by Band Back Together | Oct 22, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Help A Parent With a Special Needs Child, Parenting, Special Needs Parenting, Speech Disorders |
I am the mother of identical twin sons. They turned two in November.
At 12 months, they seemed to be moving right along in their development. They were walking, starting to say words; everything seemed fine. I was a little worried they were late in talking, but they were talking, so that was something. By 15 months, they still had very few words but they were both doing some signs and also had a full repertoire of “action” songs in their arsenal. By 18 months, there were no words. None. No signs. No action songs.
Everything was easily explained away as a boy-thing, or a twin-thing, or an identical-twin thing.
We tried not to worry.
Friday, they had their first visit with Early Intervention. I wanted to get their speech back on track as soon as possible. Language delays were our number one concern. Of course, in the back of our mind, we’d thought about autism, but we weren’t going there unless we had to. It’s too difficult.
After thirty minutes of watching the boys “play,” and watching their interactions with me, the Early Childhood Development teacher and the Speech Pathologist, there was an early diagnosis of sorts. They weren’t as concerned with the language as they were all of the other things: they didn’t really play with their toys, they didn’t really interact with, well, anyone in the room.
Early Intervention wanted to proceed with autism evaluations.
The next thirty minutes involved me, sitting on a chair nursing my four-month old. Trying to not to break into an ugly cry, trying to keep it together and sound somewhat intelligent until I could get all of these people who just brought my whole world crashing down, out my door.
My sons are perfect.
And I don’t know how to fix them.
by Band Back Together | Oct 20, 2015 | Anxiety, Childhood Bullying, Depression, Eating Disorders, Restrictive Eating Disorders, Self Injury, Self-Esteem, Suicide, Teen Depression |
Hello The Band,
My name is Sarah and I am 22 years old.
When I was 13, I was bullied, and in response I began my nine year (so far) journey with depression and self-harm, followed by a seven year journey with a restrictive eating disorder.
Until now, The Band I have never written or spoken about my story in complete, honest detail. It’s more important than ever that I come to terms with how that individual made me feel.
I still don’t feel brave enough to open up this much to people who know me, so opening up to you, The Band, is the first step.
I was always a shy child growing up. I first found myself a victim of bullying at the age of five. I can’t remember much, apart from trying to hide from those two boys in my year and their cruel words – even then, I never told anybody about what was happening. Despite that experience (which was thankfully short-lived), I always had a good number of close friendships and grew up as a happy, quiet, attentive, little girl.
I moved through the next eight years of my education without any significant hiccups. During the usual childhood friend tiffs, I’d always find a new handful of friends right around the corner. I enjoyed school. I guess the only problem I had (although I didn’t notice it at the time) was that my family was not particularly open.
My parents had been together throughout my childhood (and are now celebrating their second year of – finally – being married) and I had an older sister. Both of my parents worked full-time throughout my childhood, so my grandmother would often walk me to and from school, and look after my sister and I at home.
I have few memories of spending time with my parents but those I have are happy ones. I wouldn’t realize until years later that the emotional distance between my family and I made me a very closed person.
For the record, I’m beyond the blaming stage – we are all consequences of our experiences and we can’t change the past. Now we just have to try to learn how to move forward.
I made it to secondary school without too many problems. My first year was similarly successful – I was in the top sets for everything and had a close group of friends. About halfway into my second year of secondary school, not long after my thirteenth birthday, the bullying began.
I remember the first time so vividly.
I was walking home from school with a girl who I didn’t usually talk to much, and the boy in question (let’s call him B for “bully” for convenience) was walking with his friends some way behind us. There was nobody between us.
The next thing I knew, I heard him shout “Sarah, get your tits out!”
Instinctively, I turned around, stuck my middle finger up at him and continued walking. The girl I was with asked me what he’d said, but I pretended that I hadn’t heard the exact words.
I still remember my heart dropping a beat when he’d shouted, but I went home and got on with the day, not thinking much of what had happened. I didn’t know that it would change so much.
The next time it happened, I was walking home alone with B walking with his friends behind me. This was the start of countless occasions almost identical in content:
He would, on an near-daily basis, shout three words down the street at me: “Sarah saggy tits.“
I was (and still feel) so ashamed but I didn’t feel I could tell anybody. I’d never even judged my appearance until that point. I hadn’t noticed that I was developing faster than the other girls my age, and it made me feel like I was disgusting.
I hated my body, because (in my head) that was the reason this was happening. It didn’t take long for the self-hate and anger to kick in.
The first time I purposely hurt myself was following one of these incidents. I got my mathematical compass out of my pencil case, took off my trousers, and dragged the tip over my thigh several times. It felt so good to actually DO something, because I’d felt so helpless.
The next day, after B had done exactly the same thing, I tried to self-harm again. Problem was, I didn’t have quite so much anger and self-hatred built up, so had trouble making myself do it.
I was desperate for that release. I started drawing lines on my legs with pen and methodically scratching at them with the compass until all the pen had been scratched away. It didn’t take long before I didn’t need the pen, or before I used more harmful instruments, and moved to other parts of my body.
All the while, I was doing whatever I could to avoid walking in front of B on the way home from school. I would stand around the school gates, until the number of people dwindled so much that I was almost sure that he’d already left (sometimes it succeeded, other times it didn’t). I also started slowing down to the pace of a snail if I saw him ahead of me on the path.
After avoiding B on the way home for a while, he started bullying me in other ways, although he never used those words anywhere but on the walk home.
He began trying to trip me up around school. Having to see him in classes every day was torture. For the first time in my life, I hated going to school. I’d be anxious every morning and would feel sick at the thought of going in.
Then, the bullying started on the Internet, too.
We all had these “websites” and he would use his to bully me further – publicly. He’d post comments on his page, pretending to be me, saying horrible things (the most memorable being that I masturbated at the image of this unpopular guy at school).
Everyone saw it.
Nobody said anything, but I knew they had.
And B was relentless in his bullying, both in person and cyberbullying.
The first time I tried to be more aggressive to stop the bullying was after the online bullying had begun. Apart from what he’d said about me, he’d also followed a young teacher home and posted her address online. I used this to report him to the site host and his account was deleted.
For a short while, the bullying paused. However, my friends told me that B knew I was the one who’d gotten his site taken down, which meant that he was clearly still saying things about me.
After a few weeks, the three word harassment on my walk home began again. The next step I took was to tell my head of year about what he’d put about that teacher online. My friends were called into the head of year’s office and she asked them about what he’d written. They told her about the teacher and that B had written things about me on there, too. This teacher didn’t speak to me again, but B was suspended for a grand total of three days.
He never bullied me again, clearly knowing that that had been his punishment without me mentioning what he’d put me through.
About half a year after it started, the bullying was over.
However, the damage was already done.
I was depressed and self-harming on a daily basis. Self-harm became my way of coping with every negative feeling I had. I tried to stop a number of times, but always ended up self-harming worse when I gave in. It was also around this time that I learned my closest friends were talking about my self-injury behind my back. Everybody knew about my self-harm, but nobody approached me about it. Again, I changed groups of friends and, thankfully, was not alone.
I was 15 and just about to start my last year at that secondary school. My appetite was greatly suppressed by my depression and I’d often only eat one meal a day.
It was just before starting school that I consciously decided to stop eating. I began weighing myself every morning, before putting a few drops of milk into a bowl to make it look like I’d eaten, throwing away my lunch on the way to school, and reluctantly eating dinner with my parents each night. About three months later, I was at a BMI of 16% and my parents had noticed something was wrong.
I spent a few days pretending to be ill so that I didn’t have to eat anything, when my mother told me that they thought I was starving myself. I laughed it off and went back to eating properly. I lasted a week (and a 5 pound weight gain) before my emotions caught up with me.
It was then that I became trapped in the cycle of trying to lose weight and self-harming. Sometimes, I made myself sick, I over-exercising, one or two times of laxative abuse, quite a few minor overdoses, and lots of self-harming and cutting.
Since this started, I’ve seen quite a few different therapists.
The longest I’ve been without cutting is four months, and I’m currently coping better with the eating disorder than ever before. I’m still struggling quite a bit, but without this experience, I wouldn’t be where I am now.
I’m 22 and I’m on my way to my dream career as a researcher. I am just starting my PhD in psychology, with my research topic greatly inspired by what I’ve been through. I’ve come a long way since the first time B shouted at me. I still have problems with depression, anxiety, self-harm, and making myself eat enough, but I’m so much more confident, knowledgeable and open than I was back then.
I have a massive way to go, but I’m encouraged by how far I’ve come.
There were a couple of times that I came really close to telling a teacher what I was going through, but I never had enough courage to do it. I can say now that things may have be a lot easier if I’d been brave enough to say something.
Please, please consider reaching out to someone if you know they are being bullied.
by Band Back Together | Oct 15, 2015 | Abuse, Adult Bullying, Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents, Bullying, Divorce, Emotional Abuse, Parent Loss |
A narcissistic parent can ruin a child’s life for years and years.
This is his story:
Where do I begin?
My mother didn’t just run the first 26 years of my life – she ruined them.
When I was five, I had a dog who mysteriously disappeared. The dog chased a would-be vandal over a fence. While the dog never touched the kid, the kid fell and hurt his shoulder. His parents threatened to sue. While my brothers and I were at school, while Dad was at work, Mom “settled out of court.”
She had a perfectly healthy dog, MY DOG, euthanized.
I was told he ran away while my brothers were told he was given to a chicken farmer. Dad was told the truth. I was told something different because I’d have asked to go to the chicken farm to see my dog.
Twenty years later, I was told the chicken farm story, twenty-five years later, I was FINALLY told the truth. Dad confessed because he was tired of lying for Mom.
What Dad didn’t know is that I paced the streets looking for my dog. I sat on my porch, just waiting for him to come home. I was just like that movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. A letter carrier came upon me on the porch, crying and was at a loss for words.
Life went on for Mom. She chatted on the phone, watched her soaps, did laundry, and ignored my pleas for my dog to “come home.” That dog was my friend.
The Golden Child, The Golden Boy, my abusive, bullying older brother would not allow anyone to be more successful at anything he’d failed at first. The Golden Boy was allowed to try out for Little League, but he didn’t like it. Therefore I was never allowed to try out for Little League. She wouldn’t let me try out for anything – even when Dad pushed for me to join the swim team.
As a teen, I was very shy, awkward around girls. There were a couple reasons: Mom insisted I buy her ugly car, Mom insisted I remain in Boy Scouts – and so it was. Lastly, The Golden Boy would go through my yearbook, find the girls I had crushes on, and ask them out first.
When I was fifteen, I took a date to my homecoming dance. She was my mother’s boss’s daughter who really wanted to go to that dance… just not with me. Her only way in was with a date. I got her in, she flirted with every guy there, and tells me, “Maybe I’ll look you up in a year or two.”
It was completely embarrassing.
Mom thought it was hysterical.
Four years later, I’m home for the summer from college. The Golden Boy commits road rage, and I save his sorry butt from a guy twice our combined sizes. How does he thank me? He starts dating the girl I’d brought to homecoming and bragging about it.
Mom finds it outrageously hilarious funny.
Once again, I was terribly hurt.
Mom informed The Golden Boy that my brother’s girlfriend wasn’t allowed in the house. She also tells me that people can change for the better. She told me about my uncle, her brother, who’d come home from the Navy only learn that his fiancee had married someone else. My uncle was devastated, married his first wife, had two kids, and ended up divorced. As his first fiancee did.
Mom told me they reconnected after he bailed her out of jail for prostitution. For 29 years, I believed this story. And I had failed romance after failed romance.
In college, The Golden One wanted me as a his roommate. Mom thought this was a great idea until I reminded her that I wouldn’t live under the same roof with him. Then he decided we needed to be in the same classes. I sat away from him, listening to comments about his abrasiveness from other students.
The only rebellious thing I ever did was to date my first wife. I knew the relationship wouldn’t work, but my self-esteem was shot, and I chose someone who was not his type – even though it meant I had to sacrifice my own happiness. My first wife and I were married and divorced in less than eight months.
At 26, I met my wife. When she and I got engaged, The Golden Boy had barely known his then-girlfriend, but decided that not only would he marry this woman, but that he should beat me to the alter. When it came to introduce our families, my fiancee and I settled on one weekend and made our plans. The Golden Boy then usurps my weekend so that his future in-laws are met first.
I told my wife we’d be on the back-burner. And we were.
Every time my wife and I would visit, the Golden Boy was there. See, he was was usually unemployed and wanted to use us to get a job. My mother played along until I put my foot down.
I have made up for my lost childhood. I will always have the kind of dog I want. I coached Little League and later high school baseball. When the high school team I coached won a game on a play I called, I remembered looking at my high school ring and saying, “Now I can wear this with pride.”
I went back to college, got my masters degree. I’ve had the same wonderful job for as many years as The Golden Boy has been fired from. It’s likely he’s been fired by more.
My mother died a few years ago, just after my daughter graduated. Dad was proudly telling me all about what my daughter accomplished when I interjected. I pointed out that I was denied those opportunities. I mentioned why and told Dad all about my uncle and aunt’s relationship.
Dad cut me off, “that isn’t true. Your mother made that up.” For 29 years I bought that story. I told my wife, “If she lied to me about this, what else did she lie about?”
My wife said it best, “You’re probably going to find out there were more lies.” I have – most were done to cater to The Golden Boy.
When I was visiting for Father’s Day, The Golden Boy tried to start something. I was on my parents phone – no one had cell phones back then – and he wanted to use the phone too. I told him I’d be off in five minutes, but he got nasty – he said he’d use the phone whenever he wanted to. My mother was on his side. I hit the roof. Mom started crying, and talking about taking everyone on a cruise for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
They renewed their vows the day after their actual anniversary – my anniversary – to cater to The Golden Child. At dinner, my wife and I presented my parents with a special gift, a three-night stay at a bed and breakfast. Afterward, Mom called me to tell me that they’d had a blast. Years later, I find out that she’d given away the reservation to a family friend. No one, of course, is allowed to be better than The Golden Boy. And since he was broke and didn’t buy them a gift? She wanted nothing from me.
Later, I asked Dad about it – Dad knew nothing of it, which makes sense: Dad knew what Mom wanted him to know.
When Mom died, a spiteful Golden Boy showed his true colors. He and Dad never got along. He tried to have Dad institutionalized. It didn’t work. The Golden Boy was removed from the hospital by security.
The Golden Boy fought with Dad after Dad informed the hospital staff to not release his protected health information to my brother. What does this Golden Child do for revenge?
He makes a false report to DCF, claiming Dad is broke, beat his wife, has dementia, and is living off cat food.
DCF investigated while Dad was home grieving. A follow-up investigation took place the day Mom died. I was less-than-friendly to DCF. I told them if they had any questions about Dad’d mental capacity, to bring them to me. She couldn’t tell me who’d ordered the investigation, to which I replied, “I can take three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”
I made Dad change the locks on the house, and I became his power of attorney. I made sure Dad didn’t disinherit The Golden Child because there are grandchildren involved. He’s not getting a key to the house, though.
Now The Golden Boy has a job, which I always fill the words “for now,” since he always gets fired. Dad is trying to tell me how much better his personality is since getting this job. A person’s employment status does not change someone’s personality. Becoming a parent, yes.
Speaking of children, my mother GAVE BACK many pictures I gave her and Dad of my daughter under the guise of “There isn’t enough room.” There are ROOMS OF PICTURES of just his child, one of SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN! Dad won’t do anything there because he wants to keep the house as Mom left it.
The golden boy learned how to lie from my mother. He told a lie about my uncle that caused me to never be allowed to see that uncle the last 8 years of his life. This was another of Mom’s brothers, and he used to take us to a rifle range. The golden boy convinced Mom I was irresponsible and couldn’t be trusted at a range. Mom never let me see that uncle the last 8 years of his life before he was tragically killed.
This uncle left a rifle to the golden boy and my parents. When I asked why it was such a big deal with taking me to a range, my mother said, “Why do you take stock in what your brother says?” I responded, “I didn’t. You did.” Mom then said they were afraid I was holding a grudge against someone and was planning something rash.
I have poured a lot out here regarding the lies I was told. Now the golden boy is trying to charm his way back into Dad’s good graces. I’ve told Dad this has nothing to do with past grudges, or should I say all of his bullying. It has to do with the fact the golden boy broke any and all trust with me when my mother died. There is nothing he can do to ever earn my trust because he will never have my trust again.
The sad part is my father forgets his own sister was the golden child with my grandmother, and she and her husband stole from my grandmother, which set Dad off. I told Dad, “I trust my brother the same way you trusted your sister.” That woke Dad up. I even asked Dad what he plans to do when this golden boy asks for a key to his house. Dad has assured me that won’t happen, but to be on the safe side if I have to deal with my father’s estate, the first thing I will do is get the locks on that house changed again.
I feel better for sharing this, and I welcome your responses.
Sincerely,
Cleansed
by Band Back Together | Oct 14, 2015 | Asperger's Syndrome, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Childhood Bullying, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Suicide |
I did it again.
While I didn’t yell at my wife, or make any physical advances, No, what I did was worse.
I made her cry and hide in a corner. My own wife.
And it keeps happening; it’s becoming more frequent.
I grew up in an abusive household in the United Kingdom. My mother, sister, and I lived under my father’s proverbial gun. My mother and sister were sexually assaulted by him.
His control ruled my life and dictated that anything I ever did wasn’t good enough. When I’d get straight A’s, I was told they should have been A+’s. Eventually, I rebelled a little which was for my own good.
We’d gone out for a walk in the forest and I needed a rest, so I hung back and sat down to catch my breath. He came thundering down, and with no no one else around, he knocked me down, and started to kick the living daylights out of me. I lost all control. I began to bleed from my head. Then, he picked me up and dragged me in front of a crowd of people.
Not a single person tried to stop him, not a single word of dissent.
From that point on, I decided I should be alone. Beside my mother, no one cared about me, and eventually she began to abuse me as well. It was a vicious cycle that eventually broke down when he divorced her and moved away with his mistress.
But after the incident in the forest, I just wanted to be alone, not exist at all. It was compounded by the fact that I was bullied every day at school at school as well. When I went to counselors or my mother, I was usually told, “you’re just being stupid,” and was written off.
Eventually I went to University, during which time I almost managed suicide with an overdose of painkillers. The next morning, I went to the doctor and was sent straight to the ER. It was no comfort when I was told that the amount I’d taken was enough to kill a “normal” person. Around this time, I’d disowned my father and there were threats that he and some of his brothers planned to descend upon the University to “correct” me.
I saw killing myself as the only option.
My now-wife has stood by me no matter what. We met playing games on the Internet, and eventually I moved to the USA to marry her. We’ve been married over a year, I’m doing the job I always wanted, and we’re expecting our first child.
She suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and sometimes, as is the case with autism spectrum disorders, doesn’t know how to act or respond appropriately. It feels like I have to organize our daily lives because she can’t or won’t.
I love her to pieces and wouldn’t give her up for the world. Recently, however, I’ve started to make snide comments to her or vent at her about stuff over which she has no control.
For example, we’d just had our apartment building set on fire by some careless fuckwits, and while the apartment wasn’t damaged, it did smell like smoke. The Red Cross had us stay in a hotel, and when we returned home, we both set about organizing our apartment.
When I ask her what else we needed to do, she says that we need to grab CDs from the car so she can rip them onto her laptop. I’m thinking,
“What the fuck? We need to inspect the apartment in case we need to make any claims, and you want me to go downstairs and grab CDs? Seriously?”
Then I say it aloud. I berate her. I berate her because I now have to be her eyes and ears. That I have to organize her day for her. How much it all stresses me out.
And then it hits me like a ton of bricks.
The one thing I swore I’d never do – abuse my own wife or kids like I was abused – I’m doing.
And now, I feel like scum for breaking such an important promise to myself and undermining, hurting her.
There’s a big part of me that feels I should leave quietly and not return so I don’t hurt her anymore. Maybe go somewhere, be alone, and die in a corner quietly. Because that’s what I deserve. And she deserves so much better than me, a broken person who doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going.
I just don’t know anymore. I don’t know whether I should fight it, give up trying to change my fate, or remove myself from the equation permanently.
by Band Back Together | Oct 13, 2015 | Alcohol Addiction, Bulimia Nervosa, Depression, Divorce |
I suppose this is going to take me a while to write. I want to talk about my mom. I want to talk about myself. I need to share.
I grew up in a home that at first pass might pass the sniff test. Now, as an adult, returning to visit, I realize something stinks.
I was never comforted by my mother. I have no memories of thinking, even as a child, “I need help/I hurt/I am sad… I should find my mom.” What six year old writes a letter to her mom saying, “I am sorry to have burdened you, I know you don’t love me and I will leave” and then just walks down the road as far as she can until, she is so afraid of being more trouble for having left, she runs home, pees her pants along the way. Retrieves the letter from her mom’s vanity. It’s been only three or four hours. No one knew she was missing. She tells her mom she is sorry and hopes she knows she is hollow with guilt for being a burden. “I know I am always guilty mom, even if I don’t know what I did. I am always guilty.”
My mother is mentally ill. Depending on the year and the shrink, she has depression, a bipolar disorder, multiple personalities, anxiety issues… you name it, someone has treated her for it. She is also bulimic and an alcoholic. No one ever acknowledged these issues to me or my brother until my parents were getting a divorce when I was 17. My father had always been the lightning rod, attempting to divert or distract or come between my mom and us kids. I never knew anything different.
She had all these rules for us. Do you remember when Jacob Wetterling went missing? I do. That was one of those events that triggered something in her. The paranoia took hold. We had code words for emergencies… code words for normal life. If someone wanted to come in the front door of our house, they had to say “breakfast sausage” even if it was a member of our family. We weren’t allowed to have play dates with other kids. My mom’s logic was that we should be friends, and so we shouldn’t need anyone else. She wasn’t going to cater to the social needs of a child, she had better things to do.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2015 | Anger, Anxiety, Coping With Depression, Guilt, Jealousy, Loneliness, Major Depressive Disorder, Mental Illness Stigma, Mood Disorder, Shame |
It’s that deep, dark place I visit after spending days or weeks traveling into. The place where I’ve found myself dejected, sad, rejected, angry, jealous.
Angry at the world for not giving me what others have received.
Tears falling as I realize I’m in the place where I don’t deserve to be. I have no reason for being here. Nothing concrete has put me here.
Only in my mind have I traveled here.
The dark hallows of my mind have brought me to this place where I don’t belong.
Even in my depths, I’m outcasted.
Other people belong here. Other people who have suffered, who have been brought here not by their own mind, but by outside forces beyond their control.
Death. Disease. Sickness. Suffering.
Those people, affected by depressing situations, belong here if they happen to arrive.
Not me.
I have no reason for being here.
Yet here I am.
Sad. Jealous. Angry. Crying.
As with everything, and with every time, it will pass.
And it will not look to be this bad from the other side.
