I hate St Patrick's Day

I hate St Patrick's Day.  8 years ago on St Patrick's Day I brought my son to child protective services for an interview with a police officer and a social worker.  It's one of the moments that I really want to share with people when they go on about what they would do if their child were sexually abused.

First off after I called intake and before the interview, I had to send my son on a day visit with his father.  Around my son, I had to pretend that everything was normal because I didn't want to fuck up the evidence.  What I really wanted to do was grill him until I KNEW what was going on because it was still pretty vague.

At the interview, My mother and I were not allowed in.  We sat in the waiting room, thank God there weren't many people going in and out but there were a few.  I almost wish that they did like at the hospital where they give you a pager.  It was so hard waiting in the room. 

When I'm under stress I go over all the possible outcomes of an event over and over and over again.  I couldn't stop myself from thinking that my son would clam up and there wouldn't be enough evidence and I'd have to continue going through the hell that I was in.  What could I do if that happened?  The only thing I could think to do was get back with my son's father although he was definitely a crack addict at that time.  If I ran and got caught my son's father would get custody.

Anyway the time passed infinitely slowly.  When my son came out, he stayed with my mom in the waiting room and I went in.  All my patience and self control had paid off big time.  My son had come through like a trooper telling them absolutely everything that had happened or at least enough for his father to be charged and later convicted.  That was because I kept my head and didn't freak out, he thought that it was normal and okay to talk about it.

Then I made a mistake that I still regret to this day.  The cop asked if I could go up the street to the cop shop for an interview and I agreed to go without seeing my son first.  I should have gone to him and hung out with him first.

After an interview in which I felt like a criminal, my son and I went to stay with my brother.  My son's father was supposed to pick up my son for a visit the next day and I had no way to contact him to give him some reason why it would be off.  The police were supposed to contact us when they had served a search warrant and an undertaking against my son.  We couldn't go home or to my mom's house.  My mom and I went to a hotel and they called us around 7 that night.

When all this happened it was the first time that my heart has ever broken.  I felt disconnected from my son because the pain was so intense.  It took about a year for that bond to reform.  It is hard to believe now 8 years later that he has turned out to be such a great kid.  That time was such hell for him, my mother and I.  Now it is good to have the normal pre-teen problems of homework and housework.

The thing that hurts me the most about it now is the shame of not being able to talk about it.  Especially when I hear idiots and assholes talk about what they would do if their children were abused because they have no idea what it's like.  I'd still like to go and put a bullet in my son's abuser's head, but that wouldn't move anyone towards healing.  Me being in jail would not help my son become a healthy adult.  Other than preventing other children from being abused, I doubt that it would even really make me feel better.

Old shit

I am in so much pain right now.  As I become more comfortable being transgendered and expressing myself more shit comes up from my past.  I know that the stuff I've been thinking about lately is just the very teeny tiny tip of the iceberg.  The only good thing is that the crying has made me tired so maybe I can get a decent sleep tonight.  There is stuff that has happened that I just plain don't want to deal with but I know it's coming and I can't make it stop.  I just have to keep telling myself that I lived through the things that happened and I can live through the feelings. 

cat

A friend of mine just got some fish.  I've pretty much always had a pet, it's part of who I am I guess.  Not that I have animals all over the place, the most I've had was a cat and a dog at the same time.  Right now I have a cat.

Anyway, that got me thinking about my cat which got me thinking of my old cat, Rovercat.  She looked almost the same as the cat I have now only smaller and with white on her face.  She would come running to meet me at the door and loved to play fetch.  She would lie on the side of the bath when I took a bath.  I was a little mean and I'd dunk her tail in the water.  She never noticed but when she jumped down she would splash herself and it was really funny.  In the summer when my dog didn't eat much and Rover would eat Sophie's kibbles.  She looked so funny gnawing away at the big dog kibbles.  When I took her to the vet she would have one paw sticking out of the carrier and people would laugh and smile at her.  All she needed was a little tin cup to rattle against the bars to be completely pathetic.  I had to leave my cat and dog behind when I left my son's father and went into the shelter.  My dog ended up being given away.  My  mom and my aunt saw her a couple of times with her new owner.  I know that they (my son's father and the person who took her) wanted to breed her and whenever I see a mixed breed brindle dog I wonder if it's one of Sophie's puppies, if she even ever had any.

The thing I'm writing about though is that I'm almost positive that my son's father killed my cat, from something my son said when he was little.  The more I look into my past and my life the harder it seems to have been.  Fuck, it's amazing I still want to breathe.

Short

A guy at my work's sister's house burnt down and they were looking for donations.  I offered them some stuff that I had been thinking of getting rid of anyway and they came to pick it up this morning.  It got me thinking that I really don't give enough.  I wish I had more to give but I do have tons of yarn that I could be knitting into hats and mitts for people who don't have anything.  I think I'm pretty good when an opportunity but I just don't go out of my way enough.

When I look at myself I always come up short.  I've been taking on more and more at work and it is only a matter of time before that catches up with me and drags me down.  I wish that I could be more things to more people, at the same time I wish that I could be a hermit so I never hurt anyone.  Am I neglecting my son or is he being a normal teenager?  I can't help thinking that I'm neglecting him.  I want to save money but I want to spend it to make those around me happy.  Sometimes I wish that I could split myself into pieces, each devoted to different people and tasks.  I wish that I could be all things to all people and still be true to myself.

Lipgloss

It's funny how I seem to have glossed things from my past over.  Convincing myself that they weren't as bad as they were.

A couple months ago I came across a journal that I had been writing to keep track of my son's behavior leading up to the arrest of his father.  Before reading it I could only remember a couple of symptoms of child abuse that he had.  After  reading it I realized he had all of them.  I didn't remember him wetting the bed and that the behavioral issues were pretty much every day.  And the things he said to me and my mother.

That and something else got me thinking of my own childhood.  How I would sit in my desk in grade 4 and try to will my heart to stop.  Screaming with no sound in the field by the playground.  When I was older: slashing my wrist every time the help line was busy, I think it was 6 times before anyone answered.  Having seizures of anger and thinking I was possessed by daemons.  Cutting myself to make it stop. Making tests for people that they didn't know they were taking and couldn't win.  I remember waiting for my dad to come and get me when I was in Ontario with him when I was 17.  If he came, I have to go and I didn't want to so he didn't know me and if he didn't come, he didn't love me. 

Reading that back I'm starting to feel sorry for the person I was.  I used to hate her, she was weak. Now I'm starting to see her as a little kid with so much pain and no outlet, no words and no one who would listen even if there were words.  I remember reading an exercise for people recovering from abuse where you picture your child self and imagine  your adult self loving and nurturing your child self.  I always thought that was really stupid but I think I might be able to do it now.

Late night

You know I never knew my kitchen clock ticked.  I can't sleep, the radio is off, which it never is.  I've read for over and hour and I can't even get sleepy.  I don't want to do anything tomorrow, but so much shit to do.  The sound of the fridge and the sound of the clock and the sound of the keyboard now.  You know, they could make keyboards soundless, but they generally don't.  It started because secretaries didn't like not having the sound of a keyboard.  I think anyway.  This is just words, useless, stupid words.  At this moment I hate every word I've ever spoken or written or thought.  No one can ever know the meaning of what another person says.  No one can ever know the thoughts behind them.  Do normal people feel this way?  Do normal people think this way?  Sometimes I think that the best way through life is to not think at all.  Sometimes I wish I were a person who didn't think, who didn't feel, just do, do, do.  I wonder what the future holds for me?  When I was younger I couldn't wait for everyone around me to die because then all my sins would be forgotten.  What a strange way for a kid to think.  My mom was probably the keeper of most of my sins and they are not forgotten.  And I keep on sinning.  I wish that God would just make me a puppet and I could only do good in the world instead of fucking things up all the time.  Now I can barely pray and I can't go to church at all.  'Mercy' is one of my favorite words, I dream of it but often doubt it exists, or if it does, I doubt I know it's meaning.  Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.  What does that mean?  I should never be allowed to spend too much time with myself, I'm a bad influence.  I really, really wish I were drunk right now.  If my son had never been born I'd be dead or a crack head right now.  There are people who love me but I swear to God, I don't know why, it makes not one lick of sense.  Am I the only one who sees how hateful I am?  I have two people living for me and I'm living for my son, we're all decent people so why can't we just live for ourselves?  Why can't we believe that we are worth every breath that we take instead of just taking up space?

Doing things

Why can't I get off my ass and do the things that I really enjoy and make me feel better?  I feel better when I exercise, draw, do yoga, play guitar, clean but I don't make the time to do these things.  I get on facebook or my ipod and play stupid games, I follow every stupid tweet and topic on WC but I can't get off my ass and do things that are good for me.  How does a person change?  I know it can be done, I've changed so much already.  I doubt if the person I used to be would even recognize the person I am today.  I really thought that coming to terms with being transgendered would just free me somehow and I would instantly  be the person I want to be.  I guess it's a process and I need to be kinder to myself and not so hard on myself.  Nothing happens overnight.  I have been doing yoga fairly regularly and I'm knitting like mad right now.  I'd really like to play my guitar more and practice from the book my brother gave me.  If it works like he says it does I'd really be able to get much better at my music.  Blah.

Money

This weekend I've spend a ridiculous amount of money on myself.  I'm really uncomfortable with that.  Some things to make me feel better, some things I just like, some things I needed or wanted for a long time.  I can't understand people who shop to make themselves feel better.  It doesn't make me feel better, it makes me feel worse.

I'm listening to a song on the radio that makes me think of someone and it's making me really sad.

Dark things

A lot of time alone today.  Sometimes I long to be alone, but when the time comes that I am alone, my mind flirts with the darkest part of my past.  There are times when I am here on the brink that I think finally, I can go through this and healing is on the other side, but I step back again and again.  I think each time I step back I am a better person though, so maybe it is healing.

As always, it seems, all roads lead to  my mother.  She rejected me in my healing too.  Maybe I couldn't approach it when she was still alive because I knew I couldn't turn to her.  Maybe the rift between us in my adult years was more than just my choice of man, maybe it was piles of rejection of who I am and what I've been though.  I know the same kind of thing happened to her and there were so many times that I wanted to reach out to her and tell her that healing is possible, that she didn't have to reject me because she wanted so much to reject her own experience.

My heart could break for my son, my heart could break for a little girl from South Africa that I saw on the news once  who was the same age as I was and went through a similar thing but my heart can't break for me.  I have pictures of myself from about 6 months or so after it happened.  If it were a stranger and I was told what happened to her, my heart would break, but it just doesn't for myself.

I'm going to have a nice relaxing bath now, to take care of myself.

old ladies II

This evening my cousin posted pictures of my aunt (her mom) who died this past spring on fb.  There were old and new pictures, some of them with my mom in them.  I cried again.  I wonder why the tears come easier now, over a year after her death?  Maybe I just couldn't deal with it before now.  The other night I could hear people coming in the main door out front and I thought "my mom used to come to this house", now she doesn't.  My aunt used to come too.  I remember when my aunt was in the hospital after my mom died and a few weeks before she died and we hugged and cried about my  mom.  It was sooo hard for me to visit my aunt, I'm glad I got to see her a few times before she got really bad.  I'm glad that David and I got to spend some time with her before her children got home, so she wouldn't feel so alone.

Old ladies

Sometimes when I see old ladies, I hate them for being alive when Mom and Emily are dead.

People

I don't know why but sometimes it really bothers me that other people have feelings.  Not the people that I care about.  Sometimes I'll see a picture, video or even a movie and it will flash in my mind 'that person has feelings' and I get a little angry about it.  It goes away pretty quickly although there are times that it will come back again and again.   I don't get it.  I don't remember it happening in real life with real people, but maybe it has.  Always with strangers though.  I can go pretty deeply into it even though it only lasts moments.  That person feels love, pain, joy, sadness, all the things that I feel and I can't stand them for it.  I guess I should think about that.  I wonder if I get angry because that person has feelings so I might hurt them.  But then why would it happen for movies?  They aren't real people.  This feeling can't possibly be unique to me, there must be others who feel this way.  Thinking about it, I think that I have gone through bouts of feeling this way before.  It comes and goes.