by Band Back Together | Mar 15, 2016 | Abuse, Adult Bullying, Child Loss, Child Neglect, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Munchausen By Proxy Syndrome, Psychological Manipulation |
After going through what was quite possibly the most difficult year I’ve had so far, Things are finally settling down.
I’ve lost a child, was denied access to a child and have fought all year through to get it back.
I faced some of the most horrific gas lighting abuse imaginable, I work in a position of trust and have done so for many years and my former abuser decided that they would try and get me fired with some of the worst false accusations you could imagine.
I’m now at a point where child protection services no longer believe my former abuser and have some solid boundaries in place to protect myself.
They tried so hard to pretend they were the victim whilst I watched them send constant mixed messages, cheat on me, control every aspect of my hard earned wages, my professional life and personal life alike, and I watched my friends disappear everyday, then when enough of my support had gone they turned on my family. They were constantly redirecting the blame for everything onto me and making me feel responsible for every bad situation they created by abusing others as well.
The final straw was when I recognized that they were trying to set me up to make the biggest move of gas lighting abuse imaginable, I’ll be the first to admit that it didn’t go as far as accusing me of Satan worship or cults where children were sacrificed, but it got pretty close and was all to try and control and limit my access to my child.
I then identified defining factors of Munchhausen by proxy in their behavior and had no choice but to try and protect my child as best as I could whilst fighting off these organizations that she used to further victimize me.
My child was ill, in accident and emergency or was at emergency appointments almost every week. I noticed that the universal factor was that my former abuser would always press for me to have contact with HER, not my child. When I tried to be there for my child without seeing them even under the supervision of medical professionals, I was told that it’s unacceptable and I have to see my former abuser.
I am still clearing up the shrapnel in my life but it’s back.
MY LIFE.
I’ve been studying the past year to help real victims of domestic violence as a McKensies friend, as well as help both mothers and fathers hold onto their children when courts become involved, offer practical and emotional support for the men women and children whilst maintaining my own contact with my child and jumping through those hoops.
I’m in a fairly successful band and still retain my job in a position of trust, I’ve trained as a volunteer children’s speech therapist and rebuilt all of those broken bridges from my friends and family and I’ve brushed up on my cooking skills a great deal, and I still donate blood as often as possible.
If I had tried any of this over the past years during my victimization I would of crumbled and broke under the pressure. But now, now I can do all of this with an ease that belies my former victimization. Now it’s all as natural as breathing to me.
I received a shock on valentines day, It was an act that helped me realize how far I’ve come and how much stronger I am.
My former abuser sent me a valentines card…….
Are they sure about that?
I suspect that they have either the final screw has come loose, lost the ability to exert their manipulation of others and want to try again with me, or want to try and set me up again.
Well, Not Gonna Happen.
I did not build all of this to watch them break it again.
Not this time.
Find someone else to fall victim to you’re disillusion, faux perception and toxic miasma of a personality because I am free.
Thank you to The Band and Aunt Becky
I’m sorry for my silence since my last post I’ve just been so busy.
Until next time,
Stay strong all of you
by Band Back Together | Mar 14, 2016 | Adult Child Loss, Anger, Depression, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loving An Addict, Prescription Drug Abuse |
There are days when I sit and think about my son’s addiction. I think about everything I did do, didn’t do or should have done. I start to disassemble his entire journey in my mind trying to find the missing piece. That piece that somehow I overlooked during our struggle for recovery. You see, my son had the worst outcome. The one every parent dreads but would never allow the thought to even cross their lips. My son overdosed and died of the very pills he was given to manage his post op pain.
His addiction snuck up on us like a thief in the night. Carefully and quietly taking us by surprise. Like the elephant in the room, we all knew there was a problem but no one had the guts to say the words. I called it our dirty little secret. Keeping it safe and sound between me and my addict son. Protecting both of us from the ugliness of the stigma attached to this most misunderstood disease. We had brief periods when we were given a glimpse of normal, tricking us into believing the demons had lost their grip and moved on. Then reality would hit as my son returned to his world of darkness and chaos dragging me along for the ride of my life.
His addiction consumed me as I struggled to find places where he would stay safe and I would get a much needed break from the endless worry constantly dancing in my mind. Finding the right fit of rehab was like finding a rose in six feet of snow. I fought to get him in and he fought to get out. Never feeling like the help and support he needed was available wherever he was staying at the time. I’ve learned that helping the addict is like matching fingerprints. Almost impossible. Hindsight is such a great gift if only it arrived before things were said and done, people were trusted and money was wasted on places that made promises that could never be kept.
There are days I feel like I failed him. After all as mothers our job is to keep our children safe. I have a double whammy. I’m not just a mom but also a nurse, a fixer. The very idea that I could not fix my son horrifies me. I allowed myself the sick illusion that I was in control of his addiction and I had the power to fix him. Even when that little voice of reason resonated through my brain, and was echoed by close friends and family, “you didn’t cause it and you can’t cure it” I still continued to beat myself up dissecting every fight, every rehab, tough love, no love or tons of love that we lived during his battle. Being the lone survivor of my sons addiction is a life sentence. I’m still shocked that he is gone. It feels like the beginning of my end. I have become my own personal punching bag. I have a million reasons why his death is my fault. I should have… begins my sentence when close friends try to set me straight.
There is nothing that can change my mind. I should have been able to save him. I had years of practice. So now my painful reality is every parents nightmare. Now, I must figure out a way to go on without him. I have become a sounding board for other mothers living the nightmare of addiction. In the midst of my struggle for survival and my fighting back at the broken system, I have made many contacts. By channeling my anger to make a difference I have stumbled upon people who have started the walk of grief before I joined this club. Together we find strength and hope that the bigger we grow and the louder we become the harder we will be to ignore. Parents whose prior struggle was to save their children. Working together to fix the breaks in the system we have come to know too well. A system that fought us when we were begging for help, a system that turned its back on a generation of addicts pleading for their lives. My son’s struggle has ended. Mine has begun. Everyday is a struggle. Trying to ease the pain that grips my heart and fighting to find joy in a world that has turned upside down. My new normal is just that, so new that even I have trouble adjusting. I pray for acceptance. I pray for peace. Until then I survive one day at a time.
by Band Back Together | Feb 17, 2016 | Abandonment, Abuse, Autoimmune Disorders, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Boundaries, Fear, Psychological Manipulation, Psychosis |
Spent the last two months hoping against all hope that my mother and father had not actually abandoned me and would recognize the generous friendly text I sent. We only exchange presents and Christmas cards each year through the post and have absolutely no contact other than that because my mother has been repeatedly out of control and dupes my dad into following her every manipulative idea – she is the expert after all.
I ended up feeling totally resentful that they had yet again ignored me, leaving me hanging, after that I had to place severe boundaries on them to stop them dropping in when they want, without asking regularly. I live 200 miles away from them and on my own and had clearly stated I did not want visitors at the minute thank you, and I would let them know when I did.
Even though I copied in others to the text – who responded within a day or two (so I know it was received) I got no reply from either parent. I felt manipulated after 6 weeks, and alone, and know it is my mothers method of control. It is possibly stemming this time from her resentment of me finally forcing an absolute boundary on her in the summer and threatening her with police if she didn’t stop what she was doing and actually meaning it since I had already spoken to them.
It is a tactic she has used before to manipulate/punish me into chasing them from what I now know is from triggering my fear they have yet again abandoned me. And yes I fell for it and sent another text.
And this time I got a reply from both of them! My mothers text was long, to control the conversation, where my dads text was very short with two lines.
My mother thinks she is a psychologist because she has a psychology degree, but she didn’t make the grade and couldn’t do the clinical psychologist degree or practice. I feel that she is really an amateur just like the rest of us but she makes others think and treat her like the expert with these ridiculously big theories of hers about people and why they are doing things that always make her look the overly kind martyr our relationship.
The thing is all her communication always makes me feel that we are lacking on a deep emotional level. It seems to be caring from the outside to strangers or people who don’t want to get involved and not read in context but if you experience it, it feels so hurtful, so nasty it takes my breath away sometimes. From someone considered to be so sensitive to others needs and feelings she can read them and speak for them to others?
Anyway I digress, this text started with congratulating ME for contacting them! After I contacted them originally and they ignored it completely 2 months ago!?
Next she gave an answer to my original question but made it so insignificant that it makes my original offer basically devoid, and it won’t put me in any special light at all.
The final point was classic, after having years of me being repeatedly abused by men sexually, physically, verbally, emotionally and becoming completely isolated from all friends and colleagues after my last seriously abusive relationship with a man who was diagnosed psychotic and completely betrayed me. I wanted to believe I could have a relationship with somebody/anybody and surely he must love me or be able to appreciate me? I was so physically ill from the stress of my last abusive partner that I actually developed an serious auto immune disease and nearly died. I didn’t see the symptoms and have had 9 operations in the last two years at the age of 44, it is blatantly clear to everyone I will not be having children of my own even though I would have loved to, really loved to, even if it was still physically possible and some man could see past the colostomy bag I now have as a result. My mother has taken it upon herself out of the blue this year to start announcing when every single woman is pregnant or has had a baby. The last point on her text was how someone who I don’t even know because she didn’t include the last name (I believe she wants me to fish for info) has had a baby. Something I can never do and on my own have come to a good place about it, until its flagged up by my mother who has also had her own children and knows it all….
It just makes me feel so floored by her every time and so crazy, even though I know we have a dreadful relationship where I literally don’t want to have anything to do with her and I know she is showing others including my dad, saying look how generous I am even though my daughter doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, and I am filling her in with all the family news and keeping her up to date, but with all the news from an entire family who basically abandoned me to her sick behavior my entire life.
I’ve tried having nothing to do with her, I find putting boundaries in place is absolutely impossible. I feel traumatized just trying to work out what boundary it is I need to put in place because I’m so unpracticed in it.
I’ve tried being what she wants me to be and its never enough. I’m upset, hurt and doing the bad things I learned from my mother/father in all my relationships. Trusting people I shouldn’t even though I’m looking hard and not trusting those I should. I learned to repress and not act on my instinct in order to stay safe from her anger and revengeful behavior once my dad and others weren’t around as a child. I take the wrong choices regularly due to the trust issues providing proof to my mother and the family, if they should ever need it, that I am completely the rotten apple and they are the long suffering martyrs all along.
And I keep hearing from my dad ‘Well you were perfectly capable.’
by Band Back Together | Jan 27, 2016 | Abandonment, Child Neglect, Economic Abuse, Estrangement, Parentification, Parenting Teens, Single Parenting |
I’m a 16 year old girl and I had to grow up fast. I never really got to enjoy my childhood, at times I don’t mind because I like feeling as though I’m capable to do things on my own, but sometimes I feel as thought I should’ve been able to live a normal teenage life. My father was in the picture but he was never mentally or emotionally there for me.
My mom had to take the role of both mother and father, but that made me feel like I had to be more responsible, like I had the responsibility of being a parent which I didn’t like. I started working once I turned 15 and I’ve worked ever since.
As soon as I got my first job my mom stopped helping me with anything and always asked me for money. I felt like I was the parent and she was the daughter. It really gets hard sometimes cause I feel as though she’s never played the role of being a mom. She kept a roof over my head and food in my stomach, but emotionally she was never there. I never got an “I love you” unless she did something really horrible towards me and felt guilty. I’ve never heard how was your day, how are your grades, how was school, would you like to talk about anything…none of these normal questions parents ask their kids. And it really hurts, I have just always wished I had an actual mom I could look up to.
by Band Back Together | Dec 3, 2015 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Cancer, Loss, Sadness, Stress, Trauma |
oh, how i miss the simplicity of our nursing days. life without breastfeeding is hard, and cancer certainly isn’t making it any easier. crying was limited to brief moments following boo-boos and over-tired minutes post car seat strap-ins. it was never part of naptime or bedtime.
a balanced diet was effortless.
i never knew the struggle of naptime. now i have to walk and rock nugget in my arms or in a peanut shell while she chews on a pacifier, maybe holds her blanket and always twiddles at least one nipple. at night we lather, rinse, repeat or if i’m really lucky we just lay down and she holds on to each boob, binky clenched between her teeth and drifts off, dreaming of nursing i imagine.
i never knew a picky toddler.
whenever nugget was hungry or thirsty the milk bar was always open. trying new and different foods was fun instead of stressful. nugget’s tummy was never upset. her favorite snack was always handy. we never had to pack a meal to go out.
i did at least have a few weeks and the foresight to work in the concept of “kisses make boo boos all better.” nugget still kisses my port and scars everyday. recently she’s added my breasts to her fix-it list and kisses and hugs them all day long.
she’s trying her best to make mommy all better with her kisses, because she knows that’s when she can have her nursies back.
by Band Back Together | Nov 27, 2015 | Abandonment, Breakups, Family |
You were not supposed to be created.
Your father called you a “mistake.”
I called you a miracle. My miracle.
From the moment I found out I was pregnant with on Halloween night in 2004, I knew I wanted you.
Your father was not there much and I will explain to you why later in life. Adult life is complicated and sometimes it is not fair what other people do to each other.
You see my darling daughter, your father was married to another women and already had two little girls.
I did not know he was married at the time of your creation and he did not tell me.
He tried to be there at first, but I think somewhere along the lines his life got too complicated.
I spent a lot of time being angry at him for not being who I thought he was; maybe this is why he choose to not be part of your life. I am truly sorry if I am the reason he is not in your life now.
We have another man in our life now and he has been here for a little over a year. He is not a replacement for the father you do not have, but he is his own “male parental unit” to you and he loves you.
I wish that you do not spend your adult life hurting yourself emotionally because of what your father does now.
I don’t care if you are doctor or a lawyer I simply ask of the fates that you will still be the loving and creative person you are now.
All I wish is the best for you in your life.
