Well, you were wrong and now the best is yet to come”

Dear Little Sisters,

"Well, you were wrong and now the best is yet to come." It's kind of funny where my mind goes when I hear this line. I guess I do think about the men who threw me away like trash when I was younger. Sometimes, I used to imagine that I would bump into them somehow and they could see me with the family they never thought I would have-or deserve. They would see me as a wife and a mother and not the one-night stand, the booty call, the on-and-off-again back-up that I always was to them. I want to bump into them not because there are lingering feelings, but just so they can know that they were wrong about me. I wasn't going to be living in psych ward and I was going to be normal and happy. And, yes, you missed out suckers.

But, now that I am older, I think less about how they were wrong and more about how I was wrong. Who knows what they really thought? I'm sure they were dealing with their own issues when they were treating me like shit. It doesn't make it right but I now realize I should have focused more on developing myself than letting myself be defined by them. So now I can see that I proved my 20-something self wrong. That I could be healthy and sane. That I could love and be loved. That I could bring life into this world and not fuck them up. And I have done it for years. Is everything perfect? No. But that is okay because I approach every challenge like it is solvable now. Not like the world is ending.

Because back then my world was hanging by a thread. Every slight was a reason to drive the car incredibly fast and imagine hitting the wall or pole ahead. Every rejection was a reason to scratch my arms until they bled and left long red scars. Every disappointment was a reason why I would sit in my car hear that voice say, "Do it. End it. Now."

I recently went to the store and the girl checking out my groceries, handed me the receipt and her sleeve went up. It was filled with all kinds of cuts. I didn't have to say anything to her because there was a huge line behind me, but I wish I had. I wish I could have said that things do get better even when all you see is darkness around. Even when the pain and hatred for yourself are so much that you can only concentrate on getting through the next hour. That getting through the next hour, can become getting through the next day. That the days turn to weeks and then years. And you find yourself not feeling that pain. That the monster inside you died-not instantly-but by a million cuts of hope. I hope I get another chance to see her and tell her that she is wrong and the best is yet to come.

I know, because I lived it.

Sincerely,
Ratsiram

It was all I could think about

Dear Little Sisters,

x

It was all I could think about... I had a plane to catch in a couple of days with my dance company for a performance in Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon. The problem was I was on 51-50 hold in a psychiatric ward in Mountain View. How the fuck did I end up here? 

Well this is part two of the night that I decided to stab my wrists and as a result taken into the emergency room. The days that followed were a surreal haze of interactions, tears, and solitude. Sometimes I forget that moment in time, that is, until I look down at my left wrist and see the now subtle scar that runs right alongside my vein. I used to fear that someone might notice it but now it’s simply one of the many scars that I carry, most of which are not physical and cannot be seen. 

Maya Angelo said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  In the days that I spent in the psych there are three people that I will never forget. I don’t recall exactly what they did or what they said but I recall exactly how they made me feel. 

The first was the doctor that treated me in the emergency room. He made me feel so stupid and shamed for having drank wine when I was feeling depressed. Even in the midst of my despair I managed to tell him that perhaps he should avoiding telling someone who was about to be put on a 51-50 hold something like that and that if I truly had better ways of coping with my situation, which he knew NOTHING about, than maybe I wouldn’t be there right now. He apologized. Asshole. 

The second was the woman who was my roomate. The moment I came in I could feel her warmth and care. She gave me both the space I needed but also offered me the comfort and attention when I needed it. Again I don’t recall exactly what she said or did but I could feel her love, like that of a mother. I find it incredible that in the midst of her own pain she was able to find enough openness to see me. Isn’t that how it works? It is often those who have endured the most pain and hardship that are the most empathetic because they know the depths and darkness of their own greatest fears and pains and would never wish that upon anyone. 

The third was my nephew. He was only a child but my sister took him to visit me. He didn’t know he was in a psychiatric ward and that I was being held there against my will. Seeing him run down the hall to embrace me made me smile in the midst of my own dark cloud of fear and shame. His innocence and lightness of being was a stark contrast to everything that was inside of me. Everything that was slowly crawling out after years of being chained inside. The memory of how he made me feel is what later inspired me to make a frame during “art time” to hold a picture of him and I. He is a reminder of the hope that I have to break cycles of abuse. 

After being held for 72 hours, I was released to my sister just in time to go home, pack my bag, grab my dance costumes, and be dropped off at the airport just in time to catch the fight with my dance company. It’s crazy that that is all I could think about in the midst of the storm that was just beginning to brew inside of me. I couldn’t let my company down. I still refused to show anyone on the outside anything less than the dedicated, perfectionist Maria. If only I knew what was to come.  

If you look closely at the pictures from that performance you will see that my left hand is bandaged and there are band aids on my right arm covering the bruises. Nonetheless, I am still smiling and gazing into my partner’s eyes putting on the show that folks came to see. It’s ironic and fascinating that one of my best friends made me an art piece from one of those pictures and titled it what only few can see,”between all the pain and glory.”

Love, 

Espe

Something good did come from this after all

Dear Little Sisters, 

Something good did come from this after all. He almost made me lose my glow, well actually he did cast a shadow over my light for almost two years until I finally exploded but that story will be for another time. 

“You’re nothing.”

“You’re a monster.”

“You didn’t deserve to go to Stanford or Harvard.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You’re a violent and terrible person, just like your father.”

“You’re F***** up in the head.”

“No one will ever love you.”

-------

Hair pull. 

Phone thrown across the room.

Bloody nose. 

Pushed to the floor. 

It was abuse and now I can say that. J emotionally and physically assaulted me. He made me feel tiny and powerless; vulnerable to his continuous threats and put-downs. His words like ice picks to my soul, slowly bringing me to my knees. But he also made me feel like the most precious thing known to man. He knew how to give me the love that I had been longing for my entire childhood. He made me feel that I could shine by his side but I now know that he had it all wrong because I can shine on my own. I was J’s prey and he was the vulture who knew exactly how to shame or smoother me into what he wanted me to do. 

It was a tumultuous roller coaster of emotion. It was the highest of highs to an ecstasy I had hardly ever known but it was also the lowest of lows to a darkness of depth that I still fear. Every special occasion or outing would end in fighting and tears. Weddings, birthdays, holidays, dinner parties, family events, he knew exactly how to instigate a fight or how to bring me to tears. I was reliving my childhood in the worst possible way but now I was my mother and I was the one walking on eggshells. 

I’ve never had a bloody nose, that is, until that terrible night in Calistoga. I should have known the supposed getaway weekend that he had planned would be a disaster when that morning he picked a fight about something minimal and then threatened to not take me, per his usual behavior. But in the end, like so other times, we ended up getting ready, looking our best as if nothing had ever happened and then driving away in his fancy BMW with our sunglasses and the wind blowing in our hair showing the world that amazing power couple they thought we were. If only they knew and if only the wind could blow away all the pain.

Like so many of our fights, it began with him picking at something about me, me reacting, and then him leaving me at the bar where we were, triggering my greatest fear...abandonment. He walked back to the B&B and shortly after him so did I but instead of going upstairs I decided to have one last drink. It angered him that instead of running to him, I choose to talk to the bartender and watch tv while sipping on my old fashioned. Eventually, he came down and insisted I go upstairs where it began. 

Shouting. Pacing. Arms flailing. Items tossed. Bloody nose. I don’t even recall how it happened; all I know is that I felt the warm blood coming down my face as I fell to the ground. The moment he saw the blood and heard my cries, I saw the panic in his eyes. And in an instant he was gone. He fled without even hesitating, grabbing anything, or saying a word to me. Actually, he did say something he said, “oh my god, the police can’t come, I’ll lose my license.” He was so terrified that the police would get called that he selfishly ran away like a coward, leaving me yet again but this time with a bloody nose, without a phone and terrified in tears. The asshole had the audacity to drive intoxicated all the way to our home in Redwood City from Calistoga. 

The good that came from this is that this relationship forced me to relive, process, and break the power and abuse cycle that I saw in my parents. The good that came from this is that now I can support domestic violence survivors. The good that come from this is that no one will ever have that much power over me again. While it took a lot of tears, pain, humiliation, anger, and time, I eventually came to see that he was nothing but a scared, and insecure man who was intimidated by the woman that I was when he met me and the woman that I rediscovering. 

You should listen to the lyrics from Keysha’s song Praying...it’s like they were meant for J. 

“I'm proud of who I am

No more monsters, I can breathe again

And you said that I was done

Well, you were wrong and now the best is yet to come”

Who knew that a psychiatric ward could be so peaceful?

Dear Little Sisters,

Who knew that a psychiatric ward could be so peaceful? I sat there leafing through the magazines. When I saw something that spoke to me, I began to tear at it gingerly with my fingers. I loved the way it felt to rip the paper. There was something satisfying about using my hands instead of scissors. Not that I had a choice, but I still liked it. I loved that I could just sit there and worry only about how to tear paper with my hands. Not about how I had failed as a teacher, as a friend, and as a human being.

So, I did more leafing. And then, I found her. Just the naked back of a woman with fat rolls and almost the same color skin as me. I cut her out, following her curves with my hand. She was like the Grand Odalisque but plus-sized and in an advertisement for body wash. I put her to the side to look for what could go alongside her. I looked through some more magazines and there she was again! I had two of them. I glued them on my paper in a ying-yang, a 69-shape, if you will. I did not know which side was up and which was down, but I was okay with that.

I cut out strips of dark hair for each of them. I gave one of them a crown and a dress of flowers. She lived in the darkness. I gave the other one no crown but she had the sun and lightness. However, the heaviness of the metal weighed her down. There they were: lightness and darkness, triumph and failure, freedom and bondage. I had made it, the perfect picture. In all my years of creating, here was my greatest work and it was done in the psych ward. I admired it. It reminded me of a funny thing my dad used to say when he had finished working on a drawing: “Leonardo, put down your brush. This is your masterpiece.” I couldn’t wait to share it.

So, everyone got a chance to present theirs. And not to be hateful, but theirs were crap. They made collages of random shit. They cut out cliche pictures and tossed it on the paper. Their art pieces said “vision board.” My piece said, “here is my fucking split-soul.” My heart was beating when I had to explain my piece. I knew the beauty of what I had created. I thought they would too. But they didn’t. Everyone was in wrapped up in their own shit and couldn’t see the wonder of my creation. I guess I could forgive them because we were all there with bigger fish to fry. But, still, someone could have approached me, and said, “I see you. I know who you are. And, you are special.” But, none of that happened. They collected our pieces and promised to give them to us when we left. I was scared that my piece would get lost in the trash, but, again, I didn’t have a choice.

Later, we would have free time and I would work on the 1,000-piece puzzle with a few others. We ate the hospital food, which I really didn’t mind. And, eventually, I went back to my room. I don’t think I had the urge to scratch the skin off my arms that night. I had said what I needed to say with my picture. Instead of tearing my own flesh, I tore paper. Even if no one else could see my girls, I could. I went to sleep thinking about them, Little Sisters. It was all I could think about.

Sincerely,
Ratsiram

Everything Hung In a Balance

Dear Little Sisters,

Everything hung in a balance. I was unsure of what the future would be now that the hideous truth had been revealed. For all those years that I had sat on top of my treehouse late at night wondering if there was a world in which everything that I had been through would cease to see the light of day; in one instant came undone with a simple phone call from my sister. The frightful memories that I had prayed were nightmares of my past had now become beasts of my reality infiltrating everything in my life. The darkness had arrived.

I had been hanging out at my boyfriend’s house after a long day of teaching. We were both relaxing a bit before we got into the usual routine of dinner and lesson planning for the next day when all of a sudden my phone rang. To my surprise, it was my sister and so I picked up expecting to hear something about my nephews but instead she was in tears. The moments that followed changed my life and were the beginning of a long and painful journey of healing. My sister confessed to me that when she was a teenager our brother had tried to touch her inappropriately underneath the covers. Her words made chest sink as I began to run through snapshots of all the terrible moments that I had tried to repress my entire life. I was partially in shock and partially confused… Oh fuck, my brother had actually repeatedly molested me. My flesh and blood, a person who was supposed to protect and love me had actually hurt and destroyed my childhood.  

Words cannot describe the wave of emotion and darkness that overtook my body. A dark shadow had just been cast over my entire being and I was at a loss of what to do. I went back into my boyfriend’s house and proceeded to cry uncontrollably in bed. There was nothing or no one that could soothe me. I cried the entire night; it was as if I finally began to cry for all the years and pain that I was never able to feel.

How does one even begin to process this little sister? How does one make sense of a world where someone so close to you could actually hurt you so badly, physically and emotionally? To this day there are so many things I cannot remember and I know that’s my body’s way of protecting me, thank goodness. Often times when memories slowly begin to creep into my mind, I quickly shut them out cause of scared of where they will take me. If I were to tell you what he made me do and what he did to me, you would want to see him locked away forever. My mind was a hell of memories and there was nothing that I could do to escape them.

As the days passed on I continued to be eaten alive with misery until finally a week or so later, in a moment of desperation, I cried out for help in the only way that I felt I could because no one ever taught me to share my emotions and needs. No one ever taught me that my voice mattered and that I could be heard without shouting and violence. I didn’t know that I deserved to be loved, to be listened to and to feel. I made a choice that would take me down a path of many dark years of self-sabotage but eventual reflection and healing.

It was the middle of the night and I was sitting at my kitchen table finishing up some wine while my boyfriend lay sound asleep in the bedroom. I was in tears and I didn’t know what to do. The rage, the desperation, the fear, and the loneliness was consuming me and I didn’t know how to control it all and so I got up, went to the kitchen and pulled out a knife. I stared at it as if I was staring through that tunnel of torment and shame. Tears were streaming down my face, my heart was in pieces, my soul was so lost, I was screaming inside until finally, I did it. I stabbed my wrist and my hand and screamed out loud for the world to hear. I wanted to feel the 26 years of pain and I wanted someone to hold me and tell me everything would be okay, and that I would survive and that I was worth fighting for.

Oddly enough I don’t remember the pain. I do, however, remember the warmth of the blood spilling everywhere. I was in sheer panic as my life was unraveling before my eyes. The years of perfection, the years of hiding the ugly truth of abuse and keeping my two worlds so separate had all just been ruined and as a result, I was about to be taken in an ambulance to the ER to get stitches and to then be put on a 51/50 hold. Who knew that a psychiatric ward could be so peaceful?

Love,

Espe

So not worth it, especially over a guy, I didn’t even like.

So not worth it, especially over a guy, I didn’t even like. Ugh, but I hated the rejection. I hated “to lose.” Like, you are saying no to me but I didn’t even want you in the first place? Oh, hell no. In retrospect, that was a good play. Because I wasn’t even thinking about you until you tried to let ME down easy. Yes, one night stand, fine. You were not the first. And, I was already moving on to someone else, but then, you came at me saying that we should part ways. When were our “ways” ever together? Regardless, you got into my head and my mind was weak back then. So, why am I writing about this now? Because I fucking lost and I hate losing.

Do you know how some people like to play Monopoly and win? That was me and I was cut-throat. Like, make your little-sisters-cry cut-throat. True story. I told them that they lost their money so they were out. They wanted a loan from the bank to stay in and I was like, “Nah, the real world doesn’t work like that. Sorry.” So yeah, I was the big bitch in the Monopoly board game, but couldn’t realize that someone else had bought hotels on the Broadway and Park Place of my life.

So, how did I react? Step 1: Find other random-ass guy. Step 2: Fuck him. Step 3: Three houses on Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue. Bam, motherfucker! How do you like them hotels? So, you roll the dice and hope you bypass their shit, land on GO and collect your $200. Unfortunately, I sucked at real-life Monopoly. I wanted to be the person that could make others cry, but, sadly, I was the one at home crying because I didn’t know the rules. My solution was to just find someone else new because maybe if I slept with enough people I could forget that I was bleeding out the play money.

Okay, enough Monopoly metaphors. You knew I didn’t like you. But you had to trick me because you knew that was the only way. And I was weak because any attention was better than none. Because you could tell that my little overweight disproportionate body was happy for any kind of semblance of romance. Yes, tell me you were jealous. Say you thought about buying something for me for my birthday. Why? Because no one else had ever said that. Bravo. Well done.

Fine, I see your jealousy e-mail, and I raise you: I fucked this other guy. Do you fold? Okay, no more game metaphors, I promise. So, how did this end? I threw your shit away in the trash can, even though I hate throwing away perfectly good things. I remember how you called me a “six” to my face and reminded me that your real girlfriend was a “ten.” And eight months later, I took my six ass back to Texas and learned these lessons from you: harden your heart, never hope and always be the first to walk away. So, thank you. Something good did come from this after all.

It was either you or me

Dear Little Sisters,

It was either you or me. And you’re damn straight to think that I would ever let it be me. As cliche as this sounds, we each walked up behind the bleachers of our high school, staring straight into each other's eyes, with each of our posse walking with the same stern faces behind us. My long black hair was braided, courtesy of my best friend, you know just in case she attempted the typical girl move and tried to pull my hair. The tension mounted as we came into the space between the bleachers and concession stands, face to face not saying anything, holding our breath and waiting for the other to say something or to make a move. It was as if time stood still as we waited for the other to say anything, flinch, or perhaps even turn away.

However, I refused to be the one to stand down, especially after how she and her friends had cornered me the previous week; I decided it was now or never to defend my pride and ego. And so out of nowhere, BAM! I punched her in the face and began the fight that felt like an eternity but was probably only a couple of minutes or perhaps even less. All I know for certain is that I was clenching my fists so tightly that I caused little cuts in the palms of my hands from my own nails. It was a blur of blows towards one another until eventually my contact got displaced from my eye and then I was left struggling to see clearly. She went for my hair just like I had expected and sought to scratch me with her nails. She did not succeed. There I was a 5’4” hundred-pound Sophomore fighting a girl who was taller and heavier than I was. Did I care? Heck no! All that mattered to me was that I teach this girl a lesson about who not to try and threaten and bully. She may have caught me off guard alone with her friends as I came out of PE wearing my nice purple skirt and a white tank top but now I was ready and would not stand down.

I don’t exactly recall how the fight ended, if one of us just eventually backed off or if friends stepped in or if it was the fact that someone shouted that a teacher was coming and so we quickly all scattered. My friends and I ran to the bathroom where I looked to quickly compose myself and clean up enough to make it to my PE class cause, of course, I still had to go to class. I mean I was a straight A honors student and class president so God forbid I miss a class.

What’s crazy is that this set off a series of incidents and another fight between my friends and hers. Until one day as I was sitting in my French class I got called into the principal’s office. The moment I heard my name I knew I was done. I scrambled to think not of what I would tell the administrators but what I would tell my parents. I was scared and my sweaty palms and pale face showed it. I walked into a conference room where both the principal and assistant principal were already waiting for me. I sat down and proceeded to answer their questions with complete honesty. They asked what had happened, who had started it and what was the current status of things. To my surprise they did not suspend me or give me any consequences at that, nor did they tell my parents. To this day while I was baffled by their decision I am forever grateful. Ultimately they knew me better than I thought they did and seemed to understand that the consequences that I would face with my parents would probably be more detrimental to my current high achieving, overcommitted and involved student that I was.

Now you might be wondering what caused this girl to want to fight me. Such a silly high school thing, she thought her current boyfriend who I “dated” for all of two weeks in 8th grade still had a thing for me. M and I had only held hands for goodness sake. So not worth it, especially over a guy, I didn’t even like.

Love,

Espe