(warning…not fx related or fun)
I woke up with a pretty bad headache this morning. I had clenched my jaw while I was asleep. My jaw has a lot of issues. When I was 16, or barely 17, I had been permanently removed from my “adopted” parents home. BTW…I’m not legally adopted. We just say that because it’s easier to understand. It’s a long story but they are the foster parents that were there the most.
When I turned 18, I chose to live with them, again, and give my mom one more chance. This meant that I lost the money that the state usually gives a ward of the state, as well as free medical care until I was 21, because I was going to live with someone my social worker definitely didn’t approve of. A few weeks into living there my mother beat the crap out of me. I’m not a fighter by 
any means so I did my best to get myself the hell out of the house. My fiance had just got there to go look for apartments with me. My dad pulled my mom off me and Danny, my fiance, whisked me away. That incident really messed up my jaw. It dislocated it and caused issues with the joints and muscles. I was too scared, ashamed and poor to get medical treatment. Now my jaw is almost bone on bone on the left side and is bone on bone on the right side, the main side she hit. Dentists think I should have surgery but I’m not there yet.
When I have a headache from my jaw, I get really down emotionally. Like 
today, I’m going through the motions of my day but I just want to curl up in a ball in a corner and cry. I want to lash out at my mom for what she did to me. And of course, because I’m thinking of how someone that was supposed to love and protect me could hurt me like this, I start thinking of all the other adults from my childhood that hurt me: my bio mom, my bio uncle, my bio grandma, my bio dad, foster parents.
With everything that happened to me as a kid how in the world did I form attachments to my children, including two that I didn’t birth? How did I get lucky enough to find an amazing husband that didn’t repeat their behaviors? How in the world am I able to hold down a job and take care of a family? Why am I not a drug user, in prison, or some other stereotypical result of this childhood?
We all know where my resiliency comes from. But I still wonder, especially on days like today, how I am still strong and steady. But I almost wish that I could just go all buck wild and break down. I even envy those a little that do. But I won’t. I’m a strong woman and I’ll remain steady.
