Lisa’s Story:

My parents, unmarried teenagers, were inconvenienced by my conception but the growing fetus there grew nonetheless and when born, it was handed to some foster home in another state, forgotten. Six months later, my grandmother brought the forgotten one home.

As a child I was lead to believe that my grandparents were my parents and that my mother, aunts and uncles were my siblings. I was a young child and my “siblings” were in their teens and twenties. There were lots of fighting between siblings and siblings, siblings and parents. When fights broke off, the screaming and yelling went on and on. Terrified, I retreated to my room, my heart beating fast, my breathing shallow, feeling faint, as if I was falling and falling, no one to catch me.

Help me, someone, help me.

I blocked the door to my room from the inside, so that no one can hurt me and stayed there for what seemed like eternity, for as long as the fighting went on, and long after.

No one checked on me. No one talked to me about those fights. No one comforted me.

My father was never a part of my life. He lived close by but never showed up. I never met him. Don’t even know how he looked like. Don’t have a single photo of him.

Early on, in Elementary School, I couldn’t sit still. Every day I was given a pill. It was a stimulant, most likely Ritalin, the pharmaceutical treatment of choice for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I also developed the symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and had frequent accidents at bed time.

I was bullied a lot, kids on the street. Bullies targeted me, why- I didn’t know. There was very little that I did know. With almost no attention from anyone at all, I had no way to see myself, no mirror to look at. I didn’t know how to act, how to be, what to say, what to do.

No eyes cared to see me, and so, I didn’t see myself.

One day I happened to hear a kid mentioning that I was adopted and that my sister was my mother. I agonized over whether I was my sister’s daughter and whether the woman I thought was my mother, was not. I asked… and was told that what I heard was a lie. I turned inward more, more withdrawn than before.

A cousin once asked me to not tell anyone we were related. Peers kept their distance from me. I was often called “a baby” and “a sissy” for not standing up to kids who bullied me.

I didn’t know why those kids bullied me. I didn’t know the reasons behind so much in my life. I didn’t know who my mother was: was it the woman I thought was my mother or was it my sister? Who and where was my father?

I spent more and more time in my room, retreating into daydreaming. I still blocked the door from the inside, with an open dresser drawer. I took  out books from the library and pretended I was a character in those books, someone else.

One day my sister told me that she was my mother, after all. I was upset because no one liked her, and  sometimes she wasn’t allowed in the home.

They all lied to me, for so long.

Just before I finished grade school, my grandmother died. I was devastated. I spent even more time alone, in my room.

I daydreamed a whole lot, all through the years, in my room. No one knew of my dreams. There were hopes in my daydreaming, plans. As I reached high school, it was time for me to make some of my dreams come true: I was going to be a cheerleader! I was going to be a real-life part of a love story! Life was going to be different.

And I went for cheerleading and I fell in love with a boy.

But I was promptly bullied, lost cheerleading because I didn’t remember a routine (I was sick the day it was taught), and I couldn’t figure out what to do about the boy. I wanted him to approach me but he never did.

My first semester grades were so good, nonetheless, that I was going to be on the honor role, but instead I quit high school altogether, at 15, never to return.

It was then that my grandfather set me up with my first psychotherapist. A new doctor refused to prescribe more Ritalin for me, suggested it was harming me.

I had no friends and didn’t go out. I cleaned the house and did everyone’s laundry.

I cried all day when I was supposed to graduate high school. I never dated, didn’t go to a prom, had no friends. I could have been on the honor roll, but was not. I could have… all the daydreaming were just that, dreams, and nothing to show for them in reality.

At 17 I was pressured to get a job.

I got a job and spent the rest of my teen years and half of my twenties in my childhood home, often,  a turbulent home, cleaning and staying alone in my room, or in the library, fantasizing about being someone else, a version of myself.

I never imagined a perfect life with no problems. The only thing different were my connections to people.

When I was 23, my grandfather died. A year and a half later, I was kicked out of the house by my uncle’s wife. I then rented my first apartment. It was very old with peeling wallpaper.

I had an interest in decorating homes. I got my GED (General Equivalency Diploma, a high school equivalency diploma), went to an art school for one year and majored in Interior Design. I dreamed of having my own home, a place I could decorate and feel secure in.

I never owned a home; never felt secure in any of my homes.

In my later twenties, I joined co-workers in excursions  to clubs and bars and attended amazing holiday parties. I felt closer to one of my co-workers, felt like we were best friends. I watched her start a family, get a new home, experience all that love in her life. She made comments to me and I felt like she criticized me. She had everything and the little that I had, she criticized.

I cannot take an ounce of criticism from anyone..

I couldn’t forgive her and the friendship ended. Like in all my friendships, my depression and anxiety ruined them all. I am sure she has many friends, is happy and doesn’t need me.

A recurring theme in my life has been all along that bad things happen to me, as if a poltergeist, a supernatural being,  is following me around, setting up distressing situations for me. What I feared- kept happening to me as I moved from home to home,  job to job. I don’t want trouble, but trouble kept finding me. I try very hard not to get into trouble, second guessing every move I make, considering all possible negative consequences, but in vain.

I feel like there is someone or something targeting me. It knows my fears and makes them happen; it knows my few strengths and destroys them.

I have been fired from jobs for crying. I can’t tell you how often I have cried in my life. I quit jobs.  I lost jobs either way because of my emotional problems. No employer had a problem with my work itself, but that could be my wrong perception.

I have been seeing therapists on and off since I quit high school, when I could afford to see them. I hoped a therapist could end my suffering. They never can.

I always wanted to be an artist. I did murals for people but nothing professional. I took art classes at Community College but didn’t finish my Associate Degree. I earned a certificate in Interior Design but never pursued a job in it.

I wanted to be a journalist, a writer and illustrator, but went off track. I wanted to be a teacher, but the school I wanted to go to was too expensive.

I wanted to be an art therapist, an art teacher.

I took classes in real estate, barely graduated, but failed the exams.

Daily life, interactions with people, bills, work… I can barely pull them off, and when I do, I have nothing left. I am always  in survival mode, with little bursts of ambition that fizzle out.

I tried medication, diet, exercise, affirmations, self-help tapes, a couple of seminars, hypnosis, psychics, gemstones, therapy, therapy, therapy, yoga, outpatient treatment, group therapy, self-help books, books on how to flirt. I tried even more.

Throughout my life I worked many low paying jobs, one was better paying but the relationships with my co-workers put an end to it. At one of my jobs, retail, I tended the cash register. I did a great job, so great that I handled two departments at the same time, by myself. One day the register was short; someone was stealing. I was placed in a room with no windows, interrogated by a detective.

Later on I was cleared of suspicion but no one apologized to me. I did a great job and promptly punished. Once again, trouble found me,  a strength in me destroyed.

My thirties were worse than my twenties. I lost my dog and  didn’t have that best friend anymore. I had no friends to go out with anymore. Everyone my age moved on to having families. I remained alone, living in series of homes with a long list of much younger roommates. I got along with some, not with others. A few took advantage of me, leaving me with the bills.

I lost one home in a fire. I was 34 or 35. It was the week before my natural mother died.

I spent a lot of time alone. Going out alone. Staying in my room alone. I went to art museums and cafes and bought music and books. I lived at the bookstore, still searching for ways to have a life, dreaming of myself in some alternate universe, in a relationship with a man. In my daydreaming I had worse problems than I had in real life. The only difference is I was not alone.

Relationships of any kind are difficult for me unless it is in service to someone and that someone never criticizes me.

I never felt any man loved me. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t worth flowers. No man wanted to protect me either. I felt as if I wasn’t even female. In fact, I feel that men hate me.

I have seen wonderful men but they don’t seem to find me. These men often compliment me but they are usually with someone else or go no further than a compliment, and then, they move on.

I communicated with a man online (in my forties), but then, he just stopped talking to me. I was devastated. I am not pushy and I waited for him. I still miss him. He was intelligent, funny, sensitive but strong; thoughtful and caring. He cared about people and animals, the environment, politics. I said funny. He was often funny in a very subtle way that I loved.

He was different from the men I grew up around. They were very critical, had narrow interests consisting of sports and beer. Strange thing is, I discovered along the way (from their wives) that they did have other interests, but you had to delve into a deeper conversation to find those interests. I didn’t have those conversations with them.

I am old fashioned when it comes to love. I don’t pursue men, I wait for them to pursue me. But they don’t. How I wished a man would find me. It is important that he wants me first. Anything less is a failure.

My own father never looked for me. I never met him. I don’t even have a photo of him. I don’t  know how he looked like, when he was alive.

I sent my natural mother flowers before she died. Maybe I told her that I loved her. I am not sure.

A cousin told me that my father wanted to talk to me before he died. That didn’t happen. I wonder why he didn’t try to contact me throughout the 21 years he lived in my very neighborhood (I didn’t know that he lived so close, all those years). I know my mother’s family didn’t approve of him, but why didn’t he at least try to reach me… I was right there.

I was told that my father was an artist, a sculptor, and that is probably where I get my artistic talent from. I was told that I am inquisitive, like he was.

In my late thirties, I lived with my aunt and her husband. I felt like a charity case. No matter how hard I worked to make money, I was never able to own a home. Having my own home was not meant to be, not for me.

I overeat, using food to medicate myself and been somewhat overweight my whole adulthood. Living at my aunt’s, I became more sedentary. My OCD got worse. I obsessed a lot and washed my hands multiple times a day. If I was to pick up a cup to drink from, or a shirt to wear, I was afraid: what bad thing will happen if I picked the wrong cup or the wrong shirt? These are only two examples of the many daily choices that carried so much dread for me. Every choice had the potential to bring about a catastrophe. My whole life, I tortured myself this way.

I finally moved out of my aunt’s house, and into a rented room in a big, beautiful home, but it turned into a disaster within a month. I moved out, and next, shared a lovely apartment with a lovely roommate who turned out to be… not so lovely. I moved back in with my aunt. Soon after, I was fired from a job I held for ten years, the job where I advanced more than in any other job. I was fired because, once again, I cried too much, couldn’t control my emotions in the work place.

I often feel like I am being punished. I would like to know what for, though.

I got a job that paid way less, moved out of my aunt’s home into a lovely home that teased a catastrophe for me, then the problem I feared subsided, but I was so fragile, I had a meltdown anyway. Eventually, the roommate I had there moved out and that meant I had to move out as well.

There were many other heartbreaks and disappointments, moving in and out of homes, and many meltdowns. I could fill a novel with all my little experiences, missed opportunities and regrets. The world has been a hostile place for me, repeatedly knocking me down in one way or another.

I have never been jealous of material things or money. I am jealous of relationships. Alone is what I feel, and overwhelmed is what I always felt. I see other people living their lives, I only survive mine.

I am currently 48, renting a room in a home, having a low paying job. I cry a lot. I am beyond lonely, daydreaming a lot about how I wish my life was. I wonder what will happen next. Some work needs to be done on the house I am living in and it worries me. I was seeing a therapist a month or two ago, but can no longer afford therapy.

I feel sick right now, sitting alone, watching the rain outside.