Quote From: cruex_rireI have been reading this message board for weeks now, and I have finally decided to add a litte imput of my own. Here is my story:
I am fantastic at covering up how I really feel. It is one of my greatest talents, and, unfortunately, I find myself quite proud of it. However, I did not end up hiding what happened to me, I told someone, and sometimes I think that could have been the worst thing Ive ever done. My father belonged to some sort of cult and me being the eldest of his children, was subjected to ritualistic ual and physical abuse from the age of about two. My mother and him ended up divorcing and for several years I lived happily with my loving grandparents. But then when I was about eight my mother re-married and my father came back into our lives, probably as a challenge to my mother's husband. The abuse continued until I was a sophomore in highschool. Then, one night, I saw my father hurt my little sister, and I went home and contacted CPS. Since then I have been showered with praises for protecting my sister, and although I do not take them lightly, I have also been haunted by the effect all the CPS, court, and legal proceedings have taken a toll on my family. I suppose I chose the lesser of two evils, but still...
My mother has done the best she knows how to do and has always encouraged me in my path towards healing. She was not aware of the abuse, in fact, most of the time she was abused by him herself, and in some ways my being honest has opened up explanations for all the struggles I encountered as a child. She is supportive in my counseling and tries her best. I am always grateful to her for that.
During my senior year of highschool I went through a hard break up with my first boyfriend (we dated for about two years) and stopped counseling altogether due to financial issues and my need to work to be able to afford college. From my standpoint, things seemed to be going okay. Then, last year I moved from my California home to go to college in Illinois, where i knew no one. In October I met a waiter at a restaurant and a couple days later we met up to hang out and when I refused to go farther than kissing, he violently d me.
From all this, I was diagnosed with DID (formerly MPD) which I see that many of you here on the message board have, I also battled with anorexia my early years of highschool, dropping to below 80 lbs, and I have been hospitalized for cutting (I have been doing this since the age of 12). Obviously, I have some issues I need to address, however I have to admit I doing so. It is so much easier for me to distract myself from it with work, school, and other activities. My issues do come up and influence my daily life, but I am terrified that intense therapy, hospitalization, and such will harm me more, because I get very caught up by this in the past.
I am only 19, for the most part, I am genuinely happy: I have a loving family, I am attending school closer to home, in the college honors program and love my major, have a job I love, and an abosolutely amazing boyfriend. I really don't feel like I have the right to complain with the issues I have or the pain in my past because God has touched me with so much. If the issues I am dealing with I can hide sufficiently enough to where they only affect me, should I really dig further into myself? I would love some advice.
Thanks for listening, or rather, reading. I know I tend to blab on a bit.
Mara
First let me tell you how amazing you are. You should be very proud of yourself for being able to accomplish so much. I do want to tell you that you sound a lot like me at that time, but you know more about yourself and your past. I used to put everything into my job, I loved my job and would even go on my off hours. As the years went on though things got worse, I didn't realize at the time that I was avoiding anything until my life slowed dow and I started talking to other people and realized that how I felt or thought was not normal, not remembering my past began to really bother me, I missed alot. It is when I found a writing site, and was talking to others that things began to unfold. I found that as time went on, hiding and keeping things to myself seemed to make things worse. That is just my opinion. Good luck in continuing to grow
