Demons

This post will not be for the faint of heart and mostly not what most people who know me will want to read.  So heed this warning and turn away if you fall into either category.

Of late, I have been hearing and most heart wrenching, feeling my demons.  They don’t surface often as I have learned how to keep them hidden.  When they do surface and start screaming in my head, this is when the depression hits and even worse than the depression, the self-doubt.  Really, that is what the demons are…is self-doubt.  Did I do right in my past experiences?  I know, there are people that will tell me that the past is the past and you can only live for the future.  My past has shaped me but more so scarred me.  Molded my personality, made me the strong fighter I am.  It also has made the shield I use to protect my emotions, hiding away my feelings because I know no one needs or wants to see them.  Everyone has their own demons, why do they need to see mine?
I decided to write this post and lay some of my demons if not all of them on the line.  Is it to shut them up and throw them out of my life for good?  That would be ideal.  Then maybe I would be able to get past some of my feelings of self-doubt in my life and truly live the life I want and be the person I want to be.
Self-Doubts

1. I hate my body.  My smile is nice but not white enough.  My hair is gorgeous after it is cut but then I can’t do so it looks good.  My eyes are pretty but one is bigger than the other.  My boobs really are too big and are getting saggy.  My stomach has too much loose skin and needs tightening.  My thighs are starting to get cellulite.  I have no ass or hips and therefore have very few pants that fit me.  My arms have the “wiggle”.  My feet are huge skis.
2. No matter how much weight I will lose, I will always feel that I am the fat girl.
3. I was bullied growing up.  I was sat on in the snow and beaten up.  I was chased home, terrified.  Living in a small town, she was always there, one year ahead of me.  In grade 9, she gathered some of the girls from her grade and most of the ones from mine, cornered me and told me that I was ugly and fat and there was no way that I was ever going to be part of their crowd and I should just go home and not try every again.  So I did.  I went home cried and then started building my shield.  Fuck them all.  I won’t let them see me hurt.  Put the smile on and never let them see your true feelings.
4. I feel like a failure.  In high school, I didn’t have the direction of a career counselor or even a teacher that could tell me what classes I should have taken to get into a career I would love.  I had dreams that were squashed quite neatly once high school was done and I realized that I would never get into a course that would lead me to a career.  Sure I could have done something about it, gone back to school but then I would look like a failure.  So instead, I moved.  I moved thousands of miles away to go to work and I hated it.  I was away from friends and family and that was the first time I was free to be who ever I wanted to be.  But more on that in the next number.  I will come back to “failure” in a lot of the next numbers.
5. I have never “found” myself.  When I moved away and could be anyone I wanted to be…what did I do?  Jumped into bed with the first guy who looked at me and smiled.  This was my first time at the age of 19.  Was it a wonderful, mind blowing experience?  Not even close.  Do I remember his name?  Nope.  Do I even remember what he looked like?  No way.  I do remember feeling so sad after and I hate the fact that my first time was like that.
6. My first true “boyfriend” was also from when I moved.  There again, he smiled and said how beautiful I was, blah, blah, blah.  Sure he was nice, when he wasn’t degrading me or hitting me or pushing me down the stairs.  Or even the time when he decided that I was a piece of meat, his property and he could sell me and my body.  There…I said it….in a roundabout way.  I was raped, brutally, by numerous men while my “boyfriend” watched and charged at the door.  What a peach.  Do I remember all of it? No, I was out of it on morphine but I do know that he made a pretty penny that night.  Did I leave? No.  Did I report it? No.  Why you might ask? Because he loved me and as he told me, who else was going to love me after they knew what I “allowed” to happen because I didn’t provide for him enough.  It was the typical beaten wife syndrome.  He would build me up with compliments and gifts to then beat me down.  I had no friends and no family.  Sure I came home to visit, even brought him home to meet the family.  Did I listen to them when they could see he wasn’t good for me? Never, that would admit to me being a failure.  Eventually, I did leave and came home.
7. I went to college and was haunted by the fact that everything I had done in life so far was a failure.  So when my first husband and I met and then he suggested I move to where he was living, yep, I packed up and left because after all, I was going to be a wonderful girlfriend and then (hopefully) a wonderful wife, and we would have a wonderful life and family and house and, and, and.  Well, I failed at that too.  We did have a house.  We did have a family.  We did have a marriage.  I threw it all away.  Sure he played a part in it.  But I know that I did too.  Did I learn something from it?  I like to think so but the failed relationships to come were proof that I didn’t learn enough.  I think that when I accepted this relationship and eventually marriage, I was thinking that my life was passing by and I better grab onto someone quick because  god forbid, I ever be alone.
8. The loss of my second daughter.  My beautiful daughter is a twin.  Charlotte, our second, passed away shortly after birth.  Did I fail her as a mother?  Yes, I did.  Sure I wasn’t the mother who smoked or drank during pregnancy.  Sure the doctors tell me that it was nothing I did that she didn’t develop.  But the fact still remains, she isn’t here with me.  She isn’t here with her sister who needs her.  She may have kept my marriage together.  No, let me rephrase that.  She is not the reason my marriage fell apart.  Her death showed me something that I didn’t like in my marriage and that was the reason it fell apart.  Do I talk about her?  Sure.  Do I tell people that it’s ok for me to tell her story because it, after all has been 13, almost 14 years and it gets easier?  You bet.  Am I lying?  Damn right.
9. My daughter, Ashley.  I feel like I have failed her the most.  Don’t get me wrong, she is a beautiful, amazing kid.  More than I could ever ask for.  But every day when I get angry over something little, my heart breaks.  When I see her in tears because her “friends” are treating her badly, my heart breaks.  When I see her struggling with the failures I face, my heart breaks.  So I try and put on that shield and that smile and be a rock so that she doesn’t have to have her heart broken by her mother.  I want to protect her from all the bad in the world but know I have to let her grow.  I don’t want her making the same mistakes I made but how do I talk to her about it when I don’t want to admit my own failures?
10. My next relationship.  So after my first marriage, what did I do but jump into another relationship.  This one…an older guy.  Because they are supposed to provide stability.  Did I love him?  No.  I was afraid of being alone.  Did I leave after the first time he hit me?  Nope.  Because I was starting to realize that maybe my first “boyfriend” was right.  I tried a marriage and it failed, maybe I was ugly and no one else would really want me.  I never told anyone about the rape because I was ashamed and deep down really did think that no one would want me and here was another guy telling me the same thing.  So, I let him hit me and push me around.  When I finally had enough and left, he stalked me and terrorized me.  And again, I failed another relationship.
11. Then my next marriage.  Well, as much as I still love him as a friend, that is what he was….a very good friend.  And should have stayed that way.  I chased him down.  I told him how practical it was for him to move in with me.  I proposed to him.  Notice all the “I”s.  I don’t doubt for a minute that he eventually loved me.  I don’t doubt for a minute that he loved Ashley.  But here again it came down to me being alone.  My ex-husband had found someone and they were going to get married.  My god!  I can’t be left behind!  Even though this again is another one of my failures, I at least can say that I still care deeply for him and always will.

Ok.  11 self-doubts and I know I didn’t cover everything.  I have it down in writing.  I have shed many tears writing this and already feel them welling up again.  I have thought about just saving this for a few days and tweaking it but no, I will post it and possibly add to it at a later date.  Just throwing it out there, all the ugly, the demons have quieted to a dull roar…..for now.  Thank you for reading.  I have contemplated making this a “private, password protected” post but then I am just hiding behind a shield again.