Dad: Assignment 3

Assignment 3

Alright guys, this blog isn’t very kind to my dad. But you need to remember that this was written four years ago when I was in treatment and pissed at both of my parents for “throwing me away.” (That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t choose my mom for my female role model.)

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 I was encouraged to do my dad, so that’s whom I’m going to do.

He is bald with glasses, big tummy and short. I have only ever seen him cry once and so I think he is emotionally strong. Well spiritually, he goes to church and prays with us, but I really don’t know about his relationship with God.

Sometimes his behavior influences me positively. I guess when we’re all like hanging out and having a good time, my dad is very funny and a good guy. But other times he can take a joke too far and I will voice my disagreement and he’ll kinda just disregard it. He also likes to make racial slurs and jokes about my eating disorder or self-harming. That is really hard to deal with because when he says stuff like that it just makes me have more impulses.

Like I said, sometimes I can feel happy and other times depressed and like pretty much I can feel anything when I’m with him. Disgusted, depressed, and like bored, interested, anxious, annoyed, joyful. It really just depends on the setting, who’s there and what we are talking about.

He hasn’t reacted very well to it, like most parents. But he doesn’t understand me or what I’m dealing with or why I do it. It just frustrates me some of the comments he says and how he thinks I can just magically stop.

I want him to be here for me like any other daughter wants her dad. Sometimes I don’t really want to be around him. Other times I do. I just really want him to understand or empathize with me. And I think we could have a better relationship.

Today: my dad is one of my best. He took me in when my mom pushed me out (yes, she pushed me out, I did not choose to leave). He is a really good guy, a great boss, great friend, and great father.

So dad, if you’re reading this, thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and accepting me when no one else did.

Female Role Model (Assignment 2)

Assignment 2: Female Role Model

The most important female to me is Trish Sackett. She was my freshman Spanish teacher and her son and I went to elementary school together. She is my mom at school. I go to her whenever I need love, guidance, help, support, or uplifting.

She is my height, skinny, tan, blondish brown hair. She is so beautiful. She is a mother of 4 adopted children from Guatemala. (When I wrote this, her kids were 16, 13, 11, 8) I am pretty close with the two girls, they are my inspiration. Mrs. Sackett is one of the strongest women I know. She is outgoing, honest, loyal, loving and a wonderful mom and human being. She encountered difficulties trying to have bio babies, but she was able to understand that her and her husband would have to have kids a different way. That is just so inspirational to me. Also she isn’t catholic but she is a follower of Christ and teaches us that God loves everyone no matter what.

Her behavior has never influenced me badly or negatively. I think the world of her and she has influenced me to be accepting of others, no matter how big or small, race or sexuality. She influences me to pray and to have a good relationship with god, to do my schoolwork to the best of my ability, to take a mental health break when I am stressed and overwhelmed. I think she is the most influential, inspirational, motivational woman I know.

I feel like myself. I never wear a mask around her and she has known me so long that she knows when I start to shut down and she always has me communicate when I feel like that. When I’m around her, I feel like I’m home.

She gets very, very upset when I self-harm. She has told me that it frustrates her and I know it disappoints her, and that’s why I’m making a change. 1) for myself and 2) I’m done letting people down. Mrs. Sacket was the first one to know about the anorexia and bulimia. She also was the one who encouraged me to tell my mom. Sackett hates that I hurt myself, and I can finally see how it really is affecting me.

I want her to be here for me; my entire life. I want my kids to know her and my husband/wife and I don’t ever want to lose Mrs. Sackett. I hurt her when I was self-harming and when I was restricting and purging. I am changing for the better. I can’t wait to see her when I get back! She is everything to me and I know I’m important to her, but sometimes I just feel like she doesn’t love me as much as her own kids, or I’m not as important as her kids are. And I TOTALLY understand that because I am NOT her child, but I feel like God brought us together for a reason and I hope that one day I could be as important to her as she is to me.

I chose to write about her because she was the person I ran to when I needed help. She was the one I spent time with before and after school. She was the one I trusted and could tell anything to. She was the one who supported me no matter what. She was the only one who could talk me into actually going to SAFE. 

When Kat died, Sackett was the one I went to. I pulled her out of her classroom because I was hysterical and she took me into her room and put me behind the desk with tissues and a space heater.

I miss spending time with her. I don’t really have someone like that up here in CF.

Sackett, if you’re reading this: I’m sorry. I’m sorry for putting you in difficult situations. I’m sorry for disobeying you when you were just trying to help. I really am sorry for putting you through all of that. BUT…

THANK YOU. Thank you for pushing me to tell my mom. Thank you for pushing me into Mrs. Stilwill’s office. Thank you for pushing me to understand why my parents wanted me to put me in the hospital. Thank you for talking me into actually going to treatment.

Thank you for loving me when I felt as if no one else did.

SAFE Assignment 1

Over the next 15 days, I am going to share my assignments that I completed during my time at S.A.F.E. Alternatives. Over the length of my 40-day stay, one of our requirements for graduation was to complete 15 writing assignments. These are very intimate to me because I wrote them when I was at my lowest, but I do feel like I need to share them because they could help someone looking for a sign.

Assignment 1: How do I see myself?

1. Emotionally I am unstable. One minute I could be happy and joyful and like the next second I could be angry as heck. I have a lot of emotional mood swings and it sucks. Intellectually I am very intelligent. Right now I am taking advanced chemistry, advanced Spanish, AP US history, advanced algebra 2, social justice and acting 1. I had to drop advanced chemistry to regular chemistry and AP US history to regular US history to come here and keep up with schoolwork. I have a cumulative GPA OF 3,87. So that’s really good. I am a good friend: honest, loyal, trustworthy, caring, loving, respectful, and kind. I put others needs before myself because I care about other people more.

2. My roles as a teenager and student are to go to school, do homework, go to soccer practice, do homework and study and spend time with my friends. As a daughter my role is to be respectful to my parents and loving and help around the house. As a sister to be a support form my younger siblings. Right now I feel like a pretty crappy role model for them. I am comfortable with my roles sometimes I just get annoyed with them.

3. My strengths are:

Builds others up

Good listener

Good catholic

Good morals/beliefs

Good characteristics

Strong

Athletic

Friendly

4. My weaknesses are:

Self image

Rude

 Bully

Annoying 

5. Want to change how I cope with things and I need thicker skin and I need to view myself as a smart, independent, beautiful young female soccer player J (There was actually a smiley face on the page) I just need help feeling okay with myself. I would never change my hair, eyes, hands, and how I’m a loving and humble and compassionate person.

I honestly don’t know what to say to this. I’m going to be completely honest…  I think I was lying on this assignment. I knew everything I was supposed to say to get through the day. I knew that I had to fake it. I faked it so I could pass that assignment and move on to the next one.

Today, Intellectually I’m totally fine. I’m able to attend all of my classes and get all of my schoolwork done.  

But I would say that emotionally I’m still extremely unstable. I would actually say I’m an emotional wreck, but I'm so good at hiding it. Over they years I've learned what to say and how to act in order for everyone to believe it. 

Even though my emotions are a mess and I'm on the bipolar rollercoaster, I am 3 days clean! 

Baby steps. 

Relapse?

“Relapse is a part of recovery.”

I feel like that is just an excuse to engage in destructive behavior. It’s an excuse to stay in the place where I am comfortable and relaxed; which makes that door to recovery smaller and smaller.

Why would someone want to go to a place where it’s hard as hell to walk through, to the one where you feel so uncomfortable, and where you actually have to do work. Why would someone choose that option?

It’s obvious. I like to be comfortable where I am, and engaging in self-harm is my comfort zone. This sounds SUPER bad and I know that. But I’m being as honest as I can.

It’s hard to push away the blade that is calling to me…the voices telling me that everything will be okay if I did it. They say that I should be thankful for them bringing me back to my comfort zone; and of course I fell for it.

Relapse is a horrible thing. This relapse started in November… and it’s now February almost March. I made it to about three weeks clean and then the blade started saying, “Jules come back. I need you… come back.”

So, I went back to it. Like I posted yesterday, I’m addicted to the rush it gives me, having to hide it from people. Lying to everyone through my smile. I’ve gotten very good at faking it. Someone once told me that I have to fake it until I make it.

Welp, I’m definitely still faking it.

People ask, “Jules are you okay?” But they don’t want to hear my answer because my answer because I will unload everything on them. It pushes a lot of people away. When I say something like, “Hey I need you to love me a little bit louder today,” they shrug it off like it’s nothing. They say, “Get over it,” or “Please don’t cut.”

This doesn’t make sense to me, because I’m having impulses to cut and the person just says, “Please don’t cut,” it’s not like just because I saw that text I’m going to put my blade down? It’s not that easy. It’s really not something I can flip a switch and be cured. 

“Relapse is a part of recovery.”  I don’t know if I’m going in the right direction, or going through the right doors, but I know I’ll be okay. Knowing this though means that I honestly don’t care what people think of me. They can be disappointed in me, angry, frustrated, or hurt.

I know how hard it is to be in recovery, and I don’t know if I’m ready to take that step, through the door to recovery.

Relapse sucks but it happens.

P.S. ( I'm okay, no one needs to worry about me)

TRIGGER WARNING

The Blade

The adrenaline is rushing as

I find a small pencil sharpener

I know this is what I want

I start to take it apart and grab the blade

I have the blade and I’m getting ready to run it across my skin

I need to see blood

I need to feel pain

I don’t want to be numb anymore

I text friend after friend asking for help

Everyone said to just stop

They told me to put the blade down

They told me to use my other alternatives

But I could not do that

I had the blade

The blade is part of me now

I know what is going to happen and I don’t care

I don’t care that I will have more scars

I don’t care that I won’t be able to wear short sleeves for a while

I don’t care who I disappoint

I don’t care what people think of me

The adrenaline is rushing again

I locked my bedroom door

It is so much easier to do it here instead of at home

At home when my mom would follow me like a puppy dog

I had no one there to take the blade

No one there to hold me

No one there to show me how much they care

No one there to pick me up off the floor

I prepare myself by biting on a towel

I wasn’t sure how it would feel

I remember that it hurt

I remember that it hurt

When I am cutting I zone out the world

I am stuck in that moment

I can only focus on the blade

Running itself across my skin

When it went across my skin the first time

There was no blood

I needed to see more blood

So I kept making more

When those didn’t bleed

I went over them again with the blade

I do get scared when I cut on my forearm

Because I don’t want to slit my wrists

So I switch to the top of my arms

I kept cutting even though I knew it was wrong

I cut multiple times a day

Leaving many open wounds on my arms

I am in a relapse right now

I almost made it three years self harm free

It sucks and I know I’ve let a lot of people down

But I don’t regret it

That is the way self-harm controls me

It takes over my thoughts

It takes over my hands

It takes over the way I act

In this relapse I just don’t regret it

I want to keep cutting

I want to keep cutting

I want to keep cutting

But I know I need to stop

I’ve been hospitalized around six times

I spent two months in a residential facility

I should use my alternatives

I should use my alternatives

But I don’t

I don’t want to use them

I am obsessed and can’t stop

P.S…. Don’t worry about anything. I am safe.

I am going to therapy and seeing my psychiatrist.

Things will turn around soon enough.

I just need to find the motivation. I can’t get better for myself because I don’t want to… but I know I need to stop cutting for my girlfriend, my friends, my family; especially my youngest brother, Vinnie. He has been through a lot because of me. I want to stop cutting for him.

For my younger sister, she is my best friend and she shouldn’t have to see me hurt myself anymore.

For my dad, he provides me with everything I need and I am so thankful, I hate disappointing him.

For my younger brother and older sister, they bring comedy into the mix of everything and always make me smile.

For my mom and all the drama between us, I want to prove to her that I am worth something

I have a lot of things to be grateful for and I need to start realizing that.