I am not okay.
I'm forcing myself to finally write. To help me. Release.
Maybe someone else will read this and it could help them in some way. Maybe someone won't feel so alone.
But this is for me.
They say that god gives his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers. So I'm wondering why I don’t have super powers yet. How damn strong does one need to be? Lately I am just treading. Barely having enough breath for the day. I have so many things I could be doing and instead I choose to lay in bed because I wasn't ready. Life catches me off guard once again. Things were going so steady and well. Then life is like "What's up bitch, its me again. I'm here to fuck shit up."
Every single time.
I am tired.
I am defeated.
I feel doomed.
I'm not here to boo-hoo either. Poor me story. No.
This is all my fault.
If I was still on drugs I would not be able to admit that.
So why can't I get this feeling to go away? Do you remember the first time your heart really broke? That tight feeling in your chest and it just hurts. I can't get it to go away.
Drugs.
They destroyed so much of me and my life and sadly my kids as well.
It took me 28 years to finally get a grip on my life. Face my traumas. I'm almost 10 months clean. I used for 12 years. Recovery is a damn process. You feel shit you haven't felt before or in forever. You have to face anything that hurt you and the pain that you hold on to. For everyone, its different. I'm not even 1/4 of the way through with any of mine. It’s a lot. So when life happens, because it does, its like ughhhhh. One thing first please. Wouldn’t that be lovely? We can talk about all that at another time though. Its just a huge part of my life right now and it has to do with why this is all my fault.
Its almost like your past never goes away. That’s how I feel anyway.
Lets take it back to 2013.
The year it all went bad.
Dcfs placed my kids with another drug addict. It was family though so what the hell. I was so fucked up that I didn’t even fight it. If only I would have known what was going to happen. I want to take it all back. I could have saved them.
I did win custody back of them 2 years later and I have had them ever since.
I can not say this loud enough. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR KIDS. LISTEN TO THEM. MAKE THEM FEEL SAFE. So they can come to you. Monsters are real people and sometimes they are family. Mostly though BELIEVE your child. It is so hard for kids to open up about the bad. Don’t sweep it under the rug.
Now I'm not going to get into specific details because these are my children that I'm talking about. After I had them back in my care for a few months. One of my children came to me about something a family member had done to her. I cut off all communication and started them in counseling. What made me sick was how old my child was when this happened. I ended up finding out multiple things from them all. Sick. I wanted justice.
Theres an investigation that goes on in these serious cases. Then a detective is suppose to investigate and get to the bottom of it. Find the perp and so on.
While all this is going on I was in a custody case. My sister and brother were gettting married that year. A lot was going on. I couldn’t keep up.
This is where my addiction came back.
I'll never forget the day.
The investigator called me and started yelling at me.
Shocked!
Speechless.
They gave him a lie detector and he passed.
"How dare you coach your kids to say these sick things in order to win your custody battle." "If he ever takes you to court, ill be right there to make sure he wins."
All because my daughter used a word too big for her age. Inappropriate!!!!! My child knows that word because her behaviors had been inappropriate. I couldn’t scowl her. She didn’t know that what she was doing was wrong.
I told my kids these people would help them and they failed them.
That detective didn’t know my life or bother asking. Who in the world teaches their kids to lie about something so damn serious like that? That deadbeat sealed his fate a long time ago way before our custody case.
I called her superior but he also told me the same thing.
I was left with no answers.
Lie detector test that they gave him an advance notice about. Not to mention I know he was using back when all this happened so whose to say he doesn’t remember?
Everything changed after that.
I slowly lost myself.
I see why people don’t come forward now.
Now here I am a year later and its back.
The past to haunt us.
Something happened in our house.
I did the right thing. Got the child straight to therapy, had to go to the police.
Back to the April house for investigations.
My heart is broken.
For now my house is not the same.
I have faith it will be though in due time.
The unknown is what's killing me.
I will do whatever is to help them though.
They’ve gone through more than a child should ever have to.
That is my fault.
If I wasn’t an addict, I would have never lost them. Things would have never happened to them.
Trauma that they have to recover from, when they should just be able to be innocent children.
And this is why I'm not okay.
I keep to myself about this because I don’t want anyone to look at any of children different.
Not to mention unless you too have been through, nobody has the right words to say.
Lets face it, its an uncomfortable situation for some to speak of.
The silence is the problem though.
I had a family member yell at me today for calling dcfs and now all of this is happening.
Lets just sweep it under the rug and act like nothing happened.
No.
I'm who they depend on to keep them safe and get them help.
I let them down once and I will never do that again.
I won't turn to drugs this time either.
They need me. I'm trying so hard to keep it normal around here for them.
I know that the past is the past and I can't change anything now.
I could have prevented it though.
So when people tell me that I can't think like that because I'm a different person now or that the past is the past, you can't live there!
Newsflash this is the past resurfacing!!
I wish people would just be honest with me for once.
Like you know what Corissa, your right. How do you even live with yourself?
I can't.
Every single day I am beating myself up again.
Their lives could be so different.
Normal. Even though there's no such thing, but you catch my drift.
Its something I have to live with the rest of my life.
It affects my kids lives. My wish and hope for them is that one day they can put it all behind them.
I can get them all the help I can, but it will never make up for it.
Guilt is a motherfucker.
I will never forget.
So I wrote this because I'm tired of having to explain why I'm not ok.
Mostly because my head is so damn loud that I can't even get the words out.
Writing has been my go to.
I stopped doing it for awhile, but I need to get all this noise out of my head.
I don’t want sympathy.
I just want people to be aware.
I want other people to know that they aren’t alone.
That some things you just can’t get over.
Some things you have to live with it.
But its your choice whether you let it eat you alive or not.
That’s the difference to me.
I let it eat me alive last time.
I won't let it again.
Instead we will get through it.
No matter what it takes.