Ashley's Story: I'm Perfectly Imperfect
TW: SA and Abuse
I was born into an older family. My half sister and half brother were about twenty years older than me. I always had to live up to comparison of my sister and how much better her life was. I would almost beg for my father’s attention and he would praise his golden daughter, my brother and I have a good relationship because we know how bad our father was. My sister knew how bad he was, but constantly puts me down for my weight.
When I was 11 years old when I was sexually assaulted, after that my father accuse me of being pregnant. The boy raped me because he thought that me kissing his sister was wrong. I am a Bi-sexual girl and I knew I was different from a young age.
I think that day my father lost all respect for me.
My father told me expressing love any form to a person who doesn’t want it, was wrong, I wasn’t allowed to have crush on somebody, I wasn’t allowed to email or write them a letter explaining how much I loved them for the acting job they did on tv or in the movies. He would say it was inappropriate, I would cry knowing nobody knew how much I cared for people. I would show love to animals and babies, longing for a baby sister or brother, my father would shoot the idea with my mother saying she could have anymore kids, and really she couldn’t. She went through menopause right after I was born.
My father left my mother after 20 years of marriage and left us high and dry. I was glad he was gone, he was a narcissist at best and he only loved himself. He would go on dates, with women out of his league and also married a Chinese woman who wanted a green card. When I called him out on it, he told me he loved her and that she was the one. Also, she had better cooking skills than my mom. I was forced to go his house to visit but I would only want to leave a day later.
My mother was a saint for loving me. She loved me for me and saw I wanted to be a boy in a girls world. She would try and put me in dresses and vests you name it, I wouldn’t wear it. My mother knew I kissed a girl and she simply smiled and said “no matter what I love you for you, you hand picked by God to come into my life.”
I blamed myself for many years for the faults, so much so I would date but nothing stuck, my sister would criticize me saying if I was giving the milk away for free why would the guy buy the cow. A little hurt I knew she was right but in my heart because I thought how else will they like me? It took me years of therapy to realize that wasn’t the case, just that I would shut down and because of my traumatic experience as a child that I would shut down and not say yes or no but just “let it happen”. I cried thinking of all the relationships I could have had. I was in an abusive relationship because of this, he would beat me, raped me, when I was trying to leave he grabbed my ankle and fractured it. I escaped finally. I try to block out a lot of what he did, more or less it was due to the fact he would drink and take out all of his hate onto me. He would always use the line “I put a roof over your head, food in the fridge, the least you can do is pay for something!” I ended up cheating on him and when he found out, he tripped me and I fell, when I went to get out of the house, he slammed the door on my foot, causing the sprain. I limped around my mom’s house before she took me to the doctors. That’s when I found out he had sprained it. My mom told me I shouldn’t have cheated, but at the time I just lost my Bio dad and I wasn’t thinking clearly.
My father did talk to him before he passed, as did my mother and they would pretend that my abuse never did happen. He would manipulate his words, and make me look like the crazy one.
I became a Healthcare worker when I was 25, just after I left my ex’s house, I worked in the classroom studies hard and worked towards becoming a nurse.
The nurse who was a teacher would put me down and say I wasn’t fit for a nurse, so much so she made it a personal mission to sabotage my work. She would request I take a year off and try again the next year, or write on my homework to wear clothes that didn’t expose my stomach or butt. Then, the final blow was in my final exam, I worked and studied at the same time I studied all the materials. Then, the day of the test, she told me she was testing me so I did what I thought was right. She then pulled me out at the end of the test and told me I failed because I had a missed one big question that took 50% of my mark. Which was bullshit. It was the day before we learned it and it was on the study list. So I went to the dean and complained. The dean fired the teacher, and told me I could re-test. I did pass but because of this teacher not testing me on my materials, I didn’t get my certificate.
I did find a job as a health care worker and for seven years I took abuse from my client, because she was paying me. She would make me feel bad, even when I was losing weight, she would say she could eat anything she wanted, but I had to watch what I put in my mouth. Everyday it was something new, shortly afterwards I quit to start by own company.
When I started my own business it failed because I got with somebody who told me they knew what they were doing but they didn’t. I was out more money, and out a company, from that company I only have one client I see as a personal friend. He would always make suggestive comments and steal money from the business accounts for his own personal use. When I closed the business account I lost my best friend who was like a brother to me.
My half sister sent me to a nice school for neuropathy and told me that if I wanted to continue there, I would need to lose 100 pounds. Between working and full time school, I could barley keep my head above water, with my student loans, and working I did all I could to go to the gym and it still wasn’t enough. After one year at the school my sister cut my funding for it saying I wasn’t losing weight and I should be fat forever. Hurt by her words and my recent break up with an ex who used me for money, I got back to the gym and got down to a size I wanted. I did gain it back, I just am working on slowly losing it. However, I find I’m happy in my own skin with who I am. I went through a bankruptcy in order for my head to at lease break even.
I’m perfectly imperfect because I don’t generally fit anybody’s idea of who I should be. I am a unicorn in my heart and I love rainbows and sparkles. I lost my bio dad 9 years go due to stage four cancer, with only a month to live. Right as I was leaving my abusive ex. I recently I lost my stepdad who fell in a work place accident and went into a coma, sadly he never came out of it. My stepdad was more in my life than my real dad and who also came out of the closet and apparently loves me for being Bisexual. He told me to be proud of who I was, both him and my mom loved life. He was into drag and loved colours. I’m imperfect because of my university training to become a health caregiver, but then I went into construction. I had my own business, I was sexually assaulted when I was little, I abused mentally, physically, financially, and emotionally, I don’t think anything about my life will ever be perfect, but I can just love me for me, I love being naked and have done many photo shoots with boudoir, I love the colour of my hair and skin. I also love Beautiful Disaster because I may get hated on for my life, but really I love my life. My friends say I’m a positive force that make them feel better about themselves. My best friend is my own client from my cleaning days, who helped my stepdad come out of the closet and I love her very much as she loves me. I have many friends who are not toxic people who love me, and I give love to all of them.
Fortunately, my boyfriend today knows how much I love him and he shows me his love and I show up for him caring and loving telling him all the time. All he can say is “thank you, I love you.” It makes me smile.
That’s why I am Beautiful Disaster.