I Am Free

May 26, 2022 ~ crumbiniville ~ 1 Comment

I believe that trauma is something that can be passed down through generations. It can present itself in subtle ways, or it can come full force.. but I don’t believe there’s a single person born on this planet that just has the innate desire to hurt others. I know there are situations and mental health concerns that make it near impossible for some people to feel empathy and other feelings that most of us consider ‘normal’… but that’s not what I’m aiming at right now.

Recently, in the past two years or so, I’ve been sharing more of my trauma with others.. mainly in the form of therapy, one on one sessions with a mental health professional.. but also to close friends and romantic relationships. There’s this saying, I’m not exactly sure the wording but it says, be careful who you open your heart to, not everyone knows what to do with something so valuable. I’m 33, almost 34.. and I wear my heart on my sleeve, I always have and I believe I always will. I share my thoughts and feelings with anyone, as long as I feel like they’re listening… but I’ve also seen that this is potentially more harmful to me than it is helpful. I share now because I’m able to articulate how I feel… I share now because it took me a long time to speak up for myself… I share now because I’m healing and haven’t really had the opportunity to share before… I share because I need to feel heard.

I’m smart enough to understand that there is a right place and time to have personal conversations, but I’ve been emotionally stunted in areas that make FEEL like any place and time is the right time. The two can be confusing. The truth is, many people are struggling, and even more so, many people do not really know what to do when someone expresses themselves to them. Instead, they block off the emotions and portray you as someone who is immature, emotionally unstable or “crazy”. I’m smart enough to understand this.

I’m reaching a point in my life where I finally feel free from the weights that have tied me down. I feel like I can actually “choose happiness” rather than be swallowed up by overwhelming grief and sadness. It’s a breath of fresh air… it seems like a whole new life.

Sometimes I can physically FEEL my parents trauma.. I know what my Dad experienced as a child.. not fully but based on what he expressed over the years, I know he had to survive at a young age. Looking back at my own childhood, I can rationalize where his anger came from… I can see him repeating some of the same cycles with my brother that his dad did to him.. I’ve felt similar stress to trying to manage money and do the right thing and progress in a profession and take care of my belongings and live with people who couldn’t or didn’t help out financially or take care of their belongings, etc. The point is.. I can feel it, I don’t want to perpetuate it. I’m sorry he experienced his traumas, I’m sorry my brother, mom and myself also experienced residual affects of that trauma.. and I’m sorry that at some point I probably lashed out on others with similar trauma based actions. I’ve seen my Mom struggle with her mental health for years, her depression and the volatile dynamic between her and my Dad. I have worried for a long time that I see very similar traits in myself in that regard, mostly the depression, that I don’t want to carry through life and pass along to anyone.

My heart breaks for my family… but I firmly believe in free-will and I know that I have the ability to stop certain life experiences from being passed down to the next generation. 33 years is a long time, I’ve immersed myself in trauma, unknowingly through childhood, but then as I had the free-will to decide who I spent my time with and what I allowed myself to experience. It all seemed so “automatic” to an extent… like I was blindly gravitating towards similar situations and people who would mimic the chaos I was used to. I knew I didn’t belong in friend circles that included people who had pretty decent upbringings or hadn’t experienced a whole lot of drama. I’m sure, to them, they had… but I tended to feel like I had to act like a different person to be around them.

I’ve spent years of my life, dedicating my time to people who (now looking back) needed me in some way.. and vice versa. People who had drug addiction in their family, a one parent household, extreme money problems, a parent who died by suicide, a life in foster care never knowing their parents, abuse, sexual abuse from family members, homelessness, lawlessness, begging, poverty… I have experienced, second hand, trauma from these people who I loved. The only thing I ever wanted for them was happiness and for them to know that they were somebody and that they were worthy and could amount to anything they wanted. But trauma is not easy to overcome… generational trauma is not easy to break.. and it’s never been my sole responsibility to take the brunt and abuse from people who are dealing with their circumstances.

Everything finally came to a head this past year or so. I worked through and processed (through therapy sessions) a lot of childhood stuck points, vivid memories of anger and abuse and violence, hate and manipulation, worked through sexual assaults and low self worth, through the grief of “losing” my twin brother even though he is still alive, through the physical and mental abuse from my marriage that ended pretty abruptly before I moved out of the country, worked through a miscarriage and narcissistic verbal and emotional abuse leading to major depression and suicidal ideation, then through ridicule and life altering career decisions. I’m typing it all out here, mostly because it validates that I KNOW I have survived some things and I know I don’t need to share them with everyone… but it’s a form of healing for me and at some points I just wanted to feel heard.

The tides are turning, and they’ve been shifting for some time.. but I no longer feel tied down by my past or the trauma… I don’t really feel like I need to keep trying to tell my story to deaf ears. I’ve been heard by those who love me who have allowed me to take the weight off my chest and release it. I feel a little bit like a butterfly, and the cocoon that kept me so safe.. the guards I had up.. were also helping me grow and transform. I finally feel free.

November 21st.

November 21, 2019 ~ crumbiniville ~ Leave a comment

I figured I’d start writing again… so I have a hand written journal, but also getting back into this online blog. The written journal is good for slow, in-depth thought, but sometimes you just need to type while your brain is thinking.

I recently started counseling. It’s been LONG AWAITED. It isn’t that I haven’t tried in the past, it’s just that it wasn’t effective. I’ve always just wanted to go into therapy and start dumping everything out of my heart and mind… seriously. So when the guy asked me to start.. I did.. and I started from the most recent events I could think of. I found myself not really diving into the emotions or re-living, because I didn’t want to get stuck, I wanted to tell as much as I could, and trust me, I’m a rambler. I got out the basics in my 90 minute session, and then I was glad that he started asking other questions that prompted me to go back into memories that I haven’t seen in a long time.

It’s interesting the coping mechanisms I have adapted from trauma. Honestly, I mostly try NOT to talk about a lot of things because I don’t want to be in a pity party.. but it was nice to open up and actually say some things that I haven’t voiced, ever. It’s not like I don’t now certain things about myself, because I’d like to consider myself pretty self-aware, but I think the way some of the questions were asked and the pauses were put in the right place, allowed me to feel something like a strike in my chest. I make excuses for myself and I sort of have a warped sense of self, a lot of things that have happened, I blame myself for, which I don’t think is a bad thing, but it really starts adding up, and it’s almost an easy way of pushing things aside. Blame me for whatever, I don’t care, I’m not too proud to admit that I have made bad choices in life, but it doesn’t mean that what happened is something that I deserved. Just like my habit of thinking that just because I can handle shitty situations means that that’s my role in life so others don’t have to deal with it. Just because you can handle being abused, doesn’t mean that you should. Seems a little sick a twisted after a while. I’m sure there’s a name of a syndrome for that.

I remember being about 8 years old when I really felt like I just wanted to talk to someone, and all I ever got told what “what do YOU have to talk about? Your life isn’t so bad..” then a list of examples of how other people had it worse, so suck it up. Fair enough.. but that pretty much ended up making me feel like each time something bad would happen, that it wasn’t actually that bad and that I should suck it up because at least I wasn’t ::insert worst case scenario::. I tend to project that stance onto my brother and also my sister, and I think that’s why I’ve ended up in this position where I feel like I’m on the other side of the coin than them. I just don’t want to spend my life blaming people for shit, when as I’ve gotten older I’ve been able to relate to some of the hard core emotions that cause some people to do things they wouldn’t do if they had better coping skills.

I saw a video the other day that seeped into my core and pulled out a fear that had been buried for a long time. It was a video of a little boy being beaten.. and his screams and crying were out of pure terror… and I broke.. because that was our house hold more often than not.. and that shit would rock my fucking world. My soul has looked into the eyes of Satan on more than one occasion, and there’s something about being terrified that you’ll never forget. I’m sorry that we had to go through that, I’m sorry to the people who inflicted that… imagine not being in your right mind and wanting to destroy someone’s very existence out of pure hate and anger.. I’m sorry those situations happened. I – can’t- place blame. What good would it do? Would I want to watch someone suffer the rest of their life to pay for their actions? Some would say yes because of the suffering that we all still endure day in and day out… but I don’t think an eye for an eye is always the answer. There is a way to nip a cycle in the bud.. and maybe it’s egotistical of me to think this way, but maybe I’m the one doing in by not harboring these resentments and using them as excuses to not heal completely.

I WANT to heal. I don’t think I was put here to carry a lifetime of sadness, I don’t think that’s my end result. I don’t want to be that old lady talking about my past and how horrible things were and how this could have been different… it’s really up to me to break the cycle.. and trust me I have a cycle.

I fall in love very quickly. I fall in love and am very quick to let people in and give every little piece of me, naively thinking that the other person is trust worthy enough and understands me enough to take care of what I’m giving.. and the truth is, they’re not.. because even I’M not. If I could take care of myself, I wouldn’t constantly be thinking I need something else to fulfill me. I’m not whole because I’ve spent majority of my life pushing tons of shit into tiny spaces within my mind and heart and soul.. and then I want someone else to help me figure it out. It doesn’t work like that… MAYBE at one point in my life when my twin was a part of my life, it actually worked like that.. but there is no other person on this earth who will ever know me as intricately as he did… and even now he doesn’t know me. I have to stop searching for that.

Of course I can keep pushing on. I’m pretty good at it, honestly. I can keep moving. I can keep trying. But there is something fascinating about the circumstance that I’ve gotten myself into. I’ve finally created, or taken advantage of, the opportunity to just take care of myself. I could NOT be in a better position… unless I was making money by default and going to the beach everyday… even then though. I’ve gotten myself here, after years of my heart beating out for a moment like this… and here I am. And I don’t want to waste it and I know it won’t be easy. I have to face myself, I have to realize compulsions and anxieties that push me to make decisions… I have to curb those and change them in the moment, and I have to let go of this control that I think I have over situations in my life. Maybe I can de-clutter all these spaces that are filled with repressed emotions and memories and feelings, and then I’ll have more room in my brain for new memories and useless knowledge of TV shows and actors and stuff that I just can’t retain right now.

One day of therapy has shown me this need to face myself… and I think the rest of what needs to be done will come through more sessions. I’m grateful for these moments, THIS is what makes life worth living, in my opinion. The ability to take ownership of myself and my actions and the ability to create instead of live blindly. I want to level up.

0-8 8-16 16-24 24-32 yea.. it’s about time for another level.

Hey February.

February 4, 2017February 6, 2017 ~ crumbiniville ~ Leave a comment

I just got off the phone with my twin brother. He sounds clean and healthy. He’s been calling a lot more lately, and I’ve been trying to work on my communication with him. Some days I am bitter and I am short with him, and others I am chatty Kathy. I definitely have resentment towards him, built up over the years; I know as a part of his own personal healing, that my attitude is not beneficial… but I too am working on my own healing. I got a chance to spill a little bit of what’s been on my heart for the past 6 years after he apologized for not being a part of my life. He admitted that he put our relationship on the back burner because he had his own problems to deal with and he ‘knew that we would work it out much later in life.’ I can appreciate that, I know where he is coming from, and yes, he definitely did and still does have things that he needs to work out, and I’m thankful that he has had the opportunity to do that and it seems like it’s really sinking in this time. He also admitted that his mind has played tricks on him and has caused him to think that our family wanted nothing to do with him, when in the back of his mind he kept telling himself that wasn’t true.

Schizophrenia is such a crazy disease, no pun intended; let alone being a infantry veteran with PTSD and major drug abuse problems… I will never blame him for going through the struggle he continues to go through, but I did have to remind him that EVERY SINGLE DAY he has been the topic of discussion in our family, and I say that with not an ounce of exaggeration. He has never been hated or unloved, our entire family has suffered for years. There has been anger, unimaginable sadness, violence, good memories and bad… but when it comes down to it, all we have wanted was for him to be better and to feel like a whole family. Each one of us has resentments towards one another… it has taken years for me to try to understand why I was born with a twin, but have grown into an adult without. I went from spending everyday with him growing up with such a unique bond, to having nobody there. I went through a lot of growing as an individual, I didn’t know who I was without him, it was like somebody cut off the entire left side of my body and expected me to carry on, as normal, through my day/life. I resented him for seemingly not caring anything about me, for not being there for my parents, for having me carry the burden of taking care of our family (my parents).. my mom has health issues, he was never at the hospital, my sister has 2 kids and he doesn’t even know who they are, my parents are aging, they’re in their mid 60’s and I’m dealing with the conversations of how they wan to be buried, what they want to do with the house, power of attorneys.. etc. I would have loved to have worked as a team and felt like a whole support system… but life is a funny thing.

This has all been about growing. I can be grateful that I’ve had two loving parents who have been my support system through the years. If I hadn’t been dealing with the ‘loss’ of my twin, I may have not gotten the opportunity to build such a close and strong bond with the two people who mean the most to me.We have struggled together. I can be grateful that I have learned how to be independent, when I was younger, my brother was so much more of an extrovert than I was, he made majority of my friends for me haha, sounds crazy, but it’s true. I was just awkward. I have learned how to be my own person and not rely on someone else to give me confirmation that I’m always searching for. I’m grateful that we are now working on re-developing our relationship, rather than being close up until now and then all of a sudden have a falling out. I feel like it’s harder to deal with those the older you get… we still have time. I’m also extremely grateful that he is alive and wasn’t killed in the line of duty. I will keep it at that.

Through talking to him on the phone tonight, I have realized something… his mind works much more differently than most. He get’s lost in thought very easily. He is perpetually bored. He WANTS to do something… but he doesn’t know where to start.. so I am grateful that we are talking again and that I feel like I have found a way that we can bond again. While talking to him he kept saying “I’m bored…. I guess I’ll watch tv… but I don’t want to watch tv… I’ll just go to sleep… but I don’t really want to go to sleep… there’s nothing to do…” So we started talking about goals and I found out that the way his mind works now is that of Dori off finding Nemo. He forgets VERY quickly and he also has to be told what to do step by step… having figured this out, I said ” do you have paper you can write on?” he said “uhh yea, hold on let me get my paper……. what do I write?” (we had JUST talked about what to write)… I said “Monday… call (so & so)…. get stamps… mail letter… go to court house and get attorney”etc. After this conversation we had, it was like his voice was filled with hope and happiness… like he appreciated the fact that someone was trying to help him figure things out and untangle this web that he is circling. I told him “You should call me every Sunday and we will make a list for the upcoming week.” and he loved that. I make lists myself, and I’d love to help him do the same if it means that he can start working towards a life that he wants. I’d love to see that for him. I’d love to help him create his new life. That’s my twin… I’d do anything for him.♥

Everybody has a story.

January 11, 2017 ~ crumbiniville ~ Leave a comment

This personal side of me is a side that not many get to see. I’ve decided to stop holding myself back, holding things in, and share them. I used to do online journaling, I had YEARS in my archive on blurty, does anyone remember blurty?? It was the same time that LiveJournal was a thing and I think there was another really popular one… along with when AOL would let you build your own webpage and people would just fill it with shout-outs to their bff’s, lol. Sad news, blurty has shut down, which I think is very unfortunate because if I had known that would happen, I would have backed up all my years of journal entries I had on there… but there is always time to start fresh, so here I am.

I want to be bigger than myself, I want to help others. I feel like through the years I have developed a callous emotional boundary, where inside, I am caring and genuinely want to help those who seek advice or a shoulder to lean on.. but on the outside I can come off sort of ‘not-my-problem-ish’. It’s not good to compare yourself to who you think you used to be, but I often do, because I remember when I was able to understand what people were going through and I FELT the connection, I could FEEL the empathy, and I feel like I always was able to clearly identify a solution or even just allow the other person to heal. But somewhere along the way, I have buried that.

My life has changed drastically in the past 2 years, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life! 2016 was a huge year for me and 2017 is going to be just as big, but it almost feels like I got amnesia, like I only know my life for the past 2 years. Every now and again I will get into a funk, and memories flood back, and the problems that I hear other people talk about, I can relate to but I don’t open my mouth about it, because nobody likes a know it all. But if I can just post it on the internet and get it off my chest, then maybe I can help at least 1 or 2 people who struggle through certain things, and at the very least, it can be my own outlet to finally release these things from my heart.

I guess I will start off with what burdens my heart the most, most days. My brother. It’s the heaviest weight I carry, day in and day out. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him and miss him more than words will ever express.

This picture was taken at one of our birthday parties, maybe we were… 12? This is my twin brother, CJ. He was my partner in crime since before birth. They way I’m talking about him makes it seem like he’s dead or something… but he’s still alive, and I guess that’s what I’m most grateful for. I have a friend that I went to high school with who’s brother passed away while serving in the USMC. I remember reading about it and balling my eyes out because my brother was also serving at the same time, and getting the news that she got, was my absolute worst fear.

My brother and I were all we had growing up, he was my best friend, but I never really understood that til after he wasn’t around anymore. Of course we fought growing up, we fought a LOT, but he always had my back when it came down to anyone else, and the same was true for me. We grew up in a hectic household, to say the least, and if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know how my life would have turned out. We had such an amazing way of creating our own stable reality away from the fighting and anger, we would tell each other our deepest feelings and he would promise that we would be away from there one day and live happy lives. We had dreams, big dreams, the universe was our limit.. but as we got older, we grew distant, we hung out with different people and the years of growing up in a household full of fighting and anger really took it’s toll on us. I would be resentful because instead of leaving the house, I’d stay and take care of everything to try and prevent arguments, and he would leave and escape and do whatever he wanted. Things eventually got so bad that my dad decided to move in the middle of our senior year, about 3 hours away, to the middle of no where, and it wasn’t long after that my brother joined the Marines.

This was 2007 at CJ’s boot camp graduation. He enlisted in infantry, he did AMAZING while he was in, he made great friends, was great with guns, was super athletic, but he missed his freedoms. I was back in MD doing my own thing, but I really believe I was going through a major identity crisis. I had never known life without my brother. I had never spent more than maybe a week in my life without seeing my brother, and he was gone in what seemed like a blink of the eye. I started to realize throughout the years of being apart from him, how much of a part of me he actually was. I would catch myself talking like him, using the same mannerisms, almost like I was trying to recreate and fill the void that was left in me. I tried to connect with people on the same deep level that I was used to with him, and it always felt like nobody ever really understood me.

I recently came across a video on my computer that I made for him while he was overseas, of what was on my mind, how I was feeling at the time.. and I had to delete it. It was depressing! I could SEE and hear in my voice how much I missed him and how confused I was. I didn’t know who I was without a twin. I feel like a lot of people go through something similar to this when a parent leaves or dies, or when they’ve been in a relationship with someone for a long time and then it comes to an end and they’ve spent years building this connection full of inside jokes and memories and comfort knowing you can depend on them, and then one day you wake up and they’re gone. I had never really been the most outgoing one between the both of us, and I turned into even more of an introvert. It’s hard to describe what was going on inside of me but it was like I didn’t feel safe to be myself without him there, I felt like I was weird and he was not around for me to have reassurance, to have that ‘it’s ok, I KNOW you’ feeling. I got into a pretty serious relationship to fill the void of missing my brother, but while I was in it I was constantly comparing this guy to my brother. Looking back, I never really wanted to relationship aspect of it, I just wanted to companionship, but guys don’t typically think that way and they often want MORE than that.. if you know what I mean. I knew from the very beginning that I didn’t want to say yes when he [my ex] asked me if we were together, but I didn’t want to say no and end up having nobody. It was selfish, but if I had just been honest from the very start, I would have saved him AND myself 5 years that ended in a real heartbreak for him.

I went through a lot of changes as a person while my brother was gone; it took many, many years to be able to wake up in the morning and feel ok with who I am as a person. My brother got out after 4 years of serving, and he dealt with addiction and mental disorders and that was even more of a struggle for US to deal with. It’s a funny thing that happens when you are trained to kill… they program your mind to feel no emotion.. makes sense… but they never reprogram it back… also makes sense. So, that level we connected on so deeply growing up.. was gone. It was like peeling an onion with no core trying to reach the brother I had always known and loved.

Fast forward (because this is getting lengthy).. to today. It’s been almost 11 years since I have really KNOWN my brother and had him as a part of my life, regularly. Currently he is in another Veterans hospital trying to stay clean and get the help he needs. I’m grateful that he’s alive and is still trying to be a better, happier HIM. But it doesn’t change the hole in my heart. I hear other people talk about their siblings, I see photos of them together on holidays or random trips, and I get a little bitter on the inside. I wonder if they hold those memories dear to their heart like I do, I wonder if they appreciate the bond they share, or their presence or their safety net of knowing you have a family member around who knows you more than anyone else… Everyday I say a silent prayer for my brother and my parents, that we can be together as a family again, before my parents die. It sounds morbid… but it’s the truth. There was a day a few years ago, 2014, that I was able to go pick my brother up and bring him over and a family cook out.. and it was a great feeling having him home, we just need to make it a more reoccurring thing that happens, get him re-integrated into the family… we have to re-learn each other and what it means to be a family.