. Ryk called me sometime last night, but I can barely remember it. I think he asked me if I wanted him to come over and take care of me, but I told him that I wanted to be alone. Then, sometime later, Sally called me. My phone says we talked for 45 minutes, but I don't remember what we talked about. I think I told her about the little Poodle that I want so bad.