Melissa Frasier: Her Family Turned Against Her When She Needed Them The Most

My life is always a chaotic crazy disaster.  Yes, I am flawed beyond words, broken 100 times, use my nine beautiful disaster lives, going on currently the 16th life. Fabulous, wonderful, crazy, insane, broken, dark, you name it I have felt it and still feel it. But no matter what, I’m still loyal and true, kind hearted, sensitive, confusing. I am a beautiful disaster. I live my life with no regrets, I own my mistakes fuck ups, I’m definitely proud to be a mean 46 years old. I’ve been in the darkest places never thinking I would come out feeling absolute despair. I never knew there was such desperation that you can feel, but I managed to come out. I always pulled myself together and get through it and I face it head on - and I do mean head on with everything.

I was lucky because I really did have an amazing family growing up. I had those amazing people that told me no matter what to always be confident with myself and that they never doubted me.  I never looked at others and thought I want what they want. I was always content and happy with myself so I feel I was very lucky to see myself that way.  Yeah I was always kind of in trouble here in there but usually with good reason. I always try to protect other people that maybe were like me; If somebody was picking up someone I would be the first person to jump in and I would scrap with anybody if they went after someone for the wrong reasons. It was almost like I was destined to be the caretaker - I always wanted to take care of others and make sure everybody else was ok. Pretty much always neglecting myself but I’m ok with that. Still I always say that I believe in people, can trust people. Unfortunately sometimes this was my downfall. I know it can be a very bad thing, because it has snapped back in Copley Square in the jar quite a few times.

I have always loved drinking and partying - it was like the weekends were made for me. I had such an amazing time on the weekends. I worked my butt off all week and then got together with friends to go out and dance all night and just have fun like there was no tomorrow.  I did get arrested couple times from drinking and driving. I got arrested the last time from taking a drive when I knew I was in trouble. I was going back to jail, it was mandatory time. I really felt bad for my family having to deal with that - I knew I could get through it and that I would be ok, I just wanted  family to go back to. Just as much I knew I would get through that and find the good in it but everything happens for a reason and I try to pull the positive parts from it and learn from and to be able to handle the things that I’ve handled in my life. Jail stopped me from continuing on that path. I needed something major to put a grinding halt in my selfishly behavior. I was not in my right mind I had no right being behind the wheel so but it is what it is and you can’t blame me for moving forward. I definitely felt very empathetic and guilty about a lot of things and I don’t know why I try to take the burden on of everything but I do. My fault or not.  

Jump to 2014. I'm having great life like I said I always was content and comfortable with myself. But I turned 40 I was in an accident that has changed things that I could’ve never imagine my life in the direction that it’s gone.  I just having a good time, having fun and I was sober. I’ve been sober for a long time after I got out of jail. I really slowed my life down considerably and drinking just wasn’t for me - I just never wanted to go through that again and I just had no desire I took care of everybody when we were hanging out on the weekends.  Everybody would tell me I was the one that was going to get hurt seeing as that I was the sober one. I shrugged it off until I got woken up in the hospital with no clue as to why I was there, looking at my mom and the doctor standing there telling me I was going to have emergency surgery on my leg. I look at my mom and all I wanted was a cigarette. There was no concern about with the doctors we’re talking about and I told them we’re going to go home and will come back tomorrow for the surgery.  Of course my mother set up and came over and explained to me that I was not leaving or going anywhere.  Then I started to feel things on the right side of my head - I felt like I got hit by train. Then they start talking about my leg and then I started noticing there’s something really wrong here. I couldn't move it with the doctor telling me that my left leg was torn in half on the inside is nothing there in the knee area. It was a black hole anticipation is running rampant thinking just get to it the inevitable question of him I got.  He said everything could be put back together and stitch together and I would be walking, with some obvious restrictions. 

I just wanted to talk to my brother, he was my best friend, we did everything together. Then I started to remember the last minute, a few seconds and we were just having a good time driving down the driveway in his truck.  I remember losing control and I remember seeing a rock and a very big boulder there and knowing that we were going to hit it. I’m pretty thankful I guess I don’t remember what happened after that because just from the description it seems pretty heart wrenching, as my brother was in shock and my little brother was there as well. Everybody was kind of standing back now while they were in disbelief at what just happened so he was today there I was with Ranger. I just didn’t want him to feel guilty. My empathy kicked in right away end it just brought me literally to the ground like so ticked me so hard to stomach and I couldn’t get up. I just don’t ever regret things and that feeling I just wish I could take it away from him. I didn’t want him to feel bad I didn’t want him to be in pain and have to think that he hurt his sister. I couldn't imagine being in his shoes so I tried to blame myself publicly to everybody I didn’t want anybody to be upset with him.  I’ll say this  - my brother is the kindest person person in the world is never done anything wrong and sadly the one mistake he makes was at 38 years old and it was this drinking and driving and hitting a rock and having his sister was taken away to the hospital and being arrested. I just I have a hard time still talking about it because I don’t know why I feel so much pain from it but I do.  I said I would’ve given anything to take away his pain and take away that situation from him.

So after having surgery and being in the hospital for a week I could finally go home. I was in a full cast from my ankle all the way up to the top of my hip. Amazingly I was told I could walk on my leg and they had put a crease of kneecap back in that spot and wired all the tendons and ligaments back together. It was quite amazing that I could walk on it but I could and I did pretty good rather quickly. The head injury was something else. I think I really wasn’t ready for any of that, I just had a positive attitude, which is good except sometimes it caught me off guard when I would go to do things and they told me I couldn’t do it. They told me there were things I would never be able to do again. I just didn’t believe the doctors and the neurologist. It’s kind of funny in a way, but yeah the doctors would always say that I was the worst patient because I never listened to them. There were times where I would go do something and I couldn’t, so it broke me down pretty hard but I will get through it. In no way shape or form am I blaming what’s happened to me or what I went through on my brother. It’s a situation that happened and that’s it.

I don’t know how to explain this part to you how I look at this but like I said I would do anything to take it away. But there are circumstances when these things happen where people do make mistakes accidents happen should happens so I’m always trying to protect him from this so we will move on from him and we will just focus on this incident that happened to me so here.  They had told me that I would most likely be on pain meds for the unforeseeable future and I knew that was not true but most of the time you know I had put off drinking for so long. But the pain meds seem to be something I used to enjoy. Sadly to this day, it was more for partying and then it became a crutch when something was wrong - it was easy to numb the pain. 

So it was a couple weeks after the accident and now the concern is that I get a lawyer.  I couldn’t get a lawyer. How was I going to see my brother and not know how this all worked? I didn’t have a choice but to get a lawyer and it’s a shitty situation have to be in because everybody looked at it like it was personal, like I want to do an LC my brother so I can get money. I literally had no choice. My brother had even spoken to me after the accident and said he needed me to get a lawyer because he did want me to be compensated. He was concerned so he said this will be much easier for me to deal with if you are taken care of to an extent  financially. So I did get a lawyer but it was awful because these were my family and my friends property that we were ruining. It was just heart wrenching because everyone did take it personal and slowly everybody turned on me. I was devastated by it and when I had to talk to my lawyer I would have somebody else there and have them deal with everything because I just couldn’t. I would check out I could not handle it. Bottom line lies even though I knew I wasn’t attacking my brother, my friends and everybody had made it seem that way so the guilt I felt was just sickening. I felt like I was betraying everybody by having a lawyer and doing this. So it took a lot of strength just to get through that part of it and eventually it was settled.

I didn’t recognize the life I had created -  I had a rock thrown through my window, I had messages left on my phone telling me not to come into town, just nasty things were said about me and basically it was everybody that I knew and loved it. They had turned their back on me and the worst part was my brother, and even my little brother, turned on me. That broke me in a way I didn’t think I would come back from. To hear people say that I ruined my brothers life by getting in the truck with him and not putting my seatbelt on, and look at what I did to him... Everybody said it was my fault because I got into the truck and I didn’t put my seatbelt on. This was close family that said this to me as well, so it was hard enough because I wasn’t that girl I was before. I looked in the mirror now and I didn’t recognize this girl with the brain injury. I was slower than used to be to be, someone who functions off of chaos - the more going on literally the better I did.  I couldn’t help having more than one thing going on because I would just fall apart and this is something that will always be with me to an extent. But the hardest part was chipping away at me - how do I come back from this? People don’t want to be a part of my life anymore and it wasn’t just people, it was my family it was my best friend my brothers etc. 

So it was five years of counseling to where I could finally slowly start to see lights and granted, I still have days where I struggle with where I am today. I don’t feel like I’m that strong of girl. I’ve made decisions in the past five years they have put me in bad situations just decisions I would never have made if I was still that girl I recognized. She would never have allowed anyone or anything to stop her from doing what she needed to do with her life. Now it was dictated, I didn’t make any decisions at all. I am still dealing with all of this. I will always be me but I’m much better than it looks. The holidays are difficult on my mother because none of us want to be in the same room together, it’s too difficult. I learned that for my brother this is how he can live with what’s happened. Out of sight, out of mind. When I’m in the same room you could cut this awful tension with a knife. So if their lives are easier without me being around that’s what I needed to do.  It's still hard on my mom and like I said sometimes it’s still hard on me. But it’s really not anything like it was. I deal with it and I don’t break down anymore. It’s all very different how I process these things. I try not to dwell on it anymore, I try not to let it consume me. 

It took five years of therapy to really learn how to do that and although I still don’t recognize that girl I don’t recognize who I see in the mirror today she's still there. I get more recognizable as time goes on. I see little part of me coming back again and I just have to be patient and know that maybe I won’t come back 100% but I will come back to that girl I was where I will look in the mirror and I will be confident with myself, and content and happy with the life that I have because that’s the only way you could live. I can’t continue to be upset and hurt and distraught over my brother's decision not to talk to me. This is the choice that they made and that everybody chose to look at me and judge me and that’s OK that’s their lives everybody has the right to live. It’s not my business anymore, what people choose to say about me. Yes it’s been a lot of cruel things that have been said and I kind of laugh at this saying because they say "It’s always the people you love the most that hurt you." Well yeah, because if you weren't close them and didn’t know them it wouldn’t hurt you. You wouldn’t be phased by them so when people are cruel to me - and they are - I just have to sit back and realize that it’s not me I haven’t done this. It’s them and their weaknesses. There are a lot of mean, cruel, heartless human-beings out there and yet I still believe that everybody has the best intentions. I still get hurt by that but I am not going to allow anybody to change my heart no one will ever be able to leave a dark spot on my heart they can’t hurt me. This heart has been through so much and it just keeps coming out on top and wants to fight for the best life and happiest life. So I am going to continue this fight and I am going to do it to the best of my ability in the craziest and kindest way. It's about staying positive and you've got to want to fight for yourself because there’s gonna be times where nobody else is there to be loyal to you or have your back. I have definitely been through a lot of this alone with nobody else there, so I just hope that I can help somebody. Never let anybody change who you are, don’t let people's opinions of you change who you are - you have got to stay strong and stay true to yourself and that is my Beautiful Disaster.