How cruel is....

…when I finally get a job interview with a company that I have been dying to work for, spent all night preparing for it, wake up the next day incredibly excited, do myself all up, arrive on time feeling confident and positive....

only to walk in the door and see the girl that tormented me for three years straight when I was in primary school...who has now worked her little biddy up to be the executive PA to the owners.

I spent three years from Grade 5 to Grade 7 being this girl's punching bag and she relentlessly picked on me for EVERYTHING from the shape of my body to my intelligence to my family. Looking back I realise the bullying was borderline sexual harrassment. I went into puberty very early, I started developing breasts at nine and I got my first period a week before my eleventh birthday. I went to a small private school where there was some hormonal freak show happening: not only was I developing early but the rest of the girls in my grade were late developers. Seriously, by age twelve pretty much every single one of the 22 girls in my grade still had a flat chest and that was like, soooo cool. The way they treated me you would have sworn that I was the only girl in the history of planet earth to sprout a pair of boobs. Never mind that they were all heading the same way in the boob department they were all disgusted (that is the best way I can describe it) by my boobs.

Although the boys took part in some of the teasing it was mostly the girls and it was relentless. When I was eleven I got at most two or three hours of sleep at night because I would lie awake with my stomach full of knots knowing that day after day I would have to go back into the "boxing ring" where I was called endless amounts of names, have songs made up about me, have to deal with being held down while someone would attempt to open the front part of my uniform. I would throw up before swimming lessons because I knew that my swimming costume would show up everything I was trying to hide. And then there was the dilemma of actually changing into said swimming costume. The teachers would not allow me to change in the bathroom stalls, no I had to change in front of everybody else because, "If you don't hide it, they won't tease you about it". What idiots.. That just meant that they would take my tog bag and throw it out the window so I couldn't change back into my clothes, or they would take my bra and throw it to each other in some sadistic game of piggy-in- the- middle. I would get my skirt lifted up to see if I was wearing a sanitary pad and I would get hit and punched in the chest.

If this all wasn't bad enough I had a learning disability, all my life and even now that I am at university I have had to work my butt off just to get a mediocre C aggregate. My family was poor- my parents broke their backs to put us through that school so we didn't have the Mercs or the BMW's or live in big fancy houses. I had very few clothes all cheap and crappy stationary for school.

This girl... let's call "F", she was the school's superstar. She was the class boffin, she was one of the top gymnasts in our province and was in numerous sports teams. She was from a wealthy family who owned an apple farm outside of town. Her parents had nice cars, she had a wardrobe stacked full of the best clothes and she travelled the world with her family. Her mother was also on the board of directors at the school and knew everything about my unstable, dysfunctional family and our financial troubles ( at one point my sister and I had to be given a bursary because our parents could not pay the school fees).

So F was pretty much the ring leader in that whole sordid mess. She treated me like I was a disease. She found joy in describing my body in the most disgusting ways, she mocked me when I struggled to do the same Maths sums that she flew through. And she would inform my classmates of the embarrassing details of my family- her mother was a nice well- meaning lady but a real ditz, as I can only think she let F know those details accidently.

F and I went to different high schools and I would see her occasionally. When I left South Africa in 2004 one of the things I took comfort in is that I would never have to see F again. I last heard she went to university and then became a steward for a private yacht company. Of all the bloody companies in South Africa that she had to work for, she had to choose this one. When I walked into that office and saw her all the air left my lungs and my face became like fire. It's been 15 years, I am 28 now have been through so much, have achieved so much and am a completely different person. But the minute I saw F I felt like an eleven year old little girl again. She gave me a fleeting glance took a look at my C.V/ Resume like it was chewing gum and floated to the back of the office. I stumbled my way through the interview.

Seriously, this is not supposed to happen!. What I have heard happening to everyone else- they get bullied at school by the cheerleader or football captain. They go on and turn out to be beautiful and hot, earn a tone of money and then come across their nemesis 20 years later either a broke divorced mother of three or a used car salesman who had to drop out of university. But F is still coming out tops even to this day. While I am still struggling. Her bullying me was never dealt with directly. I mean come on...her mother was on the board of directors, she was the schools poster child. My mother believed that I needed to fight my own battles and that what was happening to me was a part of growing up ( she now regrets this ) but when she did finally get involved the class was given a talking to by the teacher and told that if anyone else picked on me they would be sent to the principal. F never had to answer for what she did.

And what’s worse is that she probably doesn't remember any of this now. It is not affecting her at all. And I can't hold something against her that happened when she was still a child and didn't know any better.

If I do somehow miraculously get this job I am going to have to once again face her every single day. If I don't get this job, well she'll just continue to think that I am a looser. And right now I really do feel like one.

All good things must come to an end...

Whatever patient, perseverant soul(s) are still reading this blog I salute you! This period of my life has not been the best for blogging. I started a full time job three months ago that just happened to be in a performance orientated company that I soon found out was very “trigger” happy. I hadn’t been there long before I starting hearing tales of our “fallen comrades” i.e. employees that were fired for something as simple as not sending enough e-mails OR (and this really takes the cake) supervisors/ managers that were given the chop because “they hadn’t fired enough people themselves”. Hmmmm…did I mention that this company is American? So I had been given the subtle message that- even though I was temp covering maternity leave- if I didn’t give 110% I would be given my walking papers. What was worse, and this really scared the shit out of me, if I messed up this woman’s job…she could get fired, even though she did nothing wrong! Did I mention she has six kids? Yep there was A LOT at stake. I’m pretty sure some laws are being broken here…but who ever dares to take on a monstrous American corporation?


So this coupled with the fact that I am still studying full time and have been writing exams ( two of which I am pretty sure I failed) I have not had much time for anything except eating and sleeping…and a spot of T.V if I am lucky!!. I hate to say this…but red wine and chocolate have become my best friends. I can’t exactly say it’s been a social pleasure working for this company.

I have lost two big features in my life these past three months, the first was my relationship with my sister (or rather the final realization on my part that the only way we would not kill each other is if we lived several hundred kilometers apart and didn’t speak at all…except on Christmas and birthdays…or if someone died) and the second, has hit me hard. My church counselor finally realized that she can no longer help me.

Years ago, I was talking with my friend’s husband about getting her to see a counselor. I suggested going to see a church counselor, since it was free and the husband said something that really rang true. Church counselors can only help you if you meet a certain criteria. At the very least you should be a believer…you don’t have to be a very good one…but you must believe in God. Second you need to be able to forgive…a lot of people will struggle for years with this but a GOOD counselor like mine, will be willing to stick with you….so long as you believe. Third, you need to agree with and do pretty much everything they tell you to. As I struggled with all three of the above, I knew that my counseling was doomed with these people from the very start. But I hoped that “maybe this time” it would work. I was at the edge with a knife in my hand, planning on ending it all, so I would have taken any helping hand that had been offered to me.

During my twenty –eight years on this earth I have been to so many psychologists, psychiatrists and counselors that I can’t remember them all. The one that helped me the most was a black psychologist ( pretty amazing as apartheid was still rife in South Africa) named Mandisa who saw me from when I was eight until I was ten. I also had reasons to believe that the church counselor I had now would be different: She has known my family and I since I was seven years old. She has done that most amazing work with people from Rape Crisis and victims of child abuse. The list of lives she has changed is endless. She told me when I first started that she had been waiting for me for years and that she wanted to make me her project. When I tried to run away she would come and find me. Who wouldn’t have been given a little bit of hope?

It started out with me, her and an elderly gentleman. Every Saturday at 3pm, I would arrive on her doorstep. She would give me a big mother hen huge followed by tea and biscuits and I would sit on her couch, her cat Joey purring in my lap and recount the horrors of my life. Then they would pray for me. Sometimes they tried to do deliverance – I’m not sure this ever worked (seriously, imagine someone yelling out you: “Spirit of illness, I COMMAND you to come out!!!!. And then feeling really guilty because nothing was er, “coming out”). No matter what they did the issue was that I didn’t completely believe in God. I remember them asking me each week, “Do you still not believe in God”. They didn’t seem to realize it wasn’t like a dress that I could change, it was more like a cancer invading my system that I couldn’t rid of.

When I came in one day the elderly gentleman was not there and I was told it was just going to be me and her. So for the rest of the year I spread myself at her feet like strawberry jam, she was the first person that I fully told about my abuse and my binge eating. I told her things that I had never told anyone before and she listened and prayed. Some major hurdles where accomplished with her- she confronted my mother head on about my abuse and her part in it. Because of that my mother started to understand me in a way that she never had before.

About three month ago I began to feel guilty…I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being selfish and was wasting her time. The revelations that I had made were now sounding like nothing but repeated complaints and whining. I hate to admit it but we had stopped making progress. Here was a woman who worked 80 hours a week and had women- most of whom had suffered the mostly dreadful atrocities- lining up at her door desperate for help…and I was just sitting on her couch complaining?!. Several times I was tempted to e-mail her and just tell her it was over but didn’t because I wanted to stay with her…sometimes I felt like she was my only friend in the world and I would miss her terribly.

The deal breaker was that no matter how hard I tried, I could never believe in God the way she did and it will take years to forgive my Dad for what he did to me. Not only that, she was way over her head with my binge- eating. It’s an addiction that I have lived with for most of my life that I actually don’t know how to live without it. It seems to make up so much of who I am that I don’t even want to get rid of it.

I fessed up to all of this on her couch last Saturday. Our meetings had become almost awkward because my guilt was always hanging in the air. She didn’t agree with me at first. But upon further retrospect she finally agreed. She e-mailed me last Monday morning to say that we had reached a stalemate and we needed to take a break. For me it was so heartbreaking but I realized that I had reached the limit with her and that she could no longer help me.

The unfortunate part of this is that my mother has been so devastated that yet another helping hand is going to disappear in the Stephi- void that she reacted with anger. This sadly has made the situation very tense with my counselor and it will probably be a while before we will be able to speak again.

I am trying to see this differently…my latest counselor is not someone who has bitten the dust but rather someone, like the rest of the people I have met on my path, has helped me and carried me closer to recovery.

At the same time I can’t get rid of the awful sense of failure…why is it that after SO many counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists that I can’t seem to get well? What is wrong with me that I can’t let my past go, forgive and live the life I was meant to live. For me failure also brings loneliness, the old enemy of rejection has reared its head again and I do feel so alone right now.

I will never be going back to her. From now on whenever we meet it will be as friends, I hope. I am thankful for everything she has given and for everything I have learnt. Writing this post has really helped. I haven’t spoken to her since she sent that e-mail but I now know what I want to say to her.

On to the next….

Life in a noodle

These days I have bee less inclined to write. Other than the fact that work is hectic and I have university assignments coming out of my ears, I still have plenty to say but I just can't put it to paper.

In the past few weeks I have been facing my past more than I ever have in my entire life. Particulary that of my abuse as a child. And it has been ugly. I have been feeling dirty and gross. I wish I could just zip down my skin and leave my soiled body behind. I also feel selfish for what I am putting the people around me through. Hearing about someone's abusive past is so truamatic, especially when it's some one you love.



A few days before my birthday last month, in a moment of extreme rage, I told my sister about the time my dad had tried to strangle me. She was trying to defend him and I just saw red. Her reaction was of pure disgust. She refused to believe me. Until my Mom told her it was true. I didn't hear from her for a week. I wrote her an e-mail pouring my heart out about my past but sparing her the gory details. I spent the entire week racked with guilt that I had put such a heavy burden onto her. I had to admit though, I was a bit perplexed- she grew up in the same house as me, was she really that blind? Maybe she just blocked it out.

She never responded to my e-mail and I didn't see her until she suddenly showed up on my birthday. She was nice to me but I knew there was more to come. She seemed to be biding her time. Eventually yesterday I sent her a message to tell her that I was considering my counsellor's suggestion that I stay in a safe house so that I can be apart from my family and have space to work on my issues. The only part of her reply that I saw before she deleted me off Blackberry messenger was "I have given you enough time to sort out your issues". I have know idea what she was going to say, but since she has now cut contact with me I am assuming she is severing ties.

I can't say it really hurts. We have never been close. I feel more disappointed that she does not believe me or at the very least, thinks I am making a big deal out of "nothing". I also feel a weird sort of pity for her: she is so despetrate to hold onto an ideal of what life should be like she not really living life and she is miserable.

Well, when you come out with something as explosive as I have you can't expect to win friends and influence people. But I have a dream that one day I will be free of this and I will be happy.

But I have such a long road ahead of me...

From the dark side: The damage that hatred can do....Part 6

I'm not sure when my Grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Honestly it feels to me like she has always had it. And living with someone who is afflicted with this condition is heartbreaking as well as being pure hell.

Because of the recession in 2009 I could no longer afford to live and study on my own. I moved out of Cape Town and back in with my parents....and my grandmother. My Mom still had her own business then and would work long hours. My Dad would work from home in an outside office. The care of my grandmother was left up to a lady that my Mom originally hired to do cleaning. She was very good with my grandmother and would cook for her and take care of her during the day while taking care of the house. Soon though my grandmother started to become more and more of a full time job.

We had a cat back then who my grandmother became obsessed with ( a commonality in Alzheimer's patients). If the cat wasn't within her line of vision she would panic, she tried to follow this cat wherever she went (and if you own a cat you know that this is impossible). If the cat did anything like "meow" or role around or ANYTHING she took as a sign that the cat had to be hungry and would get furious at all of us, accusing us of starving the cat. At least once an hour there was a blow up with her about the cat. The worst was when the cat went off somewhere as cats do, my grandmother would leave the house and go and try to find her. My parents lived on an apple farm and this happened several times a day and either Georgina, myself or my Dad would have to go out and frantically look for her. Then she would start accusing any stranger she came across of stealing the cat. And then came the day when she claimed that our cat....was not our cat.

At night her obsession switched to the locking of doors. After she went to bed she never slept as she was up and down all night checking that all the doors were locked. Of course she would always forget that she had already checked and keep on checking all night. Soon she started waking us up at night "Wondering where everybody was". She needed help with dressing, bathing and eventually going to the toilet. She was terrified of being alone and always afraid of some impending doom. She would work herself up into into a crazy state that would always end in her crying hysterically. Her balance was effected and we constantly had to watch her to make sure she didn't harm herself.

And then of course, there was her mental state. It probably sounds petty when I say that her repeating the same thing over and over again or the 50 million questions she would ask...by breakfast, was irritating. But just imagine having to hear the same line over and over and over again knowing that telling them to shut the hell up would have no effect what so ever AND you actually couldn't even get angry because it would agitate their mental state even more?. Well... I'm sure that's how my Mom must have felt. I didn't let it stop me from screaming my lungs out besides, it me feel better. Even if she would be beside herself once I had calmed down.

Throughout all of this I was horrible to her. I hated her. I kept thinking, "After being a constant intrusion in our lives you had to go ahead and become a burden too". I didn't care that she was afraid and confused and suffering. I just cared about venting all the anger I had held inside of me for years.If I wasn't ignoring her, I was yelling at her. I called her a "A demented old cow" and " A senile old woman". I resented her always having to tag along when my Mom and I were out together. My Mom may have been able to control how I spoke to her when I was little but not now. This lead to many fights between my mother and I which of course made me even more angry.

But even through her dementia my Grandmother still managed to retain her good qualities. After any attack I had made on her the disease would have her promptly forget that anything had happened. But the unhappiness remained. She was unhappy and she didn't know why. Knowing my Grandmother she probably thought it was because of something she had done. She would seek me out and want to hug me and love me. This made me feel like the worst person ever born on God's green earth and I would try to get away. My grandmother may not have been able to rescue me from my abuse but she was always there to comfort me. When it was my turn to do the same I failed her I did nothing but make her suffering worse. The full implications of that haven't hit me yet but they will eventually. I will have to deal with what I did for the rest of my life.

STILL more to come....

From the dark side: My confession of being a pure bitch...Part 5

The changes were so small at first that probably she even didn't notice it. Trying to recall a name, a date, what she had done the previous day. Then she would forget where she put something, leave the bath water on until it was overflowing. Burn food on the stove or in the oven because she forgot it was there.

Then these changes became slowly visible to those closest to her. My grandmother did a lot of the house work. When she put dishes away no one could ever find them because they were not in their usual place. She would clean up and put stuff away and we wouldn't see them for months. Then she couldn't remember which month we were in and then which year.

Right after the fire it was decided that my disabled aunt should go to a home. My grandmother had looked after her for over 40 years. Since my grandmother had reached her 70's she started to have difficulty managing. Once my aunt was in the home my grandmother visited almost every afternoon. Soon she deteriorated to the point where she was actually forgetting to go and see my aunt. And when she got to the home, she was never able to find my aunt's room and would get lost. Despite this she still continued to go whenever she could.

My grandmother had a weird habit of always falling asleep during movies or during the sermon in church. But soon all she had to do is sit down for five minutes and she would fall asleep right then. One time she was holding a cup of hot tea, fell asleep and let go of the mug, pouring the scalding liquid into her lap. A fracture to her arm and a bout of hepatitis only seemed to worsen her memory.

We all just thought that it was all part of age. But then she was forgetting people's names and eventually couldn't remember the names of those living with her without some prompting. She couldn't find her clothes or her medication. She would make us multiple cups of tea forgetting that she had already made the tea. Then she forgot how to tell the time.There were huge fights because my Mom did not want my grandmother to do housework anymore but my grandmother refused to give up anything that she saw as her duties. Having to constantly look for things made us all angry.

When I moved to England at the age of 20 my parents had moved to a house on an apple farm. Although my grandmother's memory was pretty shot she was still able to do basic things for herself and it was fine to leave her alone in the house for a few hours. The Christmas before I left I realised that something serious was wrong with my grandmother and that it was not simple forgetfulness. I had taken my grandmother shopping for presents for my Mom and Dad. That was the Christmas it snowed on the mountains (despite it being SUMMER in South Africa) so I settled her next to the heater in her room with a cup tea and went to my room to wrap presents. It must have been 5 or 6 times in the space of 30 minutes that she burst into my room panicking that she had not bought a present for my Mom. Not only did this mean that she had forgotten the entire day's events but she was forgetting what I was telling her 3 minutes after I had spoken to her.

When I said goodbye to my grandmother at the airport, she held me tight crying almost silently pleading me not to go. When I returned 3 and a half years later, she greeted me as though I was a stranger. She had been told over and over again who I was and she was very kind and polite. But her association of me, her memories of me, her love for a grand daughter had disappeared. While I was overseas I had gotten updates here and there of her slow decline. I spoke to her quite a few times, normally my Mom would be prompting her the background. But I missed most of it and I came home to find her drastically changed.

So, you would think that in these circumstances I would have nothing but compassion for her. Well you are wrong...this is where the pure evil of me came out. I returned to South Africa in 2007 a completely different person. A terrifying, horrific mental breakdown 6 months before and ripped everything that I was and everything that I had known and believed in to shreds. The past which I had worked so long to suppress was now demanding to be acknowledged and dealt with. My grandmother had now conveniently forgotten everything but I still remembered it all with a sharp sting as though it had happened yesterday. Now because she was so weak and had forgotten everything that happened, she was an innocent little lamb. I couldn't confront her, I wasn't allowed. Those fights that we had had in the past were no longer acceptable (not that they were acceptable in the first place) and were actually dangerous for her mental state. So I just had to button it and...forgive.

I'm sure some people can relate when I say it is impossible to forgive someone when you are fulled with such black rage that you could be motivated to kill a person if it came down to it. I had no way to express this rage, no chance for an absolution. I just had to "hold it" and as my mother LOVES to say,  "Forget about the past". I couldn't hold it... someone had to pay for what was done to me and because my grandmother had no way of fighting back now didn't mean I couldn't get some revenge.

From the dark side: My confession of hatred...Part 3

From the outside my grandmother appeared to be a sweet innocent old lady. Everyone liked her. Despite the fact that she was a argumentative menace to everyone in my family they loved her very much. No one else feels this way towards her except for me. I can tell you if anyone in my family had to read what I am writing they would be shocked, angry and disgusted. I guess they should be. It feels like a law against nature to hate your own grandmother.

I have only presented the bad side of my grandmother....the truth is she actually had many wonderful qualities, most of which I have only realised recently. Unfortunately it would be that one of her good qualities that would sting me the most:

My grandmother made sure she always knew what was going on with everyone in the family. She would watch, listen...eavesdrop outside closed doors. Because she made sure that she knew about everything that went on she knew more about my abuse than anyone else. I still feel like it's a crime to say that I was emotionally and physically abused. She knew what my Dad did to me, she watched and listened. She would always be there in the background or around the corner. The worst is I knew she knew what was going on was terribly wrong. I could see it in her face.

Whether it was because she was once an abused woman herself, or because she believed that my Dad, was the head of the house and my father, she should not interfere or she was just in denial I don't know. But she was the one person who knew that I desperately needed help and she choose not to do anything. And here is where her "good quality" comes in. After being beaten she was always there holding me, washing the tears and sweat away from my face, tying up my hair and putting me to bed, all the while cursing my father. It was like being given time in a boxing ring and going into the corner for water and a pep talk before being sent back.

It was a blessing to have that comfort after all those horrific episodes. I really should be grateful because the majority of kids that are abused have no one. But it just made me hate her even more. She was just there to listen and see and then comfort. Never to help. And so for years it continued, each time it occurred it sliced away at my soul and took away more of the person I was meant to be.