posted June 08, 2005 12:28 AM         

No one's life is easy, so forgive me if I sound woeful. In actual fact, I am quite the contrary and I strongly believe I have been given a blessing in disguise.

As the first and eldest child of parents who were not in love, and did not create a family unity of love, I believe I have suffered from this.

From puberty onwards I have searched for love in the form of a soul mate. The One who was going to complete me. I have always believed I would find my perfect mate one day and live happily ever after, even through all the rain!

I attended a Catholic school until the end of my first year of highschool, where I was asked to leave because my behaviour was out of control.

I just wanted people to notice and like me, and make people laugh. I didn't want negative attention, though that's what I was creating.

My parents, teachers and psychiatrists/counsellors said it was attention-seeking behaviour. Counsellors and teachers asked my parents if I was getting enough love at home, which made me embarassed because after being denied love from my parents I certainly wasn't going to ask for it.

My brother was born when I was 18 months and I believe I was somehow unlovable because I feel from the minute he was born he was given what I was not.

My first sister arrived in my first year of school, and then five years later I had another sister.

It was then that my mother became maternal and bestowed all she could on my brother and sisters. My mother once told a psychiatrist of mine that I was difficult as a child, temperamental and didn't like to be shown affection.

I feel my mum holds some resentment for me.

I always felt like the target for whatever parental frustration was lingering, and felt like I was punished and disregarded more because I was harder to sympathise with.

It was through this lack of love that I was led to boys, who of course had no ability to love me the way I needed to be loved. I wasn't promiscuous, I tended to have crushes. More than anything I craved a bf and felt that I needed one more than I needed anything else, because I was hurting so badly.

After a first rough year of highschool I was homeschooled for a year and a half, and if I wasn't isolated before I certainly was then.

I met my first boyfriend (Pisces) and I wanted to run away. I kept a close eye on a drawer my mum kept money for bills and things in, hoping I could steal it so that I could get away.

One night I called my boyfriend and I was told he had left town. "Richard's gone", I was told.

It broke my heart, because it instantly felt like rejection and betrayal.

I attempted suicide by lying on a train track. I was very drunk, and I was hit on the 25th June, 1997 at 3am by a freight train. I had snuck out of the house and taken wine casks with me.

I survived, having had my right hand over the track and my legs positioned on the track also. I lost fingers on my right hand, my right foot and my left leg had to be amputated below the knee because it was badly crushed.

Having fallen asleep drunk on the track, I woke up when I heard the train approaching. If I had not been so drunk I would have been too scared to stay there. It is etched in my mind forever. I told myself that I had to lie there and I could not move, that I could not handle this pain anymore and that this had to be done.

That was almost 8 years ago. Since then my life has only gotten better as it has progressed. I have artifical legs and I can walk, but it has taken me a long time to accept that this is the price I am paying for happiness. I had great friends but I couldn't ever explain to them what I was feeling. I didn't know what was happening to me. I thought life was hell.

I thought life was meaningless. I created my own sense of security which I still have today. As a Gemini I see it as my higher self and the positive side of me. I still feel a lot of negativity and pain from the world, not for myself but for everything. I find it hard to live.

I have a 3 year old daughter now and I am struggling with parenting, especially as a single mother where the father is not just absent physically.

I was told a few months ago that I would meet my soul mate and now I am engaged to a man of that description, who I feel makes my life more fulfilled, and takes me closer to achieving total spiritual fulfillment.

I'm very excited to have discovered Linda Goodman's other books. I have always pored over my dad's copy of Sun Signs and marvelled at how accurately my family is perceived under their signs.

I'm a Gemini with a Scorpio mother and Capricorn father, which is difficult! My sisters were Pisces and Cancer, and formed a trinity of love with Mum. I used to call them her lungs. She nurtured them so easily.

I resent that I treated my brother and sisters badly out of jealousy. I still tend to, at times.

My Libran brother is a blessing to me, as is my Piscean sister. My other sister is a Cancer and we are very distanced, but I know I have lessons to learn from her and I know that she knows me well. We do not have an active involvement but more of an understanding. We're alike.

My parents are still together, for whatever reason. There's no romantic involvement, and I doubt they have what you'd even call a friendship. There's no communication. My dad is unhappy and has love to give. My mum has no love for him and no love for me, I'm sure of it.

But I have never loved her either, because I've never known her.

I am grateful that I know love now. I have found real love. I have MADE LOVE, which I have never experienced anything like in my sexual experiences.

I have always believed there's a meaning to life, but I've always been terrified there wasn't.

Not anymore

posted June 08, 2005 09:56 AM         

As for the meaning of Life, well, I like to think the Conversations with God series seemed pretty close, but also pretty basic. In its essence I believe the meaning is always individual. No two people have the same meaning, and that in itself is the meaning! Trying to live with so much diversity and yet all meaning's fall short. What is the meaning of pain? Is there a way to master pain? Maybe we should concentrate on that more as it could help with living

But seriously, thanks for coming to Linda Land. I think you could help heaps of people with your knowledge and words On behalf of Humanity, I apologise for any misgivings and past injustices. I understand your greivances, and yet, we are different people so our experiences are different, but I think I understand.

Heaps of Love,
Dean.

posted June 08, 2005 07:39 PM         

Have fun reading and contributing to LindaLand.

posted June 08, 2005 07:41 PM         

Sesame, my DOB is 31st May 1982. I think I'm a 2. I was told by my friend's mum that this year would be good for me from my birthday onwards because Gemini is ruled by 5. This year being 2005, I turned 23 on the 5th month. 23 = 5

I think of pain as a test now, and I feel lucky to have learned quicker because of it.

posted June 08, 2005 08:21 PM         

I saw the name 'bleakbeauty' on a few threads, and I thought "what a cool name, I have to go introduce myself" and even though I have been here and there off and on all day today, I was reluctant to visit these posts....
Here I am. I read your story. Now I know why I was reluctant.
I felt that pain ~although I must say, you seem distant from it~
Is that a mechanism for growth?
Do you feel you have learned?

posted June 09, 2005 02:34 AM         

It is so nice to hear that you have found purpous and meaning in your life after being through so much. I hope your days continue to get brighter and brighter as they go by.

posted June 09, 2005 06:46 AM         

I related very much with the feeling of absence of love, and have had those crazy feelings of self-mutilation, though I've never acted on one ever.

Gemini is my ascendant, so I wonder if that's why I identify with the pain. I'm a Cap sun, though, and was very religious and spiritual growing up (I'm opening myself up to spirituality again now after a long hiatus). If it weren't for my own internal grounding I wonder if I'd have done something drastic as well.

posted June 09, 2005 10:20 PM         

Just as you did, I feel everyone goes thru a fear of being unloved. They tend to get withdrawn. Support is so key during such times that we find ourselves in deeper waters of pain with none coming. Lucky are those who have a friend during such trials. I am surprised that even though you had the privilege of so many siblings, yet not one was there when you needed them.

So many times, during such, even I wished, I had some good friends. I didn't. I guess being too individualistic has its own disadvantage. Is freedom and independence good if its not shared?

Well the truth is today you are hopeful and filled with love. And see others that way. Keep it up. Thats encouraging for me.

posted July 07, 2005 10:53 PM         

That's beautiful.