Is it me, or was it the trauma?

Where do I even begin, is a question I often ask myself when I'm trying to deal with the jumbled and twisted thoughts that run ramped each day in my head. I suffer from un-diagnosed anxiety, and I'm sure a variety of other things as well. I say un-diagnosed because I refuse to talk about things with doctors, and choose to suffer in silence instead. I got tired of hearing "It is just in my head" and to "just get over it." I often do a lot of self reflection, and it is partly because of the anxiety, but also from childhood trauma that lasted even into my adult years.

I have often felt that just by me being in this world, even though I didn't ask to be here, has been considered wrong. Like I'm an abomination that should have never existed in the first place. It has been a grudge of my "mothers" that she's unwilling to admit, but has no problem reminding me of.

I am the second oldest of my "mother's" children. We'll just call her M from here on out. And the oldest child, lets call L. What that stands for you can decide.

My childhood wasn't the worst, but it still was a struggle to navigate. "Dad" wasn't around, he was to busy being in and out of jail to really bother with us. M worked a lot, we often ended up with a sitter, her friends, or at family's. It didn't provide much of a stable home as we moved, a lot. I was never secure, or allowed myself to get too comfortable.

I remember the first time I truly experienced grief. I was probably about 11 or 12. My great grandfather passed, I was the only one who wasn't there when he had initially, I had to wait to say my goodbyes until after he had already been gone. My older brother had been there. he was only a year and a half older. Less then a year later, it was a family friend who passed tragically, everybody has been left with so many un-answered questions to this day in regards to what lead up to the day she died. Within the next few years my great grandmother would pass on M's side of her adoptive mothers side, who has also sense left this world. We didn't distinguish on biological relations then. I rarely do now.

I also would experience grief in the form of having to mourn those who were still living as well. That started around when I was maybe 13. My best friend, some one I considered a sister at the start of my middle school days, was bullied in school, so her parents decided she should start home-school. We talked about everything. She often would say how she wanted to kill herself. I eventually stopped having contact with her once I moved across state and just couldn't handle hear her say such things any more. I regretted it for years, and can't even tell you how many nights I stayed up just praying she was alive. After 16 I tried every so often to reach out to some one who might have had a way to contact her, but didn't have any luck. In that same year I had given "dad" his final chance, which of course he blew. He still tries to get in contact, or I run into him every once in a while when I go home for vacations. I just tell him to "F*** off" or to "Suck a d****" because I'm tired of wasting my breathe on the same conversation with him. I also had my first real break up. And by real I mean we broke up, and it stuck. It took him leaving me on my front porch at the time sobbing inconsolably (not that any one would ever know of this til years later when I would finally be able to speak about some aspect of the relationship openly). Many years later, even my step father at the time would come to say to me, "You changed after that" referring to the final break up.

Even now, looking back on that statement, I have to laugh to myself to some degree just because I didn't change, I just stopped wearing the mask every one else wanted me to have. I was told so many times through out my child hood any time I felt something bad happened, or I was mistreated in some way that I had a roof over my head, I had food on the table, and clothes on my back, what could I have possibly to feel anything other then happy, or I had nothing to complain about because there were people who had it worse.

And that is where the real trauma comes in....