I realize that this will probably end up being a fairly long post. but i am hoping that somewhere out there somebody has gone through the same things as i have.

I also realize that some of the things in this post may be offensive, and i hope no one thinks less of me for it.

I posted several days ago, about my body image, and my mother and sisters. After doing so, many people quickly jumped to the rescue, and said some very kind, much needed words of encouragement. But since i posted, i have been unable to take my mind off of the past, and i really feel the need to vent about it, because here, people are much more likely to understand, and not judge.... so here goes....

My mom and stepdad are extreme alcoholics. and when i say extreme, i mean, 32 beers a day and i had to learn how to drive at age 11 so i could drive them home safely from the bar at night.

my mom was also emotionally abusive towards me when i was young, because i was an 'embarrassment', because i was overweight. at 13 i was over 200 pounds. and my depression began...

i became a binge eater after she began forcing me on 800 calorie a day diets, and forcing 2 and 3 mile jogs out of me, my mom told me that since i had not lost any weight, she did not want to take me out in public anymore, or people would know that the 'fat girl' was her daughter. when i was 13 i was sent to live with my biological dad, mom told me once i lost 70 pounds i could move back home. and my depression and binge eating got worse....

needless to say that didnt happen. but living my dad did not do me any good either. he was a drug addict, and he had never been a part of our lives, and he did not want me to live with him. my mom pretty much forced him to take me, it was either that or a group home until i turned 18.

my dad moved us around 12 times in the 4 years i lived with him. we moved from vegas to washington to idaho etc. he was a tattoo artist, and his work requires a lot of travel.

so when i began high school, i started doing drugs. any drugs, all drugs, anything i could find. it was a way for me to escape my depression... and wound up making me pretty popular too. by age 15 i was smoking pot, smoking crack and meth, and doing ecstasy on nearly a daily basis. but even though i was escaping my depression for a little while, the scale kept climbing.

i started going to a therapist when i was 16. he never seemed interested in what i had to say though, and i quit after several months, and i have never gone back.

when i was almost 17 i got kicked out of my dads house, luckily i had me my future husband jon, by then. jon and i moved in together and began a life. we were still both drug addicts though, and it caused a lot of problems. we were evicted from our apartment because we could not afford rent, and moved to california.

when we got to california we were robbed. what little money and valuables we had were stolen just 3 hours off the greyhound, along with our ids and social security cards. we had burned all of our bridges and had nowhere to go.

we slept in an abandoned palm reading place in barstow that night. and for the next 8 months we lived in a tent on the banks of the santa ana river.

this is when jon and i both grew up and got sober. being homeless is the most humiliating and physically exausting thing that you can do. it was by far the worst time of my life, but my breaking point was when i had my miscarriage. it was about 6 months after we got to california, and i had lost about 70 pounds (from starvation, not in a healthy way!), which made my body start ovulating again, but my period had not come for over 2 months, and when it happened, i knew that there was nothing it could be besides a miscarriage.

i was heartbroken, but at the same time i know that that baby would not have had a good life. we werent ready.

we finally made it back to idaho just before i turned 20. i was 190 pounds when i got back. an 80 pound difference. but after going hungry for so long, i ate... and ate... and ate. i gained back all the weight, plus 50 more in the last 2 years. my 22nd birthday was just 2 months ago.

my entire life has changed since then. i am positive, optimistic, and above all, happy. i still love myself, even at my weight. and i still love my family. i know many people might think that therapy is the answer to get over my past. but i embrace it. i know my life was not perfect, or even good, by many standards, but i will not allow it to bring me down.

i still struggle, ive just begun my weight loss journey, but already i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. its been a long, hard journey. but i am a better person with a lifetime of experiences because of it.

has anyone else had to overcome obstacles like this? i would love to find someone that can see life, the good, and the bad, from my point of view.

oh **** yah - betw you and me, we could give Joan Crawford and Barbara Bradford a run for their money except nobody would believe it was real and not fiction!

[sorry, this is insanely long]

i've had serious ups and downs in my life - never did drugs bec being an alchoholic got me into plenty enough trouble. you know you've got a problem when you wake up in an apt you've never seen before next to a guy you've never seen before in a city you've never been to before and certainly wasn't the one the bar you were drinking in is located!

that was kind of a wake-up call but i still didn't stop drinking until i discovered i was pregnant (yes, i knew who the father is - that was long after waking up in London, ON, after walking into a bar in Toronto).

homeless for a number of years; lived in Falstaff Ave (dubbed by a judge as the worst crack-dealing area in the province of ontario); abandoned by my second husband as soon as he knew i couldn't legally get an abortion; had my second child by myself - neighbours minded my older daughter for me; moved up north (still not drinking); moved back down south - all this time either on welfare or barely off it; weight up, weight down, weight up, weight down - 100lb yo-yo swings.

i think the worst was when i left whatever-he-is-today to live in my mother's ramshackle, rundown, poorly insulated cottage - not something you want for a canadian winter. i had no money for heat so i kept space heaters going in the bedroom and let the rest of the house freeze. i put antifreeze in the toilet so it wouldn't freeze up and flushed it by pouring buckets of water drawn from the river into the tank.

the second summer i was there, i found this right under the bathroom window in the tub enclosure:



those are carpenter ants.

that led to this:



(that's black mold you see)

which led to this:



after i ripped *everything* out of the walls. that's a hole you're looking at right under the window - it let in all the rain and that's what brought the mold and carpenter ants.

exterior view:



this is what i found when i ripped down the ceiling: the black pepper-like spots are mouse poop and the brown stuff is where they chewed up the ceiling tiles for nesting material



this is with the exterior wall cut out and reframed. i had to cut off the rotten ends of the ceiling joists and scab them on both sides. that's whatever-he-is-today standing in the patio door; i needed his help to get the framing lifted into position - everything else i did myself.



by the time i was done, the exterior was resheathed and clad in board-and-batten siding; the inside of the bathroom was drywalled, spackled, and ready for priming; the floor was ripped up (all 5 layers, including the part that had rotted from the broken toilet seal leaking betw the layers), levelled, and a new subfloor laid ready for tiling; the sink was relocated and replumbed with burst-resistant plastic hose.

the chimney was completely replaced top to bottom. the wiring was completely redone.

that was when mom dropped by and liked what she saw so much she decided she wanted her house back unless i paid her back rent for the 2-1/2yrs i was living there - 15,000 dollars. apparently doing all the reno work and covering her utility balance owing AND her tax payments owing didn't count.

so that's how i ended up living in town and she burned MY frikkin work down to the ground!

but now i'm living in town, in a house we own. we have a huge backyard that we're landscaping this summer - stone wall planting boxes all around with cedars on the outside of the perimeter. i have a job i like. our daughter is doing well - so far, no need for meds but this school issue... that's gonna be a problem.

at least now i can devote time to my own health!

You are an inspiration!! Good on you for being so positive!!

Jen

To both Samcakes and Threenorn: I can't even imagine. I'm keeping you both in my heart and my prayers. That's all I can do, because there is nothing in my life to give me insight into what you have had to deal with. Even bring a single parent for most of DD's life was nothing at all compared to what you both had risen above. You are great capable women. If you could survive all the things you talked about here, losing a few pounds should be a day at the beach.

Good luck. I'm happy to know you both. You are inspirations to anyone who thinks they have it rough. Hang in there and keep up the positive attitudes.

Lin

Samcakes - it amazes me how much self insight you have - and how much you've accomplished given you were handed a short straw in life. It's time for you to have a GREAT life. I'll be rooting for you!

Threenorns - yeah, my early 20's were similar to that, kind of all a blur. I was never homeless though, thank god. I can't even imagine that.

thanks all - didn't mean to hijack but if i just laid it all out, like i said, nobody ever believes me.

the one thing i learned: family is what you make it. you don't have to be stuck with blood relatives - just keep them stuffed in the back of the closet and only bring them out for annual dusting off at significant events.

like funerals.

the important thing is to fill your life with ppl that make you happy and who appreciate you. THAT'S your real family.

@threenorns, yea moms can be cruel. but it just makes me want to be a great mom when i get the chance.

i totally get what you mean about people not believing stories too. i started keeping a journal when we were homeless because it got so unbelievable. the crap that happened to us ranged from having our camp invaded by wild boars in the middle of the night, to finding a human thumb bone in the river where i washed my hair!

i feel more positive today then i ever have though

thanks to everyone rooting for me, i wish you all the best and send my love.

and to anyone struggling with depression and getting over the past, ill tell you now that you can get through it. life is hard, and then you die. just learn to make the most of every single day and dont let the haters drag you down!

.............. okay, i never had wild boars invade my camp but i had a black bear in the garage, a raccoon in the attic, a flying squirrel in the kitchen sink, and wolves on my septic bed. normal country stuff.

the human thumb bone, now.... *shudder*

did they ever find out what happened? cause you know i'll be thinking about that one all night!

@threenorns actually, we tried to turn it in to the police, but they refused to come pick it up, they said we had to take it to them, about a 3 hour walk or 3 dollar bus ride away. we had no money, and couldnt take it to them. sounds bad but... we kept it for a while, thinking we would get it to the police when we had the money to get there, and a bunch of kids came and cut up our tent and stole our stuff, including that. man, i wonder what happened. we couldnt even wave down a cop on the street to talk to us. they just didnt care what a couple of bums had to say i guess

ugh - i hear you!

the book shop i work in was broken into. my boss actually caught the guy int he act of jimmying the register (my boss is a twit: i told him to empty the register every night and leave the drawer open but he thinks a dinky little lock is sufficient - well, now he has to get a new drawer unit). the guy had kicked in a door at the back of the building and then basically kicked through the drywall to get through the utility room, the storage room, the music studio, and the bathroom.

anyway, cops were called by the alarm company but by the time they showed up, the guy had fled.

do you know they refused to lay charges or even investigate unless my boss could give them a name or address of the perpetrator!?


but oh ****, have your dog off leash and it's cruisers and flashing lights and weapons drawn!

i know! we actually almost got arrested for our dog barking at the cops! we were homeless, and had our beautiful doggy jenna with us, and about 6 cops all snuck up on us so OF COURSE our dog freaked. what did they expect? she was protecting us!

anyways, the cops pulled guns on us and threatened to shoot our dog. we werent even doing anything illegal, just reading a book under the trees. they just stopped to harrass us because we were homeless