by Band Back Together | Apr 19, 2016 | Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Childhood Bullying, Teen Bullying, Teen Self Injury |
To the 2 year old little girl, Allison, with brown eyes that love everyone and everything you are perfect never change.
3 year old Allison:
The dog bite and 120 plus stitches you will need in your face will only hurt for a little bit. It’s what comes later that will really hurt you.
4 year old Allison:
The daycare teachers and other kids at daycare will call you the ugly duckling. Don’t cry to much about it because at the end of the story the duck ends up being a swan. But that’s just a story and stories aren’t true. Right?
5 year old Allison:
Now is when you should try and run away from people. Here is when you change schools for the first time and you have to deal with the bullies again. Now is when you will have to talk to the state police about your aunt sexually harassing and sexually assaulting you for a couple of years. But that’s okay because that’s how you show people you love them. WRONG!!!! Now is when all the nightmares will start and you won’t sleep for the next couple of weeks and, sleeping the next couple of months without waking up screaming will be a miracle.
6,7,& 8 year old Allison:
These years will be different right? Wrong! These years the bullies get worse because they make new friends and become “Popular”. Don’t worry about what popular means you’ll find out within the next couple of years. But on the plus side you make a few new friends too. The downside to these friends one will steal your things when you have her spend the night, one will hate you most of the time, and the other is a boy that only has you for a friend.
9, 10, 11, & 12 year old Allison:
Those boys who always “pick on you” as the teachers call it only do it because they like you. Let me tell you how wrong that is. Those boys don’t like and probably never will. They are rude and can get away with murder because their dad is the big man at the school. You will be hurt emotionally, physically, and spiritually because of these boys and the fact that no one will help you because their daddy signs everyone’s paychecks. The teachers will say money is more important than you. You can’t get help.
You’ve made it this far through hell. Don’t look anyone in the eyes and don’t speak unless spoken too. You will break down in tears because now the boys are sexually harassing you and it brings back the nightmares. But still no help.
13 year old Allison:
You move schools to a place where no one knows your name. You will feel relief but only till a group of girls start to bully you. Those girls don’t matter though because later on they will become so of your closest friends. What really matters is that at the end of the year there will be a boy who takes his junk out in science class and measures it to see how manly he is. He will blame you on telling even though you didn’t. He will tell you that he is going to make small but deep cuts on you after he beats you so you will feel pain and slowly bleed out. The nightmares will come back but now you have him and his “manhood” threatening to kill you after your aunt takes advantage of you. You start to cut.
14, 15, & 16 year old Allison:
You’re in high school. The first day will go okay until you run into him in the hallway and you have a panic attack. You will have a panic attack at least once a day and will end up with a few new cuts for every panic attack. The nightmares will start again and for every sleepless night you add a couple of new cuts. Your wrist will be stained red for awhile but that’s okay because you realize how poetic black is and you wear it almost every day.
17 year old (Present day) Allison:
You have stopped cutting and hopefully for good this time. You never see him at school anymore but that’s because he is in a different building now. You’re a senior in high school, have panic attacks, social anxiety, and migraines often. You are falling apart and you shouldn’t be. You’ve been through so much that you will be up one night at 12 writing this warning because the nightmares wont stop and you haven’t been able to sleep all week because of them.
Thanks to all the crap that has happened I don’t feel. The only time I ever feel anything truly is when I physical hurt myself or when I have the nightmares. Other than those times I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s not normal for a 17 year old girl to not feel emotions. I talk to my mom about all of this all the time; she just doesn’t know how bad all this actually is.
Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the only 17 year old who questions life, God, death, and emotions?
by Band Back Together | Feb 8, 2016 | Depression, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Self Injury, Teen Depression, Teen Self Injury |
I am officially 1 year clean. I’m happy, no more depression or self harm :). I’m leaving my stories up so people who went through the same as me (especially you girls) can see that they are not alone. I would tell them to not wait it out, thinking its a phase. One day I came to the realization that cutting was getting me no where. It became useless, but this may not happen to everyone. Please get help even if you think it’s minor. A tsunami starts as a ripple.
By-Shiloisalwaysalone
by Band Back Together | Nov 16, 2015 | Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Pediatric Cancer, Perfectionism, Self Injury |
I learned about narcissistic parentification today. I’d been aware of narcissism and parentification as separate things prior to this, thanks to my son’s father, but I didn’t realize these two things often went together.
Yesterday my 6-year-old son attempted to stab himself in the eye with a pencil. This occurred after being asked not to throw paper.
He decided he needed to punish himself.
Thankfully, my husband caught the pencil and it never touched our son’s eye. Still, it was terrifying. This is not exactly new, although this is the most extreme self-punishment to date. Often when my son thinks he is in trouble for something, he will self-discipline by hitting himself or knocking his head against something. I’ve asked him why he does this, and he tells me that it’s so that he remembers what not to do.
We have an extreme perfectionist on our hands. This, too, I’ve known for a while. He has always been the kid who won’t try anything if he’s unsure he has it mastered. I had to get down on my hands and knees and physically SHOW HIM how to crawl when he was a baby! He wants to do everything perfectly the first time, and he will hide the fact he knows how to do something until he feels he can demonstrate the skill perfectly.
We’ve told him again and again how much we love him and don’t want him to hurt himself. We’ve told him it’s okay to make mistakes, that it’s expected and even necessary in order to learn and master new things. We’ve emphasized the fact that he isn’t in TROUBLE when things like this happen – that we are just reminding him to help him learn for next time. Yet, it doesn’t seem to register. He hurts himself anyway.
He is a 6-year-old self-injurer.
Lord knows he has plenty of reasons to behave this way. He is fighting cancer, has changed schools and residences in the last year, and is about to become a big brother.
And then, well, his dad is narcissistic…
Since my son’s self-injury has escalated even though the rest of our life has calmed down, I looked up the effects of narcissism on children today. And that led me to narcissistic parentification.
I learned that children of narcissistic parents are more prone to pediatric anxiety and depression. They can be self-destructive, have an irrational fear of failure, and either have difficulties in school or strive to be perfect.
Everything I read reminded me of my son.
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 | Jul 28, 2015 | Anger, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Guilt, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Shame |
This is her horrible, uplifting, beautiful story:
At age 35, I went with my father to a professional baseball team’s Fantasy Camp. Our coaches were former professional baseball players and current minor league coaches. I played softball my whole life; I was a good ball player. I held my own with the guys. I was accepted. I had a great week.
Thursday night after the championship game, I was outside the complex where we were staying, talking on the phone to my husband. I was approached by one of the coaches, currently a minor league manager, who was roughly my age. We’d been friendly all week. He asked if he could buy me a beer in the lounge and I agreed. This wasn’t the first beer I’d been offered that week. That’s what you did – you bought people beers. I told him I’d meet him in a few minutes.
I went back to my room to grab some money and tell my dad where I was going. On my way back out, I saw him at the back door of the complex. He waved and asked if I would walk around with him. He handed me a can of beer and we walked out back. We talked about baseball mostly.
We stopped walking at one point and he asked how long I’d been married. I told him ten years. He said twelve years. We talked about kids and my work. We got in to a debate about one of my plays earlier in the week. Then he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. I said “Whoa, no, no, no, I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me.” He pulled away immediately and apologized over and over. I told him I had to go and we quickly parted.
While this situation made me uncomfortable, I wasn’t upset, angry, or scared. I was actually sort of flattered. The next day, we played a game in the morning and then our week was over. I went to the training room to get an injury taken care of and when I walked out, I ran straight in to him. He said hello and we talked about our games that morning. He asked what my plans were for the afternoon. I told him my dad had gone to my cousin’s for the afternoon so I didn’t have any plans. He asked what room I was in and I told him. He said he had some things to take care of and then he’d swing by. I thought nothing of it. I figured he wanted to hang out and apologize for the night before.
He came by ten minutes later and I let him in. I was completely at ease. He was extremely charismatic and very charming. I sat on my bed and he sat on my couch. He asked to put the television on. I told him sure. He put on the MLB channel and we continued to chat. Around three, asked when my dad was coming back. I thought my dad had said around 4:30.
He said, “Why don’t you call and make sure?” I told him I didn’t see a reason to. He persisted to the point where he finally said, “Make the call,” pretty forcefully. Still, I wasn’t alarmed. I ran outside and called my dad, who assured me he would be back around 4:30. I told him.
I had pretty seriously injured my finger earlier in the week and he asked how it was. I told him it was getting better but still pretty sore. He asked to see it, and I held it up. He asked to see it up close so I stood and walked over to him with my hand out.
He didn’t look at my finger.
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me on top of him. He tried to kiss me. I kept turning my head from side to side and arched my back. I said, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” “Yes you can,” he replied. “I’m married, you’re married. I can’t do this.” “Yes you can.” “You don’t understand, I love my husband. I don’t want to do this,” I started crying.
He caught my head with one hand while the other remained tight around my waist. He started kissing my mouth. After a few seconds of struggling, I started to kiss him back. I instantly became nauseated.
After only a few moments of kissing him, I pulled away and told him I needed to use the bathroom; it was an emergency. I ran to the bathroom. I was shaking so badly. I tried to calm down. My head was spinning. It felt almost as if I had been drugged or had too much alcohol, that’s how foggy my brain was. My heart was pounding so hard and so fast.
I thought, “I’m just going to make him leave and if he won’t, then I will. He stopped yesterday. He will stop today.”
I opened the bathroom door and he was standing right in front of it. He grabbed me and half carried, half dragged me to the couch. He tried to pull me down on him but I managed to end up next to him. I had on a t-shirt and shorts along with a bra and panties. He had his left arm tightly around my waist, like a vise. That arm never left my waist.
I again said, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”
I was ignored.
That was when my body and mind shut down. I was no longer able to control my body. My senses were gone. I knew his hands and mouth were on me but I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t smell, I couldn’t see. I felt like I was in a dream. And my body was frozen. When I tried to move, it felt like I was stuck in thick mud. I could hardly move at all. And I knew. I knew what was going to happen. It was inevitable.
He grabbed my hand and put it on his penis that he had pulled out of his pants at some point. He held my hand there and began stroking himself with my hand. I thought, “If that’s all it’s going to be, I may be able to live with this.” But it wasn’t.
He pulled me on top of him and pushed my shorts and panties aside. He asked me if I could get pregnant. I told him no. I asked if he had any diseases and he told me no.
One arm around my waist and the other on my thigh, I had bruises for weeks from his hands. It was rough and it was fast. But I never felt it. I never felt anything. Like all my senses were gone.
He finished and got up. Told me not to tell anyone and that he “hoped I would be back at camp next year.” And then he left.
I jumped in the shower. I was on day three of my period. There was blood everywhere. I thought maybe this was a dream. This has to be a dream. I got out and got myself ready for our closing dinner that night. I know my dad knew something happened. I was quiet and withdrawn. I hardly said a word all night. He wasn’t at the dinner. I never saw him again. The next day we flew home with me saying less than fifty words to my dad all day.
As soon as we pulled up at my house and I saw my husband, I burst in to tears. I told him I had missed him so much. We had been dating since we were in eighth grade and married for almost ten years. We have three beautiful daughters. We are as close as it gets. After the girls were in bed, he asked me what was wrong; what happened? He could tell there was something definitely wrong.
I told him.
I told him the whole story. I felt like I had cheated on him and he deserved to know every detail. He listened patiently. I told the story sobbing. I felt sickened and guilty and ashamed. I hadn’t fought him. I didn’t hit him or punch him or kick him. I didn’t scream. I had, in fact, kissed him back at one point. I’d also asked him if he had any diseases.
Didn’t all these things mean that I was okay with what was happening? Hadn’t my lack of resistance when my body went numb told him it was okay to proceed?
My husband asked if I ever had any intentions of being intimate with him. I told him that I had no intentions whatsoever. I never even wanted to kiss him, let alone have sex with him. I thought we could be friends. We had a good rapport through the whole week. I thought it was cool to be friends with a professional baseball manager. My intentions were purely innocent.
My husband said, “If you had no intentions of being intimate with him, and you told him “I can’t do this” repeatedly, then you were raped.” The thought hit me like a ton of bricks. How could I have been raped? He didn’t have a gun or hold a knife to my throat. I didn’t fight him. And my husband said that none of that mattered. What he did was against my will and I’d told him as much.
My husband is the most supportive person I’ve ever met. He never once doubted me, even when I doubted myself. He encouraged me to tell my best friend who also agreed that I was raped. I made an appointment to see a counselor the next week. I’d done a lot of reading about rape between the assault and the first meeting with my counselor. I was really beginning to understand the concept of being raped.
Being raped was never something I thought could happen to me. I’m smart, I’m strong, I’m athletic, I’m a professional in my community, I’m a good wife, and a mother of three. How could I be raped?
The first meeting with my counselor was an eye opener. He explained to me the physiology behind our “fight or flight” response. It’s not really just fight or flight, but that it’s “fight, flight, or freeze.” An overwhelming number of rape victims freeze instead of fighting. He gave me the analogy of someone coming up to him on the street and asking for his wallet with no weapon. What does law enforcement tell us to do? Give the perpetrator what he wants. Because if we don’t, we may very well get hurt. We are conditioned this way.
My body and mind shut down to preserve themselves. If I’d fought, he could have easily hurt me. This man was conditioned as a professional athlete. From the bruises on my body, one could see how strong he was. But why had I asked him if he had diseases? Was that the green light for him? One author on this website absolutely nailed it when she said “it wasn’t consent, it was resignation,” (I wish I could find her particular story and give her proper credit) after she asked her rapist if he had a condom. What an epiphany that one line gave me. Finally I had some answers to the questions I’d been asking.
And finally, I came to accept that I was raped.
It’s been 2 months. And it still hurts. A lot. I called my rapist three days ago at the encouragement of my counselor and husband. I always hold people accountable for their actions, so they both thought the best way to get closure was to talk to him.
So I did.
I told him he hurt me. That I cry every day. That what happened in that room was never okay with me. He told me that yes, he probably pushed me too hard, he lost control, and he couldn’t stop. I asked if he heard me say, “I can’t do this.” He told me that yes, he heard me but didn’t think I meant it. He apologized over and over again. He said he felt like shit. I told him I’d been feeling that way for weeks.
He said that he hoped we could be friends; that’s all he wanted from me anyway. That he never had the intention of having sex with me either. I told him he was full of bullshit and that we would not be friends and I wouldn’t be calling him again.
That call was very liberating. I felt like all the chains that were wrapped around me were gone. But I still have bad days and good days. Bad moments and good ones. I’ve been plagued with panic attacks since the assault. Now I don’t have them as frequently or as badly, but they are still there. This is still pretty fresh and new and I know that I still need to heal. I don’t trust men in general. This man was Venezuelan and any time I see a man of Latin descent, I want to stab them. Hopefully, in time, that feeling will dissipate.
I’m writing this in part as therapy for me and in part so that other people that have had the same sort of experience can feel a little bit reassured. That they aren’t crazy. That there are other people out there that have been through it, and are still going through it. But that there is hope that it can get better.
With the right support, you can heal from rape.
That’s how I felt after reading all the stories on The Band. I felt like these people all helped me understand what happened to me and now it’s my turn to help others. The guilt, the shame, the blame, the disgust and the anger can all be healed.
