healing

Therapy

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I want to be a therapist.  I’m in my last semester of school and writing my undergrad thesis so I can graduate with my BA in Psychology.  I plan to start grad school as soon as possible to get my MS in Mental Health Counseling.  Part of what drove me to want to become a counselor, aside from my life experiences, is my previous experiences in therapy.  They were not the best; at times, they were actually counterproductive.  Those experiences made me want to work to become a great counselor so clients didn’t have to go through the experiences that I did with my therapists.

My first experience with therapy happened in high school.  It wasn’t my or my parents’ choice.  My guidance counselor had told my parents that if they did not put me in counseling, I would be expelled from school (I went to a private high school, so they had the right).  I went to therapy once a week until the school backed off, and then my mother pulled me out.

It’s not like anything was getting accomplished anyway.  My mother sat outside the door of the therapist’s office at every appointment.  It was her way of reinforcing her “don’t tell anyone anything” policy – and it worked.  I never talked about anything that was bothering me, or about any of my experiences.  The therapist didn’t even pick up on my fear; she actually enjoyed talking about her own experiences so much that she didn’t notice.

My second therapy stint occurred when I was 19.  My job was concerned with my emotional health, and being the unprofessional and unethical establishment they are, involved my mother.  They told her if she didn’t get me help, that they were going to call the police.  Looking back, all of this was bullshit in more ways than one.  But I ended up in therapy again.  And my mother still sat her ass outside the door. I remember the therapist asked me one day why my mother looked so angry.  I hadn’t even noticed; that was her normal look.

I think I ended up going for two months, if that.  Once again, nothing was getting accomplished anyway.  This time, whenever I brought up something like self-injury, the therapist avoided the topic altogether and it made me feel horrible.  I could only imagine what his reaction would have been if I brought up more serious issues.  Thank God I didn’t.

I managed to keep myself out of therapy until I was 28.  This time, I wanted to be in therapy.  My issue was that I couldn’t leave the house to do anything other than work.  So out of desperation, I sought out an online therapist.  It was a little expensive, but I used my credit card and took a chance.  It was much easier for me because I could type whatever I wanted and didn’t need to worry about my mother finding out about it.

I finally spilled my guts out to somebody who listened (or read, if you want to get technical).  The only problem was that she was limited in what she could do, since therapy consisted of e-mails viewed on a computer screen.  I understood that limitation when I started.  I just needed to tell someone, and at that point, I didn’t care who or how.  I actually still communicate with this same therapist online.  It’s been helpful to have someone consistent when my life seems to have been a whirlwind over the past year.

In November 2014, I was hospitalized for two weeks in the behavioral health unit.  Ten days later, I was hospitalized again due to a mix-up (I had no care plan in place after my initial hospitalization).  After that second hospitalization, I was set up with a MSW at a county facility.  I don’t know how much experience she had, but she was fucking terrible.  Excuse my language, but there’s just no other way to express it.  She was older than me, so she should have had some experience.  It scares me to think of how many clients she’s had and how many she fucked up.

My first clue to her incompetence was her diagnosis of me.  She diagnosed me with depression secondary to asthma.  My hospital discharge papers didn’t even list depression.  The psychiatrists in the hospital told me depression really wasn’t my main issue at all.  And then, asthma?  I’m depressed about my asthma?  By this point, I had been living with asthma for 14 years.  Asthma was the least of my problems.

I only saw her every other week, thankfully, but that was enough for her to still fuck my mind up.  During one session, she suggested that I try drinking alcohol to help relieve stress; she even mentioned that it was something her and her boyfriend did.  Not only was this a horrible suggestion to make to any client, but I had a documented history of alcohol abuse.  I was speechless.

For a few weeks, I felt myself slipping into suicideality again.  I admitted this to my therapist, who told me that feeling suicidal was normal.  I wanted some kind of help.  At this point, it had been nearly two months at the county facility and I had yet to see the psychiatrist for an evaluation.  But she did nothing.  She brushed it off as normal.

I ended up admitting myself to the hospital shortly after because I had recurring thoughts of walking out in front of a bus, to a point where that was all I could think about.  I also had access to an enormous amount of medication.  I was hospitalized for just under a week…and sent back to the same horrible therapist.

I told myself I would really try to make it work this time.  I couldn’t do it.  When I expressed anger over my mother’s extreme control of me, she downplayed it and told me that my mother was just concerned for my well-being.  When I discussed my mixed emotions about my mother because of my past, she said “I get it, I have problems with my mother, too.”  Really, did your mother abuse you?  My anger shifted from my mother to this woman parading as a therapist.  She went on to defend any action my mother had ever taken.  It made me sick.  I left therapy feeling worse than I did going in.

I made the decision to stop seeing this woman.  I had to, for my own sanity.  During what ended up to be our last session, she gave me a book on attachment disorders.  She told me she believed that I had an attachment disorder based on my relationship with my mother and that I should read the book to learn more about my problem.  During the same session, when I expressed my desire to move out-of-state and leave my family, she told me “you can’t do that, you can’t just abandon your own family.”  I knew that was it.  I never went back.

My coworker suggested (while I was still seeing the woman I have dubbed as SSW – shitty social worker) that I start going to counseling at a place where he had been going.  It was far, but he offered to drive me there and back home.  I was desperate, so I took him up on the offer.  I went right after work, so my mother never suspected anything.  This therapist was young – younger than me for sure, and I suspect not out of grad school for very long.  But I gave it a shot – at this point I had no other choice.

I decided to take a different approach and let it all out in the first two sessions.  I didn’t want to have to waste my time with another therapist who wasn’t going to acknowledge my issues.   I don’t think she was quite prepared.  It took her some time to come up with responses.  But she tried, and I appreciated it.  I continued seeing her every week up until the week I moved out, mostly so I could just have someone to talk to.  I admit I wasn’t a good client; I often shut down and would sit in silence.  I don’t think she knew how to respond to that, so very little progress was ever made.

My hope for humanity finally came when I met two therapists at a retreat for my support group back in April.  They were knowledgeable, experienced, and caring.  They were down-to-earth and spoke to you like you were just a normal person.  At one point in the retreat, I had broken down and one of the therapists sat next to me and held me while I cried.  This…this was something I never had before.  Someone who wanted to help.  Someone who actually cared.  From that point, I knew that I could find a therapist that would work for me.  After 14 years of shitty experiences, I finally found a positive.

The Elephant in the Room

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

So, I’m going to talk about the elephant in the room.  The thing that no one wants to talk about, hear about, or even think about.

Sexual abuse.

Are you still with me?  Good.  That was just the beginning.

Female-perpetrated sexual abuse.

I know by now, some people have shaken their head in disbelief.  Some have clicked the X up there in the corner with disgust.  Some just said “What? No!”  But it happens, way more than society chooses to recognize.  Studies reveal around 20% of documented cases involve a female perpetrator, and that is only reported cases.  Keep in mind, most sexual abuse incidents go unreported; underreporting is even more common when a female perpetrator is involved.  And as a point, I’m not talking about those young female teachers having sex with young male students that we hear about in the media every so often.  The majority of female sex offenders are NOT of that type.  Are you still reading?  Good.  Take a breath.  Here it comes.

Mother-daughter sexual abuse.

By this point, I’d be surprised to have any readers left. If you’re still reading, thank you.  You have made it farther than most in our society have.  Odds are you’ve never even heard of mother-daughter sexual abuse, or MDSA.  Growing up, you were never taught to question your own mother touching you or doing sexual things to you. You more than likely learned about strangers touching you, and how you should tell someone you trust, like a parent.

Well, what the HELL are you supposed to do when that stranger touching you is actually your mother?  No one prepares you for that possibility.  No one prepares themselves for that possibility.

I’m going to tell you the harsh truth now.  Mothers sexually abuse children.  It’s hard to hear, difficult to stomach.  Imagine how it is for someone who has lived through it.  While mothers sexually abuse their own sons, the effects of sexual abuse of daughters may be the most traumatizing and psychologically damaging type of sexual abuse.  To add to the indescribable pain of experiencing it, most victims suffer in silence.  Society does not want to acknowledge that this type of abuse happens.

People often diminish the reality of MDSA because a mother is involved.  She has no penis, so what could she have possibly done to sexually abuse her own daughter?  Sexual abuse comes in many forms; it’s not just about vaginal intercourse.  Mothers can force daughters into oral sex or penetration (manually or with objects), or do the same to their daughters.  Mothers can engage in inappropriate bathing or dressing rituals, or use inappropriate medical excuses to disguise what is actually abuse.  These are just the most common ways.

Oh, but she’s your mother.  She didn’t mean it like that.

Let me tell you, there is no way what my mother did to me was right.  I wasn’t allowed to bathe by myself throughout my entire childhood and into my adolescence. She would stand there and watch me.  We had no shower curtain, so she could see everything.  On many occasions, she insisted on washing me, even when I was more than capable of washing myself.  And she’d scrub down my area as if she were scrubbing rust off of metal.  What lasted for minutes, in my mind, seemed like hours. She’d always say that children didn’t know how to take care of themselves.  It was humiliating.  It was abuse.

Then there were the times I would wake up in the middle of the night with my pants and underwear down to my ankles. “I’m just checking on things,” she’d say. “Go back to sleep.”  What the hell was she checking on?  Nothing was medically wrong with me.  There was no reason for her to be violating me like that.  After awhile I learned to just pretend like I was sleeping.  I’d go off into another place and try not to think about what was happening.

Boundaries were nonexistent. When I would change my clothes, my mother would barge right in and insist on helping me.  Whenever she bought me new clothes, she wanted me to try them on in front of her.  She’d make comments about my body.  As I got older, she seemed to get more angry.  She’d make comments about my weight, and say that no one will ever love me looking like this.  The abuse never stopped, she just changed her methods.

So do you still think mother-daughter sexual abuse doesn’t happen?  If those same experiences happened with my father or any male, people wouldn’t think twice before calling it sexual abuse.  But for some reason, when a mother is involved, people have this tendency to downplay the sexual abuse as a mere misunderstanding.

My experiences are no misunderstanding.  Neither are the experiences of the countless other victims of MDSA.

I can’t even begin to explain the effects MDSA has had on my life.  It affects nearly every part of me, physically and emotionally.  Talking about it helps.  I want people to know what happens.  I want people to feel comfortable enough to come forward with their own experiences.  I want people to start talking about it.  Stop denying that it happens.  Stop telling everyone to love and honor their mothers no matter what.  Stop glorifying motherhood.  You are only adding to the pain we already feel about our reality.

Where do I start?

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

While a few people know parts of my story, no one knows every piece of the puzzle of my life.  Hell, I don’t even know every piece.  There are significant time periods in my life that I have no memory of, especially in my childhood.  Sometimes, my mind likes to torture me in the form of flashbacks – because experiencing it the first time wasn’t enough.  I probably should have been more specific when I begged myself to remember more.

I wish I could remember more than I have.  Most of my memories are traumatic ones.  I remember few, if any, periods in my life where I was happy and felt safe and loved.  Did I ever experience that?  I would like to think that I did, but I will probably never know for sure.

I could focus this blog only on the future, and on the positive experiences of my life, but what good will that do?  I feel like in order to understand my present situation, you have to understand my past.  In recovery, they encourage you to focus on the future.  People rarely want to talk about the trauma, the pain, the reality of their pasts.  But I do.  I want people to know that things like this actually happen.  That parents aren’t perfect.  That mothers hurt their own children.  If we refuse to talk about it, people will never acknowledge that it happens, and victims will continue to stay victims instead of becoming survivors.

I used to be ashamed of my past.  To be perfectly honest, I still go through periods of intense shame and self-blame.  I probably will for the rest of my life.  But something in me changed.  I am no longer afraid to acknowledge the reality of my past because it will always be a part of who I am.  I have come to accept that maybe, just maybe, there is a greater reason that I endured all the shit that I have endured.  I need to be the voice for those that cannot find theirs.

It was a Friday…

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

On Friday morning, July 10th, at 7:30 in the morning, I began a new life.

Running on less than two hours of sleep, I managed to stop shaking long enough to carry my three bags through the narrow hallway and towards the front door.  My father was there; he heard me in the shower earlier and stayed up to see what I was doing (nothing goes unnoticed or unquestioned in that home).  I struggled to get my bags out the door as I underwent his interrogation.

“Where are you going?” he asked me.  Luckily, I had already prepared myself for an interrogation and rehearsed my answers.

“I have an internship.”  Apparently, that wasn’t enough of an answer, as he repeated his initial question and added extra emphasis on the where.

“School.”  I kept my answers short.  The less detail the better.  But even that answer was a lie.  Then he asked me about work.  By this point, I had already been out of work for two weeks.  He believed I was on vacation. In reality, I resigned.

“How long are you going to be gone?” he continued.  By this point, I had one bag left to carry out the door.  Then I would be done.  My mother was just starting to wake up and I knew I had no chance with her.  I struggled to keep my emotions in check.  I mumbled “four weeks” as I made my final exit through the door.  I knew it wasn’t going to be four weeks – it would be forever.

It took two trips up and down four flights of stairs, but my adrenaline was so high at that point that I couldn’t feel a thing.  I threw the bags in the back of my friend’s car and we took off.  There were no goodbyes, no hugs or well wishes.  We were not that type of family and this was not that type of situation.  That was the last day I saw my family, and hopefully that continues to be the last day for the rest of my life.

Many people do not understand what would drive a person to up and leave their family behind without as little as an explanation.  For me, leaving was the only option I had left.  Very few people knew the reality I had been living for the 29 years of life.  I was at a point where I knew if I didn’t get out, I wouldn’t make it to 30.  This was the day I had been imagining since I was a child – the day I would finally be free from the hurt, the pain, and the abuse that had become my normal.

I would be lying if I said I was free from hurt.  Even now that I am out, the hurt and the pain are still a part of me.  There are scars that will likely never heal, and emotional damage that cannot be reversed.  Every day is a struggle for me, but I am taking steps.  I want to live a life without hurt.  That is the life that I deserve.