by Band Back Together | Sep 27, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Adult Children of Addicts, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Caregiver, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Compassion, Faith, Fear, Hope, Love, Parentification |
I wish I could write like our favorite Aunt Becky, but I can’t. My words will be misspelled, my commas will be out of place, and there will definitely be run on sentences, but I swear like a trucker so somehow I think I will fit right in.
So back story: BAD shit happened to me when I was a kid.
You know, my dad was an alcoholic, show me on the doll where the bad man touched you, which I never told my parents. My sister got pregnant when she was 14 and eventually my Mom could no longer deal with it all so I had to pick up the slack. That kind of bad shit.
There were days when I didn’t know if I would make it. Days that I wasn’t able to deal. I would burn myself or punch a wall just to feel… something. I made it through bruised but not broken.
I just wish I could tell the young girl that dealt with all of that what I know now.
I’ve been talking to a young friend who is going through so much in her life right now. She reminds me so much of my younger self. She, like me, puts up a strong front, but just beneath the surface you can see the hurt and self-doubt. When asked we will both say we are “fine.”
Every time she says it to me, my heart cracks just a little. See I know that when she says, “I’m fine” what she really means is “This hurts like hell! My heart is breaking. Somebody please just take away the pain.” I just want to give her hug and tell her it will all be okay. I won’t, mind you, because that would make me seem weak or soft or whatever my fucked-up mind thinks.
Still, through talking to her, I’ve been thinking, what would I tell my younger self?
So I wrote myself a letter today. Maybe it will help her or some other young girl who needs to know it WILL BE OK.
Dear Tonya,
I know it’s hard right now, but experience brings knowledge, adversity brings strength. None of that makes a damn bit of difference when you’re hurting but faith, faith gives you hope. The hope that there is something greater out there brings a small amount of peace even in the darkest times.
When you find love, it calms. Love doesn’t hurt; it heals, it comforts, it expands. Love gives. It should not take away.
If life seems to be spiraling out of control, find solace in the small things. Family, friends, music, words. These are your armor against all that will stand against you.
Remember that the lessons learned from the mistakes we make and the paths we choose make us who we are. Never regret them. To do so would mean you doubt yourself. Nothing and no one should make you doubt your worth.
Though it’s sometimes easier to forgive others than yourself, YOU ARE ONLY HUMAN.
Be as kind and love yourself as much as you do those others.
Stand tall without being cocky and be proud of who you become.
I know I am.
Tonya
PS. If none of that shit works there is always vodka.
by Band Back Together | Sep 22, 2016 | Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents, Child Abuse, Childhood Fears, Emotional Boundaries, Fear, Mental Illness Stigma, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Passive/Aggressive Behavior, Psychological Manipulation, Shame, Stress, Trauma |
Once upon a time, I had a narcissism blog I never published. Mostly because it had a lame name and most of the posts were responses I had written on a message board where I was once a member. When the service was shutting down, I wanted to keep some of the things I had written, so I put them in the draft heap. There they sat.
See, to me blogging isn’t just a medium to get ‘my story’ out. While there’s a certain catharsis to that, it’s more the conversation and feedback I get from you guys, the readers, that I treasure most. There’s nothing more validating and healing than that. It’s where we learn that we’re not alone and the tricks our Narcissists used to make us believe they were so special and unique fall apart. We all have stories to tell, and countless nights I’d stay up way too late reading, commenting, and nodding my head in agreement.
There’s so much I don’t have to explain to you. You already get it.
Years ago, all I knew was that my parents weren’t normal. My mother was a totalitarian dictator who thought that somehow my life belonged to her. When she tried to ‘punish’ me for not adhering to her life plan, my husband stepped in and told her off. He gave me a choice…either it was my family or my marriage. In retrospect I don’t blame him. My mother is an absolute tyrant, enabled by my narcissistic father who fears her. But honestly, at the time I was scared to death. I understood that in going cutting all contact with my parents, it would also be with the rest of my family as well.
My mother would make sure of that. My husband did what was necessary.
What I couldn’t do myself.
What saved my sanity was a little tiny blurb on the sidebar of a crafting blog. It was a link to information about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). I hit it out of curiosity, and spent the whole night, and many nights thereafter, learning and researching. I finally had a term I could plug into a search engine that explained my mother’s behavior.
After 30 years, I learned it wasn’t my fault.
In our ‘real life’ exchanges, narcissism is like a dirty little secret. To explain it, most people can’t comprehend how a parent can be so predatory. They can comprehend it only on a ‘it-happens-to-other-people-they-don’t-know’ level, but not as it happening to someone in front of them. And certainly not to the kids that lived on the nicest house on the street, or the ones who went to church every Sunday. No, it’s much easier to believe the mother who complains about her ungrateful children who keep her grandchildren from her. It’s so believable after all, because they live in such a nice house and go to church every Sunday. The hypocrisy of it all leaves us silenced.
I don’t know the person who wrote the blog I happened across, but I am forever grateful to her. It was a small voice in a barren land of silence. It led to exchanges with others seeking the same healing we seek. A virtual hug of sorts, where we lean and learn from each other. We don’t share to play the victim card, we share to heal. We feel compelled to write for our own healing, to comprehend our past and somehow move forward from it. We lend our listening ears through our eyes and offer our experience to help others.
Compassion and courage.
It’s the people that have brought us to this place out of the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt), not the countless psychology articles we’ve read. We’re used to feeling alone and afraid. Together, we’re a beacon of sanity. It’s what our narcissists feared the most: people in our lives that can positively influence us. They sought to destroy any of our relationships, but didn’t count on the rallying cry of a rag-tag unit of strangers on the internet. Blogging is powerful because it’s real.
Real people writing truth the only way they know how: in their life’s experiences.
It’s a far cry from the overly produced stage we grew up in.
by Band Back Together | Jun 27, 2016 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anxiety Disorders, Cancer and Neoplasia, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Depression, Depression, Dysthymia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Incest, Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Therapy, Violence |
I don’t know where to start. I have had dysthymia for as long as I can remember. My new therapist says it is like a living a half-life. I guess it is. This year, it slipped into something worse. This year has been one of the worst years of my life and I have had some pretty bad years. I had a relationship end, I started a bout of major depression that left me 70 pounds heavier, I had two surgeries, I am in a job that I hate, and on November 21st, I lost a dear friend to cancer. I can’t stop thinking that I wished it had been me. I feel trapped by bad choices. I have nothing left to give anyone anymore. I feel dead inside, but I hide it well. No one really knows how many times I came close to killing myself this year. I grew up with an alcoholic, I grew up in a violent household where I never felt safe. I was molested several times by several men and one female relative.
I feel trapped in this fatsuit. I feel like the best years of my life are behind me. I feel damaged and broken. I am trying to get help. The mental health resources where I live are spread pretty thin. I get to see a therapist once a month, if I am lucky, and I see a doctor for meds for ten mins a month. He switched me some of my medications because of the weight gain. I have tried about ten different anti-depressants and all of them had some kind of unpleasant side effect. I keep hoping I will find one that actually works. I also take an anxiety medication. I take it to control the panic attacks I get when I am out in public. I take it to quiet the loop of negative thoughts I have going through my head everyday.
This is my first post. I come here and I know that I am not alone. I thank the brave people who share their stories here.
I am trying to get better. I am with The Band.
by Band Back Together | Jun 7, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Depression, Guilt, Inpatient Psychiatric Care, Loneliness, Self Loathing, Trust |
We all have letters we’d like to send, but know that we can’t. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.
Letters where actual contact is just not possible.
Do you have a letter you can’t send?
Why not send it to The Band?
This is what I would like to tell my mom, and probably would if she weren’t in a fragile state. She’s been wheelchair bound since my second child was born and my daughter is now nearing junior high school. How she ended up in a wheelchair isn’t at issue at this point. Needless to say, she is simply too weak to hear this stuff.
Mom,
Did you ever wonder why I was so angry as a young man? Or why I only had a single friend when I was going through school? You should remember the angry tantrums that I used to pull. The anger I showed you was caused by a deep, horrid certainty that I was useless and doomed to failure. That I could never trust people or achieve anything of moment in life.
While a lot of this is standard fare for a teenager, you never informed dad about any incident as far as I can tell. He was never the kind of man to sit still for such nonsense. Did you stop to think when you told me as a very young child that I was a “surprise?” It didn’t take me long to figure out that “surprise” meant accident, and that you didn’t intend to make me. From that time on, I wondered if everyone would be happier without me, or if I even was truly wanted in the home.
What about the grades, Mom? You know, when I began failing in high school and you would hide the facts from Dad. Of course a child would accept help in such a way. I didn’t want to be in trouble at home AND school, after all. It’s a repeated pattern with you.
Consistently, you would “shelter” your little boy from Dad’s wrath, which was rather corporal, yet never over the top. Yet you failed entirely to protect me from sexual predators. Yes, mother I was molested as a child. I, your little boy, was fucked by a teenage girl belonging to a “trusted” family. My innocence was gone by fourth grade, Mother. Then, listening to your gossip, I learned that you never really even liked that family and thought their mother to be disgusting and immoral. Why, then, was I allowed to mix with them? Did you never wonder why I didn’t have any friends or why I quit playing with the other children from that family? I really believed that my molester was my girlfriend. You have no idea how confused and hurt I was when I saw her with a boy her own age. I had no one to confide in, and as children who are abused often feel that they would get into more trouble.
You were already struggling with demons of your own, of which I had known a little from the time I was in second grade when you were first hospitalized for “stress.” Junior high came around, and while I seemed to be okay, inside I was dying. I felt completely alone, as sex abuse survivors often do. I went through those three years with one friend who I met in fifth grade.
Then, you decided you were divorcing Dad. We moved out and lived for a few months in another town. You went back to father because, as I later found out, he bribed you. Yes, he cashed money from his retirement account and gave you a lump sum of cash to spend at your discretion. That caused me to lose a lot of respect for you. That was a single summer and back to the home. It was fucked up mom.
Junior high progressed. Even then I would have horrid angry outbursts of hopeless despair which should have caused some questions. Mom, why didn’t you do anything to get me help then?
High school came along and I gave up my choir aspirations. I didn’t have the confidence to try out for the high school choir, even though I had pulled straight A’s in all my choir work for junior high and earned a place on the Honor Choir. Indeed, I began to give up on everything then. I didn’t have many friends and had no visitors or invitations during summer breaks to anything. You never wondered why I never went steady with a girl, and asked only one out, and only then after repeated assurances that she would say yes? I pushed away my best friend in this time, in favor of what I thought were better friends. I’m lucky he forgave me, when I asked for his forgiveness.
I joined the Navy, only to flunk their psych evaluation and be sent home after five or so weeks. So there I was in the airport, defeated. You were so out of it, Mom. Dad was obviously exhausted. Apparently, it was getting near to another stay in the hospital for you. Not that they did you any good, except for to get you to decide to pretend everything was okay, so you could get out. Do you remember that ride home and the crazy things you talked about? In any case, Mother, you couldn’t handle your little boy leaving and broke down again. I needed some strength and real help then, Mom. But you, once again, were in trouble. I felt guilty by even thinking, “Dammit, I need my parents right now!” But Dad was dealing with your outbursts and insomnia. And so, once again, I kept my secrets and felt an utter failure. I know you’ve had difficulties Mama, but this isn’t about you right now.
You must realize that I was neglected by you in a few ways. Sure, you kept the house clean and meals on the table, but you never would inform my father of things that he had the right to know, like my failing grades. I was allowed to withdraw unhealthily into fantasy-like video games and television. You didn’t make me do the the things that I should have been doing, Mom. Dad could have helped you with that, if you would have let him. But I knew you, and I played you to keep the bad grades secret, just like any teenager would do, given the chance.
You did all that shit with my older sister, to the Nth degree, keeping her from facing the music for so long that she’s now a drug addict with no job, car, house, or self-respect. I escaped that because all along, since second grade, I have resented you. Yes. Resented that I couldn’t have a mommy that didn’t pick crazy fights with dad as we were watching a baseball game, eating dinner, or whatever. A mommy that wouldn’t freak out at tiny problems and scare the shit out of me with lies fashioned to keep me safe, that only served to inhibit my sense of trust in the world. A mommy who didn’t get so tired she wouldn’t talk to me or Dad and had to be taken to hospital on regular intervals.
I love ya, Mom, but you sure fucked up bad.
Four kids, one alcoholic, another a depressed, self-loathing mess (me) and a drug addict forever child. My oldest brother is the most well-balanced of the four of us, and I truly believe it’s because he spent the greater majority of his time with Father. Why did you “protect” us three from Dad so much? I have a good relationship with my father now, but my brother and sister haven’t spoken with him in years, in any meaningful way.
Do you know why dad was so grumpy all the time, mom? Because he slogged his ass of in a coal mine for twelve hours a day, six days a week and came home to either a batshit crazy or a sweet as pie wife–he never knew what to expect. He paid your way, Mom, and you resented him for it! He never made you stay home, you could have had your own money. Instead, you spent him into debt with secret credit cards, on more than one occasion. I remember the fights. They were the only ones that had any kind of justification. In other words, Dad was right!
You even kept him from forming decent relationships with the majority of his children.
Mom, I love you, but you have messed up three of your kids. That is a fact. I am now thirty six and struggle daily with feelings of empty, horrid loneliness and depression. These things are only bigger for me now, and I resent that you had every reasonable signal that something was very wrong with your child and you did …nothing. NOTHING!
I am now a father, and if one of my children began behaving the ways that I did, I would most certainly get them to someone for help. It’s not normal to rage the ways I did. Now I know it’s because of the injustice of abuse and the feeling that I wasn’t really wanted in the home.
I’m fixing these problems now, Mom, and without your help, just as before. It’s fucked, and I’m still kinda pissed off that all the signs were there. Sure, it was the early nineties. You watched enough talk shows to see at least one child psychiatrist telling parents signs of trouble in a kid. This fucking rock I’ve been toting for so goddamned long is a big bastard now. I’m pissed that I’ve had to do that carrying for so long. I’ve learned so much in my reading that I know that things wouldn’t be so bad NOW, if you would had done more THEN. Maybe you could have found yourself some decent help along the way, too.
I’m taking action now, Mom. I’m a big boy and have been taking care of myself. I’m getting the help I need, but my problems are compounded now by a failed marriage and the breakdown of my little family. This isn’t easier. Time didn’t make this shit go away. Indeed its only become worse.
I will overcome.
I love you mom. I hate you too. I don’t like it, and certainly this is going to be something that I address in therapy. But I’m doing it, finally, and that’s the point.
by Band Back Together | May 11, 2016 | Adult Bullying, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Emotional Abuse, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Workplace Bullying |
Hi, The Band! Thanks for offering this site.
I am trying to wrap my head around what is currently happening in my life, in the hopes of gaining some guidance and support here. And perhaps someone else will gain, at the very least, the notion that they are not alone in their suffering.
I broke up with a narcissist three years ago, and had no other choice but to move in with my mother. From the frying pan into the fire. I knew at some point in my life I would have to deal with the root cause of my issues, and have gone at it pretty much full bore, but continue to experience bullying situations again and again that leave me stymied. I know, “what we resist persists,” so I must have a lot of baggage to unload, since I feel I am trying my best. At least I am more aware of what’s going on as I become healthier.
I suffer from PTSD and perhaps that’s part of it. I also live in America and work in a very competitive profession. I am very good at what I do, and that again, may be part of the problem. I don’t know how to play the game, and I stick out like a sore thumb. I am very good at moving beyond crisis to get myself more on track.
I lived and supported my Mother for a year before moving on with my own life. New jobs, new town, new friends, but nothing seems to be working out. It’s like the trauma has reduced me to a little child, who knows no defense and was not defended back then. Things keep getting worse.
I was recently fired from a job, and I believed …no, I know it was because I took the means to stand up to my bullying boss. The Human Resources Department is not there to protect you, but rather to protect the company. I am fighting it, but it’s so demoralizing. I was an exemplary employee, and hence, a threat to someone highly insecure, who abused his power.
This happened after a year-long struggle with a therapist who ended up being equally inconsistent in her connection with me, and sometimes outright abusive. My longtime therapist had retired, and again, I fell into the fire, and perhaps because I was still in crisis, not reading red flags soon enough. I did get out on my own and found a better therapist, who I continue to see.
Throughout all of this, I have tried to take care of myself. Meditating, using body healing modalities to release my frozen trauma, exercising, etc. I know that this kind of work can dredge up long-seated problems, and in my case, child abuse and neglect, but this dark night of the soul is taking its toll on me. This might be what happens when you were not allowed to develop a sense of self way back when, but instead were an instrument for others getting their needs met.
The key here is that I do have an authentic self, a connection with my soul, so to speak. It was tucked away, and I’m trying to integrate it into my life. It is a gift and a curse. I have a bullshit meter a mile deep, but I don’t know how to live with all I see. I am the child who saw the emperor with no clothes on, and keeps getting beaten down. Maybe it’s my desire to individuate, and standing at that bridge, outside of the cave, I am stuck, too afraid to take the next step. I want so badly to get there, but it seems like I was given no ego support for such growing up, that I am scared as hell.
But I know I will do it.
It’s hard being a sensitive, empathic person in this world we currently live in. Pressures are greater, and those who chose narcissistic behavior are freaking out- perhaps the old rules aren’t working. I need to have faith that, as I slough off these abusive entities, that my true self will emerge from the ashes.
by Band Back Together | May 9, 2016 | Anxiety, Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Depression, Fear, Guilt, Shame |
I’m currently 22 years old, and for so long, I felt as if I had my childhood taken from me.
Before I explain my story, I do want to say that I didn’t realize that my mind was capable of taking what had happen to me and hiding it away inside me.
I still felt guilt and random depression … yet I thought I was ‘over’ it.
I was not.
Once you understand what is bothering you, it can be fixed.
When I was a little girl, around the age of 6, I looked up to my uncle. He’d take me to the store all the time to pick out whatever I wanted, he let me eat candy when my mom wouldn’t have been okay with it, he stood up for me if I was in trouble, and he showed me attention when most of my family didn’t at that time.
I loved my uncle, and he had gained my trust. He was the kind of guy you could count on. He was always being there for everyone. He was the man who you could call at 3AM if your car broke down, and he would come help you – maybe even buy you a new car.
Well, little did I know, being so young, that it was all nothing but a setup … a setup that took years of gaining everyone’s trust, going to church every Sunday, gaining a reputation as a well-known man of the community, with many people who looked up to him.
I don’t recall the exact day the child sexual abuse began but I do remember being told that I could trust him.
He’d say things like, “I’m helping you,” and “I’d never hurt you.” For a while, he didn’t touch me, but he’d gained my trust, expecting that I wouldn’t tell anyone about the child sexual abuse.
I didn’t tell a soul.
At first, I was so young that I felt as if something was just kinda … off, but I wasn’t sure if it was wrong or not.
The child sexual abuse went on for years.
Every time the kids’ cartoon Tom and Jerry would come on TV, he’d have me go into the den and lay on the couch. His wife would normally be cooking in the kitchen or off doing something during that time.
There were glass mirrors in the TV stand that he would open a certain way if his wife was home, so he could see her reflection off the glass if she was coming that way.
He would make me lay on my belly while he touched and rubbed my body. He never had sexual intercourse with me.
This would go on for years, almost every single day. He always complimented me while he would touch, and after a while I finally started to realize that what he was doing to me was wrong.
Even then, after years of having dealt with that man, I still was scared to tell anyone … mainly because I knew the family loved him.
He’d won everyone over, and I thought nobody would believe me so I had to act like everything was fine.
I remember running from him the last time he tried to sexually abuse me and I told him I was going to tell the woman who lived across from him as his wife was gone that day.
My mind will not allow me to remember what he did or said but I didn’t leave. I didn’t go back to his house after that day. I talked my mom into letting me ride the school bus to a friend’s house instead of my uncle’s.
I didn’t explain why.
I still held in what happen to me, and I didn’t tell until I turned 18 years old. I was working at a new job, in which I had to be around new people and older men, which gave me flashbacks to my childhood. I called my mother and finally told her the truth. We kept it to ourselves, it felt better to at least tell someone what happen.
Then, as I got older, I was put on medication to cope with depression and anxiety. I never understood why until I went back to his house to get my closure with him; to FINALLY him how I felt.
By this point, I was an adult with a child of my own and a fiancée. I went into his home by myself, while a close friend waited in the car. I walked in ready to get it over with.
At this point the man was now 80 years old, yet still was aware of what he done to me. I started my conversation by telling him that I wanted to understand why he did that to me, and I told him that what he did was wrong.
He actually admitted to what he did, yet wouldn’t apologize.
He told me that he saw nothing wrong with it. He also said me, “Well, you’re engaged, about to be married soon, so I see nothing wrong with it.“
Once he said that, my mouth dropped open.
He actually expected a thank you from me!
His eyes confirmed that. He had the audacity to explain that he’d groomed me as a child; that he prepared me for my future husband. I explained how wrong he was.
I made it very clear that he had nothing to do with my engagement, nor my life, aside from my anxiety issues. It seemed to surprise him that I’d said that. It seemed, in a way, to hurt him.
I never got my apology from that man, which wouldn’t have been a meaningful one anyway. However, I did leave that day feeling as if a weight was lifted off of me.
It made me view life better after getting to stand up for myself.
It may sound crazy, but just breathing felt good again. The trees looked more alive and beautiful than before. I could actually laugh with my friends and family without feeling like I was faking it all the time.
I realized that the sexual abuse wasn’t my fault. It’s never the child’s fault, no matter what. Adults know better, a child is still learning and understanding. It’s always wrong for any man to preform any sexual act on a child, whether it’s verbal or physical, it’s always wrong.
It’s going to cause you to think; it might out bring feelings you’ve hidden for years, that just come out of the blue. And yet, I firmly believe that you can overcome the madness.
You’ll probably never understand why it happened. Being abused as a child makes the saying that “everything happens for a reason” feel untrue. I believe there’s an end to all bad.
There’s also karma, which I believe will be much more powerful then him answering to me.
There is a definition for “grooming.” Being groomed for child sexual abuse does exist, and it is wrong.
Never be afraid to speak, run, tell your doctor, teacher, someone you know can – and will – help.
There can be a stop to the childhood sexual abuse. Never believe the lies of the ones who want to bring you down or hurt you.
