Katie, am I normal today?

I've lived in the shadows of my own shadows.

How could I possibly know until I pulled the curtain open myself for the big reveal.

This is my life now, and if I choose to accept it and quit hiding behind the curtain,

than I can enjoy the movie.

My life is the movie I have not wanted to star in. Always a bit actor.

Sometimes no more than a stand-in.

I have let so many things, people, beliefs, myths rule me.

I have felt like I have had no right to draw breath on this planet for a long time.

My insides are collapsing as I dispel each and every myth.

I have every right to be here. The person who should have taught me,

show me, allowed me the slightest dignity did not.

Dogs were shown more compassion for their feelings than I was.

It is spilling out on this paper my anguish, my understanding that I

deserved humanity in my fear as an 8 year old. Terrified and alone.

When my older brother came into the dark living room in the loneliest hours.

No one was going to come for me. No one would hold my shaking body or dry my tears.

Simply say, "You'll see honey, when the sun comes up, everything will be okay."

Day break came, and I lost more and more pieces of me.

Every day I disappeared into a slow stew of nothingness.

Thought to be slow, less, by the mother who would not protect me.

She would not stand up to the bully who never ceased to torture me with words now.

This was far worse than the act. The words spewing from his mouth were

filled with such hatred and rage.

He would go on and on spouting, wishing that I would have died. The favorite at the dinner table was how ugly, fat and stupid I was.

It became a mantra. My mother allowed it. I, in turn, fully believed it.

Lived it. Became the slow, fat, ugly monster together they conspired to

create. The SECRET must be kept at all costs. I certainly wasn't going to put up a fight.

I was in survival mode. I just needed a way to exist, that's all I could possibly hope for.

That's what life became. I learned how to mask my overly sensitive emotions with humor.

.

With the way I viewed my Hunchback Of Notre Dame looks, what could I, would I expect?

Darkness never traveled great distances from me. We were great partners.

You could say we thrived off one another. Until I was in pitch black.

I couldn't see anymore, it now consumed me. The depression was so much a part of me.

This went on for so many years with too many roads traveled in between.

My life no longer had meaning. Death became a game. Begging my husband to please kill me,

as he walked in the door from work. It got worse as I drove the freeway, closing my eyes, playing games.

I resisted my therapists recommendation of going to a Psychiatrist.

That's for over the top nut job's. It's bad enough I see a therapist.

So I went. Little did I know what would soon be in store for me.

Boom. My world would be turned upside down with just a few simple , yet

far from harmless words in my vocabulary, at the time.

"Your diagnosis is bipolar disorder". No, I just came here for some simple tests.

That's for THOSE kind of people. Those crazy frothing one's.

Not me, you've made a mistake. I get depressed, but let's work this out, c'mon.

Eyes pleading. Who is this lady who can just tell me this, like she is ordering a sweater on line.

This is my fucking life.

I leave her office and pull off to the side of the road. The tears come, and don't stop.

I am the monster they said I was. I grieve. I am inconsolable.

Time passes, I get reacquainted with the ME that never had a chance through so much trauma.

Through no fault of my own.

Forgiveness for self comes in many layers, through years when no hand is held, no back is rubbed, as a child. No words came from my mother, that it wasn't my fault what my brother did to me.

That I never deserved to be that frightened or alone. I did the only thing I knew how.

I went far, far away.

So far away, that it took a long time for me to come back and claim all the pieces of me.

I am no longer ashamed that I take medication to help me.

Part of me got left behind. There will always be some damage.

I am no longer DAMAGED. I am thriving because I am willing to feel all of this.

Without my Raymond who believed in me, for me. He saw this moment so many years

ago, when I was a curled up ball. The difficulty and aloneness for him was excruciating.

Then Vicki came and saved my life. Shone her light and love and example.

She became mother, sister, an example of HOW I deserved to be treated.

Doc set me on the path to getting my medications figured out- loving me while

doing the great balancing act. Medication is a slippery slope, and if you don't have trust,

faith, connection- it makes it so difficult.

These two women, had faith in me, as difficult as I made it at times.

I love them, as it turns out, with ferocious loyalty.

They are the best of the best. How I got so lucky to be placed in these women's hands, I'll never know. I just thank God for them every day.

My husband that has loved me through better and worse, the worse got tested more than he ever expected. My two amazing children, who have loved me, and taught me so much about acceptance and asking for help.

So, when I asked the other night, am I acting normal?

They replied as if I was asking to change the channel on the TV.

Thats my family, that's what they have taught me about love.

I am ready to be the STAR in my own life. What a leading man I have. What was I thinking?