by Band Back Together | Oct 19, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Alcohol Addiction, Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Depression, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Major Depressive Disorder |
Three months after my third pregnancy loss, I started drinking.
In my mind, I’d done everything I was, as a faithful Mormon woman, “supposed” to do. I was married in the temple. I attended church regularly. I prayed, read my scriptures, paid my tithing…all the things I was taught would bring me true happiness.
I wasn’t happy.
Every time I heard “multiply and replenish the earth” I started crying. Nothing in my Mormon upbringing had prepared me to give birth to a dead baby. I was supposed to stop taking birth control, get pregnant and then have a baby. End of story. Nobody mentioned the awful things that might happen between point A and point C.
I was angry.
God told me to multiply and replenish the earth and I tried, dammit. What kind of messed up God tells someone to do something and then totally messes with them?
I was disconsolate. I was livid. I was miserable.
I had a plan.
I’d done everything I was “supposed” to do, but it obviously wasn’t working for me. Now I would do whatever I wanted, because really, it couldn’t possibly get worse.
So I went to a bar. I chose it carefully, because I had no idea what I’d be like or what might happen. I just knew there was the potential to feel better. I went to a bar where I knew the bouncer–we’d been on a few dates before I got married–and I felt like I could trust him to kind of watch over me.
Darin, if you ever read this…thank you. For more than I’m willing to discuss on a public forum.
I don’t remember what that first drink felt like, but it must’ve been decent, because it wasn’t my last.
I learned to drink.
I learned which drinks packed the most bang for my buck. I learned which ones made me gag but were totally worth it because once they were down they made me feel warm and fuzzy and like everything was okay in the world.
I didn’t drink every night, or even every weekend. Most of the time I was achingly sober, which gave drinking an allure that seemed not only difficult but pointless to resist. Why would I not do something that brought me a moment of respite?
I’ve had a lot of trite phrases thrown my way during this whole journey, and this is the one that always makes me laugh: “It’s not true happiness. When the glow wears off, you’ll be even more miserable.”
Bullshit.
At that point there was no such thing as more miserable, and if I could get 30…60…120 minutes where I didn’t think, I’d take it. Anyone who throws that phrase around has no idea what true depression feels like, and I’m happy for them. I’d prefer nobody feel that way.
So I drank. And I distanced myself from my husband, my family, my church. I still participated in all the things I had before, but it seemed empty. That was the one problem with alcohol–it wore off, and I certainly couldn’t spend every waking moment drunk. After all, that’s what alcoholics do, and I certainly wasn’t an alcoholic.
I couldn’t admit that I was drowning. I had to be strong, because that’s what you do when horrible things happen. You pull on your big girl panties and press forward. You don’t say that all your dreams and hopes for the future vanished overnight and now you feel like there’s nothing to live for.
That might make other people sad, and I was sad enough for everyone.
Luckily, I found a solution. I didn’t have to drink all the time, because there was something even better! It was cheaper, more accessible and, best of all, every bit as legal as alcohol.
by Band Back Together | Oct 14, 2010 | Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Intimate Partner Rape, Rape/Sexual Assault |
It’s your 27th birthday today. All day today, everything I signed and dated put knots in my stomach.
This is the first time in three years that I am not bending to your will.
The first birthday of yours that we spent together was the first time I felt truly afraid of you. It was the first time you made it entirely clear what you were capable of and willing to do to me.
I was to start my first post-college job that day. The night before you got drunk. You were throwing things, making degrading jokes, grabbing at me and my clothes, and cutting me down to size. You made it clear that I was worthless and that the job I was to start as a social worker was pointless.
That I had no worth…to society or to you.
After you destroyed our living room and kitchen, you began throwing beer cans and blasting your racist music. You kept me awake until three in the morning with the noise. Besides, I was too afraid to sleep and leave you unattended in the house. You came upstairs and realized that I was still awake. I tried to explain to you that I needed to sleep which you thought that was funny. You said that I had kept you up many a night when you had to work and that I would be fine.
You then proceeded to “do” what you wanted. After my first day, I came home and surprised you with a cake and a card. You thought they were both bullshit. You wanted booze instead. You did not ask about my day. Instead, you sent me a text in the middle of the day to pick up alcohol for you.
Now we’re done. So entirely done. And I still have moments where I feel worthless, useless, and unable to ever love or be loved again. I don’t trust men. I don’t like being touched. I have a hard time eating, sleeping is impossible, and romance makes me so angry.
My emotions are raw and I feel like I’m trying to swim out of the center of a lake. I can see myself on the shore but it takes one stroke at a time to get there.
Now you’ve moved on to another woman. I’m relieved that it’s no longer me that is the center of your “affections.” I’m hurt that it was so easy for you to move on when I’m stuck. I still hurt and rage and ache.
I didn’t expect today to be so hard. After all, it’s YOUR day, not mine. But I’m proud because I made it through. I’ll keep swimming back to myself and away from the sinking pit that you pulled me into.
I’ll find myself.
I will heal.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Addiction, Self Injury |
Inside my chest – there’s static. It started when I was small, so small I can’t remember a time I felt still. There’s static in my chest and noise in my head. The kind of noise that reminds me of a Devourment song, but instead of Mike Majewski screaming at me through my iPod, it’s my subconscious screaming at my insides.
12 years ago, I found the thing that made the static stop.
Cutting.
5th grade saw the beginning of my war against self-injury. I started burning myself with my curling iron and scraping the skin from my arms with a craft scissors. The injuring became more frequent over the years, the wounds more and more severe. By the time I was 17, I was cutting everyday. I had a make-up case stocked with scalpels and bandages and would cut dozens of times a day. I couldn’t imagine my life without cutting, couldn’t imagine the next 45 minutes without it. I spent the next two years plastering myself with my pain. The injuring, an elaborate metaphor, the vent through which my fear and anxiety, my blood, flowed. I spent the next two years breaking, and eventually attempting suicide.
Six months after I was released from the hospital, I looked in the mirror and saw the mess I’d made. That day was the day I QUIT cutting.
God, it hurt.
But the hours clicked on, adding up to days and weeks…months. My life changed on September 9th, 2007, the day I’d stopped hurting myself and it changed again on November 24th, 2007, the day I learned I was pregnant. I had an even bigger reason to heal. I used my pregnancy as a catalyst, everyday inspiring a change in my heart, finding a healthy way to ease the anxiety. I was inspired, but there were still bad days. I remember one such day, somewhere around my seventh month, sitting in the bathroom trying to break the straight razor out of a gillette shaver and the glint of metal struck me, lain against the backdrop of my growing belly. I stopped. I didn’t get the razor out. I threw it against the way and screamed. My child was NOT going to grow up with a self-injuring train-wreck for a mother!
I couldn’t let that happen. I’d eliminate myself before I’d let that happen.
It has been 3 years and 21 days since that September night. My daughter was born healthy and beautiful in July ’08 and every day she continues to inspire me. I kept the promise I made to her, I have not injured myself. It’s hard sometimes, I can admit that I’ve had some close calls, but I’ve kept that promise.
I think self-injury is a lot like alcoholism – always recovering, never recovered. But with the support of my amazing family and my miracle-worker therapist, I will continue to beat this thing. The hours clicked into days, then weeks, months, years. Let’s make it decades.
I WILL make it decades.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Anger, Borderline Personality Disorder, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Loneliness, Sadness, Substance Abuse, Suicide |
My mom was 14 when she had my sister. Together, they struggled through life and became best friends. When my mother was 23, she met my father, 22 years her senior. After a whirlwind courtship, they married and divorced six months later when he announced that he was going back to his first wife.
A few weeks later she found out she was pregnant with me. She told no one that she was pregnant. She starved herself so that she didn’t gain weight. I was born full-term weighing a whopping 4 lbs 12 oz.
I don’t have many memories from childhood, except for being by myself. Starting in kindergarten, I walked home alone, where I stayed, alone, until my mom came home around 7 pm. What I do remember is being sad, lonely, and ANGRY. I had no idea who my father was, my mother was never around, and my sister resented me for being born and taking away her best friend.
The first time I tried to kill myself, I was only eight years old. I wrapped a phone cord around my neck until I passed out. My mom found me when it was time for dinner, but she never said anything. A teacher told a school counselor about the bruising on my neck and I was called into the office. I laid it all out. I told her about how sad I was because no one wanted me and I knew it would be better for everyone if I just wasn’t around.
That’s when I started therapy.
After a couple of months in therapy, my mom stopped taking me as the appointments greatly interfered with her work schedule. I got sad again. I learned that pricking myself with needles felt really really good! I would carry safety pins and sewing needles with me at all times. I got into sports, made a few friends and got to spend more and more time away from my house. I managed my depression, by myself, and kept my “pricking” private.
But just as things were turning around for me, my mom decided to move to Pennsylvania to be with some guy I’d never met before.
I was 11 and she moved me across the country to an alien nation. I was more alone than ever. Stranger in a strange land. People made fun of me for my “Texan accent.” I listened to classic rock and everyone there listened to Hip-hop. It was so hard.
I finally managed to make a couple of new friends but the depression grew worse. My safety pins no longer did the trick. I needed something else. I discovered cutting. It felt even better than pricking, and the euphoria lasted far longer. Unfortunately, it was harder to hide. The school nurse saw my cuts and called my mom who then had me committed to a psych ward.
I was 12.
After my release things got even worse. My mom’s new boyfriend was drinking more than ever and he started getting physical with me. In a 6 month period, he broke four of my bones, and fractured two ribs. The school nurse called the authorities. After an “investigation” it was dropped, because I was a “clumsy” child and hurt myself. I started cutting again, this time on my legs, because it was harder to see that way.
From 1998-2000, I tried four more times to kill myself. Finally one of my friends’ mothers (after seeing bruises from my mom’s boyfriend) marched into my house and packed me a bag. She told my mom that until she was ready to be a real mom, I’d be staying with them.
I lived with them for three months. During that time, they paid for my therapy and my medications. She took me shopping and we had girl time. I wasn’t so alone anymore! Then they moved… Her husband’s company was relocated to Florida, and of course I couldn’t go.
My mom finally got her shit together and we moved into a small cottage. She still worked all the time, and I was alone. I did drugs, primarily heroin. I became angry and defiant. I was expelled from three different schools. My cutting got worse.
I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
I met my first husband when I was fifteen and a few months before my seventeenth birthday I found out I was pregnant. By that time I was on a LOT of heavy duty meds. I was drugged constantly, either by pills prescribed to me, or the drugs that I chose to take. I quit everything, cold turkey. No more anti-psychotics, antidepressants, pot, heroin, cocaine, not even a cigarette.
My daughter gave me a reason to live. She saved me.
It’s hard for me now (nine years later) to wear shorts or short sleeved shirts, because my scars are still very visible. My kids haven’t really asked me about them yet, but I’m preparing for the day. I don’t know how to tell them about what I went through. I do know that I can tell them that they have saved me, in so many ways.
I can’t say that I haven’t been through some rough patches. And honestly cutting and suicide still weigh on my mind, but I fight the good battle every day and I will continue to do so. Borderline Personality Disorder doesn’t just go away, so the only thing I can do is work on myself every day. But coming here, and seeing what EVERY ONE OF US goes through, gives me hope.
Every amazing person that posts on this site is my hero, THANK YOU.
Thank you for giving the misfits a place to lay our weary heads.
by Band Back Together | Oct 10, 2010 | A Letter I Can't Send, Abuse, Addiction, Adult Children of Addicts, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Psychological Manipulation |
“Mommy Dearest,”
First off, I would like to thank you. Because of you, I know what kind of mother NOT to be.
Now, let me be blunt. You are not the June Cleaver type of mother you have created in your head. Growing up, my life was not normal. It was not okay that you spent pretty much every day of my childhood intoxicated in some way. It is not okay that you bought wine coolers at the grocery store would drink them on the way home while you begged me not to tell my daddy. Going to three different doctors to get Xanax, and then taking 12-14 a day at your peak was bullshit.
Then, you had the nerve to blame all this on me. You said the reason you became an addict was so that you could cope with doing things normal mothers do everyday. You said that in order to tolerate taking me to dance or attend my chorus concerts you had to get shit-faced.
Well lady, I call bullshit. Really. It is not okay to blame your insanity on a child.
While we’re at it, it was crap that some of my first memories are of you telling me you were going to kill yourself. You would whisper this in my ear so that Daddy wouldn’t hear you. You once told me right before a vacation to the beach that you would die there. You said that you were going to walk out into the ocean and never come back. You also seemed to go particularly crazy at holidays. Why? I don’t know. The thought of Christmas still makes me panic.
You have called me things like “whore,” “slut,” and “worthless.” You have told me that the only reason I am here is because of my Daddy. You said if had been up to you, you would have had an abortion. In what world is this considered sane? You wondered why I rebelled as a teen. Well hell, I was crying out for help.
Now, you have the balls to think that should I allow you in my life because you finally decided to get sober? You expect that we should be friends and I should help you?
Let’s get this straight: I don’t owe you a fucking thing.
You have never apologized to me for being a shitty mother. You’ve never apologized for the psychological damage that may never go away. Not only that, you don’t even acknowledge that you ever did anything at all. The things I have listed here are just the tip of the iceberg. Conveniently, they seem to slip your mind.
You have nothing now because you left daddy. You wasted every cent that you got in the divorce. It’s your fault that you have nothing. It’s your fault you have no one. It’s your job to make a life for yourself. It is not my job to fill your life with happiness. God knows, you never filled mine with any.
You, as a mother, are supposed to be there to lift me up. Not the other way around. Our roles have always been reversed and our relationship beyond dysfunctional. I may have had to take your crap when I was little, but I sure as shit don’t have to live with your insanity now. I will not give you the chance to poison my four precious angels the way you did me.
You may be sober, but you are still the same selfish, self-centered person you always were. Unless you can prove to me that you deserve another chance in my life, I will always resent you and keep you at an arms length.
Get over it.
I had to.
Your daughter (in name only),
Kelly
by Band Back Together | Oct 8, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Adult Bullying, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Blended Families, Bullying, Marriage Problems |
The man I married was a drunk. Hm, he used to be a drunk? Well, what do you call him now? When his then-wife served him divorce papers, not a month after their baby girl was born, he lost it. He fell head first in a vat of beer and really didn’t resurface for quite awhile. He struggles daily to not drink. And let me just say, some days are easier than others, boy howdy.
Before we started dating, I was pretty straight forward. I won’t marry a drunk. I’m a daughter of a drunk, and I won’t live like that. I refuse. I still, slowly, started dating him.
When she got information that we were dating, let me just say, the proverbial shit hit the fan. It went everywhere. She said she was going to move and he’d never see his kid again, she was going to get his rights taken away, and she thought about how to get us to break up. Just for the sheer enjoyment of it, I guess. This woman had put this man onto the streets because of the amount of child support he had to pay. Imagine. Imagine having to live in a camper with no running water and no electricity, just to pay child support.
Right now, I can’t tell you the story about WHY he quit drinking. Not yet that is. I’m sure one day I will be able to, without crying and feeling anger and well, wanting to puke. But let me just say it wasn’t pretty.
Fast forward about six months.
7am: there’s a knock at the door.
In my sleepy haze, I stumbled from our tiny room to the front door, hair stuck straight up, and climbed on the chair so that I could see out the front window. Blue car. Crap, its her car.
THIS EARLY?? Ugh. *heart thumping in throat* For half a second, I considered turning around and going back to bed. Letting him deal with it. But nope, I swung open the door and woah, who is this man?
He asked for my husband. More drama.
This is where we learned that his ex-wife had DIED.
She FREAKING DIED. This …this woman who made our lives a living hell, went and DIED ON ME. What the hell?
This “woman” who had put us through so much had just DIED in her freaking SLEEP. I never got to vent my anger at her. She used to hold his child -my stepdaughter- hostage for months. At that point, we hadn’t seen our daughter in nearly six months. SIX FREAKING MONTHS, man. I never got to go to her apartment and beat the ever living snot out of her like I wanted to. I never even EMAILED her to try and get any sort of explanation out of her. I was trying to keep the peace. I just pretended like she didn’t even exist.
So, now I ask you, what do I do with my ANGER?
There are days I just want to scream. ALL. DAY. LONG. There are days when I want to ignore everyone. How do I make that stop? How do I get past this?
How?
