by Band Back Together | Jul 17, 2014 | Abortion, Abuse, Cancer and Neoplasia, Compulsive Lying, Love, Suicide |
I stand here, a shell of a man, alone, and without direction to find a path. I am a compulsive liar and I have been all my life. I have hurt and destroyed everything that is near and dear to my heart.
I have almost no friends, no family, and no love to call my own. I am defeated, at rock bottom, and needing to hear from someone why and what I need to do. I know everyone has a story, and I know some are worse off than me, but why can’t I stop lying? My childhood was a mess – abusive father and a mother who blamed her children for her life’s problems. I would cry for love and attention, but I never got it, just yelling and beating. Through high school, I would lie for attention, say things to be cool, yet get caught and pay by getting beaten up, or worse.
I have lost every relationship and every woman I have ever loved because I would lie about the smallest things, and then the biggest things. From a failed marriage, I have a child. That is the only reason I haven’t killed myself. I have another child that I gave up the rights to because I was ashamed someone would never like me with a child. Now that child is 17 and wants to see me, but she knows the evil person I am.
I met a beautiful woman two years ago. She was life and beauty and love, a healer and a spiritual woman. She showed me love like never before, showed me how to be grateful for life and to love and help others. She loved my 8 year old daughter. It was a beautiful relationship, but I gave her my lies to make her love me. I lied and told her I was receiving cancer treatments, so she would hold me tighter to her. Why would someone lie about having cancer when so many people die from it? Why did I feel the need to put lies in the most beautiful relationship I have ever found? She accepted me despite my bullshit past. I told her I was healing every day.
Now I have nothing because I lied about having cancer and said the chemotherapy made me sterile, Now she knows the truth because she become pregnant 6 weeks ago. She has left me and is having an abortion. I am devastated that I have destroyed this amazing woman’s soul.
I am lost and ashamed. I am a failure and a coward. Who does this, and why? I look back and can’t believe this is what I have made of my life. It’s like it just happens. I don’t think about it. I don’t wake up and say I am going to hurt someone today. God, all I want is to be loved and cared for and I keep destroying those chances. The pain I feel is to much to take anymore. I’m afraid for myself, and the ones I have hurt.
I know I am a good person inside. I feel her pain and the pain of the others I have hurt. I want to be better. For the first time ever, I want to make my life mean something. I want to give back to the people who have trusted me and believed in me, when all I ever did was lie. Change must happen today, or I am done.
Why am I am monster when all I ever wanted to be was something beautiful to the world?
by Band Back Together | Feb 4, 2014 | Adoption, Adult Adoptees, Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Cancer and Neoplasia, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Emotional Abuse, Fear, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Incest, Loss, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Parent Loss, Sadness, Therapy, Trauma |
The scars of a narcissistic mother last a lifetime.
This is the brave story of an adult child of a narcissistic mother’s story.
My dear father fell ill the end of February 2013. He’d been in and out of the hospital for three months with various ailments and a discovery of an aggressive cancer. We lost my dear father on May 29th 2013.
My father cared for my 80-year old mother. He waited on her hand and foot; he’d been doing this my whole life. It was now my turn to care for my mother.
I thought I was doing what was right; I thought I was being a good daughter. I visited with her every day. Let her cry on my shoulder, took care of her needs, medication, doctor appointments, fed her, cleaned her home, took care of her pets. My brother occasionally would show up, with some type of take-out food, but scoot out quickly.
After a few weeks, I started to get the wrath of my mother. I couldn’t do anything right
…I was too slow. I forgot to do something. Then, it turned into criticism of my body and how I raise my children; she was sorry she ever adopted me. I left her home crying every day; going home to my own family filled with anxiety and stress. I felt every bit 12-years old, all over again.
I am just recently learning about Narcissism.
I was 2- 1/2 when I was adopted. My brother is 8 years older than me and my parent’s biological son. I could never remember much of my childhood before the age of 11 or 12, but do remember a few haunting memories that I tried to pass off as a nightmare. One of the reoccurring memories happened when I was 6 – my then 14-year old was brother tickling me. It progressed to him pulling up my nightie and trying to penetrate me with his penis.
I can’t remember much past that.
He was always inappropriate, showing me his penis and laughing, making a sick game of it. I can’t remember the length of time this went on. Sometimes he would be nice, then he would be plain cruel to me.
I stopped talking in 2nd grade. I was so terribly shy, so shy that I would cry if someone looked at me the wrong way. I started remembering everything when I was a preteen but I was too ashamed to tell anyone as my brother continued his cruelty. He didn’t call me by my name. He called me Moose – as in a “fat moose.” My mother allowed this. She allowed him to be cruel to me and never said anything. In fact, it was my fault he was being mean.
He left for college when I was 12. Then came the wrath of my mother. She would make me weigh myself in front of her. She was very thin, an ex-model; she was an alcoholic and a very mean drunk. My father would water down her vodka in hopes she would be less volatile. She would scream at me for various reasons, none of them made sense. I just felt unloved. In fact, she made me go to a therapist at 13 because she said I had a “detachment disorder” and “could not love anyone.” Something about “not being held when I was back in my home country.”
My father tried the best he could to assure me I was pretty, smart and lovable. I always felt that from him, but he never stood up to my mother and quietly observed the maniacal behavior. I could write so much more of what happened through my childhood. (ed note: please share with us)
I am now 44 years old, married 18 years with 2 teenagers. I know I have the ability to love. I know I was mistreated because I could never treat my own kids that way. I am now in therapy to reconcile my feelings of guilt and quell my anxieties that still exist. I have never felt good enough or have been able to express myself for fear I might upset someone.
I am learning that my brother was the “golden child” and I was the scapegoat. It is all starting to make sense to me now. My therapist also believes my parents or at least my mother had knowledge of my brother’s sexual abuse towards me. Ughhh, I can’t even imagine this could be true. I have no contact with either my mother or brother as of Thanksgiving. My children tell me I seem less stressed. My husband also has noticed a huge change. I believe I am healing. I believe my father’s passing brought me to a place where I could see all the indignities I had suffered at the hands of someone I called Mom.
by Band Back Together | Jun 24, 2011 | Anger, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Caregiver, Coping With Cancer, Family, Feelings, Guilt, Stress, Trauma, Trust |
i’ve written before about my love hate relationship with the pump… well, mostly about the hate portion. its rhythmic sucking makes me sing little songs to its always irritating tempo. then they mix around with the gymboree songs already stuck in my head. then i realize how badly i really do need the prozac and ativan.
i don’t know for sure how long it’s going to last. i’m trying to be realistic about the prospect of having cancer, undergoing chemo and pumping for (hopefully only) six months. it’s kind of like starting out nursing. i tried to limit my expectations of myself. i said i’d aim for six months and then see if i could go for a year. that seemed ridiculously long to me at the time, much like pumping for six months does now. but a year came and went and well, here we are.
my husband, nugget daddy, stayed down at my parents’ last night so nugget and i have been left to fend for ourselves for the majority of the past two days, save for a playdate and lasagna drop off yesterday afternoon.
i didn’t get to pump at all yesterday. i can’t pump in front of my daughter, nugget. that would be like asking your pregnant best friend to take you to happy hour. i meant to pump last night once she went to sleep, but i fell asleep, too. my boobs had been angry ever since.
nugget likes to have her naps with me, but this limits my options for the duration of naptime as to what i can actually accomplish with twenty pounds of sleeping toddler strapped to my chest, lovely though as she feels snuggled against me. her grandmamie puts her to sleep in the stroller and i bribed her into it with chocolate chips this afternoon so i could pump, finally, and subsequently blog about it. lucky you!
i was so angry the first few times i pumped after starting chemo. it was like rubbing salt in the wounds. i couldn’t nurse nugget and i had to stand uncomfortably in the bathroom watching my milk fill up plastic bottles instead of a happy baby. and then as i would dump the ounces of heartache down the sink a new wound would appear like a gaping mouth to catch my salty tears and sting my aching soul. what a waste.
you won’t find much if you google “cancer” and “breastfeeding” except for articles about nursing after breast cancer. “chemo” and “breastfeeding” yields the same contraindication tagline over and over, and “cancer” and “breastmilk” mostly just points you to article after article about this guy who drank breastmilk to fight his prostate cancer. those, mostly sensational and local news, articles mention milk banks selling milk to cancer patients when they have excess available to sell. it costs $3 an ounce.
i’ve had plenty of time to think about that guy and those $3 ounces while making up songs to the pump’s rhythm and calculating how much i’d just poured down the drain. warning! here comes the crunchy freaky part. squee! maybe you want to stop reading, uptight next door neighbor guy or old school grandpa, maybe there’s a golf game you’d rather be watching. okay, so seriously, why the fuck would i want to keep dumping my milk down the drain when other cancer patients are paying good money to get their hands on it? i don’t know what exactly it might do for me, but it sure won’t be doing anything at the bottom of the sink that’s for sure. so i sucked it up and sucked it down.
it was sort of gross at first, though why exactly i’m not sure. i think it was the temperature. i can’t think of any beverage i regularly consume at body temperature. but now i’m used to it and pleased by thought that i might actually be doing something to help save my own life.
so, now i have a new goal. i want to pump twice a day for the whole six months, or however long it might be. i know i might get sick. i know i might have to stop if i do. but if i approach it the way i did breastfeeding, then maybe i can make it through. maybe if i tell all of you about my plan then i’ll be hell-bent on reaching my goal. maybe some mother out there trolling the interwebs for a glimmer of hope will find my blog now, instead of all the other useless crap i found.
by Band Back Together | Dec 12, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Caregiver, Compassion, Coping With Cancer, Fear, Feelings, Loneliness, Love, Sadness, Stress, Trauma |
I’m sorry. Right now, I cannot be a good friend. I am not a good wife or daughter, sister, neighbor, niece or cousin. I love you. I appreciate everything you do for me and for my family. But for now, everything I have, every smile I can eke out, every happy moment, belongs to my daughter. I can’t give you what you want, not today and maybe not tomorrow either. I don’t have enough for you.
My fear is all-consuming. I am endlessly treading its dark waters. Your well-intended positivity crashes into me, knocking me down before washing back out to sea. Your genuine, heartfelt words of hope leave me salty-eyed, gasping for air, bracing for the next wave of “You’re so strong!” or “Kids are so resilient!”
Your generous offers to help are not falling on deaf ears, but I’m afraid my desperate cries for it are. I can hear you happily proposing your casseroles, a walk in the park, an eager ”whatever you need!” I’m sure one day I will very much need those things. Today I just need simple kindness, compassion, companionship. I need you to hug me and hold my hand. I need you to stop worrying about the tasks on your list and just be with me, sit here and keep my head above water.
I realize nothing about this is convenient for you. I know the closer you are to me, the deeper the water, the stronger current. I’m sorry that you’re being pulled in, challenged, diverted from your regularly scheduled life. But this is my nightmare and sadly, you’re in it.
so bite your tongue,
you’re not the only one
who’s been let down.
by Band Back Together | Nov 30, 2010 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Coma, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hospice, Loss, Parent Loss |
t was 11 years ago today.
I sat in the middle bedroom at my Granny’s house holding his hand. His breathing was shallow and staggered. He had faded in and out of consciousness several times that evening and we had taken turns sitting with him. We knew he wasn’t in any pain and we weren’t exactly sure he even knew we were there. But we like to think he did. After a very long day and evening, and a day or two prior of much of the same, we knew the time was near.
It was decided by one of us, who exactly I can’t remember and it really doesn’t matter, that maybe we should all go in and tell him it was okay to go. We knew he was ready and it was okay. No matter how many times I say it was okay, it really wasn’t. And still isn’t. Just don’t tell my Dad that.
They tell you that people in a coma or not in a real state of consciousness can still hear you if you talk to them. I know now they are right. Either that, or God heard us and passed the message on to Dad.
It wasn’t more than a few minutes after that, although it seemed like much more, he slipped away. Hearing from us that we were okay and it was time allowed him to let go as well. It was very peaceful. It was heartbreakingly sad. It was something I would never wish on anyone else and at the same time a memory I would EVER want to trade away.
It was 11 years ago today and it still feels like yesterday.
It was 11 years ago and I still miss him terribly.
I love you, Dad.
by Band Back Together | Nov 12, 2010 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Chronic Illness, Coping With Cancer, Grief, Health, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Help A Friend With Chronic Illness, Loss, Parent Loss |
In August of 2006, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I was at the movie store with my boyfriend and our 4 month old daughter when I got a phone call from my aunt. I had to stand outside because I couldn’t hear her inside. As I stood in the wind with one ear plugged, huddled so she didn’t hear the gusting through the line, she told me my mother was in the hospital fighting for her life. I couldn’t believe it. In shock, I think, I asked her question after question.
My most important question: “What happened?” She went to the ER with abdominal pain, which turned out to be a tumor pushing on her internal organs. She was in multiple organ failure and had to be wheeled into surgery immediately. They only had time to get contact information for my grandparents before she was under and being cut open. They had removed what they could, put her on dialysis and a colostomy bag, and told my grandparents to come as soon as they could. They were 4 states away.
Against the odds, my mother survived the massive surgery which left her with no large intestine, no reproductive organs, and one barely functional kidney. My grandparents packed her home up, leaving behind precious memories and beloved family pets in the process, to try to get her back to their home before another rent payment was due. A few days after they finished packing, my mother was declared stable enough to transport and made the several hour flight away from the only state she had ever called home.
Practically an invalid for months, she relied completely on my grandparents for everything. I was unable to get down to see her, despite impassioned pleas to everyone I could think of, including my and my mother’s previous employer, for a loan. I just needed a plane ticket. A simple fucking plane ticket. $300 that our family couldn’t afford without shutting off the gas in the middle of a Michigan winter. What if she had died in that hospital? Or the months just after? The doctors hadn’t given her much chance, and I couldn’t get a lousy $300 loan to go see her.
How could things get so fucked up so fast? I’d just seen her! She came up after our daughter was born, twice, because soon after she left the first time I needed gallbladder surgery. She may not have been a poster-girl for perfect health, but she wasn’t DYING! How could two months make such a difference? And why the hell couldn’t I get someone to give me a fucking hand up so I could go see one of the most important people in my life when they were practically one foot in the grave?!?!
By the time I finally got to see her, she had mostly stabilized and was started on chemo so the tumors wouldn’t start growing again and really do her in this time. It was a calculated risk: if they started it too soon, and she couldn’t handle literally injecting poison into her body, she died. If they waited too long, the extremely aggressive tumors could grow right back and totally kill her internal organs, if they didn’t starve her of essential nutrients first. Rock, meet hard place. Fuck me.
But she survived. Against all odds – and often stupefying her doctors – she lived. She bulled through that surgery, her recovery, chemo, and eventually radiation as well. And in the end? She kicked cancer in the balls, hard. Her very last oncologist appointment gave her an official diagnosis of remission. Three months later, she died. The treatment(s) had left her with an inability to absorb vital nutrients.
But even as she lay dying, she had the satisfaction of knowing she had won.
She might be dying, but she’d taken the big C with her, kicking and fucking screaming. I’m proud of you, Mom.
