voodoo

Death

It all started with death. It was nowhere near my first heartbreak. And I had learned years before how unfair and cruel the world really is. I had been through plenty of pain. Years of court systems, betrayals by friends, family and lovers over the years. Life's situations that just cause us pain sometimes. It was not until the death of my significant other in 2013 that things truly got unbearable. I was 1 year into the tattoo industry and I had been dating one of my friends. We were friends for 4 years before we dated for 6 & 1/2 months. His name was Curtis. It was 4 am when I received the phone call. It was storming outside and it was my significant others mother calling me. She sounded like one of those emotionless robots and she told me he was gone. What do you mean I cried? She told me Curtis was dead. I just talked to him that morning. I just fought with him about doing what he was supposed to do for the court system so he would stay out of jail. I didnt kiss him goodbye that day when I dropped him off at the bus stop. But I wanted to. I thought about turning around and going back. Instead I shed a tear and left for work. I thought I had more time. I thought id see him again. We always think we have time until its gone. It was hard to believe what she was telling me. It felt like a dream but I knew it wasn't. I've never cried so hard in my life. I find the rain soothing to my soul. I took a long walk. I was grateful for the storm. It made me feel like the weather cried all the tears I felt but couldn't cry fast enough. I wish death was the only sorrow here but there was worse things. It was his own brother who stabbed him in the back through the heart 4 & 1/2 inches deep. And it was his mother who lied to the cops and said it was an accident so her only son she had left would be free. He was a piece of shit meth head named Ryan. Ryan spent less than 24 hours in jail before he was released back into the public. He got away with it and was never charged with his brothers murder. His family still tries to talk to me all these years later but I can not know them. It wasnt just his life that his family took away but his justice and furthermore the morning of his friends in a peaceful setting. Because his brother was allowed at both the funeral and the viewing many people didnt attend. Doesn't seem fair to have to face his murderer in order to say goodbye. He did NOT deserve to be there. I hated him. I cursed him. I hoped that he remebered what he did everyday for the rest of his life and that he is not forgiven. I wanted him to be dead instead. Why do the good people die and the bad ones live? Life was less fair then I originally knew. I couldn't sleep without Curtis around. I had no lover in which to share the pain of death. After a few days I was able to sleep with his jacket. It smelled like him... But other than the day of the funeral and the viewing I did not take time off work. Because what's an appropriate amount of time when I was sure I could not sort it out with any given amount of time. It would hurt until the pain became dull and other pains came into focus.

Being alive

Death makes us face our own mortality. It makes us see everything differently. I spent several months trying to pretend I was ok. I cried and sometimes told my story. Each time I told it, it was harder to feel. I did so much art. I made new friends. I tried new things without fear.I forced myself to socially interact. The first thing I was going to make myself do was the freak arts expo. I had been planning to be a part of it since months before Curtis died. I was supposed to be a Baby doll model who sold tickets for a raffle supporting breast cancer. There were Baby doll ticket girls and bad boys being auctioned off. I met several people at the expo who were involved or attending. One was 1 of the bad boys to be auctioned named Jason Perkins who told me a sad story of how he used to tattoo before a motorcycle accident. He also inquired about my lip piercing as its a very uncommon one. He claimed to wonder what it would be like to kiss me with it. Feeling free as if I could die tomorrow i kissed him. It didn't mean anything to me but I made quite an impression on him. Then I met another bad boy from the show named Jason Webb although I was introduced to him as Dicktastic. Each bad boy had a clever dirty stage name. He was tattooed and attractive. We started making out and I went home with him. It was not in my nature to have a one night stand but I was rediscovering life. We didn't even know each others names or ages until after we slept together. He had just gotten out of prison on a 5 year stay. I didnt know his past. I just knew he was attractive and kind to me. He was sad too. I could feel a deep sorrow inside of him that matched how I felt be it for different reasons. We started dating. It was nothing but resistance from everyone. They all told me I was on the rebound. He was 12 years older than me. They all told me he was no good. I didnt listen. Does anyone? We came to believe it was us against the world. He made me believe that he had my back and would never hurt me. I didnt know the source of his pain yet but I knew he was sad. And I knew that for the life he had lived he would never be the same.

The Tower

Many believe that the death card is the worst card in the tarot but in fact its not always even a bad thing. It simply means change. The Tower is the worst card you can get. As well the 3 of hearts and the 5 of cups. Being an major arcana card the tower takes the cake. It is when the foundation of all you know crumbles and the proud structure plumits to its ruins. Jason and I dated. On and off for nearly 5 years. It is complex. I didnt believe him to be bad at first. I used to believe that love could mend all. But there are people who are broken beyond repair. I pit everything I had into our relationship until there was nothing left. Is that a thing, to have nothing left? When all you do is give and someone takes what love, compassion, passion, understanding and effort you have and give you selfishness and pain in return. Abusers never start out that way. They gain your love and trust before they start to break it. They decide how badly to hurt you depending on what they think you will take. Its starts off slow and as each stage is forgiven they escalate. Women are often in a deadly situation by the time they learn what kind of person has a hold on their life. They attack your self worth and isolate you from people who can help. There were subtle signs early on for someone that knew what to look for but they he kept things in check as best he could for the first year or more. During that time i learned much about his pain. My ex husband grew up differently than most Americans. There was a man named Berry Seal who got caught flying missiles to Cuba. So he cracked a deal with our government to become a Narco in Mexico trying to take down cartel families. My exhusbands fathers name was Kenneth Webb and he was best friends with Berry Seal. So Seal asked for Kenneth to come. Well Kenneth asked for his son Jason to come who is my ex husband. Jason was 10 years old and lived with his mother. The American government helped kidnap an American boy and send him to Mexico with bad men. He played with the Ashua families kids. Not sure if I spelled that right but its one of the major cartel families in Mexico. He shot another child at 11. His father abused him in every way you can imagine although he never talked about the sexual abuse. Suffice to say be was a broken man. I didnt blame him for his pain. I just wanted to love all the bad away! As time went on things escalated over the years. Each time he would cross a line and lash out at me emotionally at first it was worse the next time. It went from his pain and problems to everything being my fault. I was then the reason for his pain. He would accuse me of thing I didnt do. Later I found out it was projection of his own guilt and a plan to manipulate me. Rather than us against the world it was everyone against him, at least in his head. Eventually psychological pain. Was turned physical. They don't just punch in in the face from day 1. I always thought if never be the girl in an abusive relationship because I'm too strong. But Love is a weakness used against just by selfish people. And he used my love against me. Sometimes he would turn it physical by taking a sentimental belonging and destroying it and then going after another item. Such as a memory card full of memories of my past. Then when I would make physical contact to save my item of sentiment he would engage in physical wrestling matches with me. Or they start by pinning you against walls or furniture to force you to listen to what they have to say. It became clear he was an alcoholic as well. I left him more than once as things turned physical. Some people would wonder why I ever went back to him but as I said it starts small. As each piece is forgiven then go farther each time. According to what they think you can take and who is in your life to support you at the time. Apart from the regular abusive relationship that was developing other issues arose. Believe what you want, I don't care who believes what. But I know what I lived. And my exhusband was a genius. He was a very skilled hacker. He became obsessed with conspiracy theories. As did I. Many of them are true and much worse. Most people don't know how intricate the webs are weaved together in this world. Not as simple as good and evil or right and wrong. Everthing is conditional and has factors. Every group is made of good and bad people in spite of the nature of the group as a whole. Wrapped in all these conspiracies are many secret societies. They are mostly dominated by the white male patreory. You can never convince me that this is not real. I'm not talking about youtube videos here. My exhusband stuck his nose a lot of places that it didn't belong. And as a consequence different groups of people began to attack us and destroy our lives. They turned us against each other hacking us on disturbing hard to fathem levels. They stole data and watched and recorded us from every device. Some of them made it look like I was aligned with a group already and used my phone to hack our other devices. As the hacking continued Jason began to do drugs in addition to his alcoholism. Being in the court systems he was constantly in trouble for it. He tried to figure out where the attack was coming from but thought it to be a singular group. He couldnt tell the difference between the fact that all computers and devices of everyone we knew were being spied on and the separate matter of individuals and groups that he pissed off by snooping and pointing fingers. To make matters worse in regards to him thinking I was involved, it turns out I had several people in my life who were involved in such groups of different sorts. This validated his accusations towards me at least in his head. As he retaliated and made our situation worse I began to see things worse than a program to collect data or a sigular hacker. There were teams of people after us as he directed coding and found backdoors into social forums he didnt belong and wasn't welcome. I saw shit I didnt know was real. This is the point when physical abuse became a part of our relationship. We split up when he caught a domestic charge against me. Eventually he tried to make amends. But I was stupid. I belived him and I thought that he only acted to such an extreme due to drugs and a situation that nobody believed and the governent simply watched. He acted as he did when i had met him when we got back together. And romantic. I fell for it and we ended up engaged and back together trying to sort out what happened to us. I opened my own tattoo shop inside of a gallery shortly after that. It wasnt long before Jason was drinking again. We fought about it and about the past. Since he never believed me that I was not involved in the hack. He swore I was lying because I went to school for computers. I did everything I could to prove my loyalty but nothing was ever good enough. When we got married Jason did not take me to bed as his bride for days. Instead he started drinking and hiding it from me. When confronted he became violent. 4 days after we were married he turned one of these fights about alcohol into a physical assault. He grabbed me by my hair and threw me around the room by it ripping a fist sized chunk of hair from my head and ripping my cloths. I took off running on the bad side of town. It was shortly after that i closed my tattoo shop due to being fucked over by the gallery that my shop was inside. I left town soon after.

Internal Death

Everything inside me was dead emotionally. I had moved to the other side of the country to get away from my ex. I had no idea I was pregnant until I started miscarrying it a few weeks after I arrived in Washington. I thought I would be ok so I didn't tell anyone what was happening. I blead out and lost consciousness in a public park. Later someone called an ambulance and they finished removing it at the hospital. When they asked me to convey how much blood I lost to determine if I needed a blood transfusion I was unable to express it accurately. So they thought I lost much less than I did. It took me over 6 months to recover physically. If I went up 3 steps my heart would beat out of my chest. I had no endurance. Not what I was expecting when I made my way to the other side of the country. I also wasnt expecting to have no jobs when i got to Washington. I left Springfield Missouri with 2 job prospects. I was going to tattoo and be a middle man between a weed grower in Washington and the dispensaries. By the time i made it across the country on a ride share I had no jobs. My tattoo gear was stolen on the road. And by the time i got to town the growers mother had died and they stopped communicating with me. Having no job I did activism for 9 months helping people fight for their homes. Attending protests like Shell No and standing with furgason. I was a member of S.A.F.E. and eventually lead a few protests. I was a part of the mayday riots and the court hearing afterwards against the police for excessive force. And I helped a community leader run or city council in district 9. Just like before I put the pain and death as far down burried inside me as I could manage. I really thought that would never see Jason again. I ended up moving to Texas after my 9 month stay in Washington. I was there for a few months before receiving a message from one of Jason's family members saying that he was trying to reach me. I should have ignored it. But my love was always sincere and they told me he was on psych meds for the first time in his life and was not the same man. And at least I learned many truths while I was traveling. I did research on the secret societies and governments. I researched conspiracy theories to determine what was real and what was fabricated by my delusional ex. None of that prepared me for what I learned when i talked to Jason. While i was away 3 attempts where made on his life for pointing fingers and getting in other peoples business in the secret society category. The first 2 times were hit and runs. When neither of thise vehicular assaults worked out he mysteriously contracted necrotizing faceitus. It if a flesh eating disease. It ate his muscle and tenders on his right arm and was almost fatal. Its such a rare disease that the CDC came to study him because they don't even k ow where it comes from. I felt sorry for him. And as i talked to him more I realized he was a different person on meds. Within a month I moved back to Missouri. Things got better between us on his meds. Until he started gaining weight. I didn't care about that. I loved him anyway. But being a narcissist he stopped taking his psych meds. During this time we had became a part of a secret society ourselves. Both before and during his relaps back into alcohol and drugs after quitting his meds. As he began to become his old self again so came the beefs and finger pointing with different groups. This time I was safe from the other groups having the protection of my temple this time. After his reversion into drinking and abusing me I finally left him for good months into the bad. I realised he didn't really know how to love. He was selfish and broken. And he irreparably changed me for the worse in many ways. My heart and soul have never fully recovered from that relationship. I could not even begin to describe the bad that I lived. How do you sum up 5 years of trauma when at some points there was so much going wrong I can't remember it all. Now I have PTSD flashbacks of things that I might or might not even remember had happened to me.

The Spiral

During the time of my pending divorce I received support from friends and coworkers, including platonic friend Jason Perkins who saw it as an opportunity to finally express his love for me since i was getting a divorce. At first we stayed friends but it was nice to have someone treat me right. I told him I needed time but he rushed every stage of things. We ended up dating. But as it turns out he was no better than the other Jason, should have known. He grew to resent me for not changing myself for him. This behavior was familiar to me having just lived a controlling insecure relationship with the other Jason. They were different and for different reasons but the lack of acceptance for who i am was still there. The desire to groom me into what he wanted instead of accept me. The temper and manipulation was the same. It was the same demon. Roughly 6 months later I ended it. I tried the fuck buddy thing after that but it turns out they couldnt keep their end of the deal, feeling the need to lie to me. Then i tried dating a woman. She used me. Lied about already having a boyfriend and then was mad when she admitted this and I did not accept that. When you enter a poly relationship all parties are supposed to be aware of each other and consensual. I did not concent to sleeping with some.one who was already dating someone else. It would have been different if she told me the truth before she and I began dating. I left her. I thought we stayed friends but instead it was all pretend so she could fuck me over. She used me, moved in with me as roommates and then ditched out right before rent was due while I was at work. She cut the utilities and tried to threaten my landlord to get removed from the lease. Gay or straight, monogamous or poly they have all been selfish assholes. I've got nothing left to offer to others in the department of romantics. I am a broken thing trying to make something new of the pieces. Guarding them viscously and letting nobody close. Every person i loved the most has hurt me. I have no trust left to give. I have plenty to offer to those who dont ask although i may never be willing to offer it again.

The Phoenix

At least now I dont have people preventing me from living my dreams. Being alone is less lonely than being unseen for who you are. Not a single person I dated has ever truly accepted who I am except the one that died. Not a single one was ok with Suicidegirls. So now I will build my life how i want it and never worry about peoples approval or permission. And now you know a fraction of my story. I hope its able to help someone see their worth without living hell. Sociopaths choose empaths because we feel so deeply they can almost feel through us if they had a heart. At least i still do.