TRIGGER WARNING: All the terrible things happen in this post.

Sunday morning. Slept late. I am so exhausted right now, but I’m starting to feel at peace because I finally have an answer to the question of… what happened to me?

Let’s run the list in chronological order, shall we?

-Physically, verbally, emotionally, and financially abused by my parents from a very early age.

-Sexually abused by a family member at a very young age. This person was also a child when it happened, leading me to believe they were preyed upon by an adult in their life. I do not have any more information about this, nor do I have a relationship with this person. It took me many years to accept that I will never have a relationship with this person, but given the fact that this happened when we were very young, I have no choice but to forgive them.

-Put into “therapy” when I was 8 years old, diagnosed with a brand new thing every year, and doped up on a bunch of experimental medications that weren’t even legal to give to minors under 18, let alone an 8-year-old child in third grade.

-Was medicated for years and years and years. Constantly bullied at school. Mom decided to have a baby when I was 12, which gave her an amazing excuse to ignore my very real problems, force me into domestic servitude, and freely abuse me whenever she felt like it.

-Groomed by an older male student who forced himself on me without my consent many times. He dumped me because I wouldn’t “put out.” He went on the rape me many times over the course of several years. I did not understand that what he was doing to me was rape for a very long time. I knew that it felt bad and I didn’t want it and it was wrong, but no one would accept it as rape because I apparently “wanted it.” No, no I did not, actually. Quick shoutout to my former “best friend” who started running around with this piece of shit behind my back after her groomed her too. Fuck you. You’re a disgusting piece of shit. And creepy AF. Stop stealing other people’s boyfriends and identities. That is some Single White Female-ass shit.

-Groomed by a male teacher/coach in my first high school who tried to pass me off to another teacher/coach. I am not the only girl who was involved in this lacrosse team scandal in the making. It gets worse. So much worse.

-Something inappropriate happened with this teacher on a school trip to Paris. I was 16. Whatever this was, it went on for years. I wrote a novel about the whole thing completely romanticizing it. It’s gross. It’s all so gross. I was so messed up.

-Overdosed in an attempt to escape all of this, which landed me in a psychiatric hospital where I was subjected to further abuse. I was strip-searched, watched in the bathroom, drugged into oblivion, exposed to horrific traumas of the other patients while in group, forced to watch a friend I made in there get kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken away to a “wilderness therapy program” (where they were subjected to even more horrific abuse), forced to watch the staff restrain and sedate patients for minor things like talking back, threatened with solitary confinement and being sent to previously mentioned horrific wilderness therapy program, and later sexually harassed by a staff member after leaving the hospital when I encountered him in public.

-After this, I was transferred to a new school where I was now surrounded by an entire group of traumatized teenagers who had already been passed around these hospitals, wilderness programs, and “therapeutic boarding schools.” Whatever else may have happened at the school that I don’t know about, we mostly agreed that it was generally a good place and 1000% better than any of the other horrific shit we had seen.

-Naturally, I started hanging out with some questionable people and getting into trouble. What did they really expect was going to happen in that sort of environment?

-Tried to escape for college, but my parents wouldn’t let me leave. The shrinks all supported this decision because they didn’t want to lose their gravy train. They forced me to go to a local Catholic commuter college, where I met a guy who was a fucking psychopath and abused me further. Tried to escape by overdosing again. I failed and didn’t die. I dropped out of that school after a year.

-Parents then forced me to move to South bumfuck nowhere Dakota, completely isolating me from everything and everyone I had ever known. I was not on a hostile alien planet where every single person I met seemed to hate me simply because I was different from them. My parents would not let me leave. They would not let me transfer schools or move away. They did everything in their power to hold me hostage and prevent me from leaving.

-My parents tried to continue forcing me to get treatment for my “bipolar disorder” at the Yankton prison/psychiatric hospital complex. They raised a red flag and were like, “You’re just a spoiled rich girl who complains about your perfect life. These medications are too strong and you don’t need them. You can’t have them. Go get a job and stop dressing like a whore.” I was pretty pissed at the time, but in hindsight, it saved my life.

-Made friends with this guy who I met the third day here. I thought he was a good friend, but then he turned into someone completely different after his brother-cousin died of suicide. Did he handle this in a healthy way? No. He turned into an abusive, drunken scumbag who blamed all of his terrible behavior on me. This triggered all the previous shit to come out, I melted down, and things go ugly. Really ugly. If I could see him right now, I would apologize for the ugliness and tell him I forgive him for what he did to me when he was drunk, which was rape. It was definitely rape. He raped me. And I freaked out because I had been raped before and didn’t understand that’s what it was and just melted down. I remember this period of my life as the darkest time in my life.

-Started messing around with a friend of the above guy. That was a terrible idea. He ended up throwing me into a wall. I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn’t. I escaped. Somehow. To this day, when I see him, I will run in the other direction.

-Just barely graduated from college, but I got that University of South Dakota diploma. I got that Bachelor’s Degree. That’s all that counts.

-Drowned all of this shit out with alcohol for years and years and years and years and years. Try to escape multiple times. Failed. Parents continue to be incredibly abusive in all the ways.

-OMG, were only just now getting to Bloody Mary’s?! Holy crap! and to think I was writing these stories to help me cope and find a way to laugh through all the bullshit. Can’t have that, now can we? Noooooo. We gotta go full gangstalking cult mode and try to ruin my life over it. Why? Because Andrew is also a psychopath. It is what it is.

-Go to Paris Writing Workshop in an attempt to get this book together. Fail.

-Covid happens. My parents ship me off to live with my crazy alcoholic uncle who got us kicked off an airplane because he was too drunk. Somehow this was blamed on me? Baby Boomers are stupid. Take responsibility for your own shit. Anyway, he’s dead now, so whatever.

-Come back to South Dakota, continue to drown myself in drink.

-Get a job at Starbucks, which was one of the most abusive environments I’ve ever worked in. If you think the customers are bad, you should see the fucking staff. Horrible people. Just horrible. It was like job mentality over there. Everyone was out to get everyone else. Yet again, somehow I am the problem and fully to blame for the wave of abuse directed at me. It was just sickening to watch. Small Town midwestern people are all sorts of fucked up. I blâme Christianity, tbh. It’s just an abuser factory apparently. They’re pumping these people out by the thousands. Anyway, fuck that.

-Finally my dad dies, my mom leaves, the house is sold, I cut off communication from my mother and all of her flying monkeys forever.

-Finally hit rock bottom after I decided to fuck some married guy 20 years older than me who picked me up at a bar. Sent his dick pics back to his wife and told her what he was up to while she was away working. Watched that bomb explode from a distance before deciding to make a radical change in my life.

-Went to India to find myself and become a yoga teacher. Got married on a beach in Goa and officially started taking a new path in life.

-Went to Paris again and called back my spirit, which I left there when I was 16 to protect myself from all of the crazy shit that was happening to me in my life.

-Did the TEFL course, got a job teaching English in Hong Kong, and now I’m heading over there in June.

-Tried Magic mushroom therapy for the insane amounts of C-PTSD I was still unable to process. It worked. Now here we are!

Wow, what a life! What a story! No wonder everyone keeps telling me to write a book about all of this crazy shit. Alas, if only I had an editor to help me sift through the raw sewage that just comes pouring out of my brain. Unfortunately, I do not, so you’re just going to have to deal with it the way it is right now.

The End