by Band Back Together | Jun 15, 2016 | Help With Relationships, Loneliness, Marriage Problems, Video Game Addiction |
Look at me, tear your eyes away from the screen. Just for a day, understand why I’m upset when you say you’re going to bed.
Weekends? They come and go, with you sitting there, asking me to play with you, sit with you, talk to you.
I don’t want to anymore.
I keep thinking how I want time with you, how I craved you when we were states apart, for so long. Now we’re here, and we don’t even spend the weekends together. Sometimes you come to me, and you leave. Desperate to play.
You don’t see this, but I do. And I feel like it’s wrong for me to feel this way. I refuse to nag any longer, or mention it.
It’s created a distance and loneliness I can’t describe.
I wish you’d understand, I wish I could also understand.
If I ignore it, it doesn’t matter or hurt, but some nights, it’s very clear that you prefer a Saturday night playing online with strangers than with your wife talking, cuddling, and maybe watching a movie.
When was the last time we watched a movie together?
I don’t pressure. I wont complain, you’re not a bad husband.
But some nights like this, it hurts to realize that we don’t spend time together unless I sit beside you while you play. That sometimes I have to pick up a game to be near you. Please, stop saying that I’m avoiding you if I am not sitting next to you.
Sometimes, I am uncomfortable with the situation. How we talk, and you game, looking at the screen instead of me. Us spending time together is basically on your terms, but you don’t realize this.
It hurts to realize that tonight we have been in the same house, but in two different rooms, only because I don’t want to sit on the couch while you play away the night.
I know we met on a game, but please, realize our relationship has moved past video games. We have a family to care for, we have each other.
Why don’t you approach me to stay, to do something else, like watching a movie? Why don’t we spend time together like the couples on the street do? Talking, walking, sitting outside to look out and cuddle. Why don’t we do something outside of watching what you want to watch, and playing video games?
But I wont mention this to you anymore, the times I’ve tried, it’s only made it worse.
I wish you’d understand how it hurts, that you don’t want to watch a movie with me, not just one night, but the next, and the next …and as the time just builds up, I just end up watching it alone.
by Band Back Together | Jun 15, 2016 | Anger, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Cancer Survivor, Coping With Cancer, Depression, Faith, Fear, Guilt, Mastectomy, Stress, Trauma |
Have you ever been swimming in the ocean and wondered what was lurking underneath you…eying your body…sizing you up to see if you would make a tasty meal? That’s what I call the breast cancer “shark attack syndrome.”
I liken the physical and psychological impact of a double mastectomy to a shark attack. It happens quickly and violently. In a matter of minutes you are struck hard and parts of your body are carried away into a vast ocean by a predator much bigger than you. It isn’t personal. The attack is random. You are left alive but amputated–stunned and with a life long fear of the water.
People who know about my diagnosis gawked at my chest like an accident scene on the freeway. Family, friends…they can’t help themselves from looking. I chose not to have reconstruction due to the lengthy recovery…an infant and a toddler don’t lend themselves to extensive plastic surgery. My daughter was 8 months old and my son was 3 years when I had the surgery, not exactly the age where I could be out of commission.
I don’t wear the prosthetics I bought…they constantly remind me I am amputated, and the first time I took yoga one of them fell out! My beloved yoga teacher said, “Just take them out, honey.” I never looked back.
Rough Waters
The journey through a breast cancer diagnosis with two small children was so very hard. I searched for the words to tell my son…
”The Doctor found a lump in mommy’s breast that isn’t good for her body and he has to take it out.”
Thanks to my son’s school and my amazing husband, we got him through it…but he STILL talks about it and recently asked, “Mommy, why don’t you have boobies?” At that point I realized my beautiful daughter would grow up never knowing her mother’s body to look “normal.” She only knows the scars. That is the day my heart broke forever. As if depression didn’t make me feel inadequate enough, now I felt like a carnie act. Come on down and meet the lady who was attacked by sharks!
I will never truly recover from knowing what I look like and what I represent to my children. But I am here to be their mom and truly thankful. Thank god I had it checked. The mammogram showed no abnormalities! If I had just had the mammogram I would have faced a diagnosis of invasive cancer and perhaps required chemotherapy or radiation. As of now, they tell me I am “cured.”
And I found it myself.
Not a minute in the day goes by that I don’t worry that it will return and take me from my children. Every woman who has had breast cancer knows exactly what I’m talking about. Every cold, every headache, every stiff muscle, still scares me into thinking I am still out there in that ocean—defenseless to another shark attack. What part of my body will they take next time?
I saw my mother lose her breast early in life. The same month I was diagnosed, she was diagnosed with Stage IV colo-rectal cancer. I watched the sharks circle her for six years, taking feet of colon, and eventually her life.
But it isn’t a pity party. I am glad I got cancer. It was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than postpartum depression, than life-long depression, than the cancer that is depression. And it got me immediately in touch with impermanence, and subsequently, my spiritual practice.
If I were thrown back into the dark ocean again and a recurrence reared it’s ugly head, I have my faith to thank for curing me of my fear of sharks.
by Band Back Together | Jun 14, 2016 | Coping With Depression, Depression, Fear, Mental Health, Self Loathing, Shame, Therapy |
Well, Bandmates, this is the day. I have an appointment with my general practitioner. I will refuse to leave until I have a path forward and an appointment with a psychiatrist or counselor.
This is it.
If I don’t do anything, I know the outcome will be tragic.
It’s not a matter of willpower any more. I’ve used all that up. The only thing that’s keeping me even slightly together lately is the thought of how much my kiddos would hurt if I killed myself. I am exhausted and at the last shreds of my willpower. This pain I have carried for my whole damned life is destroying me.
I must say that I’m very nervous. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I’m going to spill my guts. I feel shame at the prospect of sharing this pain I have in a non-anonymous setting. I feel shame that this disease has wrecked my life. I am scared to death that I will wreck my kids if I don’t get this shit handled. I am horrified at the state of my life, the feeling that I am capable of so much, yet do so little with my time.
I’m fucking smart. I’m handsome in a kinda scruffy way. I have a decent enough job. But I feel that I am unworthy of anything enjoyable. I’m done ignoring the phone calls from my friends. They’re coming fewer and further between. I’m done procrastinating. I’ve sat here for more than five months, losing more and more of what I have come to cherish. Time with my kids, friends, art and music. I haven’t touched my bass guitar in months. It’s got to the point that I don’t even like to hear music any more, and I have been a musician/singer for most of my life.
I can only write a few paragraphs at a time before these damned hopeless feelings overcome me and cloud my imagination. Even my favorite time-sink of video games has become something I simply don’t enjoy anymore. My only friends are my pets, workmates, my computer, and Netflix. The first thought in my head whenever I wake, be it at a normal time, or at some odd hour of the night, is I hate my life, I hate myself.
Today is the day that enough is enough.
Please, if you feel like I do, get help now! Don’t wait until your life is left in ruin because of a disease. Don’t let your mind tell you that your problems are due to your own failures, that somehow you’re a weak person. That is the disease talking. Every lie this disease tells you has a grain of truth in it. That’s how you come to believe all the negative nonsense. We don’t try hard enough because the disease keeps us from doing so, but the disease doesn’t ever take the blame for keeping our reserves of willpower so low. If you’re at the end of your rope, there’s nothing left but to either give up or try to get the help you need. This disease is going to tell you so many half-truths that you really don’t know what the truth is anymore. That’s why you need to get a helping hand. Please, don’t let the disease hold you back.
by Band Back Together | Jun 13, 2016 | Loss, Pet Loss, Sadness, Service Animals |
After he started getting sick in November 2015, and multiple vets treating him, and special diets, and over $5000 in medical costs, he was too sick, so I let him go in February. I thought I was okay.
I’m not.
Everyone misses him, remembers him, asks about him. His ashes are up on that shelf, sitting there. He never sat, unless we were at work and then he sat and was so damn good. He kept my blood sugar from going low, he kept my blood sugar from going too high; he kept me sane.
He was my Herbert. The best service dog. Ever.
Why does it still hurt? Why do I still feel so heart-hurt? And worst of all – why isn’t it fucking getting better? Is it because he was only four fucking years old? Or is it because he died due to a stupid goddamned ridiculous grass barb embedding itself into his esophagus? Of course, we didn’t know that until the necropsy.
People who have lost a pet seem to think they understand, I have lost quite a few pets throughout my life and it hurts, and I grieved; but this feels so different. He was with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now I feel alone.
by Band Back Together | Jun 8, 2016 | Fear, Help With Relationships, Love |
I know he loves me. He’s told me that plenty of times. But this past winter, when he was having a really hard time in his life, I pushed him too hard. I asked him for too much. He wasn’t ready for it then.
I wasn’t in the best place either, and I pressured much more than I should have because of it. I wanted him, like he’d wanted me all those years I had him firmly stuck in the Friend Zone. I wasn’t shy about telling him what I wanted for us. I thought it would make him feel better.
Instead, it made it all worse.
First, he unfriended me on facebook.
Then he sent me that horrible email, telling me that we’re never going to be together.
And then he got himself a new girlfriend.
I’ve come to realize that for all of my pushing, I’m really not ready for us to be more than just friends right now. I want to date other people and play and explore my new area. I think he should date, too. It’s good for him. In a year or two, maybe we can be more – like we’ve both wanted for a long time.
But I’m going to see him, in just a few weeks. I’m traveling hundreds of miles to go home for a week. We always used to surprise each other – showing up without warning, just to make each other smile. I’m going to attempt it.
Part of me is really confident that he’s going to be thrilled to see me. He’s had a few months to cool off. I’ve quit pushing. I tell myself, “He loved me for more than 20 years, he’s not going to just stop. He still loves me. He still wants me.”
However…
I’m terrified that he really meant it when he said we’ll never be a couple. I’m scared to death that when I see him, he’ll still be so mad at me that he’ll laugh in my face. What if I’m wrong, and he really has written me out of his life for good?
The thing is, with him? It’s worth trying to find out. He’s worth everything. I love him more than anyone else in the world.
I just wish I’d seen it sooner.
by Band Back Together | Jun 7, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Depression, Guilt, Inpatient Psychiatric Care, Loneliness, Self Loathing, Trust |
We all have letters we’d like to send, but know that we can’t. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.
Letters where actual contact is just not possible.
Do you have a letter you can’t send?
Why not send it to The Band?
This is what I would like to tell my mom, and probably would if she weren’t in a fragile state. She’s been wheelchair bound since my second child was born and my daughter is now nearing junior high school. How she ended up in a wheelchair isn’t at issue at this point. Needless to say, she is simply too weak to hear this stuff.
Mom,
Did you ever wonder why I was so angry as a young man? Or why I only had a single friend when I was going through school? You should remember the angry tantrums that I used to pull. The anger I showed you was caused by a deep, horrid certainty that I was useless and doomed to failure. That I could never trust people or achieve anything of moment in life.
While a lot of this is standard fare for a teenager, you never informed dad about any incident as far as I can tell. He was never the kind of man to sit still for such nonsense. Did you stop to think when you told me as a very young child that I was a “surprise?” It didn’t take me long to figure out that “surprise” meant accident, and that you didn’t intend to make me. From that time on, I wondered if everyone would be happier without me, or if I even was truly wanted in the home.
What about the grades, Mom? You know, when I began failing in high school and you would hide the facts from Dad. Of course a child would accept help in such a way. I didn’t want to be in trouble at home AND school, after all. It’s a repeated pattern with you.
Consistently, you would “shelter” your little boy from Dad’s wrath, which was rather corporal, yet never over the top. Yet you failed entirely to protect me from sexual predators. Yes, mother I was molested as a child. I, your little boy, was fucked by a teenage girl belonging to a “trusted” family. My innocence was gone by fourth grade, Mother. Then, listening to your gossip, I learned that you never really even liked that family and thought their mother to be disgusting and immoral. Why, then, was I allowed to mix with them? Did you never wonder why I didn’t have any friends or why I quit playing with the other children from that family? I really believed that my molester was my girlfriend. You have no idea how confused and hurt I was when I saw her with a boy her own age. I had no one to confide in, and as children who are abused often feel that they would get into more trouble.
You were already struggling with demons of your own, of which I had known a little from the time I was in second grade when you were first hospitalized for “stress.” Junior high came around, and while I seemed to be okay, inside I was dying. I felt completely alone, as sex abuse survivors often do. I went through those three years with one friend who I met in fifth grade.
Then, you decided you were divorcing Dad. We moved out and lived for a few months in another town. You went back to father because, as I later found out, he bribed you. Yes, he cashed money from his retirement account and gave you a lump sum of cash to spend at your discretion. That caused me to lose a lot of respect for you. That was a single summer and back to the home. It was fucked up mom.
Junior high progressed. Even then I would have horrid angry outbursts of hopeless despair which should have caused some questions. Mom, why didn’t you do anything to get me help then?
High school came along and I gave up my choir aspirations. I didn’t have the confidence to try out for the high school choir, even though I had pulled straight A’s in all my choir work for junior high and earned a place on the Honor Choir. Indeed, I began to give up on everything then. I didn’t have many friends and had no visitors or invitations during summer breaks to anything. You never wondered why I never went steady with a girl, and asked only one out, and only then after repeated assurances that she would say yes? I pushed away my best friend in this time, in favor of what I thought were better friends. I’m lucky he forgave me, when I asked for his forgiveness.
I joined the Navy, only to flunk their psych evaluation and be sent home after five or so weeks. So there I was in the airport, defeated. You were so out of it, Mom. Dad was obviously exhausted. Apparently, it was getting near to another stay in the hospital for you. Not that they did you any good, except for to get you to decide to pretend everything was okay, so you could get out. Do you remember that ride home and the crazy things you talked about? In any case, Mother, you couldn’t handle your little boy leaving and broke down again. I needed some strength and real help then, Mom. But you, once again, were in trouble. I felt guilty by even thinking, “Dammit, I need my parents right now!” But Dad was dealing with your outbursts and insomnia. And so, once again, I kept my secrets and felt an utter failure. I know you’ve had difficulties Mama, but this isn’t about you right now.
You must realize that I was neglected by you in a few ways. Sure, you kept the house clean and meals on the table, but you never would inform my father of things that he had the right to know, like my failing grades. I was allowed to withdraw unhealthily into fantasy-like video games and television. You didn’t make me do the the things that I should have been doing, Mom. Dad could have helped you with that, if you would have let him. But I knew you, and I played you to keep the bad grades secret, just like any teenager would do, given the chance.
You did all that shit with my older sister, to the Nth degree, keeping her from facing the music for so long that she’s now a drug addict with no job, car, house, or self-respect. I escaped that because all along, since second grade, I have resented you. Yes. Resented that I couldn’t have a mommy that didn’t pick crazy fights with dad as we were watching a baseball game, eating dinner, or whatever. A mommy that wouldn’t freak out at tiny problems and scare the shit out of me with lies fashioned to keep me safe, that only served to inhibit my sense of trust in the world. A mommy who didn’t get so tired she wouldn’t talk to me or Dad and had to be taken to hospital on regular intervals.
I love ya, Mom, but you sure fucked up bad.
Four kids, one alcoholic, another a depressed, self-loathing mess (me) and a drug addict forever child. My oldest brother is the most well-balanced of the four of us, and I truly believe it’s because he spent the greater majority of his time with Father. Why did you “protect” us three from Dad so much? I have a good relationship with my father now, but my brother and sister haven’t spoken with him in years, in any meaningful way.
Do you know why dad was so grumpy all the time, mom? Because he slogged his ass of in a coal mine for twelve hours a day, six days a week and came home to either a batshit crazy or a sweet as pie wife–he never knew what to expect. He paid your way, Mom, and you resented him for it! He never made you stay home, you could have had your own money. Instead, you spent him into debt with secret credit cards, on more than one occasion. I remember the fights. They were the only ones that had any kind of justification. In other words, Dad was right!
You even kept him from forming decent relationships with the majority of his children.
Mom, I love you, but you have messed up three of your kids. That is a fact. I am now thirty six and struggle daily with feelings of empty, horrid loneliness and depression. These things are only bigger for me now, and I resent that you had every reasonable signal that something was very wrong with your child and you did …nothing. NOTHING!
I am now a father, and if one of my children began behaving the ways that I did, I would most certainly get them to someone for help. It’s not normal to rage the ways I did. Now I know it’s because of the injustice of abuse and the feeling that I wasn’t really wanted in the home.
I’m fixing these problems now, Mom, and without your help, just as before. It’s fucked, and I’m still kinda pissed off that all the signs were there. Sure, it was the early nineties. You watched enough talk shows to see at least one child psychiatrist telling parents signs of trouble in a kid. This fucking rock I’ve been toting for so goddamned long is a big bastard now. I’m pissed that I’ve had to do that carrying for so long. I’ve learned so much in my reading that I know that things wouldn’t be so bad NOW, if you would had done more THEN. Maybe you could have found yourself some decent help along the way, too.
I’m taking action now, Mom. I’m a big boy and have been taking care of myself. I’m getting the help I need, but my problems are compounded now by a failed marriage and the breakdown of my little family. This isn’t easier. Time didn’t make this shit go away. Indeed its only become worse.
I will overcome.
I love you mom. I hate you too. I don’t like it, and certainly this is going to be something that I address in therapy. But I’m doing it, finally, and that’s the point.
