What you say matters. What you do matters even more.

Being told and conditioned to think I'm not worthy since my car accident where I lost soo much family and my life changed so swiftly changes you.  I was told for years that I was stupid or fat ( I was a size 3) or many other things.  I was treated like I was less than, even more so than I was before.  When it was just the Traumatic Brain Injury that I was dealing with I was still able to let it all roll off my back and believe in myself.  When I was learning how to rebuild not only my life but myself I felt abandoned.  I've written about some of the details in other posts so I don't want to keep repeating myself.  My closest family members that were always there for me had died.  All in 2 days time.  My mother and father were still there and so were my 3 siblings.  They weren't really "there" though.  They were still alive but they didn't die. I knew it when I woke up from a coma but I have no memory of the accident itself.  I had retrograde amnesia, which wasn't diagnosed until years later.  What that means is that my memory of current events was pretty good.  In fact, it was well above average after 3 years recovering.  I just had no idea of the memories that made me who I was.  I knew my mother and father and siblings.  I knew who they were and I knew their titles.  I felt close to them but had hardly any memory of any incidents of them throughout my decades of living and growing up with them.  

Even though I almost died and was the only survivor in my grandparents vehicle and even though I was in a coma for around 2 weeks.  They treated me like there was nothing wrong with me.  That I was being stupid and I was faking it.  My dad and my brother used the term stupid the most.  My sisters were living in other states so I rarely saw them or heard from them and my mother lost her sanity in a functional way.  Meaning she could still function in society and her own life but outside anything with HER as the center she lost her mind.  She wasn't the mother than I needed or 'knew'.  

I was doing my very best to just barely get by because my father had kicked me out while I was still recovering from my Traumatic Brain Injury within a year after the accident.  He blamed it on a pan not being washed and called me stupid and even called me a tramp a slut, a whore, a piece of shit and many other things.    I'm not sure where that came from but that was my reality.  Within those first 3 years, I had a few more family members die along with 2 personal friends  and my best friend who was also my fiance.  With all of those deaths, the people that I'd turned to for support had all died.  My living family didn't seem to give a shit about where I was although my mother would be the one that asked but then she'd cut me off when I tried to talk to her and turn the story into a story about her.  At that point in my life ( I discovered years later that)  I held onto them so tightly because subconsciously I was afraid that they would leave me or die.  Every time I would see them the first words out of my mom's mouth would be something about how fat I was (again I was a size 3 at the time)  and my dad would barely talk to me but when he did it was usually a passive aggressive or aggressive telling me what a worthless and stupid piece of shit I was.  All of my friends that were still alive had all moved away to colleges and I didn't have the mental capacity (because of my brain injury) to find them or try to keep in touch with them.  This was before everyone had cell phones and internet btw.   All of the positive support system I had was gone.  After years and years and years of striving to just barely make it and get by I started dating again.  I seemed to constantly be in short term relationship after short term relationship with people I would normally only say a kind hello to.  I got sucked into this vicious cycle of surrounding myself with people that would use me and walk all over me.  I was having trouble believing in myself and kept trying different things to help make me stronger.   Because certainly I'm never getting better from my Traumatic Brain Injury.  I've already gotten as "better" as I can and it was all coping mechanisms I'd set up to help with my deficits.  Whether good or bad it's all I knew and I had to do something right?  No one else was going to do it for me.  

Finally at a breaking point all of that stuff sunk it.  I couldn't let it roll off my back anymore.  I know deep in my heart that I'm not stupid and I'm not a piece of shit but the remnant of all of the things they said to me and how I was treated for so many years is very strong within me.  I get told a lot that I'm strong.  I'll be the first to tell you that I don't feel strong.  I'm pretty broken.  I am however, finally at a point where I feel like I can 'hopefully' start to put myself back together.  It's been quite a roller coaster and not at all what I had hoped or expected my life would become.  Knowing this and having a platform like steemit has been helping me realize that; 

1.  even though I don't get a ton of upvotes and followers that I can still help people by sharing my story and my thoughts 

2.  Maybe I was given this life so I could help in some way by helping raise awareness

that's the good I'm taking away from all of this right now.  It's hard and every day is a struggle.  Coming up with things to write about is a struggle most days.  Struggling to believe that I have a purpose is real and terrifying.    I came on steemit because I want to do something that helps others.  I'm not going to lie that I also want to make money on here, although that was not my primary reason for being here.  Athough it would be cool to get a larger apartment and get another service animal.  I appreciate so many of you for following me, sharing and reading my content.  I'm not the creative type although I've always wanted to be.  I just want to do something that helps.  Living with an invisible disability is hard and if I'm helping people then that's a burden I can bare on my shoulders and wear it more proudly.

   Thank you all