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trigger warnings: previous suicidal thoughts, self harm, death of a friend, child abuse/neglect, animal death, CSA, grooming, disordered eating, potentially abusive relationship?? (not sure), dysphoria, homophobia, transphobia, marijuna, alcoholism, mild religious trauma, potential pedophilia, isolation
howdy there, im rowan C:
i've gone through a lot in my life and im getting a bit better at processing whats happened to me now that im in my late teens but ive never really sat down and wrote it all out before. My friend said it might help me. I have a horrible memory so theres a chance i could repress some of these things and never really process them if that makes sense? im doing this for myself really so im not going to be too strict with my grammar and punctuation and capitalization, but if you can relate with anything in my story you're welcome to share and we can relate. itd be nice knowing im not alone.
im the oldest of 8 kids. when i was born my mom didnt really want me? my parents were young. they wanted a baby to play dress up with but they didnt want a child to raise. they let my grandparents raise me a bit until someone commented on their parenting and they took me back i guess. i dont remember much. my dad used to grow marijuna in the basement and they'd let me play in it when i was younger. this was early 2000s and its still not legal in the state we lived in at the time. not good stuff. they'd fight a lot. i remember that. they'd fight and break stuff and my dad would drink and leave for a few days and i'd stay with my grandparents. once i grew too old to be dressed up they had more kids, the elder twins. then the next twins, and the others. this is a common theme. the only reason my parents havent had more kids after my youngest brother is the fact the doctor told my mom it would kill her if she did.
i went to a catholic private school for pre-k. this was a new england private school that was joined to a church ran by literal nuns. i dont remember much. i had a crush on this one girl i think. she went trick or treating with us one year and i was peter pan well she was tinker bell. i joke with my friends that that was my first gay experience. the other thing i remember from that school is they were really strict with me when it came to my home life. i'd come in with bruises or burns and i'd be too groggy to learn cursive and they'd humilate me in front of the class and whack my knuckles with rulers and the evil stuff you see in movies. i got really scared of my teacher to the point i'd hold in my pee all day to make sure i didnt have to speak to her and ask to use the bathroom. i got detention for 4 months once when i was an hour late to morning mass. i was 5 or 6 and i got punished at home as well for the detentions.
my grandma and dad took me to a doctor around this time and all i remember from what my grandma told me is the therapist thought i had anxiety and i got a dyslexia and ADHD diagnosis. my mom flipped out when she learned that i was being looked into for anxiety and she pulled me out of school and started to homeschool me. this didnt really last long. she got tired of teaching my dyslexic little self to read and gave up on me around age 7 or 8. to make matters worse, my dad got in a bit of trouble with the marijuna he was growing and we had to relocate entirely. we sold our stuff and moved from the east coast to the west coast when i was 9, leaving behind every family member who cared for me.
when i was 9 my mom was pregnant with one of my youngest brothers and my dad was cheating on her. he'd leave for days on end and my mom (who suffered from depression and anxiety herself at this time) wouldnt be able to take care of the rest of my siblings, being the oldest in the family i took on that parental role and helped my younger siblings with school, chores and cooking dinner for them. we were dirt poort at the time as well so i was also responsible walking them too and from a nearby school for breakfast and lunch to get free food. when my dad was home he was violent. not towards the kids, he'd only shout at us, but he'd hit my pregnant mother and i remember being 9 or 10 and crying on the phone with my grandma begging her to take us back. she couldnt, she was pushing 90 at the time and was in retirement.
i turned to the internet for the first time at 10 with the introduction of a tablet, a gift from my grandma at christmas time. i talked to people on forums just like these and told them about my life. thats when i learned that puking from anxiety every night wasnt normal. your dad hitting your mom wasnt normal. all of your family sleeping on the floor of the living room in a 2 bedroom house because your dad grew pot in the other two rooms wasnt normal. the internet was my safe haven all through another move. we had to sell our things and fly across the country again because my grandma was having issues with her heart and my mom (her daughter) needed to be there but couldnt leave us alone with my dad, so we moved.
all through this time and the year or two prior i wasnt being actively taught. what i learned i learned from the internet or from other family members helping me out now and again. up until i was 15 i was still at a 4th math level. it was humilating. we lived at my dads moms house and they were somehow poorer than we were. my dads adult aged siblings lived with their parents and only because of them were my grandparents able to pay the bills. we lived out of my dads old childhood bedroom for 10 months. a queen size mattress and 2 cots in a tiny room. there were 9 people in the family at the time, including my parents. my grandparents relationship reflected that of my parents. theyd fight and scream well into the night, just like my mom and dad would. i'd curl up on the floor with my siblings and try to sleep through it. there were no locks on the bathroom doors and my uncle would make comments about walking in on me showering sometimes. he never did but the comments have always bothered me. theres a possibility he hurt me in that way when he was a teenager and i was a toddler because theres a large chunk of time i dont remember that my grandma refers to as the bad times. shes never told me what exactly happened but i lived with him and his girlfriend for a period of time ig.
my grandma lived, thankfully. shes alive and kicking to this day. when i was 11 we moved back to california, this time we opted to drive down the entire east coast of the united state to visit my great aunt in florida first. the drive was terrible, but because we stayed in hotels my dad wouldnt scream so much but he made a point to go and visit a strip club for every state we went to and do his best to pick up a girl there. my mom still doesnt know about that part. he'd bring them back to our hotel room and do them in the shower when he thought we were all asleep.
my great aunt was nice. she works at a school and she taught me a bit when she could and she let me help her pick out movies and stuff for her "kids". there was a lake behind her house with pretty birds and i would draw out on her back porch for hours and listen to my moms brother give me life advice. he was 22 at the time and an alcoholic. my mom compares me to him a lot now. i dont remember the specifics of the advice but it was warning. i wish i paid more attention back then. my great aunts house had 3 rooms and a garage converted into a man cave/bedroom. my parents and youngest siblings slept in the man cave/bedroom, me and the other older kids slept in the guest bedroom, we shared 2 twin beds, my uncle had a room and my great aunt had a room. my uncle would listen to us older kids complain about our parents sometimes through the wall at night and he'd take me for long drive, drunk off his ass, giving me advice. he told me i should just run away. i was a big enough kid to handle the world myself.
i was 11 for context.
soon enough we went back to the west coast.
this is where stuff gets really bad..
my mom found out i was using the kindle to talk about her online and she smashed it, berated me for hours, hit me and worst of all she isolated my from my siblings. i dont remember how much time it was exactly but it was around 8 months because i missed all of summer and she let me out on my 12th birthday. she had me on a crib mattress in the master bedrooms walk in closet. i ate in there and i was let out twice a day to go to the bathroom. she was scared the internet made me gay and i'd tell my siblings about the horrors of it. that isolation created my fear of the dark. i tried to run away a few times by picking the door and leaving through the back porch but i never got more then a few blocks before returning and going back into the closet because if i left i knew my siblings wouldve been punished for my actions. at the time i thought that i had done something wrong. i really did.
when i got out i became the family scapegoat and the physical abuse from my dad started. i also started deliberately self harming with sharp objects. i know from my grandma that when i was younger i'd scratch my arms till they bled to "feel good" but this is when the cutting started. this is also when i started physically developing and my gender dysphoria worsened along with my mothers comments about my weight which drove me to develop an eating disorder.
i dont really know what to say about this time other then it was one of the darkest periods of my life and not only do i still suffer from dysphoria and my eating disorder (which fits best under the anorexia category but i've never been diagnosed, which we'll get to in a second.) but i still have scars on my breasts and stomach from this time, both from selfharm and from my dad shoving me into things. fun. my pet bird was found dead randomly and i was blamed for it and severely punished for being an animal murderer and for a long time i was gaslighted into thinking i was which caused a tremendous amount of self hatred.
this continued till we moved into a different house and i met my friend watson. he was my saving grace. i was 13ish at the time and he was 16 and we became best friends. i opened up to him about my home life and he created a code with me so i could text him from my ipod (gifted to me by my cousin on my 13th birthday) and he could come pick me up and drive around with me so i could freely cry and scream and get my frustration out. if it ever got too bad he'd park down the street from my house and let me sleep in his car. he'd wake me up early in the morning and snuck me back in.
the year i turned 14 was when everything went to shit. it was a series of bad things. my mom found out i identified as bisexual and tried to "beat the gay out of me" and set me up with multiple sons of her friends, all at least 2 years older then me. on top of this my online relationship was falling apart and i was being ghosted. i went to one of these dudes for comfort and he offered me a drink and said i could sleepover and stay with him and cry it all out.
he sexually assaulted me
and blackmailed me with pictures he took of me well i was drunk and out cold on his couch.
i told my mom and she made me apologize to him, not believing me. he was furious and he not only sent the pictures to friends of his but he doxxed me and threatened to tell my mom about my online friends as well. he said he wouldnt tell my mom if i wouldnt rat him out again. so he continued sexually abusing me for another year until he moved away to go to college. during that year some other horrific stuff happened. i was groomed by adults in their 20s and 30s and introduced to a lot of things i shouldnt have been at the tender age of 14/15. i was sexually harassed multiple times. my eating disorder got better because i was able to learn about it and get some help that i needed. worst of all my best friend watson killed himself on christmas eve. his mom blamed me and i wasnt allowed to go to his funeral. i never got closure for it and it hurts every day.
i attempted suicide myself that spring because i was being raped, groomed, blamed, hit, and bullied and i couldnt figure out how else to make it stop. i failed, thankfully. best of all i met jake.
jakes a few months younger than me and several inches taller. hes pretty and he understands me better than i can understand myself sometimes. he loved me through my darkest moment and celebrated the day my rapist moved to college. he comforted me when my dad beat me so hard i passed out in my driveway in a puddle of my own vomit. we went strong for about a year and a halfish (18 months to be exact) and we had to split up because of our mental health beginning to hurt the other, we werent communicating and i was having monthly meltdowns because i thought he was cheating on me (he wasnt i just have Trust Issues and Anxiety :D
the breakup was recent. this is sort of where im at now.
im pretty sure* i have the following: depression, anxiety, dyslexia, ADD, eating disorder and the possibility of me having bpd has been brought up in the past 7 months. im still looking into it but i fit it pretty well and ive lurked in the bpd forums here and i relate to a lot of the experiences others have. I'm 4 months clean from self harm and my last suicide attempt was 6 months ago. Im finally at a healthy weight for my height and age. I started doing online college courses and im focusing more on my writing.
The breakup was the worst thing to happen in awhile. He was my rock and i did everything with him. it was a mutual choice but it still really hurts. i kind of dont know who i am without him. i started doing 7-cups because i hoped it would help more then just sadly researching stuff at 4 am well crying into a bag of doritos and listening to lorde. i want to be a better person for him. i dont really think i deserve to be better but im working on it. for now my motivations him. we got in a fight recently because i had a nervous breakdown and spilled all my problems onto him but we're trying to talk it out and be healthy about it, im trying to fix it. im really trying to be better.
* due to how poor we were growing up, my mom being anti-medicine and the insane amount of domenstic violence going on i wasnt able to see a doctor/dentist let alone a therapist at all for several years of my life. at the moment im still unable to afford seeing a professional let alone get a diagnosis. im moving out very soon and will then get a job so i hope to afford it soon. im not trying to self diagnose. this is what i've gathered over my years of research. i use these labels to help better describe my experiences. i understand that i dont have these things. im not claiming i do.