Reflection of epic proportions!
Hello Live Journal. It has definitely been a while since I last wrote something worth reading. But today, I was reflecting on my life and what I want to do in this world and I came the conclusion that I have only ever let a handful of people see who I really am. And to be honest, I don't even know if I showed them all of me. So today, I was thinking I would be an open book and just share what makes up a Bobbie.
Self Worth:
I am an extremely lonely person. Growing up, I never really had too many good friends. You know how it is with girls and growing up. A lot of the time you are just friends because it's easier than having those mean cunts as your enemy. I fell into this category. Though granted, I did try to build real friendships during that time. I felt that those girls were important to me and I loved them. I loved being part of the group. But as we got older and boys came into the picture, I came to discover that they would talk behind my back and do what they could to kick me down because I was lonely. I was an easy target. I was smart and witty. I could make people laugh and bring joy to a room. And that was a threat. For a while, they actually made me feel like I was doing something bad. That being open, honest, and sincere made me a bad person. No one wanted to hear it. So then I built walls. I stopped being open to the world because who really did want to hear what I had to say? At a time like that, all that really seemed to matter to most people were the boys they had crushes on and which girls they could kick into submission. This added to my already crazy insecurities. I always felt like people were judging me along with my family and it was true. They were. My family was not perfect and we had our secrets. Things that people could use against us and they often did when they needed a good distraction. My father was a drunk. I was afraid to have friends over because I thought that something bad would happen if he got drunk and lashed out. So then I stopped getting close to people. This was not an easy decision to come by for someone who was only 7. But I realized that young that he was dangerous to other people so I am sure that is what started all of the insecurities that made me such an easy target. I tried to hide my insecurities behind overconfidence and sarcasm. I was a star athlete and worked so hard to stay that way so that I could at least feel like I had just the tiniest bit of worth in this world. My skills were able to bring a softball and a soccer team to championships. Recognition and praise. It was probably the only time I felt like people saw me as a value to them, and I didn't even care that it was just because my skills were a part of making a group a bunch of winners at something that in the end really didn't matter that much. But in that circle, I had worth. And I was someone to be admired. Outside of that, the dynamic was pretty much the same. No one really talked to me about things other than stuff on the team. No one got to know who I was, truly. I was shy. And I didn't talk.
So for almost my entire life, I felt like I was worthless and clung to the stupidest things in order to feel as if I made any difference at all. I was also a middle child and a bastard at that. I still don't truly know who my dad is though it seems pretty obvious.
Trust and Responsibility:
I learned not to trust people at a young age. I had a hard time allowing anyone to ever know anything about me that could make me vulnerable to them. This started with my mother and father. From the time I was about 5, my dad went to prison for 18 months. During that time, my mom had another guy living with us. We were told they were just friends but being 5 doesn't necessarily make you stupid. And though I didn't know it quite yet, I was a very intelligent child and grasped complex ideas about relationships and the way people interact with each other. My parents fought all the time. But my mom with this guy, her body language was different and they never shouted or broke things or hit each other. So again, you don't really need to be Einstein to know that there was something special there. I could not even trust my own mother to be honest and straight with us and explain what was going on. When we visited our extended family, we had to lie about that man and never even mention him to anyone. When my father got out of prison and that man went away, we still could never talk about it. The one time my sister mentioned something, it caused a huge fight. So from that young age we were taught to lie. Believing that it was okay to do so because it was for a better good. It was meant to not hurt other people. It was a tool to keep everyone happy. But that is never the case. Lying doesn't help anything. It just gives a young and intelligent girl the tools necessary to bullshit her way through things and it gives an idea that as long as you feel justified in what you are doing, then it can't be bad...Yeah, that's totally not how it works. In fact, all that did was mold me into someone who would stay friends with people who were mean just to not be cast out. And it also was the thing that cost me the one thing I have wanted more than anything else in this world. These little habits that creep up to the point where you don't know you are even doing them have serious consequences. I wish I could have been more honest the one time I really needed someone on my side. But, that just brings me to my responsibility to others. Growing up, I could not depend on my family to really provide what I needed. I had no structure or boundaries. I did homework and got good grades because I wanted them; not because my parents would get upset. They didn't care at all what kind of grades I got.
Eventually, my parents got divorced and my mother remarried not that long after. But the man she married walked out on his job when we needed him to be a responsible adult. He just quit and never found other work. As soon as I turned 16, this meant that I was working. I had a shitty job at a crappy movie theatre just so I could provide me and my sister with lunch money for the week. And the real kicker was that when I forgot to put it in my sister's lunch account, she would curse me out and just bitch. I NEVER got a thank you from her or my mother for making sure we at least got to eat lunch since there was rarely anything to eat at home. So then here I was at age 16 taking advanced placement courses, working a job, and playing softball for an expensive elite team. Not to mention doing chores all the time. My mom would actually put chores above school work. So a lot of the time, I wouldn't even get to start my homework until around midnight. And being in AP courses, I had a crazy work load so I rarely slept. Though in retrospect, that prepared me for college. My college life was pretty much the same way. Always studying and doing homework. I am the first person in my family to graduate from college. So perhaps all that bullshit was worth something.
God and Spirituality:
I never really had a stable religious background. When we were younger, my family attended Lutheran Services. But when we moved away from my grandparents, my mom found this church that can only be described as craaaazy. Granted, there were a lot of good people there. But this place made me feel dirty. I was forced to go every sunday and every wednesday night. The youth had classes for different age groups. I guess it was like youth group but more structured and corporate. The rainbows, Daisies, Prims, and STARs (Suzanna, Tabatha, Anna, and Ruth). These classes were devoted to making you feel like shit if you forgot to bring offering for the week or if you forgot a bible verse. We also had badges we had to earn before we could graduate to the next phase. This made me sick because I didn't care about earning badges or points or being the person that knew the most bible verses or knew all of the pledges we would recite. It also turned out that the pastor and his wife were embezzling money given by the congregation. For the longest time, I didn't trust any of those people. And my mother didn't help always talking about ghosts and spirits, and the Native Americans and Quiji boards. So had no real spiritual guidance. But then I went to highschool and I started going to church again with my at the time boyfriend, Mike. But I still felt uneasy because where I grew up, church was very gossipy and judging. So I never really felt comfortable there. Not to mention Mike would always fall asleep and start snoring during the sermon along with half of the congregation. I did go through confirmation and learned a great deal of things. But eventually, I stopped going there, too as softball suddenly had me super busy on Sundays. My religious path has been a bumpy road. When we were at that one church with the youthgroup; all I ever head was criticism. People complained all the time and were so quick to pick on someone. And I really hated the "Jesus is my boyfriend" music they played for like an hour. Then we got maybe one bible reading and some self-righteous sermon from someone who was stealing from the very people who put so much trust in him. And everyone ate it up. But then I went to Thiel College and actually started going to church with Dan. I was a bit creeped out at first because I didn't know the people there and the last time I had been in a church was to say goodbye to my dead boyfriend so yeah...But eventually, I became secure and I actually built a relationship with God. No points needed. No memorization of pledges and oaths. Just good ole worship. Just like when I was little. So I am proud to say that I am a Lutheran and I don't care who knows it!
Love:
My parents had a shitty relationship. All I ever saw was fighting and lying and cheating. So naturally, I had no idea how to be in a relationship. The first relationship I was ever in was not what I would call fun or ideal. For the first time, a boy actually liked me instead of my friend Sara. We started dating and it was fun and innocent for a while. But then this boy started pressuring me into things I really didn't want to be doing. Told me that if I loved him then I would have no problems doing the things that made him happy. And of course, never knowing what a real loving relationship looked like, that was the best I had to go on. It was either trust this boy or believe that love was like my parents' relationship. I am not a violent person so I chose what the boy said. So of course I ended up experimenting with sex at too young of an age, really. I didn't understand what was going on. And I certainly did not get any enjoyment out of it. But for the sake of the boy I "loved so much", I just kept doing it. I never actually had full out intercourse with him, but at that point, might as well have. It really wasn't much different. But finally, he cheated on me enough times that I finally said I had enough. He had asked me to quit my softball team for him and that's where I drew the line. But some how, we kept being drawn back to each other. Again and again, he and I would fight, break up, date new people, and then always come back to the same thing. To be honest, it was a mess. But every time we went back we grew more and more and we did truly care about each other but both of us wanted something that we just weren't mature enough to work out. So we parted ways again and came back one more time. He had another girlfriend. I was the other girl. But I was the girl he would come to for actual support and it made me feel as if I were needed. During that time, that's what I wanted to feel more than anything else in the world since I was so lonely and sad. I needed someone to need me in order to fulfill myself. We had planned to run away together when I graduated highschool. But a month before I graduated, he was in a car accident and died. I remember coming home from school and as soon as I walked through the door, my sister was in the living roon and the first thing she said to me was "did you know Chris died"? I got sooo angry with her yelling about how jokes like that weren't funny. But it was true. He had died. I had no idea. And that was not the way I wanted to find out.
It was then that I decided that it was time for me to move forward and to become myself for the first time. When I graduated, I moved far away from home. I chose Thiel college in Greenville Pennsylvania and before I knew it, I was Bobbie for the first time. I still had some bad habits I had picked up from all those years, but I got to be fully myself. The nerd girl who liked sports, loved comics, obsessed with manga, and who just loved gross biological functions! And during all of this, I fell stupidly in love. But that's the thing about personality quirks...I seriously was not mature enough to be in that relationship just yet. For the first time, I was my individual self and I quickly jumped into a relationship. There were never any regrets, but I couldn't be the girlfriend I needed to be for the boy I fell in love with. I was still selfish and new to my own self worth. I was weak. I couldn't handle the pressure of school and love and trying to recover from 18 years of abuse and disappointments so I made mistakes. I had poor judgement and I could never express how I truly felt because I was just angry and sad all the time. And eventually, that just became too much. Something happened to me and I was too ashamed to admit that it had actually happened.So I lied about it. Falling into all those bad habits I had before. I thought I was doing something good and that I could just move forward on that, but how was that even fair. Even if things would have turned out differently, it would have been built on a new foundation starting with a lie. So it all ended and I moved back to Texas. Sometimes, I really wish that the people of my past would have met the person I am now. I think I would bring a lot of joy to their world.
The Present:
After reflecting on these things, I finally was able to get the therapy I needed to start moving in the right direction. Years of overcoming a lifetime of trauma and abuse.Also, the thought I might die probably pushed me a bit as well since I didn't want to leave someone like the old me behind as a memory if the worst came to pass when I was sick.
Sadly, I am still very insecure but I now stand up for the things I believe in a lot more. I may be insecure but people do not make me feel inferior anymore. I know I have a lot to bring to someone's life and I know I am not perfect, but I try my best every day to improve and try to get better.
So after all of that, you get me. The past which has shaped my present. I always felt as if maybe I was a bit secretive about my life and childhood. I was ashamed of my family and my life. I was shy and insecure and scared and never knew what was going on growing up. But that's me. That's who I was and how I came to be myself, today.
I really want to thank you for reading this. I want people to know me. I want people to know my past. I want people to see the sadness that was hidden by so many well faked smiles. I want you to know me. The me before and the me now.
I love you guys and I don't want to hide anymore.
Self Worth:
I am an extremely lonely person. Growing up, I never really had too many good friends. You know how it is with girls and growing up. A lot of the time you are just friends because it's easier than having those mean cunts as your enemy. I fell into this category. Though granted, I did try to build real friendships during that time. I felt that those girls were important to me and I loved them. I loved being part of the group. But as we got older and boys came into the picture, I came to discover that they would talk behind my back and do what they could to kick me down because I was lonely. I was an easy target. I was smart and witty. I could make people laugh and bring joy to a room. And that was a threat. For a while, they actually made me feel like I was doing something bad. That being open, honest, and sincere made me a bad person. No one wanted to hear it. So then I built walls. I stopped being open to the world because who really did want to hear what I had to say? At a time like that, all that really seemed to matter to most people were the boys they had crushes on and which girls they could kick into submission. This added to my already crazy insecurities. I always felt like people were judging me along with my family and it was true. They were. My family was not perfect and we had our secrets. Things that people could use against us and they often did when they needed a good distraction. My father was a drunk. I was afraid to have friends over because I thought that something bad would happen if he got drunk and lashed out. So then I stopped getting close to people. This was not an easy decision to come by for someone who was only 7. But I realized that young that he was dangerous to other people so I am sure that is what started all of the insecurities that made me such an easy target. I tried to hide my insecurities behind overconfidence and sarcasm. I was a star athlete and worked so hard to stay that way so that I could at least feel like I had just the tiniest bit of worth in this world. My skills were able to bring a softball and a soccer team to championships. Recognition and praise. It was probably the only time I felt like people saw me as a value to them, and I didn't even care that it was just because my skills were a part of making a group a bunch of winners at something that in the end really didn't matter that much. But in that circle, I had worth. And I was someone to be admired. Outside of that, the dynamic was pretty much the same. No one really talked to me about things other than stuff on the team. No one got to know who I was, truly. I was shy. And I didn't talk.
So for almost my entire life, I felt like I was worthless and clung to the stupidest things in order to feel as if I made any difference at all. I was also a middle child and a bastard at that. I still don't truly know who my dad is though it seems pretty obvious.
Trust and Responsibility:
I learned not to trust people at a young age. I had a hard time allowing anyone to ever know anything about me that could make me vulnerable to them. This started with my mother and father. From the time I was about 5, my dad went to prison for 18 months. During that time, my mom had another guy living with us. We were told they were just friends but being 5 doesn't necessarily make you stupid. And though I didn't know it quite yet, I was a very intelligent child and grasped complex ideas about relationships and the way people interact with each other. My parents fought all the time. But my mom with this guy, her body language was different and they never shouted or broke things or hit each other. So again, you don't really need to be Einstein to know that there was something special there. I could not even trust my own mother to be honest and straight with us and explain what was going on. When we visited our extended family, we had to lie about that man and never even mention him to anyone. When my father got out of prison and that man went away, we still could never talk about it. The one time my sister mentioned something, it caused a huge fight. So from that young age we were taught to lie. Believing that it was okay to do so because it was for a better good. It was meant to not hurt other people. It was a tool to keep everyone happy. But that is never the case. Lying doesn't help anything. It just gives a young and intelligent girl the tools necessary to bullshit her way through things and it gives an idea that as long as you feel justified in what you are doing, then it can't be bad...Yeah, that's totally not how it works. In fact, all that did was mold me into someone who would stay friends with people who were mean just to not be cast out. And it also was the thing that cost me the one thing I have wanted more than anything else in this world. These little habits that creep up to the point where you don't know you are even doing them have serious consequences. I wish I could have been more honest the one time I really needed someone on my side. But, that just brings me to my responsibility to others. Growing up, I could not depend on my family to really provide what I needed. I had no structure or boundaries. I did homework and got good grades because I wanted them; not because my parents would get upset. They didn't care at all what kind of grades I got.
Eventually, my parents got divorced and my mother remarried not that long after. But the man she married walked out on his job when we needed him to be a responsible adult. He just quit and never found other work. As soon as I turned 16, this meant that I was working. I had a shitty job at a crappy movie theatre just so I could provide me and my sister with lunch money for the week. And the real kicker was that when I forgot to put it in my sister's lunch account, she would curse me out and just bitch. I NEVER got a thank you from her or my mother for making sure we at least got to eat lunch since there was rarely anything to eat at home. So then here I was at age 16 taking advanced placement courses, working a job, and playing softball for an expensive elite team. Not to mention doing chores all the time. My mom would actually put chores above school work. So a lot of the time, I wouldn't even get to start my homework until around midnight. And being in AP courses, I had a crazy work load so I rarely slept. Though in retrospect, that prepared me for college. My college life was pretty much the same way. Always studying and doing homework. I am the first person in my family to graduate from college. So perhaps all that bullshit was worth something.
God and Spirituality:
I never really had a stable religious background. When we were younger, my family attended Lutheran Services. But when we moved away from my grandparents, my mom found this church that can only be described as craaaazy. Granted, there were a lot of good people there. But this place made me feel dirty. I was forced to go every sunday and every wednesday night. The youth had classes for different age groups. I guess it was like youth group but more structured and corporate. The rainbows, Daisies, Prims, and STARs (Suzanna, Tabatha, Anna, and Ruth). These classes were devoted to making you feel like shit if you forgot to bring offering for the week or if you forgot a bible verse. We also had badges we had to earn before we could graduate to the next phase. This made me sick because I didn't care about earning badges or points or being the person that knew the most bible verses or knew all of the pledges we would recite. It also turned out that the pastor and his wife were embezzling money given by the congregation. For the longest time, I didn't trust any of those people. And my mother didn't help always talking about ghosts and spirits, and the Native Americans and Quiji boards. So had no real spiritual guidance. But then I went to highschool and I started going to church again with my at the time boyfriend, Mike. But I still felt uneasy because where I grew up, church was very gossipy and judging. So I never really felt comfortable there. Not to mention Mike would always fall asleep and start snoring during the sermon along with half of the congregation. I did go through confirmation and learned a great deal of things. But eventually, I stopped going there, too as softball suddenly had me super busy on Sundays. My religious path has been a bumpy road. When we were at that one church with the youthgroup; all I ever head was criticism. People complained all the time and were so quick to pick on someone. And I really hated the "Jesus is my boyfriend" music they played for like an hour. Then we got maybe one bible reading and some self-righteous sermon from someone who was stealing from the very people who put so much trust in him. And everyone ate it up. But then I went to Thiel College and actually started going to church with Dan. I was a bit creeped out at first because I didn't know the people there and the last time I had been in a church was to say goodbye to my dead boyfriend so yeah...But eventually, I became secure and I actually built a relationship with God. No points needed. No memorization of pledges and oaths. Just good ole worship. Just like when I was little. So I am proud to say that I am a Lutheran and I don't care who knows it!
Love:
My parents had a shitty relationship. All I ever saw was fighting and lying and cheating. So naturally, I had no idea how to be in a relationship. The first relationship I was ever in was not what I would call fun or ideal. For the first time, a boy actually liked me instead of my friend Sara. We started dating and it was fun and innocent for a while. But then this boy started pressuring me into things I really didn't want to be doing. Told me that if I loved him then I would have no problems doing the things that made him happy. And of course, never knowing what a real loving relationship looked like, that was the best I had to go on. It was either trust this boy or believe that love was like my parents' relationship. I am not a violent person so I chose what the boy said. So of course I ended up experimenting with sex at too young of an age, really. I didn't understand what was going on. And I certainly did not get any enjoyment out of it. But for the sake of the boy I "loved so much", I just kept doing it. I never actually had full out intercourse with him, but at that point, might as well have. It really wasn't much different. But finally, he cheated on me enough times that I finally said I had enough. He had asked me to quit my softball team for him and that's where I drew the line. But some how, we kept being drawn back to each other. Again and again, he and I would fight, break up, date new people, and then always come back to the same thing. To be honest, it was a mess. But every time we went back we grew more and more and we did truly care about each other but both of us wanted something that we just weren't mature enough to work out. So we parted ways again and came back one more time. He had another girlfriend. I was the other girl. But I was the girl he would come to for actual support and it made me feel as if I were needed. During that time, that's what I wanted to feel more than anything else in the world since I was so lonely and sad. I needed someone to need me in order to fulfill myself. We had planned to run away together when I graduated highschool. But a month before I graduated, he was in a car accident and died. I remember coming home from school and as soon as I walked through the door, my sister was in the living roon and the first thing she said to me was "did you know Chris died"? I got sooo angry with her yelling about how jokes like that weren't funny. But it was true. He had died. I had no idea. And that was not the way I wanted to find out.
It was then that I decided that it was time for me to move forward and to become myself for the first time. When I graduated, I moved far away from home. I chose Thiel college in Greenville Pennsylvania and before I knew it, I was Bobbie for the first time. I still had some bad habits I had picked up from all those years, but I got to be fully myself. The nerd girl who liked sports, loved comics, obsessed with manga, and who just loved gross biological functions! And during all of this, I fell stupidly in love. But that's the thing about personality quirks...I seriously was not mature enough to be in that relationship just yet. For the first time, I was my individual self and I quickly jumped into a relationship. There were never any regrets, but I couldn't be the girlfriend I needed to be for the boy I fell in love with. I was still selfish and new to my own self worth. I was weak. I couldn't handle the pressure of school and love and trying to recover from 18 years of abuse and disappointments so I made mistakes. I had poor judgement and I could never express how I truly felt because I was just angry and sad all the time. And eventually, that just became too much. Something happened to me and I was too ashamed to admit that it had actually happened.So I lied about it. Falling into all those bad habits I had before. I thought I was doing something good and that I could just move forward on that, but how was that even fair. Even if things would have turned out differently, it would have been built on a new foundation starting with a lie. So it all ended and I moved back to Texas. Sometimes, I really wish that the people of my past would have met the person I am now. I think I would bring a lot of joy to their world.
The Present:
After reflecting on these things, I finally was able to get the therapy I needed to start moving in the right direction. Years of overcoming a lifetime of trauma and abuse.Also, the thought I might die probably pushed me a bit as well since I didn't want to leave someone like the old me behind as a memory if the worst came to pass when I was sick.
Sadly, I am still very insecure but I now stand up for the things I believe in a lot more. I may be insecure but people do not make me feel inferior anymore. I know I have a lot to bring to someone's life and I know I am not perfect, but I try my best every day to improve and try to get better.
So after all of that, you get me. The past which has shaped my present. I always felt as if maybe I was a bit secretive about my life and childhood. I was ashamed of my family and my life. I was shy and insecure and scared and never knew what was going on growing up. But that's me. That's who I was and how I came to be myself, today.
I really want to thank you for reading this. I want people to know me. I want people to know my past. I want people to see the sadness that was hidden by so many well faked smiles. I want you to know me. The me before and the me now.
I love you guys and I don't want to hide anymore.