lavinia

Today I took a sick day. I think I'm just exhausted from working a full seven days last week and my body finally told me to take a rest by giving me a soar throat and stuffed sinuses (making my head throb).

Since my 30th birthday is coming up (which I am not taking very well) I have been looking at my "things to do before I'm 30 list". This list includes: Piercing my nipples, getting a tattoo, doing an open mic night with my guitar, doing stand- up comedy again and model for some erotic nude photos (maybe submit them to SG). I'm looking at doing the nipple piercing at the end of April.

I have also been looking at what I have done in my life in the past 29.98 years I have been on this earth. I have been singing since I was five. I started performing on stage in choirs when I was 6 and stopped when I was 13. I picked up my first guitar at the age of 12 (I have been playing on and off for years)

When I was in Grade 9 I won 4th place in a public speaking competition.

At the age of 21 I was on Stage with Scott Thompson from "The Kids in The hall". I also shaved my head and I was the front-man in a punk band called "footprint". I acted in plays that were showcased in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival (7 years in a row).

When 23 hit I graduated from University of Manitoba with a Bachelors Degree. A few months after graduation a "so called" music producer brought me to the US. He tried to get in my pants when I wouldn't budge he would take me places and spend money on me. He took me to DC, Georgetown, Baltimore and New York. When he gave up on me he shipped me back to Canada and that's how I ended up in Toronto. I stayed with friends and tried to find work. In the end nothing happened so I moved back to Winnipeg.

At the age of 25 I packed up my apartment (in less than a week) and moved to Vancouver. Since I have been in Vancouver I have done stand-up comedy, tried to get parts in movies and I have been a movie extra (I have some good stories about being on set).

I guess you could say I have tried a few things. The one dream that I have been longing to do all my life is to Write songs. I can sing but I have been afraid to write for a while. I know where the fear comes from and it's not pretty.

When I was 16, I was more concerned about going out and getting into nightclubs than anything else was. Why? Well Winnipeg is a boring place to be and most of my friends were at least two years older. On November 1st 1991 at a nightclub called "Scandals" I met a man named "Kelly". He was 24 and he did not know I was 16. We started seeing each other and after a month I told him my age. He flipped out. It should have ended right then and there but it didn't. We continued to have a relationship.

Kelly came from a home where he was mentally and physically abused from an early age. His father left his mother when Kelly was 7 or eight years old. His mother was a Jehovah's Whiteness and had been the prime abuser in the household.

Kelly dropped out of school when he was 15 and wanted to follow his dream, which was to be a professional hockey player. His mother would not have it and kept putting him down. Over the years she pushed him in such a way that an intense rage was built inside. This rage could either kill him or someone else.

When I was in the picture I was young. I didn't even think about what type of adult male would be involved with a 16-year-old girl. A man with insecurities a mile long.

The mental abuse came right from the start. He would drink quite a bit and call me names like "bitch, cunt and slut". He would apologize right away and tell me he loved me. When you are a teen-ager the word "love" holds a lot of weight to it. Nothing else matters unless you are loved.

I use to tell him my dreams about acting, singing and writing music. He would tell me that I wasn't pretty enough or talented enough to do anything that. I was too fat and I didn't have any of the qualities it took to make it in that industry.

He would begin to laugh at me. He would tell me that all dreams get crushed and there wasn't a point in having a dream. Then he would go on and on about his dream to play professional hockey and how those dreams never became a reality because of his mother (and the fact that he dropped out of high school).

The physical abuse started 6 months into the relationship. The first time he had me up against a wall in his bedroom and his hands were around my throat. He slapped me across the face but it wasn't hard enough to leave a mark. Then he got out a butcher knife and put it to his throat and threatened to kill him self. I cried and got him to put down the knife.

I remember one time when we were in a nightclub called Zaxx and we started to fight. As he was dragging me out I screamed to the bouncers by the door "DON'T LET HIM TAKE ME! HE'LL KILL ME!" He threw me into his car and he sped off. This was in the dead of a "Winnipeg Winter". He was driving in the direction of the city's perimeter highway.

He slapped me across the face. He grabbed my hair from the back of my head and bashed my forehead into the dashboard. He then grabbed the hair on the left side of my head and bashed the right side of my head into the passenger window.

Kelly then told me that he was going to kick me out o the car and leave me to freeze to death in the snow by the highway. I then panicked and took the seat belt I had strapped around me and started to wrap it around my neck. My mindset was I would strangle my self in stead of dying from exposure. This wasn't successful. By the time we were at the highway I had cried and begged him not to kill me. This worked and he drove me right back to the nightclub. I called my father and he picked me up.

I told my father what had happened and he was fuming. He was so angry and up-set that he said he was going to call the police. I convinced my father not to because Kelly convinced me that I deserved to be abused and tortured because it was my fault that he wasn't going anywhere in his life. When I look back I should have called the police.

I broke up with Kelly the next day over the phone. His sister called me a week later and Kelly got on the phone. He manipulated me and convinced me that he would never be violent towards me ever again. I took him back.

The last year of the relationship consisted of mental abuse and manipulation. He tried to destroy me in stronger ways. I was about 120 lbs. (at 5'2 you look a little plump). He convinced me that I was fat and ugly and that I should be 100 lbs. So I developed a bingeing and purging habit known as bulimia. I also worked out 7 times a week for an hour and a half a day.

No one knew about the bingeing and the purging because I was good at keeping it hidden. I stopped the bingeing and purging when I reached 105 lbs. and kept my weight there. I also had a feeling that if I got any smaller people would catch on. When I looked good he would then tell me how stupid I am and that I would not get into University.

April the 8th 1993 would be a night I would never forget. I was asked to go to a party by some people I went to school with. I wasn't a close friend with the host. She was a popular girl but her and her friends invited me to come. Her parents were out of town and lived close to me so I said I would be there. I asked Kelly to come and he said "No, I'll meet up with you at midnight".

It was my sister's birthday as well so, I had dinner and cake with the family, my father bought me some beer and I went to the party.

The party was a blast. I was having a great time. I was a non-smoker at the time but I had a couple drags just because I was having fun. Kelly was to arrive at Midnight. I looked out side for his car right at the stroke of 12 and saw nothing. About a half-hour later someone heard a car horn. I ran out of the house to the car, opened the passenger door and said hello. He looked at me and said, "get in!"

We sped off and started screaming at me. He said that he had been waiting out side for me for 1/2 an hour. I told him that was impossible because I had been waiting for him for that long. Then he said, "Are you calling me a liar? I smell cigarettes! Were you smoking?" As I was about to say yes he upper cut my jaw with his fist and punched my left cheek. At a stop sign I tried to jump out of the car but I wasn't fast enough. He grabbed my jacket to make sure I wasn't going anywhere.

I put a $5.00 bill in his face and begged him to turn around. He flung his right hand to brush the bill away. As he did that his right hand connected with my right eye. His hand and the huge ring on his index finger caused my eye and cheek to swell up right after contact. I screamed in pain as he drove us to where he lived with his mother on Jefferson St.

As we arrived at the house I was planning to make my escape. We parked behind the house and he made me come inside the house. He dragged me down stairs to where his room was and yelled at me for a while. At one point he allowed me to go to the bathroom upstairs. In the bathroom I looked for anything that was small enough to sneak down and be used as a weapon. So I found a pink double bladed lady Bic razor. I took it apart and took it back down with me.
I sat in a corner of his room as he passed out. My mind was in "If he tries anything I will hurt him" mode.

I woke him up at 5:00 a.m. to take me home. During the ride he called me names but those names bounced off of me. We ran out of gas close to a gas station and as we pushed the car to the station he was calling me a "bitch". I paid for the gas and he drove me home. When we arrived at my parent's house I told him it was over. I got out of the car and he said "good"!

The next day he called me and I refused to talk to him. His sister called and I refused to talk to her. He showed up close to my parents house and I finally had to call the police. We went to court and I got a peace bond against him.

I turned 18 in June 1993 and started going to the nightclubs again. He would be there. For some reason in August we started to talk again. We knew a lot of the same people and we would end up at the same parties. I didn't want to cause a scene so I wouldn't call the police.

In late August we ended up getting back together. He wasn't physically abusive and he didn't call me names. I was now in University and I found that all the crap he put in my head was bullshit. By the time September 1994 came around (a year later) I was in my second year of University and I was sick of him and his crap and I left him for good.

This episode of my life lasted for 3 years. It has shaped the way I look at myself. For a long time I have had a hard time trusting men so I would not be involved with someone long enough for it to go anywhere.

At times I would fall for some one and I would become insecure about my self and the phrases like "you're stupid, you're fat etc." will fly through my head as a result I would go crazy.

Drinking would become a big part of my life. Actually I used drinking to hide my fears and self-doubt. Then I found I could not go with out drinking.

Now I am coming up to thirty and I feel like I have wasted a part of my life by drinking to cover up all of my self-doubt. I still have the doubt and I am working on my self-esteem. It's hard but Booze is now like a cousin I see on week-ends with friends and not a friend/foe I want to see nightly.

I want to change the way I approach relationships.
I don't want to attract negative people who will suck the positive energy out of me.
I don't want to be seen as a mat that men can walk all over.
I don't want to be seen as a punching bag.
I don't want to be seen as girl who is good for a casual fling and nothing else.
I want the person to be in to me and only me (we all look and flirt with other people but nothing beyond that).

I want to be the talented person I know is buried deep inside.