by Band Back Together | Jul 14, 2016 | Abuse, Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Anxiety, Bullying, Depression, Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship |
Not sure why I’m posting this …hoping someone out there will have an answer? Or maybe I just need to vent or find out if there are others like me? Maybe someone out there can explain why these things keep happening to me?
Anyhow, in a nutshell, I’ve had a really bad life and I’ve come full circle with it. Seems that no matter how hard I work, no matter how “positive” I try to be, bad things just happen to me. Things go wrong for no reason. People try to pump me up with positive thinking and then are surprised when the bad things I think might happen actually do happen. While things will just go wrong for me for no apparent reason, nothing really “right” seems to happen. I mean, I have no good luck. If an unexpected tragedy can happen out nowhere then why can’t something wonderful and lucky happen out of nowhere, like magic? Yet I have to work extremely hard to make things happen, and even then things seem to go wrong.
I guess I’m trying to figure out why my life is the way it is and whether there’s a way I can turn things around. I’ve begun to believe I’ve been cursed, or there’s a dark spirit following me around, preventing anything good from entering my sphere. I’m wondering how I can stop this dark spirit, karma, or whatever it is and bring positive energy into my life. I’ve gone to churches to have people pray over me, gone to Reiki shares to have the energy of the universe sent to me, seen therapists, career counselors (for my money problems), gone to Debtor’s Anonymous meetings (hated them!) Still, the bad luck continues.
I also thought that maybe I’d done something wrong to cause all this, so I’ve volunteered to help people in need, but that hasn’t changed my luck.
Okay, let me try to be brief and give a few examples. Both my parents had mental health issues when I was a child, and I spent my early years transported from friends’ or family members’ houses until my parents were ready to take care of me. Then, a housekeeper took care of me while one parent went to work to support me. Meanwhile, the other parent was hospitalized with severe mental illness. My extended family was very unloving and I never see them now, as they are toxic people. I was close to one parent who died a few years ago. Now I’m the guardian for my other parent. So I’m really my parent’s parent and always have been since “childhood.”
In addition to the psychological abuse I experienced from my family once they were ready to take care of me, I was bullied mercilessly as a child, to the point of near insanity. I became painfully shy and anxious as a result, but I put myself into therapy and have practiced meditation techniques that helped me a lot.
But even the therapy was not too helpful, as most psychologists don’t understand social anxiety or shyness. One therapist accused me of imagining I was being bullied at school. She couldn’t believe I was really being bullied and acted as though I was just being paranoid. Consequently, she couldn’t help me to stop the bullying or to learn assertiveness techniques as I’d requested. I couldn’t find a therapist who would teach me ways to defend myself as they were too focused on trying to convince me that no one wanted to hurt me, that I was just being negative, paranoid or whatever. It seemed they were just reading from psychology textbooks and not really listening to me or taking me seriously.
As an adult, I get bullied at work a lot, am told I’m “too nice,” have trouble setting limits and boundaries and being assertive. Even though I’m a well-educated person, I can’t find a decent job, so I am working at a job for which I am well overqualified. Employers and coworkers are often threatened by my intelligence and I find myself holding myself back, trying to hide who I am. Also I get very bored doing data entry or office work. I only seem to fit into creative environments but creativity seems to be only available to the very rich these days.
I learned as an adult that I have an artistic personality and am very, very creative, so I began pursuing my artistic endeavors – playing music, writing poetry, making films, etc. I’ve also found I get along better with creative people and feel happy and free when I am creative. But this self-knowledge has only caused more problems for me as I’m now living in poverty because of it. In spite of great accomplishments as an artist I haven’t found a way to make money as an artist and I haven’t found a “day job” that enables me to adequately pursue my art.
In fact, I don’t fit into today’s job market at all. I ended up homeless a few years ago, and that was a real eye opener. I found that I have no friends. The people I thought were friends really didn’t care about me at all.
I also have chronic pain which, in time, is getting worse. I don’t have the money to get the health care I need.
Anyhow, as I’m writing this, I’m losing some of my sadness. It’s good to vent. But at the same time, I’m in a situation where I’m an adult, not considered to be young anymore, and I don’t meet people who are similar to me, so I feel pretty isolated.
Now, I’m staying in a situation where an acquaintance has been helping me a great deal but this isn’t a sustainable situation. I might end up homeless again soon unless I can find some way to start my own business, as there really aren’t any jobs out there for me.
I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Please don’t anyone respond with platitudes, i.e., “Think positive, things will get better…blah…blah…blah.” Look, I’ve been there and done that. I’m really a very intelligent person who overcame and extremely painful childhood. I’ve gone into therapy. I’ve been to self-help groups. I’ve gone to college, graduated with good grades, but now I have huge student loan debt and the jobs just aren’t out there. So what to do?
Anyhow, I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but it really would have been better if I’d never been born. My parents weren’t able to take care of me, my extended family didn’t want me, I’m not aggressive enough for this society, and I can’t earn a living. I cringe when I hear people try to talk other people out of committing suicide by telling them they’re suffering from “depression” and that things will get better. First of all, “depression” is not an illness but a natural reaction to things that happen to you that you can’t control. I can’t control this economy. I can’t control the fact that other people don’t appreciate my talents and skills. I know I’m capable of doing great things but I can’t get other people to appreciate what I have to offer.
by Band Back Together | Jun 27, 2016 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anxiety Disorders, Cancer and Neoplasia, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping With Depression, Depression, Dysthymia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Incest, Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Therapy, Violence |
I don’t know where to start. I have had dysthymia for as long as I can remember. My new therapist says it is like a living a half-life. I guess it is. This year, it slipped into something worse. This year has been one of the worst years of my life and I have had some pretty bad years. I had a relationship end, I started a bout of major depression that left me 70 pounds heavier, I had two surgeries, I am in a job that I hate, and on November 21st, I lost a dear friend to cancer. I can’t stop thinking that I wished it had been me. I feel trapped by bad choices. I have nothing left to give anyone anymore. I feel dead inside, but I hide it well. No one really knows how many times I came close to killing myself this year. I grew up with an alcoholic, I grew up in a violent household where I never felt safe. I was molested several times by several men and one female relative.
I feel trapped in this fatsuit. I feel like the best years of my life are behind me. I feel damaged and broken. I am trying to get help. The mental health resources where I live are spread pretty thin. I get to see a therapist once a month, if I am lucky, and I see a doctor for meds for ten mins a month. He switched me some of my medications because of the weight gain. I have tried about ten different anti-depressants and all of them had some kind of unpleasant side effect. I keep hoping I will find one that actually works. I also take an anxiety medication. I take it to control the panic attacks I get when I am out in public. I take it to quiet the loop of negative thoughts I have going through my head everyday.
This is my first post. I come here and I know that I am not alone. I thank the brave people who share their stories here.
I am trying to get better. I am with The Band.
by Band Back Together | Jun 17, 2016 | Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Fear, Grief, Loneliness, Self Loathing, Therapy, Trauma, Trust |
Reading other’s posts has been full of horror for me. I remember, I remember. I was a teenager feeling the full despair and desperation, of loneliness and self-loathing. I feel it still sometimes, and I have patched myself together as best I can.
My parents still say things they don’t realize are so hurtful, but I am gradually learning to see it. I know I don’t have to react or justify my actions to them, because I am finally accepting that it is their sad way of getting attention. The hysterical thing is, if I can stop from responding, stop saying, “But that isn’t true!” arguing my point, it stops. I change the subject or say nothing – telling myself I know what the truth is, and that is all that is important. I feel sorry they don’t see this, but it is not my job to be their therapist. It is not my job to make them over into what I want them to be – because that is an impossible task.
I have accepted that they will never be the nurturing, trustworthy parents I wanted them to be. They have never been, and looking hard at the evidence, there appears to be zero evidence that they ever will. My expectations and dreams of what “could have been” have created such misery in my life. What a liberation to see it! And so terribly sad – I grieved a lot about that. But letting that mirage go has brought a lot of peace, too.
I can enjoy many good things about them. And, if they ever become what I dreamed of, it will be a surprise and a gift, not a constant let down that they don’t. It is only my job to set boundaries on how much I will let happen before I leave or end the conversation. And, I have more and more friends who sometimes teach me about life – like a good mother or father would, and that’s what I so need.
My inner critic will always be there, repeating awful messages. But I can add good ones, screaming them out if necessary in the bad times, and I can teach myself to recognize those evil words for what they are. My parents loved me as best they could, but their love was twisted and mixed with their own blindness. Maybe their parents’ blindness as well – as they say in Al-anon, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I know now, the awful things they do to me, were done to them, and they likely do to themselves as well.
Lately those nights I call the screams and knives (figuratively) where I cannot see how I am worthy for anything, I am starting to ask myself if the story line isn’t a bit seductive. Is it a grand play and I am the star? Oh, the horror of my self-loathing and awfulness. In this, I see I am getting the rapt attention I so want. The drama! The tears being ripped from the bottom of my soul! But really, do I need attention in this form? When I’m in the pit, I’m learning to ask, how is today so different from yesterday, when I had hope or felt good? The answer is always outside events that have given the critic in my mind more ammunition to say, “See you did it again, you will never be able to change.” Nothing about my inner me has changed otherwise. I might feel like life is not worth living and things will never change, but reality is that everything else in the universe changes. I am still the tender soul that lived in this body yesterday, and will be tomorrow.
Though at times I might feel hopeless, I will never take my life now because I am starting to trust that I am not alone. I am not the base and evil things my mind sucks me into thinking. I can step back from the story and know that no matter how awful I feel, it isn’t real. It’s like having a bad cold. It will pass. I am a good person, I just have to rewrite the tapes – like the playlist where you’ve gotten tired of a certain song. I put in good, and when I’m ready and willing, ask for the old to be taken out, or let it go.
We are already lovable and whole as we are. Perfect if we can only let ourselves see it. I am beginning to see how that might be possible; we can change how we act, but it’s about training the self-critic, not doing things to be more worthy.
by Band Back Together | Jun 7, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Depression, Guilt, Inpatient Psychiatric Care, Loneliness, Self Loathing, Trust |
We all have letters we’d like to send, but know that we can’t. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.
Letters where actual contact is just not possible.
Do you have a letter you can’t send?
Why not send it to The Band?
This is what I would like to tell my mom, and probably would if she weren’t in a fragile state. She’s been wheelchair bound since my second child was born and my daughter is now nearing junior high school. How she ended up in a wheelchair isn’t at issue at this point. Needless to say, she is simply too weak to hear this stuff.
Mom,
Did you ever wonder why I was so angry as a young man? Or why I only had a single friend when I was going through school? You should remember the angry tantrums that I used to pull. The anger I showed you was caused by a deep, horrid certainty that I was useless and doomed to failure. That I could never trust people or achieve anything of moment in life.
While a lot of this is standard fare for a teenager, you never informed dad about any incident as far as I can tell. He was never the kind of man to sit still for such nonsense. Did you stop to think when you told me as a very young child that I was a “surprise?” It didn’t take me long to figure out that “surprise” meant accident, and that you didn’t intend to make me. From that time on, I wondered if everyone would be happier without me, or if I even was truly wanted in the home.
What about the grades, Mom? You know, when I began failing in high school and you would hide the facts from Dad. Of course a child would accept help in such a way. I didn’t want to be in trouble at home AND school, after all. It’s a repeated pattern with you.
Consistently, you would “shelter” your little boy from Dad’s wrath, which was rather corporal, yet never over the top. Yet you failed entirely to protect me from sexual predators. Yes, mother I was molested as a child. I, your little boy, was fucked by a teenage girl belonging to a “trusted” family. My innocence was gone by fourth grade, Mother. Then, listening to your gossip, I learned that you never really even liked that family and thought their mother to be disgusting and immoral. Why, then, was I allowed to mix with them? Did you never wonder why I didn’t have any friends or why I quit playing with the other children from that family? I really believed that my molester was my girlfriend. You have no idea how confused and hurt I was when I saw her with a boy her own age. I had no one to confide in, and as children who are abused often feel that they would get into more trouble.
You were already struggling with demons of your own, of which I had known a little from the time I was in second grade when you were first hospitalized for “stress.” Junior high came around, and while I seemed to be okay, inside I was dying. I felt completely alone, as sex abuse survivors often do. I went through those three years with one friend who I met in fifth grade.
Then, you decided you were divorcing Dad. We moved out and lived for a few months in another town. You went back to father because, as I later found out, he bribed you. Yes, he cashed money from his retirement account and gave you a lump sum of cash to spend at your discretion. That caused me to lose a lot of respect for you. That was a single summer and back to the home. It was fucked up mom.
Junior high progressed. Even then I would have horrid angry outbursts of hopeless despair which should have caused some questions. Mom, why didn’t you do anything to get me help then?
High school came along and I gave up my choir aspirations. I didn’t have the confidence to try out for the high school choir, even though I had pulled straight A’s in all my choir work for junior high and earned a place on the Honor Choir. Indeed, I began to give up on everything then. I didn’t have many friends and had no visitors or invitations during summer breaks to anything. You never wondered why I never went steady with a girl, and asked only one out, and only then after repeated assurances that she would say yes? I pushed away my best friend in this time, in favor of what I thought were better friends. I’m lucky he forgave me, when I asked for his forgiveness.
I joined the Navy, only to flunk their psych evaluation and be sent home after five or so weeks. So there I was in the airport, defeated. You were so out of it, Mom. Dad was obviously exhausted. Apparently, it was getting near to another stay in the hospital for you. Not that they did you any good, except for to get you to decide to pretend everything was okay, so you could get out. Do you remember that ride home and the crazy things you talked about? In any case, Mother, you couldn’t handle your little boy leaving and broke down again. I needed some strength and real help then, Mom. But you, once again, were in trouble. I felt guilty by even thinking, “Dammit, I need my parents right now!” But Dad was dealing with your outbursts and insomnia. And so, once again, I kept my secrets and felt an utter failure. I know you’ve had difficulties Mama, but this isn’t about you right now.
You must realize that I was neglected by you in a few ways. Sure, you kept the house clean and meals on the table, but you never would inform my father of things that he had the right to know, like my failing grades. I was allowed to withdraw unhealthily into fantasy-like video games and television. You didn’t make me do the the things that I should have been doing, Mom. Dad could have helped you with that, if you would have let him. But I knew you, and I played you to keep the bad grades secret, just like any teenager would do, given the chance.
You did all that shit with my older sister, to the Nth degree, keeping her from facing the music for so long that she’s now a drug addict with no job, car, house, or self-respect. I escaped that because all along, since second grade, I have resented you. Yes. Resented that I couldn’t have a mommy that didn’t pick crazy fights with dad as we were watching a baseball game, eating dinner, or whatever. A mommy that wouldn’t freak out at tiny problems and scare the shit out of me with lies fashioned to keep me safe, that only served to inhibit my sense of trust in the world. A mommy who didn’t get so tired she wouldn’t talk to me or Dad and had to be taken to hospital on regular intervals.
I love ya, Mom, but you sure fucked up bad.
Four kids, one alcoholic, another a depressed, self-loathing mess (me) and a drug addict forever child. My oldest brother is the most well-balanced of the four of us, and I truly believe it’s because he spent the greater majority of his time with Father. Why did you “protect” us three from Dad so much? I have a good relationship with my father now, but my brother and sister haven’t spoken with him in years, in any meaningful way.
Do you know why dad was so grumpy all the time, mom? Because he slogged his ass of in a coal mine for twelve hours a day, six days a week and came home to either a batshit crazy or a sweet as pie wife–he never knew what to expect. He paid your way, Mom, and you resented him for it! He never made you stay home, you could have had your own money. Instead, you spent him into debt with secret credit cards, on more than one occasion. I remember the fights. They were the only ones that had any kind of justification. In other words, Dad was right!
You even kept him from forming decent relationships with the majority of his children.
Mom, I love you, but you have messed up three of your kids. That is a fact. I am now thirty six and struggle daily with feelings of empty, horrid loneliness and depression. These things are only bigger for me now, and I resent that you had every reasonable signal that something was very wrong with your child and you did …nothing. NOTHING!
I am now a father, and if one of my children began behaving the ways that I did, I would most certainly get them to someone for help. It’s not normal to rage the ways I did. Now I know it’s because of the injustice of abuse and the feeling that I wasn’t really wanted in the home.
I’m fixing these problems now, Mom, and without your help, just as before. It’s fucked, and I’m still kinda pissed off that all the signs were there. Sure, it was the early nineties. You watched enough talk shows to see at least one child psychiatrist telling parents signs of trouble in a kid. This fucking rock I’ve been toting for so goddamned long is a big bastard now. I’m pissed that I’ve had to do that carrying for so long. I’ve learned so much in my reading that I know that things wouldn’t be so bad NOW, if you would had done more THEN. Maybe you could have found yourself some decent help along the way, too.
I’m taking action now, Mom. I’m a big boy and have been taking care of myself. I’m getting the help I need, but my problems are compounded now by a failed marriage and the breakdown of my little family. This isn’t easier. Time didn’t make this shit go away. Indeed its only become worse.
I will overcome.
I love you mom. I hate you too. I don’t like it, and certainly this is going to be something that I address in therapy. But I’m doing it, finally, and that’s the point.
by Band Back Together | Jun 6, 2016 | A Letter I Can't Send, Childhood Bullying, Pet Loss, Talking to Children About Death |
So I’m 10, and recently my cat died. He was a beautiful cat. We got him when I was just 4. He was really fluffy and white. He had different black and brown shapes on his back, forming a circle. My parents thought it looked like the Zodiac, so his name became Zodiac.
Zodiac went through many problems, but none of them caused his death. He had an odd craving for foam and plastic. Whenever he got any into his mouth we were able to save him, but he became more cranky. Despite my sometimes being annoying to him, he treated me like he was my mother. I loved him. He loved me.
As you might know from a different story I put up, I’m not in the best of times at school. When I got home, he’d sometimes be in my bed. I’d cuddle up to him and talk to him, and cry into his fur. Late at night he would purr, and it just helped me feel safe.
One morning, my parents were sidetracked because they were going to travel to Canada. They were going to pick up my sister from college, for the start of her summer break. It was the 20th of April. Zodiac didn’t come for kibble in the morning, and my parents told me he just went to greet our neighbors. That’s NOT what happened. I went to school, worried.
I had Girl Scouts that day, so I didn’t come home until 5:00. I arrived, stepped out of my grandparents’ car, and my sister came outside.She thanked my grandmother. then, she grabbed me tight, and said, “There is something I need to tell you about Zodiac …he’s dead.” I burst into tears, and so did she.
Later, my sister told me what happened. “I decided to go looking in the woods for Zodiac, and I found him …on the ground, dead.” She explained there was blood around his neck. We concluded that Zodiac must have hunted a rabbit or something like that, and a coyote wanted the rabbit. All we know is that it came fast. His eyes were open.
He’s a cat to remember. My mom is working on getting us a dog. All we have left now is this other cat who is freaking scared of me. It doesn’t feel right. It’s not fair. He left way too soon. I want him back. I want to talk to him. I think he understood me. It’s a letter I can’t send. Is it stupid that I’m doing this?
Dear Zodiac,
I love you. I know you love me. I will remember you, and never will forget how your fur felt. Sleeping at night won’t be the same. Coming home won’t be the same. Weekend mornings won’t be the same. Our other cat wakes me up now. Why did you have to go? Why did you leave me? Why did the world do this to us?
A part of your family
By-WeWillBand
