[Ezraic]

Hi, I'm not sure where to begin, this story will likely be a jumbled mess, so please forgive the lack of writing skills I have.

I'm 24 years old and feel my past is holding me back, my emotions are very weak and my girlfriend is helping me come to terms with my past.

There is a lot of hearsay to my story for the younger years which I will leave out for now.

My Grandma and Grandpa adopted me when I was 3, I've heard various reasons for this from my Mother, one is I'd be better off financially, another is that they tricked her, regardless, They took care of me from day one, I was told I was very close to my Grandpa, he died less than a week after my 3rd birthday and less than a couple days after my adoption was final.

Years later, my furthest back memories were me living with my Grandma and her mother which I will refer to as my Granny and my grandmas elderly bed ridden mentally handicapped cousin named Harold. My granny was a very sickly woman and had terrible arthritis her in back, I watched her wither away until she died when I was 12, she died at home in front of me, I was very sick at the time and wasn't taken to the doctor until I was pretty much better.

I went to Parkview Elementary where I had a very hard time getting through, I made it to the 4th grade and my grandma was "forced" to put me on paxil which lasted a short time and then I was switched to resperdral which I was on until I took myself off of it at 16 or so, my grandma took me out of Parkview and placed me in a strict Christian school, I told a huge lie about the school being under threat of bombing and was swiftly removed, she then did nothing, I received no sort of education from that point on, I was allowed to sit and watch TV for years eating myself into being vastly obese, she carried me the food, I'd tell her I was hungry no matter when or what time or how much I wanted, 4 hot dogs? no problem, 4 sandwiches? sure! I could eat out of the ice cream container and she would say nothing, I received no discipline and she always made excuses for me, it made it hard to form relationships as I assumed no matter what I did it would all go away after the fact

Our house was always a mess, I don't mean cluttered, they're was dog urine and feces all over and sometimes my granny would make a mess in the bathroom to the point I wouldn't want to go, would hold it for days at a time until I would break down and try to clean it up and unclog it, there was also a long period of time the bathtub didn't work so I would go quite some time without baths, I had no social interaction, no friends, no emotional support, nothing, the people I lived with were all very closed up, We were not broke, my Grandma got a nice social security check for herself and I as well as pension from my Grandpa who worked a very good job at the local power plant, my grandma had 3 kids other than myself who all knew what was going on but did nothing.

My granny passed when I was 12 and it was just myself, Harold and my Grandma, I recall the back laundry room was piled up with soiled bed clothes, it was connected to our kitchen which it all reeked of urine and feces, I would eventually break down and clean it up, all of this before I had even hit puberty, after my Granny passed my grandma used the extra money to buy me a PC, I used it as an escape, I became addicted to it for years, I did nothing but play video games and finally made some "friends" around my 16th Birthday I got into world of warcraft with one of my net friends and spent 16 hours a day on it, I would then sleep 12 hours and then right back at it every day for years, I had nothing else at this point, My Uncle Bill, who was the eldest of my Grandmas kids would pick me up every so often to go over and spend time with my cousin, on the way to his house he'd give me what I called "the speech" "you need to get into school, you need to clean up the house" but that's all he ever would do, once he took me aside when I was 15 or so(it's hard to recall the ages my entire teenage life blends together) and told me he would be a father to me if I wanted, I didn't respond because I was so afraid of him( he did nothing to me I just was intimidated by men) but at this point it was to late, I was a mess and didn't even realize it, I was content, I dunno how that's possible, I had become content living this life of mess and loneliness.

Harold passed when I was 14 or 15 I believe, It didn't really bother me, sickness and death was all I knew growing up around elderly people, if emotions had a switch mine was most certainly set to off at this point.

My birth mother and I fought constantly when I was younger, my psychologist that I went to when I was 10 said we we're more like siblings, I wasn't aware of the adoption until I was 13, I just assumed I lived with my Grandma, my Grandma would tell me how my mother was taking all her money and made me dislike everyone around me but her, my birthfathers family tried to reach out to me and she turned me against them by telling me that my Grandmother on my fathers side wanted to abort me as well as other things about them.

I slept with my Grandma until I was 12 or 13, My grandma wiped me after I went to the bathroom until I was 10 or so, I was on the bottle until I was 5.

I am currently 24 and my life is a mess, I have no education, no job and am stuck living with my Mother who to this day tells me I can't blame my Grandma because she was sick, This is just a small fraction of the things I had to go through, until I met my Girlfriend I assumed it was no big deal, but she seems to think otherwise, Sorry for the grim details, thanks for taking the time to read this.

[DePressMe]

Ezraic, I can relate to parts of your life. My mom left me with my grandparents when I was 3. My biological father came and went. Our house was full of trash. We often had to go to the bathroom in a 5 gallon bucket--it gets gross when several people use it and don't empty it--I was too young to take care of it--but I was totally aware of how bad it smelled. I too would wait as long as possible before going. Not to mention it was really hard for a young child to perch on a bucket. I did not overeat--my grandparents went the other way they starved me. Not getting enough food while I was growing up contributed to my eating disorder. As for not blaming my grandparents for my neglect and abuse...well thats hard to do. I have spent hours upon hours talking about it in therapy and pages and pages writing about it in my journals. When I had come to somewhat of an understanding about the whole mess I blogged about it and shared my story with the public. I just recently took down my blog because it was all about the past. I finally feel like I'm ready to close the door of my past and live in the here and now--the present moment where I'm not terrorized by my memories. It has taken me a long time to get to this point--there is no way avoiding dealing with the past but there is hope that someday you will be able to move on. I don't know if I will ever "completely forgive" my grandparents, but I no longer harbor resentment against them--yes, they were sick but that's no excuse...many people may disagree with me about needing to forgive my grandparents before I can let go of my resentment. The reality is that they inflected a lot of pain on me and they don't deserve my total forgiveness but I'm able to keep it in perspective so I no longer feel tortured by bad feelings about them. Just like shutting down my blog and closing the door on my past I have moved on to living in this present world (a much better one). Of course it sounds like you still need to sort out your past so you can eventually come to some type of closure--closure is a wonderful thing but you have to go through a lot of pain to get there--there is no way to avoid the pain. I tell you my story because I want you to believe there is hope for you. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hang in there, go through what you need to go through and someday you will be FREE of your past. Take care......D.

[Ezraic]

Thankyou for sharing your story, it's good to know that there may be hope for me afterall, But that's what concerns me, I don't feel really any pain, or saddness, I somehow was content the whole time, I had bouts of depression here and there, but who wouldn't, I still tell myself it wasn't a big deal and that I lucked out, I didn't have to deal with the stresses of school and peer pressure, I got to just kick back and do nothing, my girlfriend is doing her best to make me realize the truth about things, but can emotion come back or is the way I will always be? I feel as if my family used me to "babysit" my Grandma while they lived their lives, had kids, worked, they never came around a lot because of the condition of the house, It's as if they threw me to the wolves and told themselves she wasn't alone, I was there so it was ok. I've come a long way as far as the social anxity goes, I still feel different and somewhat shy, but it's the lack of emotion that eats at me now, I want to feel the things people feel, yet I feel so shut down, I was a closed up angry person until I was around 22, I started smoking pot and it really helped me let down my walls, It was more of took than a pleasure, something to let out the tension, when I was 19 I got into a abusive relationship with a girl I met online, she was from BC Canada and I paid to move her to Indiana to live with me, she treated me like garbage and I treated her just as bad, I'd have these horrible outbursts of anger in an instant, I had no idea how to handle a real relationship with another person and she had a similar situation and was just as bad, we stayed together for 3 years of living hell under my Grandmas roof, her home was so far away that it was just easier to forgive and keep trying, neither of us we're right, I feel it may have been therapeutic in some twisted way, I was able to vent years of frustration on her and she vented all her frustrations on me, after getting all that out I feel empty, my current girlfriend is a sweetheart and we treat each other very well, I told her my story and it infuriated her, she couldn't believe that my family let it slide, I talk to her about it constantly. I spent an entire year high and now I rarely smoke, I want to be able to figure my life out sober and try to feel on my own again, I'm just not sure where my life goes from here, I've looked into getting my GED and feel overwhelmed at how far behind I am, I get a decent disability check because of my Grandpa(legally my father) but I want so much more from my life than that, I still sit every day doing nothing, I have terrible insomnia, I have no routine, since I was 20 I went from near 400lbs to 190 last year, but I've started to gain again due to lack of motivation, I fear getting obese again, I fear the passing of time, I don't want to wake up 30 and still be where I am today, my therapist is a sweet lady but she doesn't seem sure how to deal with my kind of situation, my GP prescribed me adderall for some reason, it doesn't really seem to help much, it makes my insomnia worse, My grandma is currently in a nursing home with bad Alzheimers and none of my family seems to worried about it, I really can't say it bothers me much, I gave the first half of my life to her, I feel like I've went above and beyond what a child should do for their parent. But really I am just tired of faking emotions that I really want to feel. I'm not sure if it's from the resperdrone I was on through the first half of puberty or my exposure to naked eldery people as a child, but I have ED as well as a drastic lack of sensitivity and my neither regions, my girlfriend understands, but I beat myself up for it constantly, from the years I spent on my computer I have terrible degenerative arthritis in my middle back which is also abnormally curved, I'm very self concision about it, I'm not sure if sharing really helps but I just need some sort of outlet besides what I've had, the nightmares over but it's something I seem unable to let go of, I fear people assume I'm using it as an excuse to be "lazy" in life, my birthmother who I currently live with tells me constantly to go get my GED, we're very distant and she is a very closed off and angry person, I can't open up to her, I've tried a few times and she always makes an excuse for my grandma, she told me she may have had postpartum since she had her first and only birth son, my mother was adopted by her as well as her second son, but in the end I just wonder why no one called social services or anything, I once asked my Birthmother about it, she claimed she tried and that Indiana had no guidelines on homeschooling and that as long as my grandma said she was home schooling me that was all it took, for them to overlook it.