by Band Back Together | Jun 13, 2018
Band Back Together is a group weblog that provides educational resources as well as a safe, moderated, supportive environment to share stories of survival. Through the power of real stories written by real people, we can work together to destigmatize mental illness, abuse, rape, baby loss and other traumas so that we may learn, grow, and heal.
On Band Back Together, we put a face to things not normally discussed. We are the face of depression. We are the face of baby loss. We are the face of mental illness. We are the face of abuse. We are the face of rape. We are the face of SURVIVORS and we are proud to be here. We wear our scars proudly, like battle wounds because everything we’ve survived has made us who we are today: better, stronger, and smarter.
It’s time to pull our skeletons out of the closet and make them dance the tango.
We will no longer let our secrets fester inside. We will no longer live in the dark.
All are welcome.
by Band Back Together | Nov 13, 2016 | Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Parenting, Single Parenting, Single Parenting by Choice |
People who know me refer to me as a single parent.
I don’t really like that distinction because while I AM single and I AM a parent, the stigma attached to “single parent” is not a good one.
My Gigi is 5. She and I left her dad almost exactly five years ago when she was seven months old. He was mean and emotionally abusive. He seems to have changed a bit – or at least he loves his little girl more than he ever loved me.
He is involved. He sees her one evening a week, every other weekend and every other week he gets another shorter evening. It tears my heart out every single time she goes. Sometimes she cries and sometimes she runs away. Sometimes I tell her if she does either of those things she won’t be able to play with her friends in the neighborhood the next day because those things “hurt her daddy’s feelings.”
I’m sick of him and his feelings. My little girl wants to stay HOME. My house. Not his.
The other day a friend was talking about public schools in our area. She mentioned a school that is not particularly good and said, “well you know, all those poor kids have single moms and their test scores are horrendous.” Now, are there test scores horrendous because they have a single mom? Or what? The demographics of the school are not desirable due to the number of one parent homes.
Hmmmm…I’m a one-parent home. Does that mean my child will not be as smart? Or not do well on tests? Or will be a behavior issue or somehow not succeed because she lives in a single parent home? I choose not to believe that. You see, my daughter is MUCH better off with living in a single parent home. Her Mama may be messy and scatterbrained but she does not cry every day anymore or do things like look at her little girl and make the promise every single day that no one will ever hurt her.
I am a single parent. I did not choose this path, but I live this path. Would I like to have someone around to help pay the bills, cook the meals, clean up the kitchen and do a load of laundry? Yes. But I also would want to be in love with this person. And have that person love me back.
Another friend on Facebook had a status that said, “K is happy she doesn’t have to be a single parent anymore. Hubby will be home in three hours.”
You are not a single parent. You have a husband. Who works and makes money. He may be traveling for work or away from home but you are not a single parent. You don’t understand how much coordination it takes to figure out when and who will go to school conferences. Or what your child will be for Halloween or give her the choice of just having two Halloween costumes. You do not have to put a screaming, fighting, kicking child to bed when she has been up too late so she can have quality time with daddy. You don’t have to worry about your little girl looking at you and saying, “Mama, I love you the best. So much more than my daddy.”
I choose to not let the stigma of being a “single parent” define me. I try to wear the badge proudly and let my daughter know that we can do it ourselves. We are strong…Mama and Gigi against the world. I am raising her to be a strong woman who knows that her Mama can fix the sink or mount the shower head without the help of a man.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not a man hater. I would love for Prince Charming to come in and sweep me off my feet. But at this point it would be a distraction from my most important job. My daughter. I can’t imagine having to share her with anyone else. I miss her when she’s gone. We have been apart so much I should be used to it. But sometimes I still cry because I miss her when she is gone for a weekend.
I am a single parent and I’m not ashamed.
by Band Back Together | Sep 27, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Adult Children of Addicts, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Caregiver, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Compassion, Faith, Fear, Hope, Love, Parentification |
I wish I could write like our favorite Aunt Becky, but I can’t. My words will be misspelled, my commas will be out of place, and there will definitely be run on sentences, but I swear like a trucker so somehow I think I will fit right in.
So back story: BAD shit happened to me when I was a kid.
You know, my dad was an alcoholic, show me on the doll where the bad man touched you, which I never told my parents. My sister got pregnant when she was 14 and eventually my Mom could no longer deal with it all so I had to pick up the slack. That kind of bad shit.
There were days when I didn’t know if I would make it. Days that I wasn’t able to deal. I would burn myself or punch a wall just to feel… something. I made it through bruised but not broken.
I just wish I could tell the young girl that dealt with all of that what I know now.
I’ve been talking to a young friend who is going through so much in her life right now. She reminds me so much of my younger self. She, like me, puts up a strong front, but just beneath the surface you can see the hurt and self-doubt. When asked we will both say we are “fine.”
Every time she says it to me, my heart cracks just a little. See I know that when she says, “I’m fine” what she really means is “This hurts like hell! My heart is breaking. Somebody please just take away the pain.” I just want to give her hug and tell her it will all be okay. I won’t, mind you, because that would make me seem weak or soft or whatever my fucked-up mind thinks.
Still, through talking to her, I’ve been thinking, what would I tell my younger self?
So I wrote myself a letter today. Maybe it will help her or some other young girl who needs to know it WILL BE OK.
Dear Tonya,
I know it’s hard right now, but experience brings knowledge, adversity brings strength. None of that makes a damn bit of difference when you’re hurting but faith, faith gives you hope. The hope that there is something greater out there brings a small amount of peace even in the darkest times.
When you find love, it calms. Love doesn’t hurt; it heals, it comforts, it expands. Love gives. It should not take away.
If life seems to be spiraling out of control, find solace in the small things. Family, friends, music, words. These are your armor against all that will stand against you.
Remember that the lessons learned from the mistakes we make and the paths we choose make us who we are. Never regret them. To do so would mean you doubt yourself. Nothing and no one should make you doubt your worth.
Though it’s sometimes easier to forgive others than yourself, YOU ARE ONLY HUMAN.
Be as kind and love yourself as much as you do those others.
Stand tall without being cocky and be proud of who you become.
I know I am.
Tonya
PS. If none of that shit works there is always vodka.
by Band Back Together | Sep 15, 2016 | Addiction, Adult Children of Addicts, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Anxiety, Cocaine Addiction, Compassion, Fear, Guilt, Happiness, Help With Relationships, Hope, Loving An Addict, Romantic Relationships, Trauma |
Adult Children of Addicts are at a far greater risk to develop addiction to substance abuse.
This is the story of three brave men:
My father was the son of an alcoholic. He had a brother and 3 sisters who all would partake in the ocassional alcoholic beverage but never let it interfere with the normal every day functions of their lives. My father, on the other hand carried on the family tradition/trait/ illness, or whatever you wish to call it. He was not an abusive drunk, although I do remember he and his best friend trashing our house fighting each other when I was a pre-teen. He was very much involved in my life and that of my brother and sister, but he was still an alcoholic.
As years passed, his drinking became more and more severe. It wasn’t until my teen years that I really started paying attention and noticing that he was consuming a case or so of beer by himself, everyday, along with as much as a pint of liquor. He became more pissed off at the world and everything about it. The world was out to get him and so was everyone on the planet. It was getting to the point where nothing we did was right.
After graduating high school, it was time to marry my high school sweetheart. A day I had dreamt of for a long time. I was never one for dating and the whole girlfriend issue, but this girl was for me and I was so looking forward to that special night and our first dance as husband and wife. In the middle of the most special dance of my life, my father interrupted and said, “why don’t you play something we all like?” Our wedding song was “All Of My Love” by Led Zeppelin.
I was stunned, flabbergasted, ashamed, and yet I let it slide.
I vowed my entire life that I would not be like him, and to that I stayed pretty true. Sure, I had the occasional drink as a teenager. Yes, I got drunk from time to time but never really cared enough for it to become a regular thing. Never would I be like him. I would not put my children through that, even if he was not mean, it was not a childhood I would not want any kid to have to live. Little did I realize at the time that I was just like him.
Although I was not a drinker, I had no problem smoking pot, tripping on acid and mescaline, doing ‘shrooms, or just about any mind-altering substance that I could get my hands on. But hey, I was not a drunk.
It wasn’t until my mid twenties, deep into a cocaine free basing addiction that my wonderful wife, the high school sweetheart, told me ”I don’t know what you are doing, but you either quit or I leave.”
Wow, a brick in the face that one was.
I finally looked at myself in the mirror, literally, and saw a pasty grey skinned man, skinny and sick looking he was just one step away from death or an institution.
I quit. I vowed to myself and my wife that I would never touch the stuff again. I spent several years going to narcotics anonymous, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day and I am proud to say I am free, clean, and sober. I am a fairly healthy 45 year old man still married to my high school sweet heart, and I have 3 wonderful sons and 2 grandsons.
I have felt their joys and sorrows. I have seen their smiles and frowns. I have been there for them. And I was there to help my oldest son through his addiction.
He chose to follow me and go the drug route. I have always been open with my children about drugs hoping that it would steer them away since I was speaking from personal experience; not quoting something I read in a book. He saw it like, hey you’re still alive, it couldn’t have been THAT bad.
On his 17th birthday, I did something that even I could not believe.
On the way home from picking him up at school one evening, he was so wasted that he was actually hallucinating in my car, asking me questions about how we were going to get the car through all those trees, and what were we going to do when we got to the end of the road where it turns red. I was so scared for him; it was time for another search of his room. I found pot growing in his closet, for the second time, so I figured I had no choice. I turned in my own son and he spent his 17th birthday in the county jail, and several others months following. It opened his eyes a bit. He stumbled a few times since but is now a wonderful 21 year old man with 2 sons.
One night, not to long ago, he finally told me that he hated me for quite a while for turning him in, but he then said he could not thank me enough for what he did and that he loved me.
I am constantly worried about him. Will the stress of the children lead him back to the drugs? Will he make it through as I have? Will any of his children follow the familiar path?
One good thing that has come of my sons addiction is that his younger brothers want absolutely nothing to do with any of it. So for now I just let him, and his brothers know, that I will always be there for them, and that life might not always be wonderful but it could always be worse.
And of course, I must thank my wonderful wife.
She stayed with me.
She saw the problems and instead of bailing out she stuck by my side.
She spent several weeks with very little sleep as my mind and body fought each other she was there to calm me.
She saved my life.
by Band Back Together | Jul 15, 2016 | Anxiety, Fear, Rape/Sexual Assault |
I had my meeting today with the university, to go through with the complaint. I went in thinking, “Yeah, I’m not going to believed. He works here, of course I’m not going to be. ”
I didn’t think this would become a reality. I sat down at the table with my best friend on my right and some strange old woman who is apparently “unbiased” and high up within the university.
She just went straight into saying how the university cannot do anything, saying there is no proof. Oh I’m sorry. Did you even give me a chance, or did you even try and find evidence? I am still suffering with bleeding after it, is that not proof enough for you? I’ve had to see the counselor for the past five months for my anxiety …No. It’s still not enough for you. Why? Oh yeah because, as you begin to tell me, he is a close friend and you’ve worked with him for years! …unbiased ..what bull shit.
She told me, plainly and simply, “get over it.” Come back next year and have a fresh start. Does the bitch not think that I have been trying to put it past me? I’ve barely slept! Because of the fear of this meeting coming up and having to explain what happened, I probably only got, at most five hours of sleep, for the past eight days.
But this is the end of it, apparently. I can’t do anything else because he works there. I knew this would give him an advantage, but didn’t think it would get to the point where I was being questioned if I truly think it even happened…
Life is down the drain.
