(A rough draft)

This book will be divided into four parts. First I must tell what happened. It is not an easy story to tell but without the acceptance of the account of my beginnings there is no story but a woman continually torn and battered and set adrift by her own choices and failings, selfishness, manipulation, self pity and irresponsibility. Many believe that is all there is to me. I alone can answer because those who also know better will never tell. I stand against many judges.

Part two navigates the minefield of adult life with no tools, skills, or knowledge but the now ill-fitting coping skills of childhood, paranoid thinking, hyper-vigilance, and the old tapes I now unwittingly played for myself of uselessness, incompetence, sheer badness to the core, and the never ending fear that everyone who looked upon my face could see my inner blackness attached to a family whose name was etched on my forehead forever.

Each Day a New Beginning

Nobody told me how hard and lonely change is. –Joan Gilbertson
Pain, repeatedly experienced, indicates a need for self-assessment, an inventory
of our behavior. Honest self-appraisal may well call for change, a change in
attitude perhaps, a change in specific behavior in some instances, or maybe a
change in direction. We get off the right path occasionally, but go merrily on
our way until barriers surface, doors close, and experiences become painful.
Most of us willingly wallow in our pain a while, not because we like it, but
because its familiarity offers security. We find some comfort in our pain because
at least it holds no surprises.

These are the words which struck home. “Most of us willingly wallow in our pain a while, not because we like it, but
because its familiarity offers security. We find some comfort in our pain because
at least it holds no surprises.” It was an answer to a question I had not thought I asked in my tortured, suicidal state. Someone knew I wallowed in pain, never wanting to, but because it was as familiar and ever-present as my own hated name. I had to know more.

The last section is my journey through Dialectic Behavioral Therapy from the day I headed to Monarch Behavioral Center in September of 2017 absolutely devastated at realizing I was not safe with me. I went in begging for relief. I had heard of DBT and asked if it would work for me. That day began my twelfth and hopefully my final hospital admission for depression and wanting to die since the age of 20. I am now 66. After 18 months of learning and applying new skills for living my hope for a future grows.