by Band Back Together | Sep 20, 2010 | NICU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Special Needs Parenting |
The first time I saw a brain, a real brain, suspended in some greenish liquid at the front of my gross anatomy lab, I stood there, staring at it for a good long while. I was long past being disgusted by the organs of the human body, and seeing the folds of the creamy white tissue struck me only with a sense of wonder. This was it, right there: all that you were, all that you thought, all that made you you was right there in that innocuous looking organ.
Really, it could have been a football for as glamorous as it looked.
But to know how it worked, studying the nuances of neurology, that is poetry. All of the mysteries that we still do not know about how the synapses fire to make one person want to maim and dismember and one person want to paint the Sistine Chapel, that is beauty. The smooth folds folding seamlessly into each other made up separate and distinct parts of the brain and instinctively I rattled them off in my head as I examined the brain in the jar: the cerebral cortex, responsible for how we are feeling, our emotions. Those that make someone laugh or weep, smile or scream, right there.
The parietal lobe, which is how we use all of our senses at once to make decisions, the back of the head responsible for sight, the very sense I was using to examine the brain I was so enthralled by. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to drive a car, see the deep brown of my son’s eyes, the bright red of the fall leaves outside of the classroom. One by one, I observed all of these structures on that brain, carefully preserved in formalin in a jar labeled ABBY NORMAL.
How could something that looked like a Nerf ball be so mystifying and so shockingly resplendent in it’s simplicity at the same time? Something that made each of us who we are should have looked unique, special, like a jewel and somehow, the more brains I saw, the more I realized that they all looked pretty much the same.
Maybe it’s what we do with those hunks of white matter that contains the beauty, because with the exception of the cerebellum (which is surprisingly beautiful), it’s a highly understated organ, especially when compared to something flashy like the kidneys.
When my daughter was born with part of her brain hanging jauntily out of the back of her head, the doctors pretty much shrugged their shoulders when we asked what that meant about her future. While she showed no signs of neurological damage, she could be profoundly normal or profoundly retarded, it simply wasn’t something that could be determined by a blood test or an MRI.
Up until she was a year old, Amelia was followed by Early Intervention, who came every couple of months, tested her, declared her normal and left. When she turned a year, I figured it was probably time to let them close the case on her for now and promise to make a call back if something changed. I know the drill with special needs kids well enough, and her medical diagnosis is an immediate qualifier for assistance.
It’s taken me until now to realize that there is actually something wrong with her beautiful brain.
Amelia has no words.
She has no words.
No glorious words, the very thing that I make my (pathetic) living from, she has none. I’ve always derived so much happiness in putting together combination of words to titillate, horrify, or move people, and she has not one word.
She’s had words before, they’ve slipped out of her mouth for a couple of days until it appears that she forgets them and goes back to shrieking and grunting to get her point across. In many ways, this terrifies me more than seeing my mute autistic son did, because it seems as though she has words, then loses them again.
It’s time to call the specialists back in and help my daughter find her words.
For good, this time.
I have a lot of delicious combinations to teach her.
by Band Back Together | Sep 19, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Child Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Mental Health, Psychological Manipulation |
She left him this morning while he was at church. My brother drove five hours to come and take her to stay with his family. After seven years, she finally got up the courage and bailed. I have never been more proud of her than I am in this moment.
She left the abuse, the control, the hate, the mind games. She left the drugs, the crime, the lies and the stealing. She left him for going through her things and screaming at her every day. She left him for punching her in her sleep when she snored. She left him for telling her when she could or couldn’t eat or leave the house or come visit me and her granddaughter. She just… left.
She left.
History has a way of repeating itself, especially when it comes to relationships. And her history has been on repeat since 1970. Every man she has ever been with has treated her like the scum of the earth: my dad, her boyfriend of 10 years (after divorcing my dad), and now him. I would be lying if I said I thought none of this was her fault because she chose this. She has continually chosen this, but that doesn’t mean she deserves it. Nobody deserves this.
Her bouts with mental illness have plagued her for most of her adult life. It’s like the men she chooses know that she is weak. They prey upon those who seem to “need some help.”
My mother has been homeless on the streets, homeless in shelters, fed by soup kitchens, and by the kindness of strangers. She’s been in and out of mental hospitals and failed relationships more times than I can remember. She has been raped, assaulted, kidnapped and abandoned on the side of the road in her underwear in a blizzard. And through all of that, she lived. She lived through it.
But today? She finally ended it on her own. She didn’t wait to be kicked out or told that he was done with her. She didn’t wait to end up in a hospital or shelter or on the side of the road… or worse. She left on her own, by her own free will. She didn’t wait until she was no longer strong enough to go.
I always used to tell her the analogy of the frog in the pot: If you throw a frog into pot of boiling water, he will instinctively know that the water is too hot and leap out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cool water, and gradually increase the temperature, he won’t notice that things aren’t right, and will let you boil him alive and kill him. She was that frog. The one who started out in a relationship being wined and dined and showered with gifts. But soon those things started to go away, and slowly the little jabs at her self-esteem became major blows, both mentally and physically. She didn’t notice… or maybe she did but soon nothing became shocking; nothing “burned” her.
I asked her this morning what finally made her snap. She said she heard them talking outside her door when they thought she was asleep plotting how they would “off her.” Whether it’s the illness talking, or the truth, I will never know. And it does not matter.
She left.
She is free.
I am so proud of you, Mom.
by Band Back Together | Sep 19, 2010 | Abuse, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Emotional Abuse, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Preventing Child Abuse, Psychological Manipulation |
I carry too much pain. The person who birthed me didn’t want me and told me I was worthless, from a young age, as early as I can remember. There are not words enough to describe the amount of negativity that was heaped on me for so many years. And there is no way to describe how deeply embedded in my psyche is the pain. Without even getting into the physical abuse, I’m already too full of pain to comprehend it.
When I first started having panic attacks, first experienced that all-consuming terror, I wondered why it was all so damned familiar. I couldn’t comprehend why I felt like I knew this, recognised it… WHY? And then I realized that I had felt like this before; for all the years that I was abused I felt this constant terror, in a muted sense. It got to the point where I was utterly used to it, similar to how you become habituated to the whirring of the fan or the sound of the rain. It was there, but I didn’t really notice, almost took it for granted. It’s been there ever since, and last night it all blew up in my face. Again. Suddenly I was four years old again, and totally immobilized by abject terror. I took my Ativan, but it didn’t seem to be working. It was still there, spreading slowly through my mind, causing me to shake with such force that my muscles were aching with the strain of it.
Then I remembered the words, the only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain, so I dug my fingernails deep into my skin. I hoped that I could focus on the pain, that I could somehow start to breathe again, that I would survive. And I can’t help but think that it’s not fair… I shouldn’t have to live like this. Ambushed by fear I can’t see or name. The kind of thing that creeps in at 4 am when sleep would be such sweet relief, but closing my eyes just isn’t an option.
This is the aftermath of child abuse that nobody can truly understand unless they have been there themselves. How can you pick up the pieces of an ordinary life you never really knew? How do you move on? It’s been so many years. I wish I could say, “I am OK,” but I can’t. It is a long, difficult road to being OK.
I hate being this person. I hate living on this roller coaster, with no warning when the track is going to plunge into darkness. I hate not being able to breathe, not being able to see clearly, not being able to believe that things will ever get better. I hate that I sound like this. I hate that I am ashamed to write these words. I hate that I’m afraid someone will find out.
What if I really am worthless and unlovable?
by Band Back Together | Sep 18, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Adult Children of Addicts, Blended Families, Bone Cancer, Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Homelessness, Hospice, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychological Manipulation, Self Injury, Self-Destructive Behavior, Suicide |
every time i try to start a post for this new community, i erase it and start over. i literally do not know where to begin.
i am an addict. i am a cutter. i am clinically depressed. i have ptsd. i have anxiety disorders. i am the child of an alcoholic. i was physically and emotionally abused. i couldn’t stop my friend from being raped. i went to my first funeral at the age of 5. my parents are divorced. i have had 16 suicide attempts. i have a younger brother and he is my best friend. i have an awesome husband, and he is my other best friend. i have sold drugs. i have had sex for payment. i was on welfare. i have had sex in a church parking lot. i have done cocaine off the back of a public toilet. i have cheated, lied, stolen, broken, taken, left a path of destruction around me.
but i am here. i don’t know what to make of that most days. am i a survivor? a survivor of what? of life?
life should be lived, not survived. you survive a disease. you survive in battle. you survive an accident. you don’t ‘survive’ life.
i guess this is as good of a place as any to start: i’m fucking crazy. batshit crazy. yes, you read that right. i own my craziness. but i don’t know what to do about it. i take my pills, i blog (which is my new free therapy), i exercise, i try to be a productive adult. and i fool most people. the pills help, they do. but it’s like lying under the surface, there’s always this blackness waiting to grab me and pull me under again.
i’m always treading water: surviving.
i don’t know why i’m crazy. i know that outside factors have not always helped. my dad was a highly functioning, non-abusive alcoholic. we left when i was 6. i got a new step mom when i was 7. and my mom found a new boyfriend when i was 9. we moved in with him when i was 10.
that first summer, he was home sometimes during the day. mom was at work, brother was at daycamp or some shit. i don’t remember why it happened, but i do remember the first time he hit me. it was kind of like a spanking. i was a bit old for that at ten, and had something to say about it. he told me that my mother had said he could discipline us, and she knew that he was hitting me.
so i didn’t say anything.
when i was 11, he flung a heavy piece of thick plexiglass at me while i was sitting on the stairs. i jumped down, and the plexiglass broke the banister. he would call me names – tell me i was fat, i was a whore, i was stupid, i was ugly. he would hit me. my mother finally noticed something was wrong, that i was acting out. she did the right thing and called a child psychologist.
i went to the psychologist three times. back then, i didn’t know what she told my mom or why i stopped going. now i know: she told my mom that i was a pathological liar. i was not being hit or abused by my stepfather – i was making it all up for attention. my mother was told to continue disciplining me, but not to give me that attention that i supposed was acting out for. i had no idea.
then he started getting me high. he first offered me pot when i was 12. he supplied me until i was 18. i was high for six years. and it didn’t help.
he was a functioning alcoholic. he almost never seemed drunk, and i didn’t even always register it. we’d smoke a joint in the basement, then each grab a beer while he cooked dinner. we’d be friends for that time. but it never lasted. i stopped respecting him because of the way he treated me. so i started mouthing off to him. he threw a pot of cooked rice at me at the dinner table one night. my mom saw it, but what she saw was me goading him into doing it. in reality, i just didn’t care anymore. i ran away about once a week. he would follow me outside to the gate, tell me he loved me like i was his own daughter, please come back inside.
i would.
one time, i walked out to clear my head after a confrontation. i must have been 14 or 15. when i came back in, he said, ‘i thought you were running away’. i told him i just went for a walk, but i’d leave if he wanted me to. he got mouthy with me, i got mouthy with him, and he threw a butcher knife at me. in front of my mother. i left then, and stayed at a friend’s that night. i called home five times, hanging up every time he answered. finally, my mom picked up and i told her where i was.
his defense to my mom was that if he wanted to hit me with the knife, he wouldn’t have missed.
one time, i told him i’d call the cops on him. he got in my face, and told me he’d already been in jail, it didn’t scare him. they’d never believe me anyway – i was crazy. i told him if he ever touched my mother or my brother, i would kill him or die trying.
he never did lay a hand on them. only me.
one night at dinner, he shoved our wrought iron table into my ribs multiple times, bruising two of them. we just kept eating. he told me he wanted to get some mushrooms (not the cooking kind). i could get them, but my source wanted my stepdad to roll blunts for him. he agreed, and my source gave me cigars to be rolled. my step dad showed them to my mom, said he’d found them in my room (he had – in my underwear drawer. he routinely went through my things) and that i needed to be punished. he made me eat the cigar. and when i wasn’t eating it fast enough, he lit it and exhaled the smoke into a plastic bag. he then made me hold the bag over my nose and mouth for what seemed like three or four minutes.
i spent the night vomiting in my room. i never got him the ‘shrooms.
i tried to put the iced tea back in the fridge one night. he got within arms length of me. by this time, i was 16 and had a panic attack when he got that close to me. i started yelling at him to get away from me. he trapped me behind the fridge door and shouted at me. i started screaming obscenities at him. he hocked a loogie in my eye. when i ran screaming to the bathroom to take out my contacts, he followed me and threw me across the bathroom. i bruised my lower and mid back on the side of the tub when i fell in.
he threw me out when i stole $1000 from him. i thought it was his, but it was actually the rent money for our house. he took everything i owned – all my artwork, paintings, sculptures, and threw them out. he got rid of my bed. he dumped all my clothes into plastic garbage bags, and emptied an ash tray into each bag. i ended up with two laundry baskets full of clothing, my senior year english notebook, two sketchbooks, and some cd’s. i lived in my car for a few weeks, sleeping over friend’s houses when i could – but most were away at college. my boyfriend’s mom took pity on me, and let me move in. until his grandma found out a few weeks later why i was thrown out of my home – then she threw me out too.
i was 17 and going to be put in a girl’s home. when they called my mom to tell her, HE insisted that i could not go to a place like that and let me come home. my room had my old dresser and desk, a lamp, and my bookcase in it. my boyfriend took a mattress off a cot his family had so i didn’t have to sleep on the hard floor in my own home. i lived like this from october 1997 until august 1998.
i’m focusing on my step dad here, so there are lots of things missing – me doing drugs, me stealing, me raising a bit of hell. but i’ve never laid this all out before. i’ve never actually gone through it all like this.
i was kicked out again in 1998. i lived out of my car for weeks this time. i slept on the road near my boyfriend’s house. i’d call friends to sleep over and shower at their house. i wasn’t allowed in his home at all – not even to pee. his grandmother wouldn’t allow it. we’d drive to a local taco bell so i could use the bathroom. every night, his mom would send him out with two dinner plates, and we’d eat dinner in my car. i finally went on welfare for housing in september 1998 and was in the system until june 1999. i was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. the only person who came to visit me in the hospital was my boyfriend. i didn’t see my stepdad much during this time.
in 1999, i moved within a few miles of my mom’s new home. i was invited over occasionally for dinner or something like that. i’d pick up my brother to hang out with me and my boyfriend. little by little, i was allowed in the house more. i would come over to do laundry. my step father would make passes at me, comments about us being alone together. i made sure that wouldn’t happen.
i was telling my mom one day that it had been so long since i cut, i was feeling better. we were having a dialogue, and that hadn’t happened in so long. my step dad put a knife on the table in front of me, and walked away. he’d come up behind me when i was in the family room alone, using the computer, and put his hands on my shoulders and whisper nasty things in my ear. we’d go to a family dinner for thanksgiving at my aunt’s house, and he’d hand me $100. it was a confusing relationship.
after the last time i was kicked out of my house, he never struck me again. but he was as emotionally and verbally abusive as he could be. my mother never really saw it again when i was an adult, but he was inappropriate with me up until he was diagnosed with bone cancer in june of 2003. he died december 28, 2003. i was at the house helping my mom that day. things did not look good, our hospice nurse was concerned. i usually did not go into their bedroom, ever. i hadn’t since i was 10. i went up to say good bye to him before i left. when i poked my head in the door, he waved me to the bed. i walked in, and he reached his hand out to me. i held it for a moment, and he said, ‘good bye’.
i said ‘good bye’. i drove home. he died about five hours later. my boyfriend – the same one all this time – drove me over there at 2am. (i ended up marrying him.) for my mom and my brother, it was a release – he’d been so sick. it was sad, but it was good. it was over.
i was the one who broke down.
i will never know why he chose me.
by Band Back Together | Sep 18, 2010 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Infidelity, Marriage Problems, Military Deployment And Family |
I used to be a wife.
That seems like a lifetime ago but he was my first true love and when I was 19 my childhood dreams came true: we were married in the back room of a church in Vernon Parish, Louisiana.
Our first year together was great.
In October, he came home from the National Guard a couple of weeks before our first son was born to start our civilian life together. The day we brought our son, Nick, home I didn’t think life could get better. We spent weekends with friends, had our own place, he had a good job and life was good. In 2003 we extended our little family by one more, a little girl. We were complete.
In 2004, we got word that life was going to change when his guard unit got called to Active Duty. We weren’t sure exactly when he was leaving but we started preparing the kids for it. We mounted a world map on the wall to show them where daddy was going. We made countdown calendars and drew pictures. Alone, we prepared for the worst.
That cold day in November, we bundled up our 3 babies and headed for his departure. Friends and families were everywhere, but I was still in denial. I didn’t want to say goodbye and I didn’t want to lose my husband. I tried to hold it together because I didn’t want him to see me like that. So we just hugged and kissed and said that we’d see each other soon. We waved until we couldn’t see the plane in the sky anymore and then I went home and cried – a lot.
I saw him once before they shipped out to Iraq when I drove with two boys and two girls -strangers- to see our soldiers in New Jersey for Thanksgiving. It was fun, but it was a sad trip. I knew that there was a chance I would never see my husband -my best friend- again, and in some ways that is exactly what happened.
He arrived in Kuwait on our 5 year anniversary so he had a friend bring me flowers and a card. I still have that card somewhere, I think. We talked a lot while he was ‘in country’ through the phone or the internet. I’d turn up the speakers on my computer so that I’d never miss his call, and if I did, I’d spend the day crying.
I heard that other soldier’s wives and girlfriends cheated and it baffled me. How is that true love? I took my vows seriously, for better or for worse, and this was my version of the worst. It never even crossed my mind to stray, but it got into his head that I cheated on him. It was impossible. It broke my heart.
He came home right before our anniversary in January of 2006. He was nothing short of a celebrity among our family and friends and for awhile things were great.
Then, the issues started. He was quieter and wouldn’t talk to me. That summer, we separated. I couldn’t tell you for how long or what I did during that time because I don’t really know. I started talking to another guy for awhile but realized I needed to focus on my marriage so I moved back home.
In January 2007, we separated again, this time it was for good. He’d been cheating. And maybe that was why he believed that I was – because he was trying to rationalize his actions. I really don’t know. A few months later, I started talking to the guy I had met the year before, partly because he was a good guy and partly because I really wanted to hurt my husband the way he hurt me.
After my divorce, I moved in with the guy and shortly after became pregnant. At the same time my now-ex-husband was busy getting remarried and having a baby of his own. The guy and I didn’t work out. I moved out and began my life as a single mom.
And that is the end of that story. This is just one chapter in our lives and through my tears, I am working on writing the next one.
