by Band Back Together | Nov 29, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Rape/Sexual Assault |
You beat me mercilessly and I learned to be gentle with my own kids.
You said hateful things to me and I learned to weigh the consequences of my words carefully.
You sexually abused me and I learned that I could survive pure evil.
You were a raging alcoholic and I learned to watch my alcohol consumption, lest I become you.
You thought only of yourself and I learned to think of others.
You were angry and cruel and I learned that being kind is worth the effort it sometimes take.
You were a judgemental bigot and I learned to be accepting.
You were a horrible parent and I learned what kind of parent I never wanted to be.
You were a horrible husband and I learned to look for a loving heart before appearance, wealth or status.
You always found someone else to blame for your problems and I learned to accept responsibility for my actions.
You would jump to conclusions and accuse and I learned to listen.
You preyed on the weak and I learned to fight for the underdog.
You lied and cheated to get what you wanted and I learned to be honest and trustworthy.
You told me I was worthless and I learned to find my worth from within.
You tried to break me and I learned I have a strength I never knew was possible.
You showed me who you were and I learned exactly what I did NOT want to be.
You tried to kill my spirit and, in the end, all I had learned, set my spirit free.
by Band Back Together | Nov 21, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Bipolar Disorder, Substance Abuse, Suicide |
I have been a survivor of Bipolar Disorder for over twenty years. I call myself a survivor because there have been many times that I allowed this disease to come close to killing me.
In hindsight, it was always there, slowly building, until it turned me into a self-medicating, selfish, wallowing hot mess. It wasn’t until I was in my early 20′s that I was ready to admit that something was seriously wrong. Even though I spent a year institutionalized as a teen (I call it my Girl, Interrupted phase) and told I was very sick, I kept my head in the sand about it for a long time.
When the suicide attempts and month-long meltdowns started coming more frequently, I had to admit that I needed help.
I have tried so many medications, I can’t even name them all. In fact, much of 2008 is a blur because I was so medicated.
What actually saved me was getting sober and realizing that I was not so much addicted to alcohol and drugs. Instead, I was addicted to myself and my disease. I am Bipolar II, which means that manic episodes are not as frequent, but they do happen and let me tell you, there isn’t a high that can make you feel so good. And for free. Hell, sign me up!
I know now that I had learned how to prolong the episodes by forcing myself to stay awake for days on end, drinking, not eating..you name it. It took a lot to admit to myself that if only I had realized this a long time ago, I may not have lost jobs, relationships and other material things.
Where would I be now? is something I had to stop asking because the guilt would eat me alive.
I am happy now; in love, and sober. It isn’t always easy, but I am learning to protect me from myself. It’s working and that is the best I can do.
by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coping With Divorce, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Estrangement |
I am forty-three years old – an Interior Designer who has done well for herself over the course of sixteen years. I married thirteen years ago and have four beautiful children. My husband has had a series of losses in his life which turned him into a raging drunk, drug user and abuser (emotionally and physically towards the children and I).
After a series of abusive situations involving the children, I finally made my way to the attorney’s office and filed for divorce. Was that the right thing? I have been nothing but punished since that day in July 2009.
He destroyed the business I have had for seventeen years. He took all the money I had to support me and the children. He stole from the house and took all the money in our accounts.
He has not only hit me a few times, but he hit the children to the point that child services got involved. After they interviewed the children, they told me I would be charged for never turning in all these abuses in the past year. The children and I are all in counseling.
My first attorney did everything wrong, My second attorney took what money I had left and dumped me because I couldn’t pay any more. A guardian ad litem was finally appointed to our family and I had to pay for that out of the investments I had left. She actually believed him and never interviewed half my witnesses. She also never talked to the boys. Then, I was sent to another attorney (a third one) who said he would finish up the divorce for a flat rate. Well, I can’t come up with the rest of the money. He and my -soon-to-be ex’s attorney seem friendly and I feel like I am just getting screwed.
The worst part about all this is that the children are so messed up from the divorce and the abuse they suffered from their father. I have done everything I can to protect them but the Florida courts don’t seem to care.
We are getting ready for trial now and I can’t seem to get anyone to understand how bad this is for me and my children.
They hide in their rooms when he comes to get them.
My nine-year old ran nine blocks away and called me from a gas station because she was afraid to be with her dad.
My four-year old has seen his father throw me up against my desk and hold my head down as he threatened me. He nearly drowned at his cousin’s house and his father was nowhere to be found.
On his second birthday, he took my son out of his car seat because he was crying and stuck him out the window as I was driving down the highway.
My six-year old keeps getting thrown into walls by his father, his dad calls him pussy boy and tells him he cries like a school girl.
He makes him sleep on a sofa at his house to punish him for his mother filing for divorce.
My eleven-year old is pulling out her eyelashes and eyebrows.
Where am I to turn? I don’t know how to get people to understand what is going on and change this for my children.
I bought my house when I was single and have fixed it up, paid the mortgage on it for eleven of the fourteen years I’ve owned it.
In 2004, I walked into my house to find a lender and a lady sitting there because he wanted to refinance the house. I was stupid and signed the papers not really knowing how bad I was going to be screwed – until now, when I can’t afford food, let alone the house. I am about to be forced out onto the streets.
His attorney is trying to get me out of the house so he can move in. The only reason I would do this is for my children so I know they have a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head, but in the process I have nothing.
No money, no place to live, no support and an attorney who told me to marry better next time. My whole family lives up north and the few friends I have here have their own problems.
I never thought this would be happening to me.
I have gone to the courthouse for help with the abuse center. They can’t help me and just send me to the shelter. I can’t find a job and am so confused. I can’t figure out what is going on.
I guess I don’t know what to do at this point. I have tried everything I can except to just take the children and run away. Believe me, I have thought about this so much, but what kind of life is that for them? What if I got caught and then can never see them again?
Do I just give him the kids and walk away? I know that would kill me. I can sleep in my Suburban for a while, but since I can’t secure a place to live because he ruined my credit and took all our money, I will lose the children anyway.
I am a rat stuck in a very bad situation. Crying is not helping me out of this giant mess. Where did the strong business person go? Why can’t I get anyone to understand that I divorced this ass to make my children’s lives better? Where do I go from here?
How do my children survive this nightmare?
by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Adult Children of Addicts, Emotional Abuse, Family, Psychological Manipulation |
I find it hilarious when someone has a perception of me varies wildly from who I actually am. Sometimes, it makes me want to correct the misconception, yet other times it tickles me sparkly to let them think what they want.
Life is absolutely filled with more humor that way.
When I got pregnant with my first son, I had a role in my family: The Fuck-Up. Disregarding all of the surrounding circumstances (my mother’s relapse slash hatred of me), the blame for all of my actions fell squarely on my shoulders, at least as far as my family was concerned. Although many of my actions were not *ahem* the most mature, my family gave me far less credit than I deserved, especially considering that I was 20.
When my pregnancy was announced, my parents were shockingly supportive of me. Well, at least until I found out much later, of course, that they had asked my brother – who is 10 years my senior – and his future wife if they would adopt my child in the event that I “freaked out.” They had such a low opinion of me that they honestly believed that I wouldn’t assume responsibility for my child.
(note: I am amazed that the keyboard has not ignited with the fury of a thousand suns as I type this).
The rest of my family (save for me, of course. I get a special CHARGE when I get to confront people who have pissed me off.) is so non-confrontational that one might assume that each member is far meeker than they really are, I rarely heard about what a Fuck-Up I was considered to be. Aside from snide comments here and there about “responsibility,” everyone was pretty mum.
It was only when I met, and subsequently married The Daver, that I realized just how poor my family’s opinion of me truly was. You would have thought, by their reactions, that Dave had rescued me from the streets, where I was selling crack and dancing (badly) for spare change.
Somehow he had turned my life around for me. You would never have guessed that I was already at the top of my nursing school class, TA’ing for Organic/BioChem AND tutoring for A & P, while working as a waitress and bartender 20 hours a week BEFORE Dave walked into my life.
My brother, who I have a long and sorted history with, decided that if Dave (whom he adored/s) liked me, then I couldn’t be all THAT bad. My parents finally accepted that I had become a more mature and responsible person, although their time line was off by a factor of about a year and a half. In their minds, I only began to turn my life around once I had met Dave.
I do, of course, appreciate that my family loves him as one of their own. I know that I’ll be left out in the cold the moment Daver and I split up, as both of our families prefer him, but I just wish that they could see that as wonderful as Dave is, he did nothing to change who I am and what I will do with my life.
It dawned on me, as I prepared my home for hosting Thanksgiving this year, that if asked, my family would probably mention that they were “having dinner at Becky’s house” and something to the effect of “she’s really turned her life around, hasn’t she?”
Like I was some sort of street urchin in a Lifetime Original Movie who had some sappy predictable plot line: unmarried, younger girl gives birth to a child out of wedlock, heads down the “wrong path” until she meets “the man of her dreams,” and she miraculously changes her path, learns to cook and clean, and becomes a responsible upstanding citizen with an immaculate home.
Who can -and does- now crochet motherfucking platitudes to hang on the wall.
Yeah, motherfucking right.
I can’t do anything about this, of course. It’d probably be easier to train my cats to unload the dishwasher or teach the coffeemaker to speak Ebonics than it would be to get my family to change their opinion of me.
It just sucks that they have to be so off-base with their perceptions, I mean, why can’t I be mistaken for a Fighter Pilot rather than a Fuck-Up
Or, I suppose, more accurately: The Becky Formerly Known As Fuck-Up?
by Band Back Together | Nov 10, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse |
For my 25th birthday my parents threw me a party at a restaurant. I had an awesome group of friends and family that came, and it was a fantastic celebration. As I blew out the candles on my cake, I wished for a boyfriend. Lame, right? Well, be careful what you wish for.
I met Aaron two weeks later at a friend’s birthday party. He was charismatic, out-going, and handsome. And a paraplegic. He’d been injured in an accident at the age of 20 when he flipped his car on an isolated road. Still, his attitude was excellent, his outlook on life optimistic. He could talk to anyone about anything, something I really admired. We started dating, and it was fun, light and exciting.
I don’t remember where to pinpoint when it started to go wrong. When we’d been together about 9 months, we decided to take a road trip up the California coast. I went shopping for some new jeans, and I had to get a bigger size. Love and my career (I traveled for work about 60% of the time, so I wasn’t eating healthy homemade food) had made me fat and happy and I’d put on a few pounds. That was the first time he made a comment. He said he wasn’t attracted to fat girls. He didn’t say I was fat, but that he wasn’t attracted to girls who were fat. Either way, not exactly encouraging or supportive words from someone who’s supposed to love you.
In July of that year, when we’d been dating just over a year, we talked about moving in together. When I told my parents about it, they weren’t happy and tried to discourage me. That should have been a big warning sign. If only I’d listened.
I moved in at the end of September and things changed big time. Before we lived together, I spent 5-6 nights a week at his place. I knew his habits. I did his laundry, helped with the cleaning he couldn’t do easily, and did his grocery shopping. I knew more or less what it was like to live with him. But it all changed. Now, instead of just doing laundry, I was expected to keep everything in our home clean. He’d criticize if I didn’t do things perfectly. I became full-time girlfriend, full-time maid. I did it out of love, but there wasn’t any appreciation on his end for carrying the burden of keeping our home. Any attempts I made at cooking were met with criticism. Meals were thrown out.
And then the drinking started. He decided he liked scotch. He’d always been a social drinker, but it didn’t bother me; there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. And believe me, I watched out for it. I’d dated an alcoholic in college, and I was very sensitive to guys’ drinking habits. But suddenly Aaron was drinking more. He went from a double on the rocks, to a triple; then from a triple to two triples, and then to three. By December, he was drinking a Costco sized handle bottle of scotch every 10 days. I went to bed alone a lot, while he stayed up filling and refilling his glass before coming to bed with hot boozy breath. We fought about it. A lot. It was supposed to be none of my business. I still can’t stand the sound of ice clinking in a tumbler. It makes me want to throw up.
In November, I went to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We were happy that week. His brother-in-law was a CEO and lived in a $10 Million home down the street from Tiger Woods. It was a week of extravagance – expensive dinners out and fancy cars and private jets. We had fun and enjoyed the holiday. I loved his family, and his twin nieces adored me. One night, we stayed up late after everyone else had gone to bed drinking and laughing in the hot tub. We were both past tipsy. Something spurned an argument. He pulled out his camera and started video-taping me. Mocking me and my tears and my slurred speech. I still don’t like to be photographed or taped.
Christmas and New Year’s that year were strained. We agreed to work through some things. I wanted to go to counseling because I knew I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t ready to admit yet that it was because of him. He again made comments about not being attracted to fat girls. Only this time, his comments were coupled with a complete lack of affection. Now it was personal. And now when I cried, accusations of me being bipolar came along with the tears. In actuality, I was trying to keep up my front of happiness and was repeatedly failing. In my heart, I knew things were broken.
I was building strength to put my foot down on things changing when I lost my job the same day I had my first counseling appointment. Instead of being supportive and encouraging, he was furious, and questioned what would have happened if we had kids to support. I was out of work for three weeks when I started my new job on a Monday. He was coming back from a ski trip that day and made me leave my first day of my new job to pick him up at the airport. He never would have done that for me.
We broke up on Friday, four days later. That Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. We went to his friend and coworker’s house to watch the game. He drank a 12-pack in 4 hours. In front of the friend’s kids. And then wanted to drive home. I was mortified and knew I had to get out.
Things weren’t easy leaving. We kinda sorta tried to make things work for another week before one final fight left me begging him to just let me go. How pathetic is that? That even though I knew it had to end, I didn’t have the strength to end it myself? I hate that about myself. I did leave, though, and found my own place. It was 9 days before I could move into it, so I stayed with him, living with my now-ex-boyfriend who took every opportunity to get in every last jab. We fought, I cried, and he made more accusations about my mental stability. He made comments about my choosing a second floor apartment and how that was a slap in the face to him. February 23rd, 2008 was the day I moved into my new home, my new beginning.
I met Dan in late May and we slowly started dating. Aaron called drunk one night. It was two weeks before Dan’s birthday, at the beginning of October. He was trying to make amends, wanted to be friends. I said we could be civil. A week later, I thought better of it and emailed him and said he wasn’t welcome to contact me anymore, that I didn’t want to hear from him again. His retaliation was a vicious string of venom and hatred in written form. Accusations of me being bipolar. Threats that my boyfriend (Dan, my future husband) had better have a lot of Kleenex. Other horrible things about me that I quickly deleted and have tried to erase from my mind. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
It’s been over two years since that horrible final email. I’m not bipolar (I never thought I was). I am mainly healed. I have a husband who is an absolute angel, who promised me he’d never be drunk in front of me, and who holds me tight when something in the present day draws a sudden memory or flashback that knocks the wind out of me. My husband never makes me cry anything but tears of joy. I was never physically abused or harmed by Aaron, but I have wounds. From emotional abuse. It’s hard to say. Emotional abuse. Abuse. There’s no other word for it – for the things he said and did to the woman who loved him – as much as I try to dance around it. I’m working to forgive.
I have so many things I’d love to say to Aaron if given the chance, to scream at him in anger. I like to think I’d be stronger now, and that I’d really fucking give it to him, tell him how all the hurtful things he said have followed me and threatened the happiness I deserve. But I’m scared to hope for a chance to say them, because I’ve learned you have to be careful what you wish for.
by Band Back Together | Oct 23, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Alcohol Addiction |
Playing Scrabble”
“What kind of word is that, DOUR? I challenge, you know what it means?
What is that? one of those Jewish words, right – cause you are Jewish, what you call that Judaism? You eat Matzoh Balls? cause when I was little I had a Jewish friend, and we had matzoh balls. How you make those? Maybe you know him – Tenenbaum was his name, you know Tenenbaum? No, then how about another kid – his name was like Borish or Barish, right, that is a Jewish name. How come you do not wear a yamcha? Oh, you are not observant and what about those curly things down the side of their face – what are those guys called?
OK – so DOUR here in the dictionary it says it means formidable, stern or morose, how you pronounce that m-o-r-o-s-e.
Anyway, man, you ever go to the slam first Wednesday of every month at the public library? I did it once – I came in third place. Maybe I’ll see you there sometime.
So you not coming in again this week so I may not see you again cause I’m supposed to be discharged on Friday although today they told me maybe not till Tuesday. How come you’re not coming in – you gotta work to earn the GWOP?
What?
You don’t know what the GWOP is? That’s the money man – you gotta make the GWOP you want to live.
Anyway I’m gonna be sending you a telegram, I told you I was gonna write a poem man but I don’t know yet. I thought about it but once I start it flows. I just need a title, maybe I’ll call it “This, That or the Third Thing” cause you like that – you all about this, that or the third thing, you know what I’m saying?
Nah man that’s not my expression – that’s from the street. The street man – you ain’t never been on the street, that aight man you a good guy and yeah I ain’t gonna use when I get out cause how bad you think I’d feel if after being in rehab, inpatient and all that, I go out and use again.
I mean how bad would I feel…”
