sexual abuse

Hitting too close to home

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I am in my last semester of college.  At my school, students in certain degree programs are required to complete an undergraduate thesis in order to graduate.  You are encouraged to choose a topic that relates to your projected career path, conduct research, and write a five chapter thesis on that topic.  I had thought about a few different topics I would possibly write about: the lack of adequate mental health care for the elderly population, the complexities of PTSD, or the legitimacy of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

In addition to those topics, I also considered writing about mother-daughter sexual abuse.  This topic had a lot of pros and cons.  It was a topic I had experience with, so there was the benefit of familiarity.  I already knew where to look to find information and research.  I had direct access to reputable sources.  On the negative side, this was a topic I had experience with.  Would I be able to handle it emotionally?  Would I be able to separate my own experiences from the facts and approach the project without bias? Would I be able to find enough information on a topic that is still very much kept quiet about?

Ultimately, I ended up choosing MDSA as my topic.  I started my thesis the second week of June.  Six weeks later and more than half done with my thesis, I am hitting a mental roadblock.  I need a break.  I’ve been able to write three chapters with much success.  But now, I think I am mentally exhausted.  I am working on my own recovery of MDSA and then researching and writing about MDSA; my days consist of MDSA and not much else.  I don’t have much time to think about or focus on anything else.  It has taken a toll on me.  It’s too late to change my topic now, as I have less than one month before the thesis has to be handed in.  I just have to figure out a way to get over it.

I’m sure a lot of you would ask me why I even chose this topic, considering everything that’s happened.  I felt like I needed to write it for personal reasons and for a larger purpose.  I feel like in learning about the topic, I can learn more about myself, and help myself in some way.  I also want others to learn that MDSA does happen.  In the last 27 years, only 10 books have been written exclusively about MDSA, and most were written within the last 10 years.  I’ve read a few of them, and while I can say they were great books, they are also lacking in a lot of areas.  How can we increase awareness of the topic if people are refusing to even write about it?  I want to write about it.  I need to write about it.

I’ve always been told I had a gift for writing.  I never thought I was all that great, but whatever.  I’ve also been told by several people that I should write a book about my experiences someday.  I don’t know if that will ever happen.  I can barely get myself through this thesis.  But maybe that is because I am still working on myself.  I want to get to a point where I can help others, through counseling and through my writing.  I guess this blog is a start.

The little things that no one really thinks are harmful

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

There have been so many instances in my life where others have said or done things that, for an unaffected person, are perfectly normal and not at all hurtful.  But for me, it is like reliving my trauma all over again.  This is an even greater problem for someone who has dealt with MDSA, because most of society is under the presumption that mothers don’t hurt their children, so there would be no reason to act any differently.  As you know, this is not my reality.

Telling me I look like my mother.

This comment hurts more than I can explain.  In my warped mind, when people say I look my mother, I start to believe that I am my mother. It makes me sick, disgusted, and hateful of myself.  I strive to be everything completely opposite of her, from how she dresses to what she believes in.  When someone comes along and says the above, I rage inside.  Can’t they see that I’m not her?  Are my attempts at being everything she’s not failing?  Am I doomed to be just like her?  Even though I have expressed my disbelief and discomfort with these comments in the past, the same people have continued to make them.  It doesn’t make it any easier when my mother purposely steals my clothes and cuts and dyes her hair to look like mine.  It’s a never-ending battle to form my own identity.  Please don’t make it harder for me.

Thinking it’s okay to have my mother in the room.

I can’t tell you how many doctors appointments I’ve had in which the doctor examined me with my mother still in the room.  I understand it happening when I was a child, but it also happened in my adolescence when the doctor wanted to do a minor pelvic exam.  It wasn’t even brought up if I ever wanted her in the room.  And then there’s the hospital visits.  I’ve been hospitalized upwards of a dozen times over the course of the last ten or so years for pneumonia.  I was an adult.  Yet there were several instances in which the nurse changed me while my mother was in the room, watching every minute of it.

Several years ago when I was admitted for cardiac and respiratory distress.  I was on oxygen and unable to speak.  I had on nothing but an ER gown, and once I got admitted to the cardiac unit, the nurse said I needed to be changed.  My mother sat in the chair next to my bed, watching.  The nurse removed my gown and went to put a new gown on and realized it was ripped.  So she left me there, naked, to go get another gown.  I tried to cover myself up with my arms.  My mother continued to sit, staring right at me.

Sharing things about me with my mother.

This was a regular issue with me because my mother and I worked for the same company.  Management and coworkers regularly felt the need to share things about me, small and large, with my mother.  When I expressed my feelings about it to those who were doing it, I was brushed off and told, “but she’s your mother!”  Trust me people, I was painfully aware of that fact.  That doesn’t change the reality that I am an adult, and should be treated like one.  The people who were reporting things back to my mother were just aiding in her overall ability to control me.  It hurt.

I also had issues with my friends answering questions about me that my mother would ask them.  For instance, when I would stay and work some extra hours at my job, my mother would text my coworkers and friends and ask them where I was and what I was doing.  And they answered her!  What?!  I’m an adult.  In my 20s.  Why are you reporting back to her?  Once again, people were aiding my mother in her control over me.  Even when she wasn’t there, I always felt like she was watching…because she was.

Making assumptions about my childhood.

I still don’t understand this.  People loved to make assumptions, and share those assumptions, about my childhood.  As recently as a few months ago, a coworker had a toy dinosaur figure that I was playing with.  Another coworker stared at me and gave me a look, and I said “Don’t judge! I missed out on most of my childhood.”  Boy, do I wish I just shut my mouth.  One of the managers, who was there this whole time, chimed in: “Oh please, you had a great childhood, your mother loved you and took you shopping for toys.”  My heart sank.  I could feel my eyes starting to water and I had to walk away before I said something I would regret.  I was so angry.  A great childhood?  A mother that loved me?  WHERE WAS I?  If I had a great childhood, then I would hate to see what a bad one was.  Never assume you know anything about anyone’s life unless they have told you themselves.

I could probably go on, but I’ve given you the basics…the shit I had encountered almost every day in my old life.  Now that I am away, I am in a place where no one knows me, and more importantly, no one knows my mother.  Now I can start fresh.

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.

Permanently anxious

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I have anxiety.  Not just occasional or situational anxiety, I have round-the-clock, full-time anxiety.  I’m anxious when I wake up in the morning.  I’m anxious taking a shower.  I’m anxious pouring cereal into a bowl.  Let’s not even talk about the anxiety I feel stepping outside of the house.  There’s no end.  Being anxious is my normal.

Anxiety is extremely exhausting.  The effort I need to put in just to make a phone call is unbelievable.  I will prepare myself for days, rehearsing conversations in my head, dialing the phone and then backing out before I hit send.  I usually end up half-sedating myself with Ativan before I am able to finally dial the number.  More times than not, the person I’m calling isn’t available and I end up having to go through the process all over again.  Needless to say, I am definitely in favor of e-mailing or texting, although that causes anxiety as well.  Sometimes I’ll let a message sit for hours, or even days, before opening it.  Then I worry about how I will respond.  It’s a never-ending cycle.

I think a lot of my anxiety comes from my upbringing.  I was never really allowed out on my own, so most experiences are new, and therefore, anxiety-provoking to me.  Hell, I didn’t learn to cross the street until I was in my 20s.  I still get anxiety crossing the street.  All that goes through my mind is “I’m going to trip and fall, I’m going to get hit by a car, I’m not going to make it across, what if I space out in the middle of the street?”  Sometimes, if time permits, I will hang around and wait until someone walks by and gets ready to cross and I’ll cross the street with them.

My anxiety has been extremely high since moving out.  I’m in an area completely foreign to me.  I tediously plan every route I need to take to get…anywhere.  I had an appointment yesterday and studied Google Maps for days beforehand just to prepare myself, and I was still anxious.  Public transportation is even worse for me.  I am constantly worried about missing the bus, or missing my stop and ending up lost in the middle of nowhere.  And then there is the anxiety over the people on the bus; I try my best not to make eye contact and avoid any possible conversation that may arise.  I usually sit there, legs shaking, looking like I’m about to pee my pants at any moment.  I can’t imagine what people must think of me.

There is no off button for my anxiety.  As much as I try to focus, I constantly have at least a dozen thoughts running through my head.  I’m genuinely surprised that I’ve managed to make it through four years of college and maintain a 3.9 GPA.  It is a huge effort for me just to get a paper done.  When I’m reading, my mind wanders to anxious thoughts and I end up not absorbing anything I had just read.  It’s the main reason I never liked reading, even as a child.  My primary doctor diagnosed me with ADD last year and put me on Adderall.  It helped, but I still struggled.

I’ve been on a plethora of medications that are supposed to help with anxiety.  Anti-depressants, Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin.  At one point during my hospitalizations, the psychiatrist had put me on anti-psychotics, trifluoperazine, Seroquel, and eventually Risperdal, which are used in cases of treatment-resistant anxiety.  I couldn’t even tell you if those medications worked because they came with a long list of unpleasant side effects that I just couldn’t deal with long-term.  Trifluoperazine was the worst of them all.  I ended up losing some of my vision (which I started to regain after six months), drooled constantly, and developed uncontrollable facial twitches.  I made the decision to wean myself off because living like that was no better than living with anxiety.

I’ve tried relaxation techniques, aromatherapy, and breathing exercises.  I’ve tried exercise and yoga, though I will admit I am overweight and not the most apt at doing either of those things.  I’ve tried writing, which helps, but it takes me longer than it should because I have to muddle through all the crap in my head to get my thoughts on paper (or on a computer screen).  Therapy didn’t help, though I will admit that my therapy experiences have been less than mediocre at best.  That’s another topic in itself.

I’ve resigned to living with my anxiety.  I guess it is a part of me just like everything else is.

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.

Mother

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I’m going to start off by saying that I have a hard time calling her ‘mother’.  I believe that title should be earned, and she lost the ability to earn it long ago.

I’m not even sure I can describe my mother in her entirety in one blog post.  For now, I’ll just give you the basics.

My mother likes to be in control.  Correction: she needs to be in control.  For 29 years, she controlled my life: where I went to school, where I worked, when and what I ate, when I went to the bathroom, what I wore, who I talked to.  Every aspect of my life was under her control.

The first time she lost control of me was when I was hospitalized last year.  For the first time, she couldn’t control me, and she lost it.  She called my doctor demanding that the staff tell her every detail of my visit.  She called the hospital, which against my wishes, told her I was admitted to the behavioral health unit.  She never stopped calling.  I didn’t want to speak to her.  Once she came to that realization, she started harassing the nurses, asking them where I was, what I was doing, who I was talking to, what was going on.  She would call more than a dozen times a day, even after she was told that it was none of her business.  I feared going back home, because I knew she would use my hospitalization as an excuse to be even more controlling…and she did.

My mother is also a pathological liar.  She doesn’t just lie about big things, she lies about the smallest, most insignificant things.  She will fight you if you confront her about it, too.  She would deny that she said or did something even though multiple people witnessed it.  She made up the most outlandish stories and spoke as if she believed them herself.  Worst of all, she made up lies about me and spread them to everyone I knew – and most believed her.  Who wouldn’t?  Why would a mother lie about her own children?

My mother has always had a need to be the star of the show.  If I had an achievement, she would turn it around to be something of her doing.  If you started to tell a story and it wasn’t about her, she would interrupt you and start talking about herself.  She would find any way to try to relate anything to her.  If in some way her ego was threatened, she would lash out.  Whenever I received recognition at work, she took it as an insult to herself and lashed out at me.

When it wasn’t about her, she threw herself a pity party – which brings me to my next description – overly dramatic.  She would turn the most insignificant occurrences into something major.  Her emotional reactions were always magnified.  If someone made a comment about the food at dinner, she would break down in tears while throwing kitchen utensils and plates across the kitchen at us.  If something happened at work, she would cry and scream at us, since she couldn’t do it at work.  She believed everyone was out to get her in one way or another.  We learned to deal with her temper tantrums by just ignoring her, as you would a temperamental child.

My mother was emotionally cold.  She was never the comforting, loving type of mother that every Hallmark card seems to depict.  She showed more affection to her cats than to her own children.  She knew how to act in public, though.  She had her caring, concerned, loving mother routine down perfect.  It’s almost scary how good of an actress she really was.  She had, and still has, everybody fooled.

Brother

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I wasn’t an only child.  My mother decided to bring two children into this world to torture.

My brother is seven years older than me.  Growing up, we were never that close; that probably has to do with the age and gender difference more than anything.  Like me, he was the target of physical and emotional abuse from both parents.  For us, it was our “normal”.  We grew up being drilled not to talk to anyone about anything, that whatever happens at home stays at home.  So how were we supposed to know any different?

I do know my parents treated my brother differently than me.  He was allowed to have friends over; that was never an option for me.  He was allowed to go outside; I was stuck in home-prison.  He had much more freedom than I ever did.  With that being said, using the word freedom may be an overreach.  That was the extent of his freedom.  Even now, as an adult in his mid-30s, he has to report his actions back to General Mom.

My brother has always done the minimum he needed to do to get by…academically, socially, and occupationally.  He failed out of college two or three times.  He’s worked at a grocery store for more than fifteen years and I guess he’s okay with that.  He’s never made attempts to move on or improve.  He wastes his money shopping for frivolous things – a habit which he inherited from our mother.  He could do better, he just won’t.

On some level, I do relate to my brother.  I can see his pain.  He has self-injured for at least the last 12 years.  I remember the first time I became aware of it.  He locked himself in the bathroom and began bashing his head into the wall dozens of times, until he came out swollen, bloodied, and bruised.  What did my parents do?  They screamed at him and banished him to his room.

After that, I became more aware of his other injuries – the cuts on his arms and legs, the burns on his hands.  One morning, he came home from work with his hand all mangled up.  He had “accidentally” slipped it in a commercial mixer at work.  In my heart, I believe he did it on purpose.  His story just didn’t add up.  Neither of my parents ever acknowledged his actions, even though it was quite obvious what was going on.  He was struggling through the trauma, just like I was.

You would think, in our shared experiences, that my brother and I would be close and able to relate.  We couldn’t be farther apart.  I stopped talking to my brother about anything significant years ago.  Unlike me, he is completely attached to my mother.  They share everything about each other.  They have nightly “conferences” (that is what my father calls them) in which they meet in my brother’s bedroom with the door closed.  I don’t dare assume what goes on – they do not want to be disturbed – and I don’t think I really want to know.  All I know is that it is not normal.  I have even had outsiders comment to me how it seems like my mother and brother are married; if they only knew what went on at home.

I don’t understand the connection between my brother and my mother, and it angers me.  How can you be this way to a person that hurt you so much?  It’s sick.  Sometimes, I conclude that he must be brainwashed by her.  That is the only explanation I can come up with.