My Dissonance

So…the following is my numerology reading for the past year.  This is what my prediction was for this past year when I looked into this stuff at my little sister’s (almost exactly one year ago).  I left Mike and moved in with her at the end of June.  And here I am, a year later, having just turned 26.  This is very eerily accurate.  In numerology the years actual begin and end according to your birthday.  So, for me, I just started over a new year on the 3rd of this month and am beginning a new one. 

Your Personal Year for 2007 is 9
This is your year to finish all unfinished business, Joanna (aka Ani Star), to clean house and make room for new things.  On a material level this is a good time to get rid of unnecessary weight, to give away or sell what you do not need anymore and to pay off old debts.  On a spiritual level you will experience a different mode altogether.  Your attention should turn to others and their needs, find ways to be of help and give time and energy to worthwhile causes.  You must lighten your burdens of questions and doubts and the best way to do so is by directing your attention to another direction, away from yourself and you will find yourself becoming lighter and more in touch with your self.  This is a time of completion, problems can be solved and over with, strained relationships relax or disappear, the sources of stress in work or business can be better understood and dealt with.  Be social and communicative, enjoy music and other arts.  Joanna, your creativity is higher than usual.  There can be some difficulties this year due to your desire to face obstacles and overcome them.  Decisions have to be taken and courage and strength may be severly tested several times.  This is not going to be an easy year all the time but you will feel relieved and at the brink of a positive breakthrough by the end of this year.  This is the end of a nine year epicycle and you will feel many times the excitement of a new and promising era when optimism is your friend but you will also experience fear of letting go.  However, the more you let go the more room there is to be filled during the next epicycle. 

Wow!  So…this is how the past year has gone.  It started with leaving my fiance of 6 years over his drug addiction and alcoholism.  This was a VERY hard time for me.  I basically went through a divorce without the extra expense of paying for it to be legally annulled (thank god for that).  I stayed with my twin sister for a month and a half, with my twin brother for almost three weeks, and then I finally had my VERY OWN place for the first time in my life.  I’d lived with a roomate, but since age 19 I’ve always lived with Mike.  Prior to my leaving we’d stayed with his Mom for 8 months.  I finally had my own place!  God, I’ve loved every minute of it!

Mike and I are still friends, he’s stopped drinking and is in AA (if not we wouldn’t be friends).  And he’s actually thanked me for leaving him.  He believes that it’s what he needed to wake up and realize what he was doing to himself.  I’m very proud of him.  I admit that it makes me sad sometimes that he couldn’t have seen it when we were still together. 

But everything happens for a reason.  I’ve moved on and have been happily single for the past year.  I’ve made some great new friends this year and I’ve learned to actually unite with other women and trust them for the first time in my life.  I’ve never trusted women for as long as I can remember.  Most of my close friends have always been male.  So having girl’s nights with my girl friends has been and continues to be another part of my opening up and learning to trust.     

In my healing I’ve gotten a tremendous amount done this year.  I’ve participated in some great causes with some campaigns…mainly the Angela Shelton Joy Campaign as an Ohio team leader.  And I also helped to organize a Report IT Rally in Columbus, OH that was part of the national Report IT Campaign.  The day after the rally I went to my local police station and reported my uncle for being a pedophile.  Huge, huge steps.  I’ve let go of so much shame and have freed myself of so many burdens that I’ve carried.  God, it feels great!  Meeting with all these survivors on a personal level has had a great impact on my own journey.  I KNOW I’m absolutely, positively not alone.  And I’m determined to show everyone else that.  And I’m determined to show as many survivors as I can that they can heal and live “normal”, happy lives.

I’ve managed to keep my 4.0 GPA through school part time and now I’m ready to start working again part time.  This has been a huge obstacle for me since I was forced to file for SSDI after I lost my job back in Feb of ‘04.  Since my breakdown its been a very slow process in building myself back up to a normal, functioning human being (using the term “normal” very loosely, LOL). Now, once I do get back to work in the next few months, I’d like to plan to eventually speak out about the stigma of DID.  Not immediately but eventually I want to make this a goal.  Theres too much stigma and its ridiculous.  Completely ridiculous.  It needs to change and if I can help in some small way thats what I’m going to do. 

I’ve made a huge, huge decision that on June 29th I’m leaving Ohio and moving to AZ.  My little sister and I will be packing up what we can fit into an SUV with her two little ones and we’ll be driving three days straight til we get to Queen Creek, AZ where our older sister lives.  We’re getting a place together immediately then in Mesa, AZ until we can get settled in our new city and get our own places.   

 Moving across the country won’t be easy, especially with leaving just about everything I own behind, but I’m ready and excited.  Leaving it all here saves me about $1800 by not having to have it shipped down there.  I’m leaving behind all my friends but I’m gaining getting to live nearby my older sister which has never happened since I was born (she was adopted by our grandparents and was raised separately in another state).  My little sister and baby nieces are coming.  But I’m leaving behind my twin brother.  I really hope that he eventually follows us and moves down there.  The economy here in Springfield is shot all to hell and in the Pheonix area its booming.  There will be better schools for the little ones.  And more stable family with being near our older sister who has a good life as a nurse and who lives happily with her husband and little girl.  Theres no violence or stupidity we need to worry about.  To help give you some understanding, my little sister and I didn’t leave my apartment (she crashed here last night) until 4:00 pm this afternoon because we were afraid to run into ‘The Nick’ (aka our mom) who was stopping to pick up my twin brother down the hall.  Hes the only one left who communicates with her.  My sister didn’t want to chance going down to get in her car to have the drunken, crazy Nick pull up and cause a scene.  We won’t have to worry about these things in AZ.

Anyway, I haven’t added any new entries in quite a while, not since after the Report IT Rally.  So I thought I’d update everyone.  I’ve just been busy being happy and excited.  :) 

Love & Hope Sent,

~ Ani

Hey guys, just wanted to write to check in and say that I’m still around. I’ll try to update the survivor pages sometime soon. I just haven’t gotten the time.

Right now I’m just enjoying being back in school, and I need to balance in some time for here. I still journal in my portable one I carry with me everywhere along with various pens…just haven’t been adding said entries here. I’m sorry for that.

I’ve decided that from now on I’m going to have Sundays all to myself. Just me walking around in my robe, undisturbed by knocks at my door or the phone constantly ringing or buzzing (depending on if it’s on vibrate).

To give you an example of my amount of quiet time, I did actually put up a sign outside my apartment door Tuesday night that said “Studying…Please Come Back Later”. It didn’t work.

Before I knew it my twin brother was pounding down my door with his girlfriend because she burnt her hand and they were wondering if I had any baking soda (does that even help with burns?). She was hysterical…the next day her hand was fine (grrr). Then my brother came back asking me to google how to treat first degree burns. Then my friend called cause she recently had to call the cops on her boyfriend (domestic violence…a long, angry rant I’ll maybe save for another time) and was wanting some advice on restraining orders. So I googled how to treat said burns and I gave my friend the number to our local women’s center.

Then I went to bed tired and angry. So tomorrow is ALL MINE damn it! But of coarse, I’m not a single mom with three kids so I have no right to bitch. I’ve just been very exhausted and uncharacteristically irritable lately? Well nites.

Love & Hope Sent,
~ Ani

I ended up leaving for my sisters last Thursday night instead of Sunday because the kid’s Dad decided to slit his wrist and cut his arms up in front of my sister (the children included) and then simply look at my sister and ask, “Can I stay here now?” He knew I was coming to stay so I guess that was his last desperate attempt to have a roof over his head. How pathetic, the whole situation made my stomach turn. The girls where at the neighbors and they’d shipped him off to mental health when my sister and I got back that night. The oldest, Rose, was hyperventilating she was so terrified when I went and got them from the neighbors house. She’s 3 1/2 years old and the next day she talked about her Daddy cutting up his arms and how all the lights outside scared her (police and ambulance). His blood was still splattered all over the bathroom floor along with the butcher knife he used. We didn’t let the girls back in there until my sister cleaned it up. It was all so disgusting - his behavior. I spent all Friday nauseated.

I left to spend the weekend in Columbus with my older brother, who I hadn’t seen in two years because of his heroin addiction. He’s clean off of that but still a drunk. Saturday I watched while he and his girlfriend played this game where they drank a shot of beer every minute for an hour straight to see what would happen. I kept track of the time and felt like I was babysitting teenagers even though my brother is 35 years old. I felt kind of sadistic that I thought it was amusing, telling them every 60 seconds, “Okay, have at it”. Wow, it was…weird. Heres my older brother, a guy I always looked up to when I was a kid. And, its just mind-boggling how he’ll never grow up. The best I could do was humor him.

I’ve stopped by here for the weekend to pack up the rest of my stuff. I’m waiting on my sister to call me back to let me know if she can help me to get my stuff from here back to her place. So far I have five huge boxes and more to come. Then there are Mikes boxes that I separated that stuff from. Then there are boxes from the ex-husband of Mike’s mother that he still hasn’t picked up since their divorce. Its a mess but organized. But I’ve gotten everything for the most part. I found where my summer clothes where bagged thank god! I’ve been walking around like a weirdo in long sleeves when it’s 80 degree’s outside. I love the warm weather! Makes me so happy.

I’ll be staying with my sister until the end of August. She’s already gotten the girls in a home daycare that a woman runs in accordance to income. Apparently this woman was once a single mother of two so she started this daycare out of her home to help other women once in her situation. The girls love it there so far. I can’t wait to get my sister’s internet turned on. I’ve been naturally depressed with Mike and I’s breakup though so I don’t know how much I’ll be online when she does get it. I felt so overwhelmed when I got here yesterday evening. But I feel better now that I’ve gotten some things accomplished.

Mike’s Mom and I talked last night and she gave me a hug and told me to not worry about anything thats going on here and to just focus on myself. Its hard to not want to help Mike but theres really nothing I can do. I know that on a mental level, I just need to learn it in my heart. He tried to tell me earlier this week that “I don’t know if it means anything to you or Mom but I didn’t buy anything this week (pot) because I can afford it”. But guess what he left out last night since he didn’t know I was coming? I stopped by on Thursday to grab my mail and pick up some money that he owed me for his credit card bill and car insurance (not including the $200 from rent to his mom, his car payment, etc) and I smelled pot then when I came downstairs, here in the basement. So I suspected, but now I know that he flat out lied to me, trying to make it sound as if he was “trying” and “poor me, I can’t afford my pot”.

I wanted to flush it down the toilet and argue with him when he came home last night from his band practice. But I was asleep on the couch down here when he woke me up, and I was exhausted, and my heart wasn’t in it so we just kind of made small talk. I haven’t mentioned it to him yet. No that it would even matter if I did. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m going to go. I’ve got some more things that I need to sort through.

Hope Sent,

~ Ani

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