I Want My Life Back!

I think my life is a Mandela Effect.

Hear me out on this. I think it makes sense. 

You've heard of Mandela Effects, I assume. The theory is that somehow the timeline has been corrupted and things we all remember are somehow different. For instance, Ed McMahon apparently never gave out checks for Publisher's Clearing House, and the Berenstein Bears/Berenstain Bears spelling controversy. I highly recommend typing Mandela Effect into Tiktok; I'll be here when you're back, and I apologize in advance for the rabbit hole I just sent you down.

If you are familiar with my life even the slightest bit, I think you would agree that Mandela has been hanging out in my basement (if I even had one) for quite some time. I spent 15+ years subjected to vicious abuse, only to desperately reach out for help from a trusted medical professional. This "professional" - we will call them The Wolf - proceeded to use every bit of information I gave them regarding my abuse to manipulate their way inside my life, scoop up my abuser for themselves (um, congrats on the ultimate Booby Prize?), and eject me from my home and family by painting me as unstable for the crime of - are you ready - being upset about all of the above. 

You can't make this up.

But the problem is, I'm left living in a perpetual Mandela Effect. Either my brain or my heart (or both) haven't caught up with my new reality. And the scary thing is, it isn't new - not even remotely. The Wolf began the planned systematic ruining of my life 11 years ago. I was ejected from my own family over 8 years ago. None of this is new. But it feels novel. It's like I'm in an alternate reality that I just need to escape from.

It feels like I'm Alice who took a wrong turn on the way to Wonderland. I'm stuck somewhere and can't get back to where I belong. I obsess over my Facebook memories, enlarging the photos to see the walls I painted, the rooms I decorated, the door I picked out on my home that is now lost to me. I've driven back to my old town to see my house a few times, and it rips my heart out every time. That was my house. MY HOME. I had a life there, a family, a future, dreams.

Yes, I am conveniently ignoring the abuse when I lapse into these moments of longing. When I stop and get logical, I can remember how this is #SoMuchBetter ... but then I see an old photo of the kids and I playing in our living room and I fight the tears. I spend hours wondering if I should have just put up with the abuse like I had for so long. Clearly reaching out for help only screwed me further ...

I think the biggest evidence of this is that I joined the town page for the town my house is in. Notice how I called it My House even though it no longer is. I know this isn't the healthiest way to look at it. But my life was stolen, my family was stolen, my house was stolen ... once again, I feel like I've been trapped in a situation I have no control over. I expand on this further in my post I Want To Break Free, where I really delve into the fact that my entire life is a study in having no control over what happens to you. I joined this town page because my dad still lived in the town, but he's been moved out for 6 months and I'm still there. 

Whenever someone posts something that even remotely shows a picture of their house or yard, I enlarge it to see if it's My House. Did they get my house? Is that my yard? I still dream about it. What would happen if it was? Nothing, but I would probably cry for a good while. I can't move past the fact that when The Wolf dismantled my life, I was still too weak and too trusting to call a lawyer and keep my house. I could have - I know this now. But it's too late. And now that I realized everything I could have kept, it's too late to get them. Unless one of you out there knows some legal miracle that would let me go back 8 years to contest The Wolf coercing my ex to put our shared house into foreclosure, costing me tens of thousands of dollars both in equity and the money we put down? I mean, have you looked at the housing market lately? I could live comfortably but it was stolen from me. So now I have to kill myself to survive, and even that is barely enough. 

I think that, somewhere in my psyche, my heart thinks that if I can just get back to My House, I'll walk in the door and my children will all be little again. I think my soul aches to get back to that time, to maybe redo it all but without the abuse. I want a do-over, but subtract the demons who ruined my life. 

Maybe this time, I could get it right.

Do I have to lose everything, including any hope of a future, just to learn a lesson? Do I really have to be shoved into another timeline to get it right? And how can I get it right without all the things I sacrificed my 20's and 30's for?

I want my house back, Mandela Effect.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Empty Tray

Image
"Mom, they sent home a tray of food for the sick one." As my son handed me a leftover tray of food for his sick brother, I was struck with the realization that these people who were my family since I was a teenager made a calculated move to show me how little I mattered. They couldn't even send a tray for me, the single mom who held the family together and kept them connected to these kids when their father refused to speak to them. Imagine being quietly written out of the story of your own life.  Now imagine it happening over and over again, and you have to smile and pretend it doesn't hurt. I guess I should give some background. Over ten years ago now my life was blown apart by an evil that I let in the front door. Why? Because I could never conceive of someone setting out to do that kind of harm. I'm naive and I used to believe everyone's intentions were pure, because mine always were.  I have learned now. When this woman stole my life and scooped up my abu...
Read more

Karma Is A Bitch

Image
  "Don't worry, karma will take care of it."  "Just be patient - your time is coming." "Working hard will pay off." Hi. I'm the recipient of all of the above advice. I have persevered through over ten years of single momhood, and I've worked so damn hard. I've gone to therapy and really put in the work to heal from many years of abuse: emotional, physical, and sexual. I survived. I overcame. I put my children first when their father spent years treating them as an afterthought because - after all - they weren't the progeny of his mistress.  Now that the kids are all grown up/mostly grown up, I had a serious wake-up call about my future: I needed something to do that is more than "medical office front desk" after they have all moved on to their own lives and futures. And I also needed to find a way to make enough money to live without the very little child support that I do get - the legal bare minimum after he lowered his inco...
Read more

Barbie Dream House

Image
 I haven't written in awhile. I greatly underestimated the force these memories have on me, and as a result I've been cocooning emotionally, if you will, for some time now. But it's time to give this another go. Today's post will be about Barbies. Stay with me ... There's a point here, I'm fairly certain.  When I was a kid I loved my Barbies. I played with my friends and collected as many as I could. My very favorite was my Peaches and Cream Barbie, who I named Rose. As I got older and stopped playing, I lovingly stored my collection for a hoped-for future daughter.  Part of my collection were 2 treasured dolls. They weren't Barbie brand, I don't think. They were smaller. But they belonged to my mom, who passed away from cancer when I was little. They had period late 60's/early 70's hair and makeup, but beyond that I have no idea what they were other than Barbie-like dolls that were smaller.  But all that mattered was that they were my mom's....
Read more