July 2014 - Page 2 of 3 - The Band Back Together Project

Lost And Confused

by Band Back Together | Jul 11, 2014 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Fear, Guilt, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sadness, Shame | 0 comments

I found this site while googling help for sexual assault.

At the end of what I thought was a good night with friends, my friend’s husband touched me inappropriately. Down there.

I was asleep and woke to find him breathing over me, with his hands where they shouldn’t be. I got out of there so quickly that I didn’t even bother to find my shoes. I have been through a difficult time recently and during the evening I had confided in my friends about how I was feeling. It only adds to how violated I feel.

His wife is lovely and we have become close friends in the year that we have known each other, but now I don’t know what to do. What do I say when I don’t want to go to her house? I can’t tell her, I don’t want to lose her as a friend. I can’t tell anyone else, I’m already judging myself. The fact that he would do this while I was asleep makes me wonder if he has he done this to other people. I feel so lost, dirty and ashamed.

Parkinson’s Shuffle

by Band Back Together | Jul 10, 2014 | Inpatient Psychiatric Care, Mental Health, Parkinson's Disease, Terminal Illness | 0 comments

I have read many stories on here.

I “fit in,” believe it or not, in many categories. I fit in, for once in my life.

Terminal Ilness.

Mental illness.

I don’t feel like I’m the outcast here. For once, I feel like maybe my problems are not so big that I do not have enough strength to handle them.

I had it all.

Great life.

Great job.

Great family.

Then bam!

It was all gone in a flash.

Like a head on collision.

I was severely injured by a patient at the psychiatric hospital I worked at. I had to have my spine, from my head to my butt, reconstructed. I was asked to press charges against this person.

But why ruin two lives?

It was not his fault.

He was not on the correct medications.

That is why he was there.

I could very well now be the “psych” patient that attacks someone without meaning to. I would hope they would some how find it in their heart to forgive me…

Bullied

by Band Back Together | Jul 9, 2014 | Bullying, Childhood Bullying, Fear, How To Heal From Being Bullied, Self-Esteem | 0 comments

I was 7 years old when they started to bully me. I was only a kid. I don’t understand what I did to them.

At first I would laugh along with them, but soon I realized that those words hurt. Didn’t they see I looked up to them? They hurt me so badly that many times I thought I didn’t deserve to live. I thought it was my fault.

They robbed me of my childhood, I would go to sleep crying, hoping the next day it wouldn’t be as bad. I asked for help, but instead, I was told to “man up.” How is an eight year old suppose to do that? After a few years they finally stopped. I had my friends and family, but I would still felt worthless, like I didn’t matter.

I forgave them, but those scars are still there.

I can still hear all those horrible things they said to me in my head. The only way I survived was that I made myself stop feeling emotions. Things would happen to me in my life, but I would no longer feel them. I talk to my former bullies now as if nothing ever happened, but whenever they look at me, I feel like I’m 7 again, hiding in a corner, scared.

Little by little, I have been able to put myself together again, to start to feel, but those painful memories just don’t go away. Whenever I remember those painful memories all I can ask myself is what did I do to them to make them hate me so much? I was only a kid.

Stuck

by Band Back Together | Jul 8, 2014 | Anxiety, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Fear, Guilt, Helping Someone In An Abusive Relationship, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

Hi, I’m 22. I’ve been looking for something that might help the healing. I just found this site, and am glad there is something like this. It’s hard writing what happened. So here it goes. I was mentally/emotionally abused.

I don’t feel like a victim. It’s nothing like you see on TV where someone is bawling their eyes out with sudden realization. I’m just numb. Okay, I’m numb with random fits of bawling my eyes out for no reason, but still numb. Reading the other stories on here, I feel like mine was barely anything.

I was in a relationship with an abuser for two and a half years. It started out like any good relationship does, laughing and smiling. Then, his family disowned him for dating a white girl. After that, he would throw that at me to shut me up, if he perceived the smallest slight. That I was the reason for everything going bad, the fact that his family would never accept me. But it never stopped there. Daily, he called me fat, and ugly, and useless. There came a point when I believed all of that. I tried to weigh as little as I could so that maybe he would give me a small compliment. I tried to do everything perfect, even though it wasn’t enough. He would insult me in front of our friends (his friends, since all of my friends liked him better). I could never tell him no or go against his word without incurring his explosive anger. He would never show his anger in public though. He would wait until we were alone to let loose. He took all but two my friends. He’s a charismatic guy, and everyone likes him. How can people stay friends with an abuser when they KNOW? There came a point when I felt so alone and unwanted that I thought about suicide. The thing that kept me from it, the only thing, was the thought of my mom.

I almost left probably five times. Why didn’t I just leave the first time?

My mom saved me from this “relationship.” She’s a psychiatric nurse and recognized the signs. In her words, she told me that I didn’t laugh or sing anymore. In August, after he threatened me more than usual, she told me her suspicions. I told him that she didn’t like our relationship. (When his family disowned him, he made me promise that if my mom ever didn’t like our relationship then we would break up.) I used my mom as a scapegoat to get out – I wasn’t the one who ended it. Not really.

Now, months later, I still feel lost. I’m still afraid to make decisions. I still close up and try to fix everything whenever someone’s moody. I laugh again, but that’s all I’ve gained back of myself. I’m going to start therapy in a week, and I hope that helps. Does it take this long to heal? I just want to be myself again.

One thing that one of those two friends told me has really stuck. “How can you prove that someone hurt you when they left no visible mark?”

The Authentic Therapist

by Band Back Together | Jul 4, 2014 | Emotional Boundaries, Therapy | 0 comments

“You see a therapist?!?”

I think this question is posed for several reasons. But, if I practiced mind-reading, which I never recommend doing, this is what I think is behind this question:

Only really crazy people have to see a therapist!

But you’re a therapist, shouldn’t you have this all figured out?

Chin up! Can’t you just figure it out for yourself?

You must not be strong enough to deal.

I struggle and I am a therapist.

—————

I am a therapist and I am also a perfectly imperfect human.

I have faith there will be a day when we all have a therapist we work with sporadically throughout our lives. Because life is hard and people are complicated. And to have someone outside of your friends and family to help you through it all is nothing less than priceless.

I also have faith there will be a day that people aren’t shocked that I regularly see a therapist (patients, friends, family, and strangers alike). Because life is hard and people are complicated, especially when you are the one helping others through all that life is hard and people are complicated stuff.

I am a therapist who lives my life afraid and brave every second of every day. I live my life honoring my authentic truth. I live this way because it is how I have found my own recovery. I live this way because I have done the hard work, choosing it every day, of my recovery.

I live this way because I simply cannot not live this way.

I also live this way because I see how much my clients are empowered to change their own lives as I show them my work.

It was drilled into my head in graduate school that as counselor we DO NOT GIVE ADVICE! It didn’t take long of me working in this field, in the real world of limited time and resources, managed health care and difficult life circumstances, that I knew this philosophy wasn’t going to work for the people I help or for me and the kind of therapist I wanted to be. I will not answer all your troubles, I will not do the work for you, and I cannot save you if you are not ready to save yourself. But I can assure you, I will walk alongside you modeling what it is like to fight for your own recovery. I will pull you forward, at times, urging you to have faith that it will get better. And, there will be those times I push you forward because it is simply what you need right then to take the best next stop forward.

I also learned in graduate school – as is the philosophy of many in my field – that our clients know nothing about us; we are blank slates. Early in my career, before I had to fight for my own recovery, I practiced more on this side of impersonal connection. However, I found that I was working harder than my clients. I also found I struggled with my emotional boundaries because I was fighting so much harder than the client to save their own life.

Only after fighting for my own recovery was I able to both share and model my fight for my clients. Self-disclosure will always be a hotly debated topic in mental health, as it needs be it needs to be used ONLY when it will move the client forward in their own work. Therapists, myself included, must be careful to not dump our own shit onto our clients. Constantly keep tabs on why we are sharing our own battles with our clients to make sure it is for them and not us.

My own transparency along with the public forum of writing a blog has meant my clients may know a lot about my life and struggles, sometimes even before their first session. I am sure this will make some in my field cringe – graduate professors included.

However, it is without a doubt, that I can say this has done nothing but make me a better therapist and better able to help others through their struggles. Not only does this provide constant teaching moments for clients in empathy and authenticity, but they know they are truly seen and known when they come to see me for their sessions. They know they are talking to someone who has fought this epic war of recovery. They know they are talking to someone who is not perfect, who also struggles with self-compassion towards that perfection but who, most importantly, owns their story.

I have been asked by my own treatment team what it has been like for my clients to know more about my life, as this is something I make sure to have supervision on. Honestly, it is something that is difficult to put into words as it feels like something bigger than us; it is recovery, it is connection, it is ever upward.

Marianne Williamson captures this perfectly,

“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I will share with my clients parts of my own story when I think it will be helpful in their recovery. I will model the daily fight and choices of recovery.

I will help.

I will walk alongside.

I will pull forward.

And I will push.

I will help by being me. I will help by owning my story; ugly, shameful, scary, imperfect parts and all. Because it is only within this ownership that my ever upward is found and I can really help.