This needs to be said.

I'm betting this will take me to a dark scary place, but I NEED to talk about it.
Let me say here that I don't expect your sympathy, nor do I WANT it. I don't want to hear "I'm sorry" or "That sucks". I KNOW it sucked. You shouldn't apologize because it wasn't YOUR FAULT. There was nothing you could do (unless you've been hiding a time machine from me, in which case, GO! FIX IT!).
I will try to be funny. I will probably fail at being funny. DON'T MAKE FUN OF MY PATHETIC SURVIVAL MECHANISMS.

I've kept The Ex to myself for a long time. I've had my reasons for doing such, but it's been three years now, and it's time to get this out so I can put the whole thing in the past, where it really needs to be. I got myself to a place where I can think about this and not want to puke, and Max (Fiance) is aware of as much of this as I could tell him. Now it's time to tell you.

I met him when I was a freshman in college. He was my friend's friend from high school; she didn't like the boy I was dating (and to be honest, neither did I) so she set me up with him the day after I broke up with him.
Needless to say, I don't speak with her these days, either.
I was lonely and desparate. I needed some sort of validation that I wasn't going to be by myself and turn into a crazy cat lady, or maybe just that someone *might* be able to be attracted to me. It was a week before Valentine's Day. I slept with him before I even knew his last name. I casually asked our mutual friend how to spell it the next day, but I still felt like a slut. This happened four and a half YEARS ago and I still feel like a slut when I think about it.

There was a lot of sex. It strikes my memory as being GOOD sex, but when you're as screwed up as I am, it probably wouldn't have been good to anyone else. Things were ok in general. Things got rougher, but only in bed, so I didn't worry because at least he wasn't hitting me. I let him get away with it. Instead of saying "no, I don't want you to literally chain me to the bed", I let him use a dog choke collar on my wrists. It made me lose all feeling in my hands for DAYS, which is horrible when you're an instrumentalist.
After that, he decided handcuffs would be better, but he was too cheap to spring for bondage cuffs. That's right. He used the metal kind. Instead of stopping when it crossed from 'good pain' to "OH GOD I'M BLEEDING", he just kept right on going. The doctor said I was lucky it didn't scar. I've seen other people with scars from metal handcuffs. It looks like they tried to kill themselves.

Right before the end of that semester, he "forgot" the condoms. Being stupid and lonely and genuinely afraid he would leave me if I ever said 'no', I didn't protest. He left for basic training two days after finals week and I moved in with my father for a couple months, until our lease started on our apartment (with our mutual friend as a roommate).
It was a horrible shock when I realized it. I was over a month late. A MONTH. I did the only thing a nineteen year old girl with no means to support a child and terrified of her parents finding out ANYTHING could do. I never told The Ex about it. I let him go right on thinking he'd gotten away with it. He had. I let him get away with it.

We wrote letters back and forth while he was at basic training (and later AIT). I still have every letter he wrote to me. I've been trying to work up the balls to burn them, to sever that last little connection, but I've never gone through with it. I always just shove them back in the darkest corner of my desk drawers and hope I'll never see them again.
Every single one says "I love you." I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe it so much that I completely ignored every voice in my mind telling me to run. So I let him get away with it. I rolled over and let him do what he wanted. I LET him, but it was somehow different. This time I knew what was going on, and I allowed it to happen. I wanted to be loved, so I kept ignoring the little voices in my head.

He got back from AIT in late September. He still didn't know he'd almost had a spawnling. I never let anyone know, not for several years. Not until I was free.
That was the only night I ever said "no". I never said it again. It didn't do anything. Everything was exactly the same. Some sick part of me enjoyed it, the humilation, the shame, and the pain. That part of me always enjoyed it. It still makes me sick to think of it. The word "slut" gets stuck in my brain again, sticking to everything, ruining everything. I ENJOYED it.
Of course, he didn't helpt he process much. He made me quit my job, leaving both of us unemployed and living off my tiny savings account because he couldn't stand the way other people looked at me. I was HIS. I wasn't allowed to talk to my male friends, because clearly I would cheat on him. I was a slut, after all. I ENJOYED it. I was nothing, nothing, because I enjoyed it. It wasn't rape. Couldn't be. I enjoyed it.
I locked myself away. I went to classes, I hung out with my exclusively female friends (I was occasionally allowed to visit my male friends, but only if he was there to assert his claim on me). I was nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. I know I passed my classes, but just barely. He wrecked an almost perfect GPA, but I was passing, so no one noticed I wasn't in there. I don't remember most of that year. I consider that a blessing.

I don't know when I finally pulled myself back. I don't know when it became too much. Our roommate moved out to live with her boyfriend and didn't say a word. She knew, though. I know she did. One of my good friend's girlfriends attached herself to me, maybe because she knew, too. We'd known each other for a month, at most. She got me out. She pulled me out of my shell, inch by inch, until I couldn't roll over and let him get away with it. She moved into the spare bedroom and refused to let me be alone with him for any reason. I slept in her room, she handled everything when we kicked him out, and I didn't come face to face with him again unti the baseball bat incident.
I wasn't even strong enough to get myself out. I hate myself for it. She was my personal saviour. If I were religious, I'd say some cosmic being sent her to make things right, but I'm not. She just knew I needed help somehow and dropped everything to help me.


And there it is.
I'm going to go make a cup of tea now.

The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn

My puppy, Stumpy, developed some form of extremely aggressive cancer. It took about a week for her to get so weak she could barely stand, so my mom took her to the vet. She called me and I got over there as fast as I could, where it became clear that the most humane thing to do was have her put down. The next morning, I went out to the farm to put her to rest, under the apple tree out by the chicken coop.

Fiance gave me the best bit of advice ever.
"It's ok to be sad. You're sad because you loved her enough to miss her."

I called up one of the other people who adopted out of her litter (the litter was born to a basset hound in the Humane Society animal shelter; the father was a bull mastiff). Two of the puppies had short legs, three had long legs. John, the person with the other short-legged dog, lives just across the state line. I called him and asked how his dog was doing and learned his puppy had come down with the same thing three months before; he had the money to spend at the veterinary hospital and had the tests I couldn't afford run. It was indeed cancer, and there wasn't a thing he could have done for his dog, either.
This, of course, made me start to think it might be a genetic problem. The litter is just over nine years old, and his confirmation of what my vet had found put me a bit at ease.
Then I got to thinking about the other people with the other dogs. They don't live in the area now. Neither John nor I had their contact information. He was so much of a wreck over the whole thing (still), so I went over to the Humane Society to ask if they'd contact the others. It hurt to be there, but SOMEONE had to do it.

I took some cupcakes with me. I used to volunteer there regularly and brought goodies for the staff when I could. They were all sympathetic and agreed they would contact the other owners. This brought us around to the subject of the bake sale, my cupcakes, and how much money they thought they could raise on them.
I spent a lot of time working with a basset hound rescue program over the last few years. I've wanted a basset hound since I was a little kid, and Stumpy was the closest I was going to get to having a basset when I was in high school. The Humane Society agreed to send some of the donations to the closest rescue program, the one I worked with.
And that's how I ended up baking fifteen dozen cupcakes on my one day off a week.
We raised around $600 just off the cupcakes, and close to $1000 for the entire sale. I had one lonely cupcake left when the sale was over, and a lady bought it for $50. She wrote the check straight to the rescue program. My dad and his wife made a donation to both in my name, and EVEN MY MOTHER showed up to buy some baked goods for the sake of animal rescue.
Instead of sitting around, moping, I got to help two causes I believe need more help. I had the chance to turn my sadness around and make something good come out of it.

There are a few things I care this strongly about. Animal rescue is right up there with "breathing" and "music". There are so many pets out there just waiting for a loving home. Both of my kitties are rescue cats, all of the dogs out on the farm are pound puppies.
I loved my dog, more than I ever realized I was capable of loving anything. It made me realize a few things.

I'm never going to let a day pass that I don't tell the people I love how much they mean to me.
Good things come out of grief. You have to work at it, it's not easy, and you might just want to cry ninety percent of the time, but it is WORTH IT.
Fiance is far better at handling me when I'm panicking and sad than I am.
I love you. I love ALL OF YOU. Because of you, I have somewhere I can put my thoughts. I have a way to communicate with people, even though I'm horrible at speaking. It doesn't matter that I lisp and hate my voice. You give me a whole new voice just by occasionally dropping by to see what I have to say. I love each one of you.
And, of course,
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

It's been a hard couple of days for me. I need a bit of time to sort things out. It may be tomorrow; it may be next year.

Sorry for the lame post.
I'm just not sure I can put this here today, because I'd have to see it every time I logged in or checked my comments, and I feel pretty awful right now. In time, maybe. But not today.

On the Theraputic Qualities of the Blanket Fort

A friend of mine, who is no longer with us (he died of an extremely aggressive form of leukemia) taught me one thing that has stuck with me for years.
Blanket forts.
It's that simple. They're the secret to happiness. It is impossible to be sad when you're sitting in the middle of your living room, hiding inside a fort made of whatever blankets and sheets (the one I'm in right now includes two fabric shower curtains and one regular old window curtain) you could drape over your lamps and furniture. They need not be elaborate; in fact, some of the best are the simple little ones like the ones I built when I was a little kid.
When I was little, my brother and I would try our hardest to build the biggest forts we could. We were limited only by our height, but we did pretty well for not being able to reach the tops of the floor lamps.
In my first dorm room, the first thing I did was pin a screen up around my top-bunk bed so I'd have my own little bit of privacy. It was the simplest fort I've ever built, and it served its purpose well. I'd sit up on my bed and read, or listen to music, and the rest of the world was easy to ignore. I did homework up there, wrote essays (which were later typed into my clunky old computer), slept until 4 PM, wrote stories, imagined entire new worlds, all behind an old repurposed bedsheet and beach towel. When my roommate moved out and I convinced my dad to pay for a single instead of a shared room, I put blankets up around the bottom bunk, too. I slept in one and did everything else in the other.
I can't help but think of Rob every time I build a fort. When it finally hit us all that he was GONE, we all got together at someone's apartment (I'll be damned if I can remember whose it was) and built a fort. We used all our blankets, all our sheets, every single piece of furniture we could get into the living room (including all the floor lamps from everyone's homes). Then we all crawled inside with a giant bowl of popcorn and just remembered Rob. We were a weird little group of people, and when it got out what we were doing, other friends of his kept coming over. It didn't matter who they were; they wanted to build one last fort for Rob, so they did.
Try it some time, if you don't believe me. Spend as much time as you want perfecting your own method of draping, figure out which size sheets and blankets work best, how heavy they can be before your lamps start protesting, whether you like the ones that take up the entire room or just enough for you to take a nap in. You can decide for yourself if using thumbtacks to hold up the corners is acceptable, or if a fort must be built entirely by draping things over other things. Line the floor with your comfiest comforters and curl up with a good book or a movie or whatever else makes you happy.

This one's for you, Rob.

Last Night

Rather than explain this to every person I talk to, I'm putting it up here both for the sake of not reiterating and getting more pageviews (why yes, I AM trying to get more readers... but that's not important now).

So.
Yesterday, I kept getting creepy texts. They were from three different numbers, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. Most of them were highly sexual, and the only response I sent at any point was, "Two things: I do not know you, and I am a MAN." With my history of being stalked (although my stalker had not been seen in months), I figured it wouldn't hurt to have the person/people think it wasn't my phone number.
Later in the evening, the messages got creepy. I'm not going to post any of them; I'd rather not think about them. I called the cops, and called Bestie to come stay with me so I would have a man around and wouldn't be alone. I know how to defend myself quite well, but it's better to not get to the point that I have to.
The cops and Bestie showed up at almost the exact same time. I talked with the cops about the situation, let them read the messages, and they went to look around the building and see if anyone was hiding in the bushes. Bestie went with them.
They were just turning the corner to the back of the building when Bestie thought to look out in the parking lot (which has four parking spaces) where my car was parked. He noticed broken glass, and got the cops to go with him to check it out.
Turns out my stalker was IN MY CAR. He ran, the cops chased him, and Bestie came back to my apartment just in case. The cops came back a little bit later to let me know they couldn't find him and wanted to search my car.
They found his wallet (brilliant move, by the way, creepy fucker) and one of the phones I'd been getting messages from. It had been reported stolen that morning. The cops made a quick call and found out the other two numbers were ALSO from stolen phones.

This morning, I filed a temporary restraining order and, since I have his name, am pressing charges over the broken window in my car. I have a court date to get a permanent restraining order on Tuesday.

And that's what happened last night. I am safe, I will not go out by myself after dark, and Bestie is going to stay here at night until the full restraining order is in place. The cops are sending someone to drive by the building every hour during the day and every half hour at night, so please do not worry on my account.

The Red, the Black, and the White

I woke up today with the sort of migraine that usually knocks me right out. You know, when you sit up and almost pass out because there's just a throbbing pain where your brain used to be? Well, I've managed to batter it into submission with caffeine and Vicodin, so at least I can think without it hurting now.

I've talked about the Red. I didn't name it at the time, but I've talked about the Black. I don't talk about the White very often, because it's not as distinct as the others. The White is stable. It's the calm before the storm. A blank page, before the other moods come and scribble all over it. When you talk to me, I'm probably White, or I might be trying really hard to ACT like I'm in the White.

Writing about the white isn't as easy as I was hoping it would be. The Black and the Red are so obvious, though, and people don't usually talk about their boring every-day lives. The White is those days when nothing particularly good or bad happens, I get a so-called "normal" amount of sleep, and I'm not dragging myself through things or racing to get everything done.
These are the days when I bake tons of goodies because I feel like being around people, and the easiest way to get friends to come over is to bribe them with delicious noms. I've never had the patience to bake when I'm Red and I lack the energy when I'm Black, but White is juuuust the right sort of feeling for baking.
The White is as normal as I get, which is saying a lot for me.