I Am No Longer a Victim

Have you ever been so distracted that when you look up to see what's around you, you don't even recognize where you are or how you got there? You can't even pinpoint when you got so lost or what made you make the wrong turn? I have been so stuck and distracted that I didn't even recognize how much I have missed.

Until now.

There was a time when I was back in middle school, new to the district. I immediately was able to make new friends. Mainly because I was the new kid and that was very exciting at the time for everyone in the small school I went to, but nonetheless, my only worry was trying to fit in and do what everyone else was doing. I made other friends through my siblings, and their friends as well. Also, I was active in the neighborhood. I was always the shy kid. Or so I thought it was shyness, but being young and innocent, I didn't think too deep into it and I pushed passed and lived like a normal teenager.

As time went on and I started high school, I was starting to open up. Just a little. Just enough to peel back the top few layers of myself. I was laughing all of the time. One of my grades was slipping but I was feeling comfortable in who I was, until my older brother (who was back and forth between living with us and living with his dad) moved back. My brother and his friends were professionals at bullying. My brother was bullied his entire life, so all he knew how to do was bully. They started to make me question everything about who I was or who I thought I was. They bullied me every single day and one of his friends would hit me sometimes. I started to eat to suppress my emotions. I distanced myself from school. I started wearing my makeup all dark and strange and when I started gaining weight, that was the icing on the cake for everyone at school. I was starting to get bullied at school as well, not only for myself and my new appearances and demeanor but because of someone I was hanging out with also. This girl was smart and strong and hilarious. But she was outgoing and had a learning disability (or something I didn't understand). People would throw stuff at us at lunch and laugh and push us around, more of freshmen year than any other but still. This bullying was getting to be a lot. Some other things happened that I choose not to talk about, but my life was threatened, I lost some friends, and my overwhelming self-consciousness drowned me. Anxiety swallowed me. At this point, I was almost all alone. We were moving a bunch and I was being bullied at school and at home.

My home life was not necessarily nurturing. I started to have more of my mother's responsibilities at home and I was not understood by my parents or siblings. My mother was in her own world causing problems and not necessarily being smart and my dad was doing what he knew best. He was working to provide for us. He was doing the best he could. He still is. My parents were having problems and almost split up at the time and I found myself always crying. I was so stressed that I was starting to become physically ill. At the time, I did not know that this was anxiety, but I was nauseous and had migraines almost every single day. I was losing sleep and over-stressing. This is when I was first comprehending that I had struggled with anxiety. I was automatically in a bad mood every single day the second I walked out of the school to go home. Over time, we overcame everything and stayed together.

After everything I had already been dealing with, and now the family issues, I was still trying to be "normal" and have some friends or something at school but that was not all. There was more. I was slammed with more. It was like another heavy book was thrown at my chest. I just could not catch my breath. Now we were having to move. Now I was pulling myself back inside even more. Inch by inch I was disappearing. We ended up homeless for a few weeks and I had to stay with my older sister, an older sister whom I had hardly remembered and whom I was frankly scared to be around. For those three weeks, all I wanted to do was sleep and sit around her apartment. Little did she or anyone know, I was struggling. I was drowning. I was panicking and the rest of my family was without a permanent place to stay, I was two hours away at my sister's house, and we didn't know where we were moving when we were going to find a house, or what was going to happen. She was criticizing me because she didn't understand why I was the way that I was. What was I supposed to do? Tell her all about my business? Tell her all about my family? Open up to a practical stranger whom I hadn't seen in almost seven years? Because I said nothing, she was threatening to send me back to be with my parents because she was offended. To be even more homeless than I already was and to stay in the car or whatever "friends" house they were staying at. As always, I cried. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? I had no safe place. No one I could run to. I couldn't go hide in my room or the bathroom. I couldn't walk down the street to the park or sit on the bridge and listen to the creek like I would do at my old house. I was sleeping on a mattress in my sister's living room, in a place I was so unfamiliar with. I pleaded with her to understand and let me stay because it had nothing to do with her, and I guess that worked because she didn't make me leave.

By the time that was over and done with, we found a house, a half an hour away from our old one and in a completely different area. Right after we moved in, my dog died. My best friend. The only familiar thing I had by me through everything. She died one day before my birthday, which was just a reminder to me of her mother who had died two years prior, also right next to my birthday. Right away, I was not okay. I found out that the school I was going to be going to for my junior year of high school was three times the size of the school I came from. I spent the three weeks before school eating junk food and being constantly nauseous. Gaining more weight and falling back more, I isolated myself. The only time I left the house was when I was staying on our property or going to school. At this point, my mom was just starting a job and I had all of her responsibilities now. I was cooking dinner pretty much every night. I was cleaning the house on top of my normal chores, I was always in charge of my siblings and taking care of them. making sure they showered and did their homework. At school, I was at the nurse's office all the time, almost every single day, sometimes multiple times a day because I was nauseous and panicking at just the thought of walking through the halls or going to some of my harder classes. I always had been an A-B student but this school was at least two times more challenging academically and not only was I dealing with anxiety which I had not been diagnosed with yet, but I was overly intimidated by this school and the swarm of people in it. At one point I had almost given up. I was too afraid to ever ask questions or for people to watch me walking in the halls if I were to go to the teachers before or after school so I just didn't. I failed math all four marking periods, which until junior year, was always one of my favorite classes. I was too afraid, of everything. I was constantly worried about people watching me, even if not one person in the room was looking at me. I felt dizzy, tight chest, sweaty palms, nausea, etc., and at this point, I didn't know what was going to happen by the end of each day. I hardly participated in the gym, until I could do personal fitness in the workout gym. The first semester was filled with fs from Math, and gym and low grades in several other classes. I also got my very first detention ever during Junior year because they were doing mock job interviews and I couldn't bring myself to go to mine. How was I supposed to go talk to a stranger about myself and my "strong suits" and convince him I wanted a fake job when I could barely control myself from throwing up and I hadn't even had one moment to catch my breath let alone think of anything I might be good at or strong in. With everything I was going through and how down I felt, how was I supposed to think highly of myself or what my strong suits might be? How am I supposed to talk highly about myself to a stranger when I'm just trying to focus on my breathing? "In and out. In and out."

When that school year was almost over, I found out we had to move AGAIN. We went through the process and looked and looked for houses. No luck. We were homeless again. This time it wouldn't be for just three weeks. This time it would be for over four months. As the time was leading up to the last month before we would be homeless again, I was getting stress hives. It started as little red bumps that I thought were flea bites because I had dogs and guinea pigs and we had woods on our property. Time went by and they started to become welt sized and huge and itchy. The doctor told me that I was so worked up from constant stress and anxiety that I was breaking out in stress hives. I was even waking up with them. Our first month homeless was in a couple different hotels. That still wasn't the hard part. The hard part was, after the hotels, we ended up in a shelter, a shelter where we were at so many different locations at all times. During the day, we were at the "day center" and at night we were at a bunch of different churches depending on the week. At this point, I still have stress hives. Pretty bad. There are so many people, so many people always trying to talk to you when you just want to keep your head down, eat dinner and go to sleep. There were other families in the shelter and all the volunteers at each church. So many people. So many people wanting to talk and be in your business. We had to get up and be leaving the churches by 6 AM every single morning. I rushed out to the car or covered my whole body and face to leave because I was a swollen strawberry, from both gaining weight and constantly having stress hives everywhere. Because, oh yeah, I'm still gaining weight. During this time my mother is getting into more mischief and I'm suspicious and more stressed. What do I do? Tell my dad and break up my family when I could be wrong? What would happen? We are already homeless and my mom can't keep a job. My mom clearly doesn't love us or want to be with us at this point. Or do I bottle it up just like everything else going on? What about my siblings? What about school and our pets that were at relatives houses? What about my dad? What about me?

Once again I'm lost.

Let's just sum up what happens next. I did not tell anyone anything. After the hotels, We were in the shelter for three months before our allotted time was up and at the very last minute we found a house and moved. We have been here for three years ever since and will be moving once again soon. My parents split up over a year ago for good and my brother has been in and out, causing so many problems.

The point of this blog was to express where I have come from, what I have gone through and what I am doing about it.

I recently lifted up my head and looked around and did not recognize what was even happening around me. I've been a babysitter for the last two years and time has flown. The little girl I watch went from three months old and not even rolling over, to two-years-old and running around expressing how smart she is and showing me that just because she can't say words like I can, she has her own little language and still knows exactly what is happening and what she wants. I have recently come to the realization of what a blessing it is and what a blessing it has been to be a part of the experience of watching a child grow like this.

As far back as kindergarten, I can see me showing signs of struggling with anxiety. My junior year when it was bad, I missed a quarter of the school year with how many days I stayed home from school from having overwhelming anxiety. That doesn't include the number of days I was sent home from school for throwing up everywhere or any other issue. I had to go to court, get fines, and community service, when I already was barely able to bring myself to leave the house.

Now? Now I am working on myself and digging myself out of this situation. I was once at a point where I was so far in my shell, I didn't even know where the opening was anymore. Now, I have a job in childcare, I have animals and responsibilities. I hold the house together while my dad is working. I cook and clean and handle paperwork for my dad. I take care of all of our animals and my siblings. I keep everything under control and everyone in check. I have some personal goals for myself now which I'm slowly accomplishing. I still don't leave my house much, only for errands, but that's something else I'm working on. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. One hoop at a time, I'm moving forward. I am strong, independent and an overcomer and I will no longer be a victim. I will no longer let anxiety completely swallow me. I'm trying to cope and I'm trying to get myself together. I'm 20-years-old now and it's time.

(stay tuned for more in the near future. I left out stuff so I could talk about it under different topics. Thanks for reading)