Narcotics Anonymous.

This is my 10th post. Cool. : )

So today was my moms 9 year anniversary celebration. Which is so awesome. I'm so proud of her for making it this far, regardless of the obstacles. Knowing what she has gone through and what she is going through now makes me want to be the strongest person I can be, and to not bitch about the little things. Even though that's pretty hard for me lol.

I think this will be an emotional blog. And a long one. So please bare with me. I really hope everyone that I want to read this will. I'm getting teary eyed already lol.

Even though I am not an addict, Narcotics Anonymous has saved my life. Like I said before, I went to my moms anniversary tonight and she celebrated with another woman whos sponsor spoke. I cried when she started to talk about her life. How anyone who went through the horrific things that she did and get to where she is today is absolutely amazing to me. Women like her are the ones that keep me from shutting myself away in my room and crying my life away.

I want to tell my life story. I don't know why. I just have an overwhelming urge to share the shit that I've gone through in my life. I don't want pity, I'm just hoping that this will help people realize why I do the things that I do, and why I say the things that I say. So here it is.

I was born on June 6th 1990 to Aine Sheridan and Derek Fullerton in Larh, Germany. I don't remember if I was a happy baby, I'm sure I was. But even before I was born my issues with my biological father started. I found out a few weeks ago that he had told my mom to have an abortion. Two years later, on May 13th 1992, my younger sister Kashlyn was born. 6 months later, after moving back to Canada, my parents seperated. Throughout the time that my parents were together he was extremely abusive. I didn't see him again for a couple of years.

I'm not sure how old I was, or how old my mom was when she first started doing drugs. I think it might have been when she was with John, Maeve and Chads dad. God he was a prick. A fair share of my issues with men stem from him. I don't really remember much of my childhood to be honest. I've probably blocked a lot of it out. But I remember one night I was watching T.V. sitting almost directly in front of it, hoping to block out the sound of him beating the shit out of my mom (the next day I went into the kitchen to see the fridge knocked over) and then him coming into the living room, crouching down beside me, and telling me to call him "dad". I don't think I'll ever forget that.

Around the same time Kashlyn and I started to visit my dad in Petawawa. I eventually told my mom that I never wanted to go see him again. The previous visit I had accidently knocked Kashlyn off of the bed and he pushed me down, straddled me, and started to choke me. I was 6.

I was almost 8 when my siblings and I were taked away from my mom because of her drug using. We lived with my grandparents for a while, and then Kashlyn and I went to live with our dad, and I don't remember what happened to Chad and Maeve at that point. Looking back now, it was never good at my dads. He was constantly controlling, never letting us out, only letting us be friends with certain people, stuff like that. I found out a couple years ago that at 6 years old Kashlyn would tell my mom that she wanted to run away. When we moved in with my dad, the relationship between Kash and I started to deteriorate. He was always pitting us against each other.

At 10 he called CAS and told them to get me out of the house because he didn't want me there. Fucking 10 years old and I had to live with complete strangers for an entire weekend. When I was 12 we moved to Aylmer, which is right across the river from Ottawa. I think it was at that point that I started to lose everything that I was. If that makes any sense. He put us down and belittled us until we felt like we were nothing. And to him we were nothing. We weren't even his children according to him.

I was actively involved in basketball from grade 7-9, which helped me a lot. Until he would start pushing me to "be better" and threaten to make me quit the team if I did something he didn't like. I was 13 when I developed an eating disorder. Kashlyn was 11 when she developed hers. Puberty had fucked me over and I wasn't as skinny as I was, so he was always, ALWAYS calling us fat, and telling us we didn't need to eat anything else and all that shit. I would play basketball 5 days a week and barely eat. I remember trying out for soccer in grade 8 and I couldn't get through the whole try-out because I was ready to pass out. All I had eaten that day was half a granola bar. Every little bit of self worth was gone. I felt like shit. I hated my father. I hated my sister. I hated everything in my life, especially myself.

It was the summer after I turned 14 that we went to New Brunswick and my father attacked me. Literally attacked me. All because I didn't feel well enough to go to the beach. My grandmother had to get between us so that he wouldn't get at me fully. My grandfather "tried" to stop it. All the while Kashlyn was standing there, screaming and crying, telling him to stop. And when he turned on her I almost lost it. I told him to stay the hell away from her, and then he left. Just before I turned 15, we called my mom, told her what was going on, and when we went to visit her in Hamilton, we never left. At this point she was actively involved in NA and was with Mike. And I thank them both everyday for taking us in. Because if they hadn't, I know for a fact that I would have followed in my mothers footsteps and gotten involved with the wrong crowd and fallen into drugs.

I've been going to NA meetings and events since I was 12, and I have met some amazing people. A lot of them I've grown close enough to call family. And I'm so glad that I have them in my life, and in my mom and Mikes life, because if that weren't, things probably would have turned out a lot different. NA has saved my life, because if it hadn't been for NA, my mom and Mike wouldn't be here, and they wouldn't have been there for my siblings and I when we so desperately needed them.

Today I feel a lot better about myself. I still have a lot of self esteem issues that I need to deal with, and a lot of issues with men that I need to deal with. Probably why I've been single for so long. And the last guy that I was thinking about being involved in hurt me a lot. That was January. And I know I haven't really talked about it, but it's embarassing and awkward. And now I have this guy talking to me now that I really don't know what to do with. I don't know for sure how he feels about me, and I know he isn't really ready for a relationship. Which is fine. More that fine, because I don't know if I'm ready for one either. All I wanted was to hang out more, and get to know each other. But who knows if that's going to even happen. And that is the kind of shit that puts me into a head spin all over again.

I'm happy today though. I love to smile, and laugh, and spend time with my friends and family, and live life to the fullest. And I guess that's all I can do.

Carleen.