Been quiet.

Because I'm struggling a lot lately.
When I'm not depressed my emotions are even worse! Just so much worse!
I finished one chapter in the DBT book and I used some of the distraction stuff to make it through a shopping trip yesterday and then one today. Without, you know, snapping and yelling and getting in faces and generally just being pissed off. I HATE THIS.

THIS is why I'd rather be Bi-polar! At least then I'd have times where I'm manic and happy and it wouldn't be this drop of the hat bullshit!

Today was supposed to be rain.
I was okay with that.
I woke up to snow and I cried, I cried and I cried and my sleep is terrible and I HATE It.
I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning!

AT ALL!

I hated that I had to, I looked out the window and cried, and just couldn't stop myself from saying, "I just can't do this anymore, I hate living so far North. I hate winter, I hate snow, I hate it, I feel terrible when the snow comes!"

It's true, I can handle the rain, the wind, the hail, the blazing hot sunshine... but I cannot stand the snow.

Why? I'm guessing it was the winters without a proper jacket, and gloves.
The winters with no snow boots, soaked wet and frozen feet through a school day, and torn shoes filled with dirty mud and the pain of cold feet. I was miserable, and no one noticed. No one cared at all.
Not at home, not at school, none of my friends knew the worst of it.

No one ever gave a damn.

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I suffered... managed... through the 'day before Valentines Day' lunch at PizzaHut. Far too many people and I had to bring my anxiety meds and take TWO of them just to manage. Still, I only managed a slice.

I left while everyone was still in mid conversation over my little brother's bitchy soon to be ex-wife.
The moment we drove away I got this feeling, "the topic of conversation probably turned to talking about how awful I am."

I admitted that to my mom later, and she said "naw, we just continued to talk about how bitchy S is." Okay, I'll take it for that.

During the lunch the conversation took to everyone talking about how 'bad' they were as kids. Or really, I didn't discuss myself, but yeah...

Mom said that her biggest failure was 'probably' my youngest sister, before saying sarcastically 'oh there's NO WAY it could be J' .. J being my oldest sister. Which of course is actually her biggest failure is what she meant.

My brother was stoned, yes stoned, at the lunch. *sigh*

Mom went on to talk about how I was 'always so whiny'. I wasn't actually too bad until my bio-dad was thrown in jail, I was forced to move from everything and everyone I ever cared about.. thrown into one shitty situation after another, and then basically abandoned by her too. Sure, I mean I was always the sensitive kid. Then again, I'm a Pisces (I do believe in astrology.) and we tend to be sensitive folk anyway.

I wasn't as bad THEN as I am now. Though the way I am now is different than who I was as a kid.

By 10 1/2 or 11 (someplace around this age...) I was making, and taking myself to, my own doctors appointments. I was making and taking my youngest two siblings to theirs at times too.

By 12, I was making and taking myself to dentist appointments, and doing the same for my brother. I don't recall my younger sister going to the dentist much at all.

Here is a giant problem with all of that?
I am TERRIFIED of needles, extremely terrified of needles. Stemming from a badly done blood draw when I was younger in which the person taking it slipped, and the needle tore some skin. My inner elbow (elbow pit?) bruised badly and was swollen to the unbendable point for over a week.

I was also afraid of the dentist. Needles in my mouth! Needles IN MY MOUTH.
Alone.
All alone.
We could afford a bus trip up there, but had to walk home, across town.. busy streets. Myself and my brother who is 3 years younger than me.

It was not the way to be you know?
At 10 I walked over a mile to school sometimes, alone, across busy streets and bad things. Or home, depending. It didn't matter anyway. No one was ever there when we woke up.
For a time my younger sister was in pre-school, a chance the rest of us actually never got.
So mom would be home from oh, what? 3 or 4 am? Then disappear without a trace in the morning with the youngest.

It'd be me, and my brother, left alone to get ready for school. Of course, despite being on food assistance from the state, we never had enough food. We had to be hungry and hope that the school bus got to school with enough time for us to chow down on breakfast which we were lucky to get free from the school.
Sometimes, all we managed was that free breakfast and lunch. Maybe some plain rice for dinner. One month, that was what we had. Plain rice, after we ran out of season salt. Maybe once or twice in there we had a can of vegetables though.
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When I was in 5th grade, so 10 going on 11. No one cared about my birthday.
My mom wasn't home, my oldest sister was off sleeping with some guy for attention, my younger siblings were at friends houses. It was a weekend, and I had a friend over.
I had so few friends. No one wanted to come over to the poor girls house. It was downtown in a cramped little apartment and no like was allowed to go there for the most part.

So, my best friend in the entire world was over. At this point, I'd never tried to make a cake before, but no one bought me a cake and no one had even so much as called to say Happy Birthday, as far as family had gone.

Our apartment was cluttered, messy, despite my trying as hard as my young age with the number of kids and lack of space would allow. The place never felt good enough. There was wall to wall carpet in EVERY room aside from the kitchen. Yes, that includes the bathroom. What idiot decided that a bathroom needed full carpeting I'll never ever know, but I wish I could find him ask him what he was thinking?!
Anyway.. that wasn't the point I'm trying to get to.

So there we were, two 10 years olds, well okay I had just turned 11, but she was 10. Making our first cake, from scratch, without really understanding that if you don't have the right sized cake pan (it was an inch off I guess, but it had no noticeable numbers as it had been removed by age or something?) that you DO NOT put all of the batter you've made in it.

Can you see where this is going?

The batter had tasted good! We'd tasted it with our fingers after all, licking the bowl after we'd put the cake in the oven...

So we were excited to see how it was going to be, it smelled good too, until, somehow, suddenly there was smoke coming from the kitchen. Not steam, SMOKE! I went to check what was going on, only to open the door to a FIRE in the oven. Yes, there in the electric oven was a fire, burning over flooded cake batter. I had NO idea what to do! I turned off the oven, and was trying so hard not to cry! I couldn't get a hold of my mom, she was off someplace and would have been angry if I'd actually managed TO get a hold of her.

So my friend calls up her mom, and says. Can you imagine your 10 year old calling you to say this...?
"Mommy, how do you put out an oven fire?"

Her exact words, I remember them to this day! Her mom was, understandably, a bit freaked out and upset to realize this was happening. But told us to throw baking soda on it and not turn the oven back on until it could be cleaned out.

We managed to do that, got the fire under control (it wasn't a fire big enough to ruin the oven, but any oven fire at 10/just 11 is scary stuff!), and I cleaned out the oven, and finished cooking the cake. At that point, it hadn't really had anymore that could spill over the edges.

Before the cake finished my friend's mother arrived, a store bought cake in hand that she even had the bakery write on it Happy Birthday (my name). She even knew, what type of cake I did and didn't like. Chocolate cake with a cream/frosting filling. No fruity stuff inside please.

This is something my mom doesn't still know by the way.

How sad is it, that my own mother couldn't be bother to rescue us from the oven fire? That she didn't even care afterward? My friends mother was hurt for me and bought me a cake, because she had no idea that no one at all was at home with the two of us. That she couldn't even be bothered to by even a $5 bakery cake and have the staff at the store slap on a quick happy birthday message?

I didn't even care to want/expect presents at that point. Just wanted them to give a damn. Just wanted them there, even just that small cake, something, the birthday song. Some sort of love and care.

But I was yet again abandoned.

The original cake, by the way ended up delicious. Though I failed at making a successful chocolate powdered sugar frosting, and it turned out more of a thin glaze. Still, it was delicious and when I took some to school with me the next day to have with lunch. I shared some bites with some people and they were amazed that I'd made it myself. One of my rare ego boosts back in the day.

*sigh*

Oh well...

I remain...
-Shattered who... maybe someday should give some sort of normal name... if not my real one.