the story goes on…..

It is not that I don’t want to go into details about the actual brutality of the things I went through as a child; I know that you are smart enough and old enough to understand the complexities of those events. It actually hurts me more to recall them than it would to actually explain them.

In 1981 my parents finally divorced and we moved again as usual, but to say that the abuse both physical and emotional continued would be to tell the truth. If was always there always with a different man or boyfriend and trust me there were many in those years after the divorce, hell there were many before the divorce. My mother became a drunk and a drug addict in this time and well I have a feeling she was before even when she was married to my dad. Once again I went through beatings, broken arms, legs and collar bones; I went through emotional turmoil due to the fact that I was never taken care of except by my brother. I sometimes feel that if it weren’t for David I would have ended up in a worse position than I am in now. God Dylan if you only knew how many men she went through and the things she did, like leaving me and David alone while she went states away just for a man, leaving two young children alone to fend for themselves with no adult supervision.

I was fourteen when I finally left home, I could no longer live that kind of life, you see I was in fear for my life and in reality I was in fear for the next person who tried or actually succeeded in hurting me. I had to go don’t you see, if I didn’t I was going to either end up dead or in jail for killing the next person who hurt me, I just couldn’t take it anymore, fourteen is only one year away from where you are at right now. I had to lie to people to get a job, I know in my mind that they knew I was younger than I really was but somehow someway they gave me the job and I supported myself, I lived in an apartment, I rode my bike to work or was picked up by one of the guys. I was doing what most adults in this world cannot do for themselves right now at fourteen. No one understands that, they think I am telling a lie or just taking years off that I was actually older than that. This is the truth Dylan the plain simple truth. I moved a lot, took off and went to different states for no reason at all other than the sudden urge to leave, I could tell you it was random but I could feel it the fear creeping up on me so I had to go. Am I over that now? I can tell you that yes I am, I do not even want to move to another house anymore. Do I still get that feeling, yes I do but I know what it is now as to before I didn’t know what it was. The next time I saw my mother she was moving to New Mexico, so somehow she talked me into to going with her reenrolling in school and I got to the 12^th grade but I had to go again, this is the time that I moved to Kentucky, I was done, I was no longer in constant fear because I was as big then as I am now, 6’-2” tall and well if I didn’t weight that much I had learned a lot about protecting myself from Uncle Jack Fortenberry. But you have to understand that even then I still lived with the constant emotional abuse from my own mother, constant verbal harassment and always reminding me and taking me back into the past every time she got drunk or high. So like I said I left again and came to Kentucky. I was here and here was where I was going to stay.

Now I can tell you about my first marriage but it is a moot point the only thing you need to know is that you have a half brother. Jesus I have left out the whole St. Louis time where I met your brother Daniels mother. But that is really not what this story is about.

I will tell you some of the things that happened with your mother, I know you don’t really want to hear them but I am going to tell them anyways. I have done this several times. Fuck it I am not going into it, it doesn’t matter I don’t exist to her anymore by my own wishes.

The things I have told you the fears, and personality traits I learned over a life time of abuse and learning how to make myself as small as I can I this world so as to not be noticed have changed, I no longer want to run, I no longer want to hide who I am  or the things that has happened to me, I think that your mother has never understood any of these things I have ever told her, I don’t think she understands why I was the man I was.  I know a lot of people have had very rough lives, some worst than mine, but I am not going to be that person anymore, and I think that the things that happened between your mother are not totally true, I have told my part on that but like I have said I don’t think she is telling me the whole truth on a lot of things. She will tell you that she is and you can believe her if you want, I will not believe her until she comes clean, I will never go to a joint session with her and you, not because of you but because of the feelings I now harbor for her at this time in my life.

I will still tell things as they come to me.

the beginning of a story that needs to be told…..

Although I have started this story perhaps thousands of times I have never actually finished it, it is a story about me, about how I became the person that I am today. It is about fear, anger, loss, regrets, choices made and choices not made. I don’t expect you to fully understand any of this at all but perhaps it will give you more of an understanding of how I actually ended up sitting here today trying to justify my own life.

I am going to do my best to explain my childhood to you in terms that will not frighten you or make you think I have lost my mind entirely, understand that parts of it will sound much like a real story, and other parts will be much like a horror story. I really have to explain that I actually don’t remember all that much of my actual childhood just fragments, bits and pieces if you will. It will probably not follow any kind of timeline and will wander around as much as my own mind does, so please bear with me.

This is what I remember of my childhood. I remember fear and hate and anger, I don’t remember things like having any fun, I do remember one time we were moving from one base to another and we were driving across country and I remember we had stopped at a rest stop and dad fixed fired squash, zucchini and onions for the very first time on a Coleman stove. I remember one Christmas in Puerto Rico that was the one and only good Christmas we had ever had with my dad. I do remember snorkeling in Coba Rojo Bay. To be honest those are really the only good times I do remember having with my dad. I want to tell you all of the bad things that I remember about him but I am not sure that is a good idea, those things I remember are scary even for me to think about. One I know for sure is this I didn’t know love from my father, I don’t really know that he actually ever told me that at all. I have always had to wonder whether he loved me as his son or not. The one thing I promised myself when I was younger laying in the dark trying to hold myself together after I got my ass beat, or laying in the hospital with broken bones or burns across my body was that I would tell my children if I had any that I loved them, they would always hear those words from me, hope that clears up why I am always telling you that and I will never stop telling you that I love you, son. This man did unspeakable things to me and my brothers and my mother, he would beat us, play psychological games on us, and he would force us to labor physically until we were spent with exhaustion. I was so small and he was so big what could I do, if anyone ever found out it would only get worse, who was I to tell. No one would listen, just as it seems no one is listening to me now. I can remember actually dreading him coming home at night because you never knew what was going to happen, to live your entire childhood in fear that whatever you did was never going to be good enough, you could never get your chores done fast enough, you could never get the right amount of coffee in the cup, knowing this would get you backhanded across the room or punched or kicked. How was I to know that I ever did anything right? He played head games with us I know you know about the one where he would go for days and not do anything to us and then when you did the least little thing wrong he would explode and collapse your entire world around you. I remember I was running through the house one day and slipped and went crashing through the sliding glass door and cut myself really bad, he beat my ass for breaking the glass took me to the base hospital and they stitched me up then when we got home he beat my ass again for taking time away from his day. I can remember my brothers taking up for me and taking the beatings that were meant for me. I can remember having to watch as they were beaten for their punishment, they also had their turn watching me, but I was so small and what was I supposed to do? You know I never told anyone about what happened to me as a child until I met your mother and really I only scratched the surface with her, she doesn’t know it all, there are some things I will never talk about with anyone, I actually tried with your mother but by then it was too late she didn’t really seem to care anymore. It is ok that she doesn’t care about me anymore, but that is for later on in the story not right now. As I got older the more severe the beating could be because I could handle more than when I was younger, but again what was I supposed to do. We left him, we left him a lot but we always went back, I am not sure why we always went back only your grandmother can answer that and now we will never know. I always wanted the sitcom TV family; mom, dad, and the brothers where ya things went wrong but no one got hurt and everyone loved each other and knew it. I always wanted a family, and I got one for awhile and I still do have a family it is you now. But understand that the things I have done in my life have one common denominator, fear. I ran away because of fear, I got angry because of fear. I left you and your mom because of fear, all because I couldn’t escape my own mind, the thoughts of my world coming crashing down all around me, I was afraid it would happen so I made it happen before it could happen to me, I don’t know if you understand that or not, but because of all the things that happened to me as a child grew up with me in to an adult and they grew bigger with me. I am going to stop for now because I am not feeling very well; I love you with my life son.

Dan Kline

A question if you will…..

I wanted to ask all of you a question, along with the question are some stipulations about the answer. Ok first the question, if you had enough money to buy the one thing in this world you wanted, wait lets use the word desired instead, what would it be?
Ok now the stipulations, most of us would answer a new house or a new car and that is fine but what kind of house would it be, what make, year and model of car would it be. Your answer can be anything at all, but what would it be, a first edition book, a great work of art, I think you get the idea of what I am asking, so what is it?
I have found this question to be very hard to answer and have yet to come up with my own answer, but I will and I will post it in my replies.

Fear of the heart, literally…..

Going back three weeks ago I had been helping a friend for fourteen days in a row, outside doing manual labor, manual labor is good it allows you time to work hard but also allows the mind to wander freely, allows you to just be and just think. Well it was a Thursday morning and we got up got ready but had to empty the truck and trailer, see the day before we did a mulch and bush trimming job, it was a very large job. Well Wednesday night I had a very hard time sleeping my feet, the arches and my lower cakves and the muscles at the knee on my thighs were cramping very badly. Well since I had been in the military my first thought was dehydration, so I set about drinking water, and went and got 64oz. Of Gatorade from the store, well it worked so I finally fell asleep around 3:30am and woke that Thursday at the normal time, well like I was saying we still had mulch on the trailer and bush trimmings in the back of the truck, well my buddy said for me to get the last of the mulch off the trailer and he would go and empty the truck, cool. So I emptied the trailer and was very hot, it was early in the morning and only about 73 degrees outside so this is what I remember. I waljed in the house got a glass of icewater went back outside and sat on the porch waiting for my buddy. The next thing I remember is him helping me to my bed. I woke up about an hour later completely confused, I was still at the house my buddy was gone and I was cramping from my stomach down. I called my doctors office and explained what was happening and was told to go directly to the emergency room, well my buddies girlfriend had taken my car and well it was impossible for me to move let alone drive, so they called an ambulance for me. Ambulance got here they loaded me up but noticed I had stopped sweating, not a good sign, heat stroke had set in. It took them 20 minutes just to find a vein to get fluids going, medic said that if they hadnt gotten there then I would have gone into a full stroke my core body temperature was 105. Ok got to er they did an EKG and set me up on full blast with fluids, I was there for 6 hours and had, had 6 bags of fluids, I was done I wanted to go home. I saw my doctor go by and hollered for him and told him I was ready to go. He told me I had an irregular heart beat and said they were going to keep me over night and give me an EKG in the morning, I said I dont think so scooter, take out the IV I am outta here. Well of course it was an AMA discharge, but he told me to see a cardiologist as soon as I could, ok I told him.
Cardiologist on Monday,  looked at my bp which was high 139/100, I tried to explain that I was panicky but all he did was look at the EKG the ER did and prescribe another bp med that, oh wait he didn’t do his own EKG, important to know and here is the reason why, the ER only did 1 EKG in 6 hours, just one mind you, ok back to cardiologist,  he had four copies of the same EKG from the ER and based his decision on that now this is important they were the same EKG taken at 12:39pm all four copies were the same one, and he prescribed a new med, I am not happy about this but ok. He had them do an ultrasound of my heart, which if you have one is pretty cool to watch, that took about 45 minutes and he looked at it told me I had a bad spot on my heart and said go home he was setting up a stress test asap, he then told me as he walked out the door that my chances of having a heart attack were about 75% at this time. Ok full blown panic attack immediately, this again was on Monday my stress test with dye is on Thursday,  he did not answer any questions he didnt say another word to me.
Thursday, I get to the hospital and get to the place for the test and wait, this whole time I have been on major panic mode. They call me in and run pictures of my heart, I wait somemore and then get to the tread mill part, they tell me my target heart rate is 151 so they start 15 minutes in my heart rate doesnt go over 130, well they are confused stop the tread mill and start it again, still my heart rate doesnt go over 130 so this nurse puts this stuff to stimulate my heart into my IV that shit burns they slow me to a walk and still 130 so she hits me again, nothing it never got over 130, they are confused, sorry dont know what to tell them. They stop the test make me drink a soda so it will constrict my veins and I wait again, they take more pictures of, oh wait as I sat there drinking the soda they take my bp it was 127/72 now they are very confused, ok they take the pictures and I explain to the nurse that I have an anxiety problem and really need to know my results soon or I am going to end up back in tne hospital the mental one this time. That afternoon the cardiologists office calls and tells me that there is nothing wrong with my heart, no blockages, no thickening of the walls and no sign of a bad spot on my heart. I went through 7 days of pure hell because the fucking cardiologist read my damn ultrasound wrong, did they calk me, no. But I am glad that they did the stress test because now I know for sure my heart is fine,  but the pure terror of it all has left me still in panic mode. And the mefication well the main side effect is abnormal heartbeat, it is called Atenolol, it also makes my joints hurt unbearably and it has caused extreme fatigue. I am in the process of trying to get a hold of the cardiologist to be taken off it, before this everytime I have been to my regular doc my bp has run 170/72 consistently, on the same meds I have been taking for years.

With much love and gratitude,
Dan Kline

I am alive…..

Well it seems I am still here, a lot has happened since we last shared with everyone, I am on my tablet and, well typing on it sucks ass. So as soon as I am able and when my son decides to start using his own laptop I will explain in full detail, be warned it will be a lot to talk about. Some new some old but what is this for but to tell exactly how and what I am feeling.

With much love and gratitude,
Dan Kline