hello briefly

somehow I've managed to say most of what I need to say publicly or in a journal.  I should have made this blog truly anonymous for truly private thoughts but did not, so other than family stuff from the past there's not much to write about in here.  Except perhaps overt recovery stuff as well...

But for now, I have moved back to NYC and am starting a new life, which is occupying a lot of my time and thought and just keeping up with the most basics of that on my public blog has taken up all my time.

I may use this again at some point...

and just as an update on family stuff - my mother and current step father ended up apologizing for their response to my blog and told me it was a good thing, so am glad of that.  My ex-stepfather did not budge and so we are not speaking right now.  Not sure that's the best response but right now it's the only one I've got.

I haven't had time to write on a deeper level, am peddling old writing around right now and teaching a lot at a school, which is a college, but has a lot of remedial learning kids so it's a challenge.

I am definitely Occupied...speaking of which the most exciting thing in the world right now is Occupy Wall Street and its spawn...I've never felt so optimistic about politics like ever...not traditional politics but this movement - it's tenacious, striking a chord, telling the truth and not going away...

and, thank Christ, it's NOT ironic...it's real, committed and organic.

Amazing...didn't think I'd live long enough to see this happen.

All power to the Occupation.

be well.

let the rage begin

OK, so I've shifted back from my public blog to here for personal stuff because my goddamn family has attacked me for going public with the precious fucking family secrets - of abuse, alcoholism and the like.  I am furious.  So I'm no longer writing about it in public because I know one thing - this level of fury makes for really shitty writing.  And it's ugly and I warn you now - if you can't fucking handle it, don't even bother reading this post.  Really, it's fine because if I get any moralizing comments I might scream.

I was the victim of a brilliant good cop bad cop pincer movement that just fucking cornered me.  We have my step-father (ex-step-father, the gay playwright one) attacking me, and I mean Attacking me by email, with an email that began and I quote "Fuck you, Julie..." and went downhill from there, telling me if I want to tell my incest story, I should take my second father to court and that my blog was a 'drink I had not thought through' among other choice shit.

Then, after telling my mother how angry I still was about some things because my current step-father chose to share an email with her I had sent to him that clued her into this not very well kept secret, she decided to back away, and that was fair enough, but then when I sent something about feeling her love, too, she sent me back an email saying she was glad and hoped this was the start of 'a new beginning' - which means: wherein I am suddenly not angry and don't feel compelled to talk about anything.

My current step-father meanwhile was accusing me of flogging my mother, which I think is completely unfair, and on and on and on...

Anyway, in the end, I decided that if I were to continue to try to talk about any of the past on my public blog it would be so infected with the anger I Now feel because of this blatant attempt at silencing me that I could no longer write about anything in a way that was not vengeful and because of the fucking principles of my fucking sobriety I can't get away with that shit and I know it.

God, I HATE that.

So, here I am back at my anonymous blog venting my spleen to probably some person sleepless in the Philippines or something wondering why on earth she's reading this bullshit and for that I do apologize.  But don't say I didn't warn you.

Damn it damn it damn it...it's not bad enough children suffer abuse but then if those same children want Any kind of relationship with their parents afterwards they have to suffer this crap if they want to talk about it in public.  This SUCKS.

And my husband has basically dumped me, just as background to all this, so I feel like dog shit anyway, and no word from him like ever asking if I'm OK or anything so it's just me alone and feeling like crap.

OK, not totally alone, there are some of you out there that have access to this blog who have been Fucking Amazing to me, incredibly loving and kind and supportive as I have Ranted and Raved and Ranted some more.  And to you I am beyond words grateful and if it weren't for you, and most of you of course are in AA, because of course you are almost the the only people on the planet who can understand how it feels to go through all this crap without the anaesthesia.

Damn, am I ever fucking Glad I didn't let go of this blog and that I never stupidly linked it to the public one...Phew, do I need this place to rant and rave...as I wrote my painfully adult sounding professional blog post today I thought my shoulders would adhere to my neck permanently.  Fuck. Fuck Fuck FUCK.

OK, I have to now eat dinner because I keep forgetting to eat and then another inchoate panic starts rising in me about starving to death...I honestly think my blood cells start panicking.

My shoulders are still tight as shit but at least I don't feel like I will suffocate to death...and when I can FINALLY let this shit go meaning the RAGE I will attempt to write again about my background but I think probably in book form so I can get the story written and in a form I want before the fucking peanut gallery can throw their shit at me.

Damn, you know, I really, really, just wanted to let it out in the public blog and be done with it, but that is apparently not to be.  I wish I could just shove them all over to the side and go ahead but right now, I cannot.

I am also not speaking to any of them because they scare me now and I don't want to any way appease them, though I am afraid by changing my public blog I have and I am flogging myself for being a wimp for doing so, but I do believe I have a right to protect myself, even though again I feel like a wimp.  On the other hand, I don't want to be associated forever in the public eye with ranting and raving and am afraid that is what would happen...

Oh DAMN, I hate this...

OK, dinner and thanks for whoever made it through this whole tortured post for witnessing my rage.  And for those of you who have done so in person...

peace and love to you all.

How to Piss Off Everyone in Your Family....

So, my public blog has managed to totally piss off two of my step-fathers and in the process of communicating with them freak out my mother and I cannot believe that telling my own story, and not Even the worst bits has to create all this drama in their minds.

The good news is that it's not going to stop me writing but somehow I don't want the public blog to become all about this so am writing about it here.  I can't believe how much of an unwritten rule I have now broken.  It is this: we will love you as long as you don't say anything about all the abuse that You suffered in public.  Even though it's My story, my stepfather keeps calling it 'outing' people.  I'm not Outing anyone, I'm not a journalist but a human being telling my story.

A good friend today said their over-reaction tells of their guilt and I think she's right.  Plus they are protecting their own feelings and their own parents and their own 'reputations'...but to my mind, this becomes an episode of forget the abuse 'what will the neighbors think'.

Dear God...and now I don't have a fucking clue what To write on the public blog for today...I guess I could go through the beginning of the day wherein I cried for 2 straight hours over my husband leaving. That's always good for a laugh.

Dear God...I really really don't know what to do.

But I need to figure out something as I am committed to writing every day.  I had no idea I was putting my relationship with my family at risk, but if so, so be it...Nothing is worth living in silence anymore.

Please pray for me and my voice, that I don't get cowed and go along with the unwritten rule.

Oi.

Oh, and I wrote an email full of rage to my mother, because I've always tried to be so 'reasonable' about everything, and I threw all my rage at my absent father...but this time, lucky her, she got some.  I just can't fucking take it anymore, protecting her, protecting fucking everyone from my real feelings and what it was actually like to be an incest survivor, be abandoned many times, left with a woman who almost killed me and etc etc...it just goes on...and Then have to be fucking forgiving about it all and Reasonable when talking about anger and kind of apologetic.

Can't do it anymore.  I'm done.

That seems to be the running theme of my life right now: I'm done.

Wonder what begins to happen now as I let go of all the old stuff?

We'll see.

I'm over at my public blog mostly

Hey folks,

I just want you to know I'm posting every day at my public blog and so this one is suffering consequently.  If anyone wants to know that address, feel free to leave a comment with an email or a way to contact you, and I'll give it to you.  Unfortunately, I need to keep this one private so can't disclose my identity publicly here.

In case you can't do that, just to check in briefly - the separation with my husband has happened, it's horrendously painful and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life now - as in what country to live in and suchlike.  I am working on my writing but mostly just blogging and trying to sort through emotional shitstorm...also hoping to get some work soon.  Not sure of anything basically...

On the other hand, have lots of wonderful friends and support that way and so don't feel alone even though it's a lonely journey...

the old joke: when one door closes, another opens but in between is a long dark hallway.  That'd be where I am right now.  

Blessings to you all.

have a cold but feeling better

Hey all,
I've been focusing so much on my public blog that I'm neglecting this one.  Just to say that I have a cold, am in gorgeous Maine and in general am feeling better.

I still don't know the status of my marriage but this trip I am on has made the whole thing a bit easier to deal with as it's put an automatic pause button on the thing.  Also gives me time to feel through stuff without having to put words on it, which is good.

That's the other reason I haven't written much here, am in the time of allowing feelings rather than naming them right away...so many thoughts and sensations and they move a lot and I'm not falling into the temptation of trying to force them into a framework.

So, it's about staying open today....and every day I suppose.

Now to take a shower and a walk in the sun.

sad news...

looks like I will be separating from my husband...more weirdly enough on my public blog...but was feeling OK when posted that and now feeling pretty raw, devastated and like my face hurts.  can't sleep because I just start crying...I know I will be OK but right now the feelings are just pools of endless sadness.

it may not be the end, I know that, but it also may be...I feel like such a total failure on every level right now...

if you believe in that kind of thing, please pray for me, I need it right now.

love and blessings.

some scenes from childhood...

Some scenes from my childhood that I am afraid to share on my public blog but have to get out.  I feel like a loser because I can’t ‘out’ these things out of fear of harming my mother.  However, I also wonder if I’m just fucking myself over by some confessional urge…in any case, I will start by putting them here…

I am getting myself up and out to school, starting age 6.  Sometimes I also try to get my parents up to go to work.

At 10 I am left with a babysitter who almost kills me, and I respond to this by going to school and getting straight As.  I never mention anything about it and no one understands why when David saves me.  I end up feeling guilty for not having gotten myself out of this situation.

I am sitting at a booth in a restaurant with a man behind me groping me and bothering me.  I am about age 11 or 12.  I cannot move.  My mother is watching this and laughing.  She is drunk, stoned or both.

There are more and more men coming home with my mother when I visit from boarding school.  I finally freak out one night and she falls on the floor, crying and saying what a horrible mother she is.  When the man of that night says he will leave, she turns from me and begs him to stay.  

There is the slideshow my father shows when I visit him in California aged 13.  It starts off with leaves in trees and ends up with naked photos of my step-mother.  I sit paralyzed.  She finally tells him to switch off the photos.  He seems to not understand why.

I am naked in a bath with my first step-father.  He has an erection, I don't know what it is but I can see it.  Is my mother there?  She has no memory of this.  It goes blank after that.

OK, so...writing this makes me feel sick.  I feel I am not supposed to tell anyone any of this, even now.   I want to rush and explain a lot of this away, tell you my mother was an alcoholic at the time and is now completely different (which is in fact true), that she had me young (18) and has her own history of trauma (also true), that she is a good person not a monster (also true).  But first, I had to take the risk and tell you this.  I think when I press post today I may be sick...well on the private blog not so much but on the public one I would...