May 4, 1981
Today is Monday, May 4, 1981. (Camile just took a look at the above written and is amazed with my writing technique). Today is Barbara and Melissa's birthday. We're having a surprise birthday for her at lunch. And Saturday, I'll be around cupcakes so I should forget about dieting this week again. We'll have fun.
When I got to Ellen's house, I kissed and hugged Barbara and wished her a happy birthday. She hugged me extra tight and then grabbed my wrists and told me that she was very upset and wanted to talk to me. I couldn't imagine what was wrong, I swear I thought I did something absolutely horrible, and then she said, "It's about your mother." Then I thought she was dead. I got so dizzy and was scared shitless because this is what I wished for. Well, Barbara said, "Your mother is very ill." Well, her blood pressure is 180 over 110. I don't know what that means. I don't care. I wish I would get it, or anorexia nervosa, or ulcerative colitis, a debilitating form of Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease.
Well, this afternoon, I was so dizzy. I felt white when Barbara was talking to me. I couldn't talk. "That's da breaks."
Today I had pot brownies, my first. Hopefully my friends and I will do this again. I was gonna do them but chickened out. My scholarship was in jeopardy. I was scared. Instead, Ellen and Mary baked them. I'm surprised. Ellen was so happy when I told her I backed out of doing the brownies.
Mrs. Hoffman went home today. That's great. She sure does seem better. I sure am tired. I can't wait until I go to the psychiatrist tomorrow. Bobby Sands died today, 66 days of not eating. I want to start fasting tomorrow. I wish I could live at Ellen's house for a while again. Melissa's birthday surprise was real nice. I'm spending this weekend with Ellen, I can't wait. I want to stay up every night this week and do all homework and term paper. I'll do two weeks worth of exercising tomorrow. I won't eat. I got an A/A on my sequel to The Man Who Liked Dickens and an A on my history paper outline. I got these two wonderful grades back on Friday. They sure put me in a good mood. Tom Dunn said hello to me at Heidi's aunt's affair. He came. What a surprise. I also got paid $40.00! That's a lot. I smoked 9 cigarettes at roller skating Saturday night. I inhaled and nearly died. We met this Phillipine kid, Scott. Tomorrow is his 18th birthday. I should call him. Jed said today that Ali probably won't be coming until late summer. Oh God, I shouldn't really be alive. I wish I would just have a heart attack and die. I wish I wish. I want to die. I want to die. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I need attention from my mother. She hates me very much. My mother hates me. This girl's mother hates her.
God, Ellen is my best friend. I don't deserve her. If only my mother was dead and Barbara and Tom would be my next parents. That would be the best thing for me. Then Ellen and I could be like real sisters. The next best thing would be for me to be dead and be with my grandparents again. I did love them.
Elaine B. was a debutante at the Holiday Inn this weekend.
I'm sick. I wanted to tell Barbara that I was (what is called) illegitimate but I couldn't. She said I shouldn't . She wanted me to discuss it with the psychiatrist. Am I that weird? I must put Barbara and Ellen through a lot. I can't handle anything. Maybe I'll go to Fair Oaks soon.
I would have been normal and happy if Barbara hadn't said that about my mother.
By the way, Thomas seems a lot better now. He started school Thursday. He's happy and I'm glad. Mr. V. said my introduction was garbage.
I swear. The way I feel. I don't think I'm normal. Ray has acute tonsilitis. Maria just got hers taken out. I was crying Thursday because I thought Vail-Deane didn't want me back. I'm going to be paying my education next year (if I'm alive). Will I ever get normal? Maybe if I lose weight. That's what I really want. I didn't do my geometry homework and Mrs. Ayres said she was collecting mine. I did it real fast in class today. It worked. I succeeded in convincing her. I really don't feel normal. I swear to God, I'm not kidding but I feel like I am really, severely, mentally imbalanced. Ellen should hate me. I try to like steer clear of her this week because I'm going to be like real weird because that's the way I feel. Dizzy. I'm watching Tom Schneider at 12:55 now. I'm going to turn in my writing soon. But I just want to express how mentally ill I feel. Well, I'll drink more coffee and be productive and just do what I gotta do. I've also got to remember to be good to Pat.
(Author's note: I was extremely depressed. I was seeing a psychiatrist, but I never did warm up to him as a therapist. When my mother told me she was getting married on January 16, 1981, I immediately screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but it was to no avail. The way she presented it to me was, "Trish, how would you feel if I got married?" I thought I had a choice in the matter, but it was already a done deal apparently. When my own mother didn't listen to my cries of pain over this matter, I felt completely abandoned. I realized I was totally alone in this world and I didn't want to live anymore. I immediately became suicidal the way you see a baby chimp whose mother has died, stay by her body and not venture out for food or nourishment because he has given up too. Life wasn't worth living without a mother and that is exactly how I felt when my mother told me she was getting married. The mother/daughter thing we had going on all these years was over. A strange man was to move into our house and I was to feel uncomfortable in my own living environment. It sucked. Plus I had no siblings to share this delight with.
It was me who asked my mother to take me to a psychiatrist. She did. The guy I saw sucked. He sat really far away from me and I felt like he was judging me. I felt like I was the unruly, bad teenager and that it was me who was the problem, when in reality, it was my mother who was pulling the wool over my eyes. Mike was still living with us when she got engaged to Kevin. She was yet to kick him out. It was all very confusing to me. Everybody kept saying to me at that time, "be happy for your mother, this is a good thing that she is getting married," but I wouldn't have any of that. My mother betrayed me. And somehow this was all tied in with Mike.
Mike, her boyfriend, sexually abused me from before the age of 8 to the age of 16 when he left. He was in our lives since I was 4, but I have no memories of those first 4 years with him. I did feel though, that I was doing a sacrifice for my mother by letting Mike touch me. Somehow, that's what it felt like, a sacrifice. So when she turns around and tells me she's marrying a completely different guy, I went berserk. I hated my mother. I hated my life. I hated myself. I wanted to be dead. I believe now that I did have a nervous breakdown. The thoughts I express in this diary entry are ones of extreme confusion about myself and about the world. Nothing made any sense to me at the time. I used to cry in history class because whenever I did perk up to listen, it was always some horrible story being told about how one country killed another country. Man's inhumanity to man. It was at this age that I woke up and realized that life was a bowl of shit and that there was nothing to look forward to in life. All the plans that my mother and I had made together were gone. She was giving me up for Kevin. It felt like a stab in the back.
I ran to a new mother. That was Barbara. But that was a confusing relationship because Barbara opened her arms to me and I eagerly went into them, but I realized that I really couldn't stay in them. As much as she welcomed me into her home, I really didn't belong there. There was an intact family of 4 already there and really, truly, you can't just walk in and become a member of someone's family. Just as my mother and I were a compact unit of 2. Having Kevin walk in and suddenly become a part of our family just didn't feel right to me. I felt out of place in both places and felt I didn't have any place to belong. This made me so depressed I sometimes couldn't take the pain. The pain squeezed out of me every which way. I wanted to die but I was afraid to kill myself. Had I had the means, I'm certain I would have, but I was new to suicide at 16. I didn't know how to go about it. I wasn't familiar with the methods that people used to kill themselves, so I just prayed God would take me. I just prayed that my life could be over. It was this intense pain that my psychiatrist either never saw, or never addressed. That is why it didn't work out with him. After all these years and so many therapists, I must say that he truly sucked. And he just made me feel worse about myself.
Having nowhere to go with all of this pain, I think I just lost it.
Plus, it was during this time that I began to realize that I was afraid of the opposite sex. When I met that boy Scott at the roller skating rink I remember him making me promise to call him. He asked for my number but I refused to give it to him. I was scared, but I didn't know it at the time. To this day I have always remembered that boy at the roller rink who wanted me to call him. I felt so obligated, as I did with Mike, but I never did call the boy. It was at this time that I became so frightened of boys and men that I was never "normal" again. And when I say "normal," I mean I just couldn't relax around the idea of a boy liking me or me liking a boy. In this way, I became so unlike my peers who were starting to look at boys with curiosity and hope, while I was looking at boys with anxiety and I began to panic if they looked back in my direction).
(Author's note: Two days after writing above, I wrote my mother this email.
Dear mother,
I think that you did try to do things for me when I was a kid, that were in my best interest. I think you thought Kevin was a source of financial support and that part of the reason you married him, was for me as well - that he would help you to support me.
Rebecca and I have different parenting styles and sometimes we fight about that. Being raised by a single mother, I can only imagine what it must be like to fight with a partner about how your kid should be raised. I'm not sure I could share parenting, as my only model for parenting was a single mother. I'm not sure I'd want to share it.
But when Mike came along, he had different ideas about parenting than you did. Instead of fighting with him, you gave in. If he wanted to hit me over a small infraction, you didn't stop to think whether I really deserved it, you just let him do it. The same with Kevin. Whereas I had no curfew before you were married, I suddenly had one after you were married. I really disrespected you for that, that you didn't stick to your own guns and take a little bit more responsibilty over your parenting style.
But nowadays I just think you were doubting yourself the whole time. I think you weren't sure how to parent, so you let others make decisions for you. I didn't understand that then. I took it as a betrayal and I was really angry at you for your wishy-washiness. I called you a "stupid woman" in my diaries, but now I can articulate that it wasn't stupidity on your part, but rather a lack of conviction to your own parenting style that lead to these actions.
The purpose of this email is not to hurt you or criticize you in any way. It is not meant to do that at all. I would just like to know if you think I am right. I am just trying to gain some clarity on some things that you did as a mother. Ultimately, I would like to get along better with you.
Love,
me
I did not send it and don't know if I will).
When I got to Ellen's house, I kissed and hugged Barbara and wished her a happy birthday. She hugged me extra tight and then grabbed my wrists and told me that she was very upset and wanted to talk to me. I couldn't imagine what was wrong, I swear I thought I did something absolutely horrible, and then she said, "It's about your mother." Then I thought she was dead. I got so dizzy and was scared shitless because this is what I wished for. Well, Barbara said, "Your mother is very ill." Well, her blood pressure is 180 over 110. I don't know what that means. I don't care. I wish I would get it, or anorexia nervosa, or ulcerative colitis, a debilitating form of Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease.
Well, this afternoon, I was so dizzy. I felt white when Barbara was talking to me. I couldn't talk. "That's da breaks."Today I had pot brownies, my first. Hopefully my friends and I will do this again. I was gonna do them but chickened out. My scholarship was in jeopardy. I was scared. Instead, Ellen and Mary baked them. I'm surprised. Ellen was so happy when I told her I backed out of doing the brownies.
Mrs. Hoffman went home today. That's great. She sure does seem better. I sure am tired. I can't wait until I go to the psychiatrist tomorrow. Bobby Sands died today, 66 days of not eating. I want to start fasting tomorrow. I wish I could live at Ellen's house for a while again. Melissa's birthday surprise was real nice. I'm spending this weekend with Ellen, I can't wait. I want to stay up every night this week and do all homework and term paper. I'll do two weeks worth of exercising tomorrow. I won't eat. I got an A/A on my sequel to The Man Who Liked Dickens and an A on my history paper outline. I got these two wonderful grades back on Friday. They sure put me in a good mood. Tom Dunn said hello to me at Heidi's aunt's affair. He came. What a surprise. I also got paid $40.00! That's a lot. I smoked 9 cigarettes at roller skating Saturday night. I inhaled and nearly died. We met this Phillipine kid, Scott. Tomorrow is his 18th birthday. I should call him. Jed said today that Ali probably won't be coming until late summer. Oh God, I shouldn't really be alive. I wish I would just have a heart attack and die. I wish I wish. I want to die. I want to die. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I need attention from my mother. She hates me very much. My mother hates me. This girl's mother hates her.
God, Ellen is my best friend. I don't deserve her. If only my mother was dead and Barbara and Tom would be my next parents. That would be the best thing for me. Then Ellen and I could be like real sisters. The next best thing would be for me to be dead and be with my grandparents again. I did love them.
Elaine B. was a debutante at the Holiday Inn this weekend.
I'm sick. I wanted to tell Barbara that I was (what is called) illegitimate but I couldn't. She said I shouldn't . She wanted me to discuss it with the psychiatrist. Am I that weird? I must put Barbara and Ellen through a lot. I can't handle anything. Maybe I'll go to Fair Oaks soon.
I would have been normal and happy if Barbara hadn't said that about my mother.
By the way, Thomas seems a lot better now. He started school Thursday. He's happy and I'm glad. Mr. V. said my introduction was garbage.
I swear. The way I feel. I don't think I'm normal. Ray has acute tonsilitis. Maria just got hers taken out. I was crying Thursday because I thought Vail-Deane didn't want me back. I'm going to be paying my education next year (if I'm alive). Will I ever get normal? Maybe if I lose weight. That's what I really want. I didn't do my geometry homework and Mrs. Ayres said she was collecting mine. I did it real fast in class today. It worked. I succeeded in convincing her. I really don't feel normal. I swear to God, I'm not kidding but I feel like I am really, severely, mentally imbalanced. Ellen should hate me. I try to like steer clear of her this week because I'm going to be like real weird because that's the way I feel. Dizzy. I'm watching Tom Schneider at 12:55 now. I'm going to turn in my writing soon. But I just want to express how mentally ill I feel. Well, I'll drink more coffee and be productive and just do what I gotta do. I've also got to remember to be good to Pat.
(Author's note: I was extremely depressed. I was seeing a psychiatrist, but I never did warm up to him as a therapist. When my mother told me she was getting married on January 16, 1981, I immediately screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but it was to no avail. The way she presented it to me was, "Trish, how would you feel if I got married?" I thought I had a choice in the matter, but it was already a done deal apparently. When my own mother didn't listen to my cries of pain over this matter, I felt completely abandoned. I realized I was totally alone in this world and I didn't want to live anymore. I immediately became suicidal the way you see a baby chimp whose mother has died, stay by her body and not venture out for food or nourishment because he has given up too. Life wasn't worth living without a mother and that is exactly how I felt when my mother told me she was getting married. The mother/daughter thing we had going on all these years was over. A strange man was to move into our house and I was to feel uncomfortable in my own living environment. It sucked. Plus I had no siblings to share this delight with.
It was me who asked my mother to take me to a psychiatrist. She did. The guy I saw sucked. He sat really far away from me and I felt like he was judging me. I felt like I was the unruly, bad teenager and that it was me who was the problem, when in reality, it was my mother who was pulling the wool over my eyes. Mike was still living with us when she got engaged to Kevin. She was yet to kick him out. It was all very confusing to me. Everybody kept saying to me at that time, "be happy for your mother, this is a good thing that she is getting married," but I wouldn't have any of that. My mother betrayed me. And somehow this was all tied in with Mike.
Mike, her boyfriend, sexually abused me from before the age of 8 to the age of 16 when he left. He was in our lives since I was 4, but I have no memories of those first 4 years with him. I did feel though, that I was doing a sacrifice for my mother by letting Mike touch me. Somehow, that's what it felt like, a sacrifice. So when she turns around and tells me she's marrying a completely different guy, I went berserk. I hated my mother. I hated my life. I hated myself. I wanted to be dead. I believe now that I did have a nervous breakdown. The thoughts I express in this diary entry are ones of extreme confusion about myself and about the world. Nothing made any sense to me at the time. I used to cry in history class because whenever I did perk up to listen, it was always some horrible story being told about how one country killed another country. Man's inhumanity to man. It was at this age that I woke up and realized that life was a bowl of shit and that there was nothing to look forward to in life. All the plans that my mother and I had made together were gone. She was giving me up for Kevin. It felt like a stab in the back.
I ran to a new mother. That was Barbara. But that was a confusing relationship because Barbara opened her arms to me and I eagerly went into them, but I realized that I really couldn't stay in them. As much as she welcomed me into her home, I really didn't belong there. There was an intact family of 4 already there and really, truly, you can't just walk in and become a member of someone's family. Just as my mother and I were a compact unit of 2. Having Kevin walk in and suddenly become a part of our family just didn't feel right to me. I felt out of place in both places and felt I didn't have any place to belong. This made me so depressed I sometimes couldn't take the pain. The pain squeezed out of me every which way. I wanted to die but I was afraid to kill myself. Had I had the means, I'm certain I would have, but I was new to suicide at 16. I didn't know how to go about it. I wasn't familiar with the methods that people used to kill themselves, so I just prayed God would take me. I just prayed that my life could be over. It was this intense pain that my psychiatrist either never saw, or never addressed. That is why it didn't work out with him. After all these years and so many therapists, I must say that he truly sucked. And he just made me feel worse about myself.
Having nowhere to go with all of this pain, I think I just lost it.
Plus, it was during this time that I began to realize that I was afraid of the opposite sex. When I met that boy Scott at the roller skating rink I remember him making me promise to call him. He asked for my number but I refused to give it to him. I was scared, but I didn't know it at the time. To this day I have always remembered that boy at the roller rink who wanted me to call him. I felt so obligated, as I did with Mike, but I never did call the boy. It was at this time that I became so frightened of boys and men that I was never "normal" again. And when I say "normal," I mean I just couldn't relax around the idea of a boy liking me or me liking a boy. In this way, I became so unlike my peers who were starting to look at boys with curiosity and hope, while I was looking at boys with anxiety and I began to panic if they looked back in my direction).
(Author's note: Two days after writing above, I wrote my mother this email.
Dear mother,
I think that you did try to do things for me when I was a kid, that were in my best interest. I think you thought Kevin was a source of financial support and that part of the reason you married him, was for me as well - that he would help you to support me.
Rebecca and I have different parenting styles and sometimes we fight about that. Being raised by a single mother, I can only imagine what it must be like to fight with a partner about how your kid should be raised. I'm not sure I could share parenting, as my only model for parenting was a single mother. I'm not sure I'd want to share it.
But when Mike came along, he had different ideas about parenting than you did. Instead of fighting with him, you gave in. If he wanted to hit me over a small infraction, you didn't stop to think whether I really deserved it, you just let him do it. The same with Kevin. Whereas I had no curfew before you were married, I suddenly had one after you were married. I really disrespected you for that, that you didn't stick to your own guns and take a little bit more responsibilty over your parenting style.
But nowadays I just think you were doubting yourself the whole time. I think you weren't sure how to parent, so you let others make decisions for you. I didn't understand that then. I took it as a betrayal and I was really angry at you for your wishy-washiness. I called you a "stupid woman" in my diaries, but now I can articulate that it wasn't stupidity on your part, but rather a lack of conviction to your own parenting style that lead to these actions.
The purpose of this email is not to hurt you or criticize you in any way. It is not meant to do that at all. I would just like to know if you think I am right. I am just trying to gain some clarity on some things that you did as a mother. Ultimately, I would like to get along better with you.
Love,
me
I did not send it and don't know if I will).
posted by Grand Inquisitor at 5:01 AM
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