RealMental

I’ve set out to write something for a few days, unable to string anything together that wasn’t angry, resentful and mean. I finally came to just writing about the facts based on my perception, and that would suffice for the message I wish to convey and the need to speak my truth.

I have toiled over writing here too much about my personal life because I do not wish to cause anyone in my personal life unintended harm, even if I do not particularly like the person.

First, some background information.

Our daughter has been living with her birth mother for her 8^th grade school year, and it’s far away. From the beginning of this arrangement, she told us she missed us, and that she wanted to come home.

The outside people involved in our complicated situation told all of us that this would occur. In fact, her therapist, our therapist advised against it her going, based on the situation. Our daughter’s therapist has been in touch with her birth mother.

The agreement between the adult parties and our daughter would be that this was a temporary arrangement based on how our daughter felt about everything.

When you arranged something like this, you have to rely on faith and trusting other adults to always do what is in the best interest of the child.

It reminds me of that analogy of not trusting a snake. If it bites you once, it will bite you again and blame you for trusting them.

Right before our daughter came home for Christmas for her break, we were served with legal documents stating that her mother wanted to go back to court so that she could get full custody and child support.

My husband has primary custody that does not exclude rights of his ex-wife. Her claim is that she wanted full custody so that she could handle any medical/school/other records that came about. The current custody agreement allows her rights.

In fact, she was able to get our daughter on psyche meds and a psyche evaluation without any approval by my husband. This was a breach of the custody agreement, as she was to discuss this with him before the act, and not send a typed note after the fact.

She would later tell my husband that we weren’t supposed to have gotten the custody papers until after our daughter flew back after the holiday.

During this visit, our daughter expressed her very strong desire to come back home. It was not a surprise to us due to the fact that we’d been a family unit for eight years. We are whom she grew up with; she has friends and family here, lastly a baby brother that misses her a lot.

My husband and I met with our lawyer during the visit to find out what we should do, or if we should even be concerned. One suggestion that came about was that since we did have primary custody, we could just keep her here and send for her things later.

In fact, this is what our daughter said that she wanted to do if her mom was going to try and keep her. None of us felt very good about this option and as you can imagine a tough situation.

She spoke to her mother on the phone while here and told her she was not flying back. Her mother got angry with her, and accused us of trying to manipulate her into this.

I must point out that throughout all of the roller coaster drama we’ve had with this situation for over 8 years, my husband has always held firm to being fair, honest and never trying to do anything sneaky. In fact, it has been suggested that we might try and get a “snake” for a lawyer, but my husband is opposed to that.

The Christmas situation got cleared up (or so we thought) when our daughter’s mother promised her daughter and us that she would drop the case. We both told the mother that we had no issue with paying her child support while our daughter was living with her.

She never paid us any child support while we had our daughter, never supported her financially in any way. My husband is a stand up kind of person and didn’t feel it was necessary.

Our daughter’s mother has been unable to retain steady employment for the past 18 years; I can only assume that she is asking for child support to supplement her income. I know how this sounds and I am not trying to be petty, it is what I honestly believe based on her actions over the years.

Our daughter ended up flying back to her mother’s home and we thought all was well. We were to find out later by mail that it wasn’t ok, and her mother would continue with the custody suit. She has not put forth any efforts to communicate with us other than email and written letters.

Typically, when any type of psyche evaluation is done with a minor, all parties involved are to be communicated with including the parents she’s been with for the past eight years as opposed to only living with her mother for four months.

To leave my husband and I out of this evaluation would cause one to wonder if someone was trying to build up a case in order to gain full custody. In addition to this, she communicated false information into the psyche evaluation about my husband and myself.

On advisement, my husband wrote a letter to the person who performed the evaluation in order to correct the errors in the document.

Our daughter is in active therapy and she likes her therapist. After this therapist advised our daughter’s mother to drop the lawsuit and the pressuring our daughter on “where she wants to live,” the mother told my husband that she would be dropping it again until the summer.

She did not drop it. In fact, we’ve been in contact now with our daughter’s therapist and it appears much lying has occurred and false scenarios described in reference to our situation to the therapist.0

Our lawyer called us last week about 11am stating that we have a hearing in court right now, today. The ex flew down here to appear in court for the initial hearing. The last we’d heard from the ex was that she was dropping it again on the suggestion of our daughter’s therapist.

My husband rushed down to the court room and a temporary judgment is presented. His ex will gain temporary custody of our daughter in addition to us having to pay about 15% of his gross income a month in child support, to include back pay for the 6 months that our daughter has been there.

Hearing that kind of news, is a little like feeling your stomach being ripped out of your body through the route of your nose. Suddenly, you weigh 9000 pounds and you are filled with brick.

I called our daughter at school that day to find out if she had any idea what was going on, as well if she was ok with her mother having full custody.

She said she was NOT ok with it and her therapist recently advised her to tell her mother the truth and our daughter did this in front of the therapist.

Lucky for our daughter, there was a witness. In addition, her mother has been blocking communication between her Dad and I to our daughter. This actually began many months ago. Prior to that, our daughter could not go into a private room to speak with us it had to all be done in the company of others.

It was a very difficult decision to allow our daughter to go and live with her mother for the 8^th grade. We had been discussing this for at least three years. It was extremely painful and gut wrenching for all of us and suffice to say our summer last year was painful.

We were honoring our daughter’s request to see what it would be like to live with her mother on her own terms since she was older.

I trust that it’s been a big a good experience for our daughter to live with her mother. We were willing to accept that we could possibly lose her, as long as she was happy and peaceful. She loves her mother, but is very angry with her over this situation. Our daughter wants the freedom of choice, not to be forced by law.

The future is uncertain right now, yet my husband and I have been here before, and we are a united front. We will acclimate with the outcome whatever it will be, even if it is not the one we would choose.

The big picture is there are only a few more years before our daughter will be a legal adult and hopefully all this insanity will be behind us.

As I told my daughter when I last spoke with her, we will go to bat as far as we can even if that means we will have to live in a dumpster.

I kept thinking you would turn out to be a good person. I really wanted you to be a good person. You are so very far from being a good person.

Sometimes, denial works to our benefit until we can handle the truth. There have been stories of abuse that I’ve read about, heard directly from a person’s mouth, or seen on television that trigger my denial to say, “there is no way this could possibly be true”.

I’ve done this with you, each time pushing away all the lies and games you’ve played in the past hoping that you’re finally going to be honest, and at least try to be healthy.

Then you would do something else that makes me wonder why I trusted you yet again. I wondered how many times I would continue to believe your “word” or your “story”, saying to myself each time, “this is the last time”. A definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over
expecting different results.

I know why it’s taken me so long to stop believing that there has to be something good about you, but to reveal that would give too much away. It is unfortunate for me that I have been unable to just walk away from you, as I would with anyone else.

You are mean, selfish, sad and a liar. You are a very sick person who has no idea the extent of harm you have inflicted.

Despite my long battle, finally I have “loosed” you. Your behavior used to hurt me deeply, but no more. You keep stabbing, reaching, trying but you no longer have any place in my peace of mind.

This is the public notification of your eviction, you no longer will be renting free space in my head.

Walking the hallowed halls of my son’s school, I am faced with awkward sensations and feelings. As a human, I tend to project my “issues” outward. Therefore, it is no surprise that a much younger version of me comes out and walks simultaneously with the grown up part of me, clomping through the halls together looking like only one person.

In the beginning of the school year, I was angry that I had to experience these sensations and feelings, thinking it was unfair that I could not just walk into the school and enjoy it.

Why do I always have to look for “the dirty“? Why am I always on alert, afraid to miss a “sign”?

An old belief, built within my psyche was that, as a child if I could’ve “seen it coming” I could’ve stopped it from happening. (Or so that belief would like for me to believe).

If we just stay on alert for the rest of our lives, it’ll never happen again. Not to me, not to you, not to anybody. As most survivors know, this sets up some very stringent mental puzzles and maneuvering that make you weary from lack of rest, and close relationships almost impossible to have.

One of my favorite things when walking the halls to my son’s classroom is scanning the pictures/poems/projects that the teachers hang outside of their classrooms on the cold cemented walls. The kids’ artwork, projects, lists of things they love to do, and what they would do if they were president.

Very rarely do I ever see other “grown ups” reading them with the fervor of being at the Guggenheim as I “think” I do. Then I wonder if that means there is something wrong with me, since I don’t see other parents doing it. The voice that tries to tell me once again, I am not measuring up.

Hey voice, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Sometimes, the kids in his class tell me things that make me want to grab them up and save them from their futures. I watch them with wonderment, and I know I am not looking at them through my adult eyes, but rather the younger version of me that didn’t have the freedom to be a child when I was a child (due to being “on guard”).

I love observing children, it’s like the feeling of awe you get when you see the ocean for the first time.

Some times, the kids in my son’s class tell me things. One child recently told me that he is trying to stay out of trouble because he loses private time with his mom when he gets into trouble. One told me that they couldn’t afford napkins, she is also the one that always grabs me desperate for a hug. These things make my heart break a little, knowing it isn’t up to me to rescue every one.

This is vastly different than what I would have written a few years ago, back then I thought I could rescue them all. Each time I go, it gets better. It is a slow process, right in line with the work I am doing in therapy for this stage.

And, I do know that each one that I hug, praise, smile with or laugh with has the same chance that I did. I still remember those people in my life from my youth that made a point to stand out and listen to me. While they couldn’t save me, they certainly left their mark of kindness on my heart.

Who’s to say that wasn’t rescue enough for me? I am one of the lucky ones, I will keep surviving. Anything less would make it seem that the bad people have won. I can’t live with that.

There is something in my belly, and I finally know what it is. My belly is the storage for very intense emotions, ones that were stuffed far away not to ever be seen, or heard by anyone.

I’ve figured out that when the belly is disrupted in any way, I break out into a serious panic attack. I am certain that it’s been this way for years but I am only now becoming aware of it.

This particular panic attack from the belly region tells me to run very quickly. It begs for a sinkhole to open up on the very ground in which I stand, and to take me away this time. It begs to take me anywhere but here where the pain threatens to swallow me whole.

The lost girl stores her pain in my belly.

If I put on an article of clothing that is too tight, the belly signals the brain to run away as fast as possible because it hurts in there and we must not be reminded of that hurt.

After eating too much of a good meal, the pain signals the brain to crawl into a cave and hide where no one can see us. She is scared; she doesn’t want you to see her. If you see her, it will make it all real and she cannot possibly process everything if it is in fact, real.

My massage therapist, that I used to see on a regular basis told me that I always hold my left side closely, not letting go.

Louise L. Hay writes that problems with the left side of the body “represent receptivity, taking in, feminine energy, women, and the mother.” The stomach “holds nourishment and digests ideas.”

Not only do we store everything in our brains, but also in our bodies. Physical abuse is stored in your body, your body remembers it. This is why I get a certain type of headache around certain people, and why my shoulders lock up in my neck with certain stressful situations.

It is exactly why I used to bite my nails until they bled when I was at her house.

A frightened child who is not letting go of the pain even though it weighs her down is living in my belly. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, and doesn’t know what to do with the pain because it’s all she has.

I am grateful to have finally found her hiding place.

Now, I can invite her to come out so that I can nourish her with the kind and loving energy of a mother who soothes her frightened child.

Today, I am sharing a poem that I first read in the Sun Magazine. From their website, “Founded in 1974, The Sun is a non-profit, ad-free monthly magazine that publishes an eclectic mix of personal essays, fiction, interviews, poetry, and photographs.”

I’ve been reading the Sun for about four years and it’s never failed to inspire me. I’ve loved many of the stories, essays, poems and interviews. This poem in particular knocked me off my cosmic post.

I emailed the magazine, they forwarded my email to Eric and I am happy to say that I am publishing it here with Eric’s permission. Not only is Eric a richly talented person, but a very kind soul with lots of supporters in his corner.

Real Mental is a very special place, my hope is that all who traverse around here can find the exceptional beauty and comfort in Eric’s poem that I have.

Never mind the mistakes Mother and Father made;
the first of them may have been the decision
to make you, to bring out of Eternity’s
Waiting Room
that thing you’ve been calling your soul,
plucked like some plush toy in the Big
Claw Game of their love.
O, how they dressed you in miniature
clothes, fed you human food,
brushed your hair, mussed it up, held you
in their hands like a bright souvenir.

And during those moments
of raw anger — when they channeled their lousy
childhoods through you and railed against
all the things they never had — they cursed you

with their wish for better lives, and you could
answer their inconsolable wanting only
with your tears, until at last
they spoke with tenderness,
or something like it,
and maybe didn’t completely regret
the few lustful thrusts
that launched you into your body.

Or so you thought

until the teenage years, when you
examined every incomprehensible gift
under the sterile spotlight of what you felt you deserved
and discovered not only
did they not know you,
but you could never know them, and so you left

as soon as possible, for a bus station, a campus, minimum
wage, the first available spouse, and it’s only now, after
some time spent before the blank stares of your own
little ungratefuls,

that you remember your mother and father and
how no one else ever stood on the front porch
and called your name into the dark.

I’ve been biting my nails again, and my OCD symptoms are bulging out. My old standby is worrying about things catching on fire, although worry is probably an understatement. This fire fear began in early childhood, perhaps the result of the “great soot disaster.”

We were in the process of moving from one apartment to another, making short trips to drop off boxes. One night after a drop off, my Dad put a box on the stove. Not realizing it, he turned the dial on the stove just enough.

Not enough to start an actual fire, just enough to create a situation in which all of our stuff we’d already moved became soaked with black soot. Only a few things were salvageable.

We cleaned for days and weeks after, blowing black soot from our noses. Over the years, I would spot a piece of furniture or other item that held on to our family tragedy with remnants of black soot that would never completely dissolve.

The reason all this fun stuff is coming up, can be blamed on the fact that I am finally DEALING WITH SOME STUFF. As with everything, it’s process. Over the past year or two, I’ve been working on another layer of junk. The changes are just showing themselves.

I got it down intellectually, made progress with behavior modification, putting my money where my mouth is and walking my talk. The next step from there is bringing it down to the emotional level; that dark, ugly, and paralyzing level.

The very unpopular level most people try to avoid. We go to great lengths to avoid the emotional using alcohol, drugs, shopping, food, people, and sex, to hide behind so we don’t have to feel the onset of putrid feelings that threaten to swallow us whole.

Something I had to keep in mind is that this is another part of the process and it will pass once I’ve allowed it to have its air time.

The final step on the process will be to put it back inside where it lives, just a little bit better than how I found it.

i wish to kick you

i wish to smack you

i wish to push you

i wish to poke your eyes out

i wish to burn your hair

i wish to make you disappear forever

i reject you

i hate you

i smell you

some day

i’ll tell you

how stupid

you really are

you can’t be successful

in life, being a victim

so what you were beaten

so what if you were called names

and treated unfairly

by holding on to that

you continue to be

beaten

called names

and treated unfairly

get a clue

open your eyes

bust out of the bondage

of their control

be you

at all costs

be you

be true

then you will be free

naked, and

alone

but you will be free

and no one can

ever

take

that

away from

you

i love you