Writing has always been what I’ve excelled at more than anything else, but because of the emotional and mental damage done to me by my psychopaths throughout my life, I never pursued it seriously and always felt I didn’t know what I should be or do. At an early age I started to believe I wasn’t much good at anything anyway.

These are the lies and half lies that were told about and to me by the various psychopaths who got to control me (some are based on half truths):
1. Suzanne is smart, but will never excel at anything because she doesn’t apply herself (true, but I didn’t apply myself because I was told I couldn’t do anything).
2. She is too sensitive to make it in this world (you can be sensitive and be successful).
3. She doesn’t make friends easily because she has a terrible personality (I am shy and not very social but I do not have a terrible personality).
4. She’s negative and lives on the pity pot so she will never achieve anything (this has been true at times).
5. She’s lazy and unmotivated and always gives up (see # 1).
6. She doesn’t stick with anything long enough to get really good at anything (see #1).
7. No one wants to be around Suzanne because she’s such a Debbie downer (depression and PTSD caused by being abused by psychopaths).
8. She isn’t any good at office politics (This is true).
9. She should have become a nurse or a teacher because then she’d always have a good job. (I am totally unsuited for nursing and teaching).
10. If Suzanne was thinner she would be more successful and get better jobs (I have never been seriously overweight so this is a lie).
11. If Suzanne smiled more people would like her better (probably true, but smiling doesn’t come second nature to me–I am working on that).
12. She’s stupid and has no common sense (I am not stupid but it’s true I can be a bit of the “absentminded professor”)
13. She’s insane (insanity implies someone who isn’t aware of their own actions or motives or is deluded–I suffer and have suffered from major depression, C-PTSD, autism and avoidant personality disorder. These are not “insane” diagnoses).

You get the idea.

The closest I ever came to having a writing career were my two jobs as an editor–I was a technical writer and editor back in the late 1980s, then became a copy editor and later associate editor for a medical journal from 1989-1991. My job included writing a one page regular column, and I also used to write freelance reviews for self help and pop psychology books. These were all good jobs but none paid well. But honestly, I didn’t really like what I was doing (except for writing the book reviews). It was a very corporate environment and there was a lot of office politics so I was never 100% comfortable there.

After moving to North Carolina in 1993 after my second child was born, I never again had a job even remotely related to publishing or writing, and I thought I never would again.

I wrote a novel in 2003 but it was rejected by several publishers (and my narcissist mother said she hated it and I wasn’t ready to write a novel) so I put it in a box in the back of my closet and never looked at it again. It embarrassed me. So from then on I limited my writing to posts on forums or comments on other people’s blogs. I believed I had forgotten how to write, and even worse, I thought I lost my creativity. I never seemed to be able to come up with ideas anymore. What was really happening was I was so terrified of failure (and so brainwashed by my abusers that I always would fail) that it was just safer to never try anything new or take any risks. If I never tried anything, then I couldn’t really fail, could I? Why have ideas if you’re never going to act on them?

That’s faulty logic though, because if you never try anything new, accept a challenge, or take a risk, you may not fail at any activity but you will fail at life, and that’s a lot worse.

One of the benefits of freeing myself from the psychopaths in my life is occasional unexpected bursts of inspiration, and that’s how this blog came to be. Now that I write something every day, my creative muscle is strengthening and I feel like new ideas pop into my head several times a day now. I thought I’d have trouble even coming up with one post a day, but most days I have ideas for two or three. Blogging is something I should have started years ago; it might have led to something bigger and maybe even become a career.

But you know what? There’s no reason why it still can’t. I feel like I finally found my purpose after so many years of feeling like a lost ship without a rudder. I have a good feeling about it.