Creating stability out of Chaos

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Having spent many years relocating frequently to stay a head of my abusers, staying in one spot today is very difficult to do. How do I give my children the roots and foundation they need if I am constantly relocating? I have found a way to deal with this....don't act on the impulse to move every time it comes to visit. I am sitting here thinking about the things I used to do to keep safe, like relocating and always leaving and coming home different routes so that I had less chance of being followed. I would always rearrange the furniture some times daily, just to make sure that if someone came in at night they would not know the layout. I remember always having my webcam set to reverse image, for the same reason. I stopped listening to music so that I could hear better. I even rented places with squeaky doors or a step that would make noise so that I could tell if someone was there. I became paranoid and so full of fear my life became very limited and hardly worth living. These were coping behaviors I had honed and cultivated since I was very young. Listening at night for my father, then later my partners, always  hyper vigilant.

The only time I could relax was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Then I was not afraid of anything or anyone. I felt a hundred feet tall and bullet proof. I was able to have relationships with people. I never thought much about the quality of the relationships or if i was being used or abused. I was just grateful to not be alone in my head and afraid. When I would drink I was dominate and took control of everything in my home, when I was sober and hung over I was submissive and often took the brunt of the anger of whatever partner I was living with at that time. In between relationships I would have periods of sobriety and sink into deep depressions, struggling with being bi-polar and doing my best to build a life for my children yet again. I would take some classes and seek counselling. I would see psychiatrists and try to understand how I had ended up here. I would take my bi-polar and depression medication and start to feel better. I would get a job and start socializing.  Life would start to look better.then the nightmares would come, and the memories and feelings and smells. I would inevitably find myself sitting in a psychiatric unit coloring after a suicide attempt. I would color for days, not thinking about anything, not feeling anything. Medicated to the point of numbness. I would go home to resume my parenting and thinking I was cured, everything was great I didn't feel anything. No highs no lows, nothing at all. Eventually I would relapse and find myself at the bar, mostly out of loneliness and the belief that I needed to be in a relationship, that the only way I could have one was if I drank and drugged.

This cycle continued for many years. It never got any better, the depression and nightmares and addictions getting worse every round.  More medication, more abuse, more sobriety and more addictions.

I started seeing a counselor through mental Health, we started talking about my family. For so long I believed I came from the perfect family.  Mother and father were still married, they loved God and I had plenty of siblings to love and adore me.  We owned a home, two in fact, and I got the best education money could buy.       How could it be that out of all twelve children only me and a couple others could be so messed up?  How could i be so ungrateful for everything they had done for me?  Didn't I know that I was special, that I had been chosen?  I was adopted you see, they had picked me to be part of their family and the least I could do was make them proud.  What a miserable failure I was.  No wonder they didn't talk to me often, no wonder they  believed adopted children were inherently bad.  I was proof of that.  A drop out,a drunk, a horrible parent, and nuts to boot.  I was most definitely not some thing to be proud of.  I was not even good enough to be called someone, I was a useless good for thing waste of their love and money.  Shame on me.

PT 2 Drawing My Reality