Got a story for you.
There's this woman, and she's alone on New Year's Eve, which is not unusual.
She spent Christmas alone, too.
She's been alone most of her life. She's now getting close to 50 years old , and she's sick of being alone, but doesn't have the faintest idea of how to stop being alone.
She's the oldest of three children, abandoned by her father when she was 10 years old. Her two younger siblings are disabled, one physically, the other psychologically. Her mother is now a single mother who works and works and works.
Her childhood ends at 10 years old.
So, at the tender age of 10, she's told by every adult person in her life that she's got to take care of her brother and sister now. That because they have problems they have to come first. She's got to be responsible for them.
So she is. She grows up quickly. When she's 11, she gets on the subway with her younger sister and her brother so she can take him to the doctor. By the time she's 14, she's heard a lot of, "Don't need a babysitter, we've got D." She is the responsible one. She does the dishes every night. She cooks, she does the grocery shopping, she does the laundry.
What the poor, stupid adults don't realize is that by telling her that her brother and sister have to come first that they're also telling her that she doesn't matter. She's not important.
The situation is made worse because she is also being bullied at school. She is constantly tortured by the other kids, told that she's ugly and doesn't deserve to live. The bullying kids aren't corrected; in fact, she is sent from the room so she won't be a target.
She spends 7th and 8th grade sitting by herself during lunch time, unwanted and ignored.
When she reaches high school, she's asked to rate herself by a teacher. She gives herself a "3."
She believes what everyone has ever told her. That's she ugly, doesn't matter to anyone, and doesn't deserve to live.
She finds solace in three things: food, reading, and singing.
Time passes. She makes it through high school and into the second year of college when there is devastating news.
Her mother has cancer.
Because she never stopped being responsible, she takes care of her mother. She changes her mother's bandages every day after her mother comes home from the hospital. When her mother spends the last four months of her life in the hospital, she goes there, every day, after work to take care of her.
Her mother dies when she's only 23, and she moves into her own apartment. By the time she's 36, she's got her own co-op. She's learned very well how to live alone. She's very self-sufficient.
When she's 46, she's laid off from her job. There are one or two friends, but they have their own problems. Her sister lives two thousand miles away, and she hasn't seen her brother in over 10 years.
She has no support system.
She decides to go into business for herself, but there's barely enough money to pay the bills, let alone do something nice for herself. She hasn't bought any decent clothes for herself in almost two years. The job is pure isolation. Days will pass before she sees another human being.
She's 48 now, going on 49. She has never come first in anyone's life but her own. She doesn't matter to anyone, so somehow she's got to matter to herself.
She wants 2012 to be the year she stops being alone, but she doesn't know how to do it.
People tell her to go out and join some groups or something. Do something so she isn't so isolated all the time. It's a good suggestion.
The only problem is that she's terrified of doing that.
Terrified that she'll only be told again: "You don't matter."
Somebody please help her. Please.
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