Day 3

They literally deformed my feet, and neither one of them has said anything about it. Anything. I had to figure it out for myself. How disgusting is that denial. I will own my decisions and my responsibility. I will tell my daughter anything she wants to know about her life. Her childhood. Whatever I remember, and I do my best to remember it all. I care about her so much. I care about her so much that it's like the care and love I should have had as a child rolled into how much I care about her. I have to care for the both of us now, and sometimes it's really too much. More than one can bear. More than one should bear. Everything about life is more than one should bear. And it's been designed this way. And the gas-lighting along the way is fierce.

'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.'

Please. Look at us human beings. We are anything but 'stronger'. We grow weaker and weaker and more diseased and now it's children already developing diseases, young adults developing chronic pain for which there is hardly any solution but drugs.

I look back at my past and think, if only I could have tried harder, done more, been less depressed by my conditions. Did it really have to affect me so much? It's easy to look back in hindsight. If only I'd stayed longer and got more evidence to prove the abuse, maybe I wouldn't be facing visitations now. It's easy to forget how bad it was, how real and felt it was, once we're no longer in it and not feeling it to the same extent anymore.

What do I do every time there is something that is triggering?

Every time he calls her 'little girl' or 'young lady'?

Every time we get up and the outside lights are still on and it's the afternoon already.

Every time I see the old dried out tea bag sitting behind the sink still not yet thrown out.

Every time I see the bag of bread with just the ends left still sitting on the counter still not thrown out yet.

The anger, frustration and rage I feel, feeling trapped, feeling like I have to throw it out or just keep looking at it. 

Can I accept that this is just for a time? And that I really have no choice at the moment or I wouldn't be here.

Can I try to use this situation in as positive a way as possible, since I don't yet have another choice anyway?

Do I have to let it get me down and stress me out, affecting my ability to focus on solutions and not feel chronically exhausted and depressed?

How do I live with this stuff day in and day out? And not lose my shit?

"Where are you going?"

So many things every day driving me insane. At least he has been better about the smoking. It's still annoying. Having to avoid going outside sometimes. How he just disappears at times. It's confusing to Nika. And sometimes the timing is not helpful. But with a child it's really never a good time to just not be there. It's abandonment. I'm so sorry for myself as a child and what I went through. The love and attention I didn't get.

I feel so torn, like ripping in half, all the time, like want to be focused on my life, our lives, but feel so stuck in all this bullshit. Behavior patterns, poverty, dependence, sarcasm, laziness. I just want to get out. I keep feeling I just want to 'get out now'. But I can't. I can't just walk out. We'll be on the street. With nothing to eat, no shelter, etc.

I remember feeling this when I was 11, thinking, I'm only 11, I can't just run away, how would I get a house or food. At least they are giving me that. But the constant stress, was killing me. I was hurting myself by 13, regularly contemplating suicide. I didn't see a point to my life, it felt like torture, like I existed juts to be controlled and live for someone else.