I am going to start telling a bit of my story. I think it is interesting enough. I won't be writing my book in here, but a little background might be nice. I grew up in southern Lancaster county. The one that you see on Amish Mafia, or any Amish show really. That is where I grew up. Next to the Amish. I am not Amish. But here they live among us "English". They don't have little hidden spots like throughout the rest of the country. I guess that is why the shows here are so interesting, yes I watched them. Yes I think the Amish Mafia is real. I don't think those guys on the show were anything but lackeys and that is because it is the Bishops of the church that run the thing.
When I turned 15 my dad left us. Up until then we were like everyone else, because that is how my mother liked it, keeping up with the Jones. She felt inferior to her male brothers because she was the girl and got treated that way. She passed that on to me, until very recently I wanted their approval, no matter how often I said that I didn't. But now I have heard enough and learned enough that they truly don't matter, my life's path has nothing to do with them anymore. I suppose when you get Fibromyalgia and you lay in your bed for two years wishing your heart to stop.. or absolutely everything in your life changes... that those things are enough to finally give me the strength to say "fuck what you think of me, you would never survive what I have."
After my dad left it wasn't long until I was driving. It shattered my mother, no more so than when he took her to court and we lost our house. I realize now that my father set a precedent then that I should not have forgotten. However, he started coming around after a year or so went by, and I spent my life wanting my daddy to love me, and since he was acting like he did I ate it up. My brother, always the keen one, wasn't so easy to please. I ate up the attention like it was my life's blood.
It still wasn't enough. I went a little crazy. Partying, having sex with multiple people, everything a little girl who needs her daddy does. I found it in sex. I knew that I was malfunctioning. I knew that I was crazy. I was self-aware, even then, I knew what and why I was doing it. That did not stop me. My mother thought it would be best if I moved in with one of my cousins for a while. She thought that would help. I loved staying there. Once I went home they all decided that I needed a husband, that I needed an older man to marry me and tie me down.
My mother introduced me to a guy named Nick. I did not think he was interesting. I was not sexually attracted to him. Nothing. However... to appease my mother and not hurt anyone's feelings I went out on a date with this guy. He bought me alcohol and took me to the woods to try and fuck me in his car. First date. I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Sex wasn't emotional for me then. Oral was the name of the game that night. Not on me.. I did it.
Now, not wanting to disappoint my mother I said I would go out with him again. There was a lot of pressure from all around. This is the guy for me and that is that. They thought. Second date? He bought me more alcohol and took me to a hotel room. More space for activities than in a car, I suppose. Yeah, I did it. Whatever, he had a really small penis. I was less than impressed. I didn't want to see him after that. He called a million times. He showed up at my house. I told him, I just graduated high school, I am leaving for boot camp... I am going to go to the beach, have fun. Not a hotel room with a tubby guy with a small penis that I wasn't attracted to at all. I pretended that I was interested until I left for Marine boot camp. (more on that later) This is the first time I have told this story.
It wasn't long before I met the love of my life. I graduated boot camp. Didn't last very long in the Marines, and I met the guy I am still married to. 18 years together. The ACTUAL guy I was meant to be with. I love him as much as I did when we first met. We have raising brilliant children together. There have been some HUGE bumps in the road, but we overcame all of them and we are stronger for it.
That blast from the past was not fun to talk about, but I find that the more I dig the more I find stuff that did fuck me up. I find more hurts. In reality trying to improve myself is a trip down memory lane. I remember more than I thought I did and until I started down this path I had made myself forget. That is not healthy.
It's why psychiatrists ask about your childhood, because truly the shit you think you are over? You probably aren't and if you are going live your best life, you have to rip those bandages off and deal with it. I write. Then it is in the universe. Let me say here I never told my mom, she still doesn't know.. about the Nick dude. It would have killed her. My mother is the most selfless person that I have ever met.
This brings me to now. I have my house, right in the middle of my huge family... my marriage is amazing, my kid is a drum major.. I am sick with fibromyalgia but I am fighting and I am happy.
Over the winter, the one where I spent a month wrapped in blankets with my dogs because we were in the middle of an arctic freeze' ; well during that time our past landlord called and said in January, that we had to be out of our house in a month. We panicked. I called my brother to ask if the kids could stay with him so they could graduate from this school. I didn't ask for help, but I was crying my face off. My amazing brother, whom I love so so much, immediately called my father. Said Tammie and Jason and the boys are about to lose their house. I will pay for what needs fixed in Mammaws house (he owns it) and they can stay there. I called my dad. Crying. I said daddy we are in trouble, we are paying on time, we are taking care of the house, somehow though my landlord is about to lose the house to the bank.
He said to come over the next evening and we would work everything out. So many red flags, I knew better, but I was in such a huge amount of trouble though that I really thought he was going to help us. The next night we went to his house, Jason and I were both zombies. We have had too many struggles in our life.. we were beaten. My dad proceeded to tell us that we could not move in because it would increase taxes.. we offered to pay. He asked why don't we just buy a house. I left there out of my mind. I couldn't believe that my own dad would leave his daughter and grandsons on the street. Trust me on this, you aren't going to find a place to live in Lancaster county in the school district we wanted; in the middle of the worst freeze we have ever had. He has someone living in the house now. My husband does not understand why that pisses me off.. but it pissed me off.. I am over it. I wouldn't want to live any closer to that ass hole than I already do.
My mother is on hubby number 2. She loves him. My dad took my children's inheritance when he made mom sell the house. My dad is on wife number 3. It was her that told him she would leave him if he let us move into the house. There is now someone else living in that house, and for us it worked out. The original landlord's dad bought the house, and now he is our landlord and we love him.
I later found out that first of all my dad changed his will and wrote me and my brother out of it and put the new wife and her kids on it. I don't give a shit about it, if not for my kids, I have nothing to give to my kids because nothing is coming from my mother, who is still driving the dead wife's car. Now my kids have absolutely nothing because he is giving it to children that he didn't fuck up, or create.
He is 6 foot 4 inches tall. He is terrifying when he is mad. He is mad a lot. When I was little he liked to pick me up and throw me, onto a couch or a chair. He never apologized. Given the fact that he took our house when we needed it, he refused to let us stay in an empty house, the only question left if how the hell it took me so long to realize that he is nothing but a sperm donor? Thanks for making me exist, ass hole. Oh yeah, at his wedding reception he stood up and said that he found his real family. My brother and I were both there. He hurt my brother. Without all of the shit he has done to me, no one fucking hurts my little brother. Luckily I was the one that he was awful to. He was nice to my brother. It was me he screamed at. I remember every day my mom would cook supper and tell me, every single day, "please don't say anything at the dinner table" Inevitably I would piss him off, for no reason. He would scream at me. I would leave the table and spend hours in my room crying.. Then my mom would come in and tell me he didn't mean it. That he was just stressed. Just realized I am a little pissed that she didn't stick up for me, she was even scared of him. That is no excuse for allowing your child, who did nothing wrong, to get screamed at, and never finish dinner. OOH.. new one.. ouch.
My husband and I are perpetual renters. We worked really hard to find houses that were in the district, so the kids could finally stay in the same school for more than two years. Which has brought me almost full circle. I live in a house that my grandmother helped to build. The house is no longer in the family, and our landlord is great; we do live right up the road from my entire extended family.
Now, there is one side of my family that puts up with me, but they don't approve of my life. That is okay. I have an uneasy truce with them. The other side of my family won't speak to me because I am a "no good pothead".
Now, through my previous posts you have seen that I am an activist for medicinal and non-medicinal marijuana. I go to Harrisburg, I fight when and where I can. Gas, money, and cars and my teeth all hamper what I am able to do. I don't want to take any chances with politicians thinking that I am a meth head, because my braces cracked my teeth. I am just too poor to fix them. That being said, I fight and that brought me out of the "grow room" so to speak. Now, they act a lot like the Amish. My Mammaw died and at her funeral one cousin spoke to me. ONE. My dad barely spoke to me, and he was the only reason I went. I find funerals to be excruciating and macabre. I don't want one. I think it drags out the suffering and there is enough of that. I digress. No one spoke.
The family with the son that sexually abused me when I was 6? They turned their back. No one knows about that one either. My husband knows. I told my mom, but she has this amazing lock box where she keeps things that she doesn't want to know about. That shit it locked tight too. So, blogosphere, you are the first to hear that one. That family won't speak. How ironic. I was fucking 6. I saw him once, and it was before I found my power and he looked at me with disgust and said "look at you, all those nasty tattoos. you look like trash".. Now had this happened to Tammie 3.0 he wouldn't have left with his nuts attached. Tammie 2.0 was afraid of this happening and I simply escaped as quickly as I could.
Now you know a little about me. I have found my story to be an interesting one and I have overcome so many things. If I can hurdle all this shit, and having fibro I can fucking be anything I want. I am learning my boundaries and I am living my best life and I want to help others do the same.\
All of that shit was like an iron around my leg holding me back. Making me meek. Fighting.. really fighting changes you. It can be painful, you will fuck some shit up.. but there is no reason in the world that you should lay down and let a thing beat you. Fucking fight. Stand up, get in your wheelchair, and fucking fight for happiness and the best life.
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