M3NTALLYLOST's Journal

I know it has been awhile … but I’m still here… still alive…still have some hope in a very small sliver. The last few weeks has been rather exhausting between work being after me and self discovery. I hurt my self today, no blood just plenty of bruises, rope rash, and raw spots (FYI – I will not kill myself. I use the ropes for self bondage and restraint). I think I am pushing my self to hard to find the answers I want or need, even though I have no control over when and where I am getting which flashbacks. One memory leads to another leads to more guilt and blame. I’m now really blaming my military rape on me. I can look back and see how well planed they were, yet I really believe it was my fault they picked me. I thought I was getting better with accepting what they did to me. I know all the clashes’ it was not my fault, but that huge BUT. I know this is not going to be easy to get through, but dang… I have not gotten any farther in my RAR I’m still dwelling on the first journal entry (What is and when will I be a survivor?). That simple so simple little question of when… I believe they picked me because they could see that I wanted it. I wanted it to keep in line with my ineffective patterns of coping. After all I was an exhibitionist. Word spreads like wild fire in a Field Training environment. I called some family members and questioned them about one memory I have been having about my childhood. I did not lead them in anyway. I remember hiding between a tree and a shed in about a 12 inch space looking with one eye at my uncle’s church across the field. I just asked them where that location was and they had pictures that put chills so cold up my spine. I remember thinking that I could not run that far with out them catching me. I remember that terror and fear so well I can taste it, taste the adrenaline. I was 7, they where my male cousins ages 6,8,15 and 17. My aunt told me she thought they may have done something but she never brought it up because we all denied it. I do not remember exactly what they did, but I do remember my sexual learning curve from that point on and my self harm very clear. I would do things to my self that would hurt for weeks on end, and then do it again when it stopped hurting. I never knew it was wrong, what I did to myself. I never knew it was not normal. I never told anyone the belt broke around my neck at the age of 8. I never told any one that I slept in between two shelves in the top of my closet for around two years. I did not know. I did not tell. My mom worked nights and slept through me pretending not to hurt.

Back to the RAR journal entry I will be a survivor when I can draw in color. You see no one can hind there true pain and feeling from flowing through there handwriting, that is a scientific fact. Handwriting analysis is an exact science that has been studied of decades. I can not hide my insecurity, hurt, blame, damaged self from my artwork. I am a survivor as far as the people around me are concerned I am a real good pretender. I will be a survivor only when I can see it in my art work. I can not pretend to myself.