by Band Back Together | Sep 12, 2015 | Anger, Anxiety, Coping With Depression, Denial, Depression, Dermatillomania, Eating Disorders, Fear, Guilt, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, How To Help With Low Self-Esteem, Impulse Control Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Illness Stigma, Self Injury, Self Loathing, Self-Esteem, Stress, Trauma, Trichotillomania |
Prankster, my heart goes out to you. I wish that I could wrap you up in a big hug so that you knew that you were loved. Because you are so loved. You are worth everything. I know that telling you that you need to stop won’t help and will further reinforce all that you do to yourself, so I won’t, but I am reading what you don’t say here, and it breaks my heart. You are worth saving. You can fight your dragon and you can win. Someday you will win.
We will be here waiting to celebrate when you do.
Much, much love,
Aunt Becky
I’m a sucker for it. And I could speculate about all the things that have caused it. My childhood wasn’t great. I’ve dealt with depression and all the shit it brings. I’m impulsive… but I have this feeling, deep down inside, that it’s just the way I’m wired.
The first time it happened I was 14, angry and frustrated and it just made sense. The scissors were right there… and just like that, an addiction was born. I was a cutter. I self-injured.
Of course, 14 year-olds aren’t the most logical thinkers, so I got ‘caught’. We did the whole therapy deal with a crappy counselor and I was expected to stop immediately, so I did.
But I wasn’t stupid. Since the age of 15, I’ve been dealing with an eating disorder. I’ve seen 2 shrinks since the first, and neither know about my eating disorder.
As with all addictions, I’ll never be cured. I never truly stopped, but my parents like to think I did, so I let them. I just got better at hiding it.
While I don’t cut nearly as often as I use to, I picked up a nice little friend, named trichotillomania (self-pulling of hair). It’s so great [sarcasm].
This would be one reason I think it’s instilled in me, I don’t want to give it up. It’s mine, all mine, and I don’t have to share it with anyone, which feels great.
So, maybe the day will come and I’ll be ready to give up the ghost. And if it does, I’ll come back, and I’ll let all of you know.
by Band Back Together | Aug 31, 2015 | Anger, Anxiety, Faith, Family, Fear, Guilt, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Self Loathing, Stress, Trauma |
Guilt can be a deadly weapon.
This is her story:
I’ve never talked about it…to anyone but a therapist. And, I have never said anything on my own blog about it. But personally, I think a blog that allows you to declare you are “Not Mommy of the Year” is the place to do it, right?
I carry a lot of guilt, dating back to July 19, 2009.
You see, I allowed my son – my first born & my pride & joy, ride and sometimes even drive a golf cart. That cart – it almost took his life.
I’ll pause here and let that sink in for a moment…
I knowingly allowed my son to operate and ride in a motorized vehicle that was not a) safe b) age appropriate or c) SAFE. What kind of mom does that?
Our children rely on us for many things. But one of the key things they rely on us for is safety. And, if they can’t rely on us, who can they rely on?
What kind of mother looks the other way as grandpa and son drive by (at a speed that is slightly faster than I would prefer for myself) in a golf cart, of all things.
And, this wasn’t your average golf cart. It was as suped up machine, with larger than normal wheels and a tow package. And my son, he isn’t just a normal son. He’s MY son.
I have cried a thousand tears. And made a thousand promises. And worried years of my life away since July 19. I have spent countless hours lying in bed with him, rubbing his hair and praying softly as he slept.
I have prayed for forgiveness. For healing. For peace.
And yet, I still don’t feel like I have paid for my sins.
I can still remember hearing the helicopter circle overhead and thinking – I could have prevented this. Let me be the first to tell you – there is nothing more painful to your heart than to think that you could have prevented your own child’s pain. his bloodshed. his near death.
And you didn’t.
I failed him.
I failed him in my most important duty as a mother. I failed to protect him.
This is the single most prominent factor holding me back from healing. And I know that. And, it is something I continue to work on.
Because, you see…I carry guilt with me.
I carry it in my heart.
And I see it everyday.
by Band Back Together | Aug 18, 2015 | Bullying, Depression, Loneliness, Sadness, Self Loathing, Shame |
Untreated depression leads to chronic depersonalization” would be a meaningful statement if you meant something, but you mean nothing.
You are not a hardy child of Appalachia; stop wasting your days listening to bluegrass playlists, pining for a time that will never exist. You are weak. People wade through hells far deeper than this one, the soles of their feet scorched but their ankles held intact. But your tendons are peeling like the stalk of a pineapple, the skin on your knee burnt off to display brittle bone, graham cracker bone, bone of yarn, bone of string cheese.
Stay inside where neighbors cannot see the grotesque state of your legs. Stay inside where you cannot chant for them: gooble-gobble, one of us.
Do you want to know what a real person looks like? Don’t skip class this week. Arrive late and sit in one of the satellite desks. Never learn what Marx said. Observe the others mid-digestion and covet their hairlines, their builds. Sketch a series of concentric circles and keep your head down, because you are not a scholar, you are a machine, you are an alarm clock, you are a Disney Channel original series, you are just a paideia, you are mendacity itself. Masturbate for me; you deserve the shame of an amputee juggler on a unicycle, you deserve the shame of a hapless fourteen-year-old YouTube celebrity. Look around you and tell me if any of the people you see had to order their bootstraps off the Silk Road. Every waste of Bitcoins is melancholy, o destitute child, they don’t weave bootstraps in your size.
What you are going to need is a course of Paxil. It is a medication that, by the miracle of contemporary science, will make it easier for you to be worthless. You will be glad to have taken it, as it will make you scream less and sleep more. It will take your ragged canyon and level it out into mesa, and then it will take your mesa and build a timeshare resort. Paxil is an electric fence between banality and suicidality. Paxil is the opposite of filthy, passionate fucking. The instructions on the back of the bottle tell you to stream amateur porn and look at the way they want each other, then take down two pills with a light snack. You are going to forget, but don’t forget: you have to be beautiful to be hired as a caricature artist at the renaissance fair. Don’t forget, you have to do your laundry more often than you do now.
by Band Back Together | Jul 13, 2015 | Fear, Guilt, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Loathing, Therapy |
This was meant to be a letter to my Mum, but I started rambling. I’m not ready yet.
This is really very hard for me to type, but I have needed to say this for a long time. I tried once to tell you, but I hate seeing people look sad for me or to think that people worry about me, so I tried to make it seem less bad. Since then, I have had a lot of counseling and have given myself a lot of time to get my head around it.
I hate saying this, so I’m only going to mention it once. When I tried to explain what had happened when I was eighteen, I down-played it a lot. What really happened was not a blurring of lines.
I was raped.
I was on a night out and ended up with nowhere to stay. A man saw me alone and started speaking to me. I did not know him well, but I had definitely seen him around before. We have the same circle of friends. He offered me a place to stay, and made it clear that he was just being friendly. I believed him.
We went back to his small studio flat and sat on the sofa talking for a while. I was quite drunk at this point. He kissed me, and I kissed him back. While I wouldn’t have initiated anything, I didn’t indicate that I didn’t want it to happen. Kissing him back was maybe my first mistake. He seemed to take consent for kissing to mean much more. He took me over to his bed, and I let it get too far then. He had removed my clothes before I told him and showed him I wasn’t comfortable with what was happening. He carried on kissing me, and I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel I could speak up again.
I was scared and uncomfortable and eighteen years old. As he went to initiate intercourse, I made it very clear I was not interested, but he continued regardless. I was scared that he might become violent, and I was so out of my depth that I let him continue. After initially struggling hard, I stayed completely still underneath him, letting him rape me because I didn’t know what to do. He DID know I wasn’t okay with it, but I still sometimes feel like it was my fault I didn’t fight him off.
He fell asleep shortly afterwards, and I lay awake in his apartment, in shock. I don’t know why I didn’t leave. I didn’t feel I could. I had nowhere else to go, and I was genuinely completely frozen by what had just happened. I also don’t think the full reality had set in. I was sick multiple times through the night.
The next morning, he acted as though we had just had a one night stand, as if we were both consensual partners, when he knew we weren’t. The worst thing was just before I left, he said, ‘You bled last night, it’s fine don’t be embarrassed,’ as though it was embarrassment I was feeling right then. And then he added, ‘..but do I need to get checked for anything?’ I have never felt more disgusted with myself than I did right then.
I then had to walk home in the previous night’s clothes, make up, and shoes. I felt like I was being silently judged by everyone I walked past. They had no idea how much I wanted to die.
I still hate myself. I still fear sex. I desperately want a relationship. I want to feel loved, but I know the sexual side is expected. I just don’t know how I can do that again.
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 22, 2015 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anger, Anxiety, Child Sexual Abuse, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Loathing |
We all have ghost from the past that haunt us. Things we’ve seen that we can’t shake off, and won’t let us sleep at night. There are choices we wish we never made. We are some times broken. Desperately gasping for air. We feel dead inside and our hearts go cold, but our faces wear a mask of happiness to avoid uncomfortable conversations.
Sometimes we walk around feeling hollow, pretending to be people we aren’t and to a certain point we don’t even know who we are. Our identities taken from us, or lost in an abyss. Lost souls looking to find home and peace within themselves. I know how I got to this point; it’s complex and dark, and hard to stomach. I was a little girl. There were things happening to me that I didn’t understand, or wished I didn’t understand. My space was invaded and I would suppress it. Pretending that it wasn’t me it was happening to, because things like that didn’t happen to innocent people. But it was happening and it was real.
For years I was told I was stupid, fat, and lazy. I was doomed from the day I was born. Raised by a sister who was constantly taken advantage of by different men. We lived in a house hold where secrets simmered under a blanket of lies. Each of us stained by men. Our innocence tainted. It kills us slowly. Trying not to think of it. Wishing it didn’t happen feeling dirty and used. Our minds feel empty. Like there’s nothing left because all of our thoughts were taken from us at a young age. I remember how scared I was. How I knew what was coming every time I came home from school. It became our routine.
There are times where I’ll be doing something and I think about everything that’s happened to me, the abuse, the different guys I’ve let inside me, how I was told I was nothing. How I let myself believe that I’m not worth anything, and I get pissed off. I hate myself for letting myself submit to so much mistreatment. Sometimes I can feel my sanity leaving, my mind withering away. I can’t think as clearly, I can’t speak properly, and I become more withdrawn from the world. I become lost in my own mind. I trap myself in dark thoughts and I won’t let myself escape.
I’ve literally become two different people. Problem is I don’t know which one is me. Who the fuck am I? I look into the mirror and I swear I can’t seem to process who’s looking back at me. It’s almost like I don’t know my own reflection. I continue to let myself used as some dishrag because I believe that’s what I’m worth. Like as much as I might desire love, I’m not worthy of it. I’m honestly pretty sure I’m cursed, because I’ve been fucked over by almost every guy in my life. Let’s save that for later though.
Sometimes I can see the person I was supposed to be, or the person I could be. But her image is kinda fades. I wish it was as easy as ripping all the bullshit from your heart. Kinda like when you rip a piece of duct tape from your skin like dusting of rubble and dust from a gold totem. I wish it would be that easy to take the unbearable pain away. I want the scars on my skin to fade away. Because I swear there are nights where I feel like all hope is lost. I’ve been fighting for six years to recover …and I’m just confused now. Maybe I’m confused because despite all this bullshit I’m rambling about, all the hate, anger,and hopelessness. I’m still fierce, fighting, and strong. I still have hope and my heart burns with a passion to live life to it’s fullest.
I just need it to get better.
I want to live.
