Having a lot of trouble sleeping lately so time to write. Let's see, last I left off I was 13 and in Houston...
Half way through 7th grade my mom decided that she wanted for sure to move us up to Dallas. I can't even begin to explain the anxiety, depression, and hatred towards my mother that developed with this decision. In my head at the time, she had always sucked as a mom and my dad had never actually had to be a dad. And now she was moving me away from all the adults who took care of me and the friends that were like siblings that I'd had all my life. Plus I'm not by nature any good at change, especially forced change.
The end of 7th grade and she had for sure taken a job and we moved into a rich suburban town that was the absolute opposite of the neighborhood I came from. Well opposite might be misleading. I was from a neighborhood that had been build the year I was born. My parents along with tons of other parents with kids my age moved in that same year. It was affordable starter homes for young parents. It was very 'real' and not snobby and laid back. My new home... full of 6 figure millionaires. Tons of snobs and people who spent a lot of time and money on appearing well off whether they were or not.
I went from acceptance for who you were to a middle school that defined you by what you wore, where you lived, what your parents drove, and of course what you looked like. Well surprise surprise that depression, anxiety, hatred of parents, shallow and judgemental environment, and no control over ones life would feed into ED. In truth I don't remember much of the year 13. I was so deeply sad all the time that what I remember is hazy. I remember getting my period for the first time, La Femme Nikita, discovering AOL chat, and trying very hard not to make friends because I already had wonderful friends that didn't need to be replaced. I remember being very miserable and making it a mission to make my mother just as miserable. World War III had erupted.
I often feel guilt for my sister because she also doesn't remember this time well but I think more out of the fact that it traumatized her. Life under our roof was not fun or healthy for anybody. I don't remember eating much at all and since I can recall exact instances of eating foods since about age 5 that says to me that I just plain wasn't eating much. I don't even think it was conscious. I was just simply too depressed to do anything but sleep, watch Nikita, listen to music, and wish I was dead.
This was the first time that I planned suicide. I had thought about dying and killing myself for as long as I can remember. It's not much more unique to my personality than being dramatic or athletic. I was sad and wished I wasn't around. 13 though was the year I almost slit my wrists in the bath. So cliche I know. Part of the reason I stopped after the first cut. The others were as follows, I decided my mother wouldn't win (because she might as well have been the anitchrist), I didn't want my 8 year old sister to find me in a tub full of my own blood, and I wasn't crazy about EMS strangers dragging my naked dead body away. Later I would add the fact that if you try and fail then you're labeled crazy and decrease your chances of getting away with it in the future.
I did make friends despite my wall, however. Two of them best friends of mine to this day. By my freshman year (14) I actually had a core group of friends and started adjusting to the fact that no matter how miserable I might make my mother, we were not moving back and 18 was a long ways away. Freshman year I started restricting again. Probably the only year you might have been able to classify me as anorexic if you ignored that fact that I never was rid of my period. In an effort to make peace, my mom started sending me to H town to visit. Keeping an open connection to my roots made me more inspired to make a life in the big D so that I had updates and an image to share when I got back. Reenter the fantasy of dropping 30 punds by the next visit to finish the transformation. I remember almost thinking I was thin enough that year. That and platform shoes. Man did I love platform shoes.
Spring Break was awesome that year. I didn't know then how important that long weekend in Galveston would be to my memories. I remember every detail. The clothes I bought for the trip or chose to pack to show off the new me I was suppose to be. The solo walk in both airports and pulling up to the G's house and surprising CG who didn't know I was coming. The alone bonding time with F upon arrival since she had an off period. All the preparations for our quick trip into Galveston to the beach condo. Driving with the girls and listening to Sublime and hanging out at the pool and beach. And the severe relapse in depression when I got home.
I don't think I must have gotten over it by the end of the year because I don't have many memories outside of that fateful graduation weekend. It was a weekend with my dad and we had told everyone that we would meet the extended fam in KC for the weekend. Then we decided not to go but my dad being eternally irresponsible didn't tell anyone. He didn't want to hear it from his family so he didn't answer their calls and since he didn't ever want to hear from my mom he didn't answer hers either... until call 50ish.
I knew a battle was coming so I retreated into my room the second I heard my mom on the other line screaming at him that everyone had been looking for us and that she had even called highway patrol to search for wreckage. I remember aside from his initial yelled response about over reacting that he never rose his voice again and yet hadn't hung up on her and that he stayed on the line and didn't come into my room for about twenty minutes. Then he came in, sat down next to me not meeting my eyes. I've never felt the level of dread and internal knowledge that something horrible had happened like I did right then (and to this day if my mom calls me several times in a row I assume the worst).
He simply said this, "Well... it's never easy to hear this type of news. F died this morning in a car accident coming back into Houston from Galveston for P's graduation." I sat for 30 seconds, stood up, walked into my bathroom, shut/locked the door, turned on the sink, climbed into the tub and sat there for who knows how long. I'm not sure I even cried. The only person close to me who had died was my dad's mom and it was sudden and she died young at 58. I know I felt cheated and abandoned and I know that I shut out the whole thing. I have no memories of that time and I was almost 9.
The day F died though, I shut off. I didn't want to talk to anyone and I wasn't interested in being close to anyone emotionally. We went to the funeral (it was horribly southern babtist) and all about celebrating her life and not mourning her loss and in my head I thought "F you, all of you. She was 16." I didn't talk about it to anyone and I never dealt with it. The first time I cried outside of the funeral (cuz who can't cry at a SB funeral?) was when seventh heaven aired their episode where Lucy finds out her friend's sister has died on her way to pick her up against parent permission. It took seeing familiar pain for me to express mine and then that was over within an hour.
I guess it's definitely a peice of why food and weight obsession intensified during this time. I retreated from the world more each day and into the mirror. I didn't want anyone to bug me about anything (then I'd maybe have to deal) so I became a very good liar and actress in the year that followed. It was also the building blocks of many other self destructive behaviors I would have love affairs with both short and long term through out the next decade plus.
Half way through 7th grade my mom decided that she wanted for sure to move us up to Dallas. I can't even begin to explain the anxiety, depression, and hatred towards my mother that developed with this decision. In my head at the time, she had always sucked as a mom and my dad had never actually had to be a dad. And now she was moving me away from all the adults who took care of me and the friends that were like siblings that I'd had all my life. Plus I'm not by nature any good at change, especially forced change.
The end of 7th grade and she had for sure taken a job and we moved into a rich suburban town that was the absolute opposite of the neighborhood I came from. Well opposite might be misleading. I was from a neighborhood that had been build the year I was born. My parents along with tons of other parents with kids my age moved in that same year. It was affordable starter homes for young parents. It was very 'real' and not snobby and laid back. My new home... full of 6 figure millionaires. Tons of snobs and people who spent a lot of time and money on appearing well off whether they were or not.
I went from acceptance for who you were to a middle school that defined you by what you wore, where you lived, what your parents drove, and of course what you looked like. Well surprise surprise that depression, anxiety, hatred of parents, shallow and judgemental environment, and no control over ones life would feed into ED. In truth I don't remember much of the year 13. I was so deeply sad all the time that what I remember is hazy. I remember getting my period for the first time, La Femme Nikita, discovering AOL chat, and trying very hard not to make friends because I already had wonderful friends that didn't need to be replaced. I remember being very miserable and making it a mission to make my mother just as miserable. World War III had erupted.
I often feel guilt for my sister because she also doesn't remember this time well but I think more out of the fact that it traumatized her. Life under our roof was not fun or healthy for anybody. I don't remember eating much at all and since I can recall exact instances of eating foods since about age 5 that says to me that I just plain wasn't eating much. I don't even think it was conscious. I was just simply too depressed to do anything but sleep, watch Nikita, listen to music, and wish I was dead.
This was the first time that I planned suicide. I had thought about dying and killing myself for as long as I can remember. It's not much more unique to my personality than being dramatic or athletic. I was sad and wished I wasn't around. 13 though was the year I almost slit my wrists in the bath. So cliche I know. Part of the reason I stopped after the first cut. The others were as follows, I decided my mother wouldn't win (because she might as well have been the anitchrist), I didn't want my 8 year old sister to find me in a tub full of my own blood, and I wasn't crazy about EMS strangers dragging my naked dead body away. Later I would add the fact that if you try and fail then you're labeled crazy and decrease your chances of getting away with it in the future.
I did make friends despite my wall, however. Two of them best friends of mine to this day. By my freshman year (14) I actually had a core group of friends and started adjusting to the fact that no matter how miserable I might make my mother, we were not moving back and 18 was a long ways away. Freshman year I started restricting again. Probably the only year you might have been able to classify me as anorexic if you ignored that fact that I never was rid of my period. In an effort to make peace, my mom started sending me to H town to visit. Keeping an open connection to my roots made me more inspired to make a life in the big D so that I had updates and an image to share when I got back. Reenter the fantasy of dropping 30 punds by the next visit to finish the transformation. I remember almost thinking I was thin enough that year. That and platform shoes. Man did I love platform shoes.
Spring Break was awesome that year. I didn't know then how important that long weekend in Galveston would be to my memories. I remember every detail. The clothes I bought for the trip or chose to pack to show off the new me I was suppose to be. The solo walk in both airports and pulling up to the G's house and surprising CG who didn't know I was coming. The alone bonding time with F upon arrival since she had an off period. All the preparations for our quick trip into Galveston to the beach condo. Driving with the girls and listening to Sublime and hanging out at the pool and beach. And the severe relapse in depression when I got home.
I don't think I must have gotten over it by the end of the year because I don't have many memories outside of that fateful graduation weekend. It was a weekend with my dad and we had told everyone that we would meet the extended fam in KC for the weekend. Then we decided not to go but my dad being eternally irresponsible didn't tell anyone. He didn't want to hear it from his family so he didn't answer their calls and since he didn't ever want to hear from my mom he didn't answer hers either... until call 50ish.
I knew a battle was coming so I retreated into my room the second I heard my mom on the other line screaming at him that everyone had been looking for us and that she had even called highway patrol to search for wreckage. I remember aside from his initial yelled response about over reacting that he never rose his voice again and yet hadn't hung up on her and that he stayed on the line and didn't come into my room for about twenty minutes. Then he came in, sat down next to me not meeting my eyes. I've never felt the level of dread and internal knowledge that something horrible had happened like I did right then (and to this day if my mom calls me several times in a row I assume the worst).
He simply said this, "Well... it's never easy to hear this type of news. F died this morning in a car accident coming back into Houston from Galveston for P's graduation." I sat for 30 seconds, stood up, walked into my bathroom, shut/locked the door, turned on the sink, climbed into the tub and sat there for who knows how long. I'm not sure I even cried. The only person close to me who had died was my dad's mom and it was sudden and she died young at 58. I know I felt cheated and abandoned and I know that I shut out the whole thing. I have no memories of that time and I was almost 9.
The day F died though, I shut off. I didn't want to talk to anyone and I wasn't interested in being close to anyone emotionally. We went to the funeral (it was horribly southern babtist) and all about celebrating her life and not mourning her loss and in my head I thought "F you, all of you. She was 16." I didn't talk about it to anyone and I never dealt with it. The first time I cried outside of the funeral (cuz who can't cry at a SB funeral?) was when seventh heaven aired their episode where Lucy finds out her friend's sister has died on her way to pick her up against parent permission. It took seeing familiar pain for me to express mine and then that was over within an hour.
I guess it's definitely a peice of why food and weight obsession intensified during this time. I retreated from the world more each day and into the mirror. I didn't want anyone to bug me about anything (then I'd maybe have to deal) so I became a very good liar and actress in the year that followed. It was also the building blocks of many other self destructive behaviors I would have love affairs with both short and long term through out the next decade plus.
No comments:
Post a Comment