child abuse

Why I Want(ed) to be a Counselor

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

I have been in and out of the mental health system for the last 15 years.

Let me be totally honest; the system sucks. I could go on and on about just how badly it sucks, but I just don’t have the energy for that right now.

I’ve had quite a number of therapists. Most of them have been horrible. Some of them, I seriously question how they were (and likely still are) allowed to practice counseling.

My first therapist enjoyed talking about herself more than about me.

My second therapist avoided any topic that was mildly serious. You self-injured? Oh. How is school going? 

My fourth or so therapist: Your mother loves you. You’re just overreacting.

The social worker assigned to me after my first hospitalization: I think you have an attachment disorder. You can never leave your family. You should try drinking wine (knowing I had a history of alcohol abuse). Your mother loves you. She’s just overprotective because she cares. I get it, I have problems with my mom, too. All children have problems with their parents. It’s okay to be suicidal.

I could go on about this woman. I had been telling her for weeks that I felt something wasn’t right, maybe it was my medication or what, I don’t know. But I told her that I was suicidal and concerned about ending up in the hospital again (or worse). That’s when she told me it was okay to be suicidal, and basically ignored my concerns. For the record, I ended up hospitalizing myself shortly after that, and my medications were changed.

Unfortunately, they sent me right back to this woman. I used to refer to her as SSW (shitty social worker). It had gotten so bad by that point, that I sought out a therapist just to help me cope with SSW (I didn’t want to risk missing my appointments with SSW and being re-hospitalized). I dealt with her for a few more months.

During what would turn out to be our last session, I told SSW of my plans to run away and leave my family behind. She immediately shot me down, telling me I could never leave my family. You can’t abandon your family. They are your family. What? How could you tell me this, knowing my history? I was so angry, so filled with rage. I knew I couldn’t go back to her. It was not healthy. She should not be a counselor in any capacity. She is dangerous.

That was my final push. I told myself I needed to become a counselor because people in need should not be subjected to people like her. Victims should not be invalidated by therapists. Clients should not be put in danger. Clients should not be ignored. I wanted to be everything my previous counselors were not. I wanted to change the profession. I wanted counselors to know that mothers abuse their children, and that they need to acknowledge that it happens instead of telling the person they are just misunderstanding their reality.

I wanted to be a counselor to make a difference in others’ lives. I wanted to go on that journey with them. I wanted to witness their growth and transformation. But I also wanted to initiate change and make a difference with a larger impact. I wanted to change the way counselors were being educated. Why aren’t they being educated about female-perpetrated abuse? Why are they not being educated or trained in dissociative disorders? Why is the system continually dropping the ball when we are perfectly capable of being better?

That is why I wanted to be a counselor.

But things change.

Seeing more

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

When you live a sheltered life for so long and then find freedom, you see the world through a different set of eyes. You have vision that most other people lack.

While everyone else around me ceases to notice their environment, I am consistently amazed by even the most menial things. Whenever I am somewhere I haven’t been before, I have the excitement level of a three year-old child. I look up and around at everything, and take it all in. It doesn’t matter if it’s a burger joint on the corner, a large patch of grass, or a famous landmark – it fascinates me still.

I see the beauty in things that others take for granted. I look up at the sky, at clouds, at the stars. I walk in the rain without an umbrella. I stop and watch the geese walk across the grass with their goslings. I watch the worms wriggle between the cracks in the sidewalk on my walk home from work. I observe the butterflies as they fly so gracefully; they are free, just like I am now free.

I see the beauty in the people around me. The mother on the bus holding her sleeping child in her arms. The man buying food for a friend who is hungry, even though he has no money for himself. The friendly neighbor talking to a hyper young child just to give his mother a short break. All of the people who aren’t afraid or ashamed to be themselves. All of the people who freely offer hugs and encouragement. I see it all.

Before, I had no opportunity to take anything in. The world was scary, because that’s what my mother told me. There was nothing amazing or beautiful to see. In my mind, home was already scary as hell. If the outside world was any worse, I did not want any part of it. I know now that is was my mother’s way of keeping me sheltered. No desire to know the outside = no risk of her losing control.

I looked down towards the ground all the time.  If you look down, nobody will see you. No one would be able to see the shame, the pain, the hurt in my eyes. I never made eye contact. I never looked around to see what existed outside of the few places we were allowed to go. I shut myself off from the world.

Now, after 30 years, I am finally experiencing the world for the first time. Yes, I may react like a child sometimes. The simplest things are so amazing to me because I never got to experience them before. It allows me to see the world in a different light, a better light.

Sometimes, I wish others could do the same.

She didn’t deserve you

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I was feeling rather confident going into my therapy session on Monday.

After all, I made it through Mother’s Day relatively unscathed. I felt a small sense of pride in being able to handle the holiday as well as I did. Mother’s Day is one of, if not the most, difficult holiday of the year for me.

Mother’s Day is not a pleasant holiday when your mother is a narcissistic sociopath. Mother’s Day is a horrible, painful reminder when your own mother was also your abuser.

I felt like writing those cards to myself and to my egg donor that Saturday night really put me on a better path. I got out most of what I needed to say. I read the card I wrote to myself over and over, trying to absorb its truth. And I think, in some ways, I did.

I brought the cards with me to therapy on Monday, just in case there was nothing else to talk about and I needed to fill time (Who am I kidding – there is ALWAYS something to talk about and there is NEVER enough time). I mentioned them to my therapist. She asked if I would be willing to share the one I wrote to myself. I hesitated a bit, and then downplayed the whole thing as lame. After all, who writes to themselves? It’s such a weird thing.

I got over the weirdness and took my card out of my bag. I managed to read the card all the way through without getting overly emotional. I had already read it to myself so many times within the two days prior, that the words were starting to become me. I told my therapist how I spent the day, the positive steps I took, the negative ones I avoided. She was proud of me.

But even with all of the positive things I did on that day, I found myself still missing, still grieving the absence of a mother. I laid in bed that night and stared at a picture of my egg donor for a good half an hour or so. It’s the only picture I have of her. I found it on Facebook on another person’s page awhile back and saved it to my phone. I don’t know why I did it; I don’t need any pictures of that woman. But I can’t seem to find it in my heart to delete it. So I stared at it, and went through a plethora of emotions, from sadness to anger to just feeling…blank. Here was this woman who no one really knows, pretending to be normal and decent. She even cracked a quarter of a smile. It wasn’t genuine, but at a quick glance, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

After a while, I made myself put my phone down. I was not going to torture myself any longer. It wasn’t fair to me.

I told my therapist about that moment, about all of the emotions I was going through, about my lack of understanding on why I did it. I told her about the card I wrote to my egg donor. My therapist then asked if I would be willing to share it with her. Whew. I don’t know. My emotions were running pretty high when I wrote it. It actually took me awhile to write it, as I would write a paragraph and then put it aside and decompress for a bit before starting to write again.

I took a deep breath, got the card out, and showed my therapist what I had written on the front of the card. A little twisted humor, maybe, but truthful humor at that. I started to read it out loud. As I got closer to the middle of the card, talking about how I thought something was wrong with me, I felt the emotions starting to come up. As I read the words I lived in fear of my own mother, I started to cry. I remembered what it was like to live in fear. As an adult, I realize how unfair that was to my child self. No child should have to fear their own parent. But that was my normal.

Through tears, I continued to read the rest of the card. By the end, I was a bit of a controlled emotional mess. I was angry, sad, lost, and empowered all at the same time. I was able to recognize that I didn’t need my mother anymore, but that didn’t change the fact that I needed a mother before and never had one.

I wanted it to be my mother that I was reading the card to. I wanted her to hear my words, to know how she has affected me. I wanted it to be her feeling for me, and not my therapist. But that will never happen. And even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. My mother is incapable of empathy. She doesn’t think she has done anything wrong. If it’s not about her, she doesn’t care. I can’t change that.

As I wiped my tears away, my therapist said “she didn’t deserve you.”

For how much of a decent human being I am, how caring and good-hearted I am, and all of that, my mother did not deserve me as a daughter. I never thought of it that way. All of this time I had been focusing on the fact that I deserved a real mother; I never thought that my mother didn’t deserve me. But my therapist. That woman didn’t deserve me. She doesn’t now.

She will never deserve me.

Runaway

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I listen to music every day: while I’m walking to work in the morning, while I’m riding on the bus, while I’m working, while I’m walking about the neighborhood, and even while I’m at home working on other things. Music helps distract me when I need distraction. It helps keep me focused when I need to drown out whatever is going on in my head. Music is a big part of my life.

When I really take time and listen to the lyrics, there are some songs that resonate with me. I was sitting at my desk earlier today with my iTunes on shuffle, and P!nk’s Runaway started playing. I started really paying attention to the lyrics and I realized there were parts of it that so closely related to my earlier life.

I was just trying to be myself
You go your way, I’ll meet you in hell
All these secrets that I shouldn’t tell, I’ve got to run away
It’s hypocritical of you
Do as you say not as you do
I’ll never be your perfect girl
I’ve got to run away

I’m too young to be
Taken seriously
But I’m too old to believe
All this hypocrisy
And I wonder
How long it’ll take them to see my bed is made
And I wonder
If I was a mistake

I might have nowhere left to go
But I know that I cannot go home
These voices trapped inside my head
Tell me to run before I’m dead
Chase the rainbows in my mind
And I will try to stay alive
Maybe the world will know my name
God won’t you help me run away!

-P!nk

Throughout my life, I tried to be a good daughter. It took me some time to realize that no matter what I did, I would never be good enough for my mother. She didn’t want me to be good enough, because that meant that some of the attention was taken from her. Narcissists don’t like that.

Secrets. I was tired of keeping secrets. I got to a point where I wanted to shout to the world exactly what I was going through, exactly the type of person my mother was. I started to, little by little. I was tired of staying silent. And that put me in a dangerous situation, because I was still living with the very person I was starting to speak out against.

When I talk about my journey to freedom, I sometimes (without thinking) refer to my new life in terms of running away from my old life. I’ll say “when I ran away from home”. People don’t really understand what I mean when I say that. I’m an adult. Adults don’t run away from home. They just come and go as they please.

Except I couldn’t. I was living in what was essentially a prison.  When I left on July 10th, I ran away. At 29 years old, I ran away from home. I may have left out the front door, but that’s only because I was three stories up and had no other exit.

I wasn’t really 100% sure where I was going to end up, but I knew at that point that I had to leave. If I had stayed much longer, I would not be sitting here today. And I recognize that reality. So much was going on in the months before my escape. It was dangerous. It was a dangerous place to be. I knew when I ran out the front door that day, I could never go back.

I did not run away from life; I ran towards it. Those first 29 years and four months of my existence were not life.

I ran away so I could live.

Mother-Yourself Day

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

I woke up Sunday morning to a card, a bouquet of flowers, and gifts wrapped with a bow.


They are gifts I gave to myself. They are the gifts I would have given on Mother’s Day had I had a real mother. But I never had that, so I had to improvise. In many ways, I had to be (and continue to be) my own mother. And I’m accepting that now. As much as I long for a real mother, the opportunity has passed. It’s my job now.

I went to work that morning with Courage by my side. He comes with me whenever I’m going through difficult times or doing something I’ve never done before. I didn’t know how my day would go, so I brought him just in case. He was a good coworker-for-a-day. I was able to keep myself together. I text an old friend Happy Mother’s Day without getting upset. My therapist sent me a text and it reminded me of my importance, to myself and to the world. I was okay.

After work, I changed out of my uniform, into a nice shirt, and took myself to an early dinner. It didn’t matter that I was alone. I knew I deserved something special. I knew I deserved to eat. I was going to treat myself, and I did. Surrounded by families celebrating the holiday, I sat at a table by myself, with Courage sitting in the chair next to me. I didn’t have to force myself to eat. In that moment, all of the conflict I usually experience around food was gone.

I sat and read the card I wrote to myself the night before.

K,

You are your own mother. I know it’s hard because the woman who gave birth to you did not know how to be a mother, or maybe she just didn’t want to. The reasons don’t matter. You have had to parent yourself. You protected yourself when no one else would. You are learning to take care of yourself in the ways your mother should have (but didn’t) take care you.

I know it hurts. It hurts in your heart. It hurts in your mind. It hurts in your soul. A pain you can’t explain, because your mother isn’t dead. But she might as well have been dead, because she was never really there for you, ever.No one ever taught you how to love because your mother never loved you. No one taught you how to take care of yourself because your mother didn’t any worth in you.

But here you are. Surviving. Trying to love yourself. Recognizing your worth. Seeing all of the things your mother refused to see in you. You’ve done a great job keeping yourself alive. You got out. You mustered up all of the strength and courage you could, even when no one agreed with you or understood, and you left your mother for good.

And now you need to keep mothering yourself. It’s time to take care of you. You deserve to be cared for. Whatever that woman told you was a lie. All of those times she hurt you, that had nothing to do with you. You were just a child. It’s not your fault that she could not be a mother.

Now it’s your chance to be a mother to yourself. You can do it. You deserve it.

This Mother’s Day was the first time I didn’t break down. I didn’t dread the day, because I made it about me, not the woman who gave birth to me.

Sometimes we have to break traditions. Sometimes we have to bend society’s rules a little bit. I am my own mother now. That other woman just gave birth to me.

 

An Open Letter to the Children of Toxic Mothers

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

If you are reading this right now, I want you to know some things.

Everything you are feeling is valid.

You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to be sad. You are allowed to be frustrated, pissed off, and mad at the world. You are allowed to feel any way you want and need to feel.

You don’t have to love your mother. Despite what society tells you, some mothers aren’t all that great. Sometimes, they are downright toxic. They may have hurt you, abused you, maligned you, or made you feel worthless. These mothers don’t deserve your love and respect. They didn’t earn that yet, and they possibly never will.

You are not a bad person for not loving your mother. Sometimes, it takes as much strength not to love as it does to love.

And if you do love your mother, even after all she’s done to you, that’s okay, too.

You know why? Because everything you feel is valid. Your heart and mind know the truth; the truth that people on the outside can’t see (or choose not to see).

Never let anyone make you feel bad for how you feel.

Go ahead and let out that anger. Go ahead and cry. You are allowed to grieve the loss of the mother you should have had, the relationship you deserved.

You are not obligated to anyone but yourself. You don’t owe your mother anything, despite what she or others may tell you.

You deserved more than a toxic mother.

I know it hurts. I feel the pain every day. I feel the emptiness within my heart where my mother should be, but isn’t. It’s a pain that only those of us with toxic mothers can understand. It’s a pain that lingers and never quite goes away. A piece of you feels like it’s missing.

You can still find that missing piece. You can still find that love and care you should have gotten from your mother. Sometimes, you find it in other family. Sometimes, you find it in friends. It may already be within you. You just have to connect the pieces.

You are worth it.

Take care of yourself. Be your own mother. You deserve it.

Mother’s Day Card

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

As part of my therapeutic Mother-Yourself Day weekend, I decided to buy two Mother’s Day cards: one for myself, and one for the woman that gave birth to me.

I know that woman doesn’t deserve a card. Don’t worry – I’m not sending it to her. I wanted to get the card so I could write the things I wanted to say to her but never could.

Finding an appropriate card was near impossible. They don’t make Mother’s Day cards for horrible, undeserving mothers (though really, why can’t someone do this). I must have picked up at least 50 cards. Honestly, it made me a little sad, because I realized so much of what I missed out on by not having a good mother. Finally, I came across a card that was definitely not true, but something I could easily edit to make it appropriate.


I sat at my desk last night, opened the card, and started writing. I could have written so much more, but I couldn’t fit any more words on the card.

I almost wish she could see what I wrote. I wish she could know how I feel. But even if she did, it wouldn’t matter. And I have to accept that.

To the woman that gave birth to me,

I guess, by some definitions, you are my mother. But you don’t deserve that title. Being a mother is more than just giving birth. It’s about loving, caring for, guiding, and nurturing your children. You never did that. Ever. You pretended to love your children in public view, so everyone could think you were a good mom. But you weren’t. You don’t know how to love anyone but yourself. You never cared for me. Even my most basic needs were always such a burden for you. You neglected me, physically and emotionally. You abused your own child, your own flesh and blood. You took away my childhood, and I can never get that back. You broke my heart. Why? I didn’t ask to be born. You didn’t need another child to torture.

I don’t know what you saw in me that made you hate me so much. R got your love and attention (perhaps a little too much) because he followed your every command. He didn’t know any better. But I did. I knew you were wrong all along. It just took me 29 years to figure out how to stop you. I dealt with your torture for 29 years.

I used to think something was wrong with me. Everyone else seemed to love their moms, and I never felt that connection. The only thing I could feel was fear. I lived in fear of you, my own mother. And no one could understand why, because you took us to Church every Sunday and you send us to private school and you took us shopping like any normal family would. You were the perfect mother. No one saw how evil you really were.

You ruined my childhood. You ruined my adolescence. You ruined my 20s. You will not ruin my life anymore. Because despite everything you’ve done to me, I am still standing. I am still surviving.

I’m not perfect. I’m still afraid of you. That’s how deeply you’ve affected my life. I still have nightmares. I still shake when I check the mail. I still have the memories. I’m still grieving your loss.

But I am better without you. I don’t need a mother now. I  needed one before and you chose to do what you did, you chose not to be a real mother. So I had to learn how to mother myself. I had to fill in the gaps that you have always left empty.

I do have to thank you, though. I tell myself that going through hell has been for a greater purpose. I am not the weak, worthless person you wanted me to be. I am strong. I have worth greater than you will ever get to see. I am going to make a difference in the world – because of the hell you put me through.

So thank you for forcing me to be a better human being. Thank you for showing me exactly how not to be. You are the worthless one. And you are no longer my mother.

Mother’s Day

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

Mother’s Day has always been difficult for me for understandable reasons.

I’ve been dreading this weekend. I didn’t get a chance to talk about it much in therapy because some other more pressing issues have invaded my life.

My therapist said to treat myself. Buy myself flowers. Do something nice. Much in the same way I re-celebrated my mother’s birthday back in January (which ended up being a celebration of PAFPAC reaching a milestone in Facebook).

So I think that is what I’m going to do. I have to work this weekend, which is good to keep me busy somewhat. But I still have unoccupied time to fill.

I want to do all of the things I wish I could’ve done on Mother’s Day had I had a real mother. Maybe I will take myself out to dinner. Maybe I will buy myself a card. Maybe I will buy my mother a card, and write all of the things I feel like I want to say to her. Maybe I will buy myself those flowers and my favorite chocolates.

Because in truth, I was my own mother. I had to take care of myself in ways that my mother wouldn’t.

There is no special day for all of the children and adults who had to grow up with absent or abusive mothers. So what are we left to do? We have to make our own day. We have to celebrate something different.

Mothers Abuse

~ KJ ~ 14 Comments

The majority of child abuse and neglect cases involve a female perpetrator, most often the mother of the child. The majority of cases. That means over 50%.

Yet, what type of person is consistently portrayed as the typical child abuser? A creepy-looking male stranger.

No. Just no. Between 80% and 90% of child abuse and neglect cases involve a perpetrator that is known to the child. Most often, parents or other family members are involved.

Part of my struggle growing up, and also attempting to seek help in adulthood, was the flat out refusal to believe that females would abuse someone, let alone that a mother would abuse her own child. But they do. So often they do. And they get away with it because no one wants to believe it. But the facts are there. They’ve been there all along.

I was told I was just confused, that my mother loved me, that what she was doing was out of love and protection, that my mother seemed like a nice person so they didn’t think she was an abuser. One counselor, after learning my abuse history through hospital records and some of my own admission, handed me a book on attachment disorders and said “I think you have an attachment disorder. Read this.” In essence, I had the problem

Way back when I first started this blog, I wrote a post on mother-daughter sexual abuse: The Elephant in the Room. I will copy and paste it here as well.

As we head into Mother’s Day weekend, the majority of my posts are going to be mother-related. This is a difficult time for me, and for survivors of mother-perpetrated abuse. But we are not alone.

Continue reading →

I live to live

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

No matter how shitty (or great) I feel, I wake up at 4:30 every morning, take a shower, get dressed, and go to work. I could have slept two hours; I could have slept eight hours. It doesn’t matter. I continue to do it because I need to, and because I want to.

When I fell in the street at the end of last August, I picked myself back up, wiped the blood off of my hands and knees, walked to the bus stop and went to work. I didn’t stop. I went to the hospital afterwards, where I found out I had fractured my right foot (and sprained my left knee). Even then, in a cast and crutches, I woke up at 4:00 the next morning, took a shower, got dressed, and hobbled my way to the bus stop to get to work.

When I neared the end of my undergraduate career last August, I put my heart and soul into my work. Despite moving out, being hospitalized, working, and being officially diagnosed with DID within the course of a month, I managed to complete a research project and thesis and receive a near-perfect score (99). I graduated with top honors, despite the chaos going on around me.

When I ended up in the hospital in the beginning of August, I worked my ass off to get out. Right after I was released, I walked right to my therapist’s office and had a session. I went home, unpacked my things, and worked on my thesis, a chapter of which had then been overdue. Then the next morning, I woke up at 4:30, took a shower, got dressed, and started my first day at work, less than 24 hours after being released from the hospital.

When I ran away from home prison on July 10th, 2015, I did so against impossible odds. I managed to hide money away in separate online bank accounts that my mother didn’t know about. I managed to find a place far enough away to keep me safe, but close enough to a competent therapist and to a school where I could fulfill my dream of being a counselor. I managed to free myself and physically leave through the front door of the apartment, the same door that my mother slept just feet away from every night, as if she were a prison guard on duty. I could have been hurt. But I escaped. Despite everything, I found freedom.

I have consistently shown that I do not give up. Life seems to knock me down quite a bit. Sometimes it really gets to me, but I have never stopped living. Even in the darkest times, I continue to live.

I can’t change some of my circumstances.

I can’t give myself a biological family; that’s gone forever. But I have a family that consists of my friends from the new life I have built here.

I can’t grow money on trees. But I can keep working and find ways to survive until I find success someday.

I can’t cure my DID or take a pill and forget everything that happened to me. But I can keep going to therapy, even if I have to go for the rest of my life.

I may not be the best at life. Considering where and what I came from, I think I am doing a damn good job. I am living. Despite everything, I am living.

And I have died so many times, but I am still alive.

I am a work in progress, just like anyone else.