Have to start somewhere, right?
Basics:
- I'm 22.
- I'm a college student, in my Junior year. I transferred to Longwood University from Northern Virginia Community College this fall and I absolutely love it. Best decision I've ever made.
- I love, love, love the country. I hate city life and the hustle and bustle that goes with it. My school is located in the middle of nowhere and it's so nice. It fits me perfectly.
- As much as I love my family, I'm far more psychologically healthy at school than I am at home.
- I'm dedicated to my schoolwork, but a major procrastinator. I tend to start all of my assignments at the last possible minute, using the necessity as motivation.
- I have an unbelievably complicated family. More on that below.
- I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 15. I've been on more than 10 psychoactive drugs since the diagnosis, and was hospitalised 3 times within 18 months in high school.
- I struggled for years with self-injury. I am currently SI-free since September 8th, and before that, my last SI was in March. I try very hard to avoid it, but I think about it a lot and it takes a lot of restraint to avoid it when I get stressed.
- I'm a major Introvert. Socialising stresses me out and emotionally drains me. I try to be social at least a couple times a week, but I definitely do not fit into the college party scene.
- I love the internet and texting. Text-communication is infinitely easier than face-to-face or even talking on the phone for me. I have poor communication skills and it is something I'm working on.
- I love foreign languages, but I tend to give up on them quickly because I simply do not have the time or energy to devote to it.
- My biggest loves are reading and writing. Harry Potter saved my life when my parents divorced, and helped me through my mental health struggles. It was my escape. I love many other books, however, and fanfiction and Harry Potter themed role play.
- I love country music and Jimmy Buffett. I very rarely listen to anything else. All country music, from classics from the 1950s to new country; I love it all.
- I struggle with spirituality and religion. I didn't grow up in an overly religious home, though my grandmother (who lives with my family) is a devout Methodist, as is my father (who lives several hours south of me). I'm currently on a spiritual journey to find where I stand.
- I'm a caffeine addict, but I rarely indulge in alcohol and never in any illicit drugs. Caffeine is my one major vice, and I drink obscene amounts of Coca-Cola. It calms me down, oddly enough.
Wow....more basics than I thought I had. xD
As-brief-as-I-can-make-it History:
I was born on October 28th to Traci My biological father, Ray, who I currently have an excellent relationship with, offered to marry my mother when she got pregnant, but he was doing the "right" thing and my mother knew neither of them were ready for marriage, so tactfully turned him down. I met him once when I was 3, but didn't know who he was. I wouldn't meet him again until I was 15. He paid child support faithfully until my mother married Mark when I was 2.5, after dating him since I was 4 months old (she and Ray had gone their separate ways early into her pregnancy). He adopted me, but I still refer to him as my step-father to avoid confusion as Ray is in my life now.
Mark had 2 kids from a previous marriage, Brandy (who is 7 years older than me and is wheelchair bound due to spina bifida) and Michael (who is 5 years older than me). I saw them every other weekend when I was little and they came out for visitation to visit Mark, but as they got older and had social lives, I saw them less and less. I'm still close to both of them. They're my step-siblings with no biological relation to me.
When I was 3.5, my half-sister, Cortni, was born. My half-brother, Glen, was born 5 days before my 7th birthday. When I was 9.5, a woman and her daughter came to live with us. Mark and the woman, Sue, claimed that Sue's ex-husband was crazy and wanted to kill her and kidnap their daughter. This couldn't be farther from the truth. In reality, Mark and Sue had an affair. A month after Sue moved in, she moved back to her home, but Mark went with her "to protect her" from her ex-husband. My mother and siblings and I visited every weekend, staying overnight. A couple months after that, my mother discovered evidence of the affair. She stopped accompanying me and my siblings when we visited him and filed for a separation and divorce soon after; by this time, I was 10.
That same year, my mother told me about Ray because we were learning about adoption in school. I expressed interest in meeting him, but my mother thought I only wanted a replacement father and deterred me for several years. In hindsight, she was right, but that wasn't enough to save my relationship with my step-father, which deteriorated very quickly during the separation and subsequent divorce.
Around that same time, I discovered Harry Potter and I credit it to retaining my sanity during the excruciating 2-2.5 years of divorce proceedings. It was a messy, drawn-out, miserable affair in which Mark blackmailed my mother. There was a lot of fighting. I ended up resenting Mark more than I can really express and stopped talking to him entirely at age 12. I bluntly refused to talk to him or comply with the visitation requirements and my mother stopped forcing me to go because all that happened was I was miserable and calling her at midnight in tears every night I was there. I felt so alone at Sue's house, where Mark lived, because I hated Sue for destroying my family and hated her daughter for being spoiled. My siblings spent all their time with Sue's daughter and they all seemed a big happy family, except me.
I avoided them all and hid away in the room I slept in while there. My silence lasted 2 years, and when I was 14 and Sue kicked Mark out, I thought maybe - just maybe - we might have a relationship again. I missed him more than I would ever admit at the time. My relationship with him lasted a few months at best. He got a new girlfriend and started ignoring us again. I tried on and off for a relationship, but gave up the notion that we'd ever be close again.
At 14, I was also diagnosed with depression early into my freshman year of high school. I'd been miserable all through middle school, but I refused until I was 14 to see a therapist because I'd had horrible experiences with family therapy during the divorce. Within a few months, when I was 15, the diagnosis changed to Bipolar NOS when I was thrown into hypomania from an anti-depressant. There began my struggle with mental illness and all the complications that go with.
The summer after my freshman year, my mother finally consented to let me meet Ray. She still had his contact information and I met him in July. I found out I had another half-brother, Noah, who was 4 at the time and is now 10. We formed a relationship almost instantly, something that had never happened for me before. Normally, I'm shy and reserved and take months to warm up to people. He's been a major part of my life ever since.
When I was a junior in high school, at 17, I was hospitalized for the first time, for suicidal thoughts and self-injury. It was March and I was under incredible amounts of stress, both home and school. My grandmother is an alcoholic and has lived with us all my life (it's actually her house). The alcoholism grew far worse when I was 14 and my grandfather passed away; they had divorced in the 1970s, but grown close in their later life. When I was in the hospital, I had another failed attempt to connect with Mark. I asked him to visit me. He said he'd try, but he never showed; instead, he helped my step-brother paint his basement. The hurt I felt because a basement came before my mental stability devastated me.
I got through my junior year, but soon found myself self-injuring again, less than a month after the hospital (where my stay was 9 days). My senior year, the shit hit the fan again and I was hospitalized in October. I spent my 18th birthday in the hospital and missed Senior Homecoming. Again, Mark paid no heed to me, but this time I didn't even try to talk to him. Ray called me every night, and had done so in the first hospitalization, too.
A few months later, in April, I was hospitalized again. This time, I reached out to Mark. All I got for my trouble was him yelling at me on the phone about how I only wanted him in my life when I was in crisis. I was so hysterical, I had to hang up on him. I stopped talking to him again, and refused to even invite him to my graduation. I made it through the school year and through graduation, but all my dreams of going to a 4-year university straight out of school had disappeared early into my senior year. I settled for community college; the stress of leaving home (I had a very, very codependent relationship with my mother at the time and had severe separation anxiety, dating back to the divorce) was too much for me to handle.
I spent 3 years at the community college, working as a nanny part-time. I got my associate's degree with every intention of transferring to a university when I got it. I did and I'm much happier and stable at the college. I've been stable since my second year at the community college, seldom self-injuring and I'm happy. I still have relationship problems (to this day, I've had one romantic relationship) and I am still not very social, but I've finally found something I'm happy with.
I've recently decided to look into spirituality and Christianity again. I've dabbled before, but never got very far. I've always bounced back and forth between Atheism and Agnosticism, never being able to decide whether I believe in anything or something vague or what, but recently, I've found myself much more open to spirituality. We'll see how far it gets.
So, recap of my family
Traci - mother
Mark - step-father
Ray - biological father
Jenny - Ray's wife
Cortni - 18-year-old half-sister, currently in college
Glen - 15-year-old half-brother, currently a freshman in high school
Noah - 10-year-old half-brother, currently in 5th grade
Brandy - 28 or 29-year-old step-sister with spina bifida
Michael - 26-year-old step-brother
Sharon - grandmother, alcoholic, passive-aggressive
And that's it, for now. I'll try to update regularly.
