Getting it out there....

As part of my therapy I had to write an autobiography......that is some scary stuff right there!  I had to be truthful and honest, so if I hurt anyone in writing it, I apologize right now for it.  It is quite lengthy so bear with me:

I was born on September 25, 1977 in SLC, Utah. I am the 4^th child of 6, I have 2 older sisters and an older brother, and 2 younger brothers. I blocked out a lot of my childhood so don't have a ton of memories of it. I do remember having a white cat named Snowball whom was the light of my life, I loved that cat to pieces. One day when I was still potty training, I had caught Snowball, he was a bit of a reclusive cat so was hard to catch. I didn't want to lose him so I put him in a cooler while I went potty, then I forgot where I had put him. We found him a month later. It was not intentional and it was my first experience losing something I love. I remember going to my Grandparents ranch in Evanston, Wyoming. I spent some weeks there during the summers, I loved it and my Grandpa always called me Southpaw because I was left handed. I enjoyed those times. My dad's family always has a family reunion/campout in the Uintahs in August and it was something I always looked forward to, and the highlight of my summers. I remember getting together every month at my mom's parents house, they lived down the street from us, we would get together with my Aunts and Uncles and celebrate birthdays and holidays together. I remember always having to walk on egg shells constantly around my older sister Lara, never knowing when she would fly off the handle or get upset over something stupid. My parents took her to several Dr's who never could find out what was wrong with her. She was very good at manipulating people into thinking she was normal. I remember traveling in our motorhome with my family we visited places like Missouri, South Dakota, Montana and Texas & I'm sure there were more states we visited. We once colored easter eggs in the motor home.

In Grade school I was pretty much a loner, I didn't make friends easily but did have a couple of close friends, Peggy & Lydia. Lydia moved away when we were in 5^th grade, but I am still in contact with her to this day. I remember one day I was sick at school and couldn't get a hold of my parents so my Aunt Joyce came to pick me up from school, and gave me Fresca and Popcorn to soothe my stomach, to this day that is my 'go-to' remedy for an upset stomach. I fell off the monkey bars, hitting my head, and I had to be watched for a concussion. I remember my mom had a Breast Cancer Scare, it ended up just being a pre-cancerous nodule but back then they did a radical mastectomy for everything, the church ladies brought in food and visited.

Junior High was not exactly the best of times for me, I was socially awkward and shy. My first day of school I had a bloody nose and had a very tough teacher who wouldn't let me use the bathroom so I had to clean up in front of the class. I remember having a best friends named Teresa and Beaushea, they were both into horses, so I made up a horse that I owned named Smokey, he was a dappled grey horse. I told them he lived in Wyoming on my granparents ranch. I played the flute in the band and took Suzuki piano lessons. During Jr High I began working for my father at his Veterinary Clinic, it was the highlight of my day and I loved every minute of it. I played soccer from grade school up until high school when I didn't make the high school team.

Holidays during this time were always stressful as my sister Lara, would always be tense and have blowups. One year I had gotten brand new pillows for christmas. On new years eve she purposely dumped hot wassail on them so they were ruined.

In High School, I was the first kid in my family to really date a lot, which was hard on my parents. My first date was on my 16^th birthday (I wasn't allowed to date before then). I went to every single high school dance during those years with my boyfriends, I had 3 all throughout high school. Which was a very sore spot for my sister Lara due to extreme jealousy. Once Jennifer moved out of the house to go to college, Lara turned her rage, and jealousy to me. I remember a time when my boyfriend stopped to see me on his way home from work, I had previously made plans with Lara to go do something, well instead of finding out why my boyfriend was there, she flew into a rage and starting hitting me and kicking me, and grabbed me by the hair and pulled me across the lawn, ripping a huge chunk of hair out which to this day has never grown back. My sister Jen and I were watching The Firm one day and lara threw a fit because we weren't allowed to watch rated R movies, so she slapped me and left a hand print on my thigh that was there for several days. My mom has always been domestically challenged, house was always a mess, yet she could iron obsessively like nobody elses business....she used to take our Levis and iron them, she'd squirt them with water and roll them up then would unroll them and iron them, using poker chips to keep tallies. My mom could be yelling at us for one reason or another or fighting with my dad (which happened often), and the phone would ring or someone would come to the door and she'd be all happy, jolly and cheerful like she wasn't just yelling at us. I wore braces one week before the sophomore pictures were taken and wore them until one week after the sr pictures were taken...just my luck. I was on the yearbook staff, and was Editor in Chief for 1 year and Assistant Editor the other years.

My Senior year of High School had some tragedies for me. I lost my grandpa sims in January, my Grandma briggs in April and my Grandpa Briggs in November. I went to Utah State in September of 1995, and at first I did really well. I was in the Pre-Veterinary Program. I was working at EA Miller Beef Packing Plant. I eventually lost interest in school, and began sluffing, and took up smoking cigarrettes, I quit after about 3 months. I tried beer but couldn't get the image out of my head that my dad had put there, that beer tasted like horse pee, so I spit out the sip I had. Which is probably a good thing as I have an addictive personality. I remember bringing my roommate Nicole home for the weekend, and for whatever reason my sister Lara got upset and ended up slapping her, so we went and stayed at a hotel. Also during this time I was date raped repeatedly by a guy. We would be making out on the couch and things got heated, and I kept telling him no, no, but he didn't care. It happened multiple times and looking back I think the reason I let it happen over and over again was that I was ashamed to go to anyone for help, I felt it was my fault for leading him on by making out with him, and I thought that was how I showed my love for him. I ended up flunking out of school, and got kicked out of my apartment because my roommate smoked in the room and they though it was me. I remember having to call my parents to have them come and get me, which was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I have always been close to my father and a daddy's girl. They brought my dog Puppins up with them, she was my best friend growing up and was a miniature schnauzer. My mom yelled at me the entire way home from Logan to Bountiful.

After I got kicked out of school, I moved back in with my parents. My sister Lara got upset one day and went through my closet and ruined/cut holes/slits in every concert shirt, dance shirt, dance dress I had in my closet. She also broke cds, vases, dried flowers my boyfriend had given me. Eventually my sister Jen and I moved into an apartment for a while, and then we bought a house in Sunset together. Back to the whole boyfriend situation, when I finally put a stop to it and told him no more making out/sex etc we drifted apart, and I found out from my best friend on my birthday that he was essentially living with someone else. Yes we had drifted apart, but we were still dating and seeing each other several times a week. I do always get a chuckle out of it as his new girlfriend who eventually became his wife was named Amanda, and I had an Australian Shepherd puppy named Amanda at that time. Jen and I became animal hoarders at one point we had 12 dogs, 20+ cats, chinchillas, ferrets, iguanas, hedgehogs, guinea pigs, birds etc. We did take very good care of them.

My family was diagnosed with Bipolar in 1996, my dad, mom (although she won't admit it---she has symptoms of it) 2 older sisters, myself and my younger brother all have it. I started on medications and saw a psychiatrist and did pretty well. In 2002 I chose to serve an LDS Mission to West Virginia for 18 months. It was an awesome experience and I grew both emotionally and spiritually. I consulted with my psychiatrist by phone every month. I did not have any significant relationships from 1996 to 2004 as I was still traumatized and untrusting from what happened in the past. After my mission I became very active and lost about 70#

In December 2004, I joined several on line dating sites, where I met my husband. We chatted on line for 8 hours a day/night for 3 weeks straight before we met face to face, he even proposed and I accepted before we met for the first time in person. We knew everything about each other and fell in love with each other before we met. I always say his good looks are just a bonus to the all around package as he is an amazing guy. We were engaged a few days after new years eve, and set a date for October 26, 2005. My sister was dating an abusive guy at the time and it built a wedge between us (we were best friends for 10 years), the guy convinced her that my husband was evil, and she decided he wasn't allowed to be at my house, so one day she threatened to call the cops on him, I moved out that day and moved in with my fiancée and his mom, I slept on the couch upstairs. However due to my mother having fits, and constantly screaming and yelling at me about it, I finally had enough we moved the date up to April 9, 2005, we threw together an amazing wedding reception in about 3 weeks and we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. We lived with his mom for about a year, then moved to west Jordan where we rented a house. He eventually got a job in Orem, and I was still working in Bountiful at my dad's vet clinic so we compromised and moved to Lehi, just past the point of the mountain. It took about 3 years for me to be comfortable having intimacy with my husband without having panic attacks, flash backs and nightmares from my past.

My depression started spiraling downhill in March of 2010 after my Grandma Sims died of a stroke. Even though I didn't live near her, we always wrote letters back and forth and I always felt a close bond with her. I didn't realize it then but her death was the start of my decline. In 2010 my dad's business started struggling and I was about to lose the job and the passion I had for 15+ years. I quit taking my pills regularly as If I didn't eat huge meals with them I would throw everything up. A 3 month supply of pills lasted me 2 years. I fell into a dysfunctional depression, I quit cleaning the house, didn't care about my looks, and let my weight get out of control. I became severely addicted to Diet Coke to the point I was drinking 4-6 liters per day and got aspartame poisoning which enhanced the effects of the neurontin, and felt like I was having an out of body experience.

In April 2011 my dad's business was closing and he was moving his practice to his house to do house call Veterinary work. I joined Park Lane Jewelry under a friend of mine from high school and decided to put my all into it. It was way out of my league and comfort zone as I am usually a very shy, withdrawn person. Looking back I must have been in a Manic state as I was #8 & #9 in the nation for a couple of weeks and even got #10 in the nation for the month of June 2011.

In August I realized I wasn't making enough money with the jewelry so I got a full time job at a Veterinary Office, I was quickly promoted to manager. It started out well then progressively got worse, it became extremely stressful, and more and more uncomfortable. The Doctor was constantly belittling the staff, and getting angry with us for stupid things. As well as drama being caused by the technician he was having an inappropriate relationship with to the point that my friend and co-worker was fired because the other tech didn't like her. The Doctor would also have unintentional booby grazes, read end touches and shoulder touches. It started making me have panic attacks and I would get physically ill just thinking about it. I have a friend who owns a grooming shop who is also dying of stage 4 cancer so she's unable to groom anymore. In July 2012, I quit my job at the vet and started working at the Pet Salon. I love every minute of it and have designed spa treatments, body scrubs for the pets to help boost the income and help the pets out.

In December 2011, my spending got out of control, I was spending the jewelry money before placing and paying for the orders, and it got us into a lot of financial trouble. Originally when I joined the jewelry business I told my husband it won't cost anything to join, as he was wanting to buy a water cooler, so he went ahead and bought it, however when I closed my first party, I had to pay, tax, shipping and some other expenses so that was the beginning of the lies I told my husband. I was constantly gone, going to shows with my manager to learn, having my own shows, going to meetings etc. If my friend called me to have me go to a party with her I would drop everything and leave my husband to go with her even though we had previously made plans. I would ignore my husband and get into the 'zone' and so he started playing games online with his brother. I would see them having a good time and yell at him for not spending enough time with me. I didn't want hostesses to get mad at me for their parties not qualifying (they had to have $200 in orders to qualify for hostess credit) so I would place an order to make their party qualify. I took out several pay day loans, and lied to my husband about how many I had. I was so behind on my parties that I had to get bailed out by my sister as I had hostesses who were mad they didn't have their orders yet, and they threatened to call the cops on me. I took out 2 credit cards in my husbands name without telling him and without paying for them. I hid it from him by insisting that I needed to go get the mail every day for the exercise, again another lie. He went away in March for 6 weeks for work, and I promised I would get the house clean by the time he got back, I made progress here and there, but the reality is, it didn't get clean. The day after he got back, someone came to reposess my car which had been at my brother in laws, so he had to pull everything out of it, and found a pile of mail, my husband went through it and found the credit card statements and questioned me about it, I told him I only had 1, but had taken out 2. My husband was so angry with me, but instead of slapping me (which he had never laid a finger on me), calling cops or divorcing me he said my punishment would be cleaning the house by the end of the week. The house is still not clean, and that was in the end of April. Rob can't say anything about the house without me getting upset or causing a fight so he eventually became numb to everything and shut down. I would stay late at work to wait for a client or when we had an emergency and it made my husband feel like I was avoiding him and preferred work over him. I had to declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy which will hopefully be confirmed next week in order to get my car back, that was the only option.

I have always been able to excel at work, but my home life is a mess, I guess part is because I inherited my mothers lack of housekeeping skills and my bipolar gets in the way. My relationship with my husband has changed, we have always acted like newly weds and have had a very close relationship with displays of affection, teasing tickling etc. Over the past couple years things have changed. I tend to take everything he says wrong, or as an insult when it wasn't meant that way. It has put distance between us as he never knows when I will snap, bite his head off for asking me to get him a glass of water etc. The phsycial intimacy part has suffered as well as I was in a bad place mentally I couldn't understand why he would want such a loser, and such a horrible person (can't clean house etc) phsycially, so I quit responding to his touches etc.

When I am functioning I love to scrapbook, sew, make crafts work on computers (building and maintaining websites etc), Wwwgo for walks with my dogs, spend time with my husband. I like that I am a compassionate person, that I am good with animals, and once I have set my mind to something I go the distance and finish it. I don't like that I have a hard time expressing my emotions and keep things bottled up. I also don't like looking at myself in the mirror, or the fact that I have gained so much weight I have stretch marks and have never had kids. I don't like that I feel like a horrible person most of the time. I don't think I am cute, pretty or beautiful even though my husband tells me that constantly. I don't like that I procrastinate and that I am always tired.

Holidays as an adult continue to be stressful and touchy when my family gets together. We can generally depend on Lara throwing a fit or getting upset over one thing or another. We also now have to be careful about her birthdays as she is 42 this year and not married and has no kids, so always talks of suicide. In fact last year she quit her high paying job around her birthday because she was going to kill herself.

Holidays with my husband have always been wonderful. We buy meaningful gifts for each other, cook dinners together and open presents in the morning, then will head out to my family for the day. My husband and I have been working on our relationship and he is starting to help around the house a little more which eases the burden on me. However, I need to work on my attention span, he was trying to get my attention while he teary eyed sang along with a song to me as it reminded him of me, and I was too involved with my computer to notice. We are starting to get some of the phsycial and emotional aspects of our relationship fixed and things are getting better. There will be trust issues for a while, and it will take some time for him to get over the hurt that I caused him over the past 2 years. I have also been rebuilding the relationship I once had with my sister Jennifer, we have been going to dinner, movies etc, and she came to stay with me at night following my emergency room visit.