Wounded Mind, Fractured Brain

What did you say?

Don't take it personally.

Hhmm, I thought to myself for a moment in silence.  I started to say something but I stopped myself.  I felt like it would be a moot point because I had already taken in personally, I just did not want to explain any further.

I just cannot take all the yelling.  I was yelled and screamed at as a kid, so its difficult for me.

Just scream back!

I stared for a longer amount of time.  I am not comfortable yelling at  anyone, let alone a complete stranger.  I said that I had to go, got on my bike, turned my Sony music player on and road off.  I just could not handle it a minute longer.  My head was throbbing and my nerves were shot. Even being on my bike didn't seem to calm me down.

When I got back home I curled up in bed and closed my eyes.  I had taken one of my pills because I could not take my brain, it was in so much pain.  Flashbacks were not even flashbacks. It was ribbons of film ripping out of the reels and cutting itself on my brain matter.  As I could here it go, "Click, click, click," like an old movie house when the film needs to be changed and it has run completely out of the projector. 

I laid there until I fell asleep and dreamt of the nightmare of my life.  I woke in a panic, gasping for air and thinking I was still where I had just been.  Thank god I wasn't, I was at home again.  I had made it back to the house without blacking out. 

I have blacked out twice in the past two months.  This is an experience that is not a pleasant one.  I don't know if you are knowledgeable on what happens, but it is just miserable as an adult.  You literally do not remember a thing.  Both times I woke up throwing-up. 

My mind has been so badly wounded but yesterday my brain fractured.  It is like falling off a bicycle and re-breaking your leg.  It broke in a weird way, pulled the brain tissue out and splat the memories poured out into the rest of my mind. 

I began to think about the fact that people who have had knee replacement, hip replacement or just broke a bone in their arm or leg are treated so much more humanely than those of us with broken brains.  I mean, if you are limping and somebody asks whats wrong and you reply,

Oh, I broke my leg last year and it is really bothering me today.

I'm sorry, that must have been so painful, how did you do it?

I was riding my bike and a car hit me when they ran a red light on Divisadero and O'Farrel Streets.

Oh my God! That is awful.  Did you have to have surgery?

No, it was a compound fracture.

No wonder you are in so much pain, there is a storm coming in off, I heard it is going to rain.

Yea, it seems to get worse when the storms hit.

I read its the rain that really cause breaks to hurt.

Maybe your right, because after the rain finally comes it seem to  get better, maybe its when the barometer drops.

Probably, I hope you feel better.

Thanks,  I'm sure I will.

Whats your name?

James

My name is Annie.
It is nice to meet you.

I'm sure we will talk soon, especially since we seem to be in the same Chef's Class.

Yea, your right, talk to you soon.

A friendship begins all because somebody noticed someone limping in from outside into a classroom.  Which is pretty cool, it was a conversation starter, a way to meet someone new that you did not know and in all reality might develop a friendship with or more.  In our case, our minds have been fractured or at the very least, very badly wounded.  Sometimes we look sad or despondent, we might look relatively normal, even be smiling but the pain inside is always there for us because we cannot seem to get through it.  It just hurts, sometimes it hurts really bad and sometimes it just there but either way we have a fracture of the mind.  It doesn't mean that we have split personality, we just are wounded people that nobody ever seems to see.  We don't limp, we cry, we don't complain, we are silent, we don't look for sympathy, we would rather forget and even with all of that we still get accused of looking for pity or for someone just to say, "I'm sorry for your life."

The thing is our injury is no different than a broken bone.  When the rain comes it usually has a different name, in my case, it is when the night comes.  As the afternoon wanes and night approaches the same thing that happened to James with his broken leg happens to me, I am in pain. I limp differently, I get quiet and begin to stare off in the distance.  My mind goes to places that are not in my control.  I start night dreaming and I am not asleep yet.  I begin to become anxious about the fact I will have to go to sleep soon, I start pacing and getting up and down.  It is very obvious something is wrong, it seems to be written all over my face.

In the past people have asked me what is wrong,

Are you O.k.

Yes, I'm fine.

You don't look O.k. you are kind of white, do you need a drink of water? Whats going on?

Oh, its nothing really, I had a troublesome childhood and I get a little nervous as the sun goes down.

Hhmm, Oh, I better find a seat.

I am making this scenario up and just presenting a theory of why it is so difficult for us to get better.  I am not sure what experience you have had with other people but mine has been the moment somebody finds out that I have had a troublesome youth I am told,

"Well there are people with worse lives, I'm sure." 

And that happens before they even know what has happened to me.  Or, my other favorite,

"Well you should think about today and the fact you are not a child anymore." "Where does your family live?"

Regardless we all know that nobody wants to know if you have had a problem with your childhood.  But like a broken bone, we too need some healing and are healing should involve meeting strangers that can be sympathetic without being obnoxious  with pity which most of us really don't want anyway. We don't want your pity it just makes us feel worse for even mentioning the reason that we have turned this lovely ashen color.  Just like you pull muscles and ligaments with a break, we pull the same things in our brain when we are injured with your words.

Don't take it personally, its just the way he is.

I hate that saying because I do take it personally and why are we the ones that should be quiet and not the ones that others say, "Don't take it personally, they rage, its just the way they are."  No, in our case we must be the perfect host and hostess for society, at all costs, which is always the toll that we pay for ourselves. We shouldn't have to pay for you too. I think that yesterday a person fractured and old break in my mind with his words, (Imagining it is like a break in your arm, a hairline fracture) the way he walked, all the screaming, with the yelling and with the lack of empathy towards a very badly hurt human being.  He broke open what had healed shut so long ago. The memories are now the reality with all of the pieces back in place in my mind of a very particular time in my life.  I have never been able to figure it out.  It just broke and as my mind began to see what it was with such clarity, I began to realize that people don't want us to get better and get through the trauma, they just want us to get over it, forgetting what has happened to us.  A big difference, don't you think?  Why would people, strangers if you will want such a thing from us?  Are we really that much work to be around?  Normally we, as a collective are extremely hard workers and in general very quiet, so that can't be it.  What is it?  Are they afraid that they will have to get real in there life and hear a real story of abuse?  Not just one on T.V. that you can donate to a foundation and make yourself feel better, almost as if you had done something for somebody?

Are we just a story or are we just material for the next horror movie or next weeks T.V. news brief on abuse and torture as a child? How do you survive the pain?  Are we only an hour long Dr Phil or Oprah Show. Are we the movie "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." based on a real person that you never meet because she is dead?  Are we the news caption on NBC next weeks morning show. Are we the mini-series that ABC is promoting for bigger ratings to sell more time share on the station.  Are we just the example of what is never real and you only see on the television or the big screen?  Are we nothing in comparison to you? Can we not be alive? Or are we only good enough to be gossiped about and feel sorry for if we happen to be dead at the point our story is told?

Wounded mind, fractured brain, that is me today.  Keep saying the things that you are saying and my clarity will deepen within the confines of my mind, making the memories the reality that you will have to read.

The tragedy is that its all good for you if there is a screen between us.  I make great dinner conversation,  I make a great movie as long as I die in the end, I am fantastic gossip for those that love to spread the news of a troubled life, I make a great good-will story for somebody donating money to prevent suicide, I make Cocktail Parties more interesting when my mother attends, I make a great everything as long as I remain unseen or dead.  But the reality of having to look at one us makes you feel uncomfortable because you are embarrassed about us in person, we evoke that reaction.  So, the one thing that I really wanted in my life, which was to not be embarrassed all the time by what has happened to me, will never come to be.  All because you cannot bare to see the tragic life of a person that is still alive and fighting like hell to get through this all with you.  We bother you that much, but you bother me more, I'm not capable of being anyone but myself and I seem to bring you the horror of the reality that some kids live through the drownings, the beatings, the drugs given to them in their bottles, some kids make it, we survive to watch the trials of mothers like Casey Anthony, live on CNN.  Just think, if her kid had made it, just like me, you wouldn't being having a trial with her mother, you would be turning your back and saying, "Some people have worse lives than you do, just get over it."

Some of us have those worse lives, some of us are me. I wrote this two years ago, when I first began to express on paper my pain, my wounded mind had begun to fracture.  Breaking away the walls that kept this all so neat tidy for you, not for me.  So that I could walk freely amongst you in society while never disturbing your mind, your brain or your life.  How apropo this poem ends up to be today.

Prepare

Prepared for this since I was Five.
See not my face, my eyes don't lie.
In time, through grace, in space, in sine.
Know where, know place, I do not waste.
Don't help, don't stare, don't scream, don't share!
Despair of mine is no disgrace.
Just a time, in such thin space.


Hello, it's Me


I'm in my Head,
but I'm not dead.
What comes instead may cause you dread.
Move on, move out, don't run about.
The stream of words you bleed are out.
Not red, not green, not blue, know doubt,
It's not the money when I shout.


Hello, it's ME
It's ME,
You see?


The sky goes dark when you remark,
the hatred must! hit its mark.
No eyes you need, I bring you Heed!
Go blind, go hate, but don't be late.
For I am here and very near.
the fear that comes into my feet,
will carry me across, it's neat.
The cost is high,
so please, don't sigh.


Hello, It's me,
it's me,
do you see?




K.A.P.

4/28/2009




(Wouldn't it just be a funny kind of revenge if every poem I have written on this blog works into something I am writing presently and can be better understood than when the poem is standing alone. Just like the last three have shown to be.  Strangely odd don't you think?)

Boiled Onions

Another day in the insane asylum called home. I was given the opportunity to live yet one more day, hooray.  I had been playing in my room when I had to go number two, do you remember when we used refer to going to the bathroom that way?  We were still living at 815 Balboa Street in San Francisco, California and the man who is meant to be my father but apparently is not was still living there too.  He is actually a very cruel kind of guy.  He never passed up an opportunity to do what he considered to be "oh so funny" to him.  It is as if he had a sick radar working overtime in his brain.  He thinks that he is so clever that no one ever gets the inside joke that he is constantly playing on everyone all of the time.  Sadly, some of us in life were deemed to never miss that lane of traffic with him.  I seemed to actually be the inside joke.

I had just gone into the small room that only has a toilet in it, later to be called the "water closet."  I got myself up onto the pot and began what most of us usually do, started pushing with all my might.  I had to have been around the age of three because this was still quiet the feat for me and he was still living in the house.  Going to the bathroom at this point  was just like trying to open the refrigerator downstairs. No matter how hard I tried to open it to get something to eat, I couldn't.  I would pull and pull, the door just wouldn't budge. 

Anyhow, I was upstairs and you here this, "Karen, Karen come quickly its Santa Claus."  I was so excited, I pushed and pushed and I was not getting even close to being done.  He (The Father guy) says, "Ho, Ho, Ho, How are you, Mr. Placek, have you been a good boy this year?", all in a Santa voice of course and very believable to a girl my age.  He answered in his regular voice and then proceeded to tell him (Santa Claus) that there was a little girl upstairs that would love to see him.  The exchange went back and forth at the front door and the conversation went as you probably can imagine it did.  I was so convinced that it was Santa and so excited because I was going to finally get to meet him, just like I had been promised.

I finally finished up on the toilet and once I got myself all cleaned up, panties pulled up tight, I ran down stairs as fast as I could.  Just as I made the corner of the stairs the front door was closing and then "thunk" went the final slam.  I said, "I'm here, I'm here," my father turned and said to me "Oh, I'm sorry but Santa is very busy and he had to go, but we talked and talked forever, he is everything you imagined. Why didn't you come down (he knew I was on the pot) you should have come sooner, you missed the entire thing. He is never coming back."  I was devastated for a fraction of a second then ...  I just stared at this man that was meant to be father and the hate I felt for him as he laughed about me missing Santa Claus because I was on the pot, boiled me over top. I stared even harder and said to myself, "This man is not my Dad. I don't have a Dad."  I have never looked at much of anything the same since that day. So much came to me so quickly it was an over load. It was almost like concrete as it began to set-up in my brain.  The laughter was the concrete still in the concrete bag, the words were the water you add to make the mix.  The body language was the shovel that you stir it all up in the wheel barrel with and the flagrant disregard for human life was the pour that you make a sidewalk with that lead to the next dissappointment you would experience with this man.  He just finished for the last time the torture of my life by making me remember something dreadful, cruel and extremely damaging to my mind on that day. It was all how he drove off from a National Park in Marin County leaving me all alone as night began to fall.  He had his head thrown back, his hands on the wheel, sitting in the drivers seat, and he was laughing so loudly it could be heard very clearly, almost echoing through this empty, abandoned parking lot. Just as the station wagon pulled up the hill and was turning towards the left he gave a big huge laugh that could be heard oh so clearly, as the window was rolled down and his elbow was resting on the door itself.  He had driven away from the parking spot that I had just make it back too.  I was running as fast as I could so that I would not be left again. I sobbed in the silence of myself, devastated, it was my birthday that day and I said so quietly,  "Please don't leave me behind."   He did it anyway thinking that it was so funny to do to me, all just to see what I would do. 

It is happening again, he is doing this to me again, it's him, I know that it's him....

I was stopped on the staircase staring at him thinking, "He is lying to me."  Santa never came to the front door. Its not even Christmas anymore. I thought for a moment more and as he turned away from me laughing, he threw his head back yet again and this very loud, audible chortle rose from his belly and erupted out of his mouth.  I stood and watched in horror.

It's him, it's him doing this to me..........he's...

I realized for the very first time, just as the puzzle pieces were all falling into place in my mind. 

It's him, I know its him doing this to me.


"He is the one that is putting the pillow over my face at night when I take a nap during the day under my bed."

Wait! He's doing this when I am in my bed, trying to sleep. He is suffocating me just like my brother does at night.  I quaked within my little girl self, thinking that's why I can't see him coming, I hear the laughter but I never see the person until its to late to move out of the way. To get under my bed and hide, so it looks like I'm not there because he doesn't see either.  He is just heading for bed where my head is meant to be. Thats why sometimes I can get away and other times I can't.  He is doing this to me with the pillow up in front of his face the entire time, he is blind and doesn't know where I have gone and when he abruptly puts that pillow down where my head was he misses me, that's when he gets angry. And it struck right then and there, he is bringing a pillow from somewhere else, holding in front of his face as he enters my room and moves towards me.  I am either just opening my eyes because of that chortle I hear or I don't even have a chance because the pillow now has me flattened on the bed.  I struggle and kick and scream and kick and then it all stops again. I'm standing at the door of my room, looking back at my bed and there am again, just lying there with a pillow over my head. This a nightmare, this is my life, this is my family. Why?

Oh my god, this is what has been happening to me this entire time, I have finally figured it out. No wonder I am terrified all the time. Oh my God! It's really them, they really did try and try to eliminate my life.  Oh my god, its happened upstairs too. I couldn't figure that out.  How was down in the basement and up in my room.  Those bastards ended up making my nightmare everywhere.

It's him, it is in the laugh I have never forgotten. A victim? A victim of what? Who? A victim of Infanticide, what's that? I asked.

Wait, Stop!! Oh my god, I'm the victim.  I wrote this poem back in 2009, it makes more sense today.  It may explain a little better than me just saying O.M.G.,

Victim

I am a victim of extreme violence.

I am a victim of sexual abuse.

I am a victim of manipulation.

I am a victim of spiritual abuse.

I am a victim of my birth,

I was Two, the first full time threw.

How old were You?

I am a good person.

I am a conscientious human being.

I am a vibrant woman.

I have freedom to choose.

I can remember who is who.

Do You?

Conviction of Mind will often find,

memories spare the simple kind.

Stood up too and walked onto,

A Bridge of Life,

with you.

He held me up, when I fell in,

a pity trip! It won't begin.

I am a victim.

That's just it.

6/2009

If you are a victim, then how are you a survivor?  It almost seems contridictory to one another.  I am so frustrated that I belong to this family.  They have been so cruel, I'm a victim of that too.

I'm dead, I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm alive. Who knows, I barely survived. Con't

As time seem to have abandoned me to the care of my older two siblings, I towed the line.  I would avoid the basement if I could, it had been a good place to be during the parental episodes, but the disturbance of what had happened was showing.  There always seemed to be so many people in the house these days.  With my mother starting the church, there were new congregants with children, all which were older than me.  I would stay to myself, I was not the friendly type due to the battles I had with my older brother, sister, father, mother and anyone else I happened to know. I did do well with complete strangers though, a bit odd and proved to bother them immensely.

There latest hooray for my brother and sister and the entertainment of their money making scheme left them having to join forces. They wanted to make money for themselves, just like my mother was trying to do at the same time. Anything was a plan, regardless of the damage that it created. So with the infinite wisdom that they had for ideas and my obvious brothers care along with my sisters delight of torturing me, they decided to sell me out to the neighborhood boys.  This was a daunting task because they had to corral me down into the basement again.  If I stayed upstairs and around the adults I could run away to my room and with them chasing me they would get yelled at for causing the embarrassment of unruly children to my mothers new friends and potential hits. What a con, everyone should grow-up in a house like mine.  Because I was so small and I was cute, I could get away with walking into any room without  being noticed by my parental authorities. They never paid any attention to the fact I even existed, let alone walked right in front them to see.  I would walk straight up to a stranger, it had to be a man. At this point, I really hated women. I would  climb right up into there lap and hold very still.  It proved to be embarrassing for my mother but no one would say anything because it was supposedly so cute.  As soon as I had reached a strangers lap for safety, I would look to see where my sibling were in reference to me. I had to make sure I was not close enough to any doors where they could say, "That's O.K. she is my sister, Ill take her."  These were the standing orders for my repeated disobedience in the matter of sitting on strange men's laps.  I didn't really ever care that this was what they were meant to do, I did what I wanted to do, supposedly I was to young to know that it was wrong to do. It is so stupid, like I couldn't here them when they would speak about me in front of me.  I guess they thought I was incapable of understanding.  It ended up being the safest place I ever took up residence. It is odd in a strange kind of manner, that even today I will look at men sitting around someplace and think to myself, "I want to go sit on his lap."  Old habits die hard.  I think at my age it might not be considered as cute as it once was back then.  For those of you that do not know, I am 46 years old, lol.

At this point, or is it that point, in my life I think I spent more time on the outside of myself, than I did on the inside of myself.  Almost as I if I was walking along side of  myself with an invisible shadow of me.  It was the more conscience me, the one that felt the pain more readily in my mind and not my body. I had stopped feeling the pain in my body as much as I once had but I believe this happened for the lack of being in it, so to speak.  It is a little difficult to explain to you but if you can imagine every time a traumatic event was about to happen, abandoning yourself for a safer distance from the actual trauma that would be the best way to imagine it.  I didn't want to be present for the assault anymore and this abandonment had started to become second nature to what was happening in my life.  Up to this point that I am beginning to tell you of, I had stayed fairly close in proximity to the actual abuse.  What I mean to say is I stayed in the same room up to now.  But I began to get further and further from myself, that being my real body.  I started to back further away, leaving me more in the corners of the room up closer to the ceilings.

At first I would worry about jumping back into myself.  I thought that I had to be quick about it because I had had such an issue trying to breath.  But as time passed and the abuse or the assaults changed in there make-up I found I was not having a breathing issue.  I would wait and eventually decided that it didn't matter anymore if I forgot to go home (jump back in my body.)  I had decided that I would catch up to myself when I fell asleep at night.  That just naturally I would get tired and close my eyes and I would join up again with my lost self.  It worked well in fact, as strange as that seems to be. By the time morning came I was always back together in a whole form of Me! Yea!  I thought it was great.  The shock of being thrown all around, being stripped of your underwear and then consequently the fucking that always seemed to come next didn't bother me as much.  It all became something that I couldn't touch or feel as much and in essence neither could whomever was doing it to me, so I thought. I wrote this poem and it explains that I did this to myself but as the years rolled by and I began to age, I began to abandon myself for longer and longer periods of time.  I don't have a total recollection of things when I am not together with myself. That actually just seems to be happening now, for reasons I can't really understand other than its time to put me all back together again.  Reminding of Humpty Dumty. My memory tends to linger on the journeys that I made in other dimensions of time and space.  I guess you would say that I learned to do this in my mind, but I beg to differ with you at this time and as my story will tell, it will leave you wondering about what your thinking that I did right now.  But I think this is a good place to have you read my poem.  It is kind of sad, not that my story isn't sad, but as reality begins to sink into your mind, the sadness may grow into despair.  So just prepare yourself for the worse and you'll be fine.

About this Hell

I was born, then I cried.

Before you new it I was Five.

In between was pain and lies,

lost my Dad and thought I died.

Can't remember most of this,

mostly 'cause I got hit.

Beatings frequent,

this I know, was my Step-Dad,

he was bad.

Right before, when I was Four.

I stopped talking,

this was true, acted out and hated too.

 

Don't remember Six and Seven.

I woke-up and was Eleven.

Years of pain, I don't know,

couldn't tell you, I was slow.

My brother left, he seemed to be,

Lots of trouble for me to see.

When I was Eight, my body ached,

my step-father beat us three,

Tammy, Eddie and there's me.

 

This went on everyday,

my parents worried we might tell,

everyone about this Hell.

As you can tell I had sadly learned to leave myself for greater and greater amounts of time.  I learned to look at the month and date upon my return so that I would know if I had missed my birthday or Christmas.  It is really sort of a tragic occurrence that you are faced with today but then again maybe it is the reality that the word sad doesn't work anymore.  But, that was my life and it was not to bad because I still remember my trips or journeys to other places. They were very exciting, full of adventure, strangeness, darkness, interesting things (like people but not) and everyone knew I seemed to be missing.  Isn't that strange.  I only know this little fact because I came jumping down the stairs one day and my mother said, "Oh look she is back." Weird!

Let me go back up to my story of where the actual real split in my life really did happen.  It was very purposeful, it was not by accident, I just could not take the pain or reality of watching myself be abused by anyone anymore.  The waiting for them to be done with my body had become to much for me to bare.  I needed to get out of there permanently, so I did.  I was also very sad whenever I ended up returning to myself, I was always alone in my bed and there was a growing weight on my chest of this horrible pain that I could not explain.

So here we are my older brother and sister were trying to get me down into the basement where there idea of making money off me would work.  Nobody could here you scream or call for help.  Its not like I ever did, there was always somebody with their hand over my mouth to keep me from being heard. I kind of remember the "come on, Karen I want to show you something cool downstairs." I would fall for it occasionally, thinking that there would be something cool downstairs, but as time would tell, there never was anything but trouble of the most troublesome kind.  Once they got me out the house they would force me into the basement and throw me over into the same area that my Dad had  done his dirty deed.  Immediately I abandoned myself.  By this time I no longer stood on the ground, I was up in the corner, looking across the basement at where I had just been man handled.  Over on the right the basement door was open with more kids scrambling in just to see.  It disgusts me today, so forgive me if I don't finish this story. I will get back to it if I abandon you quickly, but sometimes its a little to much even for me.

I was up in the air, I new that I was not on the ground.  I understood that I was not in the same shape if you will as the girl I was looking at, which of course I understood was me.  I never remember being grabbed or thrown down at this time. I mostly remember sitting up out of the way of all the kids, just staring at what was happening. There I would be in the basement, on my back, surrounded by a bunch of boys. My brother was off to one side where all the tools were kept. My sister was almost directly underneath me, she was always screaming (I hate her voice even to this day, I hate hearing her) at the top of her lungs. This was the day that I would split, literally.  I decided I was not staying around anymore, I couldn't take it.  Watching as you are tossed about from your stomach to your back for what ever entry the boys decided that they had payed enough for that day was and had become to much for this girl to take at all.  As I backed my way up into the corner of the basement I noticed other beings if you will.  It was as if I was being corralled yet again. I was obviously breaking the rules of something, maybe it was the universe and maybe it was of other dimensions, I don't really know for sure, but I know that I definitely was not meant to be out of my body.  You could call them spirits or demons, that would be more correct.  They were not angels or god.  In fact I never in any of my experiences or journeys did  run across anything godly.  So there I was again, being pushed to get back into myself.  The only change was they were more along the lines of what I understood myself to be at the time of my abandonment of myself.  These beings seemed more molecular than I was at the time, but they were very much adult in size and all very different from one another.  The room filled up so quickly, it was almost difficult to tell who was who with the exception of the very obvious height difference creating the rule for me.  I new that they were very concerned that I was trying to escape this room and as a collective they did not want that to happen.

The more I saw, the more determined I became that I could turn through the wall behind me and be in a different place.  The looks on there face was complete worry, almost as if they understood my thought.  The other way you could tell the difference of who was who in the basement room was that these demons if you will, were all looking at me up in the corner of the room.  All the human beings if you will were all looking at me on the ground.  As I slowly backed up to the wall of the basement the ones trying to keep me from escaping began to try to get closer to me.  They were trying to do this without spooking me further than I had already been spooked by my brother, sister and their friends.  Then my back was against the wall, I felt the mass of the timbers that held the house and at that moment I turned quickly to the left.  In less than an instant I was free.  I was in another place. I looked up slowly and saw the most busy people but not people that I have ever seen.  I could feel the mass of the wall behind me still, so I backed up to it to feel the stability that it was offering.  I had no intention of turning back into where I had just turned out of, but I was fascinated that I had just gone through the wall of the house and was not outside where I  thought I would end up.  Rather I was in a cool and very different location.

I loved that I just went through a solid wall. I loved that I was not in that basement anymore. I loved that I was not in our backyard where I thought I would have ended up. I loved that I was looking at the coolest beings I had ever seen. I loved that they seemed to see me. I loved that it was so busy. I loved that they noticed me but left me to my own devices to see what I was going to do next.  I sat very still as to not disturb them. I didn't want to go back or get thrown out of my new place. As soon as I quieted myself in my new very comfortable venue of a different dimensional understanding, I decided I am never going back.  It was the beginning of a journey that took me out of the disaster and into an adventure that was not life at all, it was entities that called me to them.  My attention had been captured by something so incredible I don't know if I could ever explain how absolutely amazingly cool it was for me to have witnessed.  Dead or Alive, it did not matter to me anymore, I was about to embark on the journey of my life.  I was in between it all and I knew it. I just went slow so that I could take it all in. 

This was the beginning of me abandoning this place where my body seemed to live and I was so determined to leave. The journey, the excitement had just begun when I stood up and didn't run.  I was somewhere nobody had been before.  I was a stranger, I had no friends but that was about to change.  It was as real as you and me are today.  As you sit and read this and as I sit and write to you, there is a time that elapses in between us that is undeniable yet almost backwards.  While you read and think of me writing I am no longer sitting and writing right here and now, no,  I off about my day.  So really you are thinking about what has already happened. This affords us the opportunity to know that I had time to get away without anyone noticing that I was not at home (in my body) so to speak.  I was away and they knew it,(The human beings in my life, my sister, my brother, their friends, my parents, etc.) they were aware of it and there was nothing they could do about it to get me back, I had gone to far.  I was on a journey for the first time and certainly not the last time in my life.  I was in the dynamics of the begin, mine. I have never told a soul about where I went while I was away from myself. It was to cool, my own world it was not at all. It was a world of wonderment about death and the like, it was where I believe us to go, it was incredible, it was so busy. You would love it!  I am compelled to say to you that it brings a heightened reality to your existence, its what movies are made of, its tomorrow, today.

I was gone, I had left and I was fascinated by the unknown becoming known to me. The most amazing creatures were in front of me and I was captivated by life itself for the very first time. It was the world of the most surreal, it was so real, it was what took me for so long and why I never wanted to return. I was me, they were them, it was a mystery that only I could solve, I was off.

Me when I was little!



I'm dead, I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm alive. Who knows, I barely survived.

The days that are wondering in my mind from a time that I was just a child.  I am stuck in the mystery of why?  To be so cruel to a child is torture as an adult.  I suffered from neglect.  I was left without supervision most of the time.  I spent many hours looking under rocks at the rolly-polly bugs.  I lived at 815 Balboa Street in San Francisco until I was nine years old.  I would ride my bike around the block and pretend that I was running away.  I was able to go to the playground in Golden Gate Park alone.  I used to be able to go to the corner market on Anza too.  I would by a candy bar for a nickel.  I felt such injustice when the price jumped to ten cents. I used to get fifty cents for an allowance and off to the store I would go to promptly spend it all.

I used to play in the basement of the house when everyone was yelling and it was best to get out of the way.  I was down there once and from the dark a man came putting a bag over my head.  I struggled to get free but he held tight around my neck. I began to suck the air in and out as hard as I could. There was no air, just the bag coming up against my mouth cutting off all the oxygen. It became wet almost and then it went black.  I was standing away from myself, staring. I couldn't figure out why I was looking at myself and then it occurred to me that I couldn't breath and I started to get very upset again. I was huffing, puffing and it seemed like I was sweating, I was freaking out because I couldn't breath.  I just stared, I didn't know what to do, I was scared of what I was looking at, but what I was looking was me. The next you know this thing went flying really fast behind my head.  I was so angry at the time.  I really felt and still do, that I had missed my ride out of here.  This may sound weird to you but I don't believe that I wanted to live, so the anger for missing my ride is or should be understandable.  I remember jumping back into myself, I very much knew that the entire time I was in the basement of the house.  You could hear them upstairs, the chairs being drug around, people walking, the yelling and the screaming made everything very real for me.  When I managed to get this thing off my head, I sat up looking at where I was just standing, trying to understand what had happened.  It has taken a lot of patience with myself and many years to be able to reflect more accurately with an adult verbiage to explain to the average reader what really went on that night.

The best way to describe it, is to say that when I woke I went to stand up and realized I had been missing myself.  I was quiet frightened at the time and I hid from everyone.  Looking back I understand that I had an out of body experience and that I was so angry that I wasn't dead.  I think that over the years that I am more angry that I missed my ride out of this place, than I am angry that it happened.  I just started to put some thought into this strange time in my life and I find it sad that I wanted to be dead instead of being alive, outside playing with friends.  It must have been a really tough life up to this point, to make you feel so convicted about not wanting to be around.  I know that I am still angry about it.  I wish that whatever had happened had been successful.  My life has been nothing but disaster after disaster since that time.  More importantly my family has never wanted me around, so the idea that this actually happened and coming to terms with it, is getting easier to do.  I used to wonder what I did wrong to miss my opportunity to exit life.  I used to think that if it happens again I will be more patient before I jump out of my body in a panic. 

As time marched on it happened again, this time with my brother.  He had been fucking me at night in my room which I shared with my older sister.  He would come in and sneak over to where I was and she would just roll back over and go to sleep.  He would do his dirty act and I would fight like hell, I never won but it doesn't mean I didn't try to take him out.  I even tried to tell my mother and she proceeded to tell me how filthy I was and what a dirty mind I had.  She consoled him and that was pretty much end of any idea that I might get some help at night.  The way he ended up trying to do me in was a bit different.   I would come bouncing down to the basement where he was and he would see me, turn, chase me, grab me, throw onto my back jumping on top of me.  His eyes would change, like nobody was home.  I began to see the changing of his eyes before he managed to grab me and throw to the ground. Sometimes I got away and most times I didn't. 

He would straddle the top of me, holding one hand over my mouth and with the other hand he would pinch my nose shut.  He sat on me with great force, the same force he used in the night, no matter what I tried I could not get away once he had me pinned.  I remember the sweat, or maybe it was just my spit as I flung my head back and forth, from side to side trying to fight him. Eventually he would get his knees up on either side of my head and pin me between them.  I could no longer toss my head back and forth, that is when I became screwed.  It's amazing because all of this takes longer than you would think and as the psychotic one is trying to relieve you of your life, they are also running out of the adrenaline rush that caused the psychosis to originally take place. At least that was what I had observed for myself.

I learned to breath very shallow and then to look like I was not breathing at all by doing this.  He would go through this scene with me like it was an action shot in a movie.  All of sudden it would stop, he would stare off into the distance, then look back at me.  I would pretend to be dead, which is odd that I even knew how to do such a dreadful thing but I did and it ended up saving my life.  After he completed what he thought was my death, he would get up and walk across the basement towards the basement door. It seemed that he would sometimes stall for a moment, almost like he was making sure I was dead and then he would leave.  I made extra sure that I never moved during this time, it was probably the scariest time in my life other than when I faced him in the upstairs hall and was not dead.  That was intimidation on another level. 

I never bothered to try to tell my mother about these things. I mean she did not believe me about the nightly visits, which I can still feel inside myself today, which I don't think is so cool.  Nobody ever helped me with much of anything, but when it came to my brother the entire family would flip upside down to declare his innocence in any sort of thing that he may have been accused of.  He was the golden boy for my mother and father,  he could do no wrong, much like them and much like my older sister.  I was the one who did all the wrongs, which is rather curious since I was the baby of the family at the time.

I cannot give you a good count on how many times this happened to me.  But for a reference it would go right along with him fucking me at night.  You could count on the next day or the day after being your potential "death day."  That was pretty much clockwork.  To bad nobody ever helped me, I was very alone, just like I am today, all by myself.  I guess family secrets for the golden children are held at the expense of the one that has been paying the price of this abuse the entire time.  I am tired of it being on my head, now it can sit on yours for a while.  Thanks for listening and thanks for reading, maybe I will meet someone who cares that this happened to me someday, until then I march on in life. I hope someday I meet you and I need a hug so bad, it's sad.

Why Do We Survive?

I am about to go to bed and I thought that I would write what was on my mind.  I keep wondering why we survive.  I have had some very bad things happen to me in my life.  I suffered severe neglect and was a victim of terrible torture at the hands of my step-father.  I have always taken it with a grain of salt as an adult, just passing it off as,"what happens, happens. That which does not kill us makes us stronger."  I have always believed in that saying and have quoted it many times as an adult.  The problem is what really is the source or beginning of my C-PTSD really is about surviving being smothered.  I had it happen to me more than once, two people were responsible for it.  I know that I survived incest from these same two people also.  But why now? Why is it so bothersome to me today?  It is so on my mind that I have had to increase the medicine I usually take because I am having such a tough time getting through the afternoons. I cannot go to sleep without it and I am going to sleep before it gets dark because I am so afraid.  I am back to sleeping in the closet where it feels safe.

Do you think that just because I was one of those children that didn't die before the age of five, that I am meant to do something?  I know lots of children don't make it through to adulthood, for Christ's sake I am not sure how we make through childhood.  The funny thing is we do.  Why?  What could saying what I had suffered from now make a difference in today's society or world. And for whom? 

I am troubled by this because it seems I am not the only one that knows.  I think that this troubles me even more. I am bothered that we fight so to live to be treated so terribly by our family and friends.  I know that my mother talks to much but I really did not feel that this would be something that would end up being common knowledge. I feel strangely odd and I don't like knowing that the people that had been close to me in my life know that this happened to me because it has been extremely traumatizing my entire life.  I had to have survived for some reason, it can't just be happenstance, can it?

I cannot imagine that we come all of this way to be worried about our weight, worried about what other people think about us and all we are meant to be concentrating on is what makes us happy.  I know that the advice is to put things down and try to live your life.  The thing is I have been living my life, I just have never shared my darkest fears before.  So up to recently I have been rather silent on this accord.  But the more it is pushed upon me to put everything down, the more my mind relates back to these very awful incidents.  I walked with death and I never knew how to explain to anyone what happened to me.  I am still not sure how to explain an "out of body" experience that I has as a kid. I was afraid that if I did talk abou it that I would be beaten and worse.  Even though I never spoke on these accounts, at least that is my recollection, I was still called the spawn of Satan and told I was full of demons the entire time I grew-up and on into being an adult.  This in itself was very taxing on my own psyche, let alone it is not something that you ever share with anyone.

The uncomfortable feeling I am having these days is that I feel my family knows of these very disturbing times. Like they are privy to me being suffocated. The more I think about it, it would make sense because I was a very small girl.  I do remember lots of yelling and screaming.  I remember not wanting to talk anymore about anything and I remember my father leaving, then my brother leaving, then my older sister leaving, none of them ever returned.  I was left with my mother, the cult whore, my step-father, the nanny S&M bastard, my two younger "perfect" siblings and that was it.  Basically I knew no one anymore.  My entire life in a very short time was completely replaced by new human beings that hated me.  I felt a lot like Cinderella, in fact, I was made to do all of the things that you would do or would be expected of that sort of position in the family.  You are lower than the dogs and you are an embarrassment that they seem to have to explain.

I don't speak on my mother being anyone I readily knew because I really don't know her at all.  I, of course know of her in the family dynamics but as far as a relationship or close family bond, that never did happen for me.  At the same time they replaced old friends with no friends, changed my school and moved me to a new neighborhood in San Francisco.  I would say that this was all disorientating but truthfully it was not.  I was more disturbed by being suffocated by a plastic bag and my brothers hands and  I was really afraid that it would happen again. In fact when I was sixteen my brother moved home for a short amount of time.  During which he held a gun to my head and played Russian roulette with live ammunition. This was really terrifying stuff. I ended up with no friends that I knew and there were no children in the neighborhood that we moved too.  All I know is that now I think of my father and he puts more fear in my heart than my brother.  It seems that this wanting to kill someone runs in the family.  I must say I don't feel very related to that side of them family at all.  In fact I never really have felt like my Dad is meant to be my Dad.  It doesn't help that every time we visited my Grandparents that Nana would ask my mother, "Who does she belong to? She doesn't look like the other two." 

I would say to you in all earnest that my family thinks that I am an idiot and that I don't remember everything that has happened to me.  That is a lot like asking you if you remember or don't remember Nursery School, 1st grade, 2nd grade, your first tricycle, going to the Zoo, etc.  Of course you have early childhood memories, why wouldn't you?  The difference my mind has been on record for sometime and now through flashbacks and what seems to be held inside of my body, (Memories,) it is all coming back with greater clarity.  It is not as if I have ever forgotten being smothered, I just never knew what to say or how because I kept being beaten left and right by my now step- in, step-father who used to be some guy who took us out on excursions.  We went to Playland, the beach and other like places.  So if I can remember the slides at Playland that burned the crap out of you if you did not sit on the gunny sack, why would I not remember my home life?  That is impossible to have happened.  I remember laughing Sal, the other nightmare of my life, I hated her.  It was like somebody knowing my little life, rocking back and forth just laughing at me personally.  I am 46 years old, so you can do the time line yourself with Playland and its closing date of Labor Day Weekend, 1972.  I am not off in the ability to remember what is real and what is not.

I hate that this is real in my life. I hate my father and my brother for doing this to me. I hate my sister for poisoning me with stuff from under the kitchen sink. I hate that I have had to hold this inside for so long. I hate my mother for never attending to my well-being or even acknowledging I was alive, leaving me to the care of my older siblings.  I hate my step-father for lying all this time to my younger siblings about his entry into this sick family.  I hate that two and a half years ago, my step-father put his arm around my neck and tried to break it as he dragged me around the dining room landing on the floor.  I hate my younger sister for telling me to take a gun and blow my head off because it would be the best thing for the family.  I hate that nobody is even upset that she said to me and I hate that no one knows the power that words can have on you. To tell me to do such a thing should shock you.  But it doesn't and I hate that you do not think it is that bad to have said.  I hope for your sake you never meet a malignant narcissist that says something like that to you.  I hate that nobody has ever helped me get through anything.  I hate that my mother is still spreading lies about me being a drug addict and incapable of caring for my two youngest children.  I hate that people gossip about my life and they have not been privy to my life at all in the past two years and certainly were never privy to what I am writing on here today.  I have never named them like I have in today's blog.  I hate that they are believed off the cuff and I hate that when you discover they are as wicked as they are, that you turn and run for the hills.

I hate that people in general do not find out the story of a person before the spread mean and defaming rumors about their life.  I would love to have my children in my life today but I have run out money to go back and forth to court with my ex-husband who seems to be financed by my mother.  I would love to be able to tell them, I love you in person, but nobody ever answers the phone or returns my letters or emails.  So, when you are all alone and you finally give-up and begin telling these very dark secrets about your past, maybe a stranger will step up to the plate and help you to do the next right thing.  Press charges in court for defamation of character, the last legal reprisal that I have against my family. 

To still feel the sweat of my brothers hand or the clinging bag on my face is surreal.  The fact that I remember my father slapping plastic bags out of the air and saying, "Don't ever put this over your head you will suffocate and die," sickens me.  My family has tortured me my entire existence, its now becoming the time to switch the roles around.  The torture is not mine, the memories are mine and as they refuse to allow all of these things to go by the wayside, I refuse to step aside but rather continue the vigil of the exposure of real, live monsters that probably live next door you and yours.

I think that we may survive to tell our stories.  We might survive to do what others cannot because they have been taken so early in life.  We survive not to live our lives in peace, that is quite impossible until you tell your story. I feel better as I spill the truth but I fear it must also be heard by somebody. I think that is why we survive, we need somebody to know that we existed and fought so hard just to take another breath of air. 

Plainly Speaking

Know not the suffering pain that has been laid at your feet,

for it is not ours to keep.

All we must do is never fall,

remember it all,

and speak with open review,

of this kind of child rearing, it's new.

We are what no one else can be, truly free. We earn our liberty every single day of our life. We earned what is taken for granted by every other human life. We are an example to the world about how resilience and perseverance will deliver to you the most valued gift of all; Independence. We were raised to never make mistakes, we were raised to be perfect, we were raised to smile through the pain that it takes to accomplish these goals. We were raised to be the adults and to be responsible for what is not ours to be responsible for in this life or any other. We were raised to be what only we can be, an example of everything you are not.

Taking care and not to hurt,

the ones who said that we were dirt,

it is O.K. 'cause on the way,

we learned to know what not to say.

Leave nothing behind, you are the miracle of life itself at its finest. You are shining through the generations that we have traveled. We are still so much more mature than the ones that babble.

Their words are useless but they travel,

into the lives that they unravel.

We must not do the things to you,

silence is our golden rule.

To always listen to what's not said,

to keep the secrets and not turn red,

from the embarrassment of all the dead.

To watch all you we must not change,

we are the only ones that claim,

nothing can be the same,

because you support the very insane.

To not grow-up and still throw fits,

to say to us that we must quit,

reminds me of this time in life,

where I must be so well equipped,

to deal with all your verbs,

and just to know that nouns don't quit.

Unfortunately, you raised us well.

We grew so fast, we couldn't tell,

that as an infant we lived in Hell.

Is it your shame that I raised you,

or should you change loving two.

Both are you and never me,

a twist of words that you do need.

As you wrinkle and as you ache,

as your bones begin to break.

Does your mind try to unwind?

To figure out what this is about?

Does your mirror say to itself,

that beauty has not changed?

Of course,it has not, it never will,

'cause that would take a Conscious till.

I have been taught to stay the same,

ever since my claim to fame,

it was my birth, I had no name.

Reality must begin to bake,

your mind so that you can take,

the words that I will share with you,

I'm fairly certain that you lose.

Ignorance is just so bliss,

unless you find you're changing this,

and you're the one that is so old,

that one day soon you will be cold.

Don't worry though I'll be the one,

to never say to anyone,

ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The image of your dream will be,

living on in me you see.

I think you need to address yourself,

some change in life would bring you health.

Because I have to rear you still,

I must tell you that you are ill.

Here is your script, I wrote for you,

its just like mine.

Over

Changing Ourselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PKH7VbuJT8&feature=related


It is difficult to change what has happened.
It is impossible to see the future,
unless you know the past.

Changing ourselves can only happen if we realize that we do not need to change, they do.

This is our gift.
We are fighters, survivors and we inspire our own life.
We ask the difficult questions.
We fight a difficult War.
We are evolutions magical source of so much more.

We are the children of liars.

An Englishman that was a Nanny, became a Step-father and crushed me with his Militancy as a mere child that came along with the Marriage to a Woman, 16 years his Senior.

This is me, Karen Anastasia Placek, they (my new parents) changed my name to Karen Anastasia Meakin, when my mother and step-father married. At 18 years old I had to change it back because they had never changed it legally.  So growing up every person that I ever met would and will never find me because they do not know my last name.  Nice way to isolate someone for good, don't you think?

I had never been hit in my life before my step-father, who was my Nanny first. If you had said "Shame on you" to me I would fall apart. That was all you had to do to scold me.  I will never forget or forgive what he did to me and I will never heal from the belt and buckle scars on my body.

Close your eyes and know this verse,

I won't hold back for life.

Not anymore, I count!

Its to late to be sorry,

you beat me to silence me.

Do you see me now?

Whipping me was your plan?

Denial bothered me,

started the fight you see.

Witness's will testify,
it made me cry.
No more lies
truth speaks too.

 Remember the screaming?
Remember the tears?

Remember the stripes you left on my back?

I believe I didn't make it into humanity.
This is what they said to me.

A blame child to hide all we do,
they would shout!
No one will believe you,
we will proclaim you a liar.

You are an it,
and as a thing I can do to you what I please,
without the guilt of a human being,
my step-father would boast with gleeful insanity in his voice.

Mine for Eternity!

Dead On Arrival

  

I need to slow this all down for a while.  Life is beautiful and I need time to heal from a wicked past. This is a picture of my family before my Malignant Narcissistic Mother came after me again. Those of you that are familiar with such a person in your life know how exhausting it all is to take.  I know that I have been blessed to be able to take time out in my life to come to terms with the neglect and abuse that I have suffered.  I am a survivor and have been diagnosed with C-PTSD. Survivors do one thing very well, they survive.

Spring 2006, The last family photo taken.

Fighting For The Truth

Today he took a plastic bag,

rattled it behind me like my Dad.

Fright did fill my heart he's glad.

I am angry, rageful and not that bad.

There was this night and one black sack,

over my head and that was that.

Left my body, I was dead.

Stared at myself, scratched my head.

Took me moments to look and see,

figured out it was me.

In between and wondering,

why I am lieing on the floor,
 I fairly sure I was not board.

Went so fast, went so quick.

Slid right in and out did rip.

I was pissed, I did miss,

was my ride out of this.

Jumped back into my body.

Took off the sack and thought about that.

Had to hide from the parental side.

did this happen and I don't know why?

Did he feel guilt inside?
Suffocating me so crime did slide?
I've been scared, my brother tried,
seems it runs in family's like mine.


Never said, never lied,
just felt sick and did not find.
Anyone in this life,
that had a story full of this much strife.


Mother announced my worth to me,
said these things since I was three.
You dirty, filthy, minded thief,
your Satan's spawn,
and the devils whore!


You are the number 666,
you are a baby and a tryst!
The demon of silence,
commands your bed,
evermore you will tread.


Guilt will be what you do wed.
White will turn the color red.
Telling others of family dread,
will be your end, you'll be dead.

Such a threat was this to me.
I can't remember it all you see.
I was young, I was afraid,
most of these words they did lay.
Deep inside my mind to know,
I had better grow so fast,
so that I may leave at last.


A plastic bag wrapped 'round my head?
Sex is different when you said,
look this way you'll never say,
"infanticide," there she lay.


Made me white and ashen color,

looked like I was going to puke.

Only words of "Whoa!"

Coming from this flashback so,

live we went, what relief,
Do you think that parents blink?

To think about this time I shout,

help me, be me, don't kill me now.

I have survived horrible things,

won't you please come answer me?

I had a dream, this man I knew.

I want to be brand, spanking, new.

I want a man to hold me tight,

to take away the fear at night.

To fly me to the distant lands,

to re-write scripts and hold my hands.

I dreamt that my knight in shining armor,

would be the man that had the honor,

to ask me kindly to take the spot,

that would be safe and not just bought.

I cannot find my relief,

men just hunt me and want a piece,
of the narcissistic energy,
that I seem to still be.

I'm so stupid I fall for it,
takes me time to speak my peace.


Please stop doing this to me,
I don't want you or memories see.
I just want one certain thing,
it is not you or a fling.
Why did I tell my story?
To ease the pain inside of me,
 does it drop you to your knees?


That's how I know the difference now,
I can tell he wears a shroud.
Wrapped in so tight he is not right,
he causes me so much strife.
I was the one that survived at night,
with the fear of every life.

He just laughs at my horror,
begs me to tell him more.
Causes flashbacks to be worse,
turns out that he just has a thirst,
for my misery, I agonize,
is this men or every guy?

Do I stop and finally lie?
Making right the fact I tried,
giving up the family ties,
realizing why I died.

Out of body experience,
I was killed and murdered too.
Is there someone that can do,
anything to make me new?
I was young, can you undo,
this frightened girl who turns to you?