Anti Blitz - Day #1 · 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝙎𝙄𝙁𝙔 🍓🐛🦋🌈⭐️🩷

8h (edited) • 🌈 Blitz

Anti Blitz - Day #1

TEAM NAME: Shake & Bake

PARTNER:

DATE: 10/03/2025

*** My posts for this will NEVER be this long again - I promise. You also don't have to read any of this. This post serves strictly as a my "proof" since I can't really take a picture for this.

While I definitely want to start being more active day-to-day (& will do so with Brian), I want to prioritize and focus on relationships this month. For me, doing the physical challenge would be taking the easy way out & I actually want to get something out of this & help myself... so, here it goes...

I'm going to steal a line from Bri's post where he said, "If you know me," but the thing is "if you know me" you probably still don't really know any of what I am about to type here.

I think my first memory of my dad being "off" was when I was 5. I remember him coming home and being so excited to see us & saying, "C'mon guys let's go in the pool." As a kid I thought that was awesome, & it was awesome, until it wasn't. He was drunk & probably high too. My mom knew it, but my brothers & I didn't because why would we.

When I was first born my dad got into a really bad motorcycle accident. He was prescribed oxycodone for the pain management and then just really never stopped taking it. The drinking got worse and the pills turned into harder stuff like heroine. He had multiple DUIs and was in/out jail frequently.

After multiple restraining orders & trips to DYFS, my parents finally got divorced when I was 12. To me, the divorce wasn't what I was sad about though. I was sad that we had to pack up all of our stuff, leave our house, and move into a rental condo in a neighboring town.

This is where the relationship stuff really started to mess with me. I was embarrassed & ashamed & at the time none of my friends had to move or had divorced parents. I would lie to my friends and say that I was just going to my grandma's house after school because I didn't want them knowing I lived in a condo. I would also lie to my friends and say that my dad was "on a business trip" whenever they'd come over because I didn't want them to know he didn't live with us.

Fast forward to a few years later. We were homeless for a brief time & had to move in with my aunt, moved 2 more times, and I went to a total of 3 high schools. However, my last really good memory of my dad was December of 2012 - my junior year of high school. I got accepted into a program that my high school offered. It gave the top 20 kids in the class the opportunity to earn 18 college credits. I was excited that I got in and he was excited for me. At this point he was clean. It was right after another rehab stay for him. He was funny & kind & proud & one of my favorite people at this time. I remember this day so clearly because he surprised me with a trip to Best Buy. I never had a laptop and I was going to need one for the program at school & for college. We picked out this pearly pink Vaio laptop. He said, "I'm getting this for you & they'll ship it right to your house" (he was living at PA at the time and I was still in NJ).

I try really hard to hang onto this day and the memories of this day. It's hard sometimes though because sometimes it competes with the reality of what came next. The laptop never came, he stopped calling and texting, he didn't show up for my little brothers' graduation even though I begged him to after he failed to show up for mine, and yeah... after all of this, I was done. I needed a break from the disappointment.

I stopped talking to him for 2 years. I would get drunken voicemails and gibberish texts, but I wouldn't answer. That is until April 8th, 2015. I got a text from my dad saying that my cousin shot himself & he passed. I was sitting in my dorm room, it was my freshman year of college, and I just remember feeling numb. I called my dad immediately and told him that I would get a ride to the funeral. I didn't have a car at the time, but thankfully a friend was able to drive me the 1.5 hours.

This was the first time I saw my dad in years. He looked puffy and drunk. He didn't look like himself at all. It felt like I was talking to a stranger because all he could say was, "Samster, you got big. You look so grown up." That's all he said. At the time, I remember being pissed off that he couldn't step up in that moment and embrace me and comfort me and just be my dad. But now, I am just glad that I got to have that moment, because it was the last moment I ever saw him or spoke to him.

On June 15th, 2015, only two months after my cousin, my dad passed away. It didn't hit me for a long time that he was actually gone. I feel like when you have a parent that is in/out of your life so much, it softens the blow of losing them a bit.

I thought him being dead would heal a lot of things for me, but it really didn't. I feel like it exacerbated them actually. The lying came back. I had a boyfriend for 6-months and anytime the topic of my dad came up I would just say, "Yeah, we don't really talk much." I hated talking about his death and I wanted to cover it up. Brian & I met in 2021, 6 years after my dad passed away, and he was the first guy that I ever opened up to and talked about any of this with. To this day, even some of my best friends don't know even 1% of this.

I hate that I have buried this all down and that I don't let anyone in or know me. In efforts to change this, I actually started going to therapy in February 2025 right after I left my job to work with Brian full time. It has been huge for me to open up, but I still have so many blocks when it comes to this topic. It effects my confidence, my self-worth, my health, and my relationships.

For this challenge, I wanted to kick it off with being the most vulnerable and open and honest that I have ever been in my life in regarding this topic. I mean why not "trauma dump" on 4.6k people lol. Oh, that reminds me since I used "lol"... I want to stop laughing this stuff off & act like I'm fine when I'm not actually fine. I want to be able to feel connected to my dad again and not have such a visceral response when people refer to addiction as "a disease."