Happy Birthday to Me

It’s my birthday today. 46. I’m not doing okay. I can see what year has done to me. I can see the cracks and the lack of that light inside me. I can the last year overlaying my face and soul.

As I sit here tonight alone, I got my Facebook birthday messages. From the people I’ve known the longest all wishing me just a wonderful birthday and I want to lash out at them because no one has helped me or supported me through this. Every one just thinks I’m crazy. I’m not the fun funny willing to say the wildest thing and do the most absurd shit for a laugh Katie they want, I need support and love and no one has been here. No one checks in. My dad calls me once a week and is kind enough to remind me he’s all I have. He is the one who called me an embarrassment for the rape and keeps telling to just let it go. He did tell me he was proud of me for going to rehab for pretty minor drug problem I had for like maybe a few months. First time he ever told me he was proud of me. Not graduating from college he wasn't proud then. Not when I got my TFA fellowship. Not when I was published the first time. Not when I presented at a national conference. But end up with the expected results of life ie someone like me using drugs to cope with something so fucking bad. That's a given. Everyone does that. But I realized it right away but now everyone gets the Katie is a fuck up narrative but you can cover by being proud of me. For fucks sake  

Everyone has abandoned me through this. I wish people would forgive me for not being able to handle it. For talking about it. For sharing it and for fighting it.

That is my biggest personality flaw, I lash out. If I’m sad or depressed and hurt, I fight. Fight or flight. I fight and shouldn’t. I say regrettable things and no one forgives me or understands. I try to explain it’s just my reaction, but no one cares. I apologize and fully admit to my wrong doing. But it falls on deaf ears. I push people away. I burn bridges.

It worse now because I’m so angry and hurt and alone and abandoned. By everyone. Like I learned my lesson about my family and how they will abandon you without a second thought. I learned that years ago when the Brian 2 thing happened. I’m really not that bad of a person. I’ve done so much to help people and I just wish someone would help me right now.

This is hard and I’m having a hard time. My birthday present to myself was a civil tort case against {D}. I was going to file it today but I’m doubting myself and worried about how he is going to rip me apart in court and what it will do to me. There are time constraints though so I have to do it soon.

I wasn’t ready to report the rape. I actually don’t know if I would ever be ready for it. I would have let it go. I never would have thought about if the police hadn’t made me realize what happened and how bad it was. If I had walked in there with it in this state of mind things would have been different. Or not, I’m just unstable. I mean he drinks excessively every night and rapes people, but I’m untrustworthy because I won’t stop telling the truth as loud as I can. I don’t think people get I do logic through the things I do and say. The logic is flawed and reactionary sometimes.

Happy fucking birthday to me. Another birthday alone and I’m never going to trust anyone again because everyone just abandoned me. Yeah I’m needy but god look at what I’ve been through. I know I’d be there for anyone. Hell I have a random man living on my couch because he was living in his car and I’ve been there and I wish someone had done that for me. I had the space. He cleans. We’re not sexual or anything. He just needed a little help and I could give it to him. Plus it’s nice to have a reason to get out of bed and chat and watch TV. He thinks I’m nuts, him and everyone else. I hope I can help him get his life on track. Maybe he can help me get out of this depression. But people don’t stay no matter how good you are to them.

{D} when we kind of tried to break up a couple weeks before the apocalypse he told me how good I was to him and his voice cracked as he said it. I was good to him. He was not good to me and I deserve someone who can be good to me.

He gave this bullshit speech about unconditional love at one point early on. I have this dating app on my phone and when someone “likes” me. It pop up with a notification that says “someone likes you” and I would always look at it and say “someone likes me, but no one loves me.” And I would stop myself after the unconditional love speech that I would go “no, {D} loves me.” I was trying to convince myself it was true. You don’t hurt people you love like that. Not like what he did to me that night. You just don’t.

{D} told me he loved me because I was a “sex-crazed poet who refused to live within the confines of the norm.” He is indeed always right. I’m not staying within the norm. I refuse. I refuse to roll over and play dead to this. I might still file it tonight. I’m not sure I’m ready yet. The blowback is going to suck. But luckily I’m judgement proof so yay for being poor. I’m barely asking for money and frankly I don’t want it. I deserve it, but it won’t fix anything. I’m asking for rehab and therapy to be mandated and a declaration that it was rape and it is rape in a relationship when consent is so clearly withdrawn.

The law already says that but the hell some woman might sit there agonizing over doing the same to her rapist boyfriend and Light v. {D} can be cited. That’s a possible impact I can make on the world. I don’t know. The clock is ticking.