by Band Back Together | Mar 12, 2014 | Bipolar Disorder, Caregiver, Compassion, Hope, Love, Loving Someone With Bipolar Disorder, Marriage Problems, Single Parenting, Special Needs Parenting, Teen Bipolar Disorder, Therapy |
I admitted my 10 year old son to a psychiatric hospital Wednesday night.
My son is mentally ill.
For years, I have apologized to people for who my son is. His behaviors or quirks were something that were spoken about quietly, like they were something to be embarrassed of – Like WE were embarrassed of him.
For years, I have defended myself, made excuses for a multitude of things – his medications, the therapies he receives, the fight for Special Education services, the way I choose to parent and discipline him.
Today, all of this stops. My son D is who he is. My job as his mom is to provide the best care for him that I can, to the best of my knowledge. I am not a sheep – being blindly led by psychiatrists and therapists. I do my research, and I am well educated about his associated Alphabet Soup diagnoses. He HAS to have medicine to function. I don’t let the staff at his school run over me at his Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings. I am on staff at his school, plus I know the laws regarding special education.
D got the shitty end of the deal when it came to genetics. See, I understand the raging in his mind, and the lows where all you want to do is hide from the world in a closet. I have Bipolar Disorder, Type 1. So does his birth father. I am compliant on my medications. It took me 8 years to finally get it right. There were times I almost lost everything – my family, my job, my mind. I am grateful for those who stuck with me through the good times and the really dark, ugly times.
Everyone knows at least one person who suffers from mental illness. One in FOUR people in America suffer from some sort of mental illness. Yet, there still is a stigma.
Today, for my D and me – this WILL STOP. No longer will I apologize for his behavior to strangers in public because he is on overload or having a meltdown. I will no longer listen to people tell me that my child is on too much medicine. I will not let people tell me I baby him when I choose to talk him down from a rage rather than “spank that ass.” I will keep fighting for his equal treatment at school. He has a mental illness, but he is a bright, smart boy. I will love my child for who he is, not for what others think he should be. I will not listen to negative ex-husbands telling me that I am doing it wrong, when he is only with D four days a month and only is “Dad” when he wants to be.
Today the stigma will stop. Follow me on my and my family’s journey.
Peace.
by Band Back Together | Mar 11, 2014 | Feelings |
I spun a web of angst.
Drawing forth pieces of a puzzle.
Maybe they weren’t meant to be assembled
Maybe I sped up the process
Never knowing, the outcome arrived.
Now what?
Learn to weave a different type of web
by Band Back Together | Mar 10, 2014 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Fear, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Rape/Sexual Assault, Trauma, Trust |
I’d been traveling in Nepal for a few months; I felt a great amount love toward so many people I’d met. Their openness and kindness astounded me. I’d met so many people I could trust, and when I met one I couldn’t, I wasn’t expecting it. We met in a mundane way, an interaction like dozens of others – just small talk. He suggested we go get coffee and I agreed. He reminded me of a friend from home, thoughtful … if maybe a bit dark. We spoke about our lives, about our families, our schools, our hopes for the future.
The months leading up to the trip had been the most magical of my short, sweet life. I’d gradually become closer to a old friend, Elijah. He’s the best person I’ve ever met, yet I pushed him away for years. He persisted, waited, he wrote songs, traveled far to see me. Finally, I stopped pushing him away. He’d sing me to sleep, then drive half an hour back home. We took walks late at night while the fireflies buzzed around. We took out the canoe we’d bought the year before onto the lake in the moonlight. We went to a contra dance for his birthday – he wore a floral skirt, we went to New York with a friend and rode the ferry until 4 in the morning. I slept on the floor of the subway in his arms while the sun came up.
Throughout our courtship, I’d been breaking up with a crappy, shitty, obnoxious fucking relationship. I dragged out because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Unfortunately it hurt quite a few people, Elijah included. He supported me though this, gave me advice and waited until I was ready to end it. When I did, our time together truly started. We lived in his house together for several incredible days. We cried together after watching Babe, we went to the river, we walked his dog. He drove me to and from work– half an hour each way. We were really in love, completely committed to each other.
I’d never felt more comfortable, more myself.
I carried the feeling of love and peace with me as I left for my four-month trip. It was so hard being so far from him – I felt I was spread too far. I wanted to be more present in Nepal, but I missed Elijah so much. I had pretend conversations with him, wrote him letters I never sent. We communicated less and less, but I never lost the feeling of love and closeness.
Near the end of my trip, months later, I was drinking horrible coffee with a person I was getting to know. He suggested that we go play pool and drink beer and I, feeling confident about my ability to travel alone, agreed. I don’t ever drink and I don’t know why I did. I went along with something I’m against and I don’t know why. Maybe I was trying to break out of self-imposed restrictions. Maybe I was trying to be like all the friends I had lost. Maybe I was being reckless.
I lost control. I drank until I couldn’t walk straight. We left and went outside – I was ready to return to my room a few miles away. He kissed me but it felt like an attack – so aggressive, so forceful. I said that I wanted to leave, my head was spinning; everything was spinning. He drove me back to my room. When I expected him to leave, he stayed.
My memory has so many gaps I can barely piece together what happened.
I remember telling him to stop, I remember the pain of him biting my breasts. I remember it stopped for a minute. I remember him saying it was okay, we didn’t need to do that, we could just talk. I remember him entering me and every time I think of that there is nowhere to run.
I’m so furious at myself for not fighting, I can’t understand why I was so paralyzed. My head was spinning, I was far from reality, but still, I could’ve fought him. This was my greatest fear – I had nightmares of being chased in a glass house by two men trying to rape me. Elijah had made me a dream catcher and they stopped. I don’t have those dreams anymore – they became my reality.
Afterward, I lied to myself, I couldn’t understand or face what had happened. I’d died inside, lost myself, I was less than a shell of a person.
It happened the next morning – I can’t remember it, but I know it happened. He raped me the next night, too. I was dragged around, like meat on a hook, my life no longer my own. I was so far away from Elijah, from my family, from everything I’ve ever loved. I was a walking, breathing scar. I left that town and felt the most incredible relief. We met up again and it was the same feeling of complete loss of self; I felt disgusting and alone and dirty. He left. Again the relief.
I went back to the family I’d lived with for over a month, their love was the most wonderful, healing thing. My love for them was so powerful. I felt good again, temporarily able to forget the rape.
I continued lying to myself, and the lies, after I’d told them long enough, were difficult to disprove. I told myself that this was what I’d always wanted – to be traveling and wanted, to be pretty enough for people to want me. I covered up the assault with this bullshit façade I clung to it for dear life. I couldn’t possibly be so alone, so afraid to face the truth: I was raped. I held onto these lies when I left Nepal and flew home to meet Elijah who’d driven 3,000 miles across the country to meet me.
I was so happy to see him but something was … wrong. We felt distant, we couldn’t connect. I’d promised I would be honest and so I told him that I’d had sex with someone else. That was the worst lie I’ve ever told. I slept, but he was up all night; he drove to Washington and cried for hours.
In the morning, he had gotten us breakfast and we left. We spent the next 10 months not leaving each other’s side no matter that we were both so damaged, something so wrong. I blamed him for reminding me that I’d “cheated” on him and begged him to forget about it. He couldn’t believe it was the truth. We fought for all those months – horrible, confusing fights. During them, I was so removed, almost apathetic.
We decided to take a trip to South America to truly commit to each other. After a few days there, the truth came out. Seated under a tree I told him the truth, about how I had said “no” but it happened anyway, how I’d been dead inside. It wasn’t an easy truth to hear.
After all those lies, he can’t always trust me. Sometimes he does, sometimes he wants to, and sometimes he wants me to suffer all the pain I’ve caused him. Sometimes he doesn’t believe me. He tries to understand why I didn’t fight back, why I let it happen several times after the first attack. I feel this foul, consuming darkness. I feel this love was ripped away from me, his trust ripped away. I need him to believe me, to forgive me. I love him. I don’t want to pressure him but he blames me. He gets mad at me and believes first lie sometimes. He’s never laid a hand on me but sometimes I wonder how we can be together if he doesn’t believe me.
He’s the only person I’ve told of my attack, I trust him and love him more than I can even understand, but this has made it really difficult for me to heal. I feel I’ll never have my life back, when I’m alone, I get so scared. My fists clench. Waiting for a sound of someone coming near.
The dentist said that I can’t make irreversible mistakes, he had no idea what that meant to me. I smiled. I know that this is irreversible, I just hope wherever it takes me, I’ll be all right. An old friend said that I looked as though I’ve really experienced things. He, too, had no idea what that meant.
My life is changed forever I think. I don’t think it has to be for the worse. It certainly has been, but I have hope. I have hope that someday when my eyes are open they see the bright blue of Elijah’s eyes, and when they are closed, they see the calmness of the night sky.
by Band Back Together | Feb 18, 2014 | Addiction Recovery, Alcohol Addiction, Loving An Addict, Suicide |
My uncle is an alcoholic. He’s been one for years. I just recently found out about it last year. I was never close to him, he’s barely an uncle to me, but he happens to be very close to my mom.
He had a company in California and the economy started going down hill so he lost everything. He is now in a different state. He was in a relationship with a woman who manipulated him and ultimately brought him down. My mom went down to his place to see him. He said to her that if his parents (my grandparents) weren’t alive, he’d be dead. He was very suicidal. My mother had to forcefully take a knife out of his hand so he wouldn’t slit his wrists.
Later this year my mom and I went to Atlanta and, damn, he looked horrible! When he’s drunk he gets angry. My mom and I left to go to the store with my other uncle, my aunt, and my cousin and when we came back he was drinking something. My uncle asked him what it was, and he said, “Coke.” My uncle said, “You’d better not be lying to me.” It wasn’t Coke, it was beer.
Because of his drinking habits he now has an enlarged heart. His issues are tearing my family apart. My grandparents and my mother are miserable with worry and pain. It hurts them to see him like this.
Next weekend, my family is planning on getting him into rehab. It has been so hard to get the money for it. It’s been a crazy, constant struggle. It fucking sucks. We are hoping and praying he agrees to go, because if he doesn’t go soon, odds are he’s going to die. I don’t know if my grandparents can handle that. I’m almost sure they can’t. My mom tells me if he dies, they will too.
Thanks for reading. Your prayers would be very helpful. (I changed my uncle’s name for privacy purposes.)
by Band Back Together | Feb 17, 2014 | Autism, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Domestic Abuse, How To Cope With A Suicide, Incarceration, Murder, Suicide |
I don’t know where to begin. Too much has happened in my life, it even seems unreal to me at times. My coping mechanisms are different than most people because I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID for short. I will try to be as clear as I can about the events while protecting myself from the grief.
The first trauma – I was sexually abused by an older brother from ages of 5 until 9. That is when my DID began. When I was 9 years old, my mom committed suicide. Her suicide had 2 lasting effects on my life- 1st, it sent my abuser away to live in another state and 2nd, it formed a wall inside of me that will always and forever prevent me from taking my own life.
My twin brother and I went to live with our paternal grandparents. It was not always easy there. I don’t think or believe the same as the rest of my relatives, so while not exactly worthy of outright hate, I was not worthy of unconditional love either. I tried to earn love and respect by getting good grades in school, but that only seemed to alienate me further. My grandparents were hard working farmers and completely illiterate. I would keep my mouth shut, so my “book learnin” wasn’t quite so obvious.
It wasn’t that they didn’t care, I think they just didn’t know how to respond to me. They felt uncomfortable with me. I loved them anyway.
My dad was a truck driver. He drove “cross country,” so he wasn’t home much. Once, he was gone for 2 years. I used to sit on Grandma’s front porch and wait for him, hope in my heart for the slim chance of him coming home. When he did arrive, he would flood my twin brother with gifts and stories. I would get a hug and a pat on the head. I wanted to sit on his lap, to hear the stories, to ride in the “big rig” with him like my twin. I still don’t understand how being a girl made me unequal. I needed him to love me the way he loved my brother, but that would never be the case.
After I was married, he came to my house looking for my twin. He had not yet met my newborn son. I begged him to come in. I would make coffee, we could wait together for my brother to come home. He stood at the door and said he would come back when my brother was home. I shut the door, slid down to the floor and cried. Why was I so unlovable? Why was I not worth an hour of his time? After that, I decided that I was done begging for his attention. I had my own issues to worry about.
My husband was abusive. I left him when my son was 6 yrs old. I moved in with someone I met online, a terrible decision because he was not good for me or my son. I left him too, and quickly found myself living in my dad’s basement.
I went to college, earned all A’s and a degree, and met a wonderful man. He does not abuse me in any way, and I finally felt loved for the first time ever.
My son was 15 by then. He had undiagnosed autism and an IQ of only 72, but we tried so very hard to create a safe and loving home for him. Sometimes it was really difficult, he was rebellious towards my boyfriend, never wanting to listen to him. I cringed every time I heard him say, “You’re not my dad.” We worked to try to make things better.
When my son was 19 years old, he came home from school one day and told me he had met a wonderful girl and wanted to date her. The problem was she was only 14. Her parents were divorced. I spoke with her mom, and she was alright with the situation. I never heard from the girl’s father, figuring I would get the chance at some point because he welcomed my son over to his place once or twice.
It was early morning on a Friday. I went to check on my son. There was no answer when I knocked on his door. I open his door a crack. It smelled like old socks because he never cleans it, but he was not in bed. His backpack was gone. I figured he must have gotten himself off to the school bus by himself, unusual, but I was happy about it. I spent the day dreaming of the wedding I hoped to be planning with my boyfriend soon.
When my boyfriend arrived home, I realized that my son was not home from school yet. I told myself he was probably at his girlfriend’s house having dinner, so I had my boyfriend call over there. At first, my boyfriend was silent, then he stood up and turned on the TV. There on the news, was a picture of my son and his girlfriend. The caption on the picture said, “Man, 19, kills 14 year old girlfriend’s father.”
In that moment, I lost everything that I had ever held dear, my hopes and dreams gone, blasted away in pain, regret and remorse. What did I do wrong? How could I not know that was going to happen? I blame myself every single day …if only I knew what was happening, if only I would have done things differently …if only …IF FUCKING ONLY!!
That was 8 months ago. I have not been able to touch my only child. He does not emote very well, never has. He will go to trial in the spring. The best I can even hope for is that they will put him into a mental institution instead of a prison …but how likely is that? I don’t know. I know if you are capable of doing something like that, you need to be kept away from society. He had never been violent before, and has not been violent since. He waited for the police, admitted his guilt. He cooperated and did not flee.
My son was nearly strangled to death already. It is a painful reality that he will not do well with the rest of the prison population. He cannot read people’s emotions, and does not understand when someone is being sarcastic. His mental age is 14, and he is easy to manipulate.
My boyfriend is still with me, thankfully. My twin still talks to me, but my dad and grandparents passed away before all this happened. The rest of my family speaks ill of me because of my “different” ways of thinking. My community hates me because I am the mother of a murderer. I feel completely and utterly alone.
I am not suicidal, I won’t take that road, even after all of this, but I am not actively living now either. So, where does that leave me? I don’t know, but I don’t like it.
