by Band Back Together | Mar 1, 2015 | Anger, Cancer and Neoplasia, Cancer Survivor, Caregiver, Coping With Cancer, Depression, Fear, Feelings, Guilt, Happiness, Romantic Relationships, Stress, Trauma |
Imagine being 21 and attending one of the most well-known public universities in the United States. You are studying something you love, having a blast with your girlfriends, and always on the lookout for a potential suitor. You’ve lost some weight and feel really great about yourself. You’re four months away from graduating (a semester early!) and starting your life.
Your future is at your fingertips.
And then you get slapped with your mortality and it feels like your world is crashing around you.
You have cancer.
You know what? Sometimes the chemo, the vomiting, passing out, and the ever-present thoughts of death wasn’t the worst part.
Sometimes, the worst part was sitting on your parents couch at twenty-one, wishing you were going out to that amazing party with all of your friends. Or watching your hair fall out in chunks in the shower. Your beautiful, personality-defining red hair just washing away down the drain. Or realizing part of your soul died when you asked your dad to shave your head because you just couldn’t watch the slow process of it falling out any longer.
Sometimes the worst part was looking at yourself in the mirror and just watching the tears stream down your face as you realized that this is your new reality. You are a twenty-one year old woman and you are bald.
Maybe the worst part was the steroids. Good God those things are evil. In a matter of weeks you transformed from that trim, vibrant woman that you were so proud of, into a bloated, chemotherapy-ridden sick person. You have that look of cancer and it crushes you.
And then there were those few moments where you felt good. You put on nice clothes, brush out your fabulous black wig and get ready for a night of normalcy. The drinks start to kick in, you start talking to a handsome guy. One thing leads to another, he leans in to kiss you and goes to put his hand on the back of your head…. and you freeze. Because you know the second he touches you he’s going to feel your wig. Your cover is blown, you are not one of the normal girls. And the last time I checked, most guys weren’t looking for a date whose chemotherapy schedule would have to be worked around.
So then you just stop going out. You realize this is temporary and it may not be fair, but it was the hand you were dealt.
You live with it.
You stop sulking.
Hair grows back.
Weight can be lost.
Love is still out there to be found.
The bars aren’t going anywhere and you can graduate next semester.
They caught it early.
You are going to be okay.
Other people have it SO much worse.
You will still get that whole wonderful life that you always dreamed about.
You are lucky fortunate blessed.
by Band Back Together | Feb 4, 2015 | Breakups, Depression, Fear, Guilt, Love, Self Loathing, Teen Self-Loathing |
I’m having trouble getting over my ex-boyfriend, and to be honest, I don’t know how normal it is. I don’t know if something is wrong with me – because it seems eerily like there is – or if this is something most people go through. As this was my first relationship, so I don’t have a basis of comparison.
I met him online, through a mutual friend of ours. When I realized he was dealing with depression, I wanted to help him. I spoke with him almost every day for a couple of months. At some point, he told me he loved me. I stuttered in awkwardness, for a minute, before he explained he meant it as a friend. I instantly relaxed and responded to the affirmative.
The second time he told me he loved me, I took it as the same meaning from before, but it wasn’t. He’d fallen for me, in spite of having a boyfriend of his own. Two days later, he told me he intended to kill himself that night. I kept talking to him until he decided not to go through with it.
The following weekend, I realized I loved him too. The next few days were filled with the duality of trying to keep him alive, and being hit hard whenever I feared for his life. That Friday, I was due to go camping. I told him how I felt about him before leaving for the long trip. My phone died before I could say much, and to my despair, there was no signal at the campground.
In full honesty, that was my worst camping trip ever. I had very few idle moments that I wasn’t repeating song lyrics in my head, with either a headache or stomachache. When I got back that Monday, things were so much better. We talked, and our relationship blossomed.
For the next five and a half months, I thought everything was good between us.
I don’t know when he stopped loving me. I had no idea until he snapped. Everything seemed normal, great even. He had launched into a fit of self-hatred and depression, and I was trying to comfort him. He turned on me in a heartbeat. He started yelling at me, and within minutes, I was in shambles. He wouldn’t talk to me after that.
Despite what had happened I still got him a present for his birthday a few weeks later. I asked him to come back to me, but he wouldn’t. When he found out I had gotten him a birthday present, he seemed angry about it. He had repeatedly told me since the split to leave him alone. I told him I would kill myself.
I picked a day to kill myself. Six days before my chosen suicide date, a friend who had just been released from a mental hospital turned up online. I started to have second thoughts about killing myself. Later that day, I spoke to another friend, and I asked him to stay with me. He surprised me with a show of compassion I didn’t expect from him, and I called off the date.
During my bad moments, I wonder if I should have gone through with it. The first week after being talked out of my original decision, I was mostly fine. I had a surgery that Friday, to get my wisdom teeth out, and that kept me mostly occupied. I didn’t really have bad moments that weekend, nor the following few days.
But over time, things seeped in. I gradually started having bouts of depression, mostly at night. Sometimes I would wish to die, but I never carried through. My friends were always there to support me. I fell back on them many a time, despite feeling like I was dragging them down. Things kept on the bad track for a while. I never physically hurt myself – though I considered it. Even in my happy moments, some aspect of the past would rear its head, and I’d drop again.
I’ve spoken to my ex plenty since. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes, not often, it doesn’t. Many of my particularly bad downward spirals were triggered by those conversations.
It’s been a month and a half since the breakup, and I’m still fluctuating emotionally. I still love him, I still want him back. He has told me many times that it wasn’t my fault. He has even openly admitted that he used me, but I still feel like it was my fault. I feel like I failed for not being a complicated person like he wants, like I failed by being too clingy and not caring enough. I feel like I was too open, when he wanted me to be a puzzle he could open for himself.
I continue to drop like a rock, despite all reasons to be happy and efforts made to make me happy. The day after Christmas I went to an amusement park. I spent a good deal of my time trying to figure out how to fall to my death from the rollercoasters. I’m ashamed to be spiraling down like this, without a way to stop. I’m even more ashamed to want my ex back even though he doesn’t love me.
Thanks in advance for any advice you could give me, and thanks for taking the time to read my story.
by Band Back Together | Jan 29, 2015 | Abuse, Child Neglect, Fear, Guilt, Help With Relationships, Infidelity, Love, Romantic Relationships, Trust |
Dear Ex,
You did not see it, but my confidence in you stopped growing on a daily basis. I told you that I knew what I was hiding from everyday. I didn’t tell you that I was hiding from you. I didn’t tell you how scared I was of you. I always knew that we weren’t meant for each other, and you wanted to argue.
It is so great to see that you have moved on. So great to know that I have been released. I finally have what I wanted with us. I no longer have to question what I’ve been told. I no longer have to doubt the motives of my kind and nice friends. I no longer have to inspect everyone’s motives.
Is this just another cry for misplaced sympathy? Or is it an attempt to hurt me? The questions are irrelevant. You made sure of that when you abused my love, my trust, my friendship circles, my mind. They are, by far, not the worst forms of abuse that I was put through, but the persistence of them made them the most common.
I told you that you didn’t have to lie. I would stay by your side no matter what. I told you that I would forever hold a place in my heart for you. You tore that place out of my grasp when you decided to work with your friend to abuse me together. You looked at my kindness as a weakness, not for the strength that it is – the strength to give to those that are worth it, the strength to help anyone to heal from anything. My friends will forever be in my life, until death do us part.
I can and have always been able to achieve my dreams. That was the most terrifying part of your abuse, that you had no reservations in ripping all of them away from me, so that you could hurt me. I watched you spiral downward, into an abyss of vindictiveness.
Do you even remember why you started the abuse? Do you remember why you decided to let your dreams fall from your grip, and get fired from the job that you wanted since you were a child? Your abusive attitude lost you that job. It got you fired because you were more interested in self piety than in achieving something great, and being recognized for that.
To this day, I still blame your experiences as a child. I am guessing that no one paid attention when you did the right thing, but the moment you were crying, everyone was looking your way. Being starved for attention does that to a person. It’s not your fault, it is how you were raised. That is what you were taught was right.
I can only hope that you break the cycle of abuse, handed down to you by your mother, before our baby lives a life of toxicity, venom, and a lack of morals. I hope that you choose to change what you believe, and instead, aspire for attention for greatness.
You watch t.v. How many people watch when someone goes for gold in the Olympics? How many people are watching when the finals of X-Factor are shown? Do you want that, or do you want the hollow attention of someone that will forget you in a year’s time? I will forget you soon.
I forgot how it feels to love you a long time ago. I can’t even remember when I last had the desire to help you succeed. It could have been after you destroyed your own dream, the one I tried so hard to build your confidence to try. I hope you haven’t forgotten how to try. If you have, it’s no big deal because I don’t sympathize with you anymore. That is another thing you lost when you went on your vindictive, plague-fueled attack of my life.
You know you should have told me that you were “smiling and happy, bouncing off the walls,” that you had an amazing time, and he really made you feel special, the night you cheated on me. Instead you wanted to play the victim again. You wanted sympathy for the guilt of your actions.
Why did you feel guilty? It made no sense to me. I would have forgiven you, if you had been honest. I could not forgive you for playing the part of the victim when you broke my heart, like I was the one who did something wrong. Lying? Cheating? Your story never added up. The other guy’s story was consistent. You are the only one who can’t face what happened. You are the only one who claims to be the victim. You lost a lot of your friends because of your lies. You lost the last speck of my trust for you.
I felt my heart die when I finally accepted that I was in denial, and there was no reason to believe what you were telling me. I was ashamed that I let you control me again. I was ashamed to the point of not wanting to face life. But I got through it, and you didn’t hold me once. You didn’t sit by me, look into my eyes, take my hand, and say you were sorry, that everything was going to be alright. You withholding compassion, out of fear of the truth being exposed, was the worst part of your abuse. You knew you were lying from the start.
It will happen again and in the years to come. You will repeat the cycle of hiding the truth. You will repeat the pattern handed down to you by your mother. Your life will go back to Square One, and, like your mother, you will be unwanted by everyone.
Yours is the only dream I will not make come true. You fought it too hard.
My deepest condolences for the loss of your heart, empathy, compassion, a happy future, a life filled with people that will love you.
May they all rest in peace.
by Band Back Together | Jan 27, 2015 | Anger, Child Sexual Abuse, Fear |
How do you tell someone you love that you were molested by people he trusts with his life?
After 15 years, I finally told my mom I was molested. She believed me, and it felt so good. I felt relieved, but not completely satisfied. Not until I tell my big brother. He’s the one I’m afraid of telling. Why? Because he has a better relationship with them than with me.
I know he loves and cares for me, but I don’t know how far that love goes. He goes to them for everything, instead of me. I’m your sister. You should be able to be there for me and protect me, but somehow I feel that you won’t.
He won’t believe me. He will question me and ask why I didn’t say anything sooner, why I waited so long, why I tolerated their presence (kind of). I want to tell him because he thinks I’m such an asshole for not wanting them around. He thinks I’m being rude, but I can’t tell him.
It hurts to keep this from him, but it’ll hurt more if he doesn’t believe me. I’d rather be considered an asshole than tell him. I want to believe he’d be there for me, support me, protect me, and just tell me loves me.
Please, for once, be my big brother.
by Band Back Together | Jan 26, 2015 | Anger, Bullying, Compassion, Fear, Feelings, Sadness, Uncategorized |
I am the very last person to tell anyone when the right time for them to seek closure for any difficulty. I cannot speak for others when it comes to this process of healing one’s own self, because the truth is that no one else can say what someone else needs.
We think it would be as easy as saying a few magic words or thinking a few magic thoughts, and like magic, we would be okay again. Yet, every one of us here knows better than that. We all know that sometimes, there are things which hinder our healing.
Healing really is just another word for “closure.”
When we each think about the things that hurt us, for the most part, the majority of us simply want the pain to end. We know we cannot get rid of the memory. We spend so much time taking care of others, we forget that we have needs, too. When we forget that we have our own stuff to deal with, we take away our own good energy in exchange of someone else’s unbalanced energy, leaving us feeling depleted.
The one thing that we are seeking is not the lesson that is being taught, but rather, closure and an end to the pain. Yet it is through that very pain that we are able to heal and get closure. This is how Spirit works. The ache is like anything else that hurts us – to alert us that something is not right, that somehow we have been violated on some emotional level.
We have all been hurt from time to time. Other people can be jerks. The reason they behave in this manner is because it protects them from their own hurt. This behavior is not going to help with their healing.
The problem with bullies is they were not taught how to use empathy. Empathy, loosely defined, is our ability to walk a mile in another’s shoes. It is our ability to feel for someone else without our feeling sorry for them. Too often, we are told that we are feeling sorry for ourselves. Bullies feel it is disempowering to be able to relate to someone else. They have control over us if we are scared of them. I understand that fear because it became my own medicine, brought out of me in the form of the Medicine Dance, which for me is Hula.
I really don’t want anyone to think that by talking about Hula, I am trying to promote it as a way for everyone to heal. What I am saying is that there are means and measures by which you can gain your own closure.
Closure is a funny thing, really, because it demands the opposite of the thing that we seek, which is comfort from our pain. While it may well seem as though this is counter-productive, if we are wise to the reality that we don’t have to let others’ actions hurt our souls, we will be able to use the hurt they give to us as our own medicine. We will have the strength to move past the things that we have encountered in our lives. Closure requires our being able to accept that there are people on this planet who are not the nicest people.
Closure brings us wholeness. It calls on us to rely on ourselves rather than only on the shoulders of those closest to us. It takes some work, perhaps a whole lot of tears, maybe even a few bouts with rage, but it is all worth it. It is all worth it because true closure means we no longer have to live through that pain. Our pain becomes a lesson for the soul to evolve, and for us to become shiny examples of our own unique brilliance.
Once we can see our pain as our medicine, we become the most powerful being in our own awareness. When we understand that whatever we went through is not our fault, we become empowered.
…and being empowered rocks!
ALOHA!
by Band Back Together | Jan 23, 2015 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Fear, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Rape/Sexual Assault, Therapy, Unemployment |
I was raped five months ago by a coworker.
I didn’t tell anyone for a month, because I was afraid nobody would believe me.
I thought it was my fault.
I lost my job. I have since found a new one.
I tried some counseling, but it didn’t really help. I’m taking things day by day, but it’s really hard.
I avoid the largest area of the town I live in because I know he lives there.
I find it a huge struggle to try to keep the flashbacks and guilt away. It’s hard. I’m trying, but I feel myself slipping away a lot.
