Chronology

1966:

-I was born 7 months after my parents' marriage.

1967-1970:

-One brother born in 1967, (referred to here as B1967)
-a second in 1969 (B1969), and
-my sister was born in 1970.
-I remember a few odds and ends:

-OD at age 3 with baby aspirins
-Also at approximately age 3 I had to get stitches after splitting my head open on my grandparents' kitchen floor.

1971/72:

-Started kindergarten
-Concussion requiring trip to hospital
-Sexual molestation by babysitter

1972/73:

-I attended three different schools as we made transition to house in the country which my parents built.
-Parents' first trial separation during summer(?)

1973/74:

-I began to read and to excel in all subjects in school.
-I read all the books in my classroom, and the teacher sent to other classrooms for more.

1974/75:

-Tonsils removed?
-I was approached for an enrichment program, which I turned down.

[Sometime between 1974-1976, I told my mother that I wanted to die.]

1975/76:

-Father moved out, my mother's boyfriend moved in.
-I was the top student in my class.
-I was trying to attract attention to myself:
-I made up lies about my skin, I held my breath until I fainted, and on one occasion in class I put my head down on the desk and cried out 'Nobody likes me.'
-March Break road trip to US with mother's new boyfriend.
-Two written items of mine were published in the yearbook.
-We spent the summer travelling around, stayed in a cottage for a while and the rest of the summer camping until we rented a house.
-After this move, we lived about 5 hours' drive away, no longer saw our father on weekends - but only a couple of times per year, and phone calls were irregular.

1976/77:

-My maternal grandmother died in 1977, which was particularly difficult for me.
-I wrote and illustrated a book which was typed up and put in the school library.
-It was suggested that I skip a grade.

1977/78:

-I attended a junior high school away from my siblings.
-I did not struggle to catch up after skipping a grade.
-My period started just after my 12th birthday.
-I developed acne and greasy hair.
-Target of bullying and threatening behaviour.

1978/79:

-We moved to further north, to a small summer/fishing resort.

1979/80:

-My mother was upset that I chose to live with my father.
-I began to have problems with my eating, and my weight fluctuated throughout the schoolyear.
-I was the top overall student in my grade for this schoolyear.
-I had a chance to go on an exchange to France for 3 months, which I turned down.
-I had a best friend who I still believe was a good friend to me.
-I went to a dermatologist for the first time - no solution for ichthyosis vulgaris.
-School photos were beginning to distress me.
-In the school yearbook, a comment was printed about my (lack of) breasts.
-First obsessive feelings.
-When I spent the summer vacation with my mother, my eating went back to normal, and my weight was stable all summer.

1980/81:

-My problems with food felt completely out of control.
-I wasn't able to concentrate as well in school.
-My sister moved in with us and I think I experienced sibling jealousy/rivalry
-I began to have problems with sweating and stomach pain.
-In the autumn, I went for a series of tests for my stomach which turned up nothing unusual and the matter was dropped.
-I took Phys Ed, and I trained with my father for a big horse show.
-I practised every day for months.
-On the day of the show, horse was pulled from show due to father's drunkenness.
-During the practising phase, I had my first boyfriend. We broke up after 2.5 weeks, and I found the breakup very difficult.
-I was the top Phys Ed student, won a cross country race and firsts in the 1500 and 3000m on track and field day.
. -I stopped studying for tests and doing a lot of things I had done in the past as preparation for school.
-(Even so) I was the second overall student in my grade.
-Obsessive feelings for two different people.
-Weight fluctuated constantly, but I may have appeared healthy to others.
-I dieted for one month and lost 15 lbs.
-I rapidly regained weight, and when I went to visit my mother for the summer, she expressed disapproval, which resulted in a crash diet, a backlash, and my realization that I had a problem.
-I asked to see a psychiatrist.
-It didn't seem to be going anywhere, and I spent the rest of the summer in bed:
-First Major Depressive Episode.

1981/82:

-On the first day of school, I found out that the boy I had been obsessed with in Grade 9 and on and off for Grade 10 had just moved away. I never saw him again, or heard anything about him.
-I became seriously obsessed for the first time - with the ex first boyfriend (from 1981).
-I had learned to control the sweating and stomach pains somewhat - through not trying very hard in school, and by daydreaming about sex.
-I was still feeling completely out of control with food, and my weight fluctuated a lot.
-Sometime this year, my father's girlfriend of around 4-5 years moved out.
-My father was caught three times for drunk driving.
-There were several episodes in which I caused scenes drunk. On one occasion, my sister found me passed out on the livingroom floor and my father took me to the hospital with suspected alcohol poisoning
-After this, I ended up with a prescription for imipramine and mandatory counselling sessions with a therapist.
-I felt more depressed, even after a couple of months.
-I had a feeling of hopelessness, and began to think about saving the pills for a suicide attempt.
-I went around saying 'I don't care' - and the words were often in my mind.
-During this year, I also tried pot a few times, and bought amphetamines - most of the latter I saved with my depression meds.
-I went to school drunk a few times, and wrote a few tests drunk with no perceptible difference to my grades.
-I think I almost consciously made a decision to try even less hard.
-I kept telling a particular boy that I did not want to date him - he responded by trying to rape me on two different occasions - the first I fought him off, the second his father pulled him off - two days after the second attempt I was in the hospital for a suicide attempt:

-I had failed three second term exams. I had to write them all on the same day, and I wrote the last two drunk - so drunk the room was spinning. I didn't fail any of my other exams, and I had never failed any exams before, or since. On the day of the three exams, I knew my mother was picking me up at school to take me up north for the March Break. When I returned from this trip, the second attempt at rape had occurred.
-Two days later, I found out I had failed the three exams.
-That night when I told him, my father kicked me out of the house.
-There was no one I could call. There was the boyfriend, and I eventually did call him, but before I took the pills I didn't want to call him, because I didn't want him in my life. I honestly thought it was better to just die. I didn't know for sure if I would, but I was willing to face that I might, that this was it. I had been saving the pills because I knew it probably would eventually come to something like this.
-The 'boyfriend' visited me every day in the hospital. He pressured me constantly for sex.
-I managed to pull up my grades at the end of the year.
-I got my learner's permit for driving.
-I helped my boyfriend to acquire more credits than he had in the last couple of years combined.
-I don't actually remember having intercourse for the first time, except very vaguely, and at that point, I had consented to it.
-My summer trip to see my mother was very short. It would be the last time I would see her alive. Like the previous year, I was only able to stay a short time before I felt it necessary to leave.
-Not long (a matter of days) after I found out I was pregnant, my mother was dead of a burst aneurysm.
-I didn't know the process of going to a funeral home and then the funeral a couple of days later - and I was confused. No one explained it.
-I spent a good portion of the summer working for my father as his receptionist at a new place. It was my first full-time job.
-We moved away from the farm, my best friend and the people I had gotten used to.
-My father couldn't afford to keep the farm after his girlfriend moved out, but in addition the horse business he had tried to start on the side had failed.
-I had an abortion. I couldn't leave the hospital without being accompanied, but my boyfriend was 3 and a half hours late picking me up.

1982/83:

-I worked the rest of the summer and then started at a new school, which I attended for a few weeks.
-My father had an accident and fractured his skull.
-He made a sexual pass at me which caused me to run away from home.
-My boyfriend's sister said I could stay with her and her husband if I paid a small amount and helped out - I had money from my job as my father's receptionist.
-During this time, I kept trying to break up with my boyfriend.
-I found it impossible to concentrate in school.
-One night, during one of the 'breakup' periods, there was an incident in which I got drunk and ended up waking up in a field 90 miles from where I was living, with vague and unpleasant memories. The long walk on that cold, dark night was traumatic.
-I went back to my family and began to cook and clean and take courses by correspondence. (I received my Grade 12 diploma this way.) I left the house infrequently, for a long time. I had nightmares and was afraid to sleep. I often stayed up all night watching TV and eating. I wasn't able to answer the door.
-My father had psychic friends who believed he was becoming a powerful psychic. He went around talking about the end of the world. He said my brother might be the Second Coming. He said he himself would battle the Antichrist. And unbeknownst to me, at this time he and his friends believed that I would kill myself by the age of 21.
-He lost or left his job as a result of his accident, but he received a considerable settlement, which he went through very rapidly.
-He asked his mother for money, he demanded my brothers' bank accounts (they had been paid each summer for work they did at the resort - it was to be saved for their futures, school) and then he applied for welfare.
-He had a breakdown and went to a hospital, but was turned away without receiving help.
-Throughout the year, he had a social life. He wasn't really home all that much.
-He was at times mystical, and at times abusive (emotionally).
-Later in the year, I went on a major diet, and exercised a lot.
When I finally went outside again, boys were constantly asking me out and coming on to me, which was quite a contrast to the rest of the year. I was looking forward to going back to school in the fall. I felt prepared and hopeful.
-An important relationship for me began that summer, but I did not want it to continue past summer. I wanted to be young while I was young. This boyfriend was extremely persistent in pressuring me, not letting go.
-My father and his girlfriend decided to move in together and form a Brady Bunch situation with us and her two kids. We would be moving again.
-His girlfriend insisted that we ditch all the pets, which meant that at least my sister's main support system was down the drain, and an important one of my father's as well.
-She also suggested a garage sale so that we wouldn't be bringing too much stuff to the new house, and we could also potentially earn some money.
-I sold items that had belonged to my grandmother, and a typewriter my grandfather had given me. I needed to buy textbooks for school, and I thought that was the priority.
-It became official that my father lost his licence because of three drunk driving offences in the previous year.
-Before school started, I had lost control of my eating and felt freaked out.

1983/84:

-At the beginning of the schoolyear, my textbooks were stolen. I had to ask my father for the money to get more. I had trouble going to school regularly. I had a lot of stress, and my eating habits had never in the years felt in control except during the time I was dieting.
-I decided to see a guidance counsellor, who suggested that it wasn't really so bad to try to do Grade 13 in two years - it might give me time to process all the changes in the last year, and besides, since I was already a year ahead due to skipping 6th Grade, I would be entering university with kids the same age as me.
-I got a part-time job as a telemarketer for a cemetery, which I kept for a year. I managed to save over $3000 for university.
-The first term I had skipped a lot of school, but by second term I was actually doing pretty well.
-In the third term, my father had a breakdown and also his relationship was breaking down. I think they made a decision to stay together until the end of the schoolyear for us.
-During the year, they had smoked pot and drunk alcohol every night - or so it seemed.
-During the first and last terms, I often skipped whole days of school. I hid out at the house. Not with others, not doing anything fun - pretty much just stressed out of my mind and out of control with food - during the day was perhaps the only time no one could watch me take food up to my room, although sometimes in the middle of the night I took food.
-Despite my problems with food and fluctuating weight, I was asked to the prom by a guy who was both very good-looking and one of the top students.
-But there was so much chaos in my life that I still hardly attended the last month of school. I went to the prom, but the relationship didn't last - I broke it off. I felt like there was something very weird about me at this point, and I constantly felt like something unacceptable was on the verge of leaking out.

1984/85:

-The girlfriend got the house, and we moved for the first time into an apartment, previously always living in houses.
-After a year in which chores had been shared equally, according to a schedule my father's girlfriend had devised, I went back to being the one who did the cooking, cleaning, planning.
-I started at one school, but had trouble attending. I then switched to another, but had the same problem. I was isolated, and could no longer legitimately visit my old guidance counsellor.
-I held onto my job a little longer, but soon enough I couldn't manage to keep doing it.
-I dated a significantly older co-worker for a while, and ended up using a considerable portion of the money I had saved buying drinks for us when we went out (we went out most nights for a while)
-I broke up with him and didn't go out again much until summer, when I had a brief period of going out following another weight loss/ exercise regime.
-I achieved the last two credits necessary to get my Grade 13 diploma through correspondence courses
-For most of the next year I didn't go out much, except for things like Christmas

1985/86:

-I became interested in alternative music.
-I got a job for one month at a fish n' chip shop in order to pay for a phone bill that resulted from telephone fraud, because my ex-boyfriend had claimed not to know me, whereas I had been unable to lie. (He did not contribute anything toward the bill.)
-The boss made passes at me when his wife was not working or when she was momentarily out of the shop/room.
-I quit after only a month, not consciously because of the sexual harassment, but because I felt stressed/out of control. (Still food and body image issues.)

1986/87:

-Around late October 1986, we moved again, this time in with our father's new girlfriend, whom he married in 1987. After the fish n' chip shop, I hadn't gone out much, and then probably only went out on moving day. I would make it for Christmas at my grandfather's each year, but had sometime previously started having 'trouble' with making it to other occasions. I also became used to fudging the details about what I was doing.
-At this point, I had a lot of experience being home alone in the apartment when my father was at work and the others were at school. The only one with no social life was one brother - and I think that only lasted the first year or so we were in the apartment, and the friends he formed then are still his friends now.
-I got a lot of experience being home alone in that house.
-My sister was allowed to have one of her dogs back - he had been staying at the farm where she worked during the summers.
-My sister and one brother took a bus everyday so that they could go to school with the people they had known for the last few years.
-My father drank a lot this year, but most of the time was social, funny, happy - his normal state when drinking.
-However, on my sister's 16th birthday he was drunk and forgot to pick her up from where she was working
-And there were a few scenes, sober: he said that he didn't really want to marry his girlfriend and that he could have been happy if he didn't have kids.
-This was not the first or only time he had expressed these types of sentiments, and they were probably related to his breakdowns.
-He was extremely drunk on his wedding day, even before the vows.
-They came back from their honeymoon early.

1987:

-Again I exercised and lost a lot of weight.
-I stayed at my aunt and uncle's twice. While there, I met a guy who would later kill himself.
-I got a job at the Delawana Inn which only lasted 11 days.
-I contacted an ex after not seeing him for a long time - when I had started going out again, I had no other friends/contacts.
-I asked my paternal grandmother around September for money she was planning to give us at Christmas
-I used the money to take a bus to Vancouver, thinking I would try to make a life there, or kill myself
-My ex intercepted me and I ended up (after my trip) going to Sudbury, where I joined a program to assist youths in my age category to find careers, and I took dance lessons a couple of nights a week
-I regularly began fasting 1-2 days at a time to control my weight once I had lost control again
-I went very regularly to his 'cool' apartment
-I jogged regularly with his roommate, who became my first long-term boyfriend, 4 years later.
-this roommate also possessed a lot of records, and when I visited, we would alternate listening choices.

-My problems with eating interfered with my ability to complete the program properly - and I wasn't able to go through with getting a job. At this time, I was trying to become an aeorbics instructor, and had received encouragement and one offer of employment - conditional upon me becoming certified. I could have passed the test easily, but they were only scheduled very infrequently - and I was away for the Christmas holidays and missed a phone call. I could not wait a few months or however long for the next test, my eating was out of control anyway, I was running out of money and I gave up. Things hadn't been perfect - I had quit dance classes because of stress related to my eating/money issues, and I was living in a constant state of panic. It had started out great, and I was hopeful, but I could not overcome some of my issues on an ongoing basis with willpower alone.
-I packed up and went back to Toronto
-My father had just been offered a job in Winnipeg and moved out there with his wife
-Me and B1969 sorted through all the stuff left behind, it was up to us to deal with it (it was a lot)
-I almost immediately got a job as an assistant in a theatre, but didn't even show up for the first day.
-My eating was out of control, and it was at this time I began self-induced vomiting
-Out of options and money, with no job, I went out to Winnipeg. B1967 came with me on the bus.
-Winnipeg was cold in a way that I had never encountered before.
-For the first while we had to stay in a hotel room with my father and his wife. We slept on the floor.
-Within a few months, B1967 had applied to various film studies places in Toronto, and went back there.
-The three of us, me, B1967, and S-M had discussions about creative things.
-Father drank every night and exhibited increasingly angry comments and behaviours.
-Initially refused to sign papers which would allow B1969 to get a student loan.

1988/89:

-Stepmother's son, his wife and son came to live with us sometime after or around the time B1967 left.
-For B1969's and S's last year of high school, my father sent them money for room and board.
-Stepmother smoked and drank also, but not as much as my father. My father bought a horse and boarded it somewhere.
-I regularly did housework - I was paid one week $25, perhaps to 'help' me, but although I was told I would be paid that amount every week, it only happened once, although I continued to do the housecleaning and all the dishes.
-My father complained bitterly about stepmother not having a job, but within a few months, I think she had one. When she left him, she had to declare bankruptcy.
-I helped her move, and I cleaned up after she left.
-My father returned that night, my birthday, and was angry and uncommunicative
-I doubt this kind of situation could have occurred in my mother's presence, but her 'ability' to balance a budget was one of the things he found irritating about her and too restrictive.
-I had also helped her son, his wife and kid move out
-My father kept drinking and many nights he wanted to talk - I tried to be supportive - he didn't like his job and wanted to quit
-He had a drinking-related accident - while attending his horse, he broke his collarbone
-He had to move out soon, and I was the only one left at home - he called the police to remove me - I had 5 minutes' notice.
-The police took me to a psych ward
-When I got out, I was on welfare, and constantly thinking about suicide - I wrote many suicide notes
-I began sleeping with my landlord that summer
-Contracted herpes just before xmas
-My father moved back to Toronto, and my stepmother had moved out to Calgary. I didn't have any friends or other contacts in Winnipeg.

1989/90:

-In around Feb 1990, I came back to Toronto.
-I could not stay with the person who had offered me a place, because her husband was ill.
-Right after my birthday, I voluntarily signed myself into a psych ward, where I stayed for 2 months.
-While waiting in Emergency I left the hospital and had to be retrieved by the police from the subway.
-My whole family began to attend family therapy once a month.

1990/91:

-During the winter I read books and went to cheap cinemas that showed arty and second-run movies
-I was eventually accepted for disability, and got my own place in the basement of the house where I had been living - I really liked it.

1992:

-A relationship which turned out to be my first long-term one.
-My boyfriend worked in a bank, and for the first time in years I was able to get a bank account - previously I didn't have enough ID, but he vouched for me. (I had previously cashed my disability cheques at a cheque cashing place that takes a significant cut.)
-I had greatly increased emotional support as well as a greater level of comfort regarding food - although at first there was a period of much b/p at the beginning of the relationship, eventually I experienced a remission that lasted a year, when we moved in together.
-However, I did not think he was the right person from me, and from the start, I kept thinking 'this is the last time, I must do something about this now'.
-I met his family, and through the years we visited them at holidays, until the later years of our relationship in which he went alone.

1992/93:

-We moved in together - this was the first person I had ever lived with, and turned out to be a 7 year relationship in total.
-In the summer, we went on a road trip to New Orleans.
-I was fairly isolated in the luxury apartment while my boyfriend worked.
-We jogged semi-regularly while we lived there.

1994:

-In winter we made plans to move back to the city - my plan was to get a place where he could live, and I would then leave -But I stayed.
-Through the years we lived there, we occasionally socialized with my siblings - mostly going to parties B1967 gave, or going out dancing in clubs, and there were two summer houseboat trips
-At some point I achieved my college diploma in Fitness and Nutrition through International Correspondence Schools (as with all my previous diplomas, I burnt it.)
-I created a deck of tarot cards

1995:

-I had repainted the entire apartment a few times, starting with basic white, progressing to a sort of clay colour with a few colourful experiments in between
-In spring 1995 I went every day for a while to the research library, regarding the tarot cards I had made the previous year.
-First summer houseboat trip.

1996:

-No longer eligible for disability as I had lived with my boyfriend for 3 years.
-Around January I painted the crazy, colourful murals
-In the spring we began socializing - my agenda was to find someone to kill myself with, or to find someone who had a gun or drugs like heroin. (Approx. 6 months socializing - longest for me in 9 years)
-By autumn we had our first computer - I immediately searched for suicide methods.
-I found alt.suicide.holiday, and sometimes after going clubbing on weekends, I would read it.
-I later found alt.support.eating-disord. I lurked on both groups for some time, but did not post.

1996/97:

-Not much going out of the apartment.


1998:

-Posted to alt.suicide.holiday, and through one relationship in particular (steward) I began to be more open about the details of my life in a public way. It was also through this relationship that I first began to use the name Xesce.
-This was the start of many new and unusual relationships that added a lot to my life.

1999:

-Half way through the year (99), I began corresponding with GK
-4 1/2 months later I went to visit him in Australia for the first time.

1999/2000:

-Two trips to Australia before I finally moved permanently to Australia in September 2000.

2001:

-Married GK for a visa
-Launched Obxesceion, my first website
-GK and I travelled to Fiji, New Zealand, and within Australia (2001-2003)

2004:

-Lived in my own flat for approximately half a year, but then moved back in with GK
-Acquired my own domain
-Met first possum - Ginger

2005-2010:

-Many new additions to my domain
-Increased drinking
-Observation-communication delusions began
-GK and I got a(n official) divorce in 2007.
-Began to treat sick or injured possums
-I travelled on my own, within Australia, and then around the world.