To see the intro to this story, please read The Ice Castle Within - Part I

I tried to plug-in every nook and cranny so that no one got through my defenses. I think I probably had even dug a moat and filled it with alligators too, if I wasn’t so cold..perhaps polar bears instead. It was better that way because if I cared, then I would get hurt. So instead of bonding with people, I learned to bond with animals. I was a strange child in that I could make friends with feral animals as well. Animals that no one else could get near, I could love and be loved by them. They gave unconditionally, never made fun of me, nor did anything to hurt me. Whoever said children are cruel is correct, so I believe it must be in our innate nature that we are born with to push out the competition. But animals gave me the love and attention that I was secretly craving and desperate for, so I have forever more had lots of pets around me. They give me something I am missing, something apparently my heart thinks I need, although my brain likes to argue with it at times. On another plane, my mother would get onto me for crying if something upset me, saying I would get sick and my sinuses infected if I did not stop it. If I wanted to watch a sad cartoon such as the original Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, in which the Little Mermaid actually passed away by becoming foam of the sea and air, she would threaten that I would not be allowed to watch such things if it made me cry. So by this time, I had learned to A) NEVER show emotion, B) NEVER to allow anyone to think I cared about someone else, and C) to internalize everything. No one must know the inner me is what I believed. In a way, it’s an irony that she thinks I am a cold-heartless person because if anything, she made me what I am today. She never got onto me though for loving animals.

As time progressed, I slowly saw how other unattractive girls were treated by the popular kids. They were laughed at, called names, etc. I did NOT want to attract any unwanted attention to myself, so I steered clear of the whole liking another person scene. I tried once to give out Valentine cards while in elementary school and to give a guy I was friends with and kind of liked, a special one. He poked fun at it, wanting to know why I gave him that one…I just shut down and said it must have been a mistake, that I didn’t mean to do it. He blew it off, and that was the end of it. As I moved up into junior high, I developed several crushes, but did I dare share it with anyone…? no, not for a while, and then I finally told one of my two best friends. We had fun with it, but I would NOT let her tell him, nor would I tell him either. While hiding in my castle within, I had developed a fear of rejection as well. See my parents were going through their SECOND divorce to each other. In fact, my father left us on my 13th birthday, and I refer to that year, as the year from hell. Anything that could go wrong, did.

I learned from my parents that married people just fought with each other, that all men must be jerks, and that they will only hurt you. Why? Well, my dad had developed a gambling problem. When he would go out with his buddies and gamble, they would all drink to being past the point of drunkeness. My mom gave him the option of choosing his family or choosing his friends, so he left us. During that time period, I only visited my dad twice. I refused to have any contact with him, although my little brother chose to. But my little brother did not understand the way I felt, nor was he ever told about it until he was grown up. He never saw dad come home and pass out in the front yard. He never came in and saw dad put his fist through the wall in a temper-tantrum. My little brother has a bit of a hearing problem, so he’s very hard to wake up via sound. He inherited it from our father, who is actually deaf and hears through only one ear via a high-powered hearing aid. He never saw dad try to choke our mother to death, and never had to beat his father off of his mother. I did. Dad never laid a finger on me, but I would do anything to protect my mother because deep down inside this cold-heartless person, I love her more than life itself. That was the last straw, and why mom made him make a decision. She said that sometimes love just isn’t enough. I shortly thereafter vowed to never marry and that I did not want children, although somewhere deep down, I had this weird feeling that I wouldn’t be able to have kids anyway. I had seen first hand what I thought relationships were about, and I wanted no part of it.

Over a year or so, my dad straightened himself out on his own. He quit the toxic friends (borrowing the term from NK), quit the alcohol, and quit the gambling. He turned his life around, and eventually, my parents remarried each other for the THIRD time. Mom jokingly told him there would not be another divorce because three strikes he would be out, and she would just kill him and get it over with. She would never really do it, but let him know that she was done with any games he wanted to play, get serious, or she was done forever with him. We had all became a family again, but I had learned to hide things from family and friends. I never told them what was going on at home with the exception of my best friend (T) that lived next door. She had gone through similar things and understood where I was coming from. She was the sister that I never had, and that I needed. She was never cruel or mean to me, no matter how fat and ugly I was. I did use to tease her about being short..and then one day, she became taller than me, and roles were reversed…but I was okay with that. The teasing was the only form of affection that I had ever learned to show because it could be played off if I needed my defenses and then shot back down. We were as close as two peas in a pod. She was only 19 days older than me..although technically, I guess I am the older since I was born at past 10 months… LOL. We liked the same music for the most part and just enjoyed having fun together.

Throughout high school, I slowly became “one of the guys.” My other best friend (C) had grown toxic on me. At the time, I internalized everything so much that I couldn’t see the light for the trees, so to speak. She would wheedle and needle me until I would share who I had developed a crush on. We would make up nicknames for the guy because I was so fearful of him finding out. She would then constantly barage me with teasing about it. During this time, I was not allowed to date because I wasn’t yet 16. Everyone else I knew, had already had a boyfriend/girlfriend. I simply felt ignorant and stupid, besides naive. Although I was a band nerd, I was also popular in my high school. I was the strange, but unrelenting and unjudging person that could actually mingle with any group or “click” I chose. I didn’t pick on others and did not tolerate injustices against anyone. Although I could hang with the popular crowd, I really chose not to so much. They just wanted to party, have sex, and drink all the time. I didn’t see that as a good form of entertainment. I hung out with my friends from the other schools and my band friends. We had such good times.

Then, one day, I realized that both C and T really were into dating guys. I was kind of left in the cold. It wasn’t intentional, I don’t think, on either one of their parts. They both knew I had crushes, but that I really didn’t do much about it. I finally decided to take a chance on a guy, and tell him how I felt… it turned out, I had grown up around him, and he was T’s other best friend. Unfortunately, where personalities were alike between T and me, the similarities end. Where I was fat, acne covered, and ugly, she was slim, tall, and beautiful. Guys just followed her like puppy-dogs. She NEVER rubbed it in my face though. She, however, was not pleased that I had a crush on her other best friend. Her other best friend was in love with her, and thought since T and me acted alike, that I could be her…so naturally THAT didn’t work out. Plus, on the side-line, C started calling him up and talking to him as well. He did NOT like C at all.

Since it didn’t work out, I moved on, but everytime C would find out what guy I liked, she would go after them for herself. She would then ask me if I wanted to know what he thought of me. For some idiotic reason, I would say yes, because deep down, I was forever hopeful and optimistic. Then she would tell me that I should have NEVER liked the guy because all he would do is talk about her fat and ugly friend. That he didn’t want me hanging around all the time, that I was a third wheel. Well, needless to say, I figured out in the end just how toxic she was. And these guys, almost never went to our school because my fellow guy classmates referred to me “as one of the guys” and would protect me like a sibling. You just can’t date your siblings, it isn’t right..no matter if they are related to you or not.

The final straw with C was when she called up the guy I liked and was planning to ask to the prom. He didn’t like me for more than friends, but had stipulated that if I called and asked him on my own, he would go as friends. That he wouldn’t go if someone called and asked for me because he wanted ME to do the asking. He and T went to the same school together, so that is the reason I knew. Well, C had called and asked if I had a prom date yet, and I told her not yet and what I had to do. As soon as I got off the phone with her, I tried to call him..and his line was busy. Hours later, I told T that I couldn’t get a hold of him, so she would find out what was up the next day at school. Turns out C called him as soon as I got off the phone, and asked him for me..oh purpose. Why I still wonder? jealousy? competition? I’ll never know because she could have any guy she wanted, but just had to always ruin MY life. C just said she was sparing me the hurt, and it turns out, that I believe she asked him as her date as well, but he gave her a flat out NO. That was the final straw, and I cut my ties with C at that point. Our whole high school..which was SMALL, had already decided to hate her to begin with. She got away with stuff because she was a school employee’s daughter, stuff that no one else was allowed to get away with. She enjoyed flaunting it in their faces, and had done such awful things to me in the past, that my classmates would not forgive her.. Everyone always thought I was just too nice, and I always appeared to them as the happy go-lucky, super-nice, super-understanding person that would do anything for a friend.

But I had learned my lesson the hard way, that you can’t trust anyone, not even those that are closest to you. That the saying, “3 can keep a secret if 2 are dead” was as real as it got. By this time, T had dated a guy from my school that just didn’t want me hanging around. After they broke up, and some time had passed, I set T up with another friend from my school. At first, it was great. We all three hung out together, and then he brought one of his friends along so I wasn’t so much a third wheel. Then his friend started dating others, and there wasn’t enough room for me to tag along. Because that is all I had become, a tag along. We started fighting a lot when she would break plans to hang out with me. I didn’t know that she was with a guy that had said she had to choose me or him..and she chose him.

After that, I developed friendships, but just tried not to get too close because I discovered that in the long run, the only one you can depend on is yourself. As I moved on with my life, I went to college and developed new friendships. I dated a few guys. Some of them turned out to be jerks, and some of them did not. Those that did not, I remained friends with. I was fooled by one guy that seemed so nice. Turns out that while we were at college, and dating a bit, he ALSO had a serious girlfriend back home that he made no mention of until much later. I felt like such scum, but then realized that they only scum was he because HE was the one who did that..not me. I have seemingly had very many unsuccessful relationships..well at least a few LOL. I have learned quite a few lessons that I will keep with me.

Currently, I have not found my mister right. Perhaps I never will, but I will not dwell on that. I still try to bottle things up a bit too much, and some of my friends have learned when I am not happy or thinking about stuff that I shouldn’t. It must be too telling on my face. I am still afraid to let the walls melt just a bit to let others in..but hopefully, that will eventually change….