these are short streams of thoughts and true personal experiences.Â
my disclaimer: the subject matter in some of these thoughts are very sensitive in nature. they include death, miscarriage, mental health, self-harm, eating disorders, rape, suicide ideation, drugs and domestic violence. this may be triggering for some readers. please, i implore you to read with caution, understanding and compassion. above all, seek help and reach out to someone if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or are in a life-threatening situation.
cotton
as i stated before, i was going to marry someone for money. it didn't work out that time, but magically another opportunity presented itself almost immediately. one of the friends of the person who had died, also needed some help. i said why not? i still did need the money. so, we talked it over and decided we would do it. it was the holidays so i was home with family. we had been exchanging and plotting our plan through emails. he had a son back in his home country that he wanted to help and he also had a gf. she, however, was not about this union. she had gotten access to our email exchanges regarding our upcoming nuptials. i received several threatening emails from her. and i believed every word of them. i ended up telling him i could no longer go through with our agreement because i didn't feel safe. he cried and told me she was just ill, didn't mean it, and to just ignore her. i ultimately, could not. when he had said she was ill, i had no idea to what extent. turns out she had some kind of terminal cancer and ended up dying a couple days after sending me the threatening emails. i never ended up marrying anyone for money and will never after what i experienced. i don't know what it is about death and marriage, but it seems to follow me around.
5150
this is going to be a snippet of a very strange time in my life. we will talk about other details in other posts. this one specifically though pretty much sums up that whole situation. i was dating a man for 10 months, he was going through a "divorce" from his wife at the time. long story short i had been in contact with her prior, so i had her phone number. the person i was dating at the time, let's call him h. was acting super strange, fidgety, nervous, the works. i asked h if he was okay, he said he needed to leave and get some air then practically ran out of our apartment. i ended up texting his wife to express my concern. she tells me that she had given him an ultimatum. by thursday (it was tuesday at the time) h had to tell me they were going to work on their marriage and leave me. if he didn't, she would tell me herself. h decided it was probably going to be a shit show since a. i didn't know they were still seeing each other and b. i believe he had no plans of telling me. to avoid said shit show, h placed himself in a 5150 hold. no one would really be able to reach him for a few days. he ended up extending his stay to a 5250 hold, in hopes of everything having settled down by the time he was released. looking back i guess that was one way to avoid conflict.
threesome
i'm not judging anyone who watches porn. i've watched it many times in my past. i no longer do. but it can be an enjoyable pass time for whoever needs that kind of entertainment. however, there are moments where porn can be very damaging. i dated someone, let's call him j. for 6 years, who loved porn. lived for it. almost any time we were initiating intimacy, j would pause, whip out his laptop, pick out a nice porn video and pop the laptop at the end of the bed so he could enjoy the show. if i ever got in the way of the screen j would say hey babe? can you tilt your head this way, i can't see the screen. sure, of course. he would always end this romantic night, with a little hey babe? can you turn around? absolutely. place the laptop right in front of my face, bend me over, and finish. who says romance is dead?
c'mon
i didn't start speaking english until i entered school. when that happens, you are placed in an esl (english as a second language) program that helps you learn english while you're in school. i'd like to believe i caught on decently and now english is my primary language. but while you are learning this broad and beautiful language, there are just some words you don't come across often. "c'mon," is one of them. i was in the 4th grade reading aloud and stumbled upon that word which i had never seen before. i did my best and tried to process it as well as my little brain could and pronounced it "see-mon." laughter, uncontrollable laughter in the classroom. i thought, oh it's a comedic word. it was not. they were laughing at my mispronunciation of the word. clearly, it was a small traumatic experience since i've never forgotten that moment. this is the first time since that day that i have ever even used the word in a sentence since then. my point is, people are always learning and trying their best, especially children. it is better to encourage and correct, then dismiss and ridicule. but kids will be kids, right?
pica
sometimes you watch shows on t.v. and wonder how on earth someone can do that. specifically the shows that show someone eating something strange like soap, or glue, etc. i was one of those people. i believe it was around the age of 6 to 8 years old. i used to eat paper. from what i remember there was nothing particularly delicious about paper. i just began to eat it. i later found out this is a disorder known as pica. some say pica is associated with adhd, autism or ocd. or it can start as a result of living in a stressful environment, which i believe is why i had started to do it. i no longer do it, i only did it as a child. i didn't even realize it was a trauma response until a therapist pointed it out to me a couple years ago. all these years i thought i was just being weird.
wipe
here is the thing about rape, i think a lot of people assume it's this wild, violent thing that happens by a stranger in this dramatic way. more times than not, it isn't. it's quiet, shameful, and confusing. also, it's usually committed by someone you know. the lines of consent get blurred often. as i mentioned before i've been raped 3 times. this is one of those times. i was at a friend's destination wedding. some of the bridal party decided to go out the night before the ceremony. we went to the only club on the resort. i had noticed that the brother of the groom (let's call him m) was attractive. i mentioned this to my friend and some of the other bridal party girls. m was one of the people out enjoying the night. there is a lot to this story but to keep it simple, i got very very drunk. the girl i was sharing a room with, also, was very drunk. a bouncer and myself helped my roommate back to the room to rest. i decided to go back to the club after dropping her off, to continue to party. m was still there, so we talked and continued to drink. i remember walking back towards the rooms with him. we ended up in his room. and this is where my memory gets splotchy. i remember kissing him and then nothing else. the next morning i wake up in my room fully dressed with a faint taste of latex in my mouth. it's the day of my friend's wedding, her big day! so, of course i don't want to make a big deal of it. once i see the bridal party i try to make jokes about kissing m but having blacked out and not remembered what happened with him after that. however, internally i am distraught and abashed. before the wedding began i wanted to find m to ask him what had happened. i found him right before the ceremony and asked him if we had been intimate. reasons being, a. i could not remember a thing and b. i most certainly could NOT have consented in the state i was in. he assured me nothing had happened. we kissed for a while and then he took me back to my room safely. thank goodness, my body instantly relaxed with relief. the next day everyone is heading back home. i end up taking an afternoon flight back as well. after getting off the plane i head to the restroom to use it. as i am wiping myself i feel something very slimy and begin to freak out. i look down and there is a condom on the toilet paper i just wiped with. a condom. i panic and am incredibly confused. i hadn't been intimate with anyone so where did this come from and how on earth did this just come out of me? i text m, frantic for answers. explained what had just happened. had he seen me with anyone else? was he sure i made it to my room safely? could i have wandered away with someone else? was it the bouncer? my thoughts racing, std's, pregnancy...to how could this have happened and by whom. i had to go to the police. at this, he finally confessed that, yes, we had sex, it was him and no one else. he said i had been so drunk, he didn't want me to feel embarrassed or ashamed in front of the rest of the bridal party. so he didn't tell me in order to protect my feelings and reputation. how chivalrous. when i mentioned this to some that attended the wedding, the response was "well, you thought he was cute right? and you would have slept with him anyway if you had been sober...wouldn't you?"
novelas
novelas are a form of spanish soap operas. my mother was a big fan of them. these novelas have inadvertently affected my life a few times. there was a day i was helping my mother clean behind her fridge. as we moved it, a floor board came loose and i accidently stepped on a rusty nail. my foot began to bleed and slowly swell. my mother said she'd take me to the emergency room, but only after her novela was finished. i wasn't up to date on my tetanus shots at the time so by the time we arrived my foot was very swollen and had started to change color. the doctor asked why i had taken so long to come in. with my mother sitting right next to me, i knew better than to give the real reason. the second time a novela distracted my mother, was a night after a game in high school. i needed to be picked up, so i called my mother (from a pay phone, there weren't cell phones at the time) she told me she would only be able to get me on a commercial break from her novela. i'm waiting in the parking lot and see her speed in like a bat out of hell. i open the back door (assuming one of my sisters must be sitting in the front seat) i look in, front seat is empty, so i close the back door to make my way to the front seat. i didn't have a chance to do so, once my mother heard the back door close, she sped off. i'm left there, with no more change to call her back. it isn't a far walk to my house but it's late and dark. i begin to walk home anyway. by the time she picked me up, i was about halfway home. when i got home my mom said she thought i had gotten in the car but didn't bother to look in the back seat to see if i actually had. she had told my sisters she even had a conversation with me and only realized i wasn't in the car, when she got into the house and my sister asked where i was. the time when being able to record t.v. shows finally came about became a glorious moment. my mother could now move freely knowing her novela would be recorded and she could watch it at any time.
therapy
i know you're probably wondering if i am in therapy. i am currently not. not because i don't believe in it, i do. but because i haven't been able to find a therapist that works for me. the first time i tried therapy, it was with a male therapist. we hadn't even been in the session for 15 minutes before he started complementing my looks. not appropriate. i never went back. a few years later i tried again. this time with a woman. she was sweet but sometimes she couldn't help but laugh at some of my strange stories. i don't blame her, some are quite funny. but it didn't end up working out. i do plan on trying therapy again. it's very easy for me to talk about the things i've dealt with, which is usually the reason people go to therapy in the first place. to be able to work on talking about things they've gone through. that part is easy for me. i've found healthy ways to cope as well, but for some reason, i am still depressed.
savior
thinking you can save people from themselves is a trauma response. i thought it was just me being nice. it is not. because i have done this my whole life, i have attracted some pretty terrible people into my life. let's go back to j. we dated on and off for 6 years. during that time he dragged me, choked me, pushed me, body slammed me, raped me and belittled me. the problem (besides the obvious) is that one thinks they can help this person. you see the good parts of them. the times they make you laugh, the moments they are kind to you. these moments eclipse the reality of the situation. you make excuses for them and forgive them. hoping, one day, they will magically change and be the person you knew they always were. the deep down good person they are meant to be. this is an extremely dangerous and false narrative. this doesn't happen. more times than not, these people don't change and sometimes the violence gets to the point of no return. death. domestic violence, physical and mental abuse, in any form is never okay. no matter how much they convince us that it will never happen again. it will. get help and leave. these situations never end well.
if you or someone you know is in a crisis. help is available. suicide and crisis lifeline is available 24 hours a day. call or text 988 or call 1-800-273-TALK(8255).
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if you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can contact the national sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE(4673) or go to rainn.org.