MyStoryMatters

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My Story, Life Traumas & Finding Myself #MyStoryMatters

PART 2
I ended up moving out of my aunts within a couple of years, rebelling and doing my own thing. I lived with friends, in shared accommodation, half way houses and abandoned houses. I bought myself a car and lived out of that. I stayed anywhere I could really. I had a boyfriend a bit down the track. I stuck around through all this lies and bs. He abused drugs and definitely wasn’t a person I should’ve been hanging around with or trying to help. I was heading down the path everyone assumed I would by being with this person. I eventually left him because of the lies, drugs and the crime I ended up finding out he was doing. I stupidly enough ended up trying drugs myself soon after that and then became a pot head. I found marijuana helped calm my severe anxiety and overthinking. I longed for that kind of persona that people would describe me as ‘easy going’ & ‘relaxed’.

Life started to look up for me when I moved into my family friends home. I was still smoking pot, but I remember feeling the best I had felt in a long time. They loved me and didn’t judge me. Supported me in every way they could. I met a boy, he was a big time pot smoker. We fell in love, things were going so amazingly great. We became inseparable. I ended up moving in with him and his family. I later found out he was talking to other girls. I kept sticking around, allowing it to happen, over and over again. I was confused, I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why I wasn’t enough. It drove me to more anxiety and feeling worthless. Self doubt and not feeling good enough. I became raged all the time and hated the person I was becoming. Finally we went our seperate ways.

I lost a lot of self worth and confidence during those very crazy 3-4 years. I stuffed around a lot in hope of finding myself but that wasn’t happening either. I always had jobs but not a career. I didn’t feel I had a purpose. I felt lost for quite some time. I didn’t know what I wanted let alone even deserved. I was allowing people to take advantage of me in so many ways and didn’t acknowledge it at the time.

The next thing to come was the eye opener I needed!

Love Tay x
#ChildLoss #Childhoodtrauma #Grief #PTSD #Stress #Anxiety

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My Story, Life Traumas & Finding Myself #MyStoryMatters

PART 1

I like to tell myself that not everyone gets the traditional story. Us kids sure didn’t have the ‘typical’ childhood & up bringing most did. My parents weren’t fit to be parents as a lot of their choices were made around drugs and crime. That led my sisters, brother and myself to be put in either an aunts care or in and out of foster homes for quite some time. Being in my mums aunts care is what really saved us kids. She had stability and structure. Every time we left my aunties that would all go out the window. My dad had landed himself in prison yet again. This time was different though, he wasn’t able to do his time nor even get a sentencing as he was murdered before trial. My mum couldn’t take care of us kids on her own at the best of times. Now this massive traumatic event, the one person that somewhat held our family together, was gone. Everything honestly got worse after that. Mum abruptly (without anyone knowing) moved us all to Queensland, and it wasn’t long after that, she had another overdose on heroin.

Im sure you’re prepared for what was next.

Back into foster care with complete strangers we went. We lived a very tortured and slaved life in this particular ‘home’. We tried expressing ourselves to DHS (department of human services) but no one would listen. It wasn’t until 2 and a half years later, when we had more foster children enter the house, that something was actually done and our voices were heard. Finally the abuse and bs stopped as all us kids were removed and placed in different homes again. Finally, our aunty found us, fought for us and flew out to Queensland to bring us back home to Melbourne. Back to our family and a place we knew we were loved and safe. Mum continued to live in Queensland for a further few years before returning to Melbourne.

You’d think after going through such traumatising events that I’d be happy to be back with family, in a safe environment with safe and loving people. But I know it wasn’t me being unhappy where I was, it wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate it either. I think because so much happened in so little time, i was feeling so very lost. I had that many things running through my mind. I didn’t know who I was anymore or what to do. I didn’t know what I wanted, why I was feeling the way I was, what was triggering me. I had the crappiest mentality. I always felt attacked, i mean half the time I was. My family assumed that I would be the child to follow in my parents footsteps. That I would be the first out of my siblings to have a child, that I would go down a ‘that’ path. I always felt such negativity towards me. I was being accused of smoking cigarettes when in actual fact I wasn’t. Lots of things pushed me to rebel. I became so fricken stubborn & such an angry person.

#Trauma #Stress #FosterCare #cigarettes #PTSD #drugaddiction #anger #Grief #Early Childhood Trauma

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How do you start writing your story?

I have a long and insane life story even at the age of 23. Typically I am a great writer and I have a way of making things flow when actually writing things out but for this I’m having a hard time starting. My psychologist suggested that I write out my story as a way of realizing how far I’ve come and how strong I really am. I just have no idea where to start, even just to use it as a journal for myself. Any ideas? #WritingThroughIt #MyCondition #MyStoryMatters

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Does Life Ever Get Better? Pt.4 #CheckInWithMe #Depression #MyStoryMatters #Anxiety

I had no idea how everything happened like that & how I was so naive. That wasn’t me at all & how did I honestly let that happen. Oh well it was over & now I can focus on bettering my life which it was finally going great. That didn’t last long, as I lost my job I loved, the stress started taking over me. I put in apps after apps & finally I got a job. It was going to be great and finally was working again, feeling like I had a purpose again. Two days I worked and then my body quit on me, my chronic illness had progressed, & was bedridden for over a week. I had to quit the job I just got. I realized I couldn’t do it, the first time I ever had to say that, & I have lost my identity. Who I was is gone. I’m a hardworking, independent, and strong person. That was before the life I had known & who I was is gone. Now I’m sitting here waiting on disability as life still continues to go the opposite. I just wonder will this life honestly ever get better, am I honestly never supposed to be happy, & how much strength can I continue to have before I break? If there is a purpose of surviving my suicide attempt, why is this world continuing to break me? #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #DomesticAbuseSurvivors #MixedConnectiveTissueDiseaseMCTD #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #MentalHealth

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Does Life Ever Get Better? Pt.3 #CheckInWithMe #Depression #Anxiety #MyStoryMatters

He was so angry I had no idea why and just in a blink of an eye he snapped. He hit me than before I could get back up off the bed he was on top of me squeezing the life out of me with his hands wrapped around my neck. I tried pulling grabbing his hands to pull them from my neck but they weren’t budging. I looked at him to try and plead to stop, but I couldn’t get a word out. The look in his eyes were like staring straight at the devil himself, it wasn’t the eyes I fell in love with, it was something & someone different. I was blacking out now and before everything went totally dark he just got up and left the room. I sat up quickly grabbing my still burning neck confused. He came back in the room my heart dropped again but he was acting like nothing happened now. So we left to go to his family’s event like had been planned, I sat quietly as I was still in shock. I tried my best to act like nothing was wrong, talked a little, fake smiled, & everything I could do. It wasn’t convincing enough though because he yelled at me when we got home because some family thought I was acting different. I apologized for not acting like everything was fine, for remembering just hours earlier he was this monster taking the life out of me. The next day he apologized and promised it would never happen again, that he don’t know what came over him, & he would do better. I believed him & he went back to the guy I fell in love with again. I had forgotten about the incident & believed he obviously meant every word. It didn’t last very long again I’m back in his prison, while being his little puppet. The cycle continued he’d go crazy and start hitting me, each time it got worse and worse. Then he’d be sorry and threaten suicide so I would stop him & tell him it was alright. Two years of this, was this what I survived for? I couldn’t leave though, my mind was so messed up, I just didn’t know how to act or react anymore. The last time he beat me was the worst. I thought this was it I was going to die by the hands of this guy. Was this why I survived my suicide? Bruises, cracked ribs, cuts, scrapes, chipped tooth, & knocked out cold. Finally I heard the sirens after finally making it to the car & locking myself in it. I finally felt safe as the sirens got closer, he ran up to the window & told me how he would show me, and disappeared. The cops turned into the driveway & went searching for him. While they were taking my pictures, statements, & everything they needed; they found him with a belt wrapped around his neck. They took him in the ambulance & to the hospital. I didn’t press charges though, I still believed he just needed help, & he really did love me. He was put on medication & was fine for awhile, then poof he left the day before my birthday to work apparently. The texts declined & then stopped all together. It’s been six months since & I still have no idea why. With him being gone I realized how I felt finally at peace & realized that was not love. #DomesticAbuseSurvivors #SuicideSurvivors #MixedConnectiveTissueDiseaseMCTD #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #MentalHealth

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Does Life Every Get Better? Pt. 2 #CheckInWithMe #Depression #Anxiety #MyStoryMatters

I guess I was sitting up talking normal but slowly, then all of a sudden I started seizing badly, & so they had to put a tube down my throat. Which they apparently dug it through my trachea so badly the doctors figured I would never be able to speak again. They had to life flight me to another state in another hospital because they they were not equipped to handle everything. The other hospital I had been flown to were the ones who found out they dug a deep trench through my trachea and had most likely destroyed my voice box. They did everything they could do. They couldn’t take the tube out until I healed because they said I would bleed out. They talked about transferring me to another hospital that specialized more into the fact that might be able to help better so I could talk or at least work with me if I ever woke up. Well after that discussion they realized I wouldn’t survive another transfer, so it was now a waiting game. I ended up getting pneumonia from the blood and fluids sitting in my lungs. The doctors told everyone to start preparing and how it was up to me whether I fought to stay alive. Well they checked my healing process on my trachea and realized it was healed enough to take out. They realized then that they had missed my voice box by just one single millimeter, so I would most likely still be able to talk miraculously. Well some more waiting and the day came I finally opened my eyes. I was confused at first obviously, then I realized what had happened. I seen the sadness, the tiredness, & broken in everyone’s eyes. I apologized over & over, or at least tried considering I could barely talk at the time. I survived everything, all odds against me, & pretty much all hope gone. I still survived & I realized maybe there’s a reason why. So eventually go back to normal life and normal routine. Sure life didn’t go straight to rainbows & butterflies but it wasn’t horrible. A year later I met a guy who I instantly just connected with like no other. Life was amazing for the first time in I don’t know how long and I was truly happy. I had found the one I’d spend my life with, well at least I thought. I didn’t realize the warning signs which I’m usually pretty good at, but I’d just brush them off as he cared. Started off with little remarks as he played it off as a joke, then controlling tendencies which was because he cared too much as he would say. Time passed the remarks were more frequent and more belittling. The controlling was growing intense each day. I was confused, making excuses, & hoping he’d return to the guy I’d fell in love with. I eventually was asking permission for everything, double thinking what I did or would say before saying it, and walking on eggshells everyday. The day came one morning while trying to gently wake him up where I seen his darkest side. #MixedConnectiveTissueDiseaseMCTD #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #DomesticAbuseSurvivors

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Does Life Ever Get Better? (Long Post) Pt. 1 #CheckInWithMe #Depression #Anxiety #SuicideSurvivors #MyStoryMatters

Okay, I try to be uplifting on here a lot hoping to help someone at least I hope I have. I’m struggling with the thought of does life ever get better though? Here’s a piece of my story. I tried committing suicide in 2016. How I survived I thought there might of been a reason. Now don’t judge me as I explain my story because I obviously was not thinking fully. Well life like always was going wrong once again like always, so I got switched to a different antidepressant. I took it for a couple of weeks & I got even lower, dissociated, numb, in this body of a shell screaming to get out. It’s the middle of the night I go sit in the kitchen just overthinking tried to call a couple people no answer or got told they didn’t have time for this. So now you really are convinced you aren’t even important enough for your own best friend to talk to because they are busy & don’t have time. So I’m sitting there alone & realizing I have nobody at all. I had already drank a lot but it was like I couldn’t get drunk just not to feel that way anymore. I grabbed a pen and paper wrote a little note to my boys telling them I’m sorry & to my mother who would be the one to find me as I assumed. I grabbed all the pill bottles my anti depressants, random antidepressants I had been on but never finished or took, and a brand new stock bottle of Tylenol PMs a 100 count I believe. All together probably like six different pill bottles I consumed. Exactly as I swallowed the last pills, I hear my youngest son who was about 3 at the time. I was sitting in the dark kitchen at the time trying to be super quiet, he rarely ever woke up in the middle of the night but he always slept with me & I wasn’t in the bed, so he was going to go to my mothers room. As I’m trying my hardest to be quiet I hear his little voice saying where is mommy I’m all alone, for some reason my mothers door was locked at the time, I guess by accident or something because she never locked it. Bam hearing him say that snapped me back so quick to reality & questioning what did I do. I was still conscience enough to let him know I was right here & knocked on my mothers door she woke up & he went in to lay down. I broke down crying saying how he wasn’t supposed to wake up this wasn’t how everything was supposed to go. My mother is confused asking what, by this time now everything has hit me hard, I just barely made it back to the kitchen & sat down. I’m starting to drift off as my mom turns on the light & sees the pill bottles, telling me to get up cause we were going to the hospital. I couldn’t though, my body was like weights, I’m barely conscious, & I feel myself drifting farther. She called the ambulance they put me over their shoulder and in the back of the ambulance, last thing I remember was the paramedic asking why I’d do such a stupid thing, I tried to say something but boom I’m out. I was in a coma for over a week, so these are recaps of what I was told by others. #MixedConnectiveTissueDiseaseMCTD #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #DomesticAbuseSurvivors

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This Isn’t a Two Way Mirror

You see this whole chronic pain thing isn’t a two way mirror

I have blocked you off from seeing the worst of it, or at least I try my best to do so

I can’t let you see

The fear of driving that includes the countless times I have hit my steering wheel repeatedly and sobbed furiously about how much it physically hurts to drive

The fear I will fall someday and my toes will not allow me to get up to face you

The fear that tests will continue to tell my nothing other than “nerves in the foot. Rare. You’re so young for this illness”

The fear you will see me pulling on my jewelry and jackets to distract myself from the pain radiating from my big toes

The fear you will no longer see me as a person but just as a disability

There are so few people I have welcomed into both sides of my mirror

As sad as it may sound sometimes as I look into the mirror all I want for it to say back to me is that it never knew how strong I was

The one side of the mirror was not fully developed when I was a slam poet back in high school

I was told so often I had no story since I didn’t have x, y, z happen to me

Then I got sick when I started college and now I will tell the stories I once told long ago and I will tell new ones as well

My mirror was never defective to begin with, don’t make it sound like I am nothing without my disability because that’s not even true, so damn those who shamed me and were insinuating something so conniving

I welcomed new people into the dark side of the mirror I have quite recently

When we stood outside the bar as I waited for a ride home and the others planned to go to a new location I had to leave them to go sit down in less than one minute of standing

I cannot stand for long without my feet cramping up and hurting at a 9/10 scale

I silently went back inside the bar, sat down, and watched as my new friends came back inside, surrounded me and all said

“We would never leave you behind”

When my ride arrived I silently watched as one of the new members of my mirror took my arm and gently led me to my car

We all, illness or not, have our stories and our mirrors may be dirty or cracked but they are ours, and we shine when we believe it can be possible to do so

#Anxiety #ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #MightyPoets #RareDisease #Neuropathy #MyStoryMatters

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What do your issues with trust feel like? #CheckInWithMe

I told my boyfriend I have a hard time trusting people even my therapist. And he said why would someone who is seeking help and answers not take that help. He didn’t get it that I was hurting from that statement. It made me feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough. That’s one of the things I feel so bad about: not being able to trust others because it makes me feel like I fail at recovery. In the moment I feel like I don’t trust that I’ll get better so why should I trust anyone who hasn’t been in my position. I just want to have friends or get to know people like me so I don’t feel so alone. #BipolarStrong #LossOfAParent #MyStoryMatters #JustKeepSwimming

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