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This is a camp fire devoted to the discussion of life. |
| [Introduction]
Bring your miraculous life stories or experiences to the fire, and you might just be suprised to see how many people can relate. Any troubles, concerns, or hardships that you are going through right now...just reveal your stress and throw it into the fire. Please share relevant experiences as well that may help others through hard times that they might be facing right now. This group is devoted to those who are overwhelmed and amazed by this unpredictable yet incredibly beautiful whirlwind called life. So keep the discussion appropriate and relevant please. And let's discover the unknown.
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| I guess I'll begin this campfire with a short testimonial of someexperiences in my life in the past few years: A few years ago, I was so unaware, and so completely blinded of all that was around me. I was much more naive and unexperience compared to how much I have grown to this day. Up until a few years ago, I had what many would deem a nearly perfect life. Everything was going great as it always had been for the most part, until I was suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, struck by a tidal wave of tragedy that would cause my life to rapidly unfold before my own eyes. I was a pastor's daughter for the majority of my life, up until two years ago, when my father was fired from his job as an Episcopal priest at our church. If you ask anyone in the church to this day, they still hold a bitter resentment in their hearts toward him...because of what he did. My dad came home every evening around dinner time, but one evening he just didn't come home, and for all the evenings that followed this became true as well. People in the church began to talk and spread rumors about his different behavior, and that's when it all unraveled. My dad became addicted to various illegal and extremely threatening drugs. His "need" for this addiction caused a family and an entire church to fall apart. A private investigator was hired by the church to find evidence of his happenings and such evidence gave the vestry of the church grounds to fire or even have my father arrested. He was fired, or "taking time off" as many in the church called it, and sent to a rehab clinic in Mississippi. My mother and I could no longer pay income on the house and had to move to a small apartment. Many more details followed these events, but I will leave you hear to ponder. You should also know something very significant about all of this though. I love my father, and I always will. I've forgiven him for what he's done because he has made me a stronger person in ways some cannot even fathom. I've left much of my story untold for further campfire discussion. So leave your stories. I want to hear them, miraculous or ordinary, because we can all relate in one way or another. |
| To begin my discussion i will first say i have mental illness which will explain most of what happened in this part of my life, or the reasons behind it. Following manyy suicide attempts and other poor choice in my life i was commited to a state hospital, which would have been fine if i was the only one involved, unfortunatly for 2 others, my wonderful daughters, their father my ex husbande filed to have sole custody and won out of dufault. now let me say i'm not saying this for a pity party each night i spaej=k to my girls and hear them cry as to why they can't see me and why their dad says such bad things about me. i think it's wrong to bring children in the middle of adult issues. i never once put my daughters in danger due to my problems. ok maybe this does sound like a pity problem but i'm kinda ata loss as to what to write this is a very emotial issue for me so i'm sorry if anyone takes it as i'm looking for pity no just understanding and emotional sharing like molly i'm leaving much of the story untold not only for a later date but maybe to see how others react as towards the whole "pity" issue thank you all for listening |
| To begin this discussion I will introduce myself by using one word…misunderstood. Throughout my whole life I have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. My life was what as close to perfect as it could get growing up. I was completely naïve to everything that was around me. I was sheltered by my loving parents through my young years. I am still young and I am just being forced into the real world. In my eyes everyone and everything was perfect. I looked up to so many people. They seemed so faultless. But in the past year my whole world has been turned upside down. I have found out that the people I loved and admired were living a complete lie. Please do not get me wrong, I still love these people (who will remain unknown in name and relationship toward me ‘till further discussion). I was very hurt by them and it seemed that all the people I loved and trusted turned against me. I suppose I owe them, because their painful actions have made me stronger. I have learned from their mistakes, as I have my own. For a long time I struggled to not hate them, and at times I still have to fight that feeling. Many people close to my family injured me and my family so much. I will leave the details for further discussion. Most of my friends and family think of me as the one who is always happy, which is very true. I do not let things change my attitude very often. This, I suppose, is a good thing, but it can also be very tiring. Everyone comes to me for advice, and so I must bare my own hardships and theirs in secrecy. It seems that every person I get close to and begin to share my feelings with has turned against me….either from misunderstanding or because they had different intentions in the friendship than I did. So many things have gone wrong in my life. I am not saying this to feel sorry for me. Most of the tragedies I brought on myself, others could have been avoided if I was not so inexperienced. But I have grown stronger, and I see the whole world in a different light. It is just taking time for my eyes to adjust. I will detain further detail for another discussion. |
| Ok first let me say sorry for the typos in my first entry i was very nervouse writing what i was writing i will try to do better. As i stated with my daughters and being seperated from each other at the current time, i am still heart broken , tears well in my eyes as i write today. my oldest is 14 now and at a stage where i shoul dbe with her she calls each night with questions only a mother can answer i'm so joyed that she comes to me despite the distance physiclly and yet we remain close, my yougest 9 now cries to me for all she hears at home is how awful i am and that hse will never see me again. I also have made poor choices and may have brought some things in my life onto myself but NOT this i never would hurt, harm, or do anything ba d to my daughters. being bi-polar carries such a stigma still in these current times and it's a hard thing to face my ex husband is very educated yet has a very closed mind when it comes to me. he cheated on me with the women who is now his wife and they both have resnetment to me when i should be the one with hetred yet i hold no ill feeling and in my prayers each night they are included. Much is still to tell but i will continue on my next turn i do hope i'm not boring all |
| When I lived in Ontario, I fell seven stories from the balcony of my apartment building. As I fell from the balcony, my jaw hit the outcropping of the entrance to the building on the first floor, crushing the mandible (jawbone) and maxia (Upper Jawbone). When my body hit the ground, the crown of my head hit the concrete steps leading into the building, leaving me with a severe head injury, and in coma, 4/15G thirteen days. The force of the impact crushed my left side. My pelvis and pubic bone were both snapped. The trauma to my pelvis had torn the L5 nerve leading down my left leg, leaving drop foot, and reduction in mass due to the cut nerve. The left ankle on my left foot was crushed, and is no longer there. My left leg and wrist were placed into casts, due to the damage. My leg had to be taken from the cast; because an infection had ensued. An open reduction was to be performed in surgery, but abandoned due to the infection. The wrist had been crushed to the extent that when x-rayed, what should have been a clear image of the multiple bones in my wrist, had become a cloud of white. The bones had become literally mush; a closed reduction was performed. Both my mandible and maxia were crushed, and a portion of the mandible had been swallowed, along with the teeth, both upper and lower, on the left side of my face. A steel rod was inserted into by jaw, acting as the missing mandible bone prior to surgery, and my mouth wired shut. X-rays were taken showing teeth in the track leading to my stomach, along with other pieces of foreign matter. I was placed onto a ventilator to sustain my life, as a direct result of the head injury, and the punctured lung. Along with being put into traction, to try and align my left leg, due to the complete fracture of the pelvis and pubic bone. An operation was performed to place steel plates and screws to bind my pelvis together, in conjunction with an external fixator, which is a steel fixator that rested outside my body along the bottom front of my stomach, screwed in with three metal screws, on both the left and right sides, directly into my pelvis, to aid in the binding of the bone. My left lung was punctured by one of my broken ribs, causing it to collapse, and my throat had swollen due to the impact; my throat was full of my teeth, and jaw bone, becoming blocked. A tracheotomy was performed to open an air supply. When I woke from the coma I was non communicative, other than blinking my eyes to respond yes or no. I had hit the concrete so hard, that my brain had in turn swollen, and the very center of my skull, filled with blood. The damage was so profound, that the remaining teeth on the top of my mouth became stained with blood from the impact to my head. (Left with cripling headaches!) I had a life ending experience; not dying. The severity of the coma I had fallen into, reduced after close to two weeks. For me to leave St. Vincent’s (Recovery Hospital) , I would spend a number of days in the hospital, and a number of day's at home, until I had accustomed myself to living my life in recovery mode, outside immediate medical attention. As I am sure anyone reading can imagine, after a seven story fall, with all of the broken and crushed bones, my brain would more than likely be damaged. I had moved from a hospital bed, to a chair, to a wheel chair with IV, to a wheel chair, to standing and walking with a cane, to walking with a growing limp as my year’s progress. I had to learn how to walk again. I had to learn how to talk again, which was addressed as soon as I was mobile; using a wheel chair. I had to be tested behind the wheel of a car, before I was authorized to retain my driver’s license. Through the recovery time of about six months in hospital, my jaw had been wired shut three times, and my bodyweight had gone down to ninety pounds at the Hospital. Bone had been taken from the right side of my pelvis, to be grafted into my jaw, replacing the bone that had broken away. The first time the graph was attempted it did not work, it had to be done again. (I have had multiple operations.) Not only is there pain in my head, but also my wrist, my back, my left leg, including my ankle; the pain in my head is life changing. This is my life. When I wake in the morning, I am in pain until the painkiller starts working; covering only about eighty percent of the pain I am in, every single day (waking numerous times in the course of a night with my painkiller wearing off.). Without the painkiller as a patch, I am completely disabled, and cannot do anything, but rock back and forth praying for relief. The pain I feel in my head and body brings tears to my eyes. I am always focused on the heartache. And my hyper sensitivity to sound. It is constant and un-relenting. When I wake in the morning I am in pain. From the moment I wake, to the moment I close my eyes at night to sleep, I must deal with the relentless uproar of my head & limbs. I must deal with it with as much grace and dignity I can muster. Thanks for reading a little of my small story. I will please God if I can, visit again. |
| I would like to use this addition to be more specific. I am young, so I cannot say that I have experienced all that life can throw at me yet. I have wonderful parents whom I love and two older sisters. Growing up I was sheltered by my parents, as I have already said. Not until recently did I understand how the world was not as I thought. My oldest sister is in her last year of college. Though we have never been very close, do to our distant ages, I still love her very much. When I was young she seemed perfect and I longed to be like her, but in the past years she has turned her life upside down….and mine with it. She made many mistakes (which I will say, I do not hold against her). I watched my parents, grandparents, sister, and everyone else in my family cry for her. But she refused to change. A few months ago she was diagnosed with minor, bi-polar disease…allow me to clarify that I do not find this to be a fault or something she could help. This, of course, was a great blow on my family. My parents tried to help her, but she refused to let the ones who love her aid her. Though I know that this is a very serious problem and I know it must be a very difficult thing to cope, it does not excuse her from all the mistakes that she has made and continues to make. Only a couple months ago she married a man who does not seem to be the kind of man she should be with. I love her, but she was not at a state in her life that she should have been looking for a relationship, due to many other things. Everyone tried to warn her not to get involved, but she would not listen. I am sad to say that I have not had a real conversation with my sister since Christmas…not at her wedding or anything. During this time with my family, I also went through many hardships with my friends. Many of them changed for the worse, and I was left alone. But I did make many new friends, whom I am very thankful to have. I have had many other trials with relationships and choices, but I will speak of those in another discussion. Thank you for reading. |
| It was a Saturday. It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 2004 when I found out that my father had left us. My sister was away at college in Boston, so it was just me and my mom. My mom tends to clean frantically when she is angry or frustrated, and for the past month or so, the house had become extremely and uncomfortably clean, almost as if to warn me of the wreck up ahead that I of course was too blind to see. On this particular Saturday afternoon, she was taking her frustration out on the kitchen and on anyone who happened to be in that kitchen as well. By the sound of dishes angrily crashing together as she loaded them into the dishwasher, I knew that she was more than just stressed out. I did my best to avoid her as I quietly tiptoed past her to get a drink out of the refrigerator, but on this particular day, I would not be able to avoid her frustration, and she would soon attack me with hurtful yet unintentional words of anger. However, she unexpectedly began her unintentional attack with a calm and rational tone as she asked me one question. “Do you know why your dad hasn’t been coming home at night lately?” I honestly thought that my dad had just been staying up late at the church writing sermons or something like he sometimes did, only now it had just been more often than usual. When I told my mom this, tears began to well up in her eyes and she began to yell. “How could you be so ignorant?!” she cried. “How could you be so STUPID?!” “Do you not know that your dad has left us?!” “He doesn’t love me anymore!” she screamed as she began to cry uncontrollably. “He doesn’t love me!” At this I was stunned. I was in utter and complete shock as tears slowly traced their paths down my sun-kissed cheeks. As I look back, I now realize how truly naïve I was. I really did think that I was invincible, and that nothing truly tragic would ever happen to me or to my nearly perfect family. I lived in my own little world, where everything revolved around me and nothing could go wrong. On this day, however, my little world was demolished and I realized how completely blinded by my ignorance I had been. I did not know how to respond to my mom’s hurtful words, for I knew that although she did not fully mean all of what she said, there was still truth in her words. I realized that this horrible thing of separation and divorce that had happened to many of my friend’s parents, and that I thought could never happen to mine, was happening and the hurt that my mom was undergoing revealed it all. After the yelling stopped, my mom embraced me in her arms, and we both wallowed in this sorrowful and melancholy moment in time, that I will never forget. At that point, I saw my parents getting divorced as the worst possible scenario that could ever happen to my family. Little did I know that there was a mountain of troubles ahead of my family and I that we would have to climb, and it was coming upon us fast, getting taller and taller every second. |
| After my family started going through this hard time, I went through other hard times with my friends. I had looked up to many of them while growing up, but than they started living differently. I was left alone and without anyone to go to. I love my family, but they could not understand what I was going through. During this time I grew stronger. Instead of relying on others, I relied on myself and I found myself through this time. It wasn’t long before I began to harden toward others. I had been hurt and I didn’t want anyone to hurt me again. A few months a few people came into my life and at first I resented them, but soon they started showing me that friendship was something that could be obtained. One of them I trusted more than any. I cared for him as a friend and I thought he could help me. I had been carrying the weight of all around me and I was tired. He seemed to help, but right when I started leaning on him he turned. He abused my friendship and once again I was just someone to vent and cry to. Please do not get me wrong, I still care for him as a friend, but it hurt when I needed someone to cry with me but I only became someone to cry to. I have again grown stronger. I’ve built my walls and I have hardened once again. I am not bitter, though it does sound like it. I have just grown tired of faking a smile. I am happy people feel like they can come to me, but it would be nice if there was someone I could go to. So here I am….trying to stand alone. I do not want pity, because I know that compared to many my troubles are not many. I will resume my stories in my next addition. |
| Hi, this is my first campfire so I hope I do this right. My name is Tara and I am 26 yrs old. I think I am supposed to talk about my life so this is what I am going to do. There are certain things that have happened that I won't elaborate on for now, I am sorry but I am just dealing with it myself. I grew up extremely sheltered and the first time I was allowed to spend the night at someone's house her older brother molested me. I was in second grade at the time. I didnt even remember or deal with this a few years later when I was almost assaulted at school. These events and ones that happened earlier in childhood led me to become a cutter, bulimic and even suicidal. I also had various health problems since the age of 14 and now. When I was 18 I graduated from high school and moved in with an ex-boyfriend who then raped and abused me. I stayed with him for about six months until my parents felt like I had learned my lesson and let me come home. Of course when I came home I was not allowed to talk about anything that had happened so I had to push it down inside again and of course the above problems got worse. At the same time my parents also had problems and I just wanted to get away so I got married at age 20. That was also a mistake. He became verbally and mentally abusive a few months later then physical abuse started when we found out I could not get pregnant. The worst thing is that he would refuse to take me to the dr and one time I had a kidney stone that got stuck and caused a huge hole and now I have permanent damage and the kidney keeps getting worse. My marriage was horrible I wasnt allowed to work, drive, see friends, and was basically kept in the house. The only thing I did do was go through months of fertility treatments, miscarried, and lost an ovary because my treatments were not monitored. The week after I separated I was out with someone whom I thought was a friend ( I was volunteering in her classroom and decided I wanted to go back to school to be a teacher). She invited me to dinner with her and her boyfriend. Long story short, the "boyfriend" drugged my drink and raped me. All of my friends turned against me and even some family so I became suicidal. I ended up in the hospital after the rape because the drug he had given me made me very sick and now I also have a bladder disease for the rest of my life. Its very painful. The drug also affected my already messed up female organs (this led to my eventual hysterectomy last year). I moved in with one of my parents to try to get my life together. I was put in therapy, on meds, I learned how to drive, I got into school and had a job! I was learning how to function. But then said parent became verbally abusive and to save myself I moved out on to school campus. Now said parent has nothing to do with me and was not at my recent marriage. Oh yeah I met my new husband when I started college around age 24 and we just got married in March. He is wonderful and was by my side during the hysterectomy. We both are in college and working. I am still suffering from health problems--I have spinal problems that affect me walking and now for the last few months have been having seizures. I have to go to the hospital for a week in june for more tests. I am on meds because I am depressed, have panic attacks, and anxiety. I am proud to say that I stopped my bulimia and cutting when I was 21 and haven't done any of that since. I have a wonderful therapist and I am really thankful for the people in my life! I don't like people to feel sorry for me because I just try to live my life the best I can I want to be a teacher with all my heart! That is my main priority right now. Also I am still dealing with my hysterectomy since I have a lot of feelings to work through. I do have a cat that is my "baby" named Bella. So, thats me for now. |
| Hm... Well the many different..er...dysfunctionalities of my family life I'd rather keep private. Well, I'm only 16 now, I'm gay, and I've put up with enough bizarre coincidences in my life since the age of ten that I no longer feel the need to use an outlet such as this one to express my feelings. I'd much rather share my work with this community than I would my life story. I wrote a script for a Dadaist play a few days ago and nobody has yet read it... so, if anyone would like to read it, it can be found here: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/126 0292 So, there's me. Well, actually, there isn't me, because I withheld a considerable amount of information from you. |
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