Small Blue Home

I am 16 years old.  The little blue Dodge Colt has been sitting by the barn for a year now.  It was meant to be my brother's, but now he lives with my dad full-time and because of some infraction on his part the car is now mine.  It's a stick shift.  I had an hour's worth of instruction about how to drive a standard in driver's ed, but I don't care about my blunders as I work the wheel and pick up a friend and lurch toward the city.  It is my birthday- the dead of winter, and I don't care how I make my get-away, I am free.


This car sees me to the city many times, most of the time drunk and high.  It is my time machine- taking me to places far from what I have known- making everything disappear into a muddled past.  I am willing to let my former days feel like ages gone by.


When spring comes, I park my car at the town beach and sleep in it.  I have clothes and snacks- most of which I have stolen.  I live in my car.  It's a step up from sleeping in the streets.  And that was a step up from being under my parents' roof.  


 Under my sleeping bag, on a cold Vermont morning and sporting a hazy hang-over, I realize this is not exactly paradise.  But, it is damn close.

Child Abuse, Sexual Abuse, PTSD, Anxiety, Self-harm, Cutting, Depression, Survivor, Survivor of childhood abuse, Postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, OCD, Recovered memories, Repressed memories, Spousification, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicide, Teen Suicide, bullying, drug abuse, incest, memoir, Attachment Disorder, reactive Attachment Disorder, Physical Abuse, Mental illness