RealMental

The following is part of a recent phone conversation I had with the father. I’m not sure how this subject arose on this particular day, perhaps he felt the need to relieve himself of it, and it had nothing to do with me.

“I know your mother says that I raped her, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. When we separated, I lived in an apartment we would occasionally “see” each other. I did wake up one time and she was giving me a blow job. But, I never raped her. Ever.”

I was unsure on how to respond, and for some reason this popped out, “I’ve been told that was how I was conceived.”

He responded with “I know I was doing a lot of drinking back then, but… (He trails off)”.

Me thinking to myself, “why must he bring this up with me?”

For many years, things like this were openly discussed in my family due to lack of boundaries. I thought it was normal. I had to be told by an outsider that it is inappropriate conversation between parents and children.

Today, I feel the error that exists in the lack of boundaries. I feel it in my heart, my insides, and my mind.

The process of putting names and/or labels on certain issues helps to reduce my anxiety and to let them go more easily.

When I started going through my bag of funk, I was confused about what everything was and how to sort it all out. One of the first symptoms I noticed was that being in the company of certain people made me feel icky. It’s been a long process of learning to listen to that voice inside.

Not only were the feelings overwhelming, but also I had no idea of how to put words to what I felt. I was my own mobster tying a cement block to my leg and throwing myself in the river repeatedly, never knowing why.

I cannot control other people, god forbid. What I can control, is my thoughts, and how I allow outside things effect me.

It was 1986 and I’d just graduated from high school. I was seventeen years old. Within one week, I moved out of my mother’s house. She was kind enough to buy me luggage as a graduation present.

I was thrilled, excited, and scared with finally being free from my mother’s domain. Despite my sheer joy from being out of her house, I had no idea what to do with myself.

My three of my best friends (two girls and a guy) and I drove to the beach after graduation. I had serious plans for the trip, to get as drunk as humanly possible and to stay that way for a week.

Somehow, we managed to procure some wacky weed from a Burger King along the way to the beach. (We had no previous knowledge of this Burger King with a wacky weed salesperson inside. It was luck.)

One night after we’d been there a few days, we were all at the pier and we met some guys. Before long, these boys followed us girls back to the condo. (Our guy friend was straight, so no boys for him!)

I was beyond drunk and out of my mind. I was fighting the establishment and man was I pissed. Funny how my anger only served to harm me, never anyone else.
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This story is re-tooled from a post on my personal blog, and illustrates the importance of finding the right therapist. Unfortunately, sometimes that requires some trial-and-error. You’ll have to excuse the overuse of CAPITAL LETTERS in this post–it was right before my hysterectomy, and aside from the emotional/mental turmoil in our lives at that time, I was hormonal, in pain, and frightened to death about what was to come. Just setting the context.

Today, Alex and I saw our new “potential” therapist, for about the third time. And we frightened the living wampus out of him. I kid you NOT. He is not our new “potential” therapist any more, though he is not yet aware of that.

We have been with a psychologist that we both like VERY much for over three years. He’s local, accessible, “gets” us, KNOWS OUR RIDICULOUSLY INTENSIVE “HISTORY”– much of which you would not believe in a million years even if I decided to tell every bit of it to you, which I most certainly ain’t gonna–and most importantly of all, we always leave his office feeling better, like a weight’s been lifted off our shoulders, than we did when we went in. He’s not an M.D., but he is a doctor, and he practices the type of therapy that is said to be most effective with bipolar patients (those who, like Alex, are stable enough for therapy to be helpful–never ask me how much therapy money we tossed down the proverbial rat-hole without FIRST achieving chemical stability–ever), and he seems to keep up with peer-reviewed studies and texts that are current in the profession. He sees us both as a couple and individually, depending on whatever that session’s circumstances seem to dictate, and he’s quite intuitive as to what issue most needs attention at any given time, and then getting to the meat of it, and helping us work it out. Read more »

she used to beat us with anything she could get her hands on. she was angry, my god she was angry. with each blow, you could feel the anger piercing your heart, your mind, and your soul.

grabbing my hair was her signature move. her strength was amazing. she would literally pick you up by your hair and slam you into a cabinet, a door, whatever was close.

her suppressed anger and rage from being physically and sexually abused as a child would be unleashed upon her children. why did she hate me so much? i must have been an awful child to cause this reaction in her. i was bad. very, very bad.

she did it to all of us. belts, spatulas, her hand, anything she could grab at the time. her rage, much like an alcohol induced blackout blinded her.

one particularly bad memory stems from her nervous breakdown. i was about 12 or 13 at the time and had no idea. by no fault of anyone else’s i took responsibility for this. it’s just what i did.

she threw a rocking chair at me, shortly after she told me she wished she’d had an abortion. (i was the product of my biological father raping her while they were separated, who would have blamed her for having an abortion?)

as an adult, i confronted her. she went into a rage and denied involvement. confronting her was not anything i wanted to do. with some therapy under my belt, it came to be that i should discuss it with her. not to rub her nose in it, but in order to help both of us heal. even as an adult i was afraid of hurting her. and, to bring up such a thing would surely hurt her.

about two years ago i was doing some internal work and i had a vision. a vision of myself carrying around hot burning coals in my bare hands. i knew the coals represented her baggage. in the vision, i spoke out loud to tell her that i could no longer carry her coals anymore. i put them down by a tree and walked away.

that felt good, but i wasn’t completely sure what it meant until my mind had time to process the information. this after 14 years of trying to make sense out of things. i was breaking the tie in which i felt responsible for her happiness.

i’ve had headaches for all of my life. i’ve seen all kinds of doctors and specialists but no end of the headaches. it dawned on me recently to mention this to my doctor that as a child, i received many blows to the head. he began treating me armed with that information, and my headaches are now few and far between.

i write to clarify my history, not to hang her out to dry. it isn’t an act of rebellion to “make her pay”. in all honesty, i already went through that stage. this one is different, in that it has everything to do with me and nothing at all to do with her.