What I Think About When I Can't Sleep

I'm a night owl. I don't sleep at night. Most of the time, I fall asleep in the morning, which, to be fair, is not normal, but I have always had this issue. Want to know the reason why? Well, I'll tell you. It's because my brain will not shut off when I am supposed to sleep. When my space is the quietest is when I can get the most thinking done, or reading, or anything else I want to do. Again, I have always had this issue. I can amuse myself for hours, if allowed, but I guess this may have been a learned habit. #lonerproblems

You probably have questions about this, and I don't blame you. It's not a happy story, but I need to talk about it. I have already talked to my therapist about my former life, and yes, I do say former life, because the minute I chose to be the person I want to be, when I became Quinn, that was when I was reborn as a person who wanted nothing to do with whom I used to be. My former identity "died" and now I can choose who I want in my life. But I digress.

Anyway, when I was born, my mother wasn't married. I don't know anything about the sperm donor, other than his name, and it's a very common name at that. His name is Dick, for crying out loud, which honestly, is kind of fitting. When my mother got married, I was already 5 years old. Looking back at those days, I don't remember what my 5-year-old self was thinking about the situation at the time. I should ask my mother about this because I don't have memories of those days anymore. Yay, mental illness (yes, that was sarcasm). But because my mother got married, I gained a "dad" and another set of grandparents, who accepted me and loved me, or so I thought at that time.

By the time I turned 7, my (half) brother was born. I was so happy to have a sibling, I didn't care that he wasn't a full brother. Hell, he was my show and tell at school when I was in kindergarten. That is one thing I do remember. I am thinking about it right now as I write this, and I'm smiling. The year I turned 10, my (step) dad legally adopted me, so on paper, he was "Dad." And then a month later, my sister was born, which made me happy, at first. I thought that I would have someone to bond with and have fun doing girlie things. Sadly, that was not the case. No one wanted much to do with me, making me feel unwanted and unloved. My sister was able to get away with almost everything and I got blamed for not "keeping an eye on her better." What the fuck?! My parents expected me to do their parenting for them while they worked during the day when school was out for the summer. 8 hours a day, trapped in the house, and my sister was allowed to get away with murder while I got no recognition for my efforts. I was made to be the black sheep because my father figure was too much of a narcissist to parent all kids, including the "adopted child." The "promises" he made when I wanted to get the same treatment as his blood children that he half-assed after I made the attempts was never fair. For fuck's sake, I had honor roll for 2 quarters in a row, and he decided to give me some excuse because I called his bluff. Granted, I can see it for what it is in hindsight, but it still hurts. Between that, and when I started talking about being depressed with a school counselor, they told "Dad," and he chose to act like I was being a drama queen. He brushed me and my concerns off, saying "Oh, she's depressed." Lovely, right? (again, sarcasm.) I was able to start seeing a counselor who allowed me the space to speak about my family life since I didn't have anyone to talk to. But when this happened, it was the realization that he didn't love me when I gave up on trying to be the good daughter. I started lying about doing homework, got caught, and would get grounded, or beaten. Because I stopped caring about making anyone happy, the things they did as punishment just didn't matter. At one point, he commented that I wasn't doing anything. Again, he was the one that made me feel like I shouldn't care, so anything that I could have shown interest in would've been taken away from me. That did change though when I was 18 and the staff couldn't call my parents anymore. I was a senior in high school at that point.

Now, I have gone on and on about my "dad" and his actions, so you're probably wondering where my mother was in all of this. Well, eventually Mom was able to work with me to try and graduate, as not doing homework for a lot of my classes resulted in failing them. Hell, the day of my 18th birthday, I didn't have to go to school. Mom surprised me with a special day of pampering. It was a nice day, as it was just her and I, and then later, we visited with my maternal grandmother. I have recently found a picture from that day, and I look happy, even with undiagnosed depression. But to be honest, I couldn't really talk to her about things. It's only now that I am able to talk about my issues in therapy. Some of which I will never talk to my mother about, because the pain is still pretty strong. Things like why I had to lose an ovary, the real reason, anyway. I don't know. Maybe I should tell her, but it's still hard to talk about that sitch with my mother.

Anyway, I have rambled on long enough about past hurts. Maybe getting back into writing this blog will be something cathartic. Who really knows for sure? Thanks for reading, y'all.

Small victories and fluffy bunnies.