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.