abuse

My name is Ashley.. I’m an abuse addict. I don’t talk to anyone much about it because I want to seem strong. I have recently been trying to let go of things that don’t bring me peace and happiness but for some reason I can’t. Lately I am weak. And I am vulnerable. Most of all I am broken. I have given so much to the wrong people that I’m in a place that I can’t see my way out of. Any kind of abuse is real… it’s the darkest thing I’ve ever known…. Some of us are stronger than others, but some of us get so lost and wound up in helping or saving others that we just find ourselves too deep in to change or to go back. I thought getting help would actually help, and it did for a while. But I was so weak that I went right back to the same situation I was in before I left. I’m alive but I’m not living…When I returned, so did the abuse.. so did the days I can’t keep track of… so did my isolation… defeated yet again. If you’re struggling all I can say is I don’t have the solution, I don’t know when it stops, but be strong enough to let others know that they aren’t alone. My story could help others and that’s all my heart wants. Keeping things inside is not healthy. It just makes it worse… one day I will have had enough, one day I will be able to receive the love I give. One day I will be appreciated, until then find what you love and let it kill you. Thanks for letting me share.

Read more »

a year

A year can do a lot to a person.... This day 365 days ago i accepted the ways of my life. I grieved for people who are still alive, i was slapped in the face with the reality (that i played chicken with) a year ago today i lost a very good friend. I lost myself, but one year ago i gained one thing that i can be grateful for and that is knowledge. I am able to be grateful because my cup is half full, not half empty. i faced the biggest fear of my life time, i struggled with myself and i still do. but im learning to love myself and im learning to live with what i have left. Its a battle on its own... People know of me, and talk about me, some people are afraid of me, the real ones accept me the way i am. I cant trust people anymore and that takes away from who i was. If i learned anything it would be that nobody is really your friend, people may love you and people may care about you, but that just isnt enough. I learned that the way i was living was selfish and only for my gain. I learned that i had evil desires lurking in my heart, and i learned how to talk to god. I learned what begging was, to the deepest depth. I learned that this whole 26 years of life ive been misguided and lost, when i thought i had it all figured out... Regret eats at me every single day. Today is nothing like last year.. Finding gratitude and things to be grateful for in a dark dark time is really hard but its possible. Today im a mother to my kids and not a drug trafficker. Today i smile and i cry because my kids still love me and im able to be with them. They are the only people who give me no judgment. I could cry about what i should have done, or what i could have done to get out of this but instead i accept all of my flaws, i accept the way i was raised, becasue after all it was the only way i had to live. I can acknowledge my shortcomings and i can right what was wrong. I dont need to forget or "get out of" my situation because i am strong enough to handle what ive done. I cant make excuses for myself because there are none. Ive learned so many things and my time hasnt even begun yet. I cant wait to see who i am after i get through what im going through. I bet she will be beautiful again and her heart wont desire evil, I bet she'd be damned if anybody told her she couldn't, And i bet shed still be me. A year can do a lot to a person....

Read more »

things are good

I’m always quick to write about my tragedies, but why don’t I let you know how my day or my week has been?

Read more »

seestar

Lately it feels like TIME is passing US by, It seems like the more im with you the less I need to be high. Just take a second and listen to this gratitude, because youll never even understand the respect that I have for you. We are twins for a reason, im supposed to challenge you, I was the message god sent to you, You got something I was never offered, thats a piece of mind and knowing you cant be bothered. I know it aint all easy for you, it aint a walk in the park, a year ago I was post maloning waiting on you to fall apart.. All the things you ever needed to say to me have enraged me but kept me on my fucking feet. If I could take all the shit back this pain would stop.But I guess that’s what they call regret, and that’s not easy getting over. Every day I wish I could show you the emabrassment thatll never be over im sorry I made it impossible for you to see who I am today. i am blessed and I am humble,, it feels good to walk in your house and not be harassed or pushed in a corner.  Let me apologise for what I took us through but also let me take pride that im able to say this to you. I am because you are, im able because able me, youll never know how much your existence means to me. You have been my ride or die, you have been the one with the gun to my eyes, You have been the one who never let go. Even after all your sleepless night I caused You never let go. 

Read more »

his last words

So tell Biden I said he never got my guns. Tell Hank Heaven is a lot like Dixie, They play colt ford up here and I just get in my old truck and drive. I miss and love y’all dearly, I wish I was still alive. It hurts me to know how much y’all have cried. I know y’all are  hurting and it’s Christmas time, I didn’t know what else I could do but send ashley some lines. tell holly I love her, tell my kids they never leave my mind. I walked right through copperhead road on my way in, the devil tried to get me but I told him I’m the best there’s ever been. Tell Amanda I heard her, and we are at peace, even though I know all your hearts are fighting a war. I’m with y’all today, and everyday until you’re no more. Listen to save the roses then play song of the south, tell my sweet momma she’s beautiful, tell my daddy to hush his mouth. I’ve gotta go now, I’m gonna take a ride through the country, and give heaven some hell, and I’ll hold it down till y’all get here, and one more thing Amy Michelle…I’m sorry for putting you through hell. 

Read more »

understand me

I really really want you to understand two things about me… I don’t know how else to explain to you so hopefully you can understand this way.. 

Read more »

i thought

And I thought I had felt pain, before in the most excruciating way… until I got sucker punched by your carelessness.. It came out of nowhere I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a hit from you much less a painful one.. It’s so ambiguous and actually quite Terrifying that I have to see people I love in this kind of light. Because pain takes control of me and my way of life… I can’t control that. I’ve tried. It’s just out of my reach. I prayed to god to send you now I’m being petty with the devil… plotting how to hurt you back.. because that’s what this is all about yeah?? Who can have their cake and eat it too… except that you didn’t know I can play this way better than you can. See the devil makes me say things… I can’t help that either. It’s always happened to me… it’ll keep happening until something big takes place. And then she will be satisfied… getting even or doing way worse is a constant hunger and greed inside me.. I am easily hurt by others and it comes at such an inconvenience…it takes me by surprise every damn time… like I haven’t fucking learned my lesson the first 500 times… but I can’t control how hard i love or who I love… if they want me to hurt I want to hurt… if they want me to go thru the pain and questioning myself while i cry my eyes out in bed at night wondering why I’m just not going to be enough, then that’s what I want too.. why do we hurt the people we love ? Because hurt people hurt people but I still can’t grasp it… I guess learned behaviors… maybe I’m looking for excuses rather than accepting the excuse the world continues to show every time effortlessly. Having a different heart and soul is hard as fuck compared to the way things actually are.. I love just as much as I hate and I try to love without boundaries boarders or filters. I hate that way too. Or maybe even worse. I know I’ve felt demons leave my body during escalating situations that have brought me pain before.. I just want to lay down and die with everything else that’s left me. Everyone always leaves me. I try and be so good to people I try to love like they have never been loved before and all I get in the end is the pain that made me love the way I do…. 

Read more »

ENOUGH

And I thought I had felt pain, before in the most excruciating way… until I got sucker punched by your carelessness.. It came out of nowhere I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a hit from you much less a painful one.. It’s so ambiguous and actually quite Terrifying that I have to see people I love in this kind of light. Because pain takes control of me and my way of life… I can’t control that. I’ve tried. It’s just out of my reach. I prayed to god to send you now I’m being petty with the devil… plotting how to hurt you back.. because that’s what this is all about yeah?? Who can have their cake and eat it too… except that you didn’t know I can play this way better than you can. See the devil makes me say things… I can’t help that either. It’s always happened to me… it’ll keep happening until something big takes place. And then she will be satisfied… getting even or doing way worse is a constant hunger and greed inside me.. I am easily hurt by others and it comes at such an inconvenience…it takes me by surprise every damn time… like I haven’t fucking learned my lesson the first 500 times… but I can’t control how hard i love or who I love… if they want me to hurt I want to hurt… if they want me to go thru the pain and questioning myself while i cry my eyes out in bed at night wondering why I’m just not going to be enough, then that’s what I want too.. why do we hurt the people we love ? Because hurt people hurt people but I still can’t grasp it… I guess learned behaviors… maybe I’m looking for excuses rather than accepting the excuse the world continues to show every time effortlessly. Having a different heart and soul is hard as fuck compared to the way things actually are.. I love just as much as I hate and I try to love without boundaries boarders or filters. I hate that way too. Or maybe even worse. I know I’ve felt demons leave my body during escalating situations that have brought me pain before.. I just want to lay down and die with everything else that’s left me. Everyone always leaves me. I try and be so good to people I try to love like they have never been loved before and all I get in the end is the pain that made me love the way I do…. 

Read more »

CHAPTER: ISANITY

 

 

 

I guess sane people would call it insanity, but me, I call it home. Or I used to.

Things aren’t quite like they used to be. I’m not who I used to be. Flashes of the things I used to be okay with, or the things I’ve done that I’ve had to accept keep hitting me like a ton of bricks. I know it’s my conscience and that fourth step creeping up on me.. They say I’m supposed to pour my heart out to all the people I’ve hurt and done wrong, while I was hurting and living wrong. I guess this is as good a time as any to start.

        I was sitting in my bathtub fully clothed, water running, music screaming, tears rolling. I was sitting in a tub full of nothing but pain I caused. And it just kept filling up. By the time they found me I was black out drunk, my music was still screaming, I had managed to turn the water off before I drowned. Damn… I was still alive. I had imagined passing out and not waking up, but that would be too easy for a devil like me. My sisters were there. Peppering me with questions like what happened through the house. The days before that were number with heartache, lies, infestation of addiction. Two people fighting to the death, and I was the one who lost. I wasn’t dead yet, but it felt like it.

     I didn’t have any words, my tears spoke more than I did that day. They pulled me from the bath of the now freezing water and pain. Love had beat me. Love was taking my unsinkable ship down to the surface. My head hurt so bad. I knew that was from it being bounced off the floor several times as I lay there and begged him to stop. My legs and wrist were still bleeding from when I slit them because he was trying to leave me again. I believe I hit my low that day.

     My family had talked me into going to the emergency room right in our small hometown of Winder, Ga. I was born July 11, 1995 right at that very hospital to a loving and devoted mother, and an identical twin. My twin was there with me to get checked in. That gave me some sort of comfort but there wasn’t much to get from checking into a psych ward. I was not happy. I was leaving my drugs behind, I was leaving nearly empty gallon of vodka behind that loved me as much AS I loved it. Reality was setting in because all my family had to leave me there. Alone.

      A white unmarked police cruiser picked me up from the hospital. Perhaps a bisexual friendly pair picked me up and we drove towards Laurelwood.  Of course they put me in those paper-like clothes and asked me so many questions about my earlier episodes of violence I was imposing on myself, but never asked me what he imposed on me. I wanted to tell everything he did and nothing that I did. I wanted to be the victim because after all I was the one hurt, and sitting in a mental hospital. But they never asked me what he had done.

      My new bed was plastic, my new roommate was not insane either. She had also been a victim of verbal abuse that caused her to lose her mind. Of course, mine was more physical than verbal but we related. We never spoke two words until my last day there. Every dreadful night I sweat that god awful shit out of my system. I slept like shit. I missed my sister. my twin. We haven’t ever really been separated for anything. Little did I know she was sitting at home with just as much pain upon her shoulders as I was. The pain I was inflicting on myself and in my life was oozing right into hers. They say twins can feel what the other is feeling and are going through something similar.

       That morning for breakfast was spectacular. I ate two plates. Grits, bacon, eggs, and a biscuit. Must have been the first meal I had in so long. I went right back to bed after that. I didn’t want to mingle with the actual crazies. I just wanted to sleep. My body was beaten up, my mind was too. After two or three days I started coming out of my isolation and I started calling home… and I started calling him…. He was never going to let me go. I was never going to heal from this. I needed to hear his voice, even if it were lies I was hearing. Even if he had girls in my house, allowing them to take all my things. He didn’t care, so why would I ? I must have really been this unimportant.

        I started seeing counselors, I didn’t like it. I tried to sign myself out on the third day. But was slapped with a 10-13 and my word meant as much as the guy’s did that walked around talking to people who weren’t there. So, I accepted that id have to prove some kind of change to the doctors so I could get home. I lied to every one of them. I kept my secrets in the closet and acted as sanely as I could so I could go right back to the same mental equation I just left from. Although I felt better and stronger his grip still had a hold of me, and I couldn’t wait to get back home and start fresh. Fresh set of lies, fresh manipulation, fresh set of track marks. This may sound insane but I thought it was perfectly normal. Because I had gotten addicted to the way we were living and dealing with each other.

     I thought that maybe my initiative to do something different would open his eyes but when I returned home, nothing was different except me. I fell right back into the cycle of using, abusing one another and self harm. My whole family turned their backs on me. And I chose to stay with him. After he beat me so badly that I had knots on my head for weeks. After he let other girls take every pair of clothing I had while I was in the hospital... that’s how deep my love runs. If I love you, I love you. There are no conditions. I wouldn’t want someone to love me with conditions. But today I am learning that conditions and boundaries are healthy for me. I cant actually say that I recognize the person that was going through all of that. Or even why she was going through it. I don’t understand how I could allow myself to lay so low, to be beaten so low. How could I tear my sharp, beautiful, god willing, talented, bright, soul apart so badly? I didn’t deserve that, but the thing is the girl I was, she liked the situation. I was addicted to more than drugs, more than alcohol. I was addicted to the arguments, the fighting, the verbal abuse because I forgot what good things felt like.