by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Abandonment, Anger, Blended Families, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Estrangement, Grief, Guilt, Loneliness, Loss, Psychological Manipulation, Sadness, Self Loathing, Sociopathy |
I’ve never written for a blog. I mean, I tweet, but to share something so insanely personal? I can’t believe I’m doing this…but then hell, the guy with one ball had the courage to tell his story, so surely I can muster up the courage to tell mine! Single-jingle, you’ve inspired me! Well, okay, that’s a half-truth. Aunt Becky inspires me too; and can I say that I secretly want to be her when I grow up? (ed note: *blushes*)
I know you may be shocked with the title of this. I mean, come on, what parent would ever admit that they would give back their precious little heathens?
I am an eternal optimist. My glass is always almost-full & I can always find something positive in every person and situation. I am the oldest of six children, raised in a home that cherishes family. My parents are both alive and still married. My mother’s parents were married for 68 years and they raised eighteen children. My grandmother died first and when she did, my dear grandfather told me that he would die from a broken heart; and he did, six weeks later.
So, when my ex-husband (the charmer that he is) and I divorced almost nine years ago I was the second one in my mother’s entire family to divorce. As painful as the divorce was, little did I know that I would experience a pain so great, and so severe, that it would cause me to question my very existence.
My ex told me on 9-11 that he wanted a divorce; that he had never loved me. Great, gee thanks you asshole. He was psychologically and verbally abusive for most of our marriage. He wasn’t like that when we dated, or even for the first two years that we were married.
Honestly, it was as if a light-switch had been flipped the day we brought our daughter home from the hospital. He was angry with me because I was giving our newborn too much attention. WHAT?!? Are you fucking serious?? Yes, he was. That started the downward spiral of our marriage. He would tell me to do something, but when I did what he asked, he yelled at me because I either didn’t do it exactly as he thought I should, or he denied ever asking me to do it in the first place. In a nutshell, he expected me to play ball but kept changing the rules of the game without telling me.
I decided that I didn’t want our daughter thinking that our marriage was the example she should use as a basis for her future relationships. I knew our marriage wouldn’t last, but I had to wait for the right time. During our separation we worked with a child psychologist negotiating our co-parenting plan. Afterward, the psychologist told me that she believed that he was a sociopath. Perfect…and I have a child with this guy.
The first three years after we were divorced weren’t bad. We actually got along well and cooperated. Don’t get me wrong – the guy was still an asshole and thought he could/should control me, but I guess he was just less of an asshole. Well, that lasted until he met and married his current wife. Now, I’m not blaming her, but she certainly hasn’t told him to straighten his shit up. In fact, I believe that the two of them feed off one another.
You see, as parents, we all know that kids naturally try to pit us against one another, right? Well, it can be even worse with children of divorce. As soon as these two yahoos got together, they began telling my daughter what a terrible mother I am and how I must not love her because I don’t do this, or a I don’t do that. Step-monster has told my daughter that she thinks I’m a bitch; they both told my daughter that they think I dress funny, I’m stupid, I’m fat, I talk funny, etc…the list goes on and on.
I share this with you for you two reasons:
1.) If you’re a parent and pulling this bullshit – STOP THE SHIT NOW! You think you’re hurting your ex, but really what you’re doing is demoralizing and destroying your child. My divorce attorney said to us (before he would take my case), “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” That was the smartest thing that man ever said.
2.) When I divorced, I made a promise to my daughter that she would never know exactly how I feel about her father; that while I may not agree with what he does, what he says, or how he lives his life, I would demand that she respect him as her father. I’m not perfect but I’ve done a pretty good job of this. I think I’ve called him an asshole a couple of times, immediately realized what I had done and asked her for her forgiveness.
Last July, after picking up my 13-year old daughter from an extended weekend with her father and step-family, she got angry with me and became belligerent and uncontrollable on our way home. I will say right here that I believe in corporal punishment, but only when it’s used sparingly. There are just some kids that need a good swat on the behind – mine being one of them.
So, I did what many parents have done and will continue to do and that was to swat (there IS a difference between a swat, a spanking, and a beating) her.
It was done to get her attention and only after I had pulled over on the side of the road in an effort to calm her down and talk through why she was so angry. I swatted her on the leg – she was wearing shorts – there was no redness, no mark, no nothing. That night she was hugs & kisses begging to do ‘girls night’ (girls night consists of us hanging out doing whatever she wants to do & always ends up with us giggling and snuggling in bed).
The next day she went back to her dad’s and thus began my personal journey in hell.
My beautiful, precious daughter accused me of beating her. Yes, beating her. I’ve never even kicked a dog, how could I beat my child? I may have had visions of killing severely maiming my ex, but I could never intentionally harm my child. Because my ex never questions anything that our daughter says and wants so badly to believe that I am the bitch that has made his life hell (it couldn’t possibly be because HE’S made his life what it is today), he believed her and hot-lined me.
Then, he took her to a therapist (which may just be the smartest thing the asshole ever did), and the therapist hot-lined me. It was at this point that I suddenly realized that if my daughter was so willing to make these false accusations against me, what would she say about my husband, her step-father? I emailed her father and suggested that until our daughter have several therapy sessions and we figure out what’s going on, that I thought it best that she stay with him. And there she has remained.
Working with the division of family services, or children’s division (whatever clever name your state has given it), is akin to having your annual exam (ladies) and inviting everyone in to see your vagina. They invade every freaking part of your life. Fortunately for me, the caseworker I was assigned to work with was thoughtful and compassionate.
I spoke with her on the phone and she explained to me that I was being accused of physically abusing my daughter. I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I wanted to vomit. How could the child I so dearly love and would give my very life for say such monstrous things?
The only logical, rational reason I could come up with was that she was being influenced by her father and step-monster.
The case worker then proceeded to tell me that after her interview with my daughter and her father, she had decided not to interview me. Her conclusion: “This is not a case of abuse or neglect, but a custody issue and I am closing the case.” Thank God – what a relief!
My hell isn’t over. I haven’t seen or talked to my daughter in over three months. While I retain joint physical and legal custody of my daughter, I don’t want her here if she doesn’t want to be here. Do you know the story of Solomon? If not, look it up…you’ll understand me.
So, why do I not want to be a mother?
The pain I have experienced over the last three months is so intense that there are many, many days that I just don’t feel like I can go on. I have been rejected. Repudiated by my own daughter. She won’t return my calls; won’t respond to texts or emails; won’t have anything to do with me. I sit down every Sunday and hand-write her a letter updating her on what’s happening in our family. I tell her about Buddy, the family dog she left behind and how he lays down in front of her door almost every day waiting for her to come home; I tell her about her new cousin Ainsley that has a hemangioma on her eyelid and may go blind; I tell her that all of her aunts, uncles and cousins ask about her every time I see them. I also tell her that we love her and miss her.
What I don’t tell her about is the intense sadness and pain my husband and I have inside as a result of what’s been happening. I struggle most days just to get out of bed. I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to do the things I used to love doing, I just don’t want to do anything, or be anywhere. I cried everyday for two months. There are still days when all I do is sit with a box of Kleenex and cry all day. Seriously. All day. I hate coming home – because it reminds me of her. But where else would I go? Dying seems like an attractive alternative sometimes, but then I realize that would give my ex too much pleasure. Fuck him.
I don’t want to write to her anymore. In fact, I don’t want to be a mother anymore. There’s just too much heartache and pain. Where the hell is the reward? She doesn’t respond to any of my communications, so why keep up the charade?
Through this experience I am learning what it truly means to love another human being. To be able to look past the faults of another and still love them with all your heart and soul is an incredible place to be. I’m also learning what it means to forgive. Not to just say “I forgive you,” but to really feel it in your heart.
Wait, wait, wait a minute! I’m not forgiving that son-of-a-bitch father of hers, not sure that I will ever be at a point where I can forgive him for what he’s doing to her. I’m working on forgiving her. I realize that this isn’t all her…she’s torn. She is a true ‘daddy’s girl’ and adores her father. However, she needs to bear some responsibility in this. I have to believe that as she grows and matures she’ll realize what she’s done and she’ll be embarrassed and will regret her actions.
I’ve also learned that to be rejected by one’s child is perhaps one of the most painful experiences, other than the death of a child, that a parent can ever experience. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I tried that…there’s this guy that I really can’t stand, yet I pray that he never experiences the pain and agony I live with every day.
What do I say when people ask how my daughter is; how is she liking the 8th grade; how is she doing in school; what sports is she playing this year? Uh, hell if I know. Call her father. I’ve moved all of her pictures from public viewing at home – it’s just too painful. I put away all of her personal belongings in her bathroom and have redecorated it…again, too painful to see her stuff. Her bedroom door is closed and I haven’t been in there for two months. Too painful. When I go in there I am reminded of all of the love and the fun that we shared together. I am also reminded that she’s not here.
For all you out there that are divorced with children, please let this be an example of what NOT to do and remember what my attorney said, “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” Your children deserve the best of what you have and that includes treating your ex with kindness, compassion, and respect.
I will see her for the first time next week in a joint therapy session. I’m sure it’s going to be awkward and I expect her to be cold and distant. I am going to do my best not to cry. I’m going in armed with drugs. Buspar and I have become very close friends in the last couple of months.
In my heart, my hope is that next week will be the beginning of the end of my personal journey to hell.
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 12, 2010 | Anger, Child Abuse, Loneliness, Sadness |
At some point in my childhood, I picked up the phrase “why be normal?”
I hated this phrase.
There is nothing wrong with normal.
Normalcy is safe, and safe is not bad. Norms and customs have value, are important, are necessary (at least to an extent). Why would you rebel against shelter when it’s dangerous outside?
Normal is protective. Normal means protected. Normal means you don’t have to wonder if you’ll be picked up from school before it gets locked up, or if you’ll have dinner that night, or if your parent will feel well enough to get out of bed tomorrow, or come home next week.
Normal means you don’t silence your anguished crying pillow when you’re scared or angry or exhausted or all of these things because you’re too young to be so gut-wrenchingly distraught and you’re afraid of what reaction “that noise” might draw. Normal means you don’t have to slam doors repeatedly to redirect the screaming or at least find a brief reprieve of silence. Normal means you don’t have to hide out in your room pretending to do homework when really all you can do is look out the window and wish you could go there, be there, be anywhere but here.
Normal means you don’t feel threatened, you don’t have to wonder if and how you could do whatever it takes, just in case, and that maybe you should get a knife too, just in case. Normal means you don’t stare at the ceiling hour after hour, year after year, wondering if your life really as bad as it feels, wondering how or if or when you might ever get past the fear or get over the abuse or just forget these years ever happened at all.
I still hate that question, why be normal? What’s so wrong with normal?
by Band Back Together | Oct 11, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anger, Child Sexual Abuse, Guilt, Postpartum Depression, Shame |
My father is a terrible person. I’ve written my story before and I’m sure you will absolutely agree with that statement. What he did changed my life forever.
I’m in therapy right now. I started in April, three months after I was given the diagnosis of postpartum depression. I started anti-depressants right away, but I was too scared to go to therapy. I didn’t want to see what would come out.
But I went. And last month, something happened that I wasn’t expecting.
Anger. Lots of it. So much anger.
Towards my mother.
I didn’t know where this came from. I know it isn’t her fault that my father did what he did. She had no idea. How could she? It was actually because of her that it stopped.
So where is this anger coming from?
It could be from the talks we had after everything came out. She told me never to tell anyone about what happened, especially any boy I was dating. If they knew what happened, they wouldn’t like me any more. Boys don’t like to date, as she put it, “damaged goods.”
It could be the times we talked about marriage. She told me she took marriage vows seriously. In sickness and health. She believed my father was very sick, which is why he did what he did. If she’d had her way, she would have stayed married to him. The only way she would have left him was if he ever hurt us kids. But, like I said in the previous post, I guess what I went through didn’t count as being “hurt.”
It could be all the guilt she would make me feel any time I did ANYTHING with my father. I’ve never wanted a full father-daughter relationship with him, but it wouldn’t be so bad if we had SOME relationship. But anytime I talked to him on the phone or had lunch or dinner with him or invited him to anything, I would get a guilt trip.
It could be the fact that depression is bullshit. In high school, I was very depressed. She told me to knock it off and get over it, This family doesn’t turn to drugs to help us.” Enter extreme guilt when I started taking Lexapro for my postpartum depression.
It could be the fact that she uses me as her personal therapist. I’ve heard everything about her current marriage; the ups, downs, and (lack of) sex life. And when I tell her I don’t want to hear these things? “When my mother was alive, she and I were best friends and I always hoped that I could be best friends with my daughters. Sorry for wanting to confide in my best friend. I guess I’ll just have to go back to living in silence.”
It could be the fact that she told me several times that if it hadn’t been for my sisters and I, she would have killed herself a long time ago. She even “jokes” about committing suicide. But she masks it by saying she doesn’t want to take pills or anything. She wants to kill herself with chocolate. That way no one will know she’s trying to actually kill herself.
I wonder where this anger towards her is coming from?
by Band Back Together | Oct 10, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Birth Defects, Birth Trauma, Encephalocele, Fear, Feelings, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Hope, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Loneliness, Medical Mystery Tour, Neural Tube Defects, NICU, PICU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sadness, Stress, Trauma |
Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer, please God, hear my prayer.
I instinctively checked the monitors as I approached my daughter who was sprawled out, getting a sunbath underneath the warmer. Her stats were picture perfect, I noticed, breathing a little more easily, and I made my way slowly to her bedside where she was sleeping peacefully.
I slogged my soggy bottom from the wheelchair onto the rocker that had been shoved into her tiny NICU room; barely even a room, more like a broom closet. She was sandwiched in between two misbehaving (“misbehaving” means that their alarms were constantly blaring) babies who I could hear misbehaving.
Most of the NICU, I noted as I was wheeled past, was full of Feeders and Growers. That’s NICU slang for babies that were, for whatever reason, finishing their gestation outside of the womb. It”s always evoked a pleasant picture of a garden of freshly hatched babies. A Baby Garden.
Of the other babies that I could see cooking away merrily in their incubators, Amelia was the biggest, fattest, and likely the only full- term baby there.
According to her room placement, though, she was the most ill.
Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer, please God, hear my prayer.
My ass firmly planted now onto the chair (I’d had a traumatic vaginal birth mere hours before), I held Amelia’s lone sock as a talisman, hoping it would ward off the Bad News. I was preparing to nurse my daughter again, just waiting for our nurse to come and help me sort through the tangle of wires my daughter was attached to.
It was hard to believe only thirty or so minutes had passed since we’d heard “there’s something sinister on your daughter’s CT scan.”
Our–Amelia’s–nurse walked in and introduced herself to The Daver and I. I was openly weeping, holding onto Mimi’s sock and my iPhone – where the Pranksters live!- as a life preserver. The Daver was pale(r) and stalwart.
I handed off the box of Kleenex that had been pressed onto my lap as we left Mother/Baby and my daughter was brought back to me, hooked up to so many wires that she looked like an electrical outlet. The nurse stood there, kindly talking to us, but not revealing anything.
We still had no idea what was wrong with our daughter. A diagnosis would take weeks. Her life, as far as we knew, hung in the balance.
I begged the nurse to have the house neonatologist visit my daughter as the pediatric neurosurgeon was busily operating on someone’s head somewhere other than the NICU. It’s probably good I didn’t know where he was or I’d have stalked him down and dragged him to my daughter for a diagnosis.
The neonatologist – the one I’d met a lifetime ago in the delivery room, the guy who was always drinking a bottle of something – he came over to Amelia’s “room” and he told us that there was a “bright spot” on Amelia’s CT Scan. He didn’t mean diamonds.
I had no fucking clue what that meant and he didn’t follow it up with much, although I did see his lips move, I couldn’t understand his words.
Guess that’s panic for you.
After the doctor left, the nurse came back in to ask if we’d wanted to see the chaplain; rather to have Amelia meet the chaplain. A thousand times yes.
She was amazing. Just. Incredible. For the next year, it was her words, her warmth and compassion that I kept coming back to. She blessed my daughter. My daughter was blessed.
And she is so, so blessed.
We sat there in the NICU; just the three of us. I couldn’t tell you how long we just sat. Time in the ICU is timeless. 4 AM and 4PM are the same.
Soon enough, I had to go upstairs to change my undergarments and ready myself to see my boys. My sister-in-law was bringing my sons to visit, and I had to put on my Poker Face. Given the raw, chapped and bleeding state of my cheeks, was going to be damn near impossible.
Back in my room, I saw that I’d gotten some flowers and a basket from two of my Pranksters and it made me cry. Then again, I think the package of Saltines that had been ruthlessly thrown on the floor the night before might have made me cry. I wasn’t in a Good Place.
Alex and Ben came in a bit after I’d gotten cleaned up. I held Alex very, very close as Ben showed me some pictures he’d colored of Amelia. Ben knew his sister was sick but Alex (only 22 months old) had no idea what a “sister” was, let alone what being “sick” meant. I held them and faked normal until I got the call from the NICU. Time to nurse the baby.
Talk about being torn.
I cried as I said goodbye to my youngest son–my eldest just wanted to get home and I couldn’t find fault with that–and he cried and yowled “Mooommmmyyy” as he was led away to the elevators that would dump him back into the outside world.
By myself for the first time, I tearfully found my way back to the Secret Place, The Land of Tears. Never have I felt so sick to my stomach in my life. People stared sympathetically as I wept in the elevator, leaning against the walls for support.
I begged God to let her live, even if she was retarded and her IQ was 43 and had to live at home for the rest of her life, just please let my baby girl live. I didn’t care what was wrong with her so long as she made it out alive. I begged God to take me instead. I’d had 28 wonderful years on the planet already, and she was less than 24 hours old. Certainly, I’d give my life to save her in a moment.
Hear my prayer, hear my prayer, hear my prayer. Please God, hear my prayer.
After scrubbing the top 50 layers of skin from my arm and signing a reasonable facsimile of my name, I wobbled to her bedside. There she was, my girl. Perfect stats, thrashing about her isolette, pissed as hell and looking for something to eat.
In the brief time I’d been gone we’d gotten a new nurse.
When she came in to assess my daughter and saw me crying as I nursed my girl, for the first time in a day, someone asked me what was wrong. I explained that I didn’t know if my daughter would live or die. I told her that no one had told us what could be wrong with her, what that bump COULD be, why she was in the NICU, nothing.
She looked pretty aghast that we’d been told nothing, and for the first time, someone tried to reassure us. I remember leaving the NICU several hours later slightly less burdened.
That night, we ordered a pizza and tried to relax in my somber room. We tried to let go of some of The Fear. I didn’t feel much like celebrating anything, so no balloons, no stuffed animals, no signs that I had just given birth decorated my room. I could have been on any floor, in any room in the hospital.
The nurse brought me my Ambien and the NICU called to tell me that they would bring my daughter up to nurse every 2 hours (the NICU runs like clockwork. It’s no wonder that new parents struggle to care for their NICU graduate when they get home). I turned on the sound machine to blast white noise over The Daver’s snores, and waited, trying to fall asleep.
Unsurprisingly to no one, I couldn’t get anywhere close to sleep that night. This made the tally of nights without sleep 3.
I was about to lose it.
Somewhere around 4 AM, after someone had barged into my room to empty the wastebasket, waking me from the lightest of light sleep, I panicked. I’d sent Dave down to the NICU to sit with our daughter in the vain hope that having him at her side would set my mind free.
I was alone. The panic that had been a constant dull buzzing had morphed into something much more sinister and I knew what was about to happen.
Frantically, I paged the nurses station because I knew I needed help. I explained as carefully as I could that I was about to have a panic attack and that I needed my nurse NOW. My nurse came in, I don’t remember what she did, but she didn’t want to call my doctors because they would be rounding in a couple of hours and I could ask for something for my anxiety then.
Fucking bitch.
She told me to “relax” and then left.
I tried to “relax” which was as useful as punching myself in the face with a hammer. It didn’t work. I put a call back into the nurses station, begging; pleading with them to call my doctor. I begged for help.
My last rational thought was to quickly inventory anything in the room with any sort of calming properties. The best I could come up with was a bottle of Scope.
I didn’t end up drinking it, but I did call the NICU and beg Dave to come back up. A nurse passing by my room took pity on me and called my doctor, who prescribed me an Ativan. A swarm of people all happened to come into my room at the same time: a partner in my OB practice who looked terrified by me but discharged me anyway, a nurse with that beautiful pill, a tech to get my vitals, and my husband.
It sounds, in retelling this, that they were all there to help, but it wasn’t really like that. Dave and the nurse were trying to calm me down, but the tech, the doctor and whomever was washing the floor were doing their jobs. With spectacularly bad timing.
Ativan on board now, I was trying to gulp some calming breaths and stave off the panic. They’d turned off the lights, and covered my still-swollen body with fresh sheets, cleaned off the bedside table and turned on the white noise machine.
Finally, I began to relax and beat the panic away, if only slightly. Dave held my hand and told me over and over and over again that my daughter was just fine, she was perfect, she was wonderful, she’d done great overnight, she was beautiful, she was going to be just fine. It was soothing to hear, but what would have been MORE soothing? Having her bassinet next to my bed where it belonged instead of three floors below.
Then (dun, dun, DUN), the absolute worst person to show up did.
Lactation services.
Lactation Services showed up, because they say they’ll come by every day you’re in the hospital with a new baby, and they do. It’s awesome for people who need help because breastfeeding is nowhere NEAR as easy as it looks on those weird Lamaze videos.
(also: why are people in the Lamaze videos always naked?)
But I didn’t need help. And when she showed up and saw me shaking in bed, being held by my husband while the nurse clucked around me like a mother hen, lights off, white noise blaring, she should have excused herself. This is not a debate about breast and bottle feeding, this is about decency. But no, she didn’t get the hint.
No.
She introduced herself perkily and asked me how breastfeeding was going, and through clenched teeth, I answered that it was fine. Kinder than the situation warranted.
I expected this to be enough for her, but no, she followed that up with, “Do you have any concerns about breastfeeding?” Wrong question, dipshit. Time, place, all that.
“You know what?” I snarled, “I’m MUCH MORE concerned that my baby is going to die than if I have proper latch, okay?”
Again, she could have gracefully bid be farewell. But no. She kept on keeping on.
“Well, what about your concerns with BREASTFEEDING?” She asked, just not getting it.
I responded with, “Look, if she’s dead, I’m not going to give a FUCK about colostrum, okay? Please!”
I began to sob heavily again. It was the very real truth that my daughter could die. We all knew it. Nursing her wasn’t going to help an encephalocele.
Dave told her to get the fuck out of our room.
Finally, with a DO NOT DISTURB sign on my door, I slept for a few hours.
I awoke when The Daver bounded in and announced, “the neurosurgeon ordered an MRI! And he’s really nice! And not concerned! He thinks it’s an encephalocele! It’s a piece of brain or something that’s herniated out! We can go home after the MRI! And follow up with the results next week! Oh, I wish you’d met him. He was so, so nice.”
And just like that, we went from critical to discharged in less than 36 hours.
by Band Back Together | Oct 10, 2010 | Abuse, Anger, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse |
My abusive ex is controlling me through my kids. He knows that’s my weak spot because I would do anything for my kids. It’s a power play.
He only takes the kids to spite me. He was uninvolved in their lives from the second they were born until the day he walked out the door. But, as soon as he left he decided he wanted to be a parent. Well, he wanted to portray the image of being a parent. He wanted the kids because I wanted the kids and he could never stand to give me what I wanted.
When he has them, they don’t eat lunch, they don’t sleep well, he emotionally abuses them. He leaves them with complete strangers so he doesn’t have to “deal” with them. He has told my 6-year old daughter that she is fat and ugly. He allows his girlfriend to call her a fucking liar (she’s not a liar). My 2-year old son has been strapped in his highchair for hours in time-out, not because he was bad, but because he was acting like a normal 2-year old boy.
It sickens me.
I know the emotional abuse that he is capable of and now I am required, by a court order, to send my children into this nightmare.
How to you explain that to your children? What do you say when they are begging you not to send them? When they tell you daddy is a bad person? How do you respond when they ask you to make it stop, make it better and you can’t?
I have escaped but I feel like my children suffer in my place. I am their Mommy. Mommy makes things right.
But how?
I have a contempt of court hearing at the end of October. He has been violating the custody arrangement for quite some time. I am terrified of this court date. I have witnesses who are going to testify about what they have seen. I hired a Private Investigator who has documentation and videos that show him willfully breaking the court order. But, what if! What if I don’t win? What if he still gets custody? How do I explain this to my children?
I have tried everything in my power to help them but it seems like everything I do makes things worse. The more I fight for them the worse he gets. I have even tried getting them counseling but state law requires BOTH parents to consent to counseling.
How is that right? It seems crazy to me. My children are being emotionally abused but I need the abuser’s signature to get them help. That, to me, is equivalent to asking someone who is physically or sexually abusing someone to give them consent to get help. No abuser is going to admit to abuse.
It angers me that the court isn’t acknowledging the long-term affects of emotional abuse. I may not have been beaten, my children may not have bruises but, we are hurting. Emotional scars don’t ever completely heal. I know that my children will suffer from what they are experiencing now and I can’t do anything.
We have so much love and support from family and friends but I still feel alone. No one can help me.
I just want to fix it and I can’t.
