by Band Back Together | Nov 4, 2015 | Abuse, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Emotional Abuse, Passive/Aggressive Behavior, Psychological Manipulation, Sadness, Teen Dating Abuse, Teen Rape, Teen Sexuality |
I remember my hair sticking to my lip gloss as we walked across the street to the courthouse.
I remember thinking that one day, I would start a story with this sentence. My mother added the following line: this isn’t where you think your relationship will end up when it starts.
What still gets me is that, deep down, I did know. I knew the entire time that things couldn’t end well.
I knew it was strange that he never seemed to have any close friends – and that he didn’t know anyone in my friend circle. I knew it was immature that he didn’t take our music teacher seriously; I knew that, eventually, he’d need to grow up. I noticed how it made me uncomfortable when he started asking me personal questions after we’d only known each other for a few weeks.
But I consciously ignored all of it, and thus began nine months that ended in that dreaded courtroom.
The first of those nine months was May, when we started dating. I turned sixteen the day after it was made “Facebook official.” He was seventeen.
I was happy; he was happy.
We texted and talked on the phone, we spent every moment of free time together. The warning signs seemed to fade away from my sights, and I enjoyed maybe a few weeks of bliss.
He took my virginity in either the late spring or early summer. He was gentle about it, and I was confident in my choice to give it to him. He was caring. He loved me, and I loved him. That’s how it’s supposed to be when you share something so intimate with someone.
I’m not capable of saying exactly when the abuse began, but at some point, it did.
He would pin me down and pinch the backs of my arms until he drew blood. He’d lay his 200+ pound frame on top of my 125-pound one, which bruised my hips and stifled my breathing. He got angry any time I told him to get off of me; that he was hurting me. He got angry because I was “lying” when I said those things. He could see things in me that I didn’t see in myself:
I was tough, he said.
I could handle him.
The emotional abuse started around this time, although it’s harder to draw a hard line around it. I will never know what our first fight was about – it was pure nonsense; they always were. What I do remember was the yelling, the way his eyes would narrow at me, his voice would deepen dangerously, the way he broke things.
But I wasn’t weak.
I could handle him.
Over the summer, I steadily learned to be afraid of him. I learned not to deny him sex, because if I did, I was rejecting him. I must’ve been in love with someone else. I learned not to wear skinny jeans to work, because that was the one place where he didn’t get to see my fine piece of ass.
I learned not to correct him about anything – whether it was whether green was a primary color or if being gay is genetic – he hated to be wrong. That’s why he was always right.
I learned not to fight when he held me down and pinched me, when he held me under the water in his friend’s pool. I learned to go limp and deny him the satisfaction of overcoming me. I learned not to panic, because that only made it worse.
I learned how to act like everything was okay in front of my friends. I learned how to let him pinch me and slap me in front of them, because I knew he wouldn’t stop if I told him to. It would only make things awkward to draw attention to it.
It would confirm what I knew deep down; something was terribly wrong in our relationship.
I learned to take out my frustration on my family instead of him. I learned how to yell at my parents instead of listen to them; I learned how to never cry in front of them, in case they asked questions.
My boyfriend didn’t like my parents – he blamed them for everything he didn’t like in me. If I let my guard down; if I acted weak, it was because I’d been raised that way. If I told him I couldn’t stay out past three o’ clock in the morning, he asked me if I always let them control me: when was I going to grow up?
When I told him my mom started noticing the yellow-and-purple bruises on my arms, he asked if my parents disapproved of harmless roughhousing. Did they coddle me? Was that why I was weak? This was why, in the heat of the summer, I didn’t wear tank-tops. It was easier to change my wardrobe than to change the way he treated me.
Late in the summer, I received the four scars that will stay with me for years to come.
The one on my forearm was from a ride at a county fair, when I was so offensive enough to “crush” him against the side of a spinning-ride. By this point, it was already established that I was weak, so of course, it would make sense that I was unable to stop physics.
And I was severely punished for it. He gripped my arm and refused to let go, tearing his fingernails into my skin and holding on until his hand was trembling. My arm bled, and for weeks after, it hurt to touch it and it turned a horrid color of yellow.
Now, I have a pretty little gray dot the size of my pinky nail to commemorate the event.
The other three scars are on my back.
They look strange, and for months, I was convinced that I would never wear a swimsuit again. There are three quarter-sized grayish-pink circles in a straight line.
I want to say two things before I go on.
One: it wasn’t rape. I never told him to stop.
Two: it was four letters away from being rape. I knew that he wouldn’t stop if I told him to. I knew that the moment I let my emotions take control; that the moment I felt the pain, that I would panic. I knew that I would try to get him off of me, and that he would force me back into it.
Call me naive for dating him, call me stupid for staying with him, call me whatever you want, but don’t ever tell me I didn’t know him. I knew what I was afraid of.
And I will never be convinced that it wasn’t four letters away from being rape.
We were having sex in his basement. He was on top. As soon as it started, I knew something was wrong. I could feel the carpet starting to rub against my back – and not in a good way.
I will never know for sure if this happened or not, but I swear I remember telling him something was hurting. Of course, I was tough. I could withstand the pain. So I waited. I closed my eyes, I gritted my teeth, I blocked it out like I always did. When he was finished, I sat up and saw what he had done.
My spine had rubbed against the floor like a cheese-grater, giving me three bloody, gaping holes in my skin. I was horrified to see it. I still have the shirt that has the blood spots on it. I had to hide it, should my parents find out.
Of course, he thought this was hilarious, and insisted that we have sex against a door right after. The next time you skin your knee, rub the bare wound up against a piece of wood. That’s more-or-less what this felt like.
When a boy pointed to the marks at the pool weeks later, my boyfriend laughed.
He made jokes about what the marks looked like, about how the scars would never go away. He humiliated me, showing me off to everyone.
But I didn’t cry; I never cried.
I was tough.
The only time I ever stood up to him about his abuse was when he hit me hard enough to knock the wind out of me – twice in a row. He slapped me in the back and taunted me when I sat down to catch my breath, because I was acting weak.
As soon as we got into his car and out of earshot, I told him to never hit me like that again.
He was quiet for a long time, but I could see the signs of his anger that I knew were only there to psych me out. He clenched his jaw, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, and for a moment, I wondered if he was going to get us into an accident. But finally, the explosion came when I told him to man up and tell me what was wrong.
“It’s like you think I abuse you,” he yelled. “You know I would never hit you out of anger!”
And there it was.
There was the moment when abuse was defined by my abuser: If it wasn’t out of anger, it didn’t count.
All he’d ever done was foolishly roughhoused with me; all he’d ever done was belittle me to get his way. He’d never slap me across the face. He would only slap me on my legs, my arms, my stomach, my chest. But never the face.
Imagine my relief to find that I wasn’t in an abusive relationship; just a complicated one.
By the time school started again, my boyfriend came to me with news. He was in love with my best friend, Anna. He wanted to date us both and decide which one he loved the most.
I’d put up with a lot of pain at this point, but this was too much. As long as it was just the two of us, I could withstand any emotional or physical torment. I had given him my soul and the rights to use my body as he wished. But now, I was learning that it wasn’t enough. He still wanted someone else, and he wanted to share me with her.
So I said no.
He broke a window; he yelled at me, he demeaned me in every way possible.
But I said no.
And the feeling I felt after that; the pure, shaking abandonment, was the most painful thing that ever happened in our relationship. It felt like every bone was breaking.
Only when he left did I see what he had truly done to me; the destruction he’d caused in my life. In order to be with him, I’d silenced myself. I stopped standing up for myself, I no longer understood what it meant to have self-respect. I, as I knew me, was gone. He’d filled that hole for some time, but now, he was gone, too, and I was the only one left to blame.
All of this happened in late August, maybe early September. If you remember right, we still have four or five months to go. And any abuse I’d suffered from him couldn’t compare to what he did to me next; what he did to my family.
He decided he loved me more than Anna, but they were still “together,” whatever this meant at the time. So he cheated on her with me. I hurt her by doing it, and I knew it. I justified it by saying that she knew what she was getting into with him; that she’d hurt me first by dating him.
But I knew I was just being selfish; that I was intoxicated by him. Before this, I never understood why women stayed in abusive relationships.
As it turned out, that wasn’t the thing that destroyed my friendship with Anna. That came later, when the court got involved.
He wanted to take me back after he broke up with Anna, but he’d already made his mistake. He let me go for at least two weeks, maybe even a month, without him. It had been tough, but I had started to wake up and come to my senses. I turned him down; I told him I needed time.
That was when things truly got bad. He’d always told me when we were together that he had an ugly side he hoped I never had to see. I should’ve realized at the time that I one day would.
He threatened me. He threatened to ruin my life in every way he could imagine. He threatened my family; he told me that he didn’t know what would happen, but that I shouldn’t be surprised if his mom or dad showed up on our front porch one day and “did something.”
He told me that I needed him to protect me, because I would only fall in love with another abuser in time. He told me that I would get raped if I slept with anyone but him. He publicly humiliated me at school, yelling at the top of his lungs personal things that I’d only told him; how I’d felt broken after being diagnosed with ADHD years before; how I no longer felt like I could trust anyone.
At this point, I’d come clean about many secrets to my parents, and they stepped in. We went to the principal’s office and told my ex that he was no longer allowed to contact me. I’d wanted space before, but now I needed it. It wasn’t just for me. I knew what he was capable of, and I wasn’t going to let him hurt my family.
So he stalked me. He followed us home in his car, he skipped class and kept his eyes on me at all times during school. He ambushed me at our home and screamed at me in our driveway, blocking the door so that I couldn’t get inside. I had an anxiety attack after that happened.
In December, we had the first court date.
We’d filed a restraining order. Here’s a piece of news I didn’t know at the time: if you file for a restraining order and the defendant doesn’t show up to court, it’s immediately granted.
If he does show up to court, he has the choice to either agree to it, or to contest it, meaning he would come back at a later court date to dispute the charges.
Guess which one he did.
The next court date was set for late February. We hired an attorney and a private investigator. I was forced to pick through every text, every email, and every Facebook message we’d ever exchanged, looking for proof that he was a danger to me, and that I’d been clear that I didn’t want anything to do with him.
Everything that was supposed to stay private about our relationship; our sex life, our fighting, our most intimate moments, was torn open. The story of how I lost my virginity to him is now known by countless people who have a copy of the full restraining order; my boss, an attorney, police officers at my high school and college.
That’s why I’m okay with sharing my story with the world. The people I wanted to keep this a secret from are now the people who know everything about it.
And in the end, it wasn’t enough. We didn’t get our restraining order, and at the advice of our lawyer, we dismissed the case.
I lost four of my best friends in the world after this happened, leaving me with one.
I lost Anna when I read over her testimony that she’d given to the private investigator. She didn’t think I had anything to be afraid of. She knew that he slapped me, that he hurt me, that he taunted me. But I never told him to stop in her presence, and in her mind, that made it okay.
She saw the mess I’d become after dating him; she knew that he’d threatened my family. But she was on his side; under his spell. If she’d said that she thought he was a danger to me, we could’ve had a shot at a restraining order. I knew that I would never trust her again.
I lost a third friend a few months after the whole thing happened. He’d had a crush on me for some time, and we had a very close friendship, texting 24/7 for months. I’d told him every detail of what my ex had done to me, and he’d been supportive.
I started college in January – at the age of sixteen. I had a job. I was stressed and emotionally wounded. I stopped talking to him every day, and shortened it to just once or twice a week, until eventually we were hardly talking at all.
He always wanted to hang out, and when I did agree to do something, I was exhausted and not as “playful” as he wanted me to be. So he gave me an ultimatum: either put in more effort, or don’t bother talking to him again. I knew better than to think that giving him more was the way to make things work; that was the entire nature of the relationship I had just escaped. So things ended.
And, lastly, I lost a fourth friend; my boyfriend. Before this, I never understood why women stayed in abusive relationships any more than I understood why people did drugs.
Both things were harmful and had potential to ruin your life.
But they have another thing in common; people run to them when they’re week. Just months before I started talking to my now-ex boyfriend, our house had been burglarized while we were home. I couldn’t sleep in my own room for months without the light on.
I had also been diagnosed with depression. I was unhappy with school. I lacked a sense of purpose.
No one talks about the good side of abusive relationships. He was my best friend in the world. We shared everything together; opinions, thoughts, feelings. When he wasn’t tearing me down, he was the most supportive friend in the world.
When I admitted to myself that his abuse was worse than his good side could ever be, I lost the best friend I had in him.
Getting out of that abusive relationship was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
It was painful, and I haven’t even begun to imagine how it will affect my future relationships.
It made me stronger than I ever was, but I will never be thankful for it.
by Band Back Together | Nov 2, 2015 | Abuse, Child Abuse, Childhood Bullying, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Fear, Passive/Aggressive Behavior |
Not a word I ever thought I’d associate with myself. And yet here I am, writing this post.
It’s a little confusing; it didn’t always feel like it does now. I’m the eldest of four kids, and I remember my dad, for the most part of my early years as a different person. He was sweet and funny, he taught art and gave us drawing lessons on weekends. We lived on one farm, then moved to another. He sang this song about a little baby duck. He watched movies with us. He bought us watercolor paints.
Unfortunately, that’s ancient history. And it stops somewhere – I’m not for sure of the date, but I do know that it stops around the time I was seven.
It’s been a long time coming, or it feels like it, but that’s not my dad anymore.
These days, he has almost constant migraines, he treats his kids like something that should be “useful” to him, is critical, cruel-worded, and dismissive.
It’s eggshell territory – I’m always stepping on them, can hear them crunch under my feet when he’s around. He’s not friendly and there’s no camaraderie and joking. There’s only what we’re supposed to be doing, and that we’re not doing good enough.
I don’t know if that was always his personality or if it’s a new thing. I do know that he’s gotten progressively worse, so much so that now, if I didn’t know him before, I wouldn’t realize it used to be different.
My sister, who’s 12, doesn’t realize it. And I remember what it was like the first time I realized that not only was he being abusive in an emotional way, but that I was scared of it.
It was Father’s Day, 2014.
He had a headache, which wasn’t news, and everyone was done with breakfast and scattered around the house. Some tiny thing flipped him out – and it was my fault. I’d been in my room, reading quietly out loud because it helps me concentrate.
My family calls me out on it and doesn’t like it, so I try not to do it often, but for the most part they ignore it.
This time he didn’t.
I guess it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, or something. He blew up, stormed around, slammed stuff on the kitchen counters, screamed his fucking head off at my mom.
Normally when he’s angry, critical, trying to correct something, or give us a job or order, he doesn’t shout. He uses this *reasonable* and patronizing tone that says he’s disappointed in you, that you’ve really just been incredibly incompetent and useless THIS time, and he hopes you’re happy with yourself.
It’s the worst thing in the world.
Well, the shouting was worse.
My sister ran into my room and we hid under my desk until he left the house and my mom found us there. She was half-laughing, half-crying, like she wanted it to not be as big of a deal as it was.
I ran out and hid in the field crying for the better part of an hour, not wanting to be in the same airspace as him. When I got back, he was waiting on the front porch. I remembered that he wanted to talk to me. I sat there feeling sick as he went on and on, this self-victimizing speech I couldn’t stand hearing.
I wanted to tell him it didn’t excuse his actions, but I started crying instead. He put his arm around me, which just made it worse. I wanted to get out of the entire situation, and he wasn’t trying to comfort me. He was using me as a way to comfort himself.
Since I’m at school, I don’t see as much of him. I think my second-youngest brother realized that, because he got a job away from home this year and his own apartment. I don’t have a license, so I couldn’t make that happen, and when I’m not working I’m home all the time. It’s not much different that it was that day or before that day, except that now, I notice it.
Today, it was towels in the bathroom. He called all of us in to see how there was a towel on the floor and another one *improperly* draped over the rack. He gave us this lecture on the *correct* bathroom procedures, and as we were leaving I said something to my sister, which I’ve been using to comfort myself and get myself through the constant tension in my household:
I’m a spy, just witnessing and gathering data.
He heard it and asked me what I said, so I said I hadn’t spoken. He told me I was being childish, acting like a “whipped puppy.”
And the thing is?
That’s EXACTLY how I feel, and I can’t stop it.
I don’t even know if it’s as bad as I think it is. Nobody else in my family goes on crying jags about it. My sister’s a feisty little fireball and fights back. My younger brother doesn’t give a shit. My mom doesn’t like his attitude, but also she defends him and sympathizes somehow.
It’s just me, hiding in the bathroom choking on tears. Because every day in this house I feel judged and afraid and anxious. I don’t like to go anywhere with my father.
I don’t feel I HAVE the same father I did when I was six and loved him. I don’t feel like I love him now. I don’t respect him anymore, and I don’t even particularly LIKE him.
And for some reason the same thought keeps going around and around in my head.
Someday, if I get married, he’s going to want to walk me down the aisle, this person I don’t respect or even particularly like.
And I won’t be able to tell him “no.”
by Band Back Together | Oct 15, 2015 | Abuse, Adult Bullying, Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents, Bullying, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Parent Loss |
A narcissistic parent can ruin a child’s life for years and years.
This is his story:
Where do I begin?
My mother didn’t just run the first 26 years of my life – she ruined them.
When I was five, I had a dog who mysteriously disappeared. The dog chased a would-be vandal over a fence. While the dog never touched the kid, the kid fell and hurt his shoulder. His parents threatened to sue. While my brothers and I were at school, while Dad was at work, Mom “settled out of court.”
She had a perfectly healthy dog, MY DOG, euthanized.
I was told he ran away while my brothers were told he was given to a chicken farmer. Dad was told the truth. I was told something different because I’d have asked to go to the chicken farm to see my dog.
Twenty years later, I was told the chicken farm story, twenty-five years later, I was FINALLY told the truth. Dad confessed because he was tired of lying for Mom.
What Dad didn’t know is that I paced the streets looking for my dog. I sat on my porch, just waiting for him to come home. I was just like that movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. A letter carrier came upon me on the porch, crying and was at a loss for words.
Life went on for Mom. She chatted on the phone, watched her soaps, did laundry, and ignored my pleas for my dog to “come home.” That dog was my friend.
The Golden Child, The Golden Boy, my abusive, bullying older brother would not allow anyone to be more successful at anything he’d failed at first. The Golden Boy was allowed to try out for Little League, but he didn’t like it. Therefore I was never allowed to try out for Little League. She wouldn’t let me try out for anything – even when Dad pushed for me to join the swim team.
As a teen, I was very shy, awkward around girls. There were a couple reasons: Mom insisted I buy her ugly car, Mom insisted I remain in Boy Scouts – and so it was. Lastly, The Golden Boy would go through my yearbook, find the girls I had crushes on, and ask them out first.
When I was fifteen, I took a date to my homecoming dance. She was my mother’s boss’s daughter who really wanted to go to that dance… just not with me. Her only way in was with a date. I got her in, she flirted with every guy there, and tells me, “Maybe I’ll look you up in a year or two.”
It was completely embarrassing.
Mom thought it was hysterical.
Four years later, I’m home for the summer from college. The Golden Boy commits road rage, and I save his sorry butt from a guy twice our combined sizes. How does he thank me? He starts dating the girl I’d brought to homecoming and bragging about it.
Mom finds it outrageously hilarious funny.
Once again, I was terribly hurt.
Mom informed The Golden Boy that my brother’s girlfriend wasn’t allowed in the house. She also tells me that people can change for the better. She told me about my uncle, her brother, who’d come home from the Navy only learn that his fiancee had married someone else. My uncle was devastated, married his first wife, had two kids, and ended up divorced. As his first fiancee did.
Mom told me they reconnected after he bailed her out of jail for prostitution. For 29 years, I believed this story. And I had failed romance after failed romance.
In college, The Golden One wanted me as a his roommate. Mom thought this was a great idea until I reminded her that I wouldn’t live under the same roof with him. Then he decided we needed to be in the same classes. I sat away from him, listening to comments about his abrasiveness from other students.
The only rebellious thing I ever did was to date my first wife. I knew the relationship wouldn’t work, but my self-esteem was shot, and I chose someone who was not his type – even though it meant I had to sacrifice my own happiness. My first wife and I were married and divorced in less than eight months.
At 26, I met my wife. When she and I got engaged, The Golden Boy had barely known his then-girlfriend, but decided that not only would he marry this woman, but that he should beat me to the alter. When it came to introduce our families, my fiancee and I settled on one weekend and made our plans. The Golden Boy then usurps my weekend so that his future in-laws are met first.
I told my wife we’d be on the back-burner. And we were.
Every time my wife and I would visit, the Golden Boy was there. See, he was was usually unemployed and wanted to use us to get a job. My mother played along until I put my foot down.
I have made up for my lost childhood. I will always have the kind of dog I want. I coached Little League and later high school baseball. When the high school team I coached won a game on a play I called, I remembered looking at my high school ring and saying, “Now I can wear this with pride.”
I went back to college, got my masters degree. I’ve had the same wonderful job for as many years as The Golden Boy has been fired from. It’s likely he’s been fired by more.
My mother died a few years ago, just after my daughter graduated. Dad was proudly telling me all about what my daughter accomplished when I interjected. I pointed out that I was denied those opportunities. I mentioned why and told Dad all about my uncle and aunt’s relationship.
Dad cut me off, “that isn’t true. Your mother made that up.” For 29 years I bought that story. I told my wife, “If she lied to me about this, what else did she lie about?”
My wife said it best, “You’re probably going to find out there were more lies.” I have – most were done to cater to The Golden Boy.
When I was visiting for Father’s Day, The Golden Boy tried to start something. I was on my parents phone – no one had cell phones back then – and he wanted to use the phone too. I told him I’d be off in five minutes, but he got nasty – he said he’d use the phone whenever he wanted to. My mother was on his side. I hit the roof. Mom started crying, and talking about taking everyone on a cruise for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
They renewed their vows the day after their actual anniversary – my anniversary – to cater to The Golden Child. At dinner, my wife and I presented my parents with a special gift, a three-night stay at a bed and breakfast. Afterward, Mom called me to tell me that they’d had a blast. Years later, I find out that she’d given away the reservation to a family friend. No one, of course, is allowed to be better than The Golden Boy. And since he was broke and didn’t buy them a gift? She wanted nothing from me.
Later, I asked Dad about it – Dad knew nothing of it, which makes sense: Dad knew what Mom wanted him to know.
When Mom died, a spiteful Golden Boy showed his true colors. He and Dad never got along. He tried to have Dad institutionalized. It didn’t work. The Golden Boy was removed from the hospital by security.
The Golden Boy fought with Dad after Dad informed the hospital staff to not release his protected health information to my brother. What does this Golden Child do for revenge?
He makes a false report to DCF, claiming Dad is broke, beat his wife, has dementia, and is living off cat food.
DCF investigated while Dad was home grieving. A follow-up investigation took place the day Mom died. I was less-than-friendly to DCF. I told them if they had any questions about Dad’d mental capacity, to bring them to me. She couldn’t tell me who’d ordered the investigation, to which I replied, “I can take three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”
I made Dad change the locks on the house, and I became his power of attorney. I made sure Dad didn’t disinherit The Golden Child because there are grandchildren involved. He’s not getting a key to the house, though.
Now The Golden Boy has a job, which I always fill the words “for now,” since he always gets fired. Dad is trying to tell me how much better his personality is since getting this job. A person’s employment status does not change someone’s personality. Becoming a parent, yes.
Speaking of children, my mother GAVE BACK many pictures I gave her and Dad of my daughter under the guise of “There isn’t enough room.” There are ROOMS OF PICTURES of just his child, one of SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN! Dad won’t do anything there because he wants to keep the house as Mom left it.
The golden boy learned how to lie from my mother. He told a lie about my uncle that caused me to never be allowed to see that uncle the last 8 years of his life. This was another of Mom’s brothers, and he used to take us to a rifle range. The golden boy convinced Mom I was irresponsible and couldn’t be trusted at a range. Mom never let me see that uncle the last 8 years of his life before he was tragically killed.
This uncle left a rifle to the golden boy and my parents. When I asked why it was such a big deal with taking me to a range, my mother said, “Why do you take stock in what your brother says?” I responded, “I didn’t. You did.” Mom then said they were afraid I was holding a grudge against someone and was planning something rash.
I have poured a lot out here regarding the lies I was told. Now the golden boy is trying to charm his way back into Dad’s good graces. I’ve told Dad this has nothing to do with past grudges, or should I say all of his bullying. It has to do with the fact the golden boy broke any and all trust with me when my mother died. There is nothing he can do to ever earn my trust because he will never have my trust again.
The sad part is my father forgets his own sister was the golden child with my grandmother, and she and her husband stole from my grandmother, which set Dad off. I told Dad, “I trust my brother the same way you trusted your sister.” That woke Dad up. I even asked Dad what he plans to do when this golden boy asks for a key to his house. Dad has assured me that won’t happen, but to be on the safe side if I have to deal with my father’s estate, the first thing I will do is get the locks on that house changed again.
I feel better for sharing this, and I welcome your responses.
Sincerely,
Cleansed
by Band Back Together | Oct 14, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Childhood Bullying, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Suicide |
I did it again.
While I didn’t yell at my wife, or make any physical advances, No, what I did was worse.
I made her cry and hide in a corner. My own wife.
And it keeps happening; it’s becoming more frequent.
I grew up in an abusive household in the United Kingdom. My mother, sister, and I lived under my father’s proverbial gun. My mother and sister were sexually assaulted by him.
His control ruled my life and dictated that anything I ever did wasn’t good enough. When I’d get straight A’s, I was told they should have been A+’s. Eventually, I rebelled a little which was for my own good.
We’d gone out for a walk in the forest and I needed a rest, so I hung back and sat down to catch my breath. He came thundering down, and with no no one else around, he knocked me down, and started to kick the living daylights out of me. I lost all control. I began to bleed from my head. Then, he picked me up and dragged me in front of a crowd of people.
Not a single person tried to stop him, not a single word of dissent.
From that point on, I decided I should be alone. Beside my mother, no one cared about me, and eventually she began to abuse me as well. It was a vicious cycle that eventually broke down when he divorced her and moved away with his mistress.
But after the incident in the forest, I just wanted to be alone, not exist at all. It was compounded by the fact that I was bullied every day at school at school as well. When I went to counselors or my mother, I was usually told, “you’re just being stupid,” and was written off.
Eventually I went to University, during which time I almost managed suicide with an overdose of painkillers. The next morning, I went to the doctor and was sent straight to the ER. It was no comfort when I was told that the amount I’d taken was enough to kill a “normal” person. Around this time, I’d disowned my father and there were threats that he and some of his brothers planned to descend upon the University to “correct” me.
I saw killing myself as the only option.
My now-wife has stood by me no matter what. We met playing games on the Internet, and eventually I moved to the USA to marry her. We’ve been married over a year, I’m doing the job I always wanted, and we’re expecting our first child.
She suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and sometimes, as is the case with autism spectrum disorders, doesn’t know how to act or respond appropriately. It feels like I have to organize our daily lives because she can’t or won’t.
I love her to pieces and wouldn’t give her up for the world. Recently, however, I’ve started to make snide comments to her or vent at her about stuff over which she has no control.
For example, we’d just had our apartment building set on fire by some careless fuckwits, and while the apartment wasn’t damaged, it did smell like smoke. The Red Cross had us stay in a hotel, and when we returned home, we both set about organizing our apartment.
When I ask her what else we needed to do, she says that we need to grab CDs from the car so she can rip them onto her laptop. I’m thinking,
“What the fuck? We need to inspect the apartment in case we need to make any claims, and you want me to go downstairs and grab CDs? Seriously?”
Then I say it aloud. I berate her. I berate her because I now have to be her eyes and ears. That I have to organize her day for her. How much it all stresses me out.
And then it hits me like a ton of bricks.
The one thing I swore I’d never do – abuse my own wife or kids like I was abused – I’m doing.
And now, I feel like scum for breaking such an important promise to myself and undermining, hurting her.
There’s a big part of me that feels I should leave quietly and not return so I don’t hurt her anymore. Maybe go somewhere, be alone, and die in a corner quietly. Because that’s what I deserve. And she deserves so much better than me, a broken person who doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going.
I just don’t know anymore. I don’t know whether I should fight it, give up trying to change my fate, or remove myself from the equation permanently.
by Band Back Together | Jul 15, 2015 | A Letter I Can't Send, Abandonment, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Boundaries, Family, Fear, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Help A Friend Whose Child Is Seriously Ill, Loss, Pediatric Caregiver, Pediatric Mental Illness, Relational Aggression, Sadness, Stress, Teen Bullying, Trauma, Trust |
You have broken my heart;
you have cut me to the bone;
you have stabbed me in the back;
you have endangered my children;
you have stolen from me;
you have threatened to kill me and it seems every time we talk you spew out nothing but lies.
I failed you. As the person who brought you into this world, it was my convoluted job to make you appropriate for society.
If you had been an only child, would it have been different? If you had been an only child, would I have given you more leeway so I did not sacrifice your siblings humiliation, safety and discontent?
We moved for you. It was the area, the neighborhood, the school, the doctors. I did everything and gave all in hope that the problem wasn’t really you.
Doctors, therapists, counselors, hospitals; things a mother should never have to say about her child, I said.
In the end, I failed you.
For many years, I was a mighty warrior set out to ensure your health and happiness, but you broke my spirit and I gave up. I want so badly to let you in, but the price is so high and I am emotionally bankrupt.
You deserved a stronger mother, one who could stay in the fight, one who could be more understanding, one who could battle for more than 19 years. I am so sorry you ended up with me, who tried to make you fit in a cookie-cutter mold. I still have no clue what kind of mom could have helped you.
It wasn’t me.
I battled uphill to mend my broken life while trying to protect yours. The spiraling, all-consuming, soul-sucking, constantly being kicked and punched, that was all beyond me.
I’m sorry I am so broken and weak that I can’t afford to be hurt again. Everyone in your world has disconnected over the years in the simple and often subconscious act of self-preservation. But in everyone’s life, there should be at least one constant, one person you know will always be there. You don’t even have that.
I hurt you.
I insulted you.
I embarrassed you.
I punished you.
I hospitalized you.
I let you down.
I lied to you.
I threatened you.
I had you arrested.
I closed my door to you.
I laughed at you.
I walked away….
I didn’t ever deserve you, and you certainly didn’t deserve me.
by Band Back Together | Feb 11, 2015 | Abandonment, Anger, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Compassion, Emotional Abuse, Estrangement, Family, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Sadness, Stress |
I dread the day, but I know it is coming. The day when she asks why she doesn’t know her grandpa, or if mommy has a daddy, or why grandpa doesn’t talk to mommy but he does talk to her uncle, or why grandpa doesn’t want to know her or love her. It is coming.
It would be so much easier to tell her he was dead. I wish I could say that were true. If it weren’t for the fact that he is still very much a part of my brother’s life, and the likelihood of her knowing that he does exist is high, I might have no qualms lying to her and telling her that grandpa is dead and gone. Because he is dead to me.
It will be six years in January since we spoke.
The angry phone call that started with me announcing our engagement and ended with him telling me “good luck with the rest of your life” was the last time I could feel the hate in his voice vibrating through my bones. After telling me he could never be happy for me and reminding me what a huge failure I was for marrying someone who doesn’t hunt or watch NASCAR or eat meat and has tattoos, the phone clicked and I knew that would be the last time I spoke to him.
At four months pregnant, I mulled over the idea of informing him about his future grandchild. I decided to do the responsible thing and write him a letter and tell him he is welcome to know future baby if he so chooses. Why I offered such a gracious peace offering to him is beyond me now. A month passed with no response and I assumed he just didn’t give a shit, which, he obviously did not.
When I received his three-page hate-letter, my heart stopped in my chest. All air escaped my lungs. The words I was reading were piercing, deliberate, familiar –filled with hate and such inconvenience– the way I felt my entire childhood under his rule. The words and filth and lies he wrote made me grateful to no longer know him. It made me realize that even though the choices I had made were difficult to make, and the process of breaking generational cycles felt like trying to run a marathon underwater, no one is destined for a life reflective of the one from which they came.
It really solidified the choices in life that I had made up to that point and showed me that I truly have been, and always will be, a better person than he could ever dream of becoming.
I know the day is coming, the day she asks who her grandpa is. If he isn’t dead by then, my only wish is to handle that conversation with truth, grace and compassion like a champ, in a way he never could.
