Death

“In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees”

Staring out at old jack pine’s that are too tall to see the top of without actually sticking my head out the window and instead of just enjoying their infinite beauty I am wondering how much last nights snow weighs while dangling on their branches. Funny how these branches seem “scary” to climb yet they are likely holding hundreds of pounds of snow and ice without the slightest break, implying that yes, my child would likely be safe to climb on up. 

When I was younger, a young boy about the age of my kids now went out to their tree fort and he hung himself. No one knows why, or if it was even on purpose. The ravens went to their yard and stayed for over a year. I am not sure if its Native tradition or just a local Native myth, but we were taught growing up that when Ravens went to where a Native person died and stayed it was because they were protecting the persons soul because they died before their time. Ravens have a lot of power in our small community and you will often see them in a large grouping before a death, as if they already knew and were waiting to guide that soul right. 

When I was in grade 2 my best friend was murdered, yes I say murdered and if you are a family member who is reading this I probably just threw you back about 100 feet but it’s the truth. William was murdered, he was my best friend. He was my first love and my first loss and not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. So much so that I have always intended to name one of my children after him, he was a baby, he was only 6-7 years old and because someone didn’t like his hyper-activity he was killed.

I learned that year that there is no justice for the victim who can no longer speak, that the criminals have more rights than anyone. I learned that year that life ends in the blink of an eye. I learned that no one can be trusted and that if you love, it WILL hurt at some point. 

I will never forget the morning while I was waiting for his school bus so we could get to playing and our friend Becky come off the school bus and I asked where William was, they lived in the trailer park, and she excitedly told me about the early morning commotion and that my dear friend was dead. She obviously had no concept of death. I often wonder if she remembers that day the way I do.

The pain I felt in my chest as I tried to deny that it was him. The pain I still feel when I am picturing his face and wondering what kind of man he would have grown to be. His life was stolen and in those moments, parts of me were as well. I can’t remember for sure but I believe the date was September 26th. I have his obituary around here somewhere. Over the years I realized that just because you’re guilty doesn’t mean you will go to jail, and just because you’re innocent doesn’t mean you will stay free. It’s all about presentation.

The following year, end of grade 3, my cousin Todd decided to take the flying leap and end his life. By this time I had experienced several more tragic deaths so by the time Todd went I was actually happy for him. He escaped the pain and torment of this world on his terms. He was missing for three days. The day they found his body was the day he died, his stomach contents consisted of nothing. Where was he for those three days? Someone out there knows and isn’t talking, maybe to protect themselves, or maybe to protect Todd from further humiliation that the family seems so keen to give.

I was sitting on the window ledge at school doing a puzzle and watching the boys draw when there was a knock on the door. My teacher was Mrs. Sparkman. She opened the door and went out into the hall, she reappeared with a solemn look on her face and I knew he was dead. I gathered my stuff and went home with my dad.

I never cried until the funeral.

My grandma brought me so I sat fairly far in the back and I was doing great, I felt dead inside, I had since William died. Seeing the tears roll down my grandmas face hurt me more than knowing my cousin, who was like a brother, was no more. His death, his casket, his headstone, they bring me peace and I often find myself there at my darkest hours. I have placed a solar light on his grave so that he can find his way into the light and into the arms of our creator.

Todd’s death was the second death I had predicted and had given a timeline on. I was right in both cases, unfortunately. I have predicted so many deaths since then, so many tragedies. It hurts to breathe at times because the weight of the world crushes me down. I feel so much guilt like I didn’t make a prediction but rather killed them with the prediction. I have felt for years that so many people on my death list are my fault because I uttered the words or thought them or saw it with my own two eyes in the form of a dream.

The darkness I once feared is now the same place I feel most alive. The house wakes up with activity as the sun sets and twilight changes the sky to shadows of black and grey. 

I still dream of death and I am about 97% accurate. When death finally arrives I get confirmation in the form of orb like black shadows darting about the house. I have come to call them “the shadows of death”. Whenever they are present I know the phone will ring and another person I had once loved but had hardened to was gone for good.

I no longer fear death. I no longer believe that death isn’t fair. From the moment we are conceived our cells are dividing with the goal of death in mind. When our physical body finally goes we, for the first time, have a freedom that we didn’t have while trapped in our shells.

I go to funerals. I see the dead and you can tell that it is just a body. It isn’t the person you knew, that person left the body and is now a purely spiritual being until which time it decides it needs to come back in human form. I rejoice in their new found freedom. I rejoice that the hurt of this world no longer can touch them. I am happy because they are happy. 

It’s like me and thatspirit have a secret that we likely shouldn’t tell.

Hindered

I feel like I don’t really belong in a specific place right now or maybe it’s in a specific group. I am trying to get back to who I once was and I am struggling with it because I really can’t remember who that person was. I remember the things I was involved in but it honestly feels more like a dream than a reality that I once had. I guess I am more nostalgic about it than anything because I remember that feeling, that freedom I had, the power I held over myself and those around me. Now I struggle to recognize myself never mind experiencing the feelings of being truly alive with every nerve and cell in my body firing away and telling me that I am here, this is real. Oh how I miss that. 

I’ve decided that I am going to place a fairly large book order at the cost of about 250 dollars so that I can read about what I used to do and know so naturally. I want so badly to be living instead of just alive. I feel a great change coming my way over the next few months as I delve into my past and my future reveals itself to not only me, but to those who are close to me. I want to be Marisa again, not this shell of a person that co-exists in a world that I don’t belong. 

I am slowly but surely beginning to find myself in this mess that has become my life. Believe me, it’s a mess. It’s amazing how quickly your life can change when you finally get onto the right path. The struggles seem to dwindle away and things become normal –whatever normal is. Maybe my 250 dollars in books will help me to figure out what my normal is. I often wonder if anyone actually believes they are “normal” and if they do if they are crazy since crazy people always think they are sane? Whew, that was a lot of words.

We are about 2-3 weeks out from the anniversary of my freedom. My mom thinks I should party it up. I am just hoping to survive the next few weeks as the past continues to haunt me. I have gotten out of the house a few times the past week because I had to, not because I wanted to. I feel safer here and I feel like staying here as long as I can. Being locked away in my own house with my own stuff with my own thoughts where no one can get in or find me is a resolution to all of my problems whether people see it that way or not. I locked away myself from everyone and everything, including me in a sense. Hiding from my own reality, refusing to face the world beyond, why? 

Why can’t I move forward? How long does it take you to be ready? Why do I feel judged by those who are wanting to help me and hindered by my own actions?

Maybe I will never know the answers to these questions. I may just live my life always asking and never finding. That’s a scary thought to think, being old and grey and still suffering the immense pain that I have every day since I was 15 years old.

As I often say, we have two choices in life, live or die. I’m not sure which I chose. I have a feeling that the decision will be made for me at some point.

Wings!

Trying to figure out what’s mine and what isn’t right now is growing difficult. The pain is ridiculously taking over my body and there isn’t anything I can do but to try and think positively so that the negative energy that is attacking me loses its’ grip. I doubt most people reading this have ever been physically attacked before. I was being stubborn (aren’t I always?) and asked the person who is protecting me right now to stop, he noticed almost instantly that my mood changed and rebuilt the circles that surround me to keep the negative things at bay. Unfortunately, in those few seconds, something came through and within a few hours my back was black with bruises that nearly everyone has describe as “wings”.

Yesterday, I noticed that my arms and my leg were hurting like they were starting to bruise as well. When I got out of the bath, I noticed that my leg and arms were red and I took pictures. About an hour later the bruises were becoming much more apparent so I took new pictures.

I have no clue if what attacked me did it during the few moments in which the circles were down or if it is on the inside with me and is causing these problems as I go.

I am frustrated to say the least.

Now, I am going to answer the question that has been asked by nearly everyone aside from my protector. Yes, I have had this happen before. It was on and off for over a year back in 06/07 and I saw my family doctor, a neurologist, a hematologist, a kidney specialist, an internal specialist, a surgeon, an allergist, emergency room doctors, a chiropractor, and along with all those tests I also had an MRI and a CT scan, every report came back saying I was perfectly healthy and that they could not figure out why bruises were appearing on me for no reason. Back then, I never really thought that it was paranormal. I was more frustrated with the medical staff not finding anything. However, I am older now and I know more and I have no doubt that this, among other things, is completely paranormal.

It seems that the stronger your faith grows and the deeper your belief runs the more likely you are to be attacked, over the last few months I have been questioning religion, god, and that proverbial question “Who am I?”. As I am growing into myself and feeling more confident in where I should be and how I should get there the more attacked I am becoming, both spiritually and now physically. That said it really can’t be judged as far as who gets attacked and who doesn’t and why based on faith and spirituality because the person who claims to be an atheist would always chalk up paranormal activity to bad luck, an undiagnosed health problem, etc. Where a person who is strong in their faith, especially Christians (IMO) seem to be attacked quite often, but this could be because they live in a more spiritual world and are taught through the Bible that there are demons out there ready to hurt anyone and that they must be cast out in Jesus name.

Then you have what I call “root religions” the ones that tend to scare everyone for some reason, like Paganism and Wicca. The majority of Christian holidays coincide with Pagan holidays and rituals. While Christianity was growing it began to take over these celebratory dates and would add a Christian meaning to them to try and take away from the original. So, for example, while you are celebrating Christmas a Pagan would be celebrating Yule, the winter equinox –the day that has the least amount of sunlight over the entire year. The Pagan “roots” in most Christian celebrations is the reason that Jehovah’s Witness’ chose to not celebrate these occasions.

Even blowing out a candle on your birthday cake has some depth of “magic” to it. By the time you are two years old you have effectively cast your first spell. You lit a candle, you focused on the candle, you thought about a wish and you made your wish and then you kept thinking about that wish, encouraging things to align positively so that innocent little wish can come true. Whether your wish comes true or not, you essentially participated in Wiccan candle magic. The exact same thing you likely fear is something you have probably done every year since you turned one! 

Powerful!!

These root religions have an army of Gods and you choose the ones to worship based on your personal needs at the time. The gods are also male and female, just like nature is. We live in a world where everything has an opposite, and a perfect match in that opposite.

I realize that this entry is quite long and not really as raw as normal. I feel like all I have been doing the last few days is whine and cry because of the amount of physical pain I am in from this attack. My body is sore everywhere and knowing that it has been caused by an unseen force is annoying and frustrating and even angering. I have thought several times of just giving up and giving into this thing just to get the pain to stop. I got a good yelling at to set me straight on giving up. So, no, I am not giving up, I am not going to let some asshole pick on me just because he feels like it.

I am exhausted both mentally and physically and my friend is literally dragging me through the mud to keep me alive. How does one go about thanking somebody for protecting them, letting them sleep, picking them up when they are down, and literally carrying the person over hot coals and shards of broken glass. Although it has never been said, I feel very loved. I feel safe in those hands that protect me so well. It’s those hands I wrote about previously that I am thinking about now.

I would love to have those hands caressing me, holding me close, drowning my pain in his positive energy while I sleep in his arms.

That’s what I want, but what will I get?

If you would like to see the bruises from the attack on me you can see them here. I must warn you that these are pictures of my thights, arms and back and the bruises are quite graphic. Don't open if you cannot handle that kind of thing.

Why?

I suppose that the big question I have in all of this is why are some people picked out by spirits of all kinds. Why do dead people appear to me in my home, why does evil hunt ME down, why can I see and feel things that other people can’t? I feel like the “Ghost Whisperer” except I don’t have a million people helping me nor do I have the ability to go find family and friends of these spirits to tell them that their loved ones are dead. It is hard enough to tell a scared and confused spirit that no one can see it because he is dead. Have you ever had to tell someone they are dead? 

So many things leave me feeling excruciatingly melancholy if not completely depressed, unfortunately souls that aren’t frightened or trapped are few and far between so happiness doesn’t flood through the house all too often. Almost daily the cupboard doors, the clock and the wall mounted smoke alarm are opened as wide as they go. Heads of the angels have been snapped off and the dogs have been driven nuts. The words “we all go a little crazy sometimes” flood my mind leaving me wondering if all the teetering on the edge of sanity finally resulted into a full on fall into being crazy. Can one be driven mad because of activity?

I am playing KD Lang’s cover of Hallelujah over and over as I type this. I never find solace in these songs; more heart ache and heart break than anything. Like when Jesus on the cross says “my god why have you forsaken me?” I feel much the same. I feel abandoned, forgotten, and alone. To be honest I really don’t understand the meaning of this song, it could be considered spiritual but when you listen to the lyrics I come to the conclusion that it’s a love song with devastation, obsession and finally tragedy. That said, you have to have all of the lyrics which I have a copy of, and about half are left out of most versions of this song. 

My will to do anything has been crushed. I don’t feel like even being awake. I would love to just sleep this day away but the trippy dreams and the pain I am in physically keeps waking me up. It is weird to be asleep and up and about doing stuff only to see your body lying there empty.

I was sleeping earlier today and out of body and I was talking to my grandma about something and I can’t remember what. It was important though. She doesn’t come as often now that she has crossed over and when she does it’s for a reason. One that I am hoping will come back later on when I was sleeping because I am sure it was important. She has told me everything from when I am pregnant to finding a skeleton key and what it’s for. She has shown me secret holes in the wall to hide or store things in. Her relationship with me now that it is in the spiritual realm is always interesting, yet I always wake up sad because my heart breaks each time I have to say goodbye to her. I refused to say good bye while she was on her death bed. Everyone urged me to do it and when I knew she wasn’t there anymore I told her to go that I would be okay. 

I am NOT okay. She helped in raising me. She was like a mother to me and I have never actually sat back and allowed myself to grieve. I live surrounded by her things in the house she built with her own two hands and even though it’s a horrible house I stay here because it was and will always be hers. Her energy lives on in every nail, every screw. It’s odd to think that you can be tied to something or somewhere through the energy you had while you were alive. It’s even weirder to sit next to a living breathing body that’s soul has already vacated. You know they are dead but you have hope that they will come back. You wonder if they are staring down at you and watching their body hoping for release from the perpetual turmoil we call life or if they have already moved on and are living it up in paradise. I can answer this about my grandma though, she never left, she exited her body and stayed on earth for about 6 years before she decided to reveal to me that she was going to cross over. I never saw a light so beautiful or felt such piece. When I tried to step into the light along with her it closed up and threw me back. I woke myself sobbing not because she was gone, but because I wasn’t.

Finding Peace

If there was one thing that I could change from my past I would have to say nothing at all. Yes, I was kept against my will and used as a toy, my self-worth and my desire/will for a life of my own was taken away, yet I can honestly sit here right now and say I have no regrets. This part of my life allowed me to be intelligent. Not in the “I can do math way” because let’s face it, me and math will never go together. This is a deeper intelligence that you can only get from living life. I use the word intelligence because that’s what my therapist reports all say “intelligent”. I am more than that though, the pain behind my eyes that I spoke of earlier is because my eyes tend to me all seeing. I don’t look at a person and see the outside, I see the secrets they work so hard to hide. 

Maybe calling me intelligent isn’t the best of words because so many people assume it means “book smart”. I am literate. I can read and write and even throw in a big word or two when I am in the mood. I never expected that my experiences as a victim would help people to comprehend or enhance their own lives, especially the non-victims. They don’t tend to want to understand so when I find someone who is crying out for help but doesn’t know what they need I feel like I have done well. My past gives me a purpose I never knew I would have. Wearing my heart on my sleeve and the truth on my tongue has caused several people to not want to talk with me, but more importantly, it has allowed others to open up to me and share their stories of abuse, many times for the very first time. How grateful I am to be given such precious insight into a persons’ life. 

Of course I know this isn’t the best way to meet people, get to know them etc; but when I break down that wall that they have had up for so many years and I get to the raw truth, things begin to fall into place. I can suddenly understand their need for control, I can understand why they have this hard exterior built up around a broken emotional one. These are all coping mechanisms for things that occurred years, often decades ago.

Am I going to be able to save the world? NO! However, if I encourage just one more person to spill their guts I will know that I my life has meaning, which honestly, helps me more than it does these people, or at worse it helps us both equally. Realizing that you aren’t the only one experiencing these bombarding emotions is sad, yet healing. You suddenly know you are no longer alone in a world where you had been stripped and vulnerable. It gives you back a truth you hadn’t realized you needed in order to move on.

Have I found any healing? Probably, but I don’t recognize it as that. Instead I see it as a shift in pain. Some days are better than others because the pain isn’t in my way hindering me, but most days my pain is at the front of my mind blocking anything good from coming through. Maybe one day I will find that peace within myself, until then I will continue this journey with the people who are around me and hopefully one day what I have lost, I will find. 

Quotes from the movie “Secretary”. I feel like E. Edward Grey’s description of WHY Lee cuts herself is very much explanatory of the reasons behind the wounds. Finally, when Lee describes how she showed him each scar and knew exactly where each had come from that is also very truthful. I can look at each scar and remember when and why. Like a timeline of the pain I have dealt with throughout my life.

E. Edward Grey: Why do you cut yourself, Lee?
Lee: I don't know.
E. Edward Grey: Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it?
Lee: I... That's a way to put it.

Lee: Each cut, each scar, each burn, a different mood or time. I told him what the first one was, told him where the second one came from. I remembered them all. And for the first time in my life I felt beautiful. Finally part of the earth. I touched the soil and he loved me back.

The Hands that Hold Me

My emotions have got the best of me once again tonight. The nighttime seems to be the worse for whatever reason, at least during the day the light that flows in from outside gives me the peace and solitude I need to sleep. Maybe I am just more touchy than normal, or maybe people whom I am close to are less understanding. Could be a mixture of both, but my guess is that it’s me, it usually is. I feel like I am completely defensive. I feel like I am partially under attack by those whose hands in which I place my heart and soul, raw and broken. I trust my heart in those hands. Hands that have never physically touched me, hands I have never even seen. Those are the hands I trust. They are the ones that cannot hurt me, instead they take my vulnerable heart and they caress it, they nurture it and they help to keep me alive. It’s those same hands that are making me feel vulnerable tonight, judged almost. Can I blame those hands? No. Can I blame my own? No. 

How does the paranormal fit in? It fits in more than anyone would ever choose to believe. The feelings that plague me, taunt me, torture me, aren’t my own. I pick the energy (especially the negative) out of the air around me. Some of them come from my friends, or people I am close to, but for the most part it is pain and suffering of my own that is being put on replay by these lesser evils. I do my best to escape, yet I am trapped. The phantom phone calls, the random knocks on the door, the bruises, the scratches, the blood, they all come from an unseen source, just like the feelings of dread and trepidation aren’t my own. This is all stuff that is being done to me. Maybe it is conjured up by my own emotions, but the hysteria isn’t mine. For most people they need to see in order to believe. I think this holds true with emotional turmoil. No one can see it. They can only see you are alive, you look good. You may even smile. Putting on a show is what we have  become good at. Its those hands that hold me close that notice the difference and feel the pain because they dont need to see in order to believe. Somehow, when I cut myself it is my outlet or way of making what can't be seen real. Suddenly, in that moment the tears of blood I shed allow the emotions to be true.

I am a ghost. 

It isn’t my hand that guides the blade across my flesh. It is my mind and my will that fights these things as long as I possibly can. Then out of the blue I break into a thousand tiny pieces and all that fighting was for nothing. How do you give up without throwing in the towel? 

The hands that hold my heart tonight and tomorrow night will remain the same. They will continue to guide and protect me. They will continue to keep me safe. Though they have never touched me, or caressed my flesh, those hands know I am real, they know my feelings are real. Without touching me they allow me to flourish and grow within the safety of their embrace.

"If I could tell the world just one thing it would be that we're all OK
And not to worry cause worry is wasteful and useless in times like these
I won't be made useless
I won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith for light the darkness most fears

My hands are small I know but they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken" -Jewel, Hands

Who Am I?

I feel so pathetic right now, my body is in pain. Feels like every muscle simultaneously contracted and stayed that way for a period of time. I am desperately lonely in my own thoughts. Listening to music that reminds me of so much pain, yet brings back a part of my life that I mourn and even miss at times. Over the last few days I have concluded a couple of things. The first and most important being that I don’t miss my ex, I don’t miss that life. I miss feeling as though the life I have has purpose or meaning and that is what I am struggling with. Where the internal battle ensues. I miss being needed, I miss being wanted, I miss being someone, because right now I am nobody, I am nothing, I am merely a carbon mass full of negative energy. 

Over the last year or so I have asked myself many times “Who am I?” I keep asking this question and I keep hearing the voice in the back of my head telling me “I don’t know”. I get asked on dates and stuff and people ask me what I like to do, “I don’t know”. I am asked where I would like to live or what I would like to do with my life and “I don’t know”. At one point in the recent past I could at least tell people who I wasn’t but over the last month or so that has changed. My belief in god has changed, my will has changed, my desires. I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I don’t recognize myself when I look at pictures of me from before. I was happy, my eyes used to shine bright with the future in sight. Now, my eyes show that me and my soul are desperately detached from one another, much like the beginning of the Peter Pan movie where he is trying to sew his shadow back on. That’s who I am, only it’s not my shadow, it’s my spirit that has left me, that I am trying to reattach to no avail. My eyes are empty, they show pain, they show age, they show fear, loss, even anger and rage, but the glisten that hope once brought to my demeanor is gone, replaced by whoever it is that I have become. 

My life seems to be represented by the candle I have burning next to me right now. The light it gives off is useless. The flame is small and instead of glowing in a fury of fiery passion it is a shade of blue, just like the way I feel onside. Unhealthy, dim, blue. 

I haven’t realized why I started to blog this journal yet. I have noticed that my stats are pretty high from the three posts I have posted thus far, this being the forth. I wonder if me in the raw is what is attracting people from several different countries to read my poorly written, grammatically incorrect thoughts or if it is that people actually relate to how I am feeling. I am not sure which one is worse. I hate to think that people are relating to the emotional anguish I am in. It is somehow more comforting to believe that it is me alone in this world going through these thoughts and stuff instead of having people who can relate. Anyone who has ever been this sad, this desperate, this unloved I truly feel for. It is a god-awful feeling that I am trying to express, but in reality no words can ever show you the pain behind my smile. No one should be forced to feel the way I feel, or to have lived a life similar to my own. 

Who am I?

I am nobody
Are you nobody too?

Hollow

It really is weird because I worked so hard to get out of there alive, and now that seven years have nearly passed I am more lost than I have ever been. Wondering about my stupidity and what it is I did wrong and why I am putting myself through all those flashbacks and memories again now. I ask myself “why now?” but there doesn’t seem to be an answer. Not a good answer anyway. At Christmas I was triggered. I didn’t say anything but I was triggered in a fairly profound way. I could feel the chains tightening up with each breath I took and the pain in my head from that realization has finally subsided (for the most part) for the first time since the holidays. 

Because of this negativity looming over me I have shut off, shut down. Found new people whom in which I can talk to and feel that I can trust. I am questioning my entire being, including my religious beliefs. I realize at this point that I am not a Christ-loving child of God. I am a lost girl who has no clue and getting back to my roots is what I need to do if I am going to continue to fight to survive. I chose Christianity because I wanted to prove to myself that my ex and his dad were wrong in how they preached it, how they forced me to live it. They placed the bible on Satan’s alter and used it to brainwash me and manipulate me and torture me both physically and mentally. Now that I see that truth I have also began to conclude that God isn’t what I accepted Him to be. God is in fact you and I. It is the energy that floats about around us and in us, it is both positive and negative, both male and female. The Gospel of Thomas, which was mysteriously left out of the Bible, apparently depicts Heaven and Hell being a frame of mind while still here on earth. Which was contradictory to what the rest of the Bible teaches so it was left out. I still love all my Christian friends, I always will, but for me, there are far too many unanswered questions or questions that can only be answered with “have faith my child”.

I am human, I am a tactile being, every cell in my body bounces around with energy just the same as the electricity running through your walls. I can’t continue to ignore what I knew years ago when I was drawn to Wicca and Paganism. Maybe that’s not where I will end up, but right now its where I am going.

Today I was reading a little bit on “slave training”. It made me realize a few things about my old life the first being that it’s a lifestyle CHOICE. It isn’t something you do to someone against their will. Any good Master would know that and wouldn’t have taken me and tried to make me into something I so greatly hated and fought against. Fighting to hold on to the little pieces of myself that I could hold onto while my life was beaten out of me and my will was being broken whether I liked it or not. 

I got to a spot in this “slave training” article that talks about “speech”. Speech patterns and how your slave should talk to you. The “yes Sir, thank you Sir” stuff that was once such a critical part of my life that I have not typed or uttered until this very moment, this also led to my mind wandering to other speech things that were taken from me. Aside from not being allowed to use my own name I was also not allowed to use the word “okay”. I have no real clue why this was, maybe I used it too often and it became annoying, I am not sure. I had actually forgotten all about it until I was reading this article. If I said “okay” I was punished. It had to be “yes Sir, no Sir, maybe Sir” etc. “Okay wasn’t allowed because it was too vague “clean the floor!” “okay!” No, that’s not how this worked, not in my life. It was yes. If I was asked how I felt about something or if I understood instructions I could not say “okay” I had to be expressive, allowing my every thought to belong to those who were an integral part of my life. Tonight, while you are making your list of stuff you are grateful for today, be sure to add being allowed to say “okay” to your list. You really have no clue where someone has been unless you have been there yourself. 

I was punished many times because of this word, yet in the grand scheme of it all it was forgotten until today. I don’t know if that shows how bad life really was or if it shows how much I have forgotten because of time. My honest answer to that proverbial question would have to be that there was just so many things worse than not being allowed to utter a single word that it slipped my mind as it got covered up by more horrific memories.

Yes, I think horrific is a good word to describe the life I had taken from me. The life I fought so hard to get back. The life I lost and now fear to take back into my own grasp because all those years I spent under someone’s wing. Even though it was hell, it was my hell. It was what I knew as life. It was scary, but it was less scary than the unknown I am stepping into now. At least then I knew to expect pain, punishment and having no choice. Somehow though, in this twisted world I was in, it was easier to not have to think about so many things the way I do now. The responsibility wasn’t mine to have. I was told what to do how and when and strangely as the anniversary gets closer I seem to miss that ease. Believe me, back then I didn’t think it was easy. It was hard. I was beaten hard. I was black and blue in most areas that you couldn’t see but somewhere in the process of “training” me that piece of me that contains desire, wants and needs vanished and I was left here as this hollowed out shell of a being that craves the strictness and scheduled life I once had. I can’t be that person for myself, maybe I just don’t want to be.

I am lost. Very lost. I don’t know which way I am going or if I am going at all. I often feel like I am treading water in a lake that is beginning to freeze over. The shore is so close, yet too far away to reach. I need to be grounded so that I can get all the way out of “sub-space” and live my life in a manner that I find satisfactory.

Anyone who has been kidnapped or held against their will for a prolonged period of time would likely understand these conflicting feelings. I actually don’t see how people put on this strong face and pretend falling back into normal life is easy. If it is for them then they have achieved something I likely never will.

Remembering the past is killing me now. That same past was killing me before. Maybe the shackles are no longer on my body but my mind is still held in captivity, chiselling its way out. I am so close. I can see the light but I just can’t reach it. I hope that one day (soon) mind and body will once again connect in this much happier and safer realm. 

Crimson Regret

I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone reading this that, yes, I do in fact cut myself on occasion. I get the question rather often as to why. My response has remained stagnant over the last few years regarding this. No, I DO NOT WANT YOU TO DO IT!!! However, for me, cutting myself while dealing with a load of emotional chaos allows for that emotional stuff to become real. Suddenly, it is tactile, it is visual, the blood leaving my body and dying is very symbolic to me. It is a representation of a life I once had and no longer live. It expresses the pain I have on the inside that I can’t get out with words, or sometimes where words just aren’t enough. I used to cut myself very often. Now I do it at fairly set points throughout a year. Usually around traumatic anniversaries that people don’t care to hear about and I feel all alone. 

How did this start? I was raped when I was 12 by a guy in his early 20’s. I was wrestled down in the snow in a very built up neighbourhood and he forced himself on me. After, he carried me into the house (yes I knew him) and he bathed me. I will never forget the burn of that water on my ice cold flesh. Then he brought me to the couch and laid my head in his lap and stroked my hair and I really did zone out. I couldn’t wrap my mind around any of this. Had I really been raped? Why was he being so nice? 

Shortly thereafter I had no idea what to think. I felt guilty for not saying anything and for not really understanding what had happened. I began to burn myself with heated up magnets. I realized quickly that the marks they left only lasted a few hours and although the pain felt good it just wasn’t what I needed. I don’t know when I had the AHA moment with cutting myself, but I do know I started doing it with a nail file. I would even do it in school while listening to teachers talking. Yet, I vanished into the background and no one noticed. 

Going unnoticed went on for years. I finally confessed to my mom about it in a fairly heated phone call when I was 17. She had no clue. I was outraged that a parent could NOT notice this in their child. That said, I did a really good job of hiding it. I still do. My parents have come to understand my state of mind now by explosive emotional outbreaks and by the change in my overall demeanor. Back when I had started this though I was doing it so often that there really wasn’t a change, not one that I noticed the way I do now.

I have been drowning in pain one way or another, my entire life. It seems like when things can’t get worse they do.

Now if you don’t know me you are likely questioning why I haven’t received therapy. The answer to that is I DO! I have been seeing a doctor and therapist for about 5 years now. I am not really sure how much they help, but they do make a good sounding board that doesn’t discredit my raw emotion the way the average human does. I have never been hospitalized because I have never injured myself badly enough to require medical attention and since I am not a risk to my life or the lives of others there is nothing a doctor or therapist can really do. I am also on medication to deal with PTSD. 

Right now, I agree with the song by Evanescence that uses the term “crimson regret” because that is exactly what my blood is, crimson regret.

I am going to end this by saying that if you are feeling the urge to hurt yourself in ANYWAY you need to seek emergency medical assistance. If you are too scared to go to the hospital look in the phone book and find the anonymous crisis support hotline. Those people are wonderful and there is NO risk of you getting in trouble for calling them and talking to them about how you are feeling. They truly are wonderful. If these thoughts are continuous or often go get a therapist. Many places offer free therapy, especially if you have a diagnosis. Shocker, but not everyone is in it for the money. Lots of people really just want to help people. They have been in your situation and want to help you out of it.


This is my story. I hope it isn’t yours.

Confused

I started this blog for the intent of using it as a chat for a group of friends. However, I failed that fairly miserably. Mostly because I have been pushing people away a LOT lately and shutting myself down emotionally.

The paranormal things going on in my life these days are really intense and the emotional drain I have been feeling because of this is even worse. I am crashing and I am crashing FAST. I don't know how to brace myself for the inevitable impact that is going to come when I hit bottom. Maybe I already have.

Taking in vital energy from the environment around me is also becoming hard work. I have been so tempted to "give up" and let whatever this wave of pain and emotion is to take over. At the same time I am frusterated by my inability to act and to prevent this slip. Lonliness seems to have become my only companion these days, which I am fine with. I have been tempted to light a candle so that my soul has a light to attract it to. The heat and light that this candle's flame giving off either sucking away whats left of my grasp on my own soul, or it bringing positive energy into the room and allowing me to heal emotionally, which for the record, I am terrified to do.

The past month has been especially hard for me this year. I am never into the holidays. They bring me down. I associate them with death. This year however I am struggling even more with the anniversary of the day I escaped my past coming up. It will be seven years that I have been dealing with this stuff and for a reason that only god knows, I am allowing it to take over my thoughts, my dreams, and my fears. Leaving me paralyzed both physically and mentally as I am filled more and more each day with dread.

In the past I was forced to journal everyday about my every emotion, thought and doing. Part of me feels like I am being sucked back into that world, where not even my most hidden secret belongs to me, and I honestly feel comforted by that thought. I don't know or understand how people who were in a situation like mine can just turn the page and write a new story. My story is far fom being page turning. Just when I think i am "free" I am jolted back into the world I escaped through memories and dreams.

Journally, is good for me though. The Master who decided I should do that so many years ago was right in saying it was something I should do. It makes me raw, it keeps me feeling alive even when I want nothing more than to be dead just to make that pain go away. Is it hard to admit that your captor was right? Hell yes!! I have kept private journals since I escaped. Ones that fill binders and notebooks with art, poetry, and just random ramblings such as this. Some of which I will likely share, especially many of my favorite quotes. My quote list continues to grow.

Right now if I had to list three things I am grateful for I would have to say my name. I am Marisa. Not an abreviated form, not a vulgar term, but Marisa. M A R I S A. I have my name back now, and no matter what anyone says or does it is MY name and I am happy to be allowed to utter it and I am even more happy to have people use it when talking to me. Secondly, I would have to say I am thankful for a good friend. When I was thinking stupid about this stuff the other day I got a smack in the face (in chat) when he said "Do you want to end up kidnapped again for the next five years?". I realized in that moment that if I was to do what I was thinking that being taken again would really be the only outcome. Third, I am happy that I have these people around me who not only believe my life story but who are willing to step up and keep me on track when I want nothing more than to roll over and let death take hold. Without these people I wouldn't be alive.

Maybe I am not as confused as this post title suggests. I do feel as though I am wandering aimlessly waiting to be pointed in the right direction. I have never been "free" and after 7 years I am finally realizing that I am free and have been for some time. I am overwhelmed by this realization because NOT having someone dictating the when's and if's in life is scary. I have to make decisions for myself and I have never had to do that before. Simple things from choosing a chair, what to eat, those are decisions I get to make now. With the return of my name also comes responsibility and I really am not sure if I am ready for that.

One of these days I am sure I will figure it out. One of these days I will hopefully be married and not have the weight of my own life resting on my own shoulders all the time. It is must easier to walk side by side, hand in hand with someone who you know has your best interest at heart than it is to walk alone without that trust in ones self we all so desperately need.