The Mortar: How This all Fits Together 1

I know how you feel, I've been in chronic pain since 1986. I've fought it for normalcy, to try and keep a job (but I've always been discriminated against because of the number of times I've had to go to hospital, my bosses called me "unreliable" because of my trips to the ER), and trying to have a normal social life going out to the bar and so on.

Sorry in advance for the novel, I just found it really cathartic to write again, and I wanted to get across the idea that I understand about the drinking but I didn't feel I could talk about it without taking about exactly where I was coming from. In places here and there are links to my blog, it is just links to deeper discussion of my trauma- more details of the story, as it were. Some people have really wanted my to write an autobiography, mostly fans of my mom, bleah. Haha. I'm sure if they saw the side of my mom that I have been exposed to, they might not worship her so much.

I've been in chronic pain since I was 17, so my whole adult life. I never had supportive parents, home life was so bad I moved out as soon as I could, and soon after my parents moved to the other side of the continent, and having no extended family, I was literally alone as a young adult, and got used a LOT because I just didn't know how things worked, and I didn't have anyone batting for me in my corner (mentoring or anything). I literally went through the "school of hard knocks".
 
I never felt love from my parents, there was blatant favouritism towards my younger brother, and it was made very clear that they hadn't wanted a girl. What happened was beyond sibling rivalry, it was constant clear harassment that just kept getting worse as the years went on (as an adult my brother didn't even bother to hide his pathological hatred of women and would brag about beating his fiancée in a loud voice in restaurants, for some reason my parents never did anything about his behaviour (which is why it led to that) and he never had to have any responsibility or accountability for his actions, that included never even having to apologise for anything he did such as intentionally destroying my things or killing my pets- although it is relevant, it is another story altogether.

My mom would always call me ugly, and would tell me that my life choices were limited to being a nurse or a housewife. Nothing I did was good enough for her. and she wielded my need to be approved of and loved like a club, whenever I would get on my feet in life, she would pull the rug out from beneath me and I would be scrambling to pick up the pieces. From early on, I accepted the fact that I was ugly- why else would she say such a thing? And that I was useless and unwanted, and the lowest of the low, that everyone had rights to trample me, and that maybe, just maybe, if I was nice to everyone, and honest, maybe someday someone would see me and believe me and be nice to me.

My dad was violent, mentally ill of some kind, although he was never formally diagnosed. My parents divorced when I was about four, I guess it was, even though my mom will never talk about it, I can't even get a straight answer about my own life from her. My dad never made it a secret that he didn't want a girl. After the divorce, he would call once every two weeks and talk to me for five minutes and my brother for twenty. I would have terrible panic attacks from this, I didn't know why my dad didn't love me. When I had an anxiety attack, I'd get punished for "hitting the wall", as it was called. (The walls were not actually hit, it was a euphemism for "acting out", but I wasn't having a tantrum, I was having a panic attack.) One of my mom's favourite means of passive aggressiveness was to use strange euphemisms that no one understood but herself and punish for them.

A strange rule she made was "if you tell the truth, you won't be punished", if you lie, you will both be punished". I don't even want to guess how she thought this would work, but this sparked my brother's sadism at a very young age. He would do stuff just to see me get punished unjustly, and he was very blatant about it. Since my brother was younger than me, he wouldn't get hit as hard as me- often I would have red marks and sometimes blisters from the hole in the wooden spoon. It didn't matter if I tried to talk to her like an adult and really explain that I didn't do the thing I was being punished for (usually I didn't even know what it was about, it was simply, "You know what you did". I stopped caring, and grounding didn't work on me, I would just draw or read or sew in my bunk. Once she was really mad about whatever it was that set her off, and she hit me in the arm and the handle of the wooden spoon broke on my arm. The look on her face was priceless. She didn't hit with an object for a long time after that.

She married my step dad when I was 10, he didn't adopt me or my brother, and in the early 80's it was unusual and confusing to have a different last name than your parents. In my young mind, I thought that we didn't get Bob's last name because of something to do with my dad, but when I was about 40 he told me that it was just because he didn't want me, and so he didn't adopt me. For him it was simple as that, he didn't really think of how destructive the repercussions of that sort of thing would be to a kid. Whenever I had an idea, he would day "just keep thinking, Nicky, that is what you're good at". It was his way of telling me I'm stupid, and that my idea was dumb and useless.

So, I was ugly and stupid and unwanted. "Just a girl," which meant I was around the level of garbage- a nuisance, best to stay out of everyone's way best I could. These were the adjectives I grew up with, a fact that I accepted about myself.

When I was 12, we moved from the States up to Canada, and I would see my dad once a year. When I was 14 he married my step mom and that year he started getting strange- I soon learned I had to lock the door when I was changing, and weird things would happen. He would sometimes quickly grab my breast and then pull away, and a few times when I was kissing him on the cheek as I arrived or left visiting him he would turn his head quickly and stick his tongue in my mouth.

I went to the school counsellor about this, and she said, "you must tell your parents, they will do something". So after school I told my mom, and she said that I have to make the choice whether I ever see my dad again. That was too hard and confusing for a fourteen year old to make. (I also told the same counsellor about the problem with my brother's sadistic behaviours, and same thing, "talk to your parents about it, they will know what to do". Mom was "too busy" and Bob said "we're not the kind of family that talks about things". I didn't know what to do.

During my teens, my mom was becoming quite a bad workaholic, and I really needed to talk to her, but she was always "too busy". There was a weird parallel  with my life though, for example, when I was going through puberty, she co-authored a book about what girls my age were thinking and feeling during their first period. She was too busy with the book to be bothered with me though, and when I got  my first period, she just told me to "read the box and follow the instructions, it's under the bathroom sink". It was like there were two of her- the version of her being a loving and caring and responsive mother (the version she let people see) and the real her.

I was really horse crazy, and the best thing when we moved to Canada was there was a riding stable within bike riding distance from home and school. The summer I was 12, I started to volunteer there- it started off badly though. I was so excited and wanting to impress the people in the office with my enthusiasm and knowledge, when we got in the office and I was brushed aside by my parents, I had an anxiety attack. That made a bad first impression on the barn manager, and even though I didn't know it or remember it until it was mentioned almost two decades later, it affected how I was treated there.

School was no better. Mom made me wear her hand-me down clothes, and I would get chastised and hounded for it. I had to get braces, and wear one of those ungodly headsets.  would get pushed into the lockers in the hallway, and I had some good foresight about what kind of white hot pain I would experience later.
 

Two years later, when I was 14 I was able to get paid by the stable and I took on the job as teacher's assistant. All the TA's kept one eye on the office door- one by one someone's dad would try and sneak into the office and have a "secret" meeting with Jean, the manager and owner of the lesson horses and many of the show horses. We all knew what the meeting meant. Some time in the near future, because of getting A's, or a birthday, or because she was "Daddy's Girl", a horse van would come up the long driveway and the TA would be upgraded from staff to Horse Owner, often a very nice show horse, too. I waited for my Day.

So there was bullying at home, bullying at school, and now bullying at the stable. Still, the stable was the only place I wanted to be. I had always loved the gentle power and beauty of horses. I believed they just knew if you were a good person, they would accept you.

My mom had all but completely shut me out. She was beginning to become Important, and she had no time for family matters, what she considered a nuscience. My brother become more and more of a terror, and I had no way to cull the behaviour. My parents were just not interested in parenting. My brother knew he could get away with bloody murder, and so he committed it on a regular basis. One time, when I was 16, I was so exasperated with my mom I said "when are you going to talk to me, when you retire?" She said I should make an appointment to see her. I was speechless. I really needed someone, an adult, to listen and to be proactive and to care. My mom liked to put on this show in  front of people that she was living and giving, she really got off on that shit. So I had no one that would listen to me. I started cutting. Mom and Bob saw the cuts, but said nothing. I started considering suicide again.

I made my dedication clear by living and breathing Horse. I got very good at drawing them, I learned everything I could and spent as much time there as I could. I tried to do everything I could to make it so I would deserve it, The years ticked by, and the girls that got their horse became meaner and meaner. I was actively snubbed- some of the girls went to my school, and as I was bullied there by them, I was bullied at the stable. I knew in my heart my day would never come, we weren't wealthy by any means, and my parents had told me flat out that I could never have a horse. But working there, the unconditional acceptance of the horses made everything bearable.

Then, in late summer of 1986, the Impossible Happened. One of my mom's colleagues was going on sabbatical for a year, and I was allowed to have one of her horses and keep her at the stable for a whole six months! She was a palomino Appendix Quarter Horse, a beautiful horse that I had gotten to see when she was four days old. All my years of persistence and work were finally paying off.  I was ecstatic. I had misjudged my parents, they were hearing me after all. I would have somewhere to belong, to be, maybe even the Mean Girls would become my friends.  I was afraid of jinxing it somehow. This was going to be almost as good as owning a horse, and I would be able to ride at any time I wanted, even on the beautiful wooded trails that the river nestled in. I don't know how I slept at all coming up to The Big Event.

The Best Day Ever
http://sparklegnu.blogspot.ca/2012/03/best-day-ever.html

So in the accident my nose was crushed and my cheekbones were caved in and my eye sockets fractured clear to the back of my eyes. I didn't know at the time though that I'd lost her, I felt that I was running The Gauntlet, that if I stayed committed to my riding that there would be no way I wouldn't get a horse now. I was in the hospital for six weeks and missed half a semester of graduating year of high school. My mom would not let me repeat the grade, even though it was an acceptable thing to do. While I was in the hospital, Tara's owner sold her to someone in another city.  I lost my dream horse, I lost my physical identity, but I kept my spirits up, I was extremely tough and I could handle this. I had no idea about the nightmare that lay in my future.

As the bones knit, I would have incidences of pain. Pure, exquisite, white hot pain, a bright white star of pain in my cheekbones. I would hallucinate, and vomit so that I couldn't hold down my meds. I had to go to the hospital regularly for pain control shots.

The first few times my mom or Bob would accompany me, then sometimes it would be one of my mom's colleagues from work. I thought they were doing it because they liked me. I thought them being called "Aunt _____" was mutually agreed upon, and that they were like a surrogate aunt because I didn't have any extended family. I thought they cared. "Aunt Wendy" came with me for a breakthrough pain shot. Depression often accompanied the pain. "It should be my mom at the ER with me, I wish she cared." Wendy didn't make any eye contact, and she looked really uncomfortable or something. Something was off. "She's paying  you, isn't she". Wendy started at the floor. There was an uncomfortable silence and the air become as thick as water. I never saw her after that day.

I met John. He was like no one I'd ever met. I had never been in love before, and when you are that young and in love, that person is your whole world. We were together just short of three years, when I learned he was cheating on me. My whole world shattered, I was broken.  He asked me to marry him.

About six weeks after asking me to marry him, John committed suicide.

I had a nervous breakdown. I had to move back in with my parents, which was awful. Bob became extremely abusive about my grieving.

Emotion is a Pejorative
http://sparklegnu.blogspot.ca/2012/04/emotion-is-pejoritive.html

I took two years of Psych, trying to understand it. At the end of the 2 year program, I met a guy who I thought was very sweet even though I thought he was a bit pushy in the relationship. I was living in a really crappy area of town, the kind of place that the police would ignore if you called them about noise complaints and such.

I stared going to bars more, I needed the noise, I needed to dance, and I needed to numb myself with drink. I made friends with local musicians, and would go to as many shows as I could.

One night the neighbours were having an exceptionally loud party, there was angry/afraid shouting in a woman's voice and smashing sounds against our shared wall. The next morning they brought out one of the guys who lived there in a body bag- apparently they had been drinking a lot and doing coke and the women were some prostitutes they had hired and there was an overdose. I'd had enough. So I agreed to move in with my boyfriend.

It started out really nice, but soon enough he became extremely possessive and gradually became abusive. He would have temper tantrums over the slightest thing, often something of his own imagination. He would accuse me of flirting with or sleeping with just about anyone he could list, it was absolutely mind boggling.

He would scream my name and if I wasn't prepared to "go upstairs" with him (which was pretty horrible, he would say terrible things to me and about my body), he would scream in my face and choke me and shake me...

Noise Through The Walls (DS1)
http://sparklegnu.blogspot.ca/2012/04/noise-through-walls-ds1.html

I'm The Best You're Ever Going to Get (DS2)
http://sparklegnu.blogspot.ca/2012/04/im-best-youre-ever-going-to-get-ds2.html

Following the abuse from Dan, I felt so beaten by the world, so deflated. I turned to the familiar- some of my step dad's work colleagues, they let me move in with them Janet and Gord. That is another whole nightmare on it's own. They were controlling and crazy. I had nowhere else to go.

Because of my pain and injuries and the traumas I'd been through, Social Services decided to help me, and they got involved, saying that I was in a really rare case where I was in an abuse situation with my landlords. Social Services helped me get an apartment (with a bathtub!) and I tried to put the pieces back together of my shattered life.

Social Services had me take a course about the dynamics of abuse, where I learned about boundaries and active listening and how to recognise an abusive relationship. This is when I learned that I had been abused my whole life- that the norm for me was abuse, and being the unwilling and unwitting reciprocant of being used and abused. I am a helper, a people pleaser, and abusive types seek people like me out and like a vampire, bleed us dry until there is nothing left but dust.

 I tried going back to school, majoring in Anthropology, but my neck was extremely sore and I couldn't focus.

After a four year wait, it was now 2001, I got into a pain clinic. A mere 15 years since my first persistently painful injury and six since my second. I didn't even know there were pain clinics.

The pain clinic said they couldn't do anything for my facial pain, but they might be able to help my neck- the physiotherapist coined it "multiple whiplash syndrome". I had been choked and strangled so badly by Dan that I has entrapped nerves in my neck, the origin of the extremely bad neck pain and the numbness and tingling in my hands. This is when I learned that Dan had actually done some permanent damage. I discussed trying to press charges again with the pain clinic psychologist. He said that I didn't have a very good chance because of the time that had passed. Great. So the waiting list to get into a clinic to give me a diagnosis exceeded the Statute of Limitations. That's some great care for your citizens, Canada.

I didn't know how to cope with that information, so I coped the only way I knew how: I went to the bar to talk it over with people I knew. That was a Tuesday night. A night that I struggle to remember, and struggle to forget.

What It Was Really Like
http://sparklegnu.blogspot.ca/2012/03/what-it-was-really-like.html

I didn't recover well from the rape. A body can only take so much, I guess. A mind can only take so much. Stress and bad memories blossomed into PTSD and the pain became worse, everywhere: chronic pain became Multiple Trauma Intractable Complex Chronic Pain Syndrome. I developed stress disorders like Fibromyalgia and ulcers and osteoarthritis. I didn't know who I could trust, the world seemed to be saying simultaneously "trust no one".

I completely shut down.

The last glimmer of god left my eyes- if god is forgiving and lets rapists into heaven then I want no part of it.

An Open Letter to Experts on Chronic Pain who Don’t Have Chronic Pain

Hi there, and thank you for sharing your expertise on chronic pain with me. Oh thank you, you look just fine too. Oh, you think that means I’m not suffering from pain? Well they do call it an “invisible illness” for a reason- yes; it was from that accident many years ago, the bones calloused around a major nerve causing an entrapment. You don’t believe me? You think I must be a malingerer? You’ve seen my x-rays and CT scans and are an expert at reading them, then I suppose.

Oh, you haven’? How silly of me, of course you haven’t!  I had no idea that your street knowledge and guess work was so astute! What was that, you say? Nothing is better than your favorite brand name over the counter medication? That will work? Well, I’m glad it works for you but I’m afraid that my doctor and I both agree that that medication is not strong enough for my pain and if I were to take enough of it to work I would be doing some serious damage to my stomach or liver. They do make stronger medication just for people with painful conditions like mine.

What was that? You think it’s an excuse to take strong pain meds? You think I am a needle craving back alley lurking junkie just shopping for meds, do you? Some kind of slobbering guttersnipe? Thank you for your kind thoughts, but I believe that medicinal information is between me and my doctor. I realize that you think that my doctor must be some uncouth pill pusher, perhaps from the very same back alley you imagine me slathering around in for my next fix.

Oh, I get it; you just don’t think I am trying hard enough to get better. I see what you mean. You think my pony tail is too tight or my hair is too heavy and causing these headaches? You think my breasts are too large and causing these backaches? That I should change my weight? Good Heavens! While I am flattered that you feel that my bosom is ample and my hair long and lovely, I assure you it is not the cause of the headaches, and my doctor hasn’t associated my backaches with my cup size. The weight is an unfortunate side effect of my medication and the unstoppable pain. Some people gain weight, others lose it uncontrollably. Oh, you think I should exercise more? I do what I can, but, yeah the back pain. My doctor said I better lay off that for a while. Yeah, I remember when I was toned and fit too, changing like this definitely wasn’t a conscientious decision, it’s what happens when you are in pain always. Toned and fit, those were the days.

Oh, the pain? Ha! Of course it is all in my head, that is where the pain receptors for the brain resides, you silly goose. And yes my headaches do reside in my head. Do correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m quite sure that is why they are called head-aches.

Tell, me, oh wise one (how I wish I shared your expertise on my condition), why you think it is perfectly fine for someone like you to come along and question my copious amounts of pain whilst never wondering about the pain of a cancer patient. Is it that you believe that cancer is the only thing that can cause serious pain? While I have the utmost sympathy for people that suffer from cancer, I don’t want to demean or belittle those who have serious pain and no cancer. You say I should just get over it? You think my pain is psychosomatic or somatoform in nature? I assure you it is not, and I assure you if I kept my medical records in my pocket I would be happy to share it with you, if it were your business of course. Which it isn’t.  And  unfortunately for you and my pocket, they are a little bit bigger than my grandmother’s photo album and I’m afraid I keep them safely stashed at the doctor’s office.

“Stash” Ha-ha, you don’t miss a thing do you. Yes I have tried Medicinal Marijuana. Yes, it does work for some people, but not for everyone. Strange to have to rely on a drug that helps so many that you can get arrested for. Medicinal marijuana comes in pill form, sprays, as well as the herb, but it doesn’t work for everyone.  Everyone is an individual, you see. Oh really? I have the exact condition as your co-worker’s neighbor’s aunt’s best friend, did I get that right?  They know of an herbal extract that will have me cured within two weeks? I assure you that would be nothing short of a miracle; I will definitely get right on that. I wonder if it makes your brain wonderful and smooth too, like yours appears to be.

Oh you think it must be lovely having all this time off to myself to do with what I wish, do you? Yes, having to make last minute cancellations on appointments and visits with my friends is certainly enjoyable, how I love to spend the day in the dark in bed with pain signals barraging my brain like an army attacking my nervous system, dead as a dodo, aside from the interruptions of retching my guts out. Yes, nerves, I see you caught that too, what a sharp one you are! It is true that the side-effects of constant chronic pain is to not only rattle the sensations but to rattle the nerves too and anxiety and depression are common acquaintances of chronic pain. It does put stress on the coping skills, you’re right. I’m sorry that my change in personality has disappointed you. I don’t enjoy being a nervous wreck either.

But you were talking about the indefinite vacation! It’s great being unable to hold down a job, having no money, not even enough to pay for medical procedures that might make one better. I’d love to be able to work, to have work friends and be able to afford to go to dinners and save up for vacations. In fact I’d be happy without all those things if I could just live a life of normal levels of pain, when things are working as they should and I’m not getting pain for no reason.

Oh the pain clinic you say? That pain clinic? Well sure I’d love to go there, looks like a proper spa it does. But my disability pension does not cover for such luxuries as that. Besides, my doctor said they are really like boot camps for people with newer injuries and their method would be not only ineffective but dangerous as well.

Oh but we mustn’t get your knickers in a stitch, life goes on. Oh, what, so I won’t take any of your suggestions and let you control my life (which I happen to know more about my condition than your 5 minutes of ideas) so you are saying that I like being like this, and my pain isn’t real and I am simply doing this for attention? Well I hope you have a good day then, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it to your awesome party last week.

-N Pearson 07.2012

I'm the Best You're Ever Going to Get (DS2)

So we moved into the little blue and white wartime house in the river valley. Dan wanted to be able to smoke in the bedroom and I don't like smoky sheets so we had seperate bedrooms upstairs, living room and and kitchen on the main floor and computers in the basement.

Things seemed good, but sometimes things would get a bit odd. Dan wanted me to look like this friend he had, Julie. I dyed my hair red for him, and he wanted me to get it permed as well. I would have, except my hair is straight as an arrow and won't curl even if you pay it. The nagging got a bit annoying, he kept trying to make excuses why I should curl my hair when I actually couldn't. I would have if it were possible. "It will tangle less" he'd say, I knew that wasn't a fact. He asked his friends and they sided with me. He nagged less about it, but he started talking about this girl more and more. I guess that was a sign I missed, or more accurately, didn't know at the time.

He began to talk about this girl insessantly, and I'd just sort of half-listen because I wasn't really interested. On hindsight, I think he was trying to provoke jealousy in me. "Oh Julie likes this sort of thing and Julie does that, maybe you can do that?" I don't know why he wasn't dating her instead, since he seemed so obsessed. But I didn't let it bother me.

Then came the jealousy. He would provoke it in himself, asking me questions about my ex's. I didn't really give him too much information since I didn't really see that it was any of his buisness, but it soon became a bit nuts because he was asking me about guys I was friends with or didn't even know.

The questioning turned into interrigation, but again I didn't give it any mind; I was used to crazy accusations from growing up with my mom twisting facts to make things my brother did my fault, again, it was all in my realm of normalcy.

He started making up stories about people gossiping about me. That worried me some, because I  didn't think anyone had any reason to. He started to have temper tantrums, and I was sort of already "conditioned" to be a fixer, and try and fix what was wrong to stop the tantrum. The cycle of abuse had begun.

He started to do strange things. Against my wishes, he let other people move in with us. Our mutual friend, Brad, which wouldn't have been bad except if I got caught talking to Brad, as soon as Dan and I were alone, there would be hell to pay. It turned out Brad was a pig. He smoked in the non smoking areas of the house and used my plants as an ashtray, they all started to wither. He wouldn't use a cutting board and my nice solid wood table got cut marks in it. He used our towels and we caught scabies from him. Dan wouldn't make him move out. Brad would break in through the windows. I constantly got accused of flirting with him. It was exausting.

He started to say I hadn't paid my share of the bills (so I had to pay twice, thus paying the full bill). He'd go out on drinking binges with his friends and come home angry. He limited what friends I could have to 3. He lied and said he was communicating with my parents. If I questioned him he would get very threatening and go "don't you trust me?" I didn't dare deny him when he spoke like that. I knew that tone all too well.

When he was angry, he wanted sex. Or when he wanted sex, he became angry. I would generally be in the basement on the computer or somewhere else in the house when I heard "Nicky! Come here right now!" So I didn't really know which way it went. Everyone likes being talked to like that, right? Being a normal person, I didn't want to have sex with someone who was in a rage. Back then, no one knew about "rageaholism" (a stupid term for a serious condition), but the more he was refused, the more it fuled his paranoia and jealousy (I belive his logic was that since I wasn't ready to jump on him I was "getting it" from somewhere else, rather than simple distate for his behavior.)

I don't remember the first time he laid a hand on me but at first he had put his hands on my shoulders if I recall properly. He'd get raging mad and be babbling some rediculous thing about some guy I barely knew and his face would get all screwed up and he'd look like a hamster. It was hard to take him seriously and I'd have to stifle myself from laughing because the stories and the look on his face was so perposterous. I think the rediculousness of it made it easier to take, or made me immune somehow because I didn't really lacth on to the seriousness of it until the shaking turned to choking and I realized that I was deciding to get beaten up rather than endure nasty sex with him where he's humiliate and insult me. "I'm the best you're ever going to get, you'll never do better than me. I mean just look at you." I'd stare at the clock. At least it was only six minues. But it was a long six minutes. I didn't want to participate to make it last longer so I stared at the clock, the ceiling... the clock...."

Then he invited his brother and brothers girlfriend to live with us. That was probably the best time because Dan wouldn't act abusive when they were around. But if they were out and Dan came home drunk and the house was empty, things would be twice as intense.

Then he decided he was infertile. Which of course meant he didn't want to wear condoms. I couldn't take the pill because of medical reasons so it was barrier methods. We'd made an agreement before we were ever intimate that if there was an accidental pregnancy, that there would be a termination. I didn't want to be a single mom. I started to use a diaphraghm and contraceptive foam. We were down from using 3 barriers to two and I was pretty uncomfortable with this since I wasn't really wanting to do this anyway. I thought it was something you had to do. I didn't have the money to get out of this situation. I'd phoned my mom and asked for help and said it was an emergancy, that I just needed money for a damage deposit so I could move, and she said that "it wasn't an emergancy, and I chose my bed now I have to sleep in it."

I told Tim about the abuse. There was a fight. The Police were called. Dan accused me of strange things with his brother Tim. To the police he said Tim and I had been kissing and to some friends he said Tim had been touching my breasts. It was all crazy fabrications.He couldn't even keep his crazy story straight. Dan was good with the police. Tim spent the night in jail. It should have been Dan.

I started to think of ways to get out. By then I had Pteri, my parrot, and I had to think of her safety too. He would hurt her if I went to a shelter.


Dan had graduated to shaking me by the neck and screaming something incomprehensable about some guy I did an art project with once. We'd talked about doing a road trip out to the country and photograph the powerlines that looked like crosses. Christian crosses. That was some hot and heavy stuff right there. Then I had the realization. This was happening now about 3 times a week. If this didn't stop, this was going to be my life. I didn't want this to be my life. Dan must have seen something in my face or in my eyes change because he became really psycho and started pressing really hard on my throat so I took a few steps back until I was backed up againsat the wall. I was in my "happy place" when I was snapped out of it with him shreiking "...look at my eyes! Don't look at me did I tell you to look at me! You're nothing! Your hair is all going to fall out! You're going to get fat! I'm the best you're ever going to get! Why aren't you looking into my eyes! What are you hiding!" the pressure was releived off my neck and I inhaled and then I was smashed into the wall. The back of my head impacted, hard, then my jaw slammed closed so hard I fractured a tooth and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. "Dan... stop it. You're hurting me."

Immediately he became like a baby bird, a small weak thing. He ran over to the sofa and started sobbing. Sobbing for his mommy. I felt an overwhelming compassion for him, he was so broken and miserable, I instintively followed hm over there with the intent to nurture and comfort him. I started to stroke his hair. A voice, maybe of reason, spoke to me: "What are you doing, 2 seconds ago he tried to kill you."

"Why are you crying?" "I can't control you. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I can't control you." I was a bit baffled. "Why would you want to do that?" I asked. He just sobbed. I put down the lock of hair and walked into the kitchen. I don't remember anything after that.

Surely it can't get any worse than this

Christmas came. His favorite holiday. We decorated the tree, I'd had made origami animals from John Montroll's Animals designs, they were so complcated that had to be folded with foil paper and some took as long as four hours a piece to do. They looked awesome with the colored lights and the different colours of foil paper.

Dan went out more and more often. I tried to drive home to my mom how scared I was by mailing her the christmas ornaments I'd made as a small child. One night I went out to the car to drive up the hill and get some milk from the 7-11, and the tire was flat. He admitted the next day to doing it. "What did Nen say?" I asked. "He thought it was a pretty stupid thing to do." At least he was ashamed.

I don't know what set him off but one night he came home raving drunk and screaming. He took a big carving knife out of the kitchen and was whirling it around, not even making intelligable words. I got him to put away the knife. Somehow. It was like wrangling wasps. The he went after the tree. He picked it up by the base and swung it around the living room. Water splashed everywhere and the cord fortunately was pulled out of the wall preventing an electrical fire. He dragged the tree outside, screaming in tongues. I barricaded myself with Pteri in my bedroom.

The next morning he was very hungover and very bashful. "I ruined your tree. I ruined Christmas."  I didn't have anything to say to him. I tried to wipe the melted candy cane off my origami treasures and packed them away in a bag.

"I'm a lover, not a fighter", he'd say. "I don't abuse women, I've never hit a woman." "Sure," I thought, "but you'll do everything else." It was hard not to roll my eyes. he went on, "I love you, and I'm the best thing you'll ever get, it doesn't get better than me." He was flaunting himself again, in a good mood because he'd gotten what he wanted. He was in an unusually good mood lately. As if he had something up his sleeve. This was going on March.

I decided there was a 4rd option. Whe he was having an episode I couldn't run from the house, he's grab me and do the choking thing. I wouldn't succomb to the shaking. I wouldn't succomb to the rape. I locked myself in my bedroom and I took a plank off my brick and board bookshelf and I wedged it under the doorhandle. I sat on my bed in the corner of the room and wrapped my blankets around me. He swore. He screamed. He demanded. He shouted ultamatiums. He.. he started to bang on the door. First with his fists, then his palms, then you could tell my the tone it was his arms then he started ramming the door with his shoulder. The door couldn't handle that. It began to give. It splintered. It cracked. It shattered at the edge and the door opened, hinges first. It was like The Shining. I was never so terrified in my life. I was petrified. He smashed all the things on top of my dresser. My nautilis shell, one of the only things I had from my dad, shattered. Dan got his way on my bed. I thought the damage to the house would be proof that I needed help to get away. Dan had clearly done this dance before. He said I was crazy, and that he thought I was going to kill myself, and that he'd saved my life.

I felt bloated. I felt unfamiliar. My breasts felt strange. I squeezed one and a few drops of translucent white fluid emerged. I went to get a pregnancy test. It was positive.

I finally found someone that would take Pteri and my other animals and I in without a damage deposit, some work colleagues of my stepdad's who also owned horses where Foxy lived. We'd ride together quite a bit.

When I told him, Dan was very smug. "I poked a hole in your diaphraghm." I ran upstairs. It was true, there was a pinhole dead in the center.When he saw me looking at it, he laughed.

Janet said she would support me and take me to the clinic. First I had to get an ultrasound because it was already late in the trimester, they had to determine wheather it was first or second trimester. I had gotten spotting every four weeks and assumed it was my period so I didn't know.

They made me look at the ultrasound. I made myself not care. I didn't want to be glued to Dan the whole rest of my life. I wanted to get away, clean and even.

On Nen's advice, Dan had suddenly become pro-life. I told him that was bullshit, and he couldn't make that decision at the last minute like that.

Dan was still trying to get me to stay with him. I went out with him and his friends to their bar. Some of these guys were my friends before Dan and I got together, they'd met through me. Dan was emploring, begging me to stay with him. I told his friends in front of him that the door broken down was his temper and I wouldn't back down until he got psychological help for his temper. I didn't have any plans to stay with him anyway. I don't know why I was there. I guess I missed the old "us".

I dropped him off at home. He grabbed the papers for the procedure the next day and darted into the house. I bolted after him. He locked the door but I used my key and my strength to get one arm and my knee and foot stuck in the door. It started to thunder and rain. Dan twisted my arm behind my back, behind the door. I was jammed there. We were pretty equal strengthwise, but he had the leverage advantage. I used the same philosphy I use on horses, I sat there and waited. He was pressing really hard and using up all his energy. A car rolled by. "Help!" I yelled, but they must not have been able to hear in the thunderstorm. Every 10 minutes or so Dan would soften and I would try and gain the advantage. All I managed to do was get more of my leg stuck in the door. It felt like ages, felt like hours. I was cold, wet, tired, fatigued and my muscles were sore from being held in an uncomfortable position. Finally once Dan softened and I managed to pull away. He slammed my lower arm in the door frame. Let me out! He let me pull the rest of my arm out. I almost lost my balance from the muscle fatigue and he saw an oppurtunity and pushed me off the side of the front steps. Things went in slow motion for me as my head avoided the concrete gutter.

I found the nearest phone booth and called the police.

It took them a little while to arrive. They were impolite, rude, condescending, just like I would later learn they always were. I thought they would matter of factly take me up to the station and photograph the bruises and press charges. They got the papers for me. "Are you sure you want to press charges?" They may as well have tagged "little girl" on the end, from the tone of their voice. I couldn't stand it. I even had his hand print perfectly imprinted in mu upper arm in a bruise, the evidence was so obvious. It was as if the last whiff of strength left my body. "I just want to go home." I got into my car and went to Janet and Gord's.

The next day at 9:30 am Janet took me to the Morgenthaller Clinic to have 1/2 of Dan removed from my uterus. The Counsellers there by law had to explain to me birth control and simple things like that, but I think they went easy on me when I told them what had happened with the sabatoged diaphraghm and the rapes.

The procedure was horrible, but at least it was over, and afterwards I had a warm dry safe bed to sleep in.

Later I learned I had entrapped nerves in my neck and bony lipping growing towards my spinal column in the middle of my C 4 and 5 vertibrae from the shaking. I'll always be in pain from this.

Noise Through The Walls (DS1)

It was about 1994 and I was moving on from John. I was going to a gig at a bar on top of a highrise at the Uni. I sat with some aquaintences, Nen and his friend Dan. Dan started to flirt with me, he bent a paperclip into a croude ring and put it on my finger. I thought this was cute, and he seemed to have a good sense of humor and liked that I had a horse and pets.

Our first date was my brother's wedding reception. I don't remember the wedding itself. I was excited that I would have a sister, something I've longed for.

Dan and I became inseperable. He was working at the time at a drive through, and I'd give him a rose instead of paying.

Some people told me that they didn't like him and that they saw bad signs in him. I didn't see anything, so I was confused why they would say such things. I asked what they meant and they wouldn't say anything, as if it was blatently obvious. It wasn't.

I mean, his sense of humor was dorky and self-flattering and sometimes obnoxious, but that described 99% of all guys I'd met. It Just seemed normal.

We'd stay up all night and eat tortillas and watch (old) Dr. Who and Red Dwarf and infomercials till dawn broke, things were very simple and straight foreward compared to John. I wasn't stunned by his intellect and knowledge, he was a pretty straight foreward guy.

Someties he'd make up weird anecdotes to puff himself up, but I didn't mind. One was something about him working in a pharmacy and a woman had an asthma attack at the front of the store and her lips were turning blue and so he ran to the back of the pharmacy and vaulted the counter and grabbed some ventalin and administered it to the poor, semi conscious woman and saved the day. He saved the day a lot, but I didn't care, it just seemed to be a cute harmless quirk.

At the time I was living on 107th Ave, a nasty part of town with lots of drugs and crime. I was very fed up with the landlords, who had installed screen windows in such a way that it would take an Exacto knife to enter my apartment, and I had an ex, Brian, that had been stalking me. He kept climbing up on the hood of my car onto my patio and trying to get in my place that way. In that area, the police didn't care.

I had neighbours that would have loud, obnoxious parties with plenty of shouting, fighting, banging around and lots of loud sex. Frequently I'd hear women, their girlfriends, I assumed, shouting back at them and the banging and sex would ensue. Calling the police on a late night noise complaint was futile, it didn't matter in that area.

I was working to the East at the new College as a lab assistant in the Biology lab. The lab job was great, in addition to taking care of the animals, I got to do cool things like hatch praying mantids, and stay late drawing and painting specimens. It was the best job I'd ever had, I could set up the class, go fro a swim in the pool and come back in time to tear down the lab and set up the next class and go to my own class. In addition I was  doing a diploma in Psych to get closure on John's death. I thought I was handling it pretty well, it was 2 years ago. Dan came to my work and I let him in the lab. He wanted to "move another step in the relationship" and move in together. I told him I'd think about it. Something made me a little apprehensive. He seemed to nag about it a lot.

Everyone said not to do it. No one would explain why. I didn't get it. One friend, who I'd been crushing on for years, warned me away from him. I told him if this is a jealosy thing to let me know before I made a real commitment. He said it wasn't like that.

One night the fighting and partying was much louder and more intense than other nights. I put my pillow over my head but it still didn't muffle the sound. I tried the police again. The tired dispatcher said the would send someone out, but "it might be a while". I knew by then that meant no one was coming. Somehow I managed to drift off.

The next day I was finishing an old guitar for a fixer upper that someone had given me, the laundry room was a great place to do woodworking as long as I wasn't too loud (the irony was not lost) and I cleaned up the shavings and sawdust after. The landlord came in the laundry room and asked if I'd heard any strange noises last night. I told him that it was the same as every weekend, shouting and sex and banging, same as I'd told him before. I guess they went too far that time, turned out that one of the brothers had OD'd on coke that night and died. It was hookers they were bringing in the apartment, and something had gone wrong.

This was bad. The death was too close, too close to John and I couldn't stand it. The next week when I was staying late painting in the lab and Dan came by and brough up the topic of moving in together I said "Ok, let's get a house in Rossdale, I always wanted to live near the Folk Festival." And so it began.

We rented a little 2 story wartime house just a block from the Folk Fest Entrance. It was going to be awesome. Things were looking up.

Emotion is a Pejoritive (John I)

It's not "Awe, don't cry", it's "don't cry or you will regret it."

Stuff it down, keep a stiff upper lip.

I met John working in a guitar store when I decided I was good enough of a player that I wanted to get a nice bass. Then, acoustic bass guitars weren't made, so I was recommended to a place that would make me a custom one for the price of a moderately decent factory made guitar.

We hit it off immediately, it was like we were made to be together. We both were artists and introverts and we both had our ways of working out and being healthy and everyone said we were a "good looking couple". The ex was jealous, telling everyone that John had "stolen me away from him" as though I was his property and actually shaved his long hair bald to be a complete drama queen, all this and we had broken up for very good reason four months before John and I became a couple.

John had a fallout with his boss at the guitar store and bought a studio to work in and there I learned to identify and carve and bend exotic woods: indian rosewood and purple heart and red mahogany and madicasar ebony. I learned to carve soapstone and cut inlays out of mother of pearl and abalone.

Freelancing as a luthier wasn't going as well as he'd expected but he did as well as he could and we'd enjoy long weekend days window shopping at our favorite hobby stores: the place that sold stones of all kinds from carvable soapstone and alabaster, the exotic hardwood store run by a sweet couple, Herman and Marie, and the aquarium shop where we would dream one day of having a huge discus tank.

I was 20 then and doing my first year of college, doing fine arts. John was 27 and told me all about the midevil artists like Hieronamous Bosch and Albrecht Druer. He built his instruments with a heavy Celtic accent to them, I learned how to do Celtic braids and knots for the soundhole designs.

I became very very attached. It seemed we were joined at the soul, because I could just imagine where he was and go there and he would be there, even though I'd never seen him at this place before, and we hadn't made plans to meet.

He took on a full time job working at a home for the handicapped, and time went on. He started doing a live in job with a single handicapped man on the weekdays, so I didn`t see him much. He invited me to come to a local hang out where these guys were often, but the times I would go were uncomfortable with the guys making remarks about my body and touching me and stuff.

Around the time this happened, John became very jealous and stuff. I just dismissed it as normal, since other boyfriends I`d had had their jealous, posessive moments, but this was a bit strange. He moved into a house a block away from my bachelor apartment and he would call at 9:30 every morning and night.

Christmas came, we had been seeing each other about a year and a half now. We talked about getting married and where we would live and such. He didn`t have enough money for a ring, but was going to get one.
Things weren't perfect, John was ever more and more demanding in bed. Nothing I did lasted long enough for him and I'd do my best to the top of my pain tolerence. Maybe I'm a lightweight but 20 or 25 minutes of BJ was all I could handle. I didn't think it was a problem, we were together whever he had time away from work.

He started to drink, heavier and heavier. "Green Chartruse," he said. "It's made my monks." He would get absoutely plastered on the stuff and microbrewery ale. A few times I had to practiclly carry him to my apartment where he would pass out in the bathtub. He seemed to have an obsession with bathtubs.

I went to the Christmas party at the home for the handicapped where John worked, and one of the clients had invited one of my friends. It was warm and nice and I had that rare I belong, feeling that I always wish for that I don`t get from my family, but I think thats what most people get. I helped out out the platters and listened to jokes and laughed and did their dishes and really felt for the first time in a long time that I belonged somewhere. Once the dishes were done, one of the female staff pulled me aside and asked what I was still doing there.
``What do you mean? I'm here with the other guests and we are having a nice time I think"
"You're not one of the guests and you will have to leave."
I went white, then red.  The room shrunk and suddenly felt cold. "But I've been a good guest and helping out and I even did your dishes."
"Yeah, we were kind of wondering why you did that. Now you have to leave."
"But I am John's guest."
"Staff don't get guests" this wasn't true, there were family of staff there.
I asked Jason, then Brian, both CP survivors who I had taken on trips and  gone out with. Neither would make eye contact with me and both of then shook their heads.
"Come on Michelle, we're going." "But I'm a guest here, just come and get me when the party's over." "I'm not a cab driver," I said "you can come now or find your own way home." She was mad at me. It was me, after all, that convinced her to come to this party in the first place. "You see, this is why I don't like John," she said. "I don't follow..." "Isn't it obvious? He's cheating on you."  But the words didn't sink in, the rolled off into the winter wind. Quiet in the car. "John would never cheat. We are in love."

Things were still going on at the studio, I was getting good at carving and was doing the head stocks and the heels on the guitar necks as well as making little wooden and soapstone animals.

John was becoming strange though. He and his boss at the guitar shop had had a bad parting of ways, and there were disagreements on who owned what tools. John would tell me that the owner had a man come in the night with a dog and there was a fight, and that he killed the dog with a pipewrench. There was no blood outside. John was becoming delusional from stress.




John Would Never Cheat

We were together and it was early spring. Things were just getting intimate and he took down his pants and... shaven. Bald. Everything. "Sherry said you would like it." "Sherry? Your boss?" "Yeah well you don't like going down, she said you would like this." "John, I have a broken skull. I'm doing the best that I can, but it hurts me." I've never seen such of look of horror on a person's face, ever. It was as though I'd hit ho or something. He locked himself in the bathroom. I realized the levity of what he meant. He'd been fucking his boss. I was floored.

I asked why that happened. John said "They don't like you." I didn't understand. I was nice to them, they had accepted my invitations out... "You use too big of words." Well that's stupid I thought. "John, you are jealous of every move I make. You accuse me of things I haven't done, and it turns out you were the one doing it. Those guys... they touch me and they make lewd remarks about me. You're the jealous one, you should be noticing this and protecting me from those goons." He looked like a scolded child. "But they like Sherry?" I realized that this handicapped guy was being very self serving. By welcoming Sherry into his house he had 2 caretakers for the price of one. This guy had shitty values.

Things weren't the same after that. I couldn't touch him. I couldn't leave him. I couldn't talk to him. I was traumatised. John began to get more and more despondant. Hindsight was 20/20, I knew now why i was kicked out of the Christmas party. Months went by, and nothing seemed to change. My heart and my trust had been broken.

My friends invited me over for games and drinks. I overdrank and the room was spinning and so they put me into Michael's bed to cool off. Michael came in the room and was saying something to me, sympathzing. I was barely conscious. Just as Penny came in the room to check on us, Mike reached out and touched my breast. "Mike!" Penny yelled, snapping me out of my state for a minute. I felt violated and used in so many ways



I knew Everything Would Be Alright from then on

One day I got home from school and there were valentines all over my apartment. JN+NP, bookmarked in books, written on the bathroom mirror in lipstick, on the windows in soap, on the walls, on my denim jacket, 80's style. 


John and I went on our usual Saturday route to the craft and hobby stores and the reptile and aquarium shop. It was a really nice day. After I dropped him at his house so I could go and ride my horse. "I love you" he said. "I love you too." "Things have been really hard, but they will be better from now on." I thought he was talking about Sherry, that he's told her to go take a hike. "I'm glad" I said.
"but you never come over to my house, you don't spend time with the guys at the deli."
"Those guys touch me and make lewd remarks, you are the posessive one, why aren't you doing something when they do that? As for coming over, you never invite me over. You have told me that you didn't want me there. I can come over now, and ride my horse later."

Silence. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No, it's too late. Everything will be ok from now on. I love you."

"I love you too. I will see you later."

I went on my ride with Foxy, and I felt something strange like a wisp. Fox seemed to have felt it too, because he spooked at nothing and smashed my knee into the wooden fence. I didn't cry often but I suddenly started to sob, not because of the pain, but because John was dead. I pulled myself out of that weird feeling. "You're just imagining things because of the weird talk."

John didn't make his usual 9:30 call that night, nor did he in the morning. I assumed he was making a final breakup with Sherry and thats what he meant by everything being ok. Then the phone rang. It was the rude handicapped client wanting to know where John was. "He's not with you?" Suddenly I remebered my premonition from the previous day and my blood ran cold. "Check and make sure none of your medications are missing, please" I waited some time and he came back and said no they weren't. I went across the road and knocked on the door. No answer. I knock on his landlord's door and tried to convince him to open it to check on John. He reminded me of the 24 hour privacy rule, and wouldn't comply. I went back home and called the police. They said they would come.

They arrived after about 1/2 an hour and got the unhappy landlord to unlock the door. I got dizzy and told the policeman that I would be back, I just needed my medicine. When I got back to John's house, an ambulence was there. The police asked if I knew of any ways that John might have killed himself. What a horrible thing to put through someone's imagination. "Um he works with handicapped people and might have gotten some pills, and he has a woodshop, I can't even think of what he could have done with tools..." the cop had me sit down on the curb. "9 out of 10 times when someone thinks that someone has committed suicide, they are wrong, the person has just gone for a walk." That seemed wrong to me, the ambulance... "but 1 out of 10 times the person is right and this is one of those times." I got mad. I threw my keys into the middle of the parking lot. I got mad again because the keys didn't fly nearly far enough for the amount of emotion I was going though. They should have circled the globe and smashed through every window along the way.

I started at a raindrop that was hanging under a blade of grass. It was like I was tiny, like an ant, and I could stare up at this raindrop, left over from last night's storm. I could see the police car and the ambulence and the ENT's rolling the covered gurney out of the house towards the ambuence in perfect detail, but upside down. The drop shook loose from the blade of grass and rolled into the depths of the lawn.

Braids of Contemplation

I've been told to write about my life. A lot. From people that know a bit about me and what I've been through to fans of my mom to psychologists. Problem is I never knew where to start. Do I do it chronologically? Do I do it by assigning each person a chapter? Do I make it fiction story? How do I approach all this?

I decided that I'll decide that later, and I'll just get all my junk down first. The snippets from the thread of my life can all be aligned together and braided, and we'll see if a pattern emerges. As long as it doesn't end up as Vogon Poetry in the long run, then we will be ok.

The Best Day Ever

It was the end of summer break in 1986, and I was about to return for my final year of high school, Grade 12. The trees were losing their summer emerald green and starting to take on the olive green they get before they turn gold in the fall.It had been a good summer, I got to lease a horse, Beejay, and ride him whenever I wanted. Cute little black quarter horse.

But now... now I had just gotten the best news a horse obsessed girl could get. See, four years ago we went to go and see a newborn filly, only 4 days old. She was an appendix quarter horse (which means she had thoroughbred blood) and a deep golden palomino with a star and one stocking on her back leg. I had the cutest photos of her. She became my dream horse.

But now, four years later, her owner was going on Sabbatical and needed someone to care for her horses for 6 months. In some sort of twist of fate, my parents actually agreed that I could take her to my boarding stable and she would be just like my ow horse for 6 months. Nothing could go wrong, it was the best thing ever.

So we drove the hour or so to South Cooking Lake to the little farm with the four horses: the big bay appy showjumper, the grey old cobby mare, and Solitaire and her mum. The horse trailer hadn't arrived yet, so we put a bridle on Tara and I got a leg up onto her bare back. Apparently no one had thought that I would need a saddle. But I was 17 and confident and I has my mom to myself for the day and the sun was shining interspersed with puffy little clouds.

I straightened my helmet, it was a few sizes too big for me but we'd stuffed the inside of the brim with tissues to make it stay on, it was a bit wobbily, but it was all I had. I rode Tara around in a small circle at a walk and then a figure eight at a trot. This was hard for me, just about all my riding experience had been in weekly lessons in an arena, plus the month with Beejay, and my bareback riding was minimal. There is a huge difference between being held snugly in place with a comfortable saddle on an experienced school horse and balancing on the wriggley hide of a greenbroke filly with 30 days training.

Mom wanted to see me go faster, and that sounded like fun so I thought I'd take Tara down the little hill and canter her back up. I turned her towards the hill and it was like she didn't want to go. I asked her again, using a bit of leg and rein and trotted her down the hill.

Tara's mom neighed. The horse van arrived and rattled. Tara whirled around back towards her mum and dropped her shoulder and I lost balance and slid down a bit down her neck. My helmet fell off and rolled down the hill, uselessly. I wasn't able to get back up and fell to the ground.... Bright Yellow. Dandilion Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Yellow Like the Sun. Palomino Yellow. Every Yellow there is filled my vision.

I was lying face down in the dirt. I lifted my head up, kind of embarassed that I'd fallen in front of the owner and the trailer driver. There was blood in the dirt. "Shit" I said. "Nicola!" I hear my mom shieking and her running towards me. "We're going to the hospital." The... what? I tried to touch my face by my mom pulled my wrist away. "Keep your hands away... don't touch your face." I didn't get it. My mom drove the car and backed it up to me and I was really weak for some reason and only managed to get into the back of the stationwagon. Mom drove very urgently. She stopped at the next farm, some other people we knew by cooincidence. "I'm goingto try and get you some ice." We drove up the bumpy road to the next farm. The bumps were very uncomfortable. Luckily, someone was home and we got a bag of ice. They stood there inspecting me and discussing what to do. I felt very embarassed. My face itched. I tried to touch my face again and my mom grabbed my wrist again and said that it was very important that I don't touch my face. We left the farm and started the hour long drive to the hospital.

I sneaked touching my face while my mom was driving. my nose was flat and for some reason when I went straight up I could feel my left eye. That wasn't right. Left of my nose was too sore to touch. I tenatively felt over to the right and felt the edge of torn skin and felt a strong gut feeling to keep my hand away. I laid in the back of the station wagon and tried to focus on the clouds in the sky, but everything was blurry.

Finally we got to the hospital. They put me on a gurney and rolled me straight in, and I thought "wow I must be bad". There was blood trickling into my ears and I kept needing to wipe them and they kept swatting my hands and saying don't touch your face. I must have been unable to speak because they just ignored me saying "my ears are itchy". They put in an IV and must have put some strong painkiller in there because nothing hurt. It didn't hurt in the car, either. I lied there patiently while the doctors and nurses fiddled and mussed around my face. My stepdad arrived at some time. I was glad my brother wasn't around.

We went to X-ray. The technician said there was two things he hated, that was horses and baseballs. I didn't like the technician.

 A nurse, Ron or Rob came in and I was to hold his hand. They said they were going to do something that would be "a little uncomfortable". They couldn't put me to sleep cause I might go into a coma.

My parents said they were going to go for coffee.  They left on me.

A bunch of nurses and doctors surrounded me. My arms were tied down. Rob held my hand. Some people were putting their hand on either side of my scalp. "Ready" went a mans voice and they started pusking my nose. "noooo don't...." they pushed harder. I held Rob's hand tight, so tight, I was going to break the bones in his hands. The sound of bone crunching against bone. Rob's hands were short and squat and hairy and his nails were wide and flat. Ipressed my feet against each other. More Crunching. I held Robs hands so tight I swear I would have broken anyone else's hands. I wonder if he remembers me now, 25 years later. The kid with the crushed skull. "We had to put your nose back in the middle of your face". At the time I didn't know why I wasn't put under or put out. I was upset my parents abandonded me for this worst thing, my mom was an ER nurse she should have been able to stay. But she didn't.

I guess they did all they could that night and rather than have me stay at the hospital, surprisingly, they sent me home for 2 weeks. The Swelling had to go down enough so they could do surgery. They sent me home with some T3's and a tin barf bowl.

Mom set me up in the basement on the Lazy Boy chair. I was tired and I wanted to lie down in bed. She got ice to put on my face and water to drink and and a bell to ring if I needed them and a huge bowl to puke in. I wasn't allowed to lie down because the blood might pool in my lungs and I would drown in my own blood in my sleep. There were 2 boxes of tissues, a garbage bin, hydrogen peroxide, vaseline, everything. I wasn't go get up and go to the washroom on my own in case I fell. She thought of everything.

I didn't sleep that night, I survived. I worked on getting the godforsaken blood out of my ears but my skin had become super tender and so I had to keep doing it with breaks. During the night ny eyes swelled shut from the broken nose and the eyelashes glued together with blood.

So I got to work, cleaning myself up. Any sip of water was immediately expelled along with clotted blood, there was so much blood I'd swallowed it was unreal. I kept doing it thoughto get rid of the blood from my stomach, it felt like the right thing to do. I gingerly dabbed at my ears and eyelashes with wet tissues and wet Q-Tips, trying to dissolve the dried blood.

I had one bowl for clean water and one for dirty water. Soon the dirty water looked like it was blood as well. I think I eventually got a few hours of sleep.

One of the Worst Days Ever

I don't know why, but news travels fast and my school friends wanted to come and see me. Holy fuck, no! They can't see me like this all nasty with blood everywhere and a fucking Tampax taped under my nose to catch the blood and my whole face practically covered in nasty black stiches.

So 3 friends came over even though I expressley told them I didn't want visitors. I put a shawl over my face to save them from the horror. They kept saying it was ok, that I could take off the shawl and that they are good friends and would be forever (Where are they now? Oh yeah my PAIN was too much for them and they "got on with their lives". One said she didn't like me any more because the pain changed me.) and it was ok and they were sure my face wasn't that bad and I could remove the shawl. So finally I was convinced. One of them gasped. I tried to hold open the corner of one eye to see them (my eyes were swollen completley shut by this time and projected out further then my nose from being full of blood) and I saw their looks of horror. I felt vindicated and hurt at the same time. I replaced the shawl. They made excuses and left.

I went back to cleaning up the blood. I spent 8 days in the chair before my nosebleed was down enough that I could lie down and it took 2 weeks before the swelling was down enough that I could have Reconstructive surgery 1 out of 4, the one where they put the damn wires in (I got as many wires taken out as I could but they can't remove them all and they can't do an MRI of my head because of them).

(My horse was never delivered to the stable, they sold her to someone so I never got closure, never got to tell het I fogive her, never got to say goodbye or pat her. You would think I would deserve at least that.)