“Friend-Zoned” Part 1

 

In MANY of my previous posts, I have talked about love and how I felt for this one particular boy that I had been dating for several months. I was feeling like no matter what I did it was never enough to show him how much I loved him.

Herein lies the issue; I never loved him.

I thought that I did.

I wanted to love, and be loved.

I wanted what I saw so many others had.

I did whatever I could to get it.

He ended up being an overly controlling, emotionally abusive, asshole who had no idea how to show emotions and feelings, and didn’t ever want to change that. I was so stuck. I was in a place in my life where it felt like everything else was falling apart and I had no other options. I had no way to escape the chaos of my life – other than through him. I feel like he and I used each other for very different reasons. I used him because I just wanted to feel like someone cared. He used me because he was lonely and desperate to feel needed by someone. (To him I was nothing but a project … I hated that)

 

Things have changed. I have been able to see that love is not something that you can just “make.” Love is something that is a gift from above and should be cherished and taken seriously. I know who my life-long partner will be. He has been my best friend for several years and I have always thought that he would just stay a friend. He and I have a lot in common, but are able to sustain our own individuality within our relationship/friendship. He and I both know each other’s imperfections and we have come to learn how to deal with them in each other. I was so blown away when I woke up one day and realized that I was in love with the guy I had “friend-zoned” for so long. I am almost positive that he has felt it a long time and wanted it to be this way for just as long. But for me, it took a while to realize what it was; because I didn’t have to go searching for it – I just woke up one day and realized that I had it within me.

 

I will stop at nothing to love and cherish him with everything I am.

I Am Emotionally Mute

 

I feel like this is just too much. I am sitting here, crying, trying to figure out why it is that I can’t ever make what I am thinking come out of my mouth the right way. It seems like I have struggled with this for my entire life. I have felt like this for most of my life, like no matter what it is that I think I am saying, something completely different seems to come out of my mouth. If I try to say something to be helpful and give someone advice about a way to do something, – it comes out bossy like I am telling them what to do. If I want to try to express how something is making me feel – it often comes out accusatory and that obviously drives people far far away. So why is it that I can write out how I am feeling so vividly and make it sound even more perfect than it did in my mind? It drives me fucking bonkers. Pardon the profanity, I am on my edge.

I just feel like I should have been born mute because I have been told that my mouth has always gotten me in trouble. But if that is the case, how could I show someone that I love them? What the hell is love anyway? Is it even real? I’m not even sure anymore. I have done all that I can to prove that I am worth of love and have never gotten it how I have pictured it should be. There is one person, who had stood by side for many years that I believed would be my rock. The person who I could count on being there for me no matter what. They were taken from me in the most horrible way. No, they aren’t dead…it was done on their own accord.

Do you know what it feels like for someone to “fall out of love” with you? I do. I know it all too well. It is a feeling that I would not want even my most hated enemies to feel. To have the security of having someone love you from the day you’re born to the day one of you dies is something that should be forever depended upon. Not for me, I won’t ever have that with this person. They chose someone else over me; even though I came first. I have never felt such pain. So I have promised myself that I would never inflict that kind of pain on anyone, but what do you do when you care about someone like that, and they refuse to see it and show/say it in the way you feel it should be. How should it be? How is love shown? Is it through the things they do, or say or just simply how they make you feel?

I often feel horrible. I feel like I won’t ever measure up, that the baggage that is being drug behind me will keep me from being loved how I dream of. Yeah I have scars that aren’t pretty, sure I have a past that is ugly and full of pain and despair, but I have a heart like no other. I will love even more than I wish to be loved. But why can’t someone else be like that too? Why can’t they actually be stable in my life and stick around?? I was told in the beginning of a relationship that he would be my stability. I started a relationship at a very rocky time in my life, not the best decision on my part, but one that both he and I decided we could face together. There was a time in the beginning where nothing in my life was stable. I was emotionally more stable that I had been in years but it felt like everything in my life was falling to pieces. I don’t think he would even remember this, but over and over again I would tell him that I couldn’t handle more people just coming and going in my life at that moment. After we had built a foundation he told me that he would be there, that he would be the stability that I could always count on. But what was that supposed to accomplish? What did that even mean? Was I supposed to expect that to challenge me in every emotional way possible? Was it that I was going to be tested consistently about what I thought love was supposed to look and feel like? I can’t even explain to you how I felt when I first realized that I loved this person. Honestly, it scared me shitless. And I am coming to the conclusion that it is SUPPOSED to do that! Love isn’t logical, it’s fucking unpredictable and hard as a bitch to live through. It is something that you have to work at every single day that you are in it. It doesn’t give you days off or lunch breaks. Love will not let you take a water break during the marathon. There is no finnish line where you break through the silky tape into the arms of the person who is your “soul mate”. I do believe that everyone has someone out there who is perfect for them; but I also believe that everyone has the ability to love others as well.

I don’t even know if I ever want to be truly in love, because I feel like losing that love would me a million times more destroying to the heart than ever actually having the feeling.

So is it worth it?

I don’t know….

Do I plan to find out?

absolutely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Are My Rock {LovePoem}

This is a poem I wrote when I fell in love.

<3

You Are My Rock

You and me and this thing we do

its not just made for one

but eternally two

My life was over

with nowhere to go

I had no more hope

and nothing to show

With no one by my side

and my hands in my pockets

I patiently waited for the day

I could put him in my locket

It felt like forever

that I would have to wait

but then it was over

I had taken the bait

I was nervous to start

a new chapter of my life

then I began to realize

it meant no more sorrow or strife

The happiness I feel

when you hold my hand

makes me wanna be a kid

so I can play in the sand

The castle I want to build

will not just be for me

I wanna make it big

for everyone to see

Like the things I feel for you

I want the whole world to know

that my love for you is real

and as pure and white as snow

Sometimes it doesn’t seem

like it could ever be real

the things that we do

and the emotions that we feel

But here we are again

side by loving side

when you told me that you loved me

yes I know I cried

I cried for the joy

that I felt in my heart

because I knew this was the beginning

and a fresh new start

So as we move forward

as two people in love

lets fly away together

like the white Christmas dove

I want you to know

that you mean the world to me

and I hope someday soon

I’ll do something to make you see

That I would never hurt you

you are my other half

the one I want to be with

you will be my staf

The one to help me walk

the one to help me see

that there is more to life

you made me feel free

Now lets go on together

and make this life count

lets do everything we can

to the fullest amount

We know this life is short

and with you I want to spend

the remainder of my days

up until the end.

This may seem bold

and something kind of strange

but the way we are now

I never want it to change

I want you by my side

for now and for always

through the good and the bad

and all the crazy days

You are my rock

the one who keeps me grounded

you took me as I am

even if not well rounded

I have my quirks

but don’t we all?

Its still amazes me

how you wont let me fall

Through everything that has happened

in the past in and in the present

I hope you find our time together

very much happy and pleasant

So as I end this poem

with the words of my heart

I want you to know

that this is just the start

Its a whole new beginning

thing thing between you and me

I cant wait for us to grow

and be all that we can be

I’ve loved you from the start

and I hope that you know

that I will fight to the death

I wont ever let you go.

10 Things That Changed Me

On the 20th of March in the year 2012 I turned 19. I feel like it is such an akaward age; you’re just stuck in limbo for two years until you can go to the bar and ask for a martini. But I have been trying to put together 10 things that I feel have made an impact on my life. Whether it be people, places, or things I am going to list 10 things that have made a difference. Some of these will be happy things and some of them will be things that are little more “emotionally intense”, but I hope that regardless you are able to find that I am able to make each experience one of learning.

[1. Being a part of a "broken family".]

If you have read my other posts, (and if you haven’t I would encourage you to do so, so that the rest of this will make more sense..) then you know that my parents divorced when I was very young. I have no idea what it is like to be in a household where your dad comes home from work to your mom making the family dinner. He walks through the door with the mail, leaves it on the counter and walks to the kitchen to give mom a kiss before going to their room to change. Eating dinner as a family and telling them both in detail about every moment of the day and how Susie and Billy were holding hands at recess. I know it sounds silly, but I have always wanted that. The fantasy of being in a home with two happy parents is one that is so far from reality that I almost lost sight of what the fantasy really is. I have pretty much moved on from hoping this would happen. I am now 19 years old, it’s about time that I start facing the fact that I will never be in a family that is like that; as the child. See, what I feel is really important to take from this is what NOT to do when thinking about starting a family. I want to make sure that it is planned, and that I am in a postion to be the best parent that I can be. I refuse to be the kind of parent that is oblivious to the feelings and needs of my child.

[2. Being picked on in school]

I know that I have talked about this topic a lot in my other posts, but I want to make a different kind of point about it all. I feel like all of this really made an impact about how I felt about myself and how I was not able to create a good self-esteem for myself as a young adult. It took me a long time to get past the things I told myself everyday for those many years, but it has made my comvictions about myself sooooo much stronger now that I am older and able to look back on it all. I thought I was ugly, and that because I had red hair that I was a freak. As soon as I got the chance I dyed my hair. I went blonde, then blonde and pink, then let it fade out for a while, then back to blonde, then blonde and blue, then brunette. Now I am back to my original red and could not feel more beautiful. It took years to realize it, but I have a beautiful heart. I don’t mean to sound concided or self-centered; but if you can’t love yourself…then who can?

[3. Starting therapy at age 9]

I was a very abnormal child. A lot of it being due to the household that I was brought up in. I was very curious and nosy about things that I should never have worried about, always felt like I had to be a part of other people’s business; and was always lying. I will be the first to admit that as a child I was quite the story-teller. It was not very common that I would be praised by the people who watched over me. Whether it was because of grades or something I was just doing in general; I was also being critized and told how to do better. I totally agree that it is important to make sure that as a parent you encourage your child to be the very best that they can be. But to never sit back and accept their abilities for what they really are, and praising them for the accomplishments that they are proud of is so beyond damaging for the child. I was horrible at math. I still am. For years and years I tried and tried to get better but no matter how I tired to study so that I could improve it just never made sense to me. But on the other hand I was always amazing in my language arts. With my writing I would get high scores. Even through middle school and high school my english classes were my strong point. But not once did I get the recognition I thought I deserved for my accomplishements for those pieces, yet I was consistantly terrorized for not being able to pass geometry. It tore me apart, and for a while I gave up on my ability to write. I felt like if these people can’t even see it for what I do, and they are the ones who take care of me, then how would anyone else be able to find any importance in it?? That question scarred me for a long time….

[4. Having the most loving grandparents in the world.]

In almost every family, it is when you become a grandparent that you are able to spoil the kids as much as you like. As a child, when you go to see your grandparents; it is always destined to be an amazing time. At least this is how it was for me. I was always given the things that I wanted, but not in the way I bet you are thinking. My grandmother and I have a very unusual bond, one that nobody else in our family really understands. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she played the role of “mother” for a period in my life that was very vital; and in that time we became so close. I was very young when this happened, but it has never faultered. Over the years we have been through a lot of stuff. We have had our laughs, and we have held each other and cried. She has been strict with me, and she will do what she can to comfort me in any way she can find. But there was a period in time, about 1 year and 8 months, where we did not see each other, or even speak on the phone. It was the single hardest time I have had in my life. On top of the situation I was thrown into at age 17, I was taken away from contact with her. It seemed like it was going to be years until we were going to ever be able to speak to each other again. I got a couple cards from her. I remember when I got a christmas card from her. The thought of it brought me the biggest smile in a time where I knew I would be emotionally distraught. When I saw the envelope, and looked at her handwriting, I literally cried like a baby. I was so overwhelmed with emotion and happiness, yet absolutly beside myself that I could not see her and get a hug I had wanted for almost a year at that point. It took me about 2 hours to calm down, and be able to bring myself to open the envelope. I knew that if simply seeing her handwriting was going to do that, then reading her words to me; that I had waited for for what seemed like eternity, would bring me to my knees. I love her so much, she is my rock. My papa is also quite the wise man. He always seems to have something to say, and when he talks I make sure to listen. He may not know this, but I journal about the conversations we have quite often. He always seems to see things differently that I do. Often times in the moment this frustrates me and I bet he thinks I am being disrespectful when honestly I just wish he would see things the same way as me so I didn’t have to think as much about what he was saying. He is an amazing person who has been through a lot, yet still is able to laugh about the silly stuff, and work through the hard things too, love you guys <3

[5. Not knowing how to drive.]

This is not something big and dramatic, it just freaking sucks. I honestly do not know how to drive. I am 19 years old and have not gotten my liscense or even read any of the material for a driving test. I have been behind the wheel a total of 7 times and each time for no longer than 15 minutes and it was on almost deserted roads for all but 1 of them. I have had no way to learn and nobody is willing to take the time needed to teach me the actual driving part. It sucks so bad and I hate that I can’t find a way to make it happen, but there isn’t much I can do about it. Luckly though, in the state of NH, I am able to just go take the test and get my liscense because I am over the age of 18. So hopefully in the next 92804751294875 years I will finally get it….

[6. Never going to a school dance.]

I am not sure how I feel about this one quite yet. For the longest time I have hated the fact that I never got to go out and buy a dress to wear that made me look beautiful. Get my hair and nails done, and be taken to prom with the guy I had fallen for. I literally never went to a school dance. I think i went to a social thing in 8th grade, but everyone was literally standing around the gym or in the cafeteria sitting and gossiping about who was with who and what girl looked the sluttiest. I always was pissed that I couldn’t go because of some dumb reason that had been created for me to be grounded that month. I have gotten over it now…until I see a prom dress in the window of a dress shop and start imagining how amazing the emerald green would look against my auburn hair.

[7. Moving to TX from NH to begin highschool.]

Being in a group of kids that seemed to hate me from K-8th grade made the opportunity of going accross the country to start high school seem like nothing short of a miracle. I was so excited to just be able to “start fresh”. I felt like I could make myself be whatever I wanted. Nobody would ever know about how much had happened in my past and I had a clean slate. Much to my dismay, it most certinally did NOT work out in my favor. The torment was continued into my highschool years. Not in a way that had any similarities to the ways of my former classmates, but the things that happened were having the same effect. I was unable to build any self-esteem. People were always jabbing at me or starting rumors about what I had said about who or who I had screwed that weekend. (Not that those things were accruate at all). I was so hurt for so long about not being able to make good friends. I tried at first to make some girl friends but that never seemed to work out. They were all too catty and just wanted to find a way to stab you in the back. I soon found that guys were much better company. It got messy on a few occasions, but I made two really amazing friends when I was in TX. Both of them attended my church, and one of them went to my school. The guy that went to my school ended up being soneone that I was able to confide in from the very beginning. We bonded in a special way. He and I have never been romantically involved; but we are able to trust each other will virtually anything. So overall, my vision of starting highschool as a way to “start over” was a complete flop; but it brought me to 2 of my very best friends whom I love very much.

Give In To Me

Perfect description..

I get so frustrated sometimes when I get stuck into my own head. I have feelings and emotions that I can’t ever explain. No matter how pissed off and hurt and angry I get I can always find a way to turn it around as a learning experience to make the relationship better. I am not claiming that I never feel hurt or angry; but with you it’s different. Often times when someone makes me mad I forgive them, but when it happens again I just can’t let it go. That doesn’t happen with you. I don’t know why, but I love you. It is so infuriating to not be able to rationalize why and how it all happened so fast. Yeah there are things that we could have done differently but there is no point in sitting around and worrying about what we could have done because then we miss out on what is happening right here, right now, in front of us. I hope someday we are able to find this kind of feeling. It may be with me, or it may not; but I pray that you find the kind of love I have found. People say that one of the hardest things in life is to watch the person you love, love someone else. Yes, I would agree that it would hurt, bad, but regardless….if you are really in love with this person then wouldn’t you just want them to be happy? I just want you to be happy hun. I will tell you every single day from here on out that I love you if you feel like it may help. I want you to know it and feel it for what it is, not just what you want it to be. It has been a rough road, we have established that you came into my life at a really rough time, but the amazing part is that you are still here. Now it’s my turn; let me be here for you and help you when you need it. Every time I needed help from you, you were there; I want to do the same. Let me be the shoulder that you lean on – I want to be the one you come to when your sad and when your happy. I just hope that you see just how much I love you.

Muah <3

It gets so frustrating when one feels they look prettier through a lense then they do in the mirror.

The Dream I Shall Never Forget

I don’t really know where to begin. I woke up about 20 minutes ago from the most intense nightmare I have ever had. I literally jolted out of bed so hard that I fell out and just curled up and wept on my floor. I had been sweating so much that some of my hair was sticking to me. There is literally sweat marks on my back and sides from it. My bed felt disgusting as I attempted to crawl back in still crying. I could remember it so vividly, and with it still being dark, and living in a house that creeks and makes weird noises at random times; I had never been so terrified. So what was it that caused me to have this dream? I have no idea. But here is what I can remember.

The first thing that I can remember is everything starting to get really hazy. I was trying to talk to someone and their face got really blurry and I was just trying to shake it off. I reached up and rubbed my eyes with my hands and as I was letting them fall back to my sides I realized it; this was not my body. I was in the body of someone very close to me. He is a diabetic. I thought at first that I was getting a first-hand experience of what it felt like to have low blood sugars; that was the only explanation of how I began to feel. I had a headache that made me feel like my head was about to explode, I could not keep the body I had overtaken to stop shaking. I felt hot on the inside of him, but I could tell that his skin was very cold. On the inside I was sweating, on the inside he was shivering. I was standing in his home with his family and my family had come over to all have dinner together, it was something that he and I had looked forward to. The headache worsened and my vision was beginning to get worse. I saw my own body standing next to him with a big smile on it’s face, I wondered who was in my body. Suddenly his body started constricting me, I felt like I was being suffocated, like my skin was being stretched yet tightened at the same time. I began screaming inside for someone to help but his body refused to respond to the intensifying phenomena that was happening within. He fell to the ground and everyone in the living room was shocked at his sudden collapse. They picked up his body, (where inside I was still screaming for the unbearable pain to stop), and layed him on the couch. He spoke through himself, I don’t quite know how to explain this part but I was in his body still screaming yet he was communicating with the people around him.

He attempted to tell them that he was fine. (HELL NO YOUR NOT FINE! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!!) He somehow must have either heard or felt my cry and muttered that something was wrong as he fell limp in the arms of my own physical self. I could see myself grabbing his face and trying to make him wake up, but there was no response.

Everyone must have thought that he had gone into a diabetic coma or just passed out. There were multiple frantic ideas thrown out of what it could have been. I saw myself leave him laying on the couch. My screaming spirit within him was still crying out in pain as I watched myself walk away from what was happening. It made no sense, and the pain intensified. I came back with a large syringe in hand and inject his body with something. I didn’t know what it was or what effect it was about to have on me but I just wanted the pain to stop.

Slowly things started to stop. The constricting and stretching of my skin began to stop, and I was now able to try to breathe normally again. He didn’t have the same kind of luck. His body didn’t respond. Inside him I was doing all I could to whisper to his heart that I loved him and needed him to come back, he had to come back, I couldn’t live without him. Literally. He did not speak again, but I could feel his body get warmer and I spoke to him. I told him how I felt for him and how he made me happy. I was doing all I could to keep him alive inside because I felt his body getting weaker and weaker. At this point the people around him, including myself were crying, they thought he had already died. I was still trying. It felt like I held his bleeding heart in the hands of my soul for hours, trying to mend its wounds. Finally it stopped beating. I saw my own body collapse to the floor and break-down. I realized that I had not succeeded. I could not save the one that I love. So I did the only thing that I thought of. I took the inner working of my spirit that lived in him and replaced it with his own heart. I then attempted to leave his body and go back to mine. I couldn’t. I kicked and screamed, I tried to fight my way from his lifeless body. I could not get out. I knew at that point that it was over. I was done. I was to forever stay in the body of the one that I love, my spirit holding his wounded heart until the day that my own body would die.

All during this dream I did all that I could to wake myself up. I felt everything that was happening and was completely engrossed in it, yet I could still be in my own sleeping conscious and attempt to escape this horrible nightmare. I had no such luck. I felt myself be buried with his body. Then things went dark. I gave up trying to wake up and I don’t know much about what happened after that.

I began to have a second nightmare. I was laying in bed about to go to sleep. I had just turned my light out. I looked at the clock, and it read 2:54am. I had been up late watching TV and journaling. I plugged in my phone and put it in its usual spot where it charges for the night. I rolled over and was about to close my eyes as I saw my phone light up. I had gotten a text or someone was calling. There was no way I was about to answer a call this late at night, so as I turned over I had hoped it was a text message. It was.

The number was not familiar to me. It was only 5 digits long and I can’t quite remember what the numbers were. I opened the text and all it said was.

“a man with a handgun.”

I replied, completely freaked out..

“Who is this?”

I quickly got a reply..

“a man with a handgun”

At this point I jolted out of bed and ended up on my floor. Not only do I very rarely have nightmares, but I have never experienced anything like this. My body was sweating and hot as I began writing this, and while doing so I had to pause to put on more layers because I could not stop shivering. I am freezing right now. All my windows are closed and the temperature of the house is about 68 degrees so there is no way that I should be this cold. I am wearing leggings, yoga pants, and big comfy baggy sweatpants. I have a t-shirt and 2 sweatshirts on. I put on an extra pair of very thick socks, too. I am still cold. I can’t explain what happened tonight/this morning. And I do not want to have to think much about this ever again. All I know is that this has to mean something; but I’m not sure if I ever want to know what it is.

Lack of Gravity (2008)

This is another poem that I wrote back in 2008.

I want to make it known that this holds no meaning to what is happening in my life right now but I wanted to post something while I work on a piece that is taking me a bit longer than expected! Hope you enjoy it!

Lack of Gravity

By: Alexandra

A tornado surrounded us

Binding us together,

Then the wind blew you away

In a sudden change of weather.

You caught me when I fell

And dried all of my tears,

With three simple words

You washed away my fears.

You gave me all I needed

A hand, a heart, a friend,

And now I can’t believe

How you brought things to an end.

I suddenly had no cushion

And quickly struck the ground,

The tears ran down my face

For you were not around.

But I’ve worked my way back up

Forgiven, forgotten, and moved on,

Mended my heart back together

And now all thoughts of you are gone.

 

Beauty

Some don’t understand this; but I’m okay with that. I love it and it makes me feel beautiful. Yes my body is God’s temple, but why not decorate the gorgeous walls that have were once torn apart ?

What is love?

So I was bored and decided to google my name and see what came up. Just for kicks and giggles. I found my old Myspace account. It has been so long that I have completly forgotten the login information. Lucky for me I was not very bright back then and did not set anything to private so I was able to to look at all my old stuff. I found about 6 poems that I had written back in 2008 and thought they were kinda cool. Thought I would share one of them!

What is love?

By: Alexandra Lynn Hanscom

As I cling onto the ruffles of life

The folds of my fingers leave room for love

But what is Love really?

Is it the pounding of my heart as he looks me in the eyes,

Or the constant smile that’s smeared on my face,

Or possibly the stars getting brighter when we touch?

What is Love really?

As I spring off the side of the earth

The smile on my face leaves room for passion

But what is Passion really?

Could it be the roses on our anniversary

Or the daisies on a cloudy day,

Or possibly just the drawn out kiss as we part?

What is Passion really?

As I fall into the choppy ocean

My body leaves room for commitment

But what is Commitment really?

Is it the readiness to lay down a treasure for the sake of another,

Or is it the constant glance over the shoulder to make sure she’s okay,

Or is it possibly just the love and passion shared between two people?

What is Commitment really?

What is Passion really?

What is love?

Oh, How I love Fortune Cookies

For a while I started posting on my Facebook page some of the fortune cookie fortunes that I have collected over the years. I have quite a lot of them and the process seemed to not get much attention and nobody really seemed interested in it. I also found that it became anoying to do myself so I figured that I would make a list here of all the silly things that I have found within these small cookies.

 

((These are in no particular order!))

1. There is a good chance of a romantic enounter soon.
2. Think before sharing with others.
3. You can keep a secret.
4. Courage conquers all things; it even gives strength to the body.
5. This could be an almost perfect day! Enjoy it!
6. Right now is also the perfect time to pamper yourself.
7. Enthusiasm is inceftious, stimulating, and attractive to others. People will love you for it.
8. An agreeable romance might begin to take on an appearence.
9. You will have many friends when you need them.
10. You believe in the goodness of mankind.
11. When the moment comes, take the last one from the left.
12. Your ability is appreciated.
13. Set high goals.
14. A judgement will rule in your favor.
15. You have an active mind and a keen imagination.
16. A new voyage will fill your life with untold memories.
17. Just to be alive is a grand thing.
18. Any descision you have to make tomorrow will be a good one.
19. Today it’s okay to make a few choices based on instinct.
20. You don’t have to be perfect to fufill your dream.
21. You are in the vicinity of a good time. Get the shy to join in.
22. A friend in the market is better than money in the purse.
23. A cautious person leaves no stones unturned.
24. Draw up a budget and figure out how to cut down on your debt..
25. Leaders are readers.
26. You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult of problems.
27. A beautiful, smart, loving person will be coming into your life.
28. Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the consious level.
29. You desire recognition and you will recieve it.
30. Well, why not? Admit it — you’re intriuged!

These next 10 are ones that I feel actually spoke to me… as cheesy as that sounds…

1. If I bring forth what is inside of me, what I bring forth will save me.
2. Change your thoughts and you will change the world.
3. You are the master of every situation.
4. Accept something that you cannot change, and you will feel better.
5. Character is much easier kept than recovered.
6. Your happiness is begore you, not behind you.
7. Commitment is what turns a promise into reality.
8. You will live a long life and eat many fortune cookies.
9. If your mind can concieve it, you can achieve it.
10. Today is the day that you let it go. Your chance will come.

I know this is nothing like the rest of my really intense posts but I figured that I could change it up a little bit! Hope this brought a smile to your face!

The Healing of My Eternal Scars

In some strange way I thought that this was just going to be who I was.

I was a cutter.

End of story.

Beginning of life.

I have spent the last 5 years of my life fighting a raging war against something that I can not see. Something that had manifested itself so deep within me that even I could not access even its outer most layer. I attempted to do many things to hide the feelings that made those bloody episodes become more frequent. I tried many productive things; journalism, writing poetry, drawing, making string bracelets, spending time alone outside, even going to church. I somehow felt empty even though these many things were consuming my time. I took a lot of time to go to see a shrink who ended up not helping me at all.

(For the record, that was because I was not allowing him to. When seeing a shrink it’s actually essential to tell the truth about what you are feeling and not just bullshit them with crap in order to get through the hour…this is something I learned the hard way)

My family paid lots of money for me to he “fixed.”

They, and even I, should have known that it is literally impossible for someone to become “fixed” in an emotionally satisfactory. We are able to fix broken things, but I believe that nobody is really broken. We may be hurt or in pain, but we shall not be broken. I thought for a while that if I wanted to get better I just had to go through the motions.

I spent about 3 months living in the mountains of Vermont. In April of 2010 I began a phase of my life that would change the course of the rest of my life forever. I was going to be eating the same things everyday, not be able to shower more than once every three weeks or so; and spend every night sleeping under a tarp where I was very easily exposed to the elements of the mountains I was trekking across. While being here I did not cut. There was no way for me to. I was out in the woods where my biggest worry was where I was going to find the materials I needed to build my fire so that I could make myself dinner. I had no communication with the outside world other than a 1 week letter from my grandmother and a somewhat occasional one from my father. I had never had so much time to think in my life. This was the first and probably the biggest step for me with breaking through my addiction. I was given the opportunities to think about all my issues; the things I was angry about, the people who had hurt me, the relationships that had been left without closure, all of these things. I had time to feel almost every emotion that I could, but was not able to handle it the way that I had been. I was so closely supervised by the staff of the program that I never did anything without having some kind of supervision. I was finally able to use other things to handle my feelings. A lot of it, while living in the woods was anger. I was a bitch. I was mean and hurtful to a lot of the people around me. I was in a totally new place that I literally did not even know existed. With this anger came determination, it took a while, but I eventually was able to come to a place where I was able to take my aggression out in ways that were not hurtful to others. I found myself writing a lot. Shocker right?! I also used this emotion to center myself so I could leave and go back to places where there was running water and toilets.

(( I shall tell you the whole story about this place in the woods in a separate post! ))

I was soon able to leave the woods where I was then brought to a little place called Cache Valley, Utah. I was brought to an all girls Residential Treatment Center. I was literally going to be living in a HUGE house with 16 other girls who had issues like I did. We did not all struggle with the same addictions, but most of us had a lot of the same core issues. In the beginning I was overwhelmingly miserable. I was surrounded by people I did not know, exposed to things I had never seen before, and living with people I had not yet grown very fond of. To make matters worse I literally did not have any contact with ANYONE outside this one mansion for the first 5 months that I was kept there. My father and his wife felt like talking to me was not going to be productive at the time. My father had to deal with his own set of issues and his wife has always been in her own little world trying to control everyone else’s. Needless to say they were not able to make time for me. So when we would come back inside from outdoor activities with our horses, (every girl in the program was assigned her own horse, it was also an equine therapy program) I would see lots of girls getting printed out e-mails or hand written letters left on the counter for them to collect. Many times as they read them they would laugh out loud at silly things that their parents had said or became happy because they actually heard from them.

Nothing.

5 months I got nothing.

Not one letter.

Not one.

I used to dread it, walking by that spot in the kitchen where they were layed out. Even after that initial 5 months when me and my father started talking for 15 minutes once a week on Sundays, I still dreaded it. We would never talk about anything meaningful and would often end our calls early because we would literally start asking each other about the weather. This is where things became ugly once again.

I had gone almost 8 months without cutting, then I lost in my streak of triumphs. I broke a CD that I had in half; ((we were only allowed to have Walkman CD players to listen to personal music; no ipods)) and used that as my tool to cut. I did it in the shower. I could not take it. I was going to journal but never had enough time to. There was always chores to be done, I was getting in trouble for the smallest little things wrong, working on school, taking care of the horses, or even eating. I never had enough time to journal as much as I desperately needed to. The release that I felt as I opened my skin and watched the blood slowly fall down the drain; was the most intoxicating it had ever been so far. Even more so than it was that first time in the middle of the night when I was 13. I had never felt something like this. I was then very closely watched by the people working at this place. They saw what I had done and I literally had a staff member an arm’s length away from me at all times. I even had to make my roommates suffer through having our door all the way open with all the hall lights on so that I could be watched.

I was not going to do it again.

I made a vow to myself that I was never going to do it again.

I was brought to this place on July 1st, 2010 and left on August 4th 2011. I was there over a year and in that time only cut myself once. It was a miracle. I had felt like there was finally hope for me, I was going to be able to use the coping skills I was given to live a life without creating more eternal scars.

I left this place and directly moved into my own apartment. I finished my whole senior year of highschool in just over 3 months and was able to get a job working at Dillard’s while saving money. I left this program with a lot of money in the bank. I had over $2,000 in my savings and about $1,400 in my checking. Not all of this was from my job but I was making $10.00 per hour and was working 40 hours a week. I had gotten accepted to Utah State University, had gotten my classes, and was all set to start this new chapter of my life. I could not have been more excited.

I also could not have been more naive.

I had no idea life after treatment would be so damn hard. It felt like what I would imagine to be a person coming out of rehab for drinking and living in an apartment located above a bar. I was not prepared for anything that was thrown my way. I gained and lost a relationship with a guy that lived in my apartment complex. I was only able to make one friend in the whole time I was there, but she was so happy I did not feel like I could tell her all of what was actually going on because I did not want to be the sad cloud on her happy day. This was soon going to come to a screeching halt.

I let my life fall apart. I had become depressed again and had nobody to talk to about it. I had just been dumped, and I had been gaining a lot of weight. How is it that I allowed it to go this far again? I felt so bad, I was staying up until 3 am watching stupid stuff on TV and then sleeping in until 2 in the afternoon and skipping all my classes. Eventually I stopped going completely. I had no job, no money, I was not going to be able to pay rent, and I felt as lonely as ever. At that point I would have rather had a parents standing over my shoulder yelling at me all the time instead of feeling as lonely as I did for those couple of weeks.

It became more than I could handle, so I did it again. I allowed myself to break my own vow and I used a kitchen knife to cut myself again. I had never cut so badly, never had I seen so much blood. I destroyed a few shirts and my counter in my bathroom was literally covered in it. The blood had somehow even reached down to the floor after falling down the cabinets. I was so ready to just end it. I had just spend almost 2 years of my life preparing for this moment. The moment where my addiction would attempt to take hold of me again. I had worked so hard to make sure that it did not prevail.

I aided my addiction in my own destruction.

I called the one friend I had made. She appeared at my doorstep within minutes and helped me. She took me from my apartment where I was sitting on my bathroom floor looking at all the red that was surrounding me. I felt suffocated in my own blood. After we arrived at her place she cleaned me up, and called her cousin who was an EMT. He got all that he needed and came over and took care of it. I ended up staying over that night and spent time with her talking about everything that had brought me to that point.

That was the last time that I have cut. I had never come so close to feeling such hopelessness that I promised not just myself but others who I knew cared about me that I would never do it again.

It has been just over 4 months since I have cut myself. I am so proud to say that I do not even desire it anymore. Honestly the thought will run through my head once in a while, but just as often as I think about what it would be like to jump off a roof into a pool. It is not something that overtakes my mind and makes me depressed. I have now found many different things that make me happy.

1. Going to church with my amazing grandmother <3
2. Trying to build friendships.
3. Working ((when I actually am given hours…!))
4. journalism
5. Cooking
6. Watching movies
7. Going for walks
8. Spending time with family
9. Spending time with my boyfriend
10. Blogging for all of you to read!

I have found that these 10 things are what keeps me going. I also made my final stand against self-mutilation today by getting a tattoo of a butterfly on my left arm where most of my scars are. It is significant of the “butterfly project” and is my way of reminding myself every day that I was able to overcome it and have become more powerful than my addiction.

I really hope that you are able to see through reading this that those of us who struggle with addictions whether it be; cutting, drugs, sex, alcohol, pornography, whatever it may be we have the power to overcome it. Some argue that patterns of behavior like having a lot of sex, cutting yourself, and watch a lot of porn are actually not addictions. I strongly disagree.

My name is Alexandra; and I have overcome my addiction.

P.S. ((Here is a link to more information about the “butterfly project”))

http://www.recoveryourlife.com/index.php?categoryid=148

 

 

 

Inside the Mind of a Cutter

I find it really interesting how many different sterotypes there are based on the things that we do in our day-to-day lives. Whether it’s based on what brands we wear, what music we listen to, what sports we play, how well we perform at school, or even the way we act to our significant other; we are always being judged.

This is a story of a girl who might make people think twice about what kind of category you put someone in when you meet them. If you see someone in all black are you going to think that they are “emo” or “goth” ? How are you going to treat them? Are you going to stand a little further away because you are afraid?

I find that the girl I shall be telling you about is a girl who went against everything that society has made each other to believe about a specific kind of person. A cutter.

My name is Alexandra.

I am a cutter.

I do not wish to frighten you by saying the words “I am”. I am aware that these words are in the present tense; though I am not still engaging in this addiction. I was and always be a cutter, for the scars will never leave my body. This is forever who I am. I am not proud of this fact. Seeing the purple lines that once were penetrations of my skin even frightens me to this day. But every time I wear a bathing suit, shorts, short-sleeves, I shall be shown for what I really am.

A lot of people are frightened when they see someone who has cut themselves. Seeing scars on people is a sad thing; it is something entirely different to know how they got there. In the following post I shall share with you the inner workings of my mind as I went through this phase of my life. Some of this might be graphic so if you are someone who doesn’t handle this well, I suggest you read a different blog of mine, I have a few others that may interest you.

It started when I was 13. I was in the 8th grade and was really struggling to make friends. I started doing my hair differently. I began to also change what I wore to things a little more provocative; I even tried to get my parents to let me get my ears pierced because I wanted to wear pretty earings like the other girls did. None of this was achievable. I grew up in an enviroment with one hostile parent and another parent who did all that they could to help me. More often than not the hostile parent of mine would persuade the other parent to do what they wanted with me. I was very sheltered and had a hard time getting new clothes and jewelry and I was  NOT going to be able to pierce my ears. I quickly began to try and find something that I could do that would not involve my parents. I wanted to do something that created attention and allowed me to feel closer to someone, anyone. I soon met a girl in my grade who seemed like she did not have many friends either. She often looked as sad as I felt; I thought we could be friends.  In between classes, during breaks, and at lunch I tried to befriend her. She seemed unphased by my attempts. I was trying to get her to talk to me at lunch one day when I saw it for the first time in my life. Large lacerations on her wrists. Both of them. She usually wore a lot of bracelets and/or sweat bands around her wrists to hide them. I was so scared at first, I actually got up mid-sentence and left. I could not understand. Did she do that on accident? How could that have happened? Did someone do that to her?

Did she intentionally do it to herself…?

This question would forever change the course of my life.

For the next week or so I thought about it constantly. I wondered if it hurt. How deep did it go? Why wasn’t she wearing Band-Aid’s? Did anybody know about it? Did she have to get stitches? How much did it bleed?

Countless questions circled in my mind for those 7 days as I thought about trying it myself. I could not bring myself to do it, though. I wanted so bad to be accepted, yet was terrified of the pain. Over the next month I pondered what I could use to do it, how I would hide it, and how to use it to my advantage in making a friend with this girl.

I had finally devised a plan. I was going to use a seam ripper from my sewing kit I had for one of my classes and do it at home after my parents went to bed. They would never know, I could clean up what ever mess was made, and I could have a friend. Seemed like a simple thing to me. On the first night that I cut myself I was scared and in pain before I even did it. I knew that if I was caught the consequences were going to be really severe, and I was willing to take them in order to be accepted by someone at school.

It was about 11:00pm and my parents were finally asleep. I grabbed my tool and headed to my bathroom to do it. I turned the light on and sat in the tub with a towel over my lap.

(pause)

Does this seem odd to you? That a 13-year-old girl has devised a methodical plan to do harm to herself just to feel accepted by someone? How can a girl of that age get to a point like that?

(play)

I looked at the ripper and the scene I had created around myself and tried to find an excuse to get out of it. Some may feel like it would have been easy for me to just say “screw it” and go back to bed and try to find another friend. It was not that simple. It is never that simple. Over and over again I attempted to find a flaw in my methodical plan to cut. I was failing. I couldn’t think of one. So I slowly lowered my right hand and allowed the bladed point of the ripper touch the skin of my left wrist. I slowly drew it across the skin and intentionally allowed it to not penetrate through. I knew at this moment that I could not watch my own skin tear and witness my own blood fall from its host. So I got up and turned the light off and went back and settled in the bathtub to attempt this one more time. I was determined. I closed my eyes and counted to three, as I said three in my head my right arm (holding the ripper) quickly swept across my left arm. I opened my eyes but the moonlight was not going to save me tonight. I was left in this bathtub with me, myself, my bloody wrist, darkness; and the overwhelming sensation that overtook my body. When I finally went back to sleep that night, I crawled into bed and rolled over and looked at my alarm clock.

1:45 am

My alarm went off at 6:30 am for me to rise and get ready for school.

The burning sensation of my arm was a pain that I had never felt before.

It was excruciating.

I loved it.

The initial feeling as I began to bleed was cold. I felt a chill take over every inch of my body. I was scared. The pain was not there; I didn’t understand why. Then, all of a sudden, like a waterfall crashing over my whole body I felt hot. I felt like I was hotter than the sun. The blood running down my arm, the adrenaline coursing through my veins literally brought me to a sweat. I had no clue how amazing this would feel. I did not understand why I got such pleasure out of something so destructive. But I loved it. That is all that matters.

I was never able to gain the acceptance of that girl in my 8th grade class. I didn’t care about her. All I cared about was when I was going to heal enough to use a new tool; to make myself bleed. It seemed to be all that I thought about. My grades suffered, I still had very few friends. Everett was aware of what was going on but was in denial, I’m pretty sure that at the time I did not have the heart to tell Kate. I knew it would cause her internal pain.

It was my drug.

I was addicted.

I had no way out.

At least not yet.

Over the next couple months I was cutting almost everyday. I eventually discovered that I could get the same intoxicating effect no matter where I would make myself bleed. My arrangement of tools got larger, and my creativity in hiding it also got larger. I was wearing more sweaters and long pants, and even more bracelets that I have made myself out of string patterns. I thought I had it all figured out. Then one day all that crashed. I got caught. I was having a birthday party, a very small one at my house and three of my “friends” came over and spent the night. All the parents had come over to pick them up and somehow all seemed to arrive at the same time. I was quite pleased with the sense of acceptance from these few girls that for a very short amount of time I was not being cautious of the cuts on my arms. I was becoming hot while we were all standing around talking about how the night went and how much fun we had when she saw it. My father’s wife saw the cuts on my wrists and literally called me out about it in front of everybody. I panicked and said that I had done it by accident while sledding, I had gone straight into a thorn-bush. I said that I had gotten a few scratches and quickly pulled down my sleeves. It soon became very obvious that all the adults knew exactly what was going on, the other girls were talking and did not seem to even take note of the dramatic scene that was unfolding in front of them. The parents wrapped up their conversation with my parents and left with my guests. I tried to sneak upstairs as my parents were saying their final goodbyes in the doorway. I did not succeed.

They gave me a stern talking to about self-mutilation, though I completely denied anything of the kind. I had simply fallen into the bush the other day while out with my sister. Plain and simple. End of story.

I found out soon after this that me and my immediate family was going to be relocating from the beautiful seacoast of New Hampshire to the flatlands of suburban Texas. I was so excited. For a while my cutting lessened. I was so hopeful that I was going to make new friends that I found myself thinking about it less and less. When it was the end of the school year and reality hit that we were to be leaving very soon I realized that I was going to be living across the country from the only friend I had ever really had. Everett was someone who I wish to this day I still had a friendship with. He was such a loyal friend, and even until the day that I left, and for a while after we were trying to talk whenever we could.

I moved to Texas and was so scared. Culture shock to the max. I had no idea it was going to be like this. So many different types of people, with 800 or so kids in my freshman class I was overwhelmed by cliques and the overwhelming sense of being lonely. My whole freshman year; I cut a lot. I had a really hard time finding friends. I had one though. Her name was Bethany. She and I were pretty close, and my parents finally let up a bit and actually allowed me to spend a good amount of time with her. She and I became very close and I found that when I was close with her, my addiction slowed down. It was an amazing feeling to be able to have something that I had always wanted.

 It was scary to miss something that I had never desired.

My period of happiness was short-lived. Even though Bethany and I were close, I still found myself desperately wanting to feel the rush again. I began to cut. I broke a mirror out of a make-up piece that I had and used that as my tool for a while.

Pieces of glass or mirror.

My “tool” of choice.

I took a dance class my sophomore year in highschool. I was lucky enough to be in a school where we didn’t really have “gym” classes. We simply took a sport, did weight lifting, or took a dance class. I had always been into dance and that kind of stuff so this really excited me. The morning of my first day of my sophomore year I was really nervous. I pulled out my piece of mirror and slashed open the skin on my ankles. I was immediately calmed by the sensation. I cleaned up, put on tall socks and went to school. My dance class was second period. I was not going to be able to shower after the class so I was not looking forward to sweating and working out for an hour then putting my cute clothes on and smelling like grossness all day. But I did what I had to do. I was soon made aware that there was going to be a uniform for the class. Black racerback top with black knee-length pants that were easy to move around in. I then had to wear black jazz shoes that would not even be close enough to cover any of the marks on my ankles. Socks were not and option. The other girls in the class soon became aware of my problem because I had no way of hiding it. It was against the class dress code to wear anything with or “instead of” the outfits purchased at the beginning of the class. I was approached by the class instructors who seemed genuinely concerned, though I was not convinced. Most of the people who had seemed to have caught onto my problem never did anything serious to try to help me with it. So when they told me that they were going to report it to the school counselors office; I didn’t buy it. Within the next two hours I was pulled out of class and brought to the counselors office where I was approached about the issue. Again I denied it but she knew damn well that I was not being honest. She saw it all the time.

That year I had my first treatment experience. I have not been able to face the reality of what happened while I was in that place. So I will not be able to share that with you now. Hopefully at some point in my life I will be able to accept and work though what happened in those 5 days that I was incarcerated with people who talked to themselves and were consistently trying to seriously injure someone. But after being in there I went 2 months without cutting. I had decided that I was not going to EVER EVER EVER go back to a place like that. I NEVER wanted to feel like that EVER again.

 I have never been so traumatized and humiliated in my life.

After leaving that horrid place, during the 2 months I was not cutting, I was in a day program where I was surrounded by other teenagers who had issues. Some were smoking marijuana, some of them had a large juvenile record, and others like me were there to get the armor needed to fight a war with themselves. I’m not saying that those who were doing drugs and breaking the law are not in a struggle with themselves, but for me and a few other girls it was MUCH deeper than that. It was more about figuring out how to deal with the issues that caused us to do the things we were doing.

This day program helped for a while; but not for long. I finally snapped and cut again. This time, though; I cut all over my stomach. I must have honestly cut myself a few dozen times in that one moment of weakness. But for the first time, it didn’t feel good. I actually felt really guilty afterwards; almost sick. I sat in my bathroom and cried for hours trying to figure out why it was that I was not able to feel the peace of the warm blood covering my emotionally dead body. The burning sensation was instant this time. I could not understand why. I grabbed my ipod and played a song. This is a song that I then played almost every time I was about to cut myself. Yes, I would listen to music while I cut.

Its called “Dear Agony“

By: Breaking Benjamin.

I have nothing left to give

I have found the perfect end

You were made to make it hurt

Disappear into the dirt

Carry me to heaven’s arms

Light the way and let me go

Take the time to take my breath

I will end where I began
And I will find the enemy within

Because I can feel it crawl beneath my skin

Dear Agony

Just let go of me

Suffer slowly

Is this the way it’s got to be?

Dear Agony
Suddenly

The lights go out

Let forever

Drag me down

I will fight for one last breath

I will fight until the end
And I will find the enemy within

 Because I can feel it crawl beneath my skin

Dear Agony

Just let go of me

Suffer slowly

Is this the way it’s got to be?

Don’t bury me

Faceless enemy

I’m so sorry

Is this the way it’s gotta be?

 Dear Agony

Leave me alone

God let me go

I’m blue and cold

Black sky will burn

Love pull me down

Hate lift me up

Just turn around

There’s nothing left
Somewhere far beyond this world

I feel nothing anymore

Dear Agony

Just let go of me

Suffer slowly

Is this the way it’s got to be?

Don’t bury me

Faceless enemy

I’m so sorry

Is this the way it’s gotta be?

Dear Agony
I feel nothing anymore

This is the end to part 1.

I feel like in this segment I have covered a lot and I do not want to overwhelm. I would appreciate comments by whoever reads this, whether it be on Facebook or on here, so I know if anyone is actually interested in even hearing the rest of the story.

Thank you for reading.

TheGirlYouDon’tKnow

P.S. Don’t be too discouraged.

I shall share with you my healing process in the next part (:

X Cutter X

The smile on the face of this girl was once an illusion. From ages 13-18 the girl in this photo was a cutter. On Monday you shall hear the story of how the illusion became her reality.

Military Men with Determination & a Broken Heart

The cries of those who need us in their moment of fear makes any human being want to reach out a hand.

There are so many different sides to every story. I can guarantee that Cinderella has a different perspective of her sisters than her step-mother does. I’m also willing to bet that King Triton from “The Little Mermaid” had a different idea of how the world above the surface worked than his daughter Ariel did. Unfortunately, this story is not one of mermaids and enchanted forests. It is a story of the men who risk their lives everyday to ensure the saftey of their people.

I will be telling the story of a few of the brave men that I know have been involved in the military because I know them personally and have seen the effects that it has taken on them. I do not discriminate against those noble women who also risk their lives to be in the military; I just do not have the personal experience to derive this piece from and I do not want to write about something I do not understand. So please, take this as a personal opnion; and not me trying to make you see things the way that I do..

Over the history of the world we as humans have seem so many wars. It started early with the creation of our kind and has continued to follow us through history up to this very minute as you sit and read my words; war is always happening. Dictionary.com has 5 different ways to define war. There is one that I will use to draw things from as I write this post. It states that war is “active hostility or contention; conflict; contest: a war of words.” From this one definition I have been able to affirm my belief that war is not just something faught on a national or global scale; but can also be faught in smaller ways. I personally feel as though within every war there are many others going on as well. It is not just all about who can blow who up and make the biggest area of destruction. Sometimes the war is faught within the souls of those carrying the guns. This brings me to share with you the experience of a very close friend of mine.

As mentioned in another post I have a close friend named Kevin. He has always been the one guy friend of mine who I have never had anything but a great friendship with. He and I talk often and are able to use each other as outlets to work through hard things we may be going through. He is also often the comic relief to the hardships I have faced in the past 5 years. But recently he has used me as an outlet to express his emotions about feeling like he let everyone down. Now, let me give you some background so that that last sentence will make more sense. Kevin has wanted to be a Marine since I have known him. I am willing to bet that he has wanted to do this for a very long time. The determination in his voice when he would call and talk to me about how thrilled he was to soon be flying to California to start Basic Training always blew me away. He was so ready to finally go off and make something of himself, and show the world what he could do. I was attending college in Utah and he was living right outside Houston when it finally came time for him to leave for Basic. He called me and said goodbye and I gave him my address and he promised to write me. I hung up the phone with him right before he got on his plane and prayed that he would be able to succeed and be all that he wanted to be. Only a week passed and I missed him terribly. I had yet to recieve a letter and wondered how he was doing. I had hoped everyday that he was not writing me because he was out there kicking ass with all of the tests they were putting him through. I called his phone knowing that nobody would answer, I just wanted to hear his goofy voicemail again and leave him something. I left a message expecting to hear back in almost 2 1/2 months later. Unfortunately only another three weeks went by and I got a call from him. He was back home. I had never heard his voice so cold from a frozen heart. He seemed to have no emotion and addressed me as ma’am. This was not the Kevin I had always known. I was worried. He had been screwed by his recruiter because he had failed to put in his records that Kevin had previously had a collapsed lung. Kevin was then charged with “Medical Fraud” and was sent back home. He now can not attempt to re-join the Marines for another 2 years. Never in my life had I seen a guy with such an openly broken heart. It seemed that he did not know how to deal with it. He and his girlfriend that he had left behind started fighting more than ever because she could not seem to get into his head and help him. He seemed to have completly emotionally shut down and there was no getting to him. A few weeks passed and he stopped addressing me as ma’am and started calling me by my name again. I missed him saying it. I hated being called ma’am. It has now been a couple months since he returned and he is finally becoming happy again. He is a rock climber and will be working the walls at the Super Bowl and is so excited about it. Good Job, Kevin. I’m so proud of you.

Another friend of mine, a guy that I went to highschool with, named Mike; is also a military hopeful. He finnished Basic training and wanted to go places with his military career, but it seemed like so many things got in the way. I do not know him like I know Kevin but we still talk often and he asks me about certain situations and what he thinks I should do about them. I have found that he struggles the most with his ability to have relationships with women. He seems to do okay with his family and friend relationships but when it comes to romantic ones he has a tough time. I once dated mike for a short time and it didn’t work out, but I know for a fact that he has a heart of gold and is one of the “good ones” that so many girls wish they could find. I think sometimes he puts on a front like he is a badass but inside he is just a cuddly teddy bear. Could it be that these struggles are derived somewhat from the fact that he is an Army boy? Are we ladies scared to get attached to something that we don’t know for sure will always be around? Hell yeah we are. Every woman wants to know that there is a possibility of “forever” when they get really emotionally attached to someone. I’m not saying that this will happen with every relationship where you feel attached, because it wont, but we as women still desire it. I often read his facebook statuses talking about how he feels like he doesn’t understand why he can’t hold a long relationship. Could it be because of the possibility of him leaving for a year at a time? It very well could. But I personally feel that as women we need to take more chances. Men take chances everyday, just asking us out  the first time is taking a chance, and everytime after that! I would also like to state that I would be proud of being the girlfriend or wife of a man in the military. Seeing how selfless someone can be to purposfully put themselves in harms way for the benefit of others is something that any woman would desire in her partner.

From another perspective is it that these men are being selfless or are they trying to boost their own ego? I think that there are so many reasons why people join the military. Let’s explore a few….

1. To prove to oneself their own self-worth.

I know for a fact that many people struggle throughout their lives. Whether it was persecution from their peers at school, people within their own family, or self inflicted; we all feel it at some point. Many people who struggle with their self image I would imagine would see joining the military as a way to prove to both themselves and those around them that they are worth more than they are given credit for. If you had grown up being picked on for being scrawny, wouldn’t you want to grow muscle when you got older in order to “show them” that you could be what you wanted to be and they didn’t have the power to define you?

2.Tradition

Many families are often refered to as “Military Families”. More often than not the son of a father who served will want to follow in his footsteps. I’m not saying that this is the case with every family and father/son relationship, because I know that it is not. I do believe, though, that in many families the sense of tradition is very significant. This applies to families all over the world, not just in America. Men who have gone to war and were blessed enough to be able to return and build a family might want to allow their son to feel that same sense of pride in his country. Whether it is soldiers in place like, Russia, China, or even way back in history where the Spartans were fighting, the sense of tradition will live on.

3. Pride for their country.

This is a much simpler reason. After the attack on the Twin Towers we as a country were closer to each other than we have been in many decades. More and more people were going to church and being involved in things in their communities. People looked a life a little bit differently. It was no longer about living day to day, it was about planning for the future and what could happen next. Everyone suffered from the losses of those who died of that dreadful day. But personally I feel like it effected the men of our nation more than anyone else. ( I am not minimizing the pain of everyone else…just hear me out ). It seems that in the way society has portrayed the role of men they are supposed to be the protectors. They are typically the ones who “hold down the fort” and are able to be the one who watches over their families. Well whether you like to believe it or not as Americans we are all family. We all live on the same soil and we are all supposed to be able to protect each other. I know that this does not happen like it would in my ideal world, but I feel like we are supposed to be there to keep each other safe. In the case of the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001 the men of our nation could do nothing but wait for the scene to replay on their screen as the sense of helplessness overtook them. There were hundreds of heroes that day. Many people came together, police, firemen, and even regular civilians just like you and me came together to save the lives of those who they could. If you are a man and you were to witness something horrific like that happening right before your eyes and you were not able to do anything in that moment wouldn’t you want to do anything that you could to make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future??

There are many different causes and effects to people joining the military. Whether it is before they are shipped out, while they are in their deployment, or after they return; they all suffer from a broken heart. Many of them would not admit it, but I am willing to bet that they have been effected somehow by the process. It may have been in the smallest of ways, but sometimes those small things are the things that effect us the most.

I am proud to say that I know quite a few men in the Forces.

I am proud to be an American.

I Feel So Much Better; Now That You’re Gone Forever.

“Gone Forever“

Don’t know what’s going on

Don’t know what went wrong

Feels like a hundred years

I Still can’t believe you’re gone

So I’ll stay up all night

With these bloodshot eyes

While these walls surround me with the story of our life

I feel so much better

Now that you’re gone forever

I tell myself that I don’t miss you at all

I’m not lying, denying that I feel so much better now

That you’re gone forever

Now things are coming clear

And I don’t need you here

And in this world around me I’m glad you disappeared

So I’ll stay out all night

Get drunk and fuckin’ fight

Until the morning comes

I’ll Forget about our life

I feel so much better

 Now that you’re gone forever

I tell myself that I don’t miss you at all

I’m not lying, denying that I feel so much better now

That you’re gone forever
First time you screamed at me

I should have made you leave

I should have known it could be so much better

I hope you’re missing me

I hope I’ve made you see

That I’m gone forever

And now it’s coming clear

That I don’t need you here

And in this world around me

I’m glad you disappeared
I feel so much better

 Now that you’re gone forever

I tell myself that I don’t miss you at all

I’m not lying, denying that I feel so much better now

That you’re gone forever

And now you’re gone forever

And now you’re gone forever

By: Three Days Grace

I tell myself that you will come back around.

I wake up in the morning hoping that for some reason you will find an excuse to call me. Even if you were calling to yell at me again I would love to just hear your voice. I miss you. I miss the way we used to do things together, I was always such a “Daddy’s Girl”. Now I feel like a part of me is missing. I wish you hadn’t made the descision that you did. I doubt you will ever see this, but if you do I hope that you know that even though I wake up everyday and look in the mirror and see your picture taped to the side I still look at MY OWN reflection. For the past couple months I have been just staring at your picture and not even looking ay me own reflection. I have lost sight of myself. You will remail right where you are, but I refuse to allow you to bring me to such an unhappy place. It’s pathetic that through no communication you have gotten such a tight bond of my heart and mind. But like I said, you probably will never see this and that is okay with me. It’s not really for you to see, it’s simply a method for me to feel.

Oh the Joy of Digital Art

Made this for that "special someone"..

The Golden Ticket: To Relationships

I wish so dearly that I could give you a list of all of the do’s and don’ts of relationships and have the ability to reassure you that this list would ensure you a happy, healthy, and productive relationship. But unfortunately, I am not a big blue jeanie who came out of a bottle with magical powers. There is no way of knowing everything that is good and bad with every relationship. All relationships are different and they all have their own meaning. I’m not just going to be talking about relationships between you and your significant other. I plan on making this post about all relationships.

Some of you who are reading this will more than likely know me and know about my history with relationships. I have always struggled with them. Whether it was maintaining a relationship with my boyfriend, bestfriend, or even my parents; I always had a really hard time.

The Situation:

I never really had a good relationship with my mother. She and I always had things in the way of us having a relationship. Many of them on her side of the equation. She was always very wrapped up in her own world and didn’t ever seem to want to spend time with me. There were many times where I would literally be sitting on my doorstep, my bag packed; so excited to go spend the weekend with my mom! Often times, she wouldn’t come. I never understood why, and as a child I was not expected to. I had engraved in my own head that she was not coming to see me because I was not worthy of her love. I thought that I had done something bad to make her not want me. Over and over again I attempted to understand why it was that she couldn’t love me like I needed her to. To this day I still wonder why I had her as my knight on a white horse. I always threw every other adult aside in order to make room for her if she ever wanted to come back and be a part of my life, like I had always prayed she would. This resulted in me isolating myself, because she never rode in on that white horse. It never happened, and in the process of me attempting to make room for her I pushed so many people away so much that when I finally realized that she was who she was and that was not going to change…I had very few people left by my side to help me. It took about 10 years for me to finally accept the way that things are. Every girl want’s to have a relationship with their mother, and to a certain degree I have one now. But it will never be how I had always dreamt that it would be.

Lesson to learn:

YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS! I feel like so many people put themselves out in hopes of being able to change someones life. I have always been one of those people who wore my heart on my sleeve and it has been one of the reasons that I often find myself at the end of the road by myself and hurt. I want to make it very clear that there is a really big difference between doing everything you can to help someone better THEIR OWN lives, and doing what YOU can to change THEIR lives. This is a concept that took me a very long time to grasp. I often found myself wanting to focus on people around me and do whatever I could to “fix” them because I never wanted to have to focus on my own healing process that was much needed. Helping people is such a noble thing, but you have to know how to do it. This may seem like a very strange statement, and at first glance it is; but it makes sense. If you were to see someone on the side of the road who looked homeless holding up a sign that read “No money for food, please help” what would you do? Would you drop a 10 at their feet as you drove by so that you didn’t have to put too much effort into it, or would you be the person to go into the closest food store and buy them some food to eat? In the past I would have been the type of person who would just toss them the bill, but realistically that is not the best way to help someone. If they are in desperate need of food, why give them money? You have to learn how to give people what they need, while still protecting yourself. You can do so many things to help people, but there is a difference between “enabling” and “helping”. The biggest thing I want to stress here is that you can’t change every person that you see struggling. If you want to help someone the best thing to do is to give them the tools that they need to make themselves better.

The Situation:

Making friends is a very important part of any child’s life. Whether they are making friends with their peers at school, with other campers at a summer day program, or at sunday school; it’s essential that as a child we learn how to build relationships. I personally had a really hard time doing this. I always, from what seemed like day #1 had self-esteem issues. I always was comparing myself to the other girls who had longer prettier hair than I did, or who wore the newest fashions and made them look really pretty. I always wanted to be something that I was not and could not be. It became a battle that I fought with myself. During elementary school I didn’t really have any friends. (This you would have gathered if you have read my post from yesterday!) The couple that I had were really special and I love both of them to death. Everett is really hard to get a hold of these days and seems to have distanced himself from the world which has made it extremely hard for us to continue our friendship. On the other side of it, Kate is now living about an hour away from me and we talk often and are trying to make plans to see each other again and catch up on what the last 8 years have been like for the two of us. I wish so often that I could call up a “girl-friend” and ask her to go to coffee and reminisce about all the times we had in highschool or even just in school in general. I have a total of 1 person who I still talk to on a daily/weekly basis who I was friends with during my highschool years. The funny part about that is that I did not even meet him in school, we met at church. I made a few really good friends and even had a long-term relationship with someone from church. Kevin is the one friend who I have found has actually stuck around. I will be totally honest I am not the easiest person to be friends with. I have a lot of family drama and I have my own set of dramas within myself that I battle every single day. But he has been there. We went a total of two years without talking because I was sent away to a program for a year and a half or so; but when I got out he was right there waiting by the phone to hear from me. It is friends like Kevin who do not give up that make me still have hope that I can build meaningful friendships.

Lesson to learn:

Keep trying. Not every friendship is going to be easy. Heck! No relationship at all is ever easy! They all take work. Being able to have even just a few consistent friends in my life has made it so much better for my day-to-day life. I find myself feeling a bit empty when I go a long time without talking to the people who mean the most to me. It’s never easy to sort through those who are real friends and those who are just using you, either. I have had my fair share of people who have used and abused me and my inability to read the red flags that should have thrown me off the track I was going down. Many people saw how vulnerable I was from day one and used that to their advantage in order to get what they wanted. This happened more with my “romantic” relationships, which is what I will address next.

The Situation:

This will be strictly from a girls perspective. I will be talking about this in a heterosexual way and I want to make it clear that I do not discriminate against anyone who is gay, bisexual, transgender, or anything like that. I just have only had one type of experience that I can draw my conclusions from and that is how I will do this. If you feel like this will not apply to you then you are welcome to continue scrolling down the page until you find the next situation.

I have not had much luck with guys. I say “not much” because I have had a couple of really amazing and meaningful relationships that I have learned a lot from, but I have also had a few that were so destructive that it makes my heart cry just thinking about them. The first boy that I ever loved was Everett. He was such a little trouble maker, and came from a really broken home, but had such an amazingly big heart. He would have done anything for me at a moments notice. He and I shared a lot of special moments together. He was the one who gave me my first kiss. It was in the parking lot of the town library and I had basically told him that I loved him and he kissed me without me even realizing what was happening. I have often thought of him over the past 7 years wondering where he was gone with his life and if he was happy and successful. I still hope to someday see him again. My freshman year of highschool I met this guy named Brad. He was such a hunk. There were so many girls that I knew that wanted to date him and for some reason he liked me, a lot. I never understood it and still to this day don’t understand what he saw in me. I was just an average looking, akaward girl who didn’t have any clue how to be in a real relationship. My parents never let me leave the house unless I was going to church or school so this complicated things. Not just because he was never able to actually take me on a date, but because I was never able to learn about how a real relationship was supposed to work. Brad was so special to me. He was really handsome and always seemed to understand me. I made some mistakes in the relationship, and so did he. There was cheating and lying involved and it became an on and off thing. For two years we were dating on and off and it took a really big tole on me. I did not know how to handle it. Now he is off playing college football on the other side of the country from me and I could not ever be more proud of what he has made of himself. He is still a goofball like I remember him, but has really grown into a man, good job Brad. Then there was Gordon. He was my first boyfriend who my parents knew about. They were still apprehensive about me spending time with him but nevertheless they still knew of his existence and the part he played in my life. He was such a gentleman, he was different from the other guys; he was gentle with both me and my emotions. He was not the type to play games and he often did and said many little things that almost brought me to tears because I could see his sincerity in the things the was saying and doing. It ended dramatically when my father told me one day that he was sending me to live with my mother on the other side of the country. I was leaving only a week after he told me that I was going ,and I had very little time to have closure. I cried everyday that week. Being at school was miserable. I had very few friends, yet I found myself wishing every moment of those last 7 days in Texas that I could stay. I knew that moving away was going to contribute to mybeautifuldownfall  whether that was going to happen soon after leaving or farther down the road I knew that it would be disastrous. Gordon and I eventually both moved on. We are both happy with where our lives have taken us and we are also both in other relationships. I know that people often say that time heals all wounds. I personally felt like that was a load of bull but for some reason with this; the time away from each other made it easier. Time healed that wound. Now I am in a wonderful relationship with a guy who means the world to me. Andy and I have connected on a level that is hard to reach in most relationships, especially for the short amount of time we have been dating. It is coming close to being 3 months that we have been seeing each other, but with the special connection we have and the bond that we share you would think it to be much longer. There is something about him that has captured my heart. The first time we kissed I cried. Literally, while he was kissing me I was crying. I did not understand why, and still to this day don’t quite get it. But you know how people say that sometimes when you kiss someone the whole world around you seems to melt away and it feels like it’s just you and that person alone in the world? Well, that is EXACTLY how I felt in that moment, and I think to some degree that frightened me. I felt like there were no worries in the world. At that time I had so much going on in my life that I had not had a clear mind for at least a couple years, then with one simple but elegant kiss all of that anger, pain, hurt, and fear in my heart melted away. He is really special to me and I thank God every single day for putting him in my life.

Lesson to learn:

Not every relationship is going to be sunshine and roses, they are going to be hard. A cousin of mine posted on Facebook the other day that falling in love was just and illusion, love is something that you DO. As a girl in her teenage years she wants to think like Taylor Swift; that someday soon your prince charming is going to ride on his white horse and sweep you away and if he doesn’t then you can burn his picture. That is so NOT realistic. Every relationship is different and needs to be treated as such. Every person is different as well and the same principle needs to be put into practice there too. You can’t make someone fall in love with you, you either have it or you don’t. If you feel like you are always trying to do things in order to please your partner to keep them with you then you probably are trying in vain. If you even begin to feel like you have to do good deeds or works in order to keep your partner interested in you then I can almost guarantee that the relationship is not going to last much longer. BUT if you do something that I have found to be essential in all relationships; communicate, then you might be able to save what you have built. I personally believe that if you do not have the right balance of communication in your relationships, all of them regardless of what it’s with, then it will fail to work in a healthy way.

I know for a fact that as humans we desire to be cared about and loved. But as my last note I want to say that in order to have working and productively functioning relationships you need to first love yourself. This may sound cliché, but it is so true. If you can’t accept yourself for who you really are and learn to embrace all that you are and can be then how can you #1. Expect someone else to love you and accept you for who you are, and #2. Expect to have the knowledge needed to truly accept someone else for who they are.

I know that this post has been abnormally long but I really wanted to get everything in there. Thank you so much for reading this and I hope that you learned a thing or two that you can apply to your own life and reflect upon. I will be posting again soon.

Thank you for your time!

Alexandra

It all starts with something…

 Every story starts somewhere. Whether it’s at the penthouse of a castle with a beautiful damsel in distress, in the desert where a baby lion is born, or under the sea with many beautiful and colorful creatures; every story begins somewhere.

My story begins somewhere a little less “fairytale-like”. I was born in a small town in New Hampshire to a couple who were very young. At the time of my birth my father was 21 and my mother was 20. I had a very interesting few beginning years of my life. They were filled with everything from many runs to Dunkin’ Donuts for munchkins before school, being a witch for halloween almost three years in a row, and even spending up to 5 hours sledding with a couple friends on “snow-days”. Unfortunatley the beginning years of my life were also filled with many memories that are not so happy. Things like the divorce of my parents which resulted in the absence of my mother was exteremly hard for me to deal with. Tthe death of my wonderful great-grandmother, and being constantly bullied at school; made things really hard for me.

I still to this day, at age 18, don’t quite understand how it is that I survived elementary school. Most people think of either middle school or highschool to be their worst years, but for me it was most certinally my first 6 years of school. I only had two friends. Everett and Kate were the only two people in my elementary school years who accepted me. Everyone else would use as me as either entertainment or someone to take their own issues out on. Everett was my best friend. He and I always were together. We always sat together at lunch, played together on the playground, and even caused some trouble together. Although, I must admit that he seemed to be a bit more a of trouble maker than I ever was. Kate was my friend later in my years in elementary school. She and I were both pretty quiet and reserved. She and I would spend time together at school but never seemed to get the chance to have a “play date” outside of school. Even though we didn’t ever have that chance we still were best of friends. It eventually become kind of like a “Three Musketeers” type scene. Everett, Kate & I were almost inseperable in school. The three of us were always picked on, but it always was okay because we had each other to get through it all. I distinctly remember one day this one kid Steve was making fun of me out on the playground. He was being really mean and I was almost about to cry because my feelings were so hurt by the things he was saying. Both Kate and Everett stood up for me. Especially Everett because he and I had a special bond.

Being picked on was something that happened on a very regular basis. I was a little redhead who was akward and didn’t do well at much that I tried at. I always sucked at sports and gym class was a nightmare. I never really did good at math, or art…or any other class for that matter. Other than my music class. I used to feel so calm and peaceful whenever I was in that class. I was really into singing. I always have been; even though I have severe stage fright I still loved being in a group. Unfortuatley by 5th grade things got really bad.

Almost every school in my area had a “Field Day” for some of the kids in the elementary schools. As a 5th grader we got the privilage of being able to go to the town park to do our daily activities. I was so excited because I was never really allowed to do much of anything or go anywhere so being able to go somewhere to play was always something that I was excited about. I remember at the time I was totally crushing on this one boy Tom. He was so cute and I totally liked him; (as much as a 5th grader can…). He had three girls that he was friends with that I kind of knew. I had spent a lot of time trying to fit in with these girls and getting to know them so I could be considered “cool” but always ended up being picked on or bullied some more. But they had made a plan to embarass me not having any clue that it would be one of the things that scarred me the most. The girls told me that Tom wanted me to meet him at the top of the hill by the swings. I had no idea what it was that he wanted to meet me about. I thought that maybe the girls had told him that I liked him and he was going to tell me that he liked me to and I was so excited. Being the silly little girl that I was I felt no threat in the situation. So I went up there at the top of the hill park during the field day lunch break and saw him standing by the swings with his hands behind his back. He had a really big smile on his face and I thought that he was going to kiss me or something! I was so excited because I had never been kissed before! I could hardly contain the excitement. He asked me to come closer to him. I though he was going to give me a hug first. So I got close to him and he put two hands full of ice down the back of my shirt. He and the girls and a couple other people laughed at me as I ran back down the hill crying. I was so mortified at what had just happened.

It is really sad that I realized at such a young age that there are such mean people in the world. Over the past 6 years I have had a lot of experiences that I have seen the cruelness in others. The ones that you are supposed to always depend on are the ones who have turned against me. The friends who promised to always stand by me are the ones who have hurt me the most. And the boys that I thought I could have possible someday fallen in love with were the ones who broke my heart. I have discovered that there is no way of telling when someone’s intentions may change. More than likely when you meet someone and they seem nice and you know each other for a while they probably have good intentions; and it will stay that way. Unfortunately for me, I have usually gotten the short end of the stick and those people are the ones who end up being the most relentless in their agression and cruelness.

Every story starts somewhere. This blog will be the story of how what seemed like a perfect life from the outside became my ultimate downfall. It became the thing that broke me and made me do things that I pray everyday I could take back.

(( The names in this story have been changed ))

 

I will be updating often so stay tuned for more of the story of…

MyBeautifulDownfall

Brace yourself.

I hope you like what you see.

If you do then tell your friends so they can enjoy it too.

If you do not then send it to your enemies to annoy them.

Thanks.