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Kellie_Cantrell
Senior Member
since 2002-05-22
Posts 1667
New York

0 posted 2002-09-24 01:23 AM


Hi. My name is Alysen. Just call me Aly, everyone else does. I am a typical 17-yr. old; you know blonde hair, baby blue eyes and the figure of Britney Spears. HaHa not even close. I am far from typical or even normal. I have lived through much abuse and misunderstanding. My parents divorced when I was very little. I never really had a father figure that would stick around long enough to get attached too. I am the first born but since my family went through so much trauma drama I have four sisters and three brothers. Almost all of us have different fathers, most of which our mother cannot tell us if its Mark, Ryan, Chris or Jon. Talk about unreliability.

Life at my house has always been a mudslide of emotion. My mom sisters and I share one bedroom while my brothers share the other in our tattered house that is dirty from floor to ceiling. The carpet is so warn that you can see the pink padding underneath in many spots. Messes are everywhere whether its moldy food or dirty clothing its all over everything. It cannot be healthy to live here. I try to help as much as I can. I am struggling keeping up with school and holding two jobs to keep us off welfare.

My life has always been upside down, but that was normal to me. Everything a regular kid thought was weird about me and my life was normal to me. I thought everyone lived like this. I had been living this way all my life. So when I turned 14 things really started to turn upside down. I was overwhelmed. I ran into many abusive relationships with boys. I also began to experiment with drugs. One night a week or two after my 15th birthday I was with an older boy named Kyle. He was 20 at the time. A husky, tall quarterback type of guy. Big and strong. We were experimenting with weed that night. We got high together and ended up having sex in a hayloft. We did not realize we were even doing anything wrong at the time. We did not know if we were protecting ourselves either. Looking back on myself I really do not think we cared. Our relationship continued for about a year and 3 months. So did the weed and sex.  I finally broke up with Kyle in February. He really started getting abusive. The bruises were the most disgusting color you could ever imagine. I could not understand why he would want to hurt me. Why my family why me.

At this point in my life, I was taking for granted what was truly supposed to be a gift, my heart. I had no patience and no self-control. I was free to do whatever I wanted. My life was headed down the wrong path. In my experience with my relationship with Kyle, I not only lost huge chunks of my heart but he also got me addicted to weed. I thought my only way out was to get help. I found my help in a rehab support group. This got me back on track. I felt that I was headed somewhere in life.

I was 16 and back in school. It was my Jr. yr., and I was having a rough time in my classes and with the people around me. My past was tearing apart my future. There was nothing I could do about it but to change. I wanted the change to be positive so I spent three weeks deciding and researching what type of person I wanted to be. I was interrupted when Nathan moved in across the street. He was gorgeous. Beyond cute. Well he was a lot like Kyle, into drugs and alcohol. I was not aware of that until six months into the relationship. One night I was spending the night at his house, his parents were out of town and my mother had her newest significant other over. We started our night by just watching a couple of horror films and eating popcorn. I was getting sleepy and Nathan noticed. The next thing I knew we were smoking pot and chugging down beer. I could not resist Nathan. He tempted so well. Consequently, we ended upstairs in his bed together. We most definitely had unprotected sex. I was very irresponsible with my body and my life. I knew what I was doing was wrong. Getting high did not give me any satisfaction, and sex was unpleasurable.  

I was unhappy with everything about myself. I broke up with Nathan and started dieting. I would run everyday and eat maybe a piece of wheat bread and drink lots of water and that is it. My gym teacher noticed me losing a lot of weight. She called my mother and told her that she was concerned. My mom did not ever even mention it to me.  A week later in my gym class I passed out during fitness run. The teacher called 911 and I was taken to children's hospital where I was put on a feeding tube and diagnosed with anorexia. I did not have any trouble getting back on my feet after that. I was ready to eat again the minute the feeding tube was removed. I was still sad and lonely though.

My views changed as JR yr. came to and end. I missed so much school that I was forced to retake the year. I was happier but my life at home started to get very complicated. My mom's new boyfriend Reid was the worst yet. Her relationships are getting deadly. Reid is not only abusive to her but he is getting in drunken rages and taking his fist to all of the kids including myself. I think that he has at least raped or molested everyone of the kids. I am very insecure and frightened around him.

Everyone in the house I afraid to do anything about him. I thought I found a solution to my problems that involved him. I got into the Internet, which is very new to me and began chatting. I met a man named Riley he was 23 years old. He described himself as a 17yr old football player from a nearby school. I believed him and started a relationship with him. That tells you how vulnerable I was to people. We dated only a week before I moved in with him to get away from Reid. My heart was lost. I had no temptation. All I wanted was a place to stay until Reid was out of the picture. I thought I could get away with it with out having to sleep with him. I was shocked to see he was just like them all. I t took me a year of living with him and endless hours of unwanted sex for me to get out of denial about my doings. I was wrong and I knew it, but it was too late. I am now a victim of abuse. I always have been.

I went back home to my room. If I was experiencing all those awful things, I bet my siblings were too. Reid had raped and got my two younger sisters Megan and Airyn pregnant. I got pregnant from Riley. We were all going into this together. We would all be coming out of it together. I think that with all the support from each other we really made it through everything with no problems. My mother realized she had eight kids with three grandchildren on the way. She got herself together and into some therapy along with counseling for all the kids. She also went on welfare. Mom stopped dating realizing she had all the family she needed.

I ended up changing my life around too. I met a girl named Courtney who went to a Christian church. I started attending and realized that all my heart really desired was God. Today I am leaving my past behind. I have given up all of my sins to God and he has forgiven them all. My daughter is a year old and will be growing up in a healthy Christian environment. Learning to love God.  I am being baptized today and leaving my past in the past. Opening new doors to the most beautiful and glorious future.


© Copyright 2002 Kellie M. Cantrell - All Rights Reserved
Larry C
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Patricius
since 2001-09-10
Posts 10286
United States
1 posted 2002-09-24 02:58 AM


Well now, there is some creative writing! I've seen all those things in my social work past. Too common and too tragic. I like how you ended it. Well done.

Kellie, I'd like to encourage you to keep writing prose. Hopefully you will take a shot at short stories that are on a more positive level. Just a suggestion.

If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

2 posted 2002-09-24 08:18 AM


Hey. I really liked the introductory of this. The "Hello, my name is..." made for a nice, and very affable meeting of mind between the writer and reader.

I would have liked to have seen a bit more emotive description of the experiences. You gave A LOT of information, and I can imagine the emotion behind the thought, but as a reader, I want that drawn out for me...perhaps a personal preference, but I find that even when reading writing from a first person point of view, it helps to know a bit about the hows, wheres, whys, etc. regarding about how the persona came to experience that list of happenings. I think it helps to know first, who that person is, and then we will care how they became shaped into the being they are.

This could easily be five hundred pages. I would love to see you re-work this--from point of view--backward...with full descriptions. Smiling, even if it does not make this a great literary piece? It's a very effective writing exercize. There are some topics of much sensitivity here that could be explored in great depth. You have a mother-lode of writing material in this listing of events. Draw out the character, and make the reader care. Ah...let me correct me, don't MAKE the reader, but, seduce the reader into the interest of the characterization.

This is an excellent start Kellie. Write.

Kellie_Cantrell
Senior Member
since 2002-05-22
Posts 1667
New York
3 posted 2002-09-24 11:52 PM


Hey thanks for the comments. I actually love writing short stories.
This is the introduction or prologue to a novel/ teen drama story I plan on writing. I am going to go deeper into detail in that. But I will keep posting how I am doing on the novel. I am looking for a person or two to co-author it so if anyone would like to help lemme know.
Thanks
Kellie

Also Larry. if you were willing to give me background info on the things I am talking about in the story so I could make it more descriptive it would be very helpful. I really appriecate it. Thanks
Love Kellie

[This message has been edited by Kellie_Cantrell (09-24-2002 11:54 PM).]

EagleScorpion
Senior Member
since 2000-03-08
Posts 1644
Here, Now, Forever
4 posted 2002-09-25 12:26 PM


this all sounds so tragic..

but im glad to see you found yourself in the right direction now..

godspeed to you.

enjoyed this read.. im not a stranger to any of this.. have faith

I have sent you nothing but angels, and I have placed nothing but miracles before you.

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