trauma

Eight Weeks

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

It’s been eight weeks now.  I’m still free.  I’m still alive.

I have bad days.  I have okay days.  I never really have good days, but that’s okay; there’s still time for those.

Physically, I could be better.  I’ve lost over 30 pounds.  I know it’s from a combination of not eating enough and being sick.  It’s not that I can’t afford to lose it, because I can, but that’s a lot to lose in a short period of time.  I’m trying to make a conscious effort to eat, but it’s difficult.  My roommate does her best to try to get me to eat.  She’s even tried to memorize the foods I eat and the foods I absolutely will not touch.  The other night, my roommate’s boyfriend asked if I wanted a garlic knot.  I reluctantly obliged.  He was so genuinely happy that I wanted to eat something that he shouted out in celebration.  Small steps.  I also made a promise to my therapist that I would at least start taking vitamins.  She actually found a vitamin for me that was chewable and non-fruit-flavored, so I have no excuses not to take it.

My foot is feeling a little better.  I’ve been upgraded to a space boot that goes up to my calf.  I’m supposed to wear the boot for at least two more weeks until I go back to the orthopedist again.  I’m also supposed to use crutches, but I was a little rebellious today and decided at the last second to go without.  I did fine.  I walked a lot slower than I would have if I used the crutches, but that’s okay.  But I didn’t fall.  I’m still standing.  The orthopedist mentioned I had quite a few old fractures show on x-ray.  All I could think was yea, I’m sure there are old fractures all over my body.  It’s probably why I have so many issues with bone pain now, and why I have random bone spurs throughout my body.  I guess my body wants to remind me of that pain again.

I had a bit of a meltdown last night.  I had this weekend off of work (which never happens, and will likely never happen again for a long time), so I was planning to go back and visit my very good friends back home (Is it really home?  I don’t know what to call it.).  I had mentioned it to my therapist in yesterday’s session and told her that I worked out all the possible scenarios in my head and it still seemed like it would be more of a positive thing for me.  I miss them more than anything.  Aside from my therapist and my roommate, I am alone here.  I told my friend and he seemed happy.  Then I text my other friend about it.  She said that was great, then she said “so are you visiting your parents?”  My heart sank and I became overwhelmed with emotions.  Why would I visit the very people I ran away from?  It’s not like my friend is not aware of the situation; she knows, though not in detail, what my mother has done to me.  Is that not enough of a reason for me to leave?  Does she not believe me?  I don’t understand it.  I shouldn’t have to justify why I want nothing to do with them.  I feel like she is on their side and not on mine.  I also felt, at that point, that by visiting her, I could be risking my own safety if she told my mother I was coming.

I had so much running through my head last night and couldn’t get myself together, so I e-mailed my therapist.  That in itself is a big step for me, because I rarely if ever reach out when I need it.  She e-mailed me back in the middle of the night.  I checked my e-mail around 3 AM and read her thorough response, and I knew that going back wasn’t the right thing to do.  Ultimately, she said if I had any doubt in my mind about my ability to trust these friends, that it is most important to protect myself and my new life here.  Unfortunately, when I hear/read comments like I did from my friend, my ability to trust that friend becomes damaged.  There is a disconnect somewhere and I don’t know how to fix it.  I can’t make someone understand something they are choosing not to accept.  My therapist told me I need to advocate for myself if this friend continues to play devil’s advocate; if that doesn’t work, the relationship may just not be worth the effort.  I have to put energy into my new life.  I don’t want to have to waste energy in unnecessarily deflecting dangers from my past when they can just as easily be avoided.  It’s sad.  It makes me cry just thinking about it (I’m crying as I type this damn sentence).  But I have to do what’s best for me for once.  It just bothers me that in the end, I’m once again going to look like the shitty person.

It just sucks because I feel alone as it is.  I can’t afford to lose more people.  While I have made a couple new friends, it takes a lot of time and effort to build strong relationships.  I turned down spending time with a friend today because I thought I was going to visit back home, and instead I ended up by myself.  Maybe I needed it.  Who knows.  I’m not really sure what I need.

I’m still having trouble coming to terms with my diagnosis.  I mean, I’m getting there…slowly…reluctantly.  My therapist told me that my prognosis is good.  She could have just been trying to make me feel better.  Who knows.  She said I’m intelligent and functioning; I guess that plays in my favor.  It’d just be so much easier if I didn’t dissociate.  Most ‘normal’ people don’t even understand dissociation.  How are they going to understand me?

Nothing like a little Sunday morning dissociation

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

I couldn’t really think of a title that appropriately summed up my Sunday.  I found it a little humorous, and honestly I have to laugh.  My life is so chaotic, yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.  As much as I am dealing with, I’m getting through it.  I’m learning more about myself, and about my illness every day.

It was 3:30-3:40 in the morning on Sunday when I was startled awake by someone pounding on the door.  I didn’t know who it was.  I only knew what time it was because I immediately looked at my phone.  Then banging got louder.  I went into panic mode, thinking either my mother finally found me, or she sent the police to come get me (she regularly threatened to call the police on me – so while not logical, it’s something that is ingrained in my head).  I don’t remember what happened after that.  What I can tell you is that somehow, I ended up in my closet, where I woke up/came back to reality/whatever you want to call it holding my blanket and my arms covered in scratches.  It was almost an hour and a half later; I heard a commotion outside.  I figured out who it was; thankfully, he was not my mother or the police.  I still felt unsafe and uneasy.  I didn’t find out until later that night that my roommate was not even home when the door-banging occurred; I was completely alone.  Thankfully some part of me had the sense to hide in the closet.

That got me thinking about what made that part of me hide in the closet.  I remember that my mother barricaded our closet doors so that we could not use them.  I always thought that was strange.  Who has closets and blocks them off completely?  Did I used to hide in there and that’s why she closed them off?  I wonder what it would have been like to have a closet.  Would I have been able to hide from her?  I’m sure she would have found me.  She always did.  Like a monster with eyes and ears all around her head, she knew where I was, what I said, what I did.  A closet wouldn’t have protected me.  That’s just silly.

Then again, it makes sense I would hide in a closet.  I still do a lot of things to protect myself that don’t really make much logical sense.  I’ve been doing them since childhood that they’ve become a part of my regular.  I always wear at least two pairs of underwear, sometimes even three pairs.  Does it make sense?  No.  That extra pair isn’t going to protect me.  But as a child, I’m sure I thought it was going to help.  I also always wear multiple layers of clothing, even in the summer, even if it makes me sweat.  Extra clothing makes me feel more protected and less vulnerable.  Maybe she won’t make me undress if it’s too much to take off.  Most embarrassing of all is my habit of stuffing myself with toilet paper.  I remember doing it as young as 8.  I thought if I could just block that whole area with toilet paper, she wouldn’t be able to touch me anymore; she wouldn’t be able to hurt me.  I created a literal barrier between her and my genitals.  It was so uncomfortable, but I wanted her to stop.  Of course it didn’t work.  She caught on.  I still did it, but not every day; only when I was feeling especially vulnerable.  Even in my adolescence and adulthood, when I had (and have) and ability to say no, I still find myself doing the same thing when I am feeling especially vulnerable or re-traumatized in some way.

As far as I’ve come, I am still very much a traumatized child living inside a traumatized adult.

Superman

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

The other day, one of my therapists suggested that I buy a stuffed animal to comfort my child self.  I never had a stuffed animal.  If I needed to hold onto something, I’d use a pillow.  I’m usually compliant when it comes to therapy, so that night, I checked online to see if there were any stuffed animals that caught my eye.  After ten minutes or so, I came across the perfect bear – a brown teddy bear dressed in a blue sweater with a lightning bolt, red cape, and eye mask.  It was the teddy bear version of Superman.

I knew I had to have it, so the next day, I trekked to the nearest Toys R Us and searched frantically for over a half an hour for that bear.  I even went to customer service, who could only tell me that they had it in stock and that it “must be somewhere in the store.”  I was minutes away from breaking down and crying before I finally found it, stuffed behind a bunch of ballerina bears.  I hugged that teddy bear so hard, right there in the middle of the store.  No fucks given.  That bear was mine.

You might be wondering why it was that particular bear that I needed.  As a child, I would close my eyes and hope that Superman would fly down and defeat my evil mother and save me from ever having to be hurt again.  I would look out the window, just waiting for him to fly through, at the same time trying to distract myself from the pain of the abuse.  Superman never came.  But that never stopped me.  Superman gave me hope in a hopeless situation.

Now that I am older, I know that Superman can’t save me.  I have to save myself.  In a way, I had to become my own Superman.  I took on a Superman persona.  I wore my Superman pajamas every night to bed.  I wore Superman t-shirts all the time.  I even wore a cape (out in public).  People that knew me associated me with Superman.  During a group therapy workshop a few weeks back, we had a body image exercise in which other members and therapists wrote messages on traced images of our bodies; my therapist drew the “S” and wrote Superman on mine.  Among all of the messages, it stood out the most.  I knew I wasn’t Superman.  I just needed to feel like I was in a theoretical sense.

My coworkers used to call me Superman because I could do anything.  I could unload trucks, answer any question, and complete any task with ease.  Little did they know how weak I really was.  I could lift a 200-lb grill by myself, but I didn’t have the strength to fight back my abusive mother.  While I may be physically strong on the outside, my inside is completely shattered.  There’s no point in having physical strength without the support of an internal structure.

While I have escaped, I still don’t see myself as strong.  I didn’t confront my mother.  I didn’t stand up to her.  I didn’t stand my ground.  I left in a weak way.  There was nothing Superman about that.  I’m still so broken.  Why didn’t anyone save me?

Resilience

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

Some would say it’s a contradiction for someone with PTSD to refer to themselves as resilient, since PTSD itself contradicts healthy adaptation to stress.  But you know what, I am resilient.  I don’t care who agrees or disagrees with me.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ve made up my mind.

With less than a day of being released from the hospital, I started my job.  I called them as soon as a got out of the hospital to find out if I even still had a job.  Luckily my roommate called them while I was in the hospital so they were somewhat aware (though they do not know the circumstances).  I woke up at 4:45 in the morning so I would be able to shower and get ready in time to make it to the 6:00 bus.  I was tired and in pain, but I managed.  There were a couple of times when I just had to go to the bathroom to decompress for a few minutes.  I also lost myself for I don’t know how long.  When I came back to reality, it took me a few seconds to even realize where I was and what I was doing.  I don’t think anyone noticed, thankfully.  It’s not something I wanted to happen on the first day, though.  I’m so scared of someone not understanding what’s going on.  Why can’t I just be normal and not dissociate and not have flashbacks and not have breakdowns?

Regardless of all that, you know what?  I still went to work.  I functioned like a normal human being.  I would bet my savings that a good portion of the other patients that were discharged either went right back to drugs or right back to another hospital (most of them admitted that they would).  I’m not about that life.  I want to function.  I’m fighting my hardest to be normal despite all this bullshit I have to deal with.  How is that not being resilient?

Even in childhood, I managed to adapt quite well despite everything that was going on.  I received excellent grades.  I rarely got into trouble (except the rare instances when I was tremendously bored out of my mind).  I wasn’t a complete social outcast, though I was definitely socially inept.  Perhaps being resilient hurt me in a way, because no one suspects anything bad is going on when a child is acting relatively normal.  Maybe if I did act out, someone would have noticed something was wrong.  Resiliency seems to have been a double-edged sword for me.  While it got me through to adulthood alive, it also quite possibly prolonged the abuse and trauma I experienced for so long.  But I can’t do anything about that now.

I know a lot of people think I am weak for not being able to handle myself all of the time.  My strengths far outweigh my moments of weakness.  Maybe that is my fault for not talking as much about my strengths as I do about my faults.  I believe people can learn more from me if I talk about the things that so many others don’t want to talk about.  No matter what people say, no matter what people think…I am strong.  I am resilient.  I am me.

Involuntarily voluntarily admitted

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I’m back.

A few hours ago, I was released from the psychiatric unit of my local hospital.  I had been there since Friday.  I didn’t want to go to the hospital.  In the end, I knew it was the right thing to do.

Friday night, everything just came to a head.  My flashbacks were occurring quite frequently to the point that I was becoming almost paranoid.  Looking back, my thoughts were so irrational.  I genuinely believed that my mother was going to come and hurt me.  I heard her voice in my head and I couldn’t get it out.  I didn’t feel safe.  I jumped at every little noise.  I couldn’t breathe because I had gotten myself in such a panic.  I was switching between wanting to die and wanting to find safety.  I ended up cutting myself more than I even consciously realized.  I taped menstrual pads to myself, grabbed my hoodie and my sneakers and ran out of the house.  I left the house originally planning to take a walk, hoping I would be able to find some relief.  Instead, I found myself panicking even more, constantly looking over my shoulder, running through the streets in the dark of night.  After awhile I decided to walk to the hospital.  I waited in front of the emergency room for a while still hoping the feelings would go away.  But they were still there.  I knew I had no control at that time.  So I went in.

When I first got in the ER, I was panicking. I kept telling the nurse to “please don’t let them (my family) find me, please don’t tell them I’m here.”  When I met with the social worker in crisis, she asked me if I was hiding from anyone because of what I kept saying. I told her the basics, that I left my family because they were not nice people. No one wants to hear that shit anyway.

After a few hours in the hospital, the panic began to subside.  I started to feel safe again.  I wanted to leave, but of course you can’t just do that.  If you don’t admit yourself voluntarily, they will involuntarily commit you.  Then, if you try to sign out of voluntary before you are released, they will involuntarily commit you.  So not much of a choice, is it?  The staff kept trying to tell me I was depressed.  I specifically told them I was not depressed.  It was an issue of anxiety and PTSD.  I know the difference very well.  It always seems to be a fight, though.  I was more upset at the fact that I was now going to be missing my first day of work, and I’d probably be out of a job.  All these steps forward I took and now I’d have to start over.

In the hospital, I contemplated going back home.  Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this freedom.  I don’t know.  I moved away, yet I still ended up hospitalized.  So maybe it wasn’t the right choice.  Maybe I missed something.  Maybe my mother was right.  Maybe I can’t live without her.  I just want to be normal.  But maybe I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never be normal.

It doesn’t help hat my support system is lacking.  I have no family, and while I know that is for the better, hospital staff see that as concerning.  I tried to reach out to someone on Friday night, only to be shut down.  I couldn’t contact my therapist because she was out of the country.  While my online friends are available, I often think there is a lack of understanding, especially when some of the comments they make tend to piss me off or upset me even more than I was upset to begin with.  I’m not even surprised I ended up in the hospital.  I have no one here.  I’m not even sure the people I have a distance away are supportive for me anymore.  At this point, I only have complete trust in my therapists.  Everyone else is just sort of out there outside of my protective bubble.

Going back to my hospital experience, I can’t tell you how much I dislike going into psychiatric hospitals because you have to answer the same horrible questions so many times, tell all your problems to at least one person on each floor.  It’s frustrating for me because I always struggle with whether or not I should be open about my history.  If I say I have flashbacks, they want to know of what and why.  When they ask about any abuse history, they want to know who, how, and how long.  I never know what reaction I’ll get when I say it was my mother.  I admit, the last couple of times I was hospitalized prior to this, the staff were accepting and appropriately responsive to me.  During this hospitalization, when I revealed that my mother was my abuser, the nurse made a face and asked me “Are you a lesbian?  Is your mother a lesbian?”  What? Hold up.  I just told you that my mother and father both abused me, which means my father was in the picture, which means my mother was not a lesbian.  But even then, what the hell kind of a question is that?  Saying something like that makes me feel like you are insinuating all parties involved are homosexual.  Mother-daughter sexual abuse has nothing…I repeat NOTHING…to do with homosexuality.  This assumption gets me so infuriated.  If I was a male who admitted being abused by a male, would she have asked me if I was gay?  I highly doubt it.  Sexual abuse is rarely about sexuality.  I am not a fucking lesbian.  Fuck.  If it weren’t for the fact that I hadn’t slept in about 30 hours at that point, I probably would have blown up at her.  But I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I just let it go.  It makes me rage just thinking about it, though.  Then again, I can’t blame people for their complete lack of knowledge about MDSA.  I just need to use this experience as more fuel for me to spread awareness.

I have to say, the one (and probably only) positive that came out of this hospitalization experience was seeing the psychiatrist.  This psychiatrist had a brain.  He had a concern.  He actually talked to me for a good 30 minutes, which is something I have never experienced from a psychiatrist before.  He listened to me.  He listened to my concerns.  We went over my whole lengthy medication history.  For the first time, someone is focusing on treating my PTSD.  Not depression.  Everyone always wants to shove anti-depressants down my throat.  In fact, within 10 minutes of arriving on the psych floor, they wanted me to take a dose of Celexa.  I refused.  First of all, been there, done that drug.  Second of all, these people don’t even know me or my history yet, how are they medicating the unknown?  I am glad I stood my ground, and the psychiatrist agreed with me.  I think he liked me.  He told me that I should pursue a career in psychiatry.  When I told him I wanted to be a counselor, he said “you can do both, you can do whatever.  You’re probably smarter than I am.”  This dude just met me.  What?  How does he assess me so fast?  At the end of our session, he said “I would be honored if you would be my patient.  I genuinely enjoy talking to you.  Can I shake your hand?”  It was late at night.  Maybe he needed sleep.  I don’t know.  Everyone else was saying how much of an asshole he was, but he was anything but to me.

Anyway, he prescribed me Prazosin.  It’s actually a blood pressure medication but has been used off-label to treat combat veterans returning from war with PTSD with considerable success.  He said it should help my nightmares and night terrors.  He also prescribed Topamax, which has been used in treatment-resistant PTSD (since I haven’t responded well to anti-psychotics) and hydroxyzine for panic attacks.  So far, so good.  I had no problems in the hospital.  No side effects, except for the hydroxyzine making me extremely tired.  But I’d rather be tired than in a panic.

Overall, the other patients were cool people.  I talked to everyone.  There was one girl who was a little inappropriately attached to me and the other patients were saying she was in love with me.  She may very well have been.  She was constantly sitting next to me and at one point pulled me over to the side to ask me to help her fix her bra.  She also touched me several times despite me telling her please do not touch me.  It irritated the hell out of me.  I try to be nice to everyone but between the MDSA and the nurse’s question about being lesbian, I was just not in the mood to be involved in that shit.  I knew I had to be patient and bite my tongue if I wanted to get out of there.  Acting out would have just gotten me involuntarily committed or punished with a longer stay.

Since I was doing well on the medication and had a therapy appointment already scheduled today, they released me.  I’m glad, because being in that place was not an overall positive experience.  It was very unstructured.  There were very few groups and activities, no outside time, and very little staff.  There were no individual counseling sessions and no meetings with a social worker, which I have always had in my other hospitalizations.  It just seemed very disconnected.  You never really knew what was going on.  If it wasn’t for my roommate getting in contact with my therapist for me, I don’t think the hospital would have even ever contacted her to tell her I was there.  I learned a lot of the patients were “regulars”.  With the lack of care there, I am not surprised.  Many of the patients were just homeless and needed a place to stay.  It’s sad.  The system isn’t working.  It needs to be fixed.

Four weeks

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

So, it’s been four weeks since my escape.  I’m still alive.  I’m still kicking.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t all over the place emotionally.  These last few days have been trying for me.  I had a lot of feelings about my family resurface after trying so long to keep them suppressed.  There are a lot of unresolved issues I have with people in my family that I just haven’t had the strength to deal with.  I still don’t have the strength now.  I don’t know if I ever will.  For now, my anger and sadness about it come out through my tears.

I have been on edge these past few days, and likely will be into this weekend and coming week.  As this is the four week mark, it is also the time I told my family I would be coming back home.  I haven’t had contact with my family since I left; the few text messages I received from my mother remain unanswered. I was actually relieved that her contact has been minimal.  With that being said, she hasn’t yet had the realization that I am not coming back.  People have warned me to prepare myself for her acting out.  When she realizes that she no longer has any control over me, she is not going to just concede; she is going to try to gain back her control.

While I have taken every precaution I could to make sure I am untraceable, I am still scared of her.  I am still scared she will find me.  It may be irrational, but to me, the fear is real.  The last couple of nights, I have barricaded my bedroom door before I go to sleep because I am scared she will somehow get in the house and try to hurt me.  I haven’t left the house the last few nights because I’m afraid she’ll be there, waiting for me.  I’ve had nightmares.  The other night, I became startled by a fight my roommate was having with someone.  Before I was able to process what was really going on, I began fearing that it was my mother coming for me, and I urinated on myself.  I haven’t done that since I left home.  I felt like a failure.

To add to my already increasing anxiety, I start work tomorrow.  Yes, I got my social security card just in time and was able to finalize the paperwork on Tuesday.  While the job is nothing I haven’t done before, I am anxious about being in a new environment with people I don’t know and who don’t know me.  At my old job, I often had days where I was not mentally present.  Sometimes, I was completely non-responsive, staring into nothingness; other times, I was in a child-like state.  Regardless, my close coworkers knew my situation and covered for me.  Now, I don’t have that.  What if I can’t focus enough to get my work done?  What if I break down?  What if I have a flashback while at work?  No one is going to understand what is happening.  I’m going to end up getting fired.

I really just hope I can get through these next few days unscathed.  I don’t know if I will ever get over the fear of my mother coming back to hurt me.  I can only hope that over time, the fear fades away.  I don’t want to live like this forever.

I am not my mother.

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I am not my mother.

It is such a simple sentence, yet it is an extremely difficult concept for me to embrace.

I try to avoid thinking about it as much as possible.  But when I was at a group-therapy workshop this past Sunday, I participated in a body image project that brought up a lot of those feelings.  It took everything in me not to just color over my body outline and stab the paper.  I’ve always had difficulty connecting to my body.  I’ve always had difficulty loving my body because I feel like it’s her body.

I’ve mentioned before how many people tell me I look so much like my mother.  That makes it so much harder to separate myself from her.  Aside from her being a couple of inches shorter, she has the same skin color, eye color, and stature as me.  To make matters worse, my mother consistently went out of her way to make herself look even more like me.  I believe she did it because she knew it bothered me.  It was just another way to manipulate me.

If I dyed my hair, she dyed her hair the same color.  If I got a haircut, she got a haircut, too.  She’d buy the same underwear as me.  She would even take my clothes without my permission and wear them.  I remember getting picked up from work one day last year and she was in the back of the car, wearing a familiar outfit.  It was the outfit I got for Christmas from one of my best work friends.  I didn’t even get to wear it.  When I asked her why she took it, she said it looked better on her anyway.  It didn’t even fit her.

I avoid looking in the mirror because I constantly see her, both in body and in face.  I never see myself.  If I look like her, that must mean that I am like her in every way.  It is nauseating to me.  I hate my body because it’s her body.  I hate my face because it’s her face.  I don’t know if I can get past that.  I’ve never been able to feel like anything is my own, and that includes my body.

During my therapy session today, my therapist asked me about the body image project.  I told her about my difficulty in seeing myself as separate from my mother, and how that makes it difficult for me not to hate my body because of how much I hate her.  My therapist tried to get me to realize that I was not my mother, especially on a psychological level.  Our personalities are very different.  I am also more intelligent than my mother – and that was something that she hated about me and constantly made me feel bad about.

Despite the differences, I still have a hard time acknowledging that I am not my mother.  It’s hard when you grow up in a society that judges you on your looks before anything else.  Part of me wants to make a drastic change, because now she won’t be able to copy me.  Maybe I’ll dye my hair dark.  Maybe I’ll get a new pair of glasses.  I need something to help me feel different, because knowing it isn’t enough for me.

The Letter Left Unsent

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Before I escaped, I wrote a letter to my mother.  It wasn’t the nicest letter.  I called her out on her shit, so to speak.  I also wrote that I never wanted to hear from her again.  I e-mailed a copy to myself, which I’ll paste here.  I believe I added a few things here and there, but this was most of the letter:

I have removed you from my life. Remove me from yours. Do not contact me. Do not attempt to contact me through others. Do not speak my name. You’ve spread lies about me to anyone that would listen; nothing that comes out of your mouth has ever been the truth. I’m crazy and bipolar? Newsflash – I don’t have bipolar disorder, and I’m not crazy. You are the crazy one. You say I don’t have any friends because I feel that I am better than everyone else? I never had friends because you never let me leave the house. I’m not better than anyone else – in fact, I have a hard time believing I am worthy of anything because you’ve treated me like shit for so long that I believe I am worthless. You think telling people I hurt myself makes you look better? How about you tell them that both your children hurt themselves? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both your kids are so fucked up. But it’s okay, keep acting like you’re the innocent. No matter how much I hurt myself, it will never be anywhere near as painful as all of the ways you have hurt me.

You never tell people what you’ve done. You are a histrionic, narcissistic abuser. It wasn’t enough that you took away my childhood, you had to take advantage in my adulthood, too. You are sick. One day, everyone will know who you are really are. You are not the victim you play yourself out to be. You were never the victim.

You’ve controlled me for 29 years. You will not control me anymore. You have tried to isolate me from everyone. Some have fallen for your manipulation, but others have seen you for who you really are. You should be rotting in a jail cell; instead, I can only wait for you to finally burn in Hell.

You were right about one thing – I hate you. You are not deserving of anyone’s love. You don’t even deserve to be called a mother.

I ended up editing the letter a couple of times.  After I wrote my first draft, I took a picture and showed it to a few of my closest online friends to ask if it was too mean.  Someone pointed out that I had written “please” several times throughout the paper; I hadn’t even realized.  I shouldn’t have been asking her for anything; I don’t owe her that.  I promptly changed it and added more to it, and eventually ended up with the above.  I knew I couldn’t mail it from my new address, because the postmark could reveal my location.  So I mailed it to a friend on the other side of the country.  That will REALLY throw her off.

My friend hasn’t mailed the letter yet.  She is waiting until I give her the okay.  I’m still so unsure of myself.  Is it too mean?  Am I going to hurt her feelings?  Am I a bad person for cutting off all contact?  Will this make her even more angry at me?  Can I live without her?  I don’t know.  Some days I feel like I am ready to take that step; other days I am not so sure.  How am I going to deal with the aftermath?  What do I do when someone asks me about my family?  No one wants to hear that you cut off all contact; they don’t understand that.  Either way, soon, she is going to realize that I’m not going back.  I can’t leave her with no explanation.

I’m still afraid

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I’m writing this post while at a point of complete physical and emotional exhaustion, so I will try to make sense as best I can, but I can’t make any guarantees.

I’m still afraid of my mother.

Despite being in a location completely undisclosed to my own family and friends, I am still afraid of her finding me.  I am afraid that one day I will open my front door and she will be there.  Sometimes when I hear my roommate coming up the stairs, I think it’s my mother coming to punish me.  I still have nightmares.  I’m extra vigilant about every movement going on around me, expecting my mother to come out at any moment.  When I get a call or text on my phone, I am afraid to even look, dreading that the person on the other line is my mother.  It’s not like she can reach through the phone and choke me, so why the hell I am still so afraid?

Then today, as I was participating in a group therapy session with guided imagery, my mother invaded my imagination and tried to drown me in a stream.  I immediately tried to snap myself out of it, but the damage was already done.  To me, this was just a clear indication that I am still in fear of her.  I am living my life like a person in fear.  I don’t want to live like that.  But what do I do?

I am still debating on whether or not I should cut ties completely.  I wrote my mother a letter (which I will try to post tomorrow) and mailed it to a friend (so it couldn’t be traced to my location), but she has yet to send it because I am still unsure.  How will she react to it?  Will it put me in even more danger?  I need some type of closure, but I just don’t know what is right.

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.