still-i-rise-diaries

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! I had a little better day today. Still didn't sleep, woke up in a panic and then felt worthless all day. But my parents picked me up for dinner and I feel a bit better after I got out for a few. I'm watching some Ink Master with them before I go back to my nightmare so I thought I'd take this opportunity to write when I'm not around my husband. We are going to talk about about what my brother AJ did my senior year.

My brother AJ is a funny, loving, energetic, lights up the room when he walks in kind of person. From the outside looking in, he would seem like he was one of the happiest people. When they may be true at times, my brother also suffers from depression. During my senior year, his relationship with his girlfriend of 4 years ended because she cheated on him. He was struggling with that, the way we grew up with my dad and the rest of my family and community thinking AJ was a terrible kid. He wasn't a bad kid at all he just had a lot of energy and his brain made it hard for him to focus. My brother was always the class clown or the person that would be making everyone laugh. He's always been a comedian and such a good story teller. So when he was going through all of that we knew he was having a hard time but always thought with time he'd heal. 3 days after I graduated I got the worst phone call of my life.

My brothers girlfriend called me saying he was saying all of this really scary things and that he was talking about killing himself. She hadn't been able to get ahold of him for over a half hour and couldn't get ahold of my mom either. So I called my mom and told her what was going on. I could tell right away she was worried since she said AJ asked her to run down to the store for stuff he needed. She was 20 minutes from home so she left her cart and sped home. I got a call about 25 minutes later saying AJ had tried to commit suicide by taking a whole bunch of pills and that he was being rushed to the hospital for an overdose. I was 45 minutes out of town at my best friend, Faith's house and about an hour from the hospital. I immediately grabbed my keys and Faith and I got into the car. I was going about 100 mph the entire way. It was the only time that I have ever driven that fast. At this point I wasn't crying yet, I was just trying to get to my brother as fast as I could. Once I walked through the hospital doors and saw the entire family in the waiting room I collapsed to my knees and started crying. Just seeing them there kind of made it all real for me. My brother had really tried killing himself. I almost lost my brother. I just couldn't believe it. It was touch and go with him for a bit. But by the next night he made it out of the woods enough for us to go see him. It was the worst condition I've seen my brother in. He was so drugged up from the medication that they had to handcuff him to the bed because he kept trying to pull his catheter out and was really combative with the nurses and doctors. When he would come to, he was confused and scared so he was in a fight mode. He was in that condition for about a week. Once the medication he took wore off and he was very apologetic and regretful of what he did. I never once blamed him or was mad at him for what he did. I have always been mad at and blame myself because I didn't see it. I wasn't there for him.

I wanted him to have a welcome home gift so that was he knew he had support and people that loved him. I posted a post on Facebook asking everyone that knew and cared for my brother to meet me before school to get a picture of all of them holding a sign saying "We love AJ" and "We are here for you". I got them printed out and had everyone write a message on a sign for him. I had that and a few things he was interested in at the time waiting for him on his bed. He was always there for me growing up. Acting more like a big brother than my little brother. I appreciate him so much for everything he has done that this was my chance to be there for him. To this day it is one of the things that I'm most proud of. I hope he can hold on to that feeling of support forever. The world would definitely be a dimmer place without him. I'm so thankful he wasn't taken from us that day and we had the opportunity to show him that we could be there for him no matter what.

Alright, I think that's enough for today. I'm getting hungry and kind of want to play a bit. I'll explain what playing means a bit later. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love,

<3 Ellie

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! My day was rough again. I'm currently in the middle of a PTSD/depression episode. They can last anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months. I was hoping I had just an off day yesterday but it looks like that's not the case. So today we aren't going to talk about much. I'm too exhausted to go into much detail. Probably give an overview with a few details. We are up to my middle school and high school years now. Outside of family stuff my middle school years weren't that bad. I mean I went through that awkward stage and had my fair share of drama, as every normal preteen would, but for the most part it was pretty easy. High school was a lot harder.

Freshman year was nothing but drama for me. It was my worst school year by far. I was just super confused and uncomfortable in my skin that I would be a bitch and cause drama for absolutely no reason. I was awful. I ended the school year with no friends. Literally spent my entire summer by myself. Well until my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents for a month. They wanted me off the couch so they sent me to work as a hostess at my grandparents restaurant. At the time they had a hostess working there that was a senior. We hit it off right away and she invited me to go hangout with friends after a week of living with my grandparents. Hilary was dating a guy that was 2 years older and he had this really really cute roommate, Derek. He was tall, sandy colored shaggy hair with blue eyes who wore Rocks and Affliction clothes. He definitely gave off this bad boy vibe but man did I think he was cute. We started "dating" right away pretty much but it was a toxic relationship. We would just party every time we hung out and he would cheat on me almost every weekend. This went on for about a year. However, he was the person I lost my virginity to. Up until this point I only "dated" 3 boys and I would end things 2 weeks later. I just had a hard time connecting with people. I would lose interest really quick. So I consider Derek as my first boyfriend even though it wasn't the best relationship.

He came from a super wealthy family who were from California. He originally moved up to Southern Oregon with his brother. His parents are lawyers and he grew up very privilege. He never really had to work for things. Him and his brother lived in one of their parents vacation home. Towards the end of the year I ended up getting pregnant and was super scared because I knew that I wasn't ready to be a mom. I felt like I couldn't tell my parents because of everything going on with my dad. I ended up going to Derek's house to tell him that I was pregnant and just wanted some support and help. He really didn't say much and after about 20 minutes or so he said that he needed time to think. The next day when I went over to talk to him, his brother told me that he had left for California and thought we had broken up the night before. That was the last time I would see or talk to him for almost a year.

So I was alone and pregnant with no idea what to do. I had heard about girls going to this clinic that helps when you are pregnant or in need of birth control. I made an appointment and a few days later my abortion was scheduled. To this day it is my biggest regret. I feel like that might have been my only shot at being a mother. A few years later I found out that I couldn't have kids naturally or the chances of me carrying a child full term is very low. I feel like it was karma for terminating my first pregnancy. Like the universe was getting back at me.

About 10 months later I got a call from Derek asking if I would like to go to dinner. I agreed but when we got there I realized very quickly I shouldn't have. Right away he started talking about how he was soo sorry and that he should have never left me like that. He asked if I ever had the baby. When I told him that I terminated the pregnancy he took it better than I thought but he said that he wanted to start a family with me and that I was the love of his life. This made me very nervous and uneasy considering this is the first time I had seen him since he ghosted me after I told him I was pregnant. I was confused how he changed his mind all of a sudden months later, ya know? He was also acting wayyyy different than when I met him. He seemed more energetic and jittery. Next thing I knew Derek pulled out a ring and set in front of me on the table and asked me to marry him. I said no obviously and was laughing at the same time. I mean, I was 16 years old! I was not ready to get married and neither was Derek. But he didn't seem to agree and took offense to me laughing and saying no so he left me at the restaurant. 2nd time in my life I was left and ghosted but it wouldn't be the last nor the one that hurt the most. I didn't see Derek until after college but we aren't there in our story yet.

Well I think that's all that I have to talk about for tonight. Again, sorry if the entry is all over the place and has grammar errors. I just can't be bothered tonight. Thanks for taking the time to listen none the less.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love, 

<3 Ellie

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! I had a pretty tough day so I'm not sure how much we will talk about. I might start talking about growing up with my dad being an alcoholic. But before we do I want to make something clear, my dad is an amazing father. He is my hero and number one man in my life. Alcoholism is a real disease but my dad has been fighting it for the last 10 years and I couldn't be more proud of him. So when I talk about my past it is not a dig at my dad, it's just facts of my childhood.

Like I've mentioned in my previous entries my family would have BBQ's every weekend. Well my dad wouldn't just drink on the weekends, he would drink 6-7 days out of the week. And when my dad would get drunk he would become verbally and physically abusive to my mom and then me as I got older. Once I got into middle school I would start sticking up for my mom and yelling back at my dad. He didn't like what I had to say because I was very honest and didn't sugar coat anything. I told him what he feared most, that his alcoholism has let down his kids, that he let us down.

The earliest memory I have is when I was 5. I was woken up by a loud bang and some screaming. I climbed out of my pink Minnie Mouse toddler bed and walked out my bedroom door to see my dad standing over my mom with his fist pulled back while his other hand held my mom's wrist while she was bent down in a catchers position, crying and asking him to stop. I yelled at my dad asking him what he was doing and when he turned around he had these empty dark drunk eyes. It was the first time I saw my dad like that. He yelled at me to get back into my room and I ran straight to my bed slammed my door and instantly started crying. My mom crawled into bed with me that night and stayed with me all night. It wasn't the last time she would do that. My mom spent a lot of nights in my bed.

I have memories of waking up to my dad beating my mom while my brother Aj and I slept in the same bed. He broke her nose that night. He threw her down the hallway in front of my friends when I was 8. He threw his wedding ring out the window of the car one night. He threw my mom and brothers out but wouldn't let me go with them. He broke broomsticks and other things to put in all the windows and put stuff in front of the doors so they couldn't get back in. He called her the most awful names and said disgusting things to her and about her. Like I said once I started sticking up for my mom he would take his aggression out on me too. He threatened to hit me a couple times and even lunged at me a few times but I always told him to please do it so I could call the cops. Finally get him away from my mom. During middle school and high school I got into the habit of leaving my bedroom window cracked just so we could get into our house after school. Every morning he would still be drinking by the time we would go to school. I mean, most of the times he was barely coherent but still drinking. Before he would pass out he would go and lock all of the doors so we couldn't get in. I grew up in a small town where no one had house keys because they didn't lock their doors. And since he was passed out drunk we couldn't get him to wake up to unlock the doors. So my window was how I entered my house after school for years. One time while my mom and brothers were on a wrestling trip, he passed out cooking taco meat and almost burned the house down. He broke my bedroom door off and it was never replaced. I went 6 years without a bedroom door. He would blast his music so loud that the windows would shake until about 4 or 5 in the morning. More than once I saw him kick our family dogs across the room. I remember sleeping over at family members house. Then when those favors ran out I remember sleeping in my mom's car in a rest areas just outside of town or in parks or the Walmart parking lot.

There's many more memories of my dad being an abusive drunk but like I said he's been sober for 10 years now so I already processed that part of my life. I just wanted to give you a glimpse of what we went through with my dad. He's a big reason why I don't drink alcohol now. He's the reason I'm so careful about what I do put into my body to be honest. And he's also the apart of the reason I have a hard time trusting men. I know addiction runs deep in my family and I refuse to continue the cycle. I will not be like my family in the past generations. I saw who alcohol turned my dad into. He is the best dad, husband and person when he is sober. Would never even know he has that dark demon side. And he regrets the years he wasted being drunk but I always try to remind him that I'm proud of him for choosing us over the bottle everyday. It wasn't like he just stopped drinking over night either. Something very traumatic happened to my family that kind of put things into perspective for my dad. But more on that another time.

Sorry if this entry is all over the place and there might be some errors but like I said, I'm having such a hard day with PTSD and current life stuff. I'm really tired but wanted to write a little bit before bed since it does seem to be helping. Not a lot but there's something about hitting that "post" button that is so freeing. Having my story out there is a very freeing feeling, even if I'm only telling you. Even if no one real reads it. But having to keep it to myself for sooo long is exhausting and lonely. So I'm very appreciative of you.

But on that note, I'm going to bed. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love, 

<3 Ellie

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! So I know how wordy and long my entries are but they are only long because I'm trying to catch you up and my life hasn't always been candy and roses. Good news is we are almost through my grade school years and once we get to my current life it'll just be venting and daily reflection entries. So sorry they are so long but I appreciate you listening none the less.

Alright, so we are going to talk about my very first best friend, Hannah Banana. I met her when I was in 1st grade. I had gone to kindergarten and preschool at a different school so going into 1st grade I knew no one. I remember Hannah Banana and I hitting it off right away. We would play on the playground running around and doing tricks off of the swings. We wanted to have sleepovers but my parents were really great about not letting me go over to friends house without meeting the parents and seeing the house first. So there for awhile whenever we had sleepovers it was at my house. My dad is the one that gave her the nickname Hannah Banana. Every time she would come over my dad would make us sloppy joes and we would drink Jones drinks. You know, like the really sugary old school "soda" that was in the long neck bottles? Her favorite was the blue raspberry and mine was orange creamsicle. We had the best time whenever she would stay over. The first time I stayed over at her house was a bit of a different story though.

Hannah Banana's family was apart of the lower class. They lived in an old trailer that only had one bedroom and smelt funky. Not like your grandparents house funky but like a funk you can't really describe. Hannah Banana's bedroom was the living room. They just put a bed in the middle of the living room and a tv sat on the dining room table at the end of the bed. It was a single wide so there wasn't much room to move around and stuff. Her parents were older. I don't remember how old but her dad was this tall wrinkly man with a beer belly, a long salt and pepper beard and long salt and pepper hair. I can't remember what his profession was exactly but I want to say he was a truck driver. Her mom was a tiny short woman who had long black hair with bangs and a bit of grey going through it. I remember they made mac and cheese and had to split one box between me, her, her mom and dad. We all ate on Hannah's bed while we watch tv. Her dad always had a can of beer in his hand. I never really thought anything of it at that age with being around the alcoholics in my life. When my mom picked me up the next morning I remember feeling sad that Hannah Banana had to live like that. That was my first experience with poverty. So the next time I spent the night I brought something with me.

My dad always had cash in his wallet and he'd leave it on the edge of the counter when he got home from work everyday. So the next time I went over to Hannah Banana's I snuck into my dad's wallet and pulled out a $100 bill. Now I knew it was wrong, even at that age, but I thought I could bring it over so we could get food from the convenient store across the street from their trailer. And, to be fair I had no idea how much $100 really was. So when I got to Hannah Banana's house I told her and her parents that they gave me money so we could go get snacks and showed them the $100 bill. Looking back it's definitely a red flag that her parents never questioned it and that they were more than happy to spend majority of the $100. On our way to get Taco Bell, her dad drove his truck and the brakes didn't work so we pretty much coasted the entire way there. We stopped at the convenient store so he could buy a case of beer on the way back. Her parents got pretty drunk and passed out in their bedroom watching tv. Hannah Banana and I were laying in her bed when she pulled my undies down. I remember trying to pull them up and she told me to wait and that I would like it. She said it feels good. I already knew what she was going to do just from the experiences that I had in the past. I was scared but again really confused. I remember once she had my panties off she started licking my cookie. She did that for a bit then had me lick hers. We went back and forth all night. Now we were 6 so it's not like we really knew what we were doing. Obviously we both had trauma and didn't know any better. I remember waking up in the morning wanting to go home right away. When my mom picked me up, she learned that I stole the $100 from my dad's wallet. I don't remember if they realized it was gone or if Hannah Banana's parents told her thanks or something and that's how they found out. But they found out somehow and my parents were pissed. They were mad at me but also mad at Hannah Banana's parents for not questioning a 6 year old having $100 before spending it.

That Monday at school she approached me at recess and yelled at me for lying to her and her parents. She said that now she was in trouble, it was my fault and she couldn't hangout with me anymore. I remember feeling embarrassed and I ran off crying. That was the end of our friendship. For the rest of the year she was mean to me. We never repaired our friendship or even had a chance to because her father passed away in his sleep at the end of that school year and her and her mom moved up to Washington somewhere. I think about her often and always wonder what happened to her and if she's doing okay. I don't have any ill feelings towards her. Just like my cousin Kelly, I'm pretty sure she was abused. I mean no 6 year old learns about sexual stuff like that on their own. When a child is a survivor it's not their fault if the lines are blurred for them when it comes to sex. The fault lies with the monster that abused that child. No one else. I've processed this incident as well but it did impact my life. I can't be 100% sure but I really think my relationship with Hannah Banana was the beginning of how my love for women started. Oh yeah... by the way I'm bi. I'll go a bit more into that later but yeah pretty sure Hannah Banana was my first crush. Not just girl crush but like my first crush ever! Boy or girl. I really wish I remembered her last name so I could try to find her. I hope she's doing okay.

Well that's all that I have to talk about for this entry. I'll see you tomorrow. As always, thank you for listening.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love,

<3 Ellie

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! I couldn't sleep so I thought it would be a good time to talk about a game that I use to play with my cousins growing up. It's a game that we played for far too long and a game we should have never been taught. Like I said in my previous entry, I think we learned the game from my cousin Sammy. I can't remember exactly how we learned it, I just know we were young when we started playing it. We called it "The Dark Game".

My family is full of alcoholics that has impacted many generations. Every Friday and Saturday without fail my parents, aunts, uncles and their friends would have BBQ's where they would get piss drunk. They would come check in on us every once in awhile but for the most part we were unsupervised. Sometimes we would even be out running around the neighborhood until about 1am and no one would care. Because of all this, it was easy to get away with a lot... and why the game went unnoticed for so long. The dark game is pretty much like hide and seek in the dark. There's 2 people while they "count" touch each other and kiss. The others hiding do the same thing. The people "counting" would count to 100. We played that game until I was about 8 or 9. I was the only girl until my cousin went to live with my aunt and uncle.

When I was about 7 my great aunt committed suicide due to her addictions and she left behind her daughter Kelly, who was a year older than me. She lived with my great grandpa for a bit but it didn't work out so she came to live with my aunt and uncle. I remember being really excited when I found out there was going to be a girl for me to play with. But right away I knew I was going to get into trouble with her. Kelly definitely had a lot of trauma even at that young age. She would have night terrors and was super defiant. I remember the first time I thought that maybe the dark game was inappropriate was when Kelly had said something about making sure our parents don't find out and that it's okay to practice with cousins. I remember being really confused at what practicing meant but I wouldn't be confused for long.

Kelly didn't live with my aunt and uncle for more than a year or two but in that short amount of time she sure did "teach" me a lot. After the first time she played the dark game with us, she taught me a game where you'd take your panties off and have your dog lick your cookie or if you climb a tree and straddle a bigger branch while grinding on it you can make your cookie feel good. She also taught me how to make out and dance to songs with much more mature moves. We would lay there in bed practicing kissing all night before we went to bed. And to be honest I really don't blame her or have any hate towards her. I really think she went through some traumatic things growing up with her addicted mother who would have men coming and going from the house all the time. I can only imagine what she went through and saw. I don't think she really knew how bad and wrong it was. I mean, I sure didn't.

We were all so young that some bad people decided to take advantage of and we were only doing what we were taught. I struggled with this when I was younger but over the years I've been able to process my trauma and what I've come to realize is that you cant expect a child to know the boundaries of their body and where to go for help. It's so confusing for a child when people that you trust and that are suppose to be there to protect and keep you safe, take advantage. I really don't blame the adults either, even though that would be easy to do. I mean they were all young themselves who also had kids young. You also should be able to feel like your children are safe around family. I mean those are suppose to be the people that have your back no matter what. I think parents are now realizing that you have to be very careful about who you leave your children alone with, even family. But back then it was still thought that only happens to bad families, not to the picture perfect families. Plus I truly feel like if any of the adults knew what was going on they would have put a stop to it right away and got us help. So yeah... don't really have any ill feelings towards the adults that were around during that time or my cousins. I blame the people that hurt Kelly, Sammy and Jordi. Those are the real monsters. Like I said I've processed it and it doesn't bother me as much as it use to but I still and will forever think they are monsters.

Well we are almost through all of the sexual childhood trauma. Just one more memory but I'm finally getting tired so before I get another wind I should go to bed. I'll tell you about Hannah Banana tomorrow. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love,

<3 Ellie

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! So I just tried to sit and write about what’s going on in my life currently. It’s something I need to talk about but since I’m talking to you as if you are a therapist or someone real in general, I’m having a hard time writing it to make sense without giving a backstory. I guess I’ll start from the beginning and work my way to my current life. It might help me process and get some closure along the way. It’s going to suck but that’s okay, I’m strong! So let’s do it…

I had an amazing childhood and was very blessed to have grown up like I did. I know that my childhood could have been a lot worse. I had a roof over my head, food on the table every night, nice clothes on my back, clean, and had an amazing family and lots of support. From the outside looking in we were the picture perfect family. But there are secrets and things that my family just have shoved under the rug and we don’t talk about, which has scarred many of us kids.

I grew up in a family of 5. I have 2 brothers, AJ and Luke. They are THE BEST brothers a girl could ask for. My mom worked at my grandparents restaurant and my dad was a street guy for a food distributing company. When I was around the age of 2-5 my parents had a couple different people watch us while they worked. 2 people in particular took advantage of the fact they were watching innocent children. They were both my cousins, one was a cousin by marriage, but still cousins. Sammy is 4 or 5 years older than me. He had this reputation of being a bad kid already at that age. I’m pretty sure most of the time I was being watched at my aunt’s house I blocked out. I think it’s my brains way of protecting me. I can remember being outside of the house but nothing about the inside except I do have one really vivid memory of being inside of the house. It was a tiny dark forest green colored house, built in maybe the 1940’s or so, that had thorny bushes in the front under one of the bedrooms windows and along the left side lining the driveway. The yard wasn’t dead but it wasn’t a healthy green either. I don’t remember much about the inside of the house except for one room, down the small hall that was to the left of the front door. I don’t even know how I know that I just know from the memory it was on the left side somewhere. It’s a feeling I can’t explain. But in this memory Sammy is standing over me with his hands rubbing my cookie over my clothes and his tongue down my throat and every once in awhile he would stop and start counting really loud. Like we were suppose to be playing hide and seek. He got up after a bit and said “ready or not here I come” then left the room. I remember I got up and tried to get out of the room but it was locked. Not like locked locked but like there was something that was tied to the doorknob on the outside and was tied to another doorknob or that someone was holding it. Then nothing. That’s the last thing I remember. I’m pretty sure that’s where my brothers, cousins and I got the dark game from (more on that later). I don’t know if my brothers were also abused by Sammy, we’ve never talked about our trauma growing up.

The other memory I have is of my aunt’s cousin Jordi. Him and his sister Amber, would watch us every now and then. Not very often but was still enough for Jordi to abuse me. I have a few memories of his fingers inside of me while he would help me go potty or while he was tucking me into bed. He was in high school or just graduated at this point. So I can remember the pain and fear I felt as his fingers went inside of me. I remember him putting the other hand on my shoulder next to my neck and squeezing as his fingers went in and out of me. I remember being so confused and wondering if this was normal.

I remember one time around Christmas I was rubbing my cookie under my clothes while we were decorating the tree. My mom saw me and she was furious. I remember being scared because I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. My mom was washing my hands off and telling me ladies don’t touch ourselves there and to never do that again. I remember feeling ashamed and embarrassed and I was crying. It was the first time I remember feeling like it was my fault. I know that my parents never meant to make me feel that way. How were they suppose to know what was going on?

These experiences are a big reason I had blurred lines of what was appropriate when it comes to sex. The years to come will prove that all of this had a huge impact on my life. And unfortunately the abuse just continues in the years to come.

Well my husband just got home and I don’t want him to know about you. So I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love,

<3 Ellie

[still-i-rise-diaries]

Hey hey! My name is Ellie. I'm an artistic, nature loving, hippy who suffers from PTSD. I use to go to therapy to help me deal with my thoughts and flashbacks but unfortunate circumstances left me without a therapist. With the world how it is right now I don't have the option of finding a good therapist, so I'm turning to you. You might not be able to respond but an ear is better than nothing and getting my thoughts out on paper helps. I use to keep a journal but my husband reads them (he's very controlling but more on that later) which makes me feel uncomfortable and like I can't be 100% truthful with my feelings. I'm hoping that by writing it down here will at least help relieve some of my thoughts and help me process everything I've gone through and still going through.

I think I'll give you a little overview of what my life has been like and some of the topics and memories we are going to go into full detail about. I might not tell everything in chronological order but everything that I need to talk about I'll write here when I feel like I need to. I have a hard time not thinking about what I've gone through and not living in fear. I've been through more hard stuff in my young life than most people go through in their entire life. I'm not saying this because I want pity or that I'm stuck in a victims mentality. I'm saying this because I'm trying to be real about my feelings and finally face what I've gone through. Face it, process it and then file it away so I can be a carefree happy wild child that's somewhere still in me, it's just buried wayyyyy down.

Alright let's get into the overview of the mess that I call my life...

When I was little, somewhere between the ages of 3-10, I was sexually assaulted by 2 of my babysitters who were also my older cousins. That also lead to more sexual abuse with other cousins that all went unnoticed. My entire family are alcoholics and were drunk the entire time growing up so they never noticed anything going on. When I was in high school I dated a boy 3 years older than me and ended up getting pregnant which led to me making the biggest mistake of my life. I met and fell in love with the love of my life. He was the best thing that ever happened to me. But it never seems like it was never our time and now our time is never going to be. Within a year I lost my aunt, 2 grandpas and the love of my life. 6 months after I lost the love of my life, I was raped for the first time. The next 3 years were some of the worst years of my life. Once I was out of that situation I thought I was safe and nothing like that will ever happen again. But I've been attacked by a drunk Russian just for sitting in my car, I've been raped by another man and I've been in an abusive relationship for almost 4 years now. All of that is just a little glimpse into what we are about to talk about.

You are about to become the closest person to me. You are going to know every little dirty secret, all the trauma and heartache, the happy times and my most inner thoughts. They aren't all going to be easy talks, most of them are going to suck to be honest, but they are necessary for my survival. Right now I'm sooo exhausted from fighting and dealing with my trauma that you're my last option before I do something drastic, something I really don't want to do. I just can't go on like this anymore...

So let's hope this works!

I'm getting ready to get some sleep but I'll be back to talk about more later. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE WORTH IT, YOU ARE LOVED.

Signing off with love,

<3 Ellie