"Are these the names we lose again and again, sing i don't care what it costs."
that song has nothing really to do with my emotions or whatever, just fell in love with it recently.
my thoughts..... for some reason, are coming full circle on myself. for my social experiment i spoke of before, i was out with a new bud from school last night, at the local goth club, which fuckin rules. we spent most of the beer and crown filled night chatting with each other and others about damn near everything. politics, religion, history, personal history, military, past relationships, and relationships we wish would happen. somewhere in there, he spoke a sentence i don't think i will be able to forget for awhile. you know when some random person says something that just sticks with you, a phrase that you really take to heart?
"How did such an open minded individual such as you come out of the army?"
something spoken like that, has sealed it for me. i HAVE become the person i have claimed to be, i have found myself for sure. of course i told him how i was not too long ago, due to the military. gave him the rundown on the events that have led to me developing my life again. and he completely empathized. and random people started talking to me about things, as well. i gave out my number after giving some advise to a nice gentleman, i hope he gets a hold of me soon with some good news. i hope the shit works out for him.
to continue....
recently, in my attempts to learn about others in the deep way, suspicions i have made about somebody, suspicions that need not to be mentioned to ANYONE, i gave myself another, harder look into my past. really analyze my upbringing and the struggles i faced, and how i went through them. the bad decisions and the good ones. the ones that destroyed me and the ones that strengthened me. and seeing as how i'm about to share this all in therapy, i might as well practice. maybe i can help someone. i enjoy doing that.
from as far as i can remember. i made slight references to this in a short short story from awhile ago. i know some people grow up with a good family connection, and maintain it through life. others, they grow up and lose it. me, i'm one of those that grew up without it and built it over time.
my mother, well she never did anything such as not love me or whatever, but she worked about 18 hours a day. it was because of her new husband, who was pretty cool... at first. but anyways, with her constantly working, it was difficult to get much from her. our relationship was less mother and child as child and pet fish. the care was there, but not much else. lets get one thing straight... i have never thought anything but amazing of my mother. but as a child, thats natural, and as a child, i never really got much attention from her.
my step father gave me attention, until i was about 7 and my little brother mike was born. then i was the cast away. i never got anything from him, aside from analytical questions typical to what you would give a young child. "did you clean your room?" "did you do the dishes?" stuff like that. it was around this time that he managed to push my older sister away, and she left at the age of 15 to live with her father in Chicago. as a couple years past, and i entered preteen, i got attention. i was looking for it since my brother was born, i was craving attention so bad, but this was not the attention i wanted. i would much rather have gone on being invisible. i became the punching bag for an angry asshole. i became the scapegoat for everything. in my bedroom, he used it as storage for his stuff. then he removed the door. if he wasn't yelling at me, he was hitting me. if he wasn't doing either of these things, then either one of us wasn't home, or he was looking for me. i found a great hiding place at a friends house, but it wasn't hard to find me. he was my only friend, because he was my neighbor.
now, my real father. he pretty much only ever saw me because court said he had to. his idea of giving me attention was hitting a couple dozen golf balls into the meadow, or if he was close to sober, usually a bit further into the woods, and having me fetch them. he bought me a toy once. it was a yellow dump truck, old as all hell, but i only ever got to play with it when we played with me. in other words, thats what i used to hold the golf balls. the other attention he gave me every once in awhile.... fuck this is embarrassing to say. he actually TAUGHT me how to act like we were a perfect father son couple. he taught me how to make eggs, and on morning when he had a girl over, id make eggs and wed all sit and eat them, having our scripted father son lovey dovey conversation with the girl around. made him look good.
feel the pain, hide the pain, do as your told, repeat. for years.
so, i was 15 when me and mom moved out. and we started to grow pretty close. i also started growing close to my fathers side of the family. he moved, and was very close to his last fling that produced a human being. my little brother, by only 2 years, and on the weekends with my father, i hung out with my brother. he was my best damn friend ever. me and mom, were starting to have fun. i wasn't being abused anymore, and since we had such a small apartment together, we got to talking more. we were becoming a relationship. i was gaining more and more friends, she actually let me go do things. i had started working, and got my first pathetic piece of shit vehicle that was my pride and joy of life when i was 16. thats when everything began to fall apart.
so there i was, had friends, i had a brother who meant everything to me, my other brother mike had finally stopped saying i wasn't his brother and that he didn't like me and other things his father made him say, me and mom were getting close, life was starting to look like there would be a possibility of it being happy. me father started visiting the place, though most of the time he wouldn't even know i would be home.... he was trying to hook up with my mom again. but one of his visits.... the one i will never forget. mom wasn't home, but he was knocking at the door. at first i was confused, then i was worried when i saw his face. he told me that he had something to say to ME. at this point, i have no fucking clue what to think. he sat me down and told me words i will remember verbatim so long as i have breath in my body. "RJ found timmy last night.... hes dead."
ever experience emotion shock? you know your supposed to feel a certain way, but you don't feel any different than you did a couple minutes ago. that was me. i sat there for a minute, when my girlfriend called, i told her i couldn't talk because my broth.... thats as far as i got. shock was gone, now was just pure pain. i had be beaten, thrown, ignored. my step father had dislocated and broken more of my fingers than i can remember. and i never cried. i never gave him that satisfaction. i raised myself saying i'm going to be the strongest person in the world. but then.... before i could finish the word "brother" i had tears pouring out of my face. i wouldn't say my eyes, i don't think its possible for that much fluid to be able to come out of them. i was clutching my father, i was curled up, i was alone. i was no one.
i spent so much time searching for some peace. i found for awhile that completely ignoring the pain was the best. the problem with that is that your constantly searching for something to replace it. to fill that kind void, if you will. my first find was the standard for lost people... religion. Christianity to be exact. well, without going too much into detail about that (since it would be a completely different blog)... took me a bit but i found my way out of that crap. my next find was sex. luckily, i'm still clean and not a parent yet. after that, was drugs. that one lasted awhile. during it, i was a horrible person. i stole my moms car, i got arrested. a lot of shit happened.
to tell the truth, i quit drugs in one day, cold turkey. i woke up as normal, in my bed nothing strange, nothing really bad happened, but there was that empty feeling. i said right there, im done with drugs. and i have been since. i'm 19 by this point. i stepped back and took a look at my life. i stopped searching, i stopped ignoring myself. i felt the pain of my brother again. i felt as if some family was looking at me and seeing him, i felt as though i was failing in his name. i had to change. i needed something drastic. i called my sister.
she had just returned from Iraq, and was living in Texas. she told me she had a spare bedroom with a bed and what not and if i needed to get away, i could. i thought about it for awhile. i'm not the kind of person to run away from my problems. but, i wasn't running in this case. my problems were within me. i was simply running from temptation. i was running from failure. all my friends were still into drugs, with no prospect for a future. i needed a change. i loved my friends, i love my mother. i loved my pa life but only in the immediate aspect. i knew that there was no long term life there. so i moved to Texas.
the pain of my brother. i had already told myself that i was over it. i had already mentally moved on. but even three years later, the thought could still bring tears. i decided to try something. i was in Texas on a mission to better my life. i was facing the mirror and trying to repair the cracks. i would face this pain... i would fight and cry my way through it. and i will come out stronger. and i did. i had no friends. for my twentieth birthday, i did nothing. i knew nobody but my sister. all i ever did, was focus on growing myself.
it took me three years to get over my brother. at this point, i had been thinking about joining th military, could use the jump start, and the education benefits. but i wasn't entirely sure. back then, i saw it as a last resort option. but a good one. it wasn't until we were living in southern California. i saw a documentary called "21 days to Baghdad" about the marines in the first invasion. after i saw that, i started watching more documentaries on the war. i grew tired of not understanding it out there, i grew tired of being one of the many that just thanked somebody else. i took it to heart. i wanted to be that would fight for others.
i knew that if i went through with it, i would complete the change i was seeking my whole life. i would prove to myself that i was in fact a strong willed person. i've been through a lot, and after basic, i was somebody. i had something to show for it. i know, i know, i've been ranting about how the military changed me for the worse in the long run, but it showed me i could get through anything. i got over, emotionally, my brothers death. i emotionally got over my past. even my father became very close to me. ill never tell him how i felt about our past, but if he ever apologizes, i will not hesitate to apologize to him.
since then, i still have gone through shit. i still fight my way through whatever, regardless of how painful it is. i have made it a point to never ignore any pain. what doesn't kill me truly does make me stronger. i believe that anyone can do this, and many do. with the right mindset, and even a little help, we, as individuals, can fight our way through anything, no matter how bad it may be. and we can only be better and stronger because of it.
survival through adaptation. survival of the fittest. those of us who face everything thrown at us.... will survive. we will succeed. we will be everything we need to be, everything we want to be. and everybody wants to be one thing.... truly happy.
i will be.
EDIT:
HOLY FUCK THIS IS LONG!
that song has nothing really to do with my emotions or whatever, just fell in love with it recently.
my thoughts..... for some reason, are coming full circle on myself. for my social experiment i spoke of before, i was out with a new bud from school last night, at the local goth club, which fuckin rules. we spent most of the beer and crown filled night chatting with each other and others about damn near everything. politics, religion, history, personal history, military, past relationships, and relationships we wish would happen. somewhere in there, he spoke a sentence i don't think i will be able to forget for awhile. you know when some random person says something that just sticks with you, a phrase that you really take to heart?
"How did such an open minded individual such as you come out of the army?"
something spoken like that, has sealed it for me. i HAVE become the person i have claimed to be, i have found myself for sure. of course i told him how i was not too long ago, due to the military. gave him the rundown on the events that have led to me developing my life again. and he completely empathized. and random people started talking to me about things, as well. i gave out my number after giving some advise to a nice gentleman, i hope he gets a hold of me soon with some good news. i hope the shit works out for him.
to continue....
recently, in my attempts to learn about others in the deep way, suspicions i have made about somebody, suspicions that need not to be mentioned to ANYONE, i gave myself another, harder look into my past. really analyze my upbringing and the struggles i faced, and how i went through them. the bad decisions and the good ones. the ones that destroyed me and the ones that strengthened me. and seeing as how i'm about to share this all in therapy, i might as well practice. maybe i can help someone. i enjoy doing that.
from as far as i can remember. i made slight references to this in a short short story from awhile ago. i know some people grow up with a good family connection, and maintain it through life. others, they grow up and lose it. me, i'm one of those that grew up without it and built it over time.
my mother, well she never did anything such as not love me or whatever, but she worked about 18 hours a day. it was because of her new husband, who was pretty cool... at first. but anyways, with her constantly working, it was difficult to get much from her. our relationship was less mother and child as child and pet fish. the care was there, but not much else. lets get one thing straight... i have never thought anything but amazing of my mother. but as a child, thats natural, and as a child, i never really got much attention from her.
my step father gave me attention, until i was about 7 and my little brother mike was born. then i was the cast away. i never got anything from him, aside from analytical questions typical to what you would give a young child. "did you clean your room?" "did you do the dishes?" stuff like that. it was around this time that he managed to push my older sister away, and she left at the age of 15 to live with her father in Chicago. as a couple years past, and i entered preteen, i got attention. i was looking for it since my brother was born, i was craving attention so bad, but this was not the attention i wanted. i would much rather have gone on being invisible. i became the punching bag for an angry asshole. i became the scapegoat for everything. in my bedroom, he used it as storage for his stuff. then he removed the door. if he wasn't yelling at me, he was hitting me. if he wasn't doing either of these things, then either one of us wasn't home, or he was looking for me. i found a great hiding place at a friends house, but it wasn't hard to find me. he was my only friend, because he was my neighbor.
now, my real father. he pretty much only ever saw me because court said he had to. his idea of giving me attention was hitting a couple dozen golf balls into the meadow, or if he was close to sober, usually a bit further into the woods, and having me fetch them. he bought me a toy once. it was a yellow dump truck, old as all hell, but i only ever got to play with it when we played with me. in other words, thats what i used to hold the golf balls. the other attention he gave me every once in awhile.... fuck this is embarrassing to say. he actually TAUGHT me how to act like we were a perfect father son couple. he taught me how to make eggs, and on morning when he had a girl over, id make eggs and wed all sit and eat them, having our scripted father son lovey dovey conversation with the girl around. made him look good.
feel the pain, hide the pain, do as your told, repeat. for years.
so, i was 15 when me and mom moved out. and we started to grow pretty close. i also started growing close to my fathers side of the family. he moved, and was very close to his last fling that produced a human being. my little brother, by only 2 years, and on the weekends with my father, i hung out with my brother. he was my best damn friend ever. me and mom, were starting to have fun. i wasn't being abused anymore, and since we had such a small apartment together, we got to talking more. we were becoming a relationship. i was gaining more and more friends, she actually let me go do things. i had started working, and got my first pathetic piece of shit vehicle that was my pride and joy of life when i was 16. thats when everything began to fall apart.
so there i was, had friends, i had a brother who meant everything to me, my other brother mike had finally stopped saying i wasn't his brother and that he didn't like me and other things his father made him say, me and mom were getting close, life was starting to look like there would be a possibility of it being happy. me father started visiting the place, though most of the time he wouldn't even know i would be home.... he was trying to hook up with my mom again. but one of his visits.... the one i will never forget. mom wasn't home, but he was knocking at the door. at first i was confused, then i was worried when i saw his face. he told me that he had something to say to ME. at this point, i have no fucking clue what to think. he sat me down and told me words i will remember verbatim so long as i have breath in my body. "RJ found timmy last night.... hes dead."
ever experience emotion shock? you know your supposed to feel a certain way, but you don't feel any different than you did a couple minutes ago. that was me. i sat there for a minute, when my girlfriend called, i told her i couldn't talk because my broth.... thats as far as i got. shock was gone, now was just pure pain. i had be beaten, thrown, ignored. my step father had dislocated and broken more of my fingers than i can remember. and i never cried. i never gave him that satisfaction. i raised myself saying i'm going to be the strongest person in the world. but then.... before i could finish the word "brother" i had tears pouring out of my face. i wouldn't say my eyes, i don't think its possible for that much fluid to be able to come out of them. i was clutching my father, i was curled up, i was alone. i was no one.
i spent so much time searching for some peace. i found for awhile that completely ignoring the pain was the best. the problem with that is that your constantly searching for something to replace it. to fill that kind void, if you will. my first find was the standard for lost people... religion. Christianity to be exact. well, without going too much into detail about that (since it would be a completely different blog)... took me a bit but i found my way out of that crap. my next find was sex. luckily, i'm still clean and not a parent yet. after that, was drugs. that one lasted awhile. during it, i was a horrible person. i stole my moms car, i got arrested. a lot of shit happened.
to tell the truth, i quit drugs in one day, cold turkey. i woke up as normal, in my bed nothing strange, nothing really bad happened, but there was that empty feeling. i said right there, im done with drugs. and i have been since. i'm 19 by this point. i stepped back and took a look at my life. i stopped searching, i stopped ignoring myself. i felt the pain of my brother again. i felt as if some family was looking at me and seeing him, i felt as though i was failing in his name. i had to change. i needed something drastic. i called my sister.
she had just returned from Iraq, and was living in Texas. she told me she had a spare bedroom with a bed and what not and if i needed to get away, i could. i thought about it for awhile. i'm not the kind of person to run away from my problems. but, i wasn't running in this case. my problems were within me. i was simply running from temptation. i was running from failure. all my friends were still into drugs, with no prospect for a future. i needed a change. i loved my friends, i love my mother. i loved my pa life but only in the immediate aspect. i knew that there was no long term life there. so i moved to Texas.
the pain of my brother. i had already told myself that i was over it. i had already mentally moved on. but even three years later, the thought could still bring tears. i decided to try something. i was in Texas on a mission to better my life. i was facing the mirror and trying to repair the cracks. i would face this pain... i would fight and cry my way through it. and i will come out stronger. and i did. i had no friends. for my twentieth birthday, i did nothing. i knew nobody but my sister. all i ever did, was focus on growing myself.
it took me three years to get over my brother. at this point, i had been thinking about joining th military, could use the jump start, and the education benefits. but i wasn't entirely sure. back then, i saw it as a last resort option. but a good one. it wasn't until we were living in southern California. i saw a documentary called "21 days to Baghdad" about the marines in the first invasion. after i saw that, i started watching more documentaries on the war. i grew tired of not understanding it out there, i grew tired of being one of the many that just thanked somebody else. i took it to heart. i wanted to be that would fight for others.
i knew that if i went through with it, i would complete the change i was seeking my whole life. i would prove to myself that i was in fact a strong willed person. i've been through a lot, and after basic, i was somebody. i had something to show for it. i know, i know, i've been ranting about how the military changed me for the worse in the long run, but it showed me i could get through anything. i got over, emotionally, my brothers death. i emotionally got over my past. even my father became very close to me. ill never tell him how i felt about our past, but if he ever apologizes, i will not hesitate to apologize to him.
since then, i still have gone through shit. i still fight my way through whatever, regardless of how painful it is. i have made it a point to never ignore any pain. what doesn't kill me truly does make me stronger. i believe that anyone can do this, and many do. with the right mindset, and even a little help, we, as individuals, can fight our way through anything, no matter how bad it may be. and we can only be better and stronger because of it.
survival through adaptation. survival of the fittest. those of us who face everything thrown at us.... will survive. we will succeed. we will be everything we need to be, everything we want to be. and everybody wants to be one thing.... truly happy.
i will be.
EDIT:
HOLY FUCK THIS IS LONG!