It's like stalking but less fun and more invisible...

So.... a year ago I was planning a wedding and my escape plan from my mother. I still can't figure out which one was more stressful... Lately, she's everywhere. Not physically. I don't think she will ever be that ballsy. I dream about her. I think about her. I question my decision to stay away from her. I hate her. I love her. I whine that it's not fair that I got the shitty mom while my brothers got the nice, sweet, sacrificing mom who thought the sun shined out their collective ass.

I've had a lot of people remind me these past 10 months that this woman I've walked away from, is my mother. I've never forgotten that. I've been told I need to forgive her. I need to get over it. I need to hear her half of the story. I don't want any of that. I've spent my life hearing her half of the story - she's the victim. My father was a drunk and a pot head, my first step father was physically violent (which I have no memory of - when he left in the back of a police car, with me standing in my Garfield jammies, I thought I had done something wrong. Especially because once he got inside that car, I was alone with one of my brothers and no grown ups were there. Safe.) and the following one was "The biggest mistake of [her] life". Her parents made her become a nurse when all she wanted was to be a music teacher. Everything was done to her so that no one would see what she was doing to the small girl behind her.

I continue to tell people, "yes. she is my mother and she should have known better than to treat a small child like she wasn't worthy of being loved." No one wants to hear that. I've even flipped it and asked them, what if this weren't my mother, but an abusive spouse? Would you want me to leave? Would you want me to take my son and run and find a safe place where this person couldn't find us? How the hell is this so different?

She's everywhere right now. I think the thing that bothers me the most is wondering what my life could have been had I been encouraged and loved and nurtured and cherished in the way that my brothers were. I think I would cut that bitch if I met her. Or I would be eaten up with jealousy to the point of insanity. I hate how filled with envy I am. I hate it because I would never, could never wish my childhood upon another child. And then I realize that my reasoning is that another child might not have been strong enough to handle it.

I am strong. If there were an emotional Iron Man competition, I would beat the living hell out of almost everyone I know. I would win. Granted, I don't even feel like I'm a strong person. I deal with the aftermath and fallout of my childhood on a daily basis. My go-to response when something happens is to apologize, blame myself for it, and privately tell myself that if I weren't alive, nothing like this would have happened. My anxiety levels are off the charts to the point where even discussing going out and finding a job throws me into panic attacks and crying spells. I can't sit with my back to an open room without having to focus on my breathing. I've walked out of a coffee house because my usual seat, in the corner armchair, was occupied. If I'm so strong, why the hell am I so scared???

I hear her voice in my head at night. Never saying anything, but always implying a dare. "I dare you, Sunshine. I dare you. Do it. " I stand each day on this precipice and always look down wondering if someday, I will finally do it. Just to shut that bitch up.

what in the world could that be?

I’m a really awkward person. Not in the adorable Zooey Deschanel look how quirky I am kind of way, but in the more disturbing girl-in-the-back-of-the-classroom-who-eats-her-hair kind of way. Also, I totally went through a hair eating phase. Not like the frightening cases you hear about on tv where a teenaged girl has like 20lbs of hair removed from her stomach, just a general nervous habit. I get nervous in crowds really easily. My mother refuses to believe this because as a small child I would often walk up to complete strangers and start conversations. It’s a miracle I was never kidnapped and disemboweled. I just really don’t like large groups of people. Especially if I’m expected to socialize with them. Dear God help me if I have to socialize. That being said, I am dreading my upcoming wedding. I know I said in my last post that Sara and I are a dysfunctional married couple, but in truth, we’re not even married yet. We just fight, bicker and pick on each other like an 80 year old couple with varying levels of dementia. Our wedding is going to be small. I have had panic attacks worrying about how much of my insanely large extended family is going to be offended when they don’t get an invitation, but it’s not my fault my grandparents were fond of pro-creation. I think when you really think about it, I’m pretty sure most of us are really fond of the act of pro-creation. Besides, I can’t get too pissed about it because that negates my existence, which means that if you’re reading this, and I don’t exist, you’re hallucinating. And if you’re hallucinating, you’re either on really good drugs, or you have a brain tumor. I choose to believe it’s drugs.

Shit. I just forgot what I was talking about. Awkwardness. I guess I just subscribed to the belief that I was just a black sheep. And then I went to high school where everyone thought they were a black sheep. So then, I figured that if everyone’s a black sheep, I must be a white sheep. And that led to fears I was turning into a white supremacist. So then I decided I was a drunken unicorn and my identity issues were solved because at least a drunken unicorn is unique. I spent way too much of my adolescence trying to adopt a personality that would make others happy. In fact, I still do that shit. Kind of makes me wonder if I’ve ever been honest with anyone about who I am. Except for you guys. You guys are the people I trust. It’s the people I KNOW I don’t want to be honest with. Those people are assholes.

Honestly, it wasn’t until about a year ago, when I discovered the drunken ramblings of Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess for those of you paying attention, that I decided that if people couldn’t deal with my honesty, I didn’t need them around. Her struggles with anxiety and depression made me feel less alone as I struggled with depression and ADHD. For the record, I am not hyperactive in the sense that you’re thinking. I don’t run around smearing glue on shit and even if I did, I’d forget about it before I got to pour the glitter on. I’m just easily distracted. I don’t know if that’s obvious. It really should be if you know me. I’ve been known to get lost in shopping malls because I saw something pretty and decided I had to look at it only to discover that the people I was with didn’t even notice I was gone until they were on the next floor and I was almost in tears because I was positive they were going to leave me behind, thankful that they had finally ditched the weirdo who couldn’t even finish a thought before jumping onto the next topic. Seriously. I started blogging partly because I thought it would be a great exercise in trying to focus. Unfortunately, I have like a month’s worth of entries waiting to be posted because I just couldn’t stop thinking about random shit when I was typing. Shit. I’m off-topic again. Sonofabitch. Jenny! She has helped me to see that my awkwardness is something to be embraced. It is something wonderful and fantastic and what’s better than that, I am NOT alone. There are thousands of hair eaters like me who understand me. Not that they’ve found my blog yet, but at least I know they are THERE.