Finding Me - Softcover

Wheeler, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504399366 ISBN 13: 9781504399364

Publisher: BalboaPress, 2018

Synopsis

The book will take the reader through hardships that had built a woman that has made it a mission to help others by shining a light, a beacon of sorts. Her trials started at a young age and progressed till her father passed away in her early thirties.

About this title

About the Author

Sarah Wheeler only wants to celebrate the great accomplishments in life that she never thought she would be able to see. Striving to stay alive and falling to symptoms of depression and ideation she has been able to find her way, enjoying her journey.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Finding Me

By Sarah Wheeler

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2018 Sarah Wheeler
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-9936-4

Contents

Manual, 1, 
Trauma, 5, 
Death, 21, 
Fear, 25, 
Child, 29, 
Sex, 35, 
What Is Depression?, 49, 
Ideation, 59, 
Surviving, 61, 
Spirituality, 67, 
Happiness, 77, 
Family, 81, 
Age, 89, 
Finding Me, 93, 
Building My Own Manual, 97, 

CHAPTER 1

Manual

We are not born with the understandings we have as adults. We are born with unconditional love, and then we slowly realize over time that some people can be bad — so we lose love for them. Some are taught that love is only given to a select few people (or animals), if anyone. Before we are born, we have this conversation with God; we make a plan starting with the lessons we need to learn and which people are going to help us along our journeys of life. Then, poof, we are born with no awareness of the conversation as soon as we are released from our mothers' wombs.

This is meant to be. We are meant to be in the sense that we have a job, and that job is to write our own manuals. I wished so many times that I knew what my purpose was, why I was given such a hard life, and why I was so resentful. But then there were times when I knew I was meant for something. The need to stay alive overpowered the need to die.

My parents didn't have a manual to give me, and they certainly didn't have their own manuals when they were born. My parents definitely did better than their own parents at raising children and progressing themselves. I say this wholeheartedly now because I understand more of how they were raised, and the manual they had to create for themselves must have been hard. The one thing they did have were their siblings who helped carry them through hard times even into adulthood.

When do our manuals start? I think they start as soon as we realize that certain feelings resonated with certain awarenesses. For example, the first time I saw violence, I was aware that it wasn't right and that it hurt me. I didn't know how to describe the hurt back then, but it was a terrifying betrayal.

When people start to compile information for their manuals, they are influenced by their tribes. What I consider to be a tribe are the people who are connected to a person on a deep level — support (negative or positive), relation (neighbor or relative), and experience. Experience comes from actions that help to create understanding and awareness. This can be negative too. The experiences other people have aren't true for you.

When I started to write my manual, I wrote a lot of false ideas. I wrote that I had to be in survival mode all the time, that if I cried then I was showing weakness, that my feelings should not be validated, and that my voice didn't matter. There were many times when I thought I couldn't talk to anyone because I would get into trouble.

I also thought the things that happened to me were my fault and that I needed to fix myself. I felt guilty for not helping when bad things were happening to my family, but I was afraid to step in or speak out. When bad things happened to me and I would say something, I was not validated, so I must have done something to have it happen. Now that I'm a parent, I try to give my children a good set of moral instructions to put in their manuals. I let them know that crying is a sign of strength. I tell them that they are important and that they are loved very much. I tell my son to stick up for himself if I am out of line. I tell them that they can make good choices by listening to their hearts, to their gut feelings.

I have been trying to be a good example by not hitting my children out of anger and by listening to them when they are struggling with something and trying to find a solution. I want them to stand up for themselves even to their teacher at school. I want them to know that they should not judge a book by its cover and that every person matters.

Being a parent is hard, but I highly suggest it. I'm biased due to the great experiences I've had as a mother. Both of my children have saved me in a way. My son kept me alive for so many reasons, which will be explained later in the book. And my daughter has helped me find my inner child again.

Watching her has opened up so many doors that I closed tight. Now they are opening, and I have been able to rewrite some of my manual. One thing that my daughter has taught me is being able to see the wonder in life. Watching her be so motivated and curious lit a torch in me.

CHAPTER 2

Trauma

Trauma can come in different ways. There are violent, accidental, and emotional traumas. Some trauma can come in childhood, some trauma can happen in war, and some can occur during domestic violence at any time in a person's life.

As a child I felt scared many times for my family and myself. I'm not completely sure when I first saw violence, but one instance when I was nine years old has stood out the most vividly. My father body-slammed my brother on a piece of framing board outside, and I noticed how my heart raced. I was scared.

My little brother, who is five years younger than me, received a broken arm because of it, and the blame was put on my sister, who is six years older than me. My siblings and I have talked about this incident quite a bit growing up, and my father admittedly told himself the story enough times until he believed my sister did it.

My older sister, Veronica, and I went through some trauma together. The start of the series of unfortunate events in my life started when our house caught on fire in our bedroom when we went to Salmon, Idaho, to my great-grandfather's funeral. I had a collection of stuffed animals that my step-grandmother, my mom's father's wife, had given me.

When our family came back to California from the funeral, I had to grieve for all of my stuffed animals. I felt sentimental about them. I still have one that my grandmother gave me when I lived in Stanley, Idaho. It's a cat made out of brown, flannel-looking material with button eyes and string whiskers.

After the fire, we had to stay in a hotel while our house was renovated. During that time, I started to have headaches. My mother, Daphne, made me try to swallow a Tylenol for one of the headaches, but I had a hard time swallowing pills, which is a problem I had up until my late twenties. I ended up puking the Tylenol up and making Daphne mad.

I remember when I was younger than nine, my dad would have my sister put her nose in the corner for punishment. My dad would give me the leather belt to hit my sister with if she pulled her nose away from the corner. I thought it was the coolest thing to have authority. I now know that was the start of teaching me that violence was acceptable.

I don't remember a lot of the physical or mental abuse before the age of nine, but I do know that it happened because abuse doesn't just start out of nowhere. That day when I watched my father break my brother's arm was the most intense. Other times I saw violence included when my father put my sister's head through the wall of the trailer we lived in. My father swung me by my hair and threw me into walls and into a mobile closet that was next to the front door. I believe I must have had an out of body experience because I remember it as if I was watching it as a spectator.

The worst of the violence was around the Fourth of July, and it was right before my eleventh birthday. Two years after my parents moved my sister, brother, and me to Idaho, their marriage ended. It was one of the scariest days of my life. The family went fishing at the dam near our house. We went there as a family regularly. I had been picking up rocks and studying them when suddenly what seemed like a joyous fishing day turned into terrible fight between my parents. My father, Marvin, was in a rage after a dispute with my mother, Daphne.

After fighting for a while, my mother took my little brother and me to her friend's house. After a while we drove back home to the trailer. I could tell from the highway that my father's Jeep was not parked in front, so we pulled into the driveway. If the Jeep would have been there, I'm sure my mom would not have gone inside.

Surprising to us, my dad was inside waiting for my mother. He was sitting at the kitchen table that was by the bay window. When we walked in, you could tell it scared Mom. They instantly started to fight. My mother was standing next to the counter and proceeded to grab a knife from the knife block, walked two steps to the kitchen table, and then slid the knife across the table toward my father as if to say, "Use it."

My father got up fast, shoving the table to the window, leaving the knife. He grabbed my mother with his hands, wrapping his fingers around her throat. While yelling at her, he lifted her slightly so her feet dragged, then turned her toward the door. He then pushed her until her back was bashed against the front door.

While her back was up against the door, he lifted her up off her feet so that she was at least an inch off the ground. He stood there yelling at her while he continued to keep his hands around her neck as she was turning blue. I yelled and yelled at him, telling him to let her go. She was turning bluer and bluer.

"Dad, let go! She's turning blue. Dad, let go!" I screamed over and over again.

I tried to keep my little brother from watching, but I could not try to save my mother and protect my brother at the same time. There was a time when I felt frozen, maybe in shock from all that was going on. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he let her go. She fell to the ground gasping while holding on to her throat. Without any hesitation, my father grabbed my little brother and yelled at me to follow him.

He flew out the back door and started to run through the farmer's field that faced the back side of our trailer. He was making us run to the road that was on the other side of the farm field where you could see that he had his Jeep parked. He had purposely parked it there, having planned the whole thing.

He drove crazily, going around the back-country roads and hills. I knew my father could be physical, but I had a different view of him now. He was scary. Not that he wasn't scary before, but I was scared he would try to kill my brother — and me too. I didn't see any shame in his eyes. Suddenly you could hear sirens and see blue and red lights flashing. He was pulled over shortly, with guns pointed at him. I don't remember anything after that. I was scared and traumatized. I don't remember where I went, when I saw my mother again, or even if I cried. I don't remember a thing.

After that day, my fear of guns began. I had spent my eleventh birthday that year in a safe house because my father was threatening my mother. He even attempted suicide by hanging himself from the two-story shed he'd built in front of the trailer. I have forgiven him now, but I had to work on my attachment to his actions for a long time. I may still have to work on my triggers to violence from both this trauma and from another traumatic event.

The second traumatic incident happened when I was eighteen with my husband. The last few months of my marriage were difficult. Thomas and I met a crack dealer, Dan, in our apartment complex in Texas. We met him shortly after moving there when we began smoking crack. I smoked crack less than Thomas because it made me feel bad to do it so much around our son. I realized, though, that Thomas was getting some crack for free when Dan started to be a little too sweet to me. Dan would make comments about my good cooking, and he would compliment me on how good of a mom I was. When he would say these comments in front of Thomas, Thomas would just look at Dan as if he were a traitor.

I ended up having an affair with Dan. He made me feel like I was worth something, but he was also using me. He was such a strange and unfortunate person in my life. I needed him because I wanted to kill myself, but I hated him because I was hurting my husband, Thomas. I disconnected from the reality of my actions and their effect on others during this time.

I didn't want to live anymore, but I strived to for Alan, our son. My husband and I were both still so young, and we both struggled with inner demons. I tried to have compassion toward Thomas, but I was angry. We both had addiction issues, and we had sexual issues. Thomas found out I'd been having an affair in October of 2002, and I confessed to him that I did it because I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him so bad that I got a tattoo of the drug dealer's name on my ankle.

After I finally confessed, he snapped. The way I confessed was not commendable. I knew I was caught, and I did this "I got caught" smile. I'm not sure why I smiled, but it angered him even more. He kicked both me and our son out of the apartment. I didn't know where to go, so I ended up going upstairs to my friend's apartment (who was cheating on her husband too) until Thomas decided that he was being irrational, or so I thought. He would continue to push me around and call me names.

Thomas was ETSing (expiration of term of service) from the military, where he was separating and was being released from active duty in January 2003, although he would still be expected to complete military reserve commitments. We packed up and drove back to Idaho after January 3. The drive back to Idaho was not pleasant. I would fall asleep against the car door, and Thomas would try to open my door to have me fall out of the car while driving fast down the highway. When we arrived in Idaho, he left me and our son at Veronica's with no shoes for our son, no money, nothing.

I was humiliated by the way Thomas abandoned me. He would call me on Veronica's house phone every night from his parents' house to yell at me for the few weeks I lived there. He would tell me how horrible I was and that I didn't deserve a second chance. One time he told me he had a loaded rifle and was going to blow his head off. I called the cops to check on him. The police called me, explaining that he was fine. Thomas got upset with me because he thought Veronica had called instead of me and that no one should have called the police at all.

After a few weeks, Thomas showed up to my sister's house and brought Alan and me back to his parents' home. I didn't realize that it wasn't a mutual agreement between his mother, Allison, and Thomas that I come to her house. I overheard Allison yelling at Thomas, asking him why I was there, and calling me a whore. Allison was not comforting to me while I was there. I wanted to work on my relationship with Thomas even though Thomas continued to be verbally and physically abusive toward me.

One night, Thomas and I were talking, and he kept asking me questions about the affair with Dan. I confessed that it was my idea to get Dan's name tattooed on my ankle. After the whole house was asleep, he dragged me out of bed, pushed me out the front door, and threw me into the driver's side of our car. He got into the passenger side and proceeded to backhand my face while yelling at me until I started bleeding from my nose.

He then reached down and grabbed my ankle, twisting my leg over to the passenger side of the car. He took his lit cigarette to the tattoo on my leg, repeatedly burning it until my skin was oozing. After a period of torturing me, he then dragged me from the car to the house, where a bed was in the family room, to be by myself (probably so his parents wouldn't hear my sobbing).

Thomas paced back and forth in the basement hallway while talking to himself. I didn't sleep that night because of my fear that he would hurt me again. The next day, he was still very angry but acted lovingly toward me by helping clean the blood off my face. When night came, he kept asking the same questions and wanting me to answer them over and over again. He became increasingly angry and agitated, like he was expecting comfort from what I said, but the answers kept hurting him instead. I decided I was going to go to bed since I was mentally and physically exhausted from the harassment during the evening and the torture the night before.

I had fallen asleep, and by the silence of the house, everyone was asleep except Thomas. He came into the bedroom after everyone else went to bed and got on top of me. I could feel all his weight on my stomach. My arms were pinned under the blanket by his legs that were straddling me. He took the pillow from beside me and pressed it firmly against my face. I tried to scream, tried to kick him off, but I couldn't do anything.

After what seemed like a few minutes and useless to try to fight any longer, I decided to play dead. I became still and didn't move and held my breath steady so as to only inhale and exhale what I needed. He stopped pressing the pillow against my face once he saw I was still, and he seemed to be checking my chest to see if it was moving. Never lifting the pillow from my face, he must have thought the job was done, and he left. I just laid there, afraid to move. I laid there crying as quietly as I could, hoping for morning to come so Allison or someone would be awake to protect me.

I'm not sure how long it had been, but I heard his little brother, Kristofferson, run into Allison and Ernest's room. He was yelling that Thomas was in trouble, but I didn't know what happened exactly. Still paralyzed, I didn't get up at first, but then I heard Allison scream. Still hesitant to move, I got up and ran downstairs to where Allison and Kristofferson were standing in the hallway staring into a bedroom. I looked into the room, and there was a noose made from a bedsheet hanging from the rafters and a chair underneath that was knocked over. Thomas was lying on the floor while Ernest tried to do cardiopulmonary resuscitations (CPR). All I heard was gurgling. Just gurgling.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Finding Me by Sarah Wheeler. Copyright © 2018 Sarah Wheeler. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: BalboaPress
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1504399366
• ISBN 13: 9781504399364
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108