by Band Back Together | Jan 29, 2016 | Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Hypochondria, Mental Health |
Stigma and bias can be a hard thing to overcome, even if one is not aware of the stigma for which they are living with.
I had led a life, up until the point of my unwarranted health anxiety making itself blatantly clear, of uninhibited happiness, health, and carefreeness. I miss those days, but the dark days in-between have made me a better person today. I almost miss the days in which my anxiety and fear was at its worse, because during that dark time I learned about myself, about my resolve, and no matter how dark it got, I had hope at the end of an fearful tunnel. I found that light, and I’m living in the light now, although I still have anxiety daily.
For two long years, between 2010 and 2012, my anxiety and obsessive fear over my health hit its zenith.
For each new symptom I would act illogically; in my mind, an eye twitch meant my muscles were dying; sensory symptoms of tingles and zaps meant I was developing a Neuromuscular disorder; headaches meant I was battling a brain tumor, and so on. The twitches were the worst, because they were ever-present and I truly thought that they were the beginning of some sinister development, of ***.
During those two years, I visited countless doctors, ranging the whole spectrum of specialization, from neurologists to eye doctors to nurse practitioners, to my doctor back home. All of the experts, across the board, would give me the same prognosis: you are fine; your symptoms are benign; you are extremely healthy. Yet, I did not believe them. I felt that they did not understand or that they were missing something. My eyes were twitching, I told them! This can’t be normal! They twitch a lot, sometimes days on end, sometimes for weeks straight. My muscles twitch, my toes tingle, this is not normal, this never used to happen to me, this must be the start of something sinister. I would leave one renowned neurologist to seek my doom from another; I would seek the results of tests, for they could not lie to me; emg’s, cat scans, MRI’s, etc., yet those also declared I was ok. I stopped believing in science, it must be missing something, how can it know what I am going through!
I was prescribed some anti-anxiety medication, and I took it for a while, about 4 or 5 months, but I did not like the effects it had on me; I felt like a zombie. I didn’t tell my doctor, and I stopped taking them, cold turkey. In hindsight, that was a mistake. The anxiety, obviously, worsened. But I thought I could battle this affliction on my own.
Even in my committed relationship, I began to have irrational fears. I became hyper aware. A redspot the size of a pencil tip on my d*ck was concern enough for me to visit a doctor, an expedition that before this affliction, would have been the last thing on my mind. Yet, by the end of 2010 I had no shame. I had shown my you know what to at least five separate doctors, an act of embarrassment for some, an act I went into without reservations. “You see that red spot,” I’d say. “What red spot?” they would ask. “Look, right here. See it? What do you think that is? Am I okay? What could it be?” I’d say this anxiously yet calmly, because I had become so convinced that I was doomed, I began to expect that to eventually be the answer. “It is nothing, it looks extremely healthy,” they would say. Without breaking a blush I’d pull my jeans back on, they’d tell me to talk to someone about anxiety before this starts to snowball out of control, and that would be that.
I did not tell my girlfriend that I was seeking out these diagnosis and she never suspected as much, because a rational person had nothing to suspect. I was lost in a terror inside of my mind. My outlets of exercise, reading, writing, provided slight distractions, but no cure. Eventually, after two years, I started to get better. I figured, I’VE HAD THESE SYMPTOMS FOR TWO YEARS, and I am in FACT HEALTHIER than I have ever been, that doesn’t add up. What am I afraid of? I am okay.
I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay.
I actually started to believe this. I stopped going to doctors for every little fear — after THOUSANDS of dollars of medical bills, which I’m still paying off today. I stopped calling my Dad daily with my fears, telling him I was afraid I was dying and instead would call my Dad as a loving son, asking him how he was doing, a normal loving relationship. I started to care about other people, as I had my entire life before ANXIETY took over. I worried about my younger brothers instead of myself, instead of my irrational fears. I stopped googling every symptom under the sun, and began reading classic novels again. I stopped examining every inch of my body throughout the day, and instead only looked at a mirror at night before bed and in the morning after a shower. The relationship I had during those years of anxieties peak ended, which was very hard at the time but which made perfect sense. If I couldn’t care for myself, if I spent all my energy worrying about myself and hiding it from my partner, what value did I possibly bring to such a relationship. I am lucky that that was the only relationship in which I lost forever.
I am now working to help others who go through anxiety. Nothing is taboo. Anxiety is something that I still live with daily, and every now and then I almost allow myself to fall back into a state of doom, almost…..
How did I get BACK to this place; a place of production, health, and dare I say: happiness? There wasn’t ONE PATH, there never is. People who tell you there is one path towards anything are often wrong, or often haven’t walked enough paths to attempt to be dishing out advise. There were many things I had to do, and although I did it without medication, I wouldn’t say that there is a right or wrong way — medication helps a vast number of people. Lately, I have been studying how my BRAIN functions through a service called BrainPaint, which is a natural and safe tool of neurofeedback that studies your brainwaves. Seeing the image of my brain and how it works is a powerful sight. It makes me want back all of the years I was mistreating my brain, the damage of my illogical, fearful, constant state of doom way of thinking; a state of being that I didn’t know how to escape. It is further reinforcement of the power of the brain, the importance of keeping yourself sane and the importance of the Pursuit of Happiness.
by Band Back Together | Jan 4, 2016 | Codpendence, Depression, Emotional Abuse, Psychological Manipulation, Stalking |
I would just like to start off by saying I am majorly, supremely, unbelievably fucked up. Now that that’s understood, I always got what I wanted. Since the time I could walk, I could manipulate people. I’ve always understood thought processes and emotions, and I guess that paired with the fact that I had a natural talent for bribery and puppy dog faces resulted in a little girl who didn’t know the meaning of the word “no”. I did know pain, though.
My parents divorced when I was two, and I grew up spending 50% of the time with an extremely abusive (emotionally and verbally but NOT physically) mother, until I was 12 and realized I’d had enough. I cut her out of my life and have seen her very few times since. You see, I did what I wanted. I got what I wanted. I didn’t mean for the lie to become so huge. It started one day in science class, my friend and I were comparing problems and fighting over who had it worst, as preteen girls tend to do. Well, the problem with emotional abuse is that even though it hurts, it doesn’t hold a lot of punch on paper. My friend didn’t believe that I had it bad (but believe me, I DID), so I did what many girls would have done: I lied. I said that she hit me, my mom, and my stepdad too. I justified it to myself in that it wasn’t far from the truth, the things they did to me hurt as much as punches, after all. And after that, my friend comforted me, pitied me, and never questioned my pain again. I got what I wanted.
After I realized that all I had to do to get affection was stretch the truth, I did it with everyone. I never saw it as a problem, justifying it as I explained before, until one day I met a girl and I took it way too far. The Sister, as I’ll call her, was someone I met who soon became the most important person in my life for two years. Unfortunately, she was one of the people to whom I told the lie. In later years, I often wished I could take it back, and wondered if anything would have been different if I had. Would I have gotten what I wanted? The Sister came in to my life when I was in the deepest pit of my self-inflicted depression from the situation with my mother. You see, I had become addicted to the affection I was receiving, and had spiraled out of control creating more reasons for people to pity me. The Sister came and “fixed” me, helped me to stop cutting myself (a habit I had taken up), and even mostly out of my depression (at the time I didn’t realize that’s what it was).
In the next few years we became inseparable, talking every day. She was ten years older and I saw her as a mother, a sister, and a best friend. I considered her opinion fact on everything, and consulted her on every event that took place in my life, not once stopping to think that maybe a 23 year old wasn’t on a place to mother a preteen/teenage girl, because hey, I got what I wanted. That’s all that mattered. And now the story gets interesting… I’m not at liberty to share her secrets, but The Sister had a lot of “problems” of her own she was dealing with, and as I grew up I started becoming a moody teenager, and took it out on the parent I depended on most: her. Needless to say, the combination of both of these factors and the fact that we were both drama queens, led to a very unhealthy relationship. Not just unhealthy. Toxic. I won’t go into the details because it still hurts too much, but I’m sure you can imagine the fights, the codependency, the stalking.
I didn’t know what to do, I was losing the person that mattered most to me on the whole world, and I tried every kind of abuse to force her to stay with me. I had to get what I wanted. And then, one day, after years of getting everything my heart desired, I didn’t. She found out that I had lied to her, and she gave up. Obviously, that wasn’t the only reason, but I sometimes wonder what it would be like now if our relationship hadnt been formed on a lie.
Of course, it left me all kinds of broken when she ended our friendship (I phrase it as “one day” but really it was quite a messy process), but in the end I’m thankful. Because that’s when my story begins. For a few months, everything was black. For those of you who have read the Twilight Saga, it was like the part in New Moon where every page was a month. Time flew and I felt nothing; there goes November, December, January. I did a lot of stupid things to try to make myself feel, things like drinking, drugs, and stealing. Needless to say, the only results this gave me were being grounded more often than not. But then, in about February, or March (it’s kind of a blur…), I started to heal. With the help of my friends, and family (both amazing, wonderful people whom I am blessed to have in my life), I started to build my own person. The Sister had made up my character, choices, and opinions before, and now I was left with nothing.
It’s still an ongoing process, reforming my whole person, but I’m proud of myself so far (especially my kickass style). I haven’t talked to her yet, The Sister. I hear bits and pieces about her sometimes. Usually those days aren’t very good. But luckily I’m now at the point where I can wish her the best. I don’t know what life holds for us, in terms of a relationship. I know it’s not just up to her, or me, it’s up to God. I know there’s a lot of things we’re going to have to talk about one day, but I know that day won’t come for years (if not just because we’re not ready, but also that I’m not allowed to talk to her until I’m 18). In a perfect world, after that day, when we’re both older and independent, we’ll be able to begin some sort of….civility, and maybe eventually a friendship. But if not, she’ll always be My Sister. I’m not sure why I wrote this. Maybe in hopes that she’ll read it (she introduced me to this site), maybe in hopes that it’ll help me move on. Maybe so that someone out there can relate to the loss I went through. Just kidding. That’s a total lie. I’m just hoping she’ll read it. I love you, Sister. I really do.
by Band Back Together | Dec 30, 2015 | Alcohol Addiction, Anxiety, Depression, Help with Parenting, Postpartum Depression |
The life I’ve been living for over eight months now is an ugly one. A lonely one. A dangerous one.
Night after night, after my son is in bed – sometimes earlier, if his father is home – I pour my first drink. A strong one. I recoil from the sharp taste of vodka or whiskey, both of which I’ve grown to hate. Sometimes it makes me gag, almost comes back up. But I never allow that to happen. I suck the drink down through a straw. Make another. Then another. My body relaxes and my mind becomes fuzzy. I grow sociable and talkative. Rarely do I become an angry or depressed drunk. Rather, I become the person I feel is the best version of myself, the one I used to be while sober – cheerful, fun, laid-back, interesting. My social anxiety dissipates. Things become less irritating to me. My frustrations, fears, and that unnamable empty sadness I carry around are buried – or more accurately, soaked – in a poison that is killing me.
I sit in a blue rocking chair where I tried and failed to breastfeed my son less than a year ago. It emits a maddening repetitive squeak as I rock and drink, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I just want to get to that far-away, mellow state where life seems good, hope still exists, and I can tell myself that tomorrow, I will give up the bottle and make a fresh start. Lately, more often that not, I pass out in that chair, sleeping so deeply I cannot be shaken awake.
In the morning, I’m shaky and nauseated and dehydrated. My partner – I’ll call him Steven – is the one who gets up with our baby, feeds him breakfast, plays with him while I sleep off hangovers. I groan in protest when Steven wants to make it to his very flexible job by earlier than ten o’clock. We might have had whiskey-soaked sex the previous night, but now I want nothing to do with him. Together on-and-off for more than ten years, we’ve ceased to become a romantic couple. Now he is merely my co-parent, my roommate, my financial support, and my enabler.
I muddle through the day trying to be the best mother I can even though my hands shake as I guide spoons towards my son’s mouth and I have to listen to him wail in protest when I must run to the bathroom again with digestive issues. When you don’t have a gallbladder, and your liver is constantly busy trying to process toxins, the bile needs somewhere to go. Forgive the unpleasant image, but it’s something I’ve dealt with every single day for nearly a year.
I never vomit, and I rarely have headaches. But my body temperature is irregular; I have hot flashes at thirty-three. I can’t eat regular-sized meals anymore, and I’m very particular about what foods I can tolerate during the day – often chicken soup or broth is all I can manage. I’m always tired; I don’t sleep so much as become unconscious for five or six hours a night. My body is worn down. I lose my breath easily. I have coughing fits from the permanent lodge of mucus in my chest. I’m overweight, not from eating but from liquid calories. My muscles ache, and I struggle to heave my 25-pound child into my arms.
I say a few things on Facebook, read aloud and talk cheerily to my son, and spend the day lonely, wanting a drink, aching for something better. I don’t know how to regain the joy I used to have.
When I was twenty-one, I rarely drank. I wasn’t a partier. I was beautiful, thin, and blonde. I worked, and went to classes, and danced, and sang, and laughed, and threw Frisbees and footballs, and rollerbladed, and painted my fingernails, and flirted, and kissed, and was always surrounded by friends. I didn’t need to drink. Life itself was enough.
At twenty-two, I met Steven. It wasn’t his fault. I didn’t become an alcoholic because of him. The shitty fact is, it was likely always in my brain chemistry to become an addict. They run rampant on both sides of my family. It was always there, waiting. All it took was a relationship with a “social drinker” to change my attitude about alcohol. I saw that it made me freer, bolder, less shy and anxious, relaxed, witty, more fun. And from that point on, it took over my life.
By twenty-five, I was doing shots before going in to work my job as a jewelry seller at K-mart. By twenty-seven, a counselor told me to go to AA. By twenty-eight, I was drinking at every family gathering, every social function, every holiday, and often alone. By twenty-nine, I was living back at home with my parents, drinking secretly up in my childhood bedroom every single night.
I’m not even sure how my body was even healthy enough, at age thirty-one, to conceive a child. And here I have to apologize to the infertile couples who are hating me – I know I didn’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve a beautiful, full-term, perfectly healthy son. I did not drink after discovering I was going to be a mother, but I drank during the first weeks before I knew he existed and worried throughout the pregnancy, turning to Google countless times trying to determine how much damage I might have done. The answers were frightening. I almost expected a miscarriage throughout the first trimester, but my son was a strong one from the start. I felt him astonishingly early for a first-timer. Later, he kicked me with such force I almost expected him to emerge alien-style from my belly. He kicked until he broke the amniotic sac, forcing his birth five days before my scheduled induction.
He was pink, and wailing, and alert, and utterly perfect. The only issue was that he had breathed in some of the amniotic fluid and needed to be suctioned. I was stunned at my new role, but I loved my boy and wanted to protect him with a fierceness I’d never known before.
I had hoped motherhood would be enough motivation to keep me sober.
It wasn’t. By the time he was three months old, I was back to nightly drinking.
When I’m sober, my brain is my worst enemy. It prevents me from sleeping peacefully. It tells me what a failure I am, what a mess I’ve made of my life. It regrets everything I missed out on when I was younger. It berates me for being fat, ugly, socially awkward, useless. It panics about the future. It worries about money, my health, my wasted potential.
To quiet it, I drink.
Nobody but Steven knows. It’s my secret. We live hundreds of miles from our families. We have no friends in our current location. It’s just us, estranged partners struggling to raise an energetic, happy, rambunctious almost-toddler. He works long hours, and after the baby goes to bed, I’m alone. In my rocking chair, with a drink at my side.
by Band Back Together | Nov 26, 2015 | Anger, Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Cancer, Depression, Feelings, Jealousy, Stress, Trauma |
don’t tell me i don’t have cancer anymore or that i “just have chemo now.”
don’t tell me to go outside and get some fresh air when i can’t be in the sun.
don’t tell me that taking a shower will make me feel better when my skin hurts too much to touch.
don’t tell me that i have the “good kind of cancer” unless you’ve had it and know how “good” it is.
don’t tell me how nicely shaped my bald head is.
don’t tell me how tired you are.
don’t tell me you’ll be there for me and then not follow through.
don’t tell me your medical opinion unless you’re my oncologist.
don’t tell me how to be me, because you aren’t.
by Band Back Together | Nov 9, 2015 | Depression, Unemployment |
I am starting to hate my husband.
I dread being around him.
I think part of it is that he’s home pretty much all the time now. He lost his job and he can’t find another one, so he’s gone back to acting, which isn’t happening for him either. He always talks about all this stuff he’s going to do or needs to do, but it never happens.
He’s home, and yet nothing more is getting done. I think I’m actually writing less. You would think he would shoulder more of the child care, cleaning, shopping, bill paying or any of the 100 other things that need to be done now that he’s home all the time, but you’d be wrong. Some of the stuff for the kids he will do, but not if it’s too complicated (and juggling 3 busy kids is complicated). If it involves too much time on the playground he has no interest. He does cook, but only when he can go to the store and make a fancy meal – if we don’t have the money for $30 of ingredients or $60 to go out, then he’s really bitter.
I’m so sick of having someone who’s supposed to be my partner act like a fourth child – a fourth problem child. He would like a medal for not punching a wall lately. Never mind that he still yells so loud that the neighbors can hear him.
It’s always my fault. I use a bitchy and/or impatient tone, but I don’t know what else to do.
by Band Back Together | Nov 3, 2015 | Anxiety, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Depression, Sexual Coercion, Teen Rape |
Date or acquaintance rape is one of the hardest to accept.
This is her story:
We were friends.
We went out to dinner. When he dropped me off at my apartment, he asked if he could come in.
I said sure – I didn’t think anything of it.
He’d been to my apartment many times. Sometimes we did homework together or we’d watch a movie together.
That night, we were sitting on the couch watching television. He asked me if he could kiss me. I didn’t want to; I made excuses. I told him he had a girlfriend and that he he would regret it afterwards.I told him it would change the dynamic between us as friends.
I made these excuses for him so he’d understand that he was wrong. Instead, I should have told him I didn’t want to kiss him because I didn’t want to kiss him. Period.
He kept pressing me.
I felt cornered and I was exhausted trying to reason with him. Then a dumb thought entered my head: maybe if I let him just this once, he might stop bothering me. He must have sensed my momentary hesitation because he leaned in to kiss me. For a while I let him.
Then I pulled away and looked away. I was staring at the television. I wasn’t looking at him.
I gave him no impression that could’ve caused him to do what he did next.
He must’ve decided he was going to do this and acted without bothering to fill me in. He got up from the couch and picked me up without warning; without asking me. I didn’t realize his intention until he put me down on the bed, got on top of me, and started pulling my clothes off.
He didn’t said a word.
He just did it.
I cannot explain my reaction. I lost all sensation in my body, I lost all sense of control. I couldn’t speak. What sealed the deal on what would happen to me next was the complete same sense of powerlessness I felt after he stripped my clothes off.
He was fully clothed and I was naked. He had power; I didn’t. I keep thinking of the miserable, weak, pathetic little creature I turned into after that. I felt so small.
After he pulled my clothes off, he sucked on my breasts. He looked up and said, “You have perfect breasts!” I guess he got bored after that because he got up and started texting.
It took great effort to move. My body felt it was made of lead. I was very conscious of my naked body. I was hunched over slightly, perhaps subconsciously, trying to cover up what little I could. I got up from the bed and was now standing in front of him. He typed a few more words while I stared emptily at his moving hands.
Then he threw his phone into the laundry basket and spread is arms out motioning me to take his shirt off. The gesture seemed to say, “Take my shirt off, bitch!” I undid a few of his buttons then stopped. He must have done the rest.
The next thing I remember is him making me hold him in my hand. He inserted his finger in me and whispered, “Wow, you are so wet!” Then he sat down on the bed and was motioning me to straddle him.
“Are you clean?” he asked. I wonder if it would have made a difference if I had said no.
Instead, I didn’t answer. The thought of doing anything sexual with him was unbearable. I pulled away from him, took a step back and said, “I don’t think we should.”
It took every ounce of energy in me to do that. I was afraid of him but I didn’t realize that what I was feeling was fear and confusion: I was just trying to get through it.
After I pulled away, he stared at the wall for a second. Then, without saying a word, he took my arm, pinned me to the bed and got on top of me.
Then, I don’t remember feeling anything at all. I pulled my hands away from him. I remember this vividly because I imagined touching his shoulders and the thought repulsed me; so I drew my hands back.
My face was turned away.
At one point, I remember watching my left leg spread out, hanging in the air. Then, I don’t remember seeing anything. Maybe I closed my eyes. I don’t remember. All I remember are words.
He asked me if he could kiss me. After all he had done to me, he asked me if he could kiss me. I don’t remember responding. I don’t think I did because I cannot remember him kissing me. He asked if I was on the pill or if he needed to pull out. I knew I had to respond so I let out two weak responses: once I said yes and once I said no. I remember very clearly how difficult it was to let those words out. I felt my voice was stuck in my throat.
I remember him saying: relax, just relax. I didn’t feel anything. I can’t tell when he was inside me.
At some point, I remember feeling a sharp pain and letting out a yelp. “Too much?” he asked and kept going.
The next thing I remember is him getting up to finish all over me. He got off me after that. I got up immediately and went into the restroom to wipe myself off. I could see him standing by the bed.
“I enjoyed it,” he said, “I’ve never been inside any one so tight before.”
I was shame and embarrassed after he said that to me. Afterward, I just wanted to return to a state of normalcy. I did not think about it again for weeks. It was as if my body wanted to forget what had happened.
Then it came back.
It was almost as sudden and abrupt as the moment he picked me up from the couch. All of it came flooding back at once.
The forgotten moment now plays in my head over and over and over again. The crying spells, the sadness, the anger, the humiliation – all of it came out of nowhere and it hasn’t stopped since.
