Sitting here thinking why the FUCK should I be the one hurting and suffering?!?! I just got out of a house where I was doing JUST THAT.
I deserve this freedom, this is exactly what I wanted. I deserve to be happy. Fuck what I lost, fuck who I thought she was and how I thought life would end up, thank GOD I got out.
My life is looking up. I don’t need to keep hurting anymore.
I’m just sitting here at work and I’m fucking sad. I really can’t even put it into words. Its like I knew I wasnt happy being chaotic, but I really fucking hate being lonely. Who am I going to laugh with? I have to fucking start ALL OVER AGAIN, but each time I feel like I’ve left a piece of me behind. I really can’t keep doing this shit.
Tool- Schism🎶
Here I am again, God. Another closing chapter. I know it’s not my destiny to stay in situations for long periods of time, I’m forever growing and developing myself. I just wish it didn’t leave a hole in my heart each time I have to move on. It’s never more than I can bare, but at times I do often wonder why I have to keep coming back to these lows that are no stranger to me. It’s my bipolar, ever shifting, spiritual journey; I get that. I don’t know what I do to people… I think I have a small idea.. but am I doing the right thing? How can I cause so much chaos inside of people that they end up wanting to destroy me? Am I a living mirror, one that is not easily broken by throwing it to the ground or scratching it? I keep showing people who they are, maybe not even who they are, but how I see them. But who am I to say? (Good song by the way). My mouth always gets me into some kind of situation, but oddly enough it also gets me out of situations. It’s a gift and a curse.
Thank you, God, for my fading memory that seems to make this a little easier. It’s been hard on my heart to keep losing so many people that I have loved so deeply. I can say that each person that I’ve held in my life for a significant period of time, I have loved with all my heart. I’m sorry they can’t stay on this journey with me, from my own twin, to my now ex-wife. It’s crazy how life is playing out… but I guess it all kind of makes sense. It’s sad to realize that I will no longer be in her presence regularly, I will no longer share my thoughts and days with her, I won’t laugh with her and hear about her struggles and watch her creativeness, I’ll just be another person that used to be.
Just give me a break for a while, cuz I’m a drained battery, I can run a little bit on E, but I just need to recharge and be there for myself. If you’re reading this Jai, I never stopped loving you, I just blocked a lot of you out because it was becoming too much to handle. It breaks my heart to watch you struggle with your mental illness and still trying to live a normal life, and who knows, maybe I was a big part of the problem, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be your forever person. Please don’t ever give up on yourself, you deserve the world and you’re a special person in this universe. Keep your head up mi amor, you’re gonna be alright.
-That’s it for now.
Fuck.
I am hurting.
Fuck.
Am I too young to want to live alone now? I think I’m approaching my prime, which I’ve been told is “the best years of your life, Ash!”… let’s hope it is. Because at this point it’s hard not to look back and feel like I’ve wasted so much time, but I can’t even completely agree with that either because along the way I learned so much, and the people that were involved in that process also learned so much. I know it because I hear it – years later- and I see their own growth and transition.
Part of me feel like I’ve aged a hundred years, like I’ve lived so many lives, ALREADY, yet I’m still in the same lifetime… from 1988 til 2019… I’m the same person, same name, same family, etc. I’m still me. But I’ve lived so many different variations of myself. I’m tired. I think it’s my time to re-coop. To heal myself from years and years of unintentional damage, some intentional… but for the most part it’s just been years of living my life with someone else and sharing their burdens… and growing immensely.
Moments when I feel sad or lonely, at the end of that dark tunnel I remember that I am never alone… and I think I haven’t spent enough time remembering that. Because even if every living creature died today and I was in fact alone and hella lonely… I know that my angels and my guides are always watching over me, cheering me on and reminding me to fulfill my purpose here. I know that in my heart. I haven’t had conversations with the light in a long time, and I know it is part of the reason I suffer right now.
More later.
I recently attended a two day leadership course where I learned many new ideas on what it means to be a leader; but the main thing I took away was something called having heart. Something that you can see without looking with your eyes and feel without using your hands it having heart. I haven’t been connected to my heart for a while now, roughly a year, and it has not been easy. Don’t get my wrong, some days I’m glad that I don’t get affected by much of anything and can move on with my day right into the next. But sometimes, I want to feel; emotions, empathy, caring, sympathy, love, hurt, happiness, SOMETHING.
I went through a period of time last year where I was overwhelmed much more than I have ever been in my adult life, and it felt like I was trying to take on so much day after day. Then, what seems like all of a sudden (which in reality was more like a week or two) I became numb, and I could FEEL the process. It was agonizing, I felt out of my body, glassy-eyed, unable to communicate effectively, my body started to break down, it felt like I was walking through a heavy fog, and when I emerged, I felt changed, almost like a developed a small form of some personality disorder. I began telling myself nothing mattered and I didn’t care, even still, it wasn’t easy for me to let go completely.
This has affected my personal life in good ways and bad ways. It was actually beneficial for me to be able to separate myself from all of the stress I was burdening myself with. I was able to realize that I didn’t need to overwork myself to prove my worth, and I began taking better care of my own needs in that way. I was also able to detach myself from situations that would typically set me off easily (something I developed from so much stress). I still like these benefits and I think it’s something I’ve needed to develop in my life for quite some time. However, the negatives are still at play and I’m slowly learning how to overcome them. Not being emotionally or mentally connected to other people, lacking the desire to become involved with anyone past a certain point, showing genuine interest or empathy for someone or a certain situation. I believe I need these traits in order to become a better leader.
Where it comes to having heart, I believe, is getting back in touch with my spiritual side, because that is what initially got me over many low points in my life many, many years ago. So day by day, I will feel something fluttering in my heart or stomach which gives me an indication that I’m feeling again. I had a massive panic attack back in 2007/2008 time frame where I felt like I was having a heart attack, and it repeated daily for almost a week… it FLIPPED MY WORLD completely upside down and inside out. Since that incident, whenever I start feeling similar feelings in my chest I immediately suppress it for fear of reliving that experience. I think we can all agree it’s not fun to feel like you’re dying. But here recently, I have tried to allow these feelings to come and pass because I think I NEED them. I need to feel this so I can actually get back in touch with that side of me that yearns to connect with others on such a deep level that cannot be expressed in words.
I want to have heart again, but this time I will know how to protect it when I need to. It’s safe to say my marriage has suffered over the last few years to the point where we are now getting divorced. I haven’t quite felt much about it, other than wanting to get it over with, and I can’t tell if this is a problem or if it’s actually ok to feel the way I do about it. There are moments throughout the days and weeks where I’m in a daydream and I’m lightly mourning the loss that’s occurring right in front of my eyes. I’m so lonely at times, even when we’re in the same room. I want to say all these things about how much I miss her, or how much I care, but my heart only lets me feel a really small percentage of those thoughts, and those are other moments where I’m wondering if what I’m going through is normal or ok? It’s almost like I just want to connect back on the level where we initially started our relationship, and I want to take it day by day until I can see where it started going south, so I could adapt better or at least so I could cherish those moments more. I have no idea what my future holds, but I think I’m going through some major growth in the next few years… I’ve never stopped growing, but I can see a new cycle ahead of me, and I can only hope that I’ll have heart♥
♥
Cumulatively, I’m feeling drained. This relationship has taken its toll on me. No longer am I young and able to bounce back and keep moving on, I’m exhausted. I no longer wish to take care of anyone other than myself, and I cannot fully do that until I close the door on this relationship.
Working backwards, because my mind is letting go of so many memories with this stress, Jai and I are getting a divorce. As I write this, sitting in my parents house, Jai is spending the weekend with someone else, enjoying booze, a strip club, going for coffee and buying outfits. It’s difficult for me to pretend I don’t care, but I know that the person or people she is with right now do not know her as I do. I hope they’re enjoying the facade that she is putting up right now.
Last week was the final straw for me, we got into an argument and it escalated into aggressive driving, broken glass, self-harm and a call to 911. I don’t know what to feel about any of this. I came into this relationship feeling the happiest I have ever been in my life, no exaggeration, to it ending like this. My mind still holds onto a little piece of expectation, which looking back, was unrealistic.
This was never going to work out, because after the facade faded the fairy-tale ended.
I’ve decided to go through my old journal and type up what I wrote during this time.
â™ Here We Go:
June 15, 2010
To whom it may concern,
Life will lead you down the path you always knew you’d take, a journey that is completely one of a kind to yourself. Twists and turns and over laps of paths, and your greatest accomplishment will be getting it right the first time.
Repetition can put a halt to progression, yet further it at the same time, keep an open mind. This is the world of duality for the thousandth time. Where the most valuable experiences will take place in order for the experience – it’s fill value, you must first acknowledge the fact that you are here for a reason. We all chose to be here.
This life, to me, is a blessing. Everything about it really hits home in my most centered self. I am growing. I just hope I’m not missing something because at this exact moment I feel anxious. My dreams have been vivid, my waking life feels like it’s been on pause.
AM I really working hard enough? Maybe it’s time for another approach.
Change IS coming. I’m excited. 🙂
♥ – Ashleigh
Hey October. Hey people who haven’t found this blog yet. It’s October. And Orange month.
I posted this picture on my Instagram, it’s a mason jar with a handle and filled with wine… aka it’s my night. After I took this picture and edited it a bit and posted it, I was instantly thrown into a memory of the 2004 era. I was in High School and taking a photography class where we got to develop our own film in a dark room, and I LOVED it, didn’t care for the teacher, but LOVED the class. I aspired to have my own dark room one day and when my Dad told us we were moving in the middle of my senior year, I told him (not suggested) that we were going to turn the attic into a dark room…. (that never happened). Nevertheless, I enjoyed photography and viewing things from different angles.
Prior to 2004, I had always been into writing. In high school I would write poems and stories that would go on forever, and sometimes leave them on the teachers desk anonymously. One year, I wrote a poem on how badly I hated my science teacher because she was always yelling at me in class, and I put the poem on her desk… somehow they figured out it was me and I got sent to the principals office because they said my poem had something about a bomb in it and they thought I was going to plant a bomb in her car… LMFAO. Some teachers just can’t accept fine art. At this time I also had a BLURTY, which if nobody remembers, was a site for blogging, and I had YEARS of blags on there, and the site no longer exists… I still wonder what they have done with all my entries. Anyway, in middle school I pretended like I had a magazine and I wrote a couple articles in magazine format and gave them to my friends, and it was pretty cool, I liked figuring out how to make it the best format to resemble a magazine article. In elementary school I would always write diaries or journals or poems about certain events. I’m not ashamed to say that I still have some of them.
The point is, I have always enjoyed writing. In fact, it has always been my main outlet. I am a passionate person, but it’s difficult sometimes for me to express myself clearly in spoken words because I have a hard time being vulnerable verbally. I’ve gotten better with this, but I usually get my best ideas out through writing.
None of this has shit to do with October. My bad.
O yea, the photo. It brought me back to a memory I had where I REALLY wanted to work for National Geographic. I had all their magazines and I would spend hours going through and making collages out of the pictures and imagine myself writing articles for them. I never had much confidence in myself growing up, so I thought that I was being unrealistic. Looking back, I wish I had followed my passion.
I’ve always said that some people were born knowing what they want to do with their lives, and I thought I was not included in that group of people. But the truth is, I have always known what I wanted to be, I was just too afraid to speak about it or be shut down. I have a few passions; dance (which I am in no way even GOOD at), writing, and talking to children. I’m 30 now, and I have not pursued a single passion.. mostly due to fear of failure and my own lack of confidence that I can succeed in those areas.
Maybe that’s why I started this blog thought? So I can continue to write and let my creativity flow. Who knows, maybe one day I will take a dance class or mentor a child?
I haven’t published on here in over a year, but I have thought about it more often than not. I hold myself back a lot because I’m afraid that people will find this blog post, people that I know, and that I would become vulnerable to their judgement. As it stands right now, people only know what I tell them, which isn’t a whole lot unless it’s my best friend Jade. But even right now, something prompted me to get on here and write.
I’m struggling really hard right now. I can see depression setting in. I come home from work and I instantly head to my room, take a shower and lay in bed. When there is so much that I want to be doing. Normally, I’m an advocate for getting people out of funks and encouraging their happiness and positive vibes, but I live a life right now that is hypocritical.
I don’t want to burden people with my feelings. I don’t want to be vulnerable either. I feel incredibly lonely. And I ALWAYS feel incredibly lonely, but I drift in and out of it.. and recently, meaning months at a time, I’ve been out of it. I’ve been fine. I’ve watched some triggering shit lately.. maybe on purpose? Curiosity? Boredom? I haven’t been feeling. I haven’t been able to feel anything in a long time. I have been numb to empathy, caring, love, peace, and all the negative feelings as well. At first, I thought “I’m fucking healed”.. no more crying, obsessing over shit that means nothing anymore, anger… nothing. It was relieving at first when I realized that I was just rolling through days on auto pilot.. then I got a little worried, because isn’t that how sociopaths or psychopaths are?? They’re unable to feel empathy?? Or anything at all!?!
One of my greatest fears is developing a mental illness. The brain is so fragile, and I’ve got a twin brother who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, mania, bipolar, ptsd…. and a Dad with SADD, mania, ptsd, night terrors… and a mom who is slowly developing dementia. I am PETRIFIED of losing my shit. I see my parents in myself, my actions or ways of speaking or thought provoked memories that I compare myself to.. I understand what my brother is talking about sometimes, like I REALLY get it… my short term memory is fading quickly… I’m out of touch with my emotions… I am fucking SAD.
I guess today or this week is national tell you rape story or some shit, so every post I’ve been reading on facebook is about my friends and acquaintances who have gone through a traumatic experience, and they’re speaking out. And I guess I applaud them for coming out on such an open forum?? But… I’m also annoyed at the whole thing because it’s such a PERSONAL experience… I can’t imagine myself posting about it on my facebook for everyone who is friends with me on there to see… what kind of things would people say about me? Would they treat me differently? Would they see me as weak or blame me or judge me? Why the fuck do I even care?? I guess, I don’t care enough to post about it because I feel like the post wouldn’t do anything to change what has happened… and I guess I feel like people would judge ME, because I judge THEM for posting it.
Other things that have triggered me have been a video I watched of a cop interrogating a murder suspect… for two hours… and I watched 40 minutes of it. 40 fucking minutes of interrogation. I haven’t watched something like that before.. on purpose.. other than just watching crime shows where they show little clips of the interrogation part.. but memories came FLOODING back, shit that I have not thought about or lived in over 10 years. Growing up in a house where I was interrogated regularly by my Dad who worked in corrections. Another reason I would never want my family to see shit like this that I’m writing. I have made amends with shit from the past, forgiven both of my parents and tried so hard to move on and create a life I want to live. And it took so many years for me to heal the wounds that I had, some that I didn’t realize I had.. but I would never want my parents to find this and read it. I would never want them to feel guilty, or angry, or upset with me for talking about how I feel or what I feel like I’ve been through. My Dad would probably get upset and take it personal that I was attacking his actions as he raised us… my Mom already knows all of this. My Dad was a correctional officer for 26 years in one of the worst prisons outside of Washington DC, no doubt it was hard on him, mixed with his own past traumas of growing up with an extremely abusive, alcoholic father.. he brought his work home with him, he brought his childhood traumas into all our lives, my brother, mom and me. Interrogations are triggering to me, because when my Dad would come home, we would turn the TV off, prior to him coming home my mom would have mini panic attacks having us obsessively clean the house to “perfection” so that NOTHING was out of place for him to complain about when he got home.. but there was ALWAYS something to complain about. And I stop myself here for self reflection… I am meticulous.. I find shit to complain about.. am I going to raise children in the same environment he did??? IDK. I don’t have children. Thank God? Anyway.. he’d come home, and my mom would be “boosting his ego” as she would encourage us to do.. which makes me cringe just thinking about it.. and we would sit down for family dinner, which we were supposed to be grateful for because other kids didn’t have dinner, or family, or a table, or a roof over their heads, or shoes, or a shirt on their back… and we had all of that and then some. Reality check. He would ask questions and if the answer wasn’t EXACT or to the point or with the right tone of voice.. we were accused of talking around something, we were hiding something, and the interrogation would begin. We couldn’t possibly be having an off day or be stressed out for anything, we would be questioned on why we had an attitude, why we couldn’t look him in the eyes, why we were twitching out feet or hands, sit up straight, put both your hands where I can see them, why is your hair like that, why are you wearing that outfit, go get your bookbag let me check it, whats in your pockets, ask questions about our friends, where we were, what we did, what their parents did for a living, where they lived, I mean the questions were endless, and I can understand having basic conversation, caring about someones day, listening to eachother, but it always felt like we were guilty for something. And interrogators have a unique talent of making people confess to shit they didn’t do, just because they FUCK with your brain and start making you believe what THEY are trying to put in your head. My Dad would call it “planting seeds“. There were times where this interrogation would go on for hours and then I’d be sent to my room… and I remember just sitting there looking in the mirror confused as fuck, not understanding what just happened, I felt drained… I felt crazy… I would have panic attacks (I didn’t know that’s what they were then, I thought I was just crying hysterically).. and I felt like my brain had shattered into a million pieces. Especially because my brother and I would talk about it to try and undo the programming we had just sat through and we would laugh and FEEL insane.. it seems to weird typing it.. but hopefully I’m really the only one reading this for a long time. I know what I mean. My brother and I learned the technique or sitting perfectly still, only answering questions with monotone yes or no or I don’t know responses, so that my Dad couldn’t provoke emotion or “guilt” from us… I watched many nights at that dinner table as my Dad broke my Mom, it was heartbreaking to watch her question herself or see her brain getting twisted and turned and guilt trips and questioning… and if she fought back my Dad was emotionless and would make her feel even more guilty for it. They argued every single day of my life growing up, he scrambled her brain and the ironic part is now he has to live with her while she develops dementia. When he longs to have a conversation with her, it’s just the two of them, she can barely keep her focus or remember things or she will repeat herself, and when I come home its like a breath of fresh air to have somebody to talk to.
I never want to live like that again, but I can’t help but wonder if those are the environments that I create when I’m in relationships. I’m at the point in my life where I am starting to think that maybe m purpose on this Earth is not to get into relationships, so I can break the cycle, so I can just take demons to the grave with me and not raise a child in another broken home, or put a partner through one hell of a ride. I am exhausted. Any maybe that’s where my numbness is coming from. Have I finally given up? No, not completely, I’m still living. I don’t have the balls to kill myself. But right before I frantically searched for this laptop to get shit off my chest, I frantically searched for a micro blade, and got pissed when I couldn’t find it. I fee like I’m losing it. The only thing that makes me happy is the routine of work.. even though when I’m there I want to go home.. and when I’m here I want to start walking somewhere and never look back.
I’m judging myself. This post is so morbid and I feel like I should just write positive things and change my thought patterns. But shit can’t always be positive, and believe me, I actually try really fucking hard not to slip into a state like this. When I open up the flood gates I just want to keep pouring everything out. Would that clear me up? Would that allow me to become a blank canvas and never have to slip into these episodes? No. But maybe someone will come upon this 30947 page book I’m writing right now and be able to relate, atleast just a little? Maybe that’s why the people on social media are posting their experiences, to show that we are not alone.. If I were going to write about my experience with rape I would start with the one instance I know for a fact was rape. The other times, maybe I was just having sex and it felt like rape? I didn’t feel good doing it, or I didn’t want to do it but the person I was with made me feel guilty if I didn’t.. those accounts are too many to recall.
I was in Indiana for the training phase of my new job at Verizon. They flew me out there to get trained and it was a 4 or 5 day event. I stayed in a hotel, had my own room and everyday we would go downstairs and do our training for the day. I was super excited about it, I had never been flown out for training for a job before. The first night everyone decided we were going to have a hotel party and I went out with my new friends I had just met and we went to a liquor store and I got a 5th of Crown Royal. I’m not a responsible drinker, so I made the biggest cup or crown and barely sprite that I could and started chugging it before heading to a room on a different floor. I got there and there were about 20 people in there, all drink, playing beer pong, being social, meeting eachother, it was nice. I was shy because I didn’t know anyone, so I just sipped my drink every 5 seconds just waiting til I was drunk enough not to care anymore. I sat next to a girl I met in the beginning of the day and talked to a bunch of people in the circle, and I remember our trainer coming over and introducing himself and seeing how we were all doing, and then I don’t remember much. I guess I started leaving the room and another guy followed me out, he was a Marine veteran and told me he was walking me back to my room because he didn’t want anything to happen to me.. and that’s exactly what he did, and I was grateful for that because I hadn’t met many guys who would do that. I take a shower and I’m about to pass out on my bed and I get a knock at my door, and I answer it and this man that was in my class pushes the door open and comes in and I’m telling him I’m about to go to sleep, I’m really drunk and he’s being a pushy dude and trying to persuade me to do things with him, compliments etc… he pushed me on the bed and started getting on top of me and (everytime I remember something it’s from an outside perspective, like I’m watching the event happen from an aerial view) and I start PUNCHING him in the face and telling him to get the fuck off.. to me, I’m punching him hard as I can, right in his face… and I think he liked it because he kept going until he was done, then he left. JUST like that. And I took another shower and sat there wondering what the fuck just happened and went to bed. I never told the trainer or anybody there or my manager back in MD.. I didn’t want to cause shit, especially being new.. and I was afraid of what people would think.. so I never told anyone. When I got back to MD, I told my boyfriend at the time what happened… and he didn’t say a word, he took my clothes off and had sex with me then told me I was his. And it fucked me up mentally because I didn’t know if that was supposed to be romantic or possessive. Fast forward to about 4 years ago, I get a random call from a number and it’s the guy from the hotel.. and my heart STOPS.. and he tells me that was the best sex he had ever had.. and I told him to never call me again then blocked him.
That’s my story. Part of me feels like it was my fault for being so drunk or opening the door or for not fighting him off hard enough or for not telling anyone. But, I’ve been through enough training now to know that that was rape, anyway you look at it. I’ve never had a healthy relationship with sex, ever. The first time I ever had sex I was drunk, and that’s my trend. I don’t have healthy relationships with sex. I was with a guy one time where I was actually sober.. and I told him I was nervous because I wasn’t drunk enough yet and we had sex.. sober sex… and while we were doing it he said “isn’t this nice? I think being sober is better” and… I think I died a little bit inside… I had NEVER been treated with such care or softness… and that shit stuck with me to this day♥
Crumbiniville 