I've been going through old pictures and writing the info on the back of them before I forget. It's been more bitter than sweet, to say the very least. I see all of the things that were captured on film, and I watch in horror as one component after another fades from view. People, places, things...all of them vanishing before my eyes like dinosaurs vanishing from the Earth...erased as if they'd never existed. It's terrifying.
It makes me question my very existence...I feel so detached, so out of place now that my parents are dead. I have absolutely nothing to show for my life...no husband, no children, no career. Just an illness that isolates me when I need people the most, and memories that conjure up horrific dreams and crippling grief. I have curled up in a ball and am just waiting for the day when they come for the house...until they come and take every last piece that I have left of my family away from me...
I look at the pictures of me as a little girl and I think...'What a waste. All of the things that you could have been, and this is what you've been reduced to...a mentally-ill, childless spinster who will never know love'. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I had not been subjected to the daily violence and cruelty that has been the staple of my life thus far that I would have been a very different woman indeed. All of the hopes and dreams that little girl had have been crushed beyond repair, dashed against the jagged rocks of reality. What do you do when you realize your whole existence has been pointless...when you realize that no one will ever need you or love you again? No one...ever...
I have a story to tell...but what good does it do when there's never anybody around to hear it? I know I'm a good writer, but sending stuff into the great gaping maw of cyberspace where it's immediately sucked into a void and never seen by anyone isn't going to help. I am not cooking my way through Julia Child's cookbook. I am trying like hell to find a reason to keep on living, to find a purpose. I thought writing was it, but I see that I'm sadly mistaken. There are too many other people out there that are so much better at it than me. I disappear in a sea of trillions before anyone can see how good I really am.
Oh well, back to writing info on the pictures. At least when I'm dead and gone, people will know who or what is in them.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Sometimes...It Doesn't Pay To Ask For Help...
Last summer, I was ecstatic to get a reporter interested in doing a story about Mom and me. The purpose of this venture was to get help...help to clear the clutter out of our house...help to clean it, fix it up and make it handicap accessible so that Mom could come home again.
The reporter came to the house and had a talk with me. She returned with a photographer a few days later. They went with me to the nursing home where Mom was staying. Pictures were taken, and more questions were asked. Both of us were so excited...at long last, we were going to get help. I couldn't wait to see the article in the paper. When I did, my heart sank.
I was mortified to discover that the story had more than a few inconvenient holes in it. For one thing, the reporter never mentions the fact that I had carefully explained that my parents grew up during the depression. Only wealthy people had the luxury of throwing things away. I also explained that my brother and I had hoarding tendencies only because of the way we were raised, and that I don't believe we would have had these tendencies otherwise.
My depression, PTSD, anxiety and panic disorders were caused by living in an atmosphere of extreme domestic violence, running the gamut of abuse on a daily basis. The psychological abuse alone was crippling in and of itself. Add in the physical, sexual, verbal and emotional abuse, along with the bullying at school, and you wind up with an emotionally unstable individual.
I have trust issues. I do not handle stress like an adult. It does not spur me to action. It cripples me and paralyzes me with fear. I curl up in an inert ball or sleep for hours on end. I sob uncontrollably and cannot stop. I took antidepressants for eight years straight and suffered what I like to call my chemical lobotomy. My mind has never worked right since. I was forced to go on disability and am even more emotionally compromised than I was before.
Now, not only do I have the stigma of mental illness to contend with, but I have been given the very public label of hoarder as well. With the death of my beloved mother in April, I am faced with a nightmare of epic proportions that I am ill-equipped in all ways to handle. The Credit Union is trying to force me to assume her $50,000 debt or face foreclosure. Everything my family has ever owned is in this house, and I have nowhere to go with it. Not only will I lose everything, I will be on the street.
I have already made up my mind that when the day comes for the house to be seized, it will be my last day on earth. I will not allow everything to be taken away from me. I will not allow myself to become homeless. Everybody has left it up to me to come up with a solution...there's my solution. If anyone has a better one, you need to let me know before it's too late. Make me believe that there really is hope. I need to find people who will help, including a lawyer who will help me Pro Bono. I have about 90 days from today before I will receive the letter of intent to foreclose.
Mom said to me..."Please Becky, don't let them take my house." I promised her I would do my best. As usual, my best has fallen dismally short of the mark. I am tired of begging for help and having every plea fall on deaf ears. In this entire world, surely there must be at least one person who can do something to help. At least one...isn't there?
The reporter came to the house and had a talk with me. She returned with a photographer a few days later. They went with me to the nursing home where Mom was staying. Pictures were taken, and more questions were asked. Both of us were so excited...at long last, we were going to get help. I couldn't wait to see the article in the paper. When I did, my heart sank.
I was mortified to discover that the story had more than a few inconvenient holes in it. For one thing, the reporter never mentions the fact that I had carefully explained that my parents grew up during the depression. Only wealthy people had the luxury of throwing things away. I also explained that my brother and I had hoarding tendencies only because of the way we were raised, and that I don't believe we would have had these tendencies otherwise.
My depression, PTSD, anxiety and panic disorders were caused by living in an atmosphere of extreme domestic violence, running the gamut of abuse on a daily basis. The psychological abuse alone was crippling in and of itself. Add in the physical, sexual, verbal and emotional abuse, along with the bullying at school, and you wind up with an emotionally unstable individual.
I have trust issues. I do not handle stress like an adult. It does not spur me to action. It cripples me and paralyzes me with fear. I curl up in an inert ball or sleep for hours on end. I sob uncontrollably and cannot stop. I took antidepressants for eight years straight and suffered what I like to call my chemical lobotomy. My mind has never worked right since. I was forced to go on disability and am even more emotionally compromised than I was before.
Now, not only do I have the stigma of mental illness to contend with, but I have been given the very public label of hoarder as well. With the death of my beloved mother in April, I am faced with a nightmare of epic proportions that I am ill-equipped in all ways to handle. The Credit Union is trying to force me to assume her $50,000 debt or face foreclosure. Everything my family has ever owned is in this house, and I have nowhere to go with it. Not only will I lose everything, I will be on the street.
I have already made up my mind that when the day comes for the house to be seized, it will be my last day on earth. I will not allow everything to be taken away from me. I will not allow myself to become homeless. Everybody has left it up to me to come up with a solution...there's my solution. If anyone has a better one, you need to let me know before it's too late. Make me believe that there really is hope. I need to find people who will help, including a lawyer who will help me Pro Bono. I have about 90 days from today before I will receive the letter of intent to foreclose.
Mom said to me..."Please Becky, don't let them take my house." I promised her I would do my best. As usual, my best has fallen dismally short of the mark. I am tired of begging for help and having every plea fall on deaf ears. In this entire world, surely there must be at least one person who can do something to help. At least one...isn't there?
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