Sociopathic Blindness (A letter to my father)

I’ve been crying on and off for many hours today. I wish you could see and understand why. I wish you could see how far-reaching your actions are. I wish I could open your sociopathic eyes and you could really see the damage you’ve done. But therein lies the problem: you are a sociopath. You don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. But I wish so much that I could pry your mind open so your eyes and your heart could see.

I wish you could see how much your entire family struggles because of your actions. Your brother has lost his faith, one of your sisters was nearly homeless at one point even while she was critically ill. Your oldest two children unable to work, one (me) directly because of what you did, the other indirectly. I can’t say anything about your two younger children because they chose to remove themselves from my life—due to your actions. All five of your grandchildren are struggling. Two have been homeless, another is on the verge of it. One is on disability directly because of your actions. One of your grandchildren has no money for food and is immobilized by depression and anxiety so hasn’t applied for food stamps. He’s so immobilized that he doesn’t care if he has no food and actually considers it to be a possible means of suicide, just letting himself fade away. Today I especially wish you could see that! I wish you could see how scary it is for this mother to see her child in such a horrifying place in life.

I wish you could see how your actions ripple out to those around us. My ex-husband and his family, my current husband and his family. My friends—and for a couple of them, their families. My therapist, who has cried for me on numerous occasions. People who treat our bodies and our minds. Your actions affect people in this community, this state, this entire country who have never met any of us—every person in this country who pays taxes so your children and grandchildren have shelter and food and a meager existence.

I wish you could see how ridiculous it is, how ridiculous it often feels to be proud that I haven’t been in the hospital in years and haven’t cut or burned or been in respite in over a year. I wish you could see how much I struggle just to make sure my top two priorities in life right now happen: eating a clean, wholesome, healthy diet and getting out for a walk every day. Some days I can still barely manage much more than that. I shouldn’t be reveling in not cutting myself when things feel so out of control. I shouldn’t be reveling in crossing off every item on my piddly daily list of tasks. I should be reveling in attending my 100^th, 300^th, 500^th birth. I should be reveling in the way my fruit and vegetable garden would be looking this time of year. I should be reveling in the amazing things my children should be able to do.

I wish you could see the pain in our lives and on our faces. I wish you could have seen me sobbing uncontrollably at times today, and sighing and shuddering still, tears in my eyes. I wish you could have seen my husband trying to console me, holding me and asking if there was anything he could do. I wish you could read the words of my two best friends as they offered their love and support online today.

But even if you were right here with us you wouldn’t see it. Your sociopathic brain will never let you believe you’ve done anything wrong or see the damage that wrong has done. But really, the saddest thing is that you also don’t get to see how we are all moving forward in life. You don’t get to see your third grandson learning a trade he enjoys. You don’t get to see me healing so much that I can think about ending therapy, that even when the thought of harming myself shows up I refuse to do it because I know it makes things worse and it lets you win. You don’t get to see your son’s amazing faith in God in spite of all the damage you’ve done. You don’t get to feel the relief I have knowing that even though one of my children doesn’t even care if he eats, his brother is starting to be a productive, happy person. The very saddest thing is that you don’t get to see us live.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I made it through all that without crying! All day the post was writing itself in my head and I kept crying over what I might write. I’m really thankful not to be in tears again.

Five Years

Today is my father’s arrest anniversary for the heinous things he did to my niece. It feels more like a non-event to me than anything, really. I do think working up to this day probably has a lot to do with some rapid switching that’s been going on, though. Even though the day feels so much less heavy, we do feel it. Fairly often these days, I find myself wishing he would just pass away so I could find out if there is a trust fund set up for me. I don’t want him to die some horrible death, I just wish he wasn’t around anymore, with or without a trust fund.

Anyway, I’m really proud of how far I—we—have come in the past five years. Even though it’s more like a movie in my head these days, I can still remember the moment that night when my brother said he knew our father had hurt me as well as my niece. I can see the the floor rushing up to me as I collapsed in a sobbing heap, recognizing my truth instantly. I can hear my brother’s voice, feel his arm around me. I can hear him telling the other people in the room to come to me, come support me. And they did. That night five years ago it felt like my world was shattering and falling together all at once.

So much has happened in these five years. So many changes. I’m much more whole than I ever was before I started remembering things, because I can work through the truth and heal from it. The truth can be hard to face but I’m a better person know that I know it and can work through it as it smacks me in the face. As the saying goes, we’ve come a long way, baby. It’s hard not to think of how far it seems there is to go, but I’m thankful for what I’ve got so far.

The Good, Good Life is Just a Dream Away

Several mornings ago I had a dream that, thankfully, I was able to write down after I woke up. Considering that my father’s arrest anniversary is in a  month, the dream isn’t all that surprising. It contained several recurring elements.

I was at what is now my former stepmother’s (STM) home for a get-together with some of my family and some of her family. It felt awkward at first since it was the first time seeing STM or her family since my father was arrested. One of STM’s sisters was talking to me, asking how I was and such. We were getting food on the table for a big meal.

It was as if my father were dead. STM’s sister or someone from her family handed me a box of pictures and mementos. I was triggered and intrigued at the same time. The person said, “He wanted you to have these.” I wanted to look through them but I knew I might fall apart so I set them aside for later. There were also Christmas gifts that STM’s sister was handing out. My younger half-brother was there but I didn’t have a chance to talk to him at all.

At some point I was outside helping my grandmother navigate some rough terrain to the door of the house. She surprised me by being able to handle it even though she purposely made it look to people like she couldn’t do such things.

Then my father showed up. As usual, it phased no one but me. He seemed pretty pleased with himself to not be in prison when he knew I thought he still should be. He was proudly showing me improvements they’d made on the house.

We were standing on a porch that went over a rushing creek. There was no rail on the porch yet. Amazingly, I wasn’t afraid of the water. I kept wishing he’d fall in the water and drown, as I’d seen about someone on a news story recently. Then I was watching him fall off the porch and hitting his head on a rock in the creek. The water was no longer rushing; it was was now just meandering. I watched to see if he’d get up. When he didn’t, I watched to see if the water was deep enough to cover his face. (He was lying flat on his back.) When I was satisfied that the water sufficiently covered his face, I turned around and left. I didn’t tell anyone what had happened because I wasn’t sure if I had pushed him or not. When someone asked if I knew where he was I said I hadn’t seen him. My actions (and inactions) definitely made it seem like I had pushed him into the creek.

I think the most bizarre thing about this dream is how detached I’ve felt from it. It’s obviously a disturbing dream, yet I didn’t wake up afraid or even unsettled like I normally would. I still feel quite detached from it. When I woke up and was able to write the dream down I was quite dissociative, trapped in derealization. While I jotted down the dream my cat Abi came to me and was rather insistent on nudging me, licking and nibbling my fingers, licking my face. She only licks my face when she knows something is wrong. I shooed her away and wrote this:

“Having one of those moments where I wonder if I’m in a dream. Is Abi really in my lap purring or am I dreaming it? Is she really almost six years old with her six-year-old kitty face in my hands or am I dreaming that she grew up? Is she only a dream?!  Is she really real? Am I going to wake up and find out she never existed?”

The derealization as well as depersonalization and just not feeling all here have been quite bothersome lately. Either I was dealing with this less for a while or I’m really noticing it these days. It makes perfect sense that it’s happening but it’s unsettling. Even though the dream has not felt that way. It worries me in a way, if that makes any sense. What I do know is that I’m going to lie down to sleep soon and I really hope I don’t have an unsettling dream. Or one that isn’t when it seems like it should be.

**Props to anyone who knows the song reference in the title. Without Googling.

Birthday + Anniversary = Varying Degrees of Chaos

I’ve been wanting to write but have a hard time churning out posts like some of you do. And sometimes I feel like what I have to say doesn’t matter. I know what you’re thinking and what some of you will probably say: that anything I have to say is worthwhile. There’s been a lot of feeling inadequate and less than others lately and it spills out into my blogging. I see some of you writing about therapy and healing and my words feel inconsequential before they even hit the page. But at least I can identify that a lot of this is feeling below you all. And I know it has to do with the title of this post.

My mother’s birthday is in a couple days. Even though our brief attempt at reconnecting didn’t work out for me, I still wish that I could write to her and tell her I want the best for her and that I hope she has a lovely birthday. I can’t do that because I can’t deal with the possibility of her starting to write letters again and the craziness that comes with that. But I honestly do hope her birthday is special. She had her faults and could definitely be abusive, but I extend far more grace than my brother seems to be willing to do, because I know she was abused and victimized growing up and then with my father. I’m sending you peace, PSD. You deserve that.

And then there’s the upcoming anniversary that has been causing so much chaos for us lately. In a month it will be five years since my father’s arrest for hurting my niece. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. He has been out of our life for five years! And yet he’s still so very present. The anniversary discombobulates us in general but it also has a few of us very much not okay. Robert has made physical threats toward this body, both regarding self injury and worse. Rhiannon is filled with guilt about not taking care of him “properly” and well enough to keep him from harming my niece and therefore getting arrested. She’s also stuck in one of her cycles of feeling like she’s not taking care of DH well enough, since taking care of the men in her life is her job, but also sad that it’s her lot in life to do this. And then she feels guilty for thinking such a thing when taking care of the men in her life is her job. *sigh* She’s actually considered purging since it’s a way she can have control over something. That is something we absolutely need to avoid since 1) it can spiral out of control so quickly, and 2) purging makes the gag reflex go into hyperdrive for us and the simple act of coughing turns into a mad dash for the bathroom.

Lately there’s so much desire from a handful of us to do some sort of damage to the body that I’m finding it harder and harder to keep everyone under control. I think about respite and even the hospital. If Robert goes beyond just berating me and threatening dire harm and starts making plans, I will be booking it to the ER and requesting a psych bed. It feels overwhelming to have to take care of everything like this. I don’t quite know how to delegate responsibility. How on earth do you delegate responsibility?!

There are things I want and need to be doing with myself and all of this chaos is making it rather difficult. Everything is so up and down.  I am–we all are–having a harder and harder time tolerating it. Just keep swimming, right?

Okay, I Hear You!

Trigger for language and brief mention of threat of violence.

For several months now I’ve considered reconnecting with a few members of my bio-family. I had pretty much decided to get the ball rolling sometime this month or maybe next month, with some very firm boundaries in place. Thinking about it has been both exciting and nerve wracking. With Christmas and now the New Year past, there’s been a lot of anxiety, worry and agitation throughout the system. I worry about how to make it work for me in a way my family members can live with as well. I wouldn’t want to start something with them and have to pull away like I’ve had to do a couple times already; I don’t feel that’s fair to them. Yes, it would be taking care of me and everyone else in the system but I don’t want to hurt my family by being what might appear to be wishy-washy. For me, it’s better to keep my distance unless I know everyone in the system can handle it.

I know there’s been some dissent from a couple of us about this and this morning I discovered how strongly someone, Robert, feels about it. And for Robert it’s not a matter of “I’ll be damned if you’re going to reconnect with people who trigger you, some who seem to be in a lot of denial about what happened to you and in their own lives.” No, Robert doesn’t want me to connect with my family because he doesn’t want me comparing notes and/or talking about what the father did to us. Robert has an allegiance with the father and shows it in emotionally and physically damaging ways. And he has been part of some serious su*c*de attempts so I have to take him seriously and keep things safe and level for him to the best of my ability.

Especially in light of an email he sent our therapist around 3:00 a.m. yesterday. I discovered this shortly before I had to leave the house this morning, when I saw an “undeliverable email” message in my inbox. I’m pretty sure it got kicked back because of the clinic’s internet/email filter–practically every other word was the F-bomb. So then I had to leave the house to do the monthly grocery shopping while worrying that Robert could do something drastic, all the while trying to figure out the best way to discuss it with our T. As it turned out, when I got back from shopping I was completely wiped out from my pain medicine combo and from being so switchy. I had no choice but to take a nap. When I woke up I was talking to one of my best friends about it and she convinced me to leave a message for our T even though I was feeling so messed up. I also sent T an email explaining better than the phone message could what about was going on, and I included what Robert had tried to send her with the filter-hating language removed.

Here is what he wrote, exactly as he wrote it. If you’re wondering why he keeps saying he’s Robert, it’s because my addled brain let me call him Richard in therapy on Monday. There were reasons it happened but I sure won’t make that mistake again!

Robert. I’m fucking ROBERT. Richard fucking makes sure no man hurts her. I will fuck her up if I need to. I made the collage, not fucking Richard. She’d better not start talking to the family comparing notes and asking what they know. I’M FUCKING ROBERT!!!! She’s lucky she’s still around. What a worthless piece of shit.

I guess it’s time for Robert to do some therapy work. Or some kind of work. A couple of years ago he did a two-page collage with magazine words and some pictures and I pulled that out today to see if I could get a glimpse into Robert’s head and also in the hope that he’ll say more, write more, anything more. Somehow he has to figure out how not to be so aggressive and berating and downright abusive to me. Even though he hasn’t done any major physical damage in quite awhile, I can’t help but worry we’ll be in a hospital bed like we were a little more than three years ago when he contributed to a rather serious su*c*de attempt. We can’t have that again.

I’m not angry at Robert, I know there are reasons he has such an allegiance to the father and reasons why he can be emotionally abusive in very much the same way as the father. He obviously has a purpose and somehow we need to make that purpose work entirely for good. I hear you, Robert. I hear you and respect you and we will work through this stuff. It won’t be easy but if you keep this body safe I will keep you safe. That’s a promise.

Thankful on Thursday

Christmas is past–I hope you all made it through okay.

Today I’m thankful that I made it through Christmas amazingly well. Yes, some stuff caught up to us, but all in all, things were good. It was another year of reinventing, recreating, and that worked so well for us and DH. We had less trouble than last year and what a difference that makes. It was neat to start a couple new traditions and also think about what I’d like to do differently next year. The best part was having both my sons here for the first time in five years. I am blessed.

You made it through the holiday! Revel in that!

It’s Catching Up to Us

Christmas, that is. I’ve worked hard this year to continue reinventing certain days, including Christmas. And I’ve done a pretty good job of it. But I also knew Christmas has been slowing catching up to us and I think it finally caught us. I laid down to try and sleep and was hit by intrusive memories bordering on flashbacks. Opened my eyes and the dark room still felt too much like the rooms I grew up in. I can’t help but go to a particular Christmas and think on how I had to give certain gifts to my father each year. Memories of my grandfather play into it as well.

The simplest things can turn crappy rather quickly. DH and I were talking about the goodies I made over the past couple weeks and I mentioned that I’m no longer able to make my favorite Scandanavian almond cookies, both because we now know I have an anaphylactic allergy to almonds and also because my father loved them so much. I ended up feeling very panicky and on the verge of tears but I was able to steer myself away from the panic somehow, although I was shaky and triggered for a few hours. It’s still hard to see Almond Roca in the stores this time of year, since this is his favorite candy and I used to give it to him every December for his birthday.

The Nativity set in our living room feels a bit sinister these days because of him too. In turn, certain Christmas songs and Sunday school songs that we’ve been hearing are a problem. This religious stuff especially bothers Rachel, who dealt with his religious abuse.

I’m in tears as I write this and even though we’ve come a long way in the past few years, at this moment I feel like the weight of the abuse is heavier than all the good we’ve done to overcome it. I know it won’t always feel this way, it’s just how Christmas has caught up to me, to us. Separating myself from my family and doing so many things to reinvent certain parts of life helps a lot but sometimes the memories and flashbacks take over and whomp us. I knew Christmas would catch up to us and I’d be writing this post. I just hope I can get some decent sleep these next few nights. Thank goodness for sleeping pills.

Thankful on Thursday

I meant to start this the week after Thanksgiving but here I am now, anyway. Better late than never, right?

Today I’m thankful for the joy I’ve been able create and enjoy for the winter holidays. The apartment looks very festive and several kinds of goodies have been made so far. Tonight when it gets dark I’ll light some candles outside in jars to bring light to the longest night of the year and I’ll spend some time thinking about how I can bring light and joy to the people around me in the next year. DH and I will spend time on Christmas Eve with his family, which will be noisy and certainly overwhelming at times, but also sweet and beautiful. And my sons will be with us for Christmas for the first time in five years. We don’t have much but we have so much more than many people and I know how blessed we are.

I’m especially thankful for the sweet thing my often-aloof husband said the other night. I had just baked his favorite chocolate crinkle cookies. He thanked me for baking them, looked around the living room at the tree, lights and other decorations, gave me the little grin only he can give and said, “I like Christmas because you make it so good.” Gloria may be the only Christian in the system but together we work to make the winter holidays special not only for me/us but for DH and everyone else who might enter our home. I’m so thankful I have been able to redefine and recreate the holiday season for myself and my family.

New light is coming! Enjoy it!

Ugh

I’d say it’s official that I’m in a fibro flare. Great timing, body. Grrr. Not surprising though, with my father’s birthday last week and now Christmas coming. Well, I hereby give myself permission not to make all of the goodies I was planning if I can’t manage it. I’ll do what I can but I also know better than to push myself too much during a flare. I’ve become better and better at handling flares, which is a very good thing. As I like to say, could be worse and I’m thankful it’s not!

A lot of emotional stuff adds to the flare. It’s not just my father’s birthday and the busy-ness of the season. It’s also the now-usual December intrusive memories and flashbacks. Bedtime can feel rather iffy. As in, who knows if we’ll be able to fall asleep without something on the TV–or at all. When things settle down for the night, that’s when emotions and memories start popping up. Christmas is triggering!

And there’s positive stress too. Working hard at redefining the holiday season for this system and my little family (me/us, hubby, my sons). The very wonderful thing of having my sons around. Positive stress hits my body almost as hard as negative stress. Hopefully things won’t get too bad or last too long with this flare and I can enjoy the rest of the month and not feel guilty about things I end up not being able to do.

Wishing you all a peaceful week!

Precious Babies Lost *trigger for loss*

This post talks about pregnancy loss.

I had an unsettling dream when I was napping this afternoon. I dreamed I was with my grandfather at a World War II memorial that doesn’t exist in real life. I kept thinking how difficult it was to be spending time with him after all the horrific things he did to me but I was doing my best to be nice to him. There was a temporary exhibit at the memorial for people who had lost babies in any way. You could take these tiny little cloth babies and add them to the display so everyone could honor/pray for/etc the babies people had lost. Each was about 2 inches long, just a stuffed piece of fabric for the face and body with cute “blanket” wrapped around it. I took three of them and wrote their names on little cards that got pinned to the wall. Honor, Willamette and True–which is what I really have named three babies I lost. I feel the dream has let me know it’s time to write about these lost babies.

Less than a year after I got my first period I became pregnant and was forced to deal with [triggering link!] the “problem”. This baby’s name is Honor because he or she gave up their life without having a choice. Even though I get incredibly angry and sad at times about the loss of Honor, I know the ramifications of raising a child fathered by my own father would have been complicated and intense.

Willamette got his or her name from where my first husband and I were living at the time. Willamette was a happy surprise, conceived while I was taking birth control pills. There’s no way to know why he or she wasn’t meant to join us but at about 11 1/2 weeks along his or her time with us was over. Even though we hadn’t been planning on having a baby yet, after losing Willamette we decided to go ahead and get pregnant again. About 4 months after losing Willamette, I found out I was expecting my older son, who was born wonderfully healthy.

When that healthy boy was 13 months old and I was again on the Pill, my period didn’t come when it should have. We wondered what was going on but it wasn’t until I had what at first seemed like the period from hell that we realized what had happened. Two years after the first birth control baby and loss, it was happening again at what would have been about six weeks along. I named this baby True because the truth was revealed to us only after he or she was already lost. One of the hardest things about losing True was being at my former mother-in-law’s home at the time for a weekend visit. Not only was this not at all the place where I would want to be miscarrying, we didn’t feel we could tell her what was going on. Even though I was on the Pill, we felt she would be upset that we had “let” a pregnancy happen.

I know the dream only mentioned Honor, Willamette and True but there are two other lives I want to tell you about. I debated whether I should bring either of them up but they are both losses to me even though they can’t be scientifically proven.

When I was newly-pregnant with my younger son I had the exceedingly strong sense that I was carrying twins. Yeah, I know, “intui-twins,” how could I possibly know? For well over a month after I had a positive pregnancy test the sense was unshakeable, then there was a huge feeling of unease for a few weeks. When I discussed it with my husband he thought it was interesting but pretty much left it at that. I brought it up to my midwife as well and she was more receptive to the idea that I could know such a thing even before there could be a physical indication to us. As the pregnancy went on, it became clear that there was just one baby and my midwife and I discussed the possibility that there had been twins and one had passed away early on. For years I didn’t speak of it to anyone again because I was worried people would think I was crazy. Then, several years ago, I mentioned it to my younger son. We were talking about DH and I wishing to have a baby–a much younger sibling for my son and his brother. When I told him my sense that he had been a twin he said that for some time he had felt like someone was missing. It was an intense conversation with tears from both of us and it made me even more certain that my sense had been correct. And that is when Gemini got his or her name. Not only because it is the astrological sign of the twins, but because that is my younger son’s sign!

Hope is the name of the baby that never was, or maybe never was. I’ll never know. I’ve written quite a few times about the pain of not being able to share parenthood with DH. We did try quite diligently to conceive before conceding that it was not the best choice for us. I know a good deal about optimal timing and other things that improve the chance of conception and there were a good number of months when every aspect was ideal. Except that for the past several years even with everything perfect for conception, unbalanced hormones may have prevented a conception from getting beyond that point. I can’t know whether Hope was actually conceived or was just our wish but she is still a baby lost because we didn’t get to have her. I say “she” because somehow that’s what I’ve always envisioned for us, a sweet little girl with strawberry blonde hair like her daddy’s.

Each of these babies are dear to my heart even though I didn’t get to meet them. I love them all in their own way. Gloria believes they are in heaven waiting to be met. I’m not sure what I believe about heaven but I do believe we are cosmically bound together. They are my children and I’m honored to share with you my brief time with each of them. Now that I’ve had a tubal ligation I’ve been able to heal more from these losses and the fact that there will be no child for DH and me. Writing about the babies is part of that. Thank you for sharing in it with me.

Not only is this precious bundle baby very close to what I saw in my dream, it was created just an hour away from where Willamette and True were conceived!