Hello everyone!
So many of you have come to notice that I don't really talk about myself and there's a reason for that. The bad, dark corners of my life, have always made me feel weird, like I'm attempting to one up someone else's trauma when the reality is, I'm not, I'm merely telling my story. So after many months, nay, years of not telling my story, I'm now comfortable enough to do so. So for those who may be easily triggered by talks of mental health, please stop reading now. I won't be issuing any further warnings than the one you've gotten now.
So my life for the most part was a fairly easy going one. I was never 'abused' per say but as I got older, that's when things began to change. First off, the bullying began at school then it would transfer to the home. The main culprit at the time? My name. Yep! A literal thing I had no control over, was the main source of my being bullied at school. What's my name you ask? Well it's Robyn. From the time I hit grade 2, I was bullied without mercy I was taunted, teased, and asked why my mom hadn't named me Bluejay, Rooster, etc. At home, for whatever reason, my family never corrected my baby brother whenever he'd call me 'Robbie'. They knew how much I despised being called that and would often laugh about it, even when it would cause me to lash out in the end.
Another source of contention was the lack of understanding of how ADHD in kids worked. I was first diagnosed in 1992 when the processes of figuring out just what ADHD was, was being dove into by medical professionals. But due to this lack of understanding, this lack of teaching both parents and children, I was tormented due to how I would act, You see, I always thought I was a horse. My ADHD didn't let me act normal and acting (mainly running about) like a horse, to me and for me, was normal. Due to this, I was teased, belittled, and often pushed around while at school. I had very few friends and the ones I did have, would up and leave come the following year or whenever we would move into the next grade.
The icing on the cake? Being held back in grade 6. My grandmother, who was raising me, felt I wasn't ready to go into grade 7 and thus forced the school I was attending at the time to hold me back an extra year. This meant enduring my previous classmates ridicule alongside my new classmates taunts of my being stupid, retarded, etc. More often than not, their teasing would escalate to physical attacks and it became too much. By the time I was 10 years old, I'd already attempted suicide by overdose. And then, the darkest moment of my young life happened.
You see, I was an 'early bloomer'. I got my monthly as soon as I hit 12 years of age. When I tell you it was the scariest moment of my life, seeing my pants soaked in blood and blood everywhere in the bathroom, yeah. Try explaining that to a terrified 12 year old, is like trying to explain the birds and the bees to a 5 year old. It's never going to work. But then, during the early spring months of 2001, just one month prior to my 13th birthday, I was sexually assaulted, raped, and left bleeding in bed. Less than a month later, just 5 weeks before my 13th birthday, I was being rushed to hospital for an emergency D&E (Dilation and evacuation) for something that should of never happened. While suspicions are high as to who did this, there was never enough solid evidence and as DNA was still in it's early stages, my family simply brushed it under the rug. But the damages were done. While many of my classmates were enjoying being teens, I'd had to endure something only an adult should go through.
It was also around this time, that I was informed, right on the heels of one of the worst moments of any child's life, that I was in fact, adopted. I'd learned in the blink of an eye, that my classmates, kids not much older than myself, had in fact, been telling me the truth and not lying, as so many of the 'adults' had claimed. From the time I was 13yrs old till I was 15yrs old, I was near constantly in trouble, in some way shape or form, with the law. Minor offences but still.
It was after my final and last offence, that I was assigned a care worker and it was through her, that years worth of childhood trauma, abuse, mistreatment, and far worse, were discussed with my grandmother. And as much as I love my grandmother, she did in fact, try to gloss over much of the abuse I'd endured with the 'kids will be kids' saying whenever my being bullied, not only as a child in her own home but at school, was brought up. However, when it was made known that she had watched as her then, common law husband had literally sat on her granddaughter's body, at the age of only 7yrs old and took a lighter and burned her fingers on both hands, causing second degree burns on an adult but third degree burns on a child, my care worker immediately shut her excuses down.
The near constant and often never ending bickering between her and her common law husband, much of which would escalate from verbal fights to physical, much of it that I not only witnessed but would more often than not, get caught in the middle, later saw me diagnosed with severe cPTSD. Yelling, screaming, sudden movements, all see me shying away and thinking I'm going to be yelled at and or struck. Even in my thirties, it still lingers. The many fights I witnessed as a child, have left a scar that never really heals. The physical abuse I endured when my bio9logical father, in a drunken rage, attacked his only daughter (more about that can be read here) and left semi permanent brain damage that has had a life long lasting effect on her ability to process things, remember things, and understand things.
But how have I coped? How have I survived, what my family doctors, both past and present, and therapist, have all cited as an extreme case of psychological, emotional, mental, physical and even spiritual abuse? Well for starters I got a tattoo🤣Every time I look at it, it reminds me of what I endured and that I'm alive to tell my story. That I not only survived, but I defied the odds that were stacked so largely against me. I chose to flip the switch on history. Many of my classmates, who later went through similar cases of abuse, haven't been as lucky. Many have died due to overdose on various things, from drugs to alcohol to abuse of even prescription drugs, to simply not being able to cope with their demons whatsoever.
But the most important things in my life that have kept me going? My daughter, my beautiful rainbow child, borne when all the ones before her, didn't make it and were taken away far too soon. My pets. The strong belief that no one can or will care for them as I have. And my art. I cherish the moments I have with my daughter. I've enjoyed watching her grow into the strong, proud, and very successful horsewoman that she is today and while yes, I wasn't able to raise her, she doesn't blame me for it and rather, thanks me for giving her a chance at a life, I simply, couldn't of ever given her. And my pets. Many have been with me since the day I began my life, fending for myself at the age of 16 when my step-grandfather started refusing to come home but would rather spend time with his mistress. I spent those early years as a young teen, mourning the loss of a grandmother, whom I'd lost at the age of 15 1/2, just one month shy of my sweet 16 and being unable to grieve as I was forced to 'grow up' quickly in order to adapt and survive to my new normal. But through those early years, my pets gave me the silent strength, I never knew I needed and so desprately wanted.
They gave comfort and no judgement when I couldn't even provide them with proper food. Instead, they would chow down on the mac n cheese just as I did. Then we'd snuggle up together and watch movies. Even as I endured the abuse at the hands of my daughter's father, my first ever real relationship, they never batted a judgmental eye at me and would instead, lick my tears away. And then, as I began to pick the pieces of my shattered life, back up, more often than not, repeatedly, they were there. With a friendly purr, woof or whinny, and a silent strength I never knew I needed in those fleeting moments of weakness. The firm belief that no one could or would care for them as I have, always keeping me one step away from that edge. And now realizing, that that belief kept me locked firmly in place, in making sure I didn't step over that edge, into the endless void that more often than I care to count, threatened to consume me. While yes, I endured heartbreak whenever they left this world, it wasn't the sadness I'd come to know and more often than not, expect. There was no tearing apart of a family, there was no growing up quickly just to adapt to a new normal, there was simply being in the moment, letting it consume me, and then realizing that, they are never truly gone and that it wasn't a goodbye but a simple, cya later, that helped me heal, especially in those moments.
And then there's my art. No matter the medium I choose to work in. Traditional, digital, film, AI, it's all the same. It helps me relax, unwind, and think about other things aside from the things I can't control, can't change, or even if I can control and change them, have to wait on other parties to help. It helps me take a breather, to escape to a world of my own creation, a world where I'm the sole reason why things change or turn out the way that they do. Where I get to dictate the path the future will take.
And when all that fails, simply laying down on my side, on the beach and listening to the ocean, is enough to soothe a wayward and hurting spirit. My element of birth is fire, but my birthstone is that of water. The two, forever balancing the other element out, just enough that neither can turn into a raging, out of control tidal wave or inferno.
Today, I am medically diagnosed as clinically depressed (severe manic depression with increased thoughts of suicide), I suffer from severe cPTSD, severe social anxiety, I'm highly prone to stress, and due to these issue (among the medical issues of IBS and Non-anemic Iron Deficiency), suffer from sporadic moments of blacking out. Due to this, I was often paired (unsuccessfully) with service dogs to try and not only detect when such an event was about to occur, but to help me get to a safe space so I could blackout without being disturbed. But sadly, each dog I was paired with, would never detect the blackout events in time and this left me prone to blacking out and possibly suffering injury. And so, Bastet took up the mantle and became not only an emotional support service animal, but has, with a near 90% accuracy, been able to detect my blackout spells within 6 minutes before they hit.
"ᴱᵛᵉⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵏᵉˢᵗ ⁿⁱᵍʰᵗ ʷⁱˡˡ ᵉⁿᵈ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵘⁿ ʷⁱˡˡ ʳⁱˢᵉ ᵃᵍᵃⁱⁿ." ⁻ ⱽⁱᶜᵗᵒʳ ᴴᵘᵍᵒ
So there's my story. I want people to understand that things do get to me, I just don't show it. I've learned to 'shake off' alot of things that when I was a teen and young adult, would of triggered me. Sure there are still things that'll trigger my flight response (such as morons trying to 'jokingly' burn me with a lighter), but it's not to the point as it once was. In healing, I have made peace with the demons that would once taunt me. Yes, I'll admit, there's been moments of weakness, where I just wanted things to end, but that hopelessness vanished once I was in a better environment and therefore, headspace. But these moments are fleeting, not worth dwelling on and become a very distant memory, soon forgotten. And while I may not have endured the 'worst of the worst', I still endured traumas that in many cases, should never of happened or been allowed to happen.
There are, sadly, traumas in my life, such as childhood traumas, that'll never be resolved for the parties involved, are no longer here to answer for those crimes. It's a wound that'll never heal and one I will have to carry for the rest of my life. But it's a wound I have slowly, but surely, nursed back to health, to heal all on it's own. It's a wound that has, in essence, made me stronger. Whenever I see another child being hurt, I step up and intervene. Even if it's not my place to do so. Standing by and letting that child be hurt, is simply not an option for me. It's why, at the end of the day, I've had literal strangers leave their kids with me, or, in weirder cases, have ended up being a sudden, spur of the moment babysitter while the kids' parents race off to do twenty million things. I don't mind. They know full damn well, their kids are safe and it'd be a very dark day in someone's life, should anyone try to hurt those under my care.
But as the old saying goes 'what doesn't kill makes you stronger'. No. My traumas didn't make me 'stronger' per say. Better equipped to handle life? Perhaps. But stronger? Well, that's still up for debate.
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