by Band Back Together | Jul 15, 2016 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Anger, Caregiver, Family, Health, Hepatitis, Infectious Diseases, Viral Infections |
I have a dear friend who has Hepatitis C. He went through interferon treatment, which is considered the gold standard for hepatitis C treatment, last year. The side effects were severe but it didn’t kill his disease and he will undergo an experimental protocol in January.
His wife, an even dearer friend, lived through hell during his treatment and now she has to return.
All I know how to do for them is be there when it starts. I will to walk through hell with them. They would do the same for me.
Ironically, they will probably have to one day. My better half has tested positive for Hepatitis C. I am just grateful that his viral load is still low enough that the doctors recommend against the interferon treatment; instead they are waiting, watching.
It is bad enough that these two men, so full of life and benevolent mischief, have this disease that wants to kill them. Yet, to add insult to injury, all four of us are recovering addicts. You’d think we had walked through enough hell just surviving addiction, getting clean, and finding a new way to live.
I feel so powerless, so inadequate. I want to scream. I want to fucking punch something
by Band Back Together | Jul 14, 2016 | Abuse, Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Anxiety, Bullying, Depression, Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship |
Not sure why I’m posting this …hoping someone out there will have an answer? Or maybe I just need to vent or find out if there are others like me? Maybe someone out there can explain why these things keep happening to me?
Anyhow, in a nutshell, I’ve had a really bad life and I’ve come full circle with it. Seems that no matter how hard I work, no matter how “positive” I try to be, bad things just happen to me. Things go wrong for no reason. People try to pump me up with positive thinking and then are surprised when the bad things I think might happen actually do happen. While things will just go wrong for me for no apparent reason, nothing really “right” seems to happen. I mean, I have no good luck. If an unexpected tragedy can happen out nowhere then why can’t something wonderful and lucky happen out of nowhere, like magic? Yet I have to work extremely hard to make things happen, and even then things seem to go wrong.
I guess I’m trying to figure out why my life is the way it is and whether there’s a way I can turn things around. I’ve begun to believe I’ve been cursed, or there’s a dark spirit following me around, preventing anything good from entering my sphere. I’m wondering how I can stop this dark spirit, karma, or whatever it is and bring positive energy into my life. I’ve gone to churches to have people pray over me, gone to Reiki shares to have the energy of the universe sent to me, seen therapists, career counselors (for my money problems), gone to Debtor’s Anonymous meetings (hated them!) Still, the bad luck continues.
I also thought that maybe I’d done something wrong to cause all this, so I’ve volunteered to help people in need, but that hasn’t changed my luck.
Okay, let me try to be brief and give a few examples. Both my parents had mental health issues when I was a child, and I spent my early years transported from friends’ or family members’ houses until my parents were ready to take care of me. Then, a housekeeper took care of me while one parent went to work to support me. Meanwhile, the other parent was hospitalized with severe mental illness. My extended family was very unloving and I never see them now, as they are toxic people. I was close to one parent who died a few years ago. Now I’m the guardian for my other parent. So I’m really my parent’s parent and always have been since “childhood.”
In addition to the psychological abuse I experienced from my family once they were ready to take care of me, I was bullied mercilessly as a child, to the point of near insanity. I became painfully shy and anxious as a result, but I put myself into therapy and have practiced meditation techniques that helped me a lot.
But even the therapy was not too helpful, as most psychologists don’t understand social anxiety or shyness. One therapist accused me of imagining I was being bullied at school. She couldn’t believe I was really being bullied and acted as though I was just being paranoid. Consequently, she couldn’t help me to stop the bullying or to learn assertiveness techniques as I’d requested. I couldn’t find a therapist who would teach me ways to defend myself as they were too focused on trying to convince me that no one wanted to hurt me, that I was just being negative, paranoid or whatever. It seemed they were just reading from psychology textbooks and not really listening to me or taking me seriously.
As an adult, I get bullied at work a lot, am told I’m “too nice,” have trouble setting limits and boundaries and being assertive. Even though I’m a well-educated person, I can’t find a decent job, so I am working at a job for which I am well overqualified. Employers and coworkers are often threatened by my intelligence and I find myself holding myself back, trying to hide who I am. Also I get very bored doing data entry or office work. I only seem to fit into creative environments but creativity seems to be only available to the very rich these days.
I learned as an adult that I have an artistic personality and am very, very creative, so I began pursuing my artistic endeavors – playing music, writing poetry, making films, etc. I’ve also found I get along better with creative people and feel happy and free when I am creative. But this self-knowledge has only caused more problems for me as I’m now living in poverty because of it. In spite of great accomplishments as an artist I haven’t found a way to make money as an artist and I haven’t found a “day job” that enables me to adequately pursue my art.
In fact, I don’t fit into today’s job market at all. I ended up homeless a few years ago, and that was a real eye opener. I found that I have no friends. The people I thought were friends really didn’t care about me at all.
I also have chronic pain which, in time, is getting worse. I don’t have the money to get the health care I need.
Anyhow, as I’m writing this, I’m losing some of my sadness. It’s good to vent. But at the same time, I’m in a situation where I’m an adult, not considered to be young anymore, and I don’t meet people who are similar to me, so I feel pretty isolated.
Now, I’m staying in a situation where an acquaintance has been helping me a great deal but this isn’t a sustainable situation. I might end up homeless again soon unless I can find some way to start my own business, as there really aren’t any jobs out there for me.
I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Please don’t anyone respond with platitudes, i.e., “Think positive, things will get better…blah…blah…blah.” Look, I’ve been there and done that. I’m really a very intelligent person who overcame and extremely painful childhood. I’ve gone into therapy. I’ve been to self-help groups. I’ve gone to college, graduated with good grades, but now I have huge student loan debt and the jobs just aren’t out there. So what to do?
Anyhow, I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but it really would have been better if I’d never been born. My parents weren’t able to take care of me, my extended family didn’t want me, I’m not aggressive enough for this society, and I can’t earn a living. I cringe when I hear people try to talk other people out of committing suicide by telling them they’re suffering from “depression” and that things will get better. First of all, “depression” is not an illness but a natural reaction to things that happen to you that you can’t control. I can’t control this economy. I can’t control the fact that other people don’t appreciate my talents and skills. I know I’m capable of doing great things but I can’t get other people to appreciate what I have to offer.
by Band Back Together | Jul 13, 2016 | Hearing Loss and Hearing Impairment, Loneliness |
I’m the only one who deals with this. I feel like it’s holding me back.
I was born with a disability.
My right ear, first of all, looks hideous, and second, it doesn’t even work. I’ve never been able to sense exactly where a noise is coming from. It’s like living with all the noises coming through earbuds on both ears, only on half volume. It sucks to think about.
No one else I know at my school has a disability.
But there’s more.
I love being in the school drama club. I love acting in musicals and plays. I love being in our academy concerts. I really do. But I don’t enjoy songs the way other people do. I was born to remember and judge songs by the tune, not the words. I hardly remember the words of a good, catchy song. Because of this, it takes sweet time for me to remember the words to a song. Especially songs I don’t have feelings for.
Often the amount of time I have to practice my songs for my concert, or for my musical, is much more than the normal amount. By the time I’m on stage, I haven’t remembered the words. I’ve never had a real solo. I’m being held back from one of my dreams.
And Only I Feel It.
I now love to write stories, and it’s another dream to become an author. But I will never forget that other dream. It calls my name, but I can’t reach it.
And Only I Feel It.
People take advantage. I talk really loud, and it sounds normal to me. Raising my voice any higher is screaming.
Guess what?
And Only I Feel It.
I want to be normal. Why can’t I be normal?
By-WeWillBand
by Band Back Together | Jul 12, 2016 | Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Divorce, Fear, Grief, Infidelity, Suicide |
It is very difficult to watch someone you love go through the pain of a divorce. There really isn’t much you can do to help them, especially when they are in denial and are making poor choices.
He’s my best friend in the world. I love him dearly. His marriage was never anything extra special, in fact, it was almost always rocky. A few years ago, he was pretty sure his wife was cheating on him. They talked it out, and were working on their marriage. The only resolution I could see as an outside observer was that suddenly, all of HIS phone calls were being monitored. Including with me, his best friend. But since I’m a girl, I was under suspicion. Which I found quite ironic since SHE was the one suspected of cheating, not him.
So it really wasn’t a surprise to me when everything came crashing down this winter. She had been planning ahead: getting her own bank account and transferring her direct deposit into that account, packing up little things here and there. He was knocked completely sideways when she announced she was moving out. Not surprising, he tried very hard to get her to stay.
For a while.
Until he found out she was, indeed, cheating on him.
He isn’t an alcoholic, but he has always been a heavy drinker when he was in the right mood. Her leaving pushed him to the point of drinking all the time. He called me one night, more drunk than I’d ever heard him, and told me he was puking up blood and was suicidal. It scared me to death. I seriously considered driving the hundreds of miles between us to check on him.
Instead, I made him check in with me all the time. He was angry with her and took it out on me, saying I was smothering him. I know now that I probably did push too hard, but it was out of love and concern for him. He became angry enough that he quit talking to me altogether.
Months passed.
I needed to deal with some things in our hometown, so I went to see him. As I already knew, he was – mostly – ready to forgive me. Our friendship is still a little unstable, so for now, I need to be very gentle on him and give him some space.
In talking to him, I did discover that he is still very damaged. It’s not the loss of the marriage that has hurt him so much as it is the loss of the dream of what he thought their marriage was going to be. Even though he has “moved on” and has a new girlfriend, he couldn’t stop talking about his ex and everything she did. His pain is still very raw, although he’s too stubborn to admit it. I know a new relationship is probably not the best thing for him right now, but I know that, like the alcohol, he is using the new girlfriend as a crutch. She’s not his type at all, and from what I can tell is a walking train wreck. I hope she’s not going to end up making everything worse.
So I’m going to love him and pray for him from a distance. I’m hoping that once he heals more, he will cut back on the drinking, and hopefully see this other girl for who she really is.
This really hurts me to watch, but I’m glad he’s at least allowing me to do that much again.
by Band Back Together | Jul 6, 2016 | Fear, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Loss |
I feel like I’m losing everyone I ever loved.
Who could be next?
My mother and I don’t understand.
Now, it’s my grandmother.
Nana.
I’m 10, and in New York.
My grandmother (on my mom’s side), lived in Florida. She lived a long life. I don’t know how old Nana was, but my mom is almost 50.
My mom is a nurse, and she would always check on Nana, over the phone.
One day, she received a phone call – a bad one. Nana had been sent to the Emergency Room, and was sick. My mom was stressing out the entire day, trying to find out what happened.
That night, my grandmother passed away.
My grandfather (on my mom’s side) had already passed away years ago.
In the morning, my mom told me Nana was dead, so I didn’t go to school. She later explained how she had died.
I don’t get life. Everything is falling from my feet. I want her back. I want everything back. I’m scared of what will come next.
By-WeWillBand
