Here's the Story, of a Broken Lady...

There is something fundamentally wrong with me. Nothing noticeable, nothing that anyone but those who know me, really know me would ever notice, and even that has gone seemingly undetected until now. Its nothing life threatening, nothing contagious. Nothing atom splitting or even remotely mind boggling to anyone else really. It just sort of explains a lot. To me, to those who know me.

Me and the opposite sex don't mesh. Its not a secret, and I'm not coming out as some epiphonistic lesbian after after all these years. Male relationships and I have just never found their fit. I am completely heterosexual mind you, but emotionally, I am completely at a loss for how to function with them in any way.

I had a great childhood, in theory. My parents were good people, they raised me right. To stand for what I believe, without prejudices and without hate. To my dad I was daddy's little girl, we got whatever we wanted in a sense. We were loved I never doubted it. However, my father had been raised by his father, and that hadn't been a picnic.

You learn what you live I suppose. An Italian custom of screaming and yelling when things weren't done correctly. I remember listening to the sound of my father pulling his leather belt in and out of his clenched hands, the sharp snap it made when he quickly pulled them back apart. My brother and I would cower in our beds, knowing one or both of us was in trouble.

I remember I was about 5, being in so much trouble my parents told me they were sending me to the orphanage. This fear was great to us, as my grandmother was raised in an orphanage. We would drive often past this ominous brick building, and in its back lot was a fenced in play area. They would tell us that was the orphanage and if we were bad, that's where we would go.

So they told me to pack a suitcase, which I remember filling with roller skates and toys, and that I was on my way. I was sobbing, begging to stay. "Please Mommy, please let me stay, I'll be good I promise!"

My father was given the task of driving me. I sat in the back of the minivan, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe. My parents were so angry at me they were going to give me away! I begged, I pleaded. "Daaaaaddy, pleeeeeaaaa-aaasse" I could barely get the words out, I was crying so hard.

We sat in front of that building in the dark, shadows looming around us. I had seen Annie enough times, I knew it wasn't going to be a hard knock life for me. No dancing in stairwells, no Miss Hannigan. I was so scared. More scared I think that my parents didn't love me anymore. My father finally relented and we drove off, heading back to convince my mother to allow my return.

When we reached our street, my father told me I had to wait in the car, he had to talk to my mom. He had to convince her it was ok for me to come home. That I had realized the err of my ways and I would listen from then on. The minutes seemed like hours, and then the doors flew open and I was welcomed home, as long as I promised to behave.

And boy did I for a long time after she allowed me in. And later found out there was no orphanage. I was fooled by a Headstart learning center in a neighboring town. And scarred for life.

As years went on, though love for my family never diminished, arguments with my father increased. Throwing tables, screaming matches and even an argument in the car where he tried to punch me and I jumped out of the car as it was moving and ended up running away for 2 days.

My teen years were rather tumultuous. Drinking, experimenting with drugs. Depression and hormonal imbalances raged inside me. By 15 I had my close friend killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver, had taken an overdose of pills and had my stomache pumped, was admitted to a childrens psyche hospital temporarily and made to seek counseling.

By 16 I had found my first love who was sent overseas for the military, lost him to distance, lost my virginity, been raped and was closet drinking in my bedroom, hiding bottles in an old dollcase.

I even got sent home from high school drunk after walking into a door.

I released myself through my writing. Poem after poem I would write, looking back they seemed like cried for help even then.

I would have year long relationships, never with the right person persay, and then it would be over. Like a brief blip in the hour glass, as if it were suddenly turned on its side and time stood still again until I started over. I never found it a hard thing to get over them. Only the first one. That first love haunted me.

It had been so intense for how young it was. Letters and emotions. Surprise collect phone calls. And his leave was of every waking moment spent together. It was innocent and pure and it was real. Even now I know it was. And I know he does. There was never a right time for us, and perhaps thats how it was supposed to be, but what it did was set a very high precedent, and a very high place for me to have fallen from.

And now I am so low. Subterraneal.

I remember an interview in my high school senior journalism class, we had to turn and interview a classmate. A line of routine blase questioning. "What's one thing people don't know about you", my reply "I don't smile all the time". I had them fooled even then it seemed. His face was a mixture of false humor and surprise.

Alas the sexual revolution. In my early 20's I had come to terms with my rape. Realized it was not my fault, laid the blame where it belong...sort of. Though I knew it wasn't all men, it became a game to me. To show them how it felt to be used, to go through loss and hurt and humiliation. I would be unattainable. I would have prowess and command, I would be in control. But I wasn't really.

And then I got pregnant. Completely unplanned, completely not with anyone I would have had planned with, pregnant. I felt I was being punnished for things I had done...but how could I punnish my child for that? So I had him. My beautiful son, my life. The only thing I have ever succeeded at.

His father, a criminal. An abusive heroin addict who treated me horribly. Throughout my pregnancy the insults and anger would fly. I despised him but didn't know what to do. I didn't know what he was then. I was ignorant to it all. I had never surrounded myself with people like him, I didn't know the "tells". I just thought he was an asshole. I never knew he was an addict until it was too late.

I thought I was doing the right thing for my child staying. I was being a guy in that regard. I didn't love him, I didn't want to be with him, but I thought my son deserved 2 parents. I thought I was doing what was right. I was so beaten and broken I had no fight in me. Called a "fat fucking cunt" over and over again throughout my pregnancy and until my son was almost 1 when I left.

I was pushed when he was angry, had things thrown at me. He once threw the remote from my TV at my head, which missed luckily and shattered against the wall, sending splintering pieces of plastic and technology all over the place. He would steal from me, steal from my son to buy drugs.

Finally got me evicted from my home, a place I had lived for 6 years. Years before even knowing he existed. I moved away and took my son with me, and didn't let him know where for months. If he saw Dylan I would bring him to his parents house. Until he started going to meetings and getting help, supposedly.

That clearly didn't last since a year ago he was arrested for selling and using heroin while my son was with him and I have had a restraining order since and he went to jail for drug charges and reckless endangerment of a child against his own kid. I really know how to pick'em.

Of course, the next relationship wasn't much better. Someone I had dated long ago, a re-do. Although he was changed from when I had dated him before. And not for the better as I had found out. The ex before we got together for him had turned out to be a drug-addict prostitute, and that somehow got taken out on me and I was again treated horribly.

The constant on again off again. It wasn't a relationship it was an emotional yo-yo and I wasn't stable enough to handle it, yet I stayed. I was too broken to go. Who'd want me anyway?

I wasn't the confident sex goddess I was before I had my son, at least before him I thought highly of my looks if nothing else. Now those were gone. My once flat stomache replaced by the extra skin of a bad c-section and weighing too much at the end of my pregancy due to complications. I was damaged goods. I disgusted myself.

I finally had enough. I left and I was alone for a while. Sort of. I met someone who ended up only using me for sex. He'd call when it was conveinent, show up late, never go out in public with me. I see it now for what it was, but I was naive about it then. In my late 20's and completely starting over in understanding how men operated. I was like a child, I just liked the attention, good or bad.

Then I met my recent ex. And he was great. He was a stand up guy, a good guy. Treated me like a princess. Would compliment me, try to hold my hand. Open doors, pay for things. And I didn't know what to do. I had no idea how it worked, and even though it was everything I ever wanted, and I was afraid. I pushed him away. I didn't understand. Men didn't act this way, men weren't chivalrous and sweet and kind, they were assholes. That's all I knew.

I didn't know how to react to the way things were supposed to be. I ended up pushing him completely away and into the arms of someone else. And by the time I realized what I had done, and tried to make things right, I was too late.

And even my best friend, a good guy I do it to, too. Its like I dont know what to do if a guy is a "good guy". Like I am suddenly possessed and I am not myself. As if I don't feel I deserve it. I know in theory I do, but I don't know what to do. I cower behind cynicism and hurtful sarcasm. Not to be intentionally cruel, but because I don't know what else to do. Hurt is all I've ever known.

So I trace the male pattern back, back to childhood, my teen years and onward. It all seems to make sense, it all hurts to write, and tears are streaming as I do.

The thing is now what the hell can I do about it?