Let’s see here, I am not sure if I have or haven’t mentioned a lot of my life as in where I was born and grew up. So I guess here is my chance right?
My name is Kisa, well it’s the name I go by anyway!
I was born in Bakersfield, California and I miss the warm weather every day! I am the 2nd daughter of my mom and my … genetic other half (sperm donor really… he disowned me because I got divorced because my husband had ‘a cute brother’ seriously.. that was the reason he used!), and one of four children from that relationship.
Really I count myself as one of 8, because I count my Dad’s (I met dad when I was 16!) children as well. Even if only one of them really participates in the family at all. :/
Anyway!
I lived in California from the time I was born until a few months after I was 9, when we were forced to leave about 95% of our belongings and all of our friends to move up to Spokane, Washington.
You see, a couple of weeks before Christmas when I was 8 (we moved in August, so this was December) my sperm-donor got thrown in jail. At the time I had absolutely no idea what happened. We came home from school one day and mom was crying, later we got a call from him in jail… Life sort of went downhill after that.
I’d always been an emotional child, I’ve probably actually suffered from my depression (I have Major Depressive Disorder) from the time I was really little, maybe before I was molested (at age 3) or after… I am not sure. But maybe it triggered part of it?
Anyway, him going to jail just threw my entire emotional state into a downward spiral.
No one understood, not even me, and therefore no one was really able to do anything. In fact, most of my time between the ages of 9 and.. ohh… hmmm… about 26 or 27 my family really didn’t like me at all. They had no idea what to do with me as none of the rest of them suffer from depression.
It’s really hard to explain that, there is not any one thing in specific that sucks and is making you so damn miserable… It’s just there. It’s just constant. It doesn’t help that anything you do to attempt to add happiness into your life is something that is made fun of or hated by just about everyone else.
I tried to play violin to musically get out of my sorrow, and my siblings (fueled by my oldest sister who has since disowned us all…) would threaten to break my violin. It wasn’t that I was bad, actually I picked it up rather quickly… she just liked to torture me… and as younger siblings often do, they followed her example.
When I found something I was interested in, or had a rare day when I felt good about myself, she found a way to make sure that I was called something ugly so that I would hate myself once again.
I tried the ‘kill her with kindness’ approach that helped me get through middle school without getting beat up (seriously, I managed to get girls who wanted to beat me up for no reason at all to be my friends by just being overly nice and not giving into fear of them!) in order to smooth things over with my older sister… but it never worked. For one reason or another I was nothing but ugly, stupid, and never good enough.
So it made her pretty angry when boys her age would date her for a short time, but then dump her because they were actually interested in either our mom or me. I’m not sure why… but yea. :/
Now… I am more than sure that R (sperm donor) being thrown in jail didn’t make things easy on her emotionally either, but I still never understood what it was taken out on me until much later.
R had favored me over her, I’m not really sure why considering she was his first and all… but I really was a bit of a “Daddy’s girl.”
While she struggled in school, I did well… okay aside from in spelling and language arts matters. English is difficult despite being our first language!
While I was musically and artistically gifted she wasn’t. Though damn she was good at getting attention from guys and getting things she wanted. I hate to admit it but I envied that about her. After we moved to Spokane we really struggled financially but she had guy after guy wrapped around her little finger buying her things left and right.
When you start to feel so unloved, you look for ‘love’ wherever you can find it.
All of that came at a price of course, and I later found out that she had an abortion at age 13, and had started being sexually active at 12. 🙁 It was a fact I’d discovered many years later, after she’d moved out and I was cleaning out the dresser that we shared so I had more space for my things.
Finding that out scared me about ever having a young teenager! What if my oldest would follow her?
When I hit 12 years old my emotions took a giant plunge down the spiral I’d slowly been going down. I ended up attempting to kill myself multiple times in various different ways. I ended up committed to the psychiatric unit of a local hospital twice in a matter of a few months, spending a total of a month and a half there those times.
I made some bad relationship choices over the years after that. I got pregnant at 15 despite being on birth control for many years (I’d been on the pill starting at 12 1/2 because of crazy hormone issues…), and hadn’t missed any… at 16 Kat was born. Though people encouraged me to get an abortion or put her up for an adoption, I just couldn’t… do it.
Not that I condemn anyone who is able to make that choice for themselves, it’s just not a choice I could ever make for myself.
At 17 I spent another two weeks in the hospital for depression issues and attempted suicide.
I was married at the age of 18 and had Sisi when I was 19. At 21 Var was born and about 3 months after that my divorce with their dad started. It was a terrible process and I’d never wish the amount of stress I went through on anyone!
When I was 22, Lisi was born! Woo! Yea I had them pretty darn close together. @_@;; Well, the last two anyway, Sis and Var aren’t too bad together.
I will say that going from one child to two was harder than adding any of the others to the mix.
A few months after Lisi was born (three actually) we moved to where we live now. Well the city we live in now!
Things haven’t been perfect since moving here, but life has improved over the years at least.
At the age of 25 I finally got my drivers license! I passed the test missing only a single point. I didn’t signal when pulling away from the curb I was parked at.. boo!! But you know how many people just DON’T do that?! Ugghhh.
Shortly after turning 26 I decided enough was enough and I needed to finally get help. No one was going to tell me anymore that depression “wasn’t real” and that it was all just my choice to feel the way I felt. That I didn’t need meds to help me feel better.
Even still some didn’t understand or want to be supportive when I started the process to get healthier. It took about a year and a half or so to find a medication that I did well one. Which meant a lot of struggling and mood issues from meds that just didn’t work. It also meant therapy for all the kids (so they didn’t have to suffer alone through my struggles) and myself as I got better.
Though many times I wanted to (and made weak attempts to) kill myself, I avoided going to inpatient hospital care because I didn’t want to lose the kids forever to my ex-husband… and I had no support from anyone who could stay with them and keep them at our home day to day so they could stay close to friends and be in the schools they were comfortable in.
Here I am now, 29 1/2 and doing better than I have in awhile.
Sure, the days aren’t always perfect. Being pregnant means I’m moody despite my meds (I am on a low dose to keep me as regulated as possible with minimal risk during my pregnancy) but I’m glad I finally got myself some help. Even if it’s been a struggle. I feel more like myself than I have in a long time.
I just hope that my family and friends see that too. I hope that love me and care about me like I have them… despite all the struggles I went through over the years.
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