Month: October 2013

I Cannot Write You a Happy Ending, Part One: By Slatewoman

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I Cannot Write You a Happy Ending, Part One: By Slatewoman

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Slatewoman” is a pseudonym.

Mental illness and addiction play a huge role in my life from childhood until now, and in the failure of my Homeschool Experience. (I wanted Homeschool Experience to sound like some kind of 70’s psychedelic progressive rock opera.)

My mom has been bi-polar for as long as I can remember, but she was diagnosed when I was 10. I remember when she started taking medication for it and things got bad. Real bad. This was back before many long-term studies had been done on the medications she was given, and she was given just about every one under the sun between then and now. Before she used to be unpredictable, she would stay in bed for days at a time and sometimes get a lot more angry than should have been expected for whatever the situation was.

I remember her staying up late with me when I was of pre-school age, teaching me how to read.

Those are the last positive memories I have of her.

Somewhere in 3rd grade, she dropped the ball and officially gave up on my homeschooling (my dad is out of this story almost completely because he was self-employed during most of my childhood and not involved in my schooling or as I’m starting to learn, not even aware of the things that went on when he was at work). I tried to keep it going on my own, with a card table set up in the back room of my grandma’s house where my family was currently living (we were in the process of a semi-long-distance move), dicking around with my multiplication flash cards and never really picking anything up.

Without guidance, I floundered and was unable to make any progress. I became frustrated and quickly gave up on learning and maintaining self-discipline. I just turned 30 and I’m still sketchy with multiplication and long division makes me cry. I’ve worked out some kind of bizarre system using fingers and break-downs to figure every day math, I can go grocery shopping and estimate almost to the dollar.

As a family, my mother’s mental issues… well, we are starting to suspect that she has borderline personality disorder, something I frequently dismiss as a thing to slap on unruly teens so they can be prescribed something to make them more docile and less annoying to their parents, but my mother is in her late 50s and has displayed the same behaviour her entire life. As far as I can tell (I’m an armchair psychologist, one of the few things I’ve studied seriously on my own time), she’s a “textbook case”. She self-medicated with marijuana which I believe is detrimental to her ability to learn to manage her issues.

My childhood is crammed full of memories of my parents fighting and what I now recognize as my mom manipulating me to turn against my father.

She thrives on conflict and wants everyone on her side. My younger sister and I have been enemies for most of her life. Recently we’ve reconciled and become good friends, we go out and do things together frequently. Mom sees this and is angry because a long time ago, she decided that I’m the Antichrist, his own bad self (in recent years she’s become hyper-christian and she knows I’m now an athiest, which doesn’t go over well) and that I’m going to turn my sister against her.

What our mom doesn’t know is how deeply she traumatized my sister and that she has been against her long before she and I ever became friends.

My mom is, as far as we know, dying of terminal cancer. She’s well outlived she life-expectancy  and we’re beginning to wonder if the doctors are wrong in their diagnosis because she’s been stagnating at this low level of functionality for so long.

It may seem like I’m demonizing her when she’s actually a sick person, but there has to be a line drawn. I can’t think of any illness that would excuse the level of emotional trauma she has inflicted on my sister and I and the way she’s tried to tear the family apart. Ironically, it all backfired on her and the dynamic now is that my sister, my dad and myself have formed a protective, non-judgmental pod against her attacks.

 I would assume that any regular reader of H.A would understand this  highly dysfunctional dynamic and not blame me for writing unkind things about my dying mother.

As a result of a difficult childhood and bad genes, I’m also full of problems. I’ve had suicidal ideation since I was 12, been self-harming since I was 10 (which I’ve stopped in recent years because my mom started to do it herself, thereby ruining it for me.) and am almost unable to function in normal society.

When I was 16, I was taken to a psychologist and given one of those fill-in-the-bubble forms. I can’t recall how many pages it was, but it felt like I was taking one of those online tests to find out which elemental fairy best represents me. Well, turns out that this test said that I was clinically depressed, had an enormous problem with anxiety and was on the paranoia spectrum. Low, but on it nevertheless. I’ve been tracking my mentality for years now and I see definite patterns.

I will be at the end of my rope, ready to go take a fat OD out in the woods somewhere, and a job will appear! A place to live will appear! Everything will be ok! And eventually life will begin to wear on me again, I’ll rage-quit my job and have to move back into my family home which I both love and loathe.

See, my family is not religious, but we are old-fashioned and we want to look after one another.

I love my sister and my dad, I want to be with them. Last time I lived on my own, I was massively depressed because I was not with them and felt like I was being forced away by my mom. Unlike a lot of homeschoolers, that doesn’t manifest in a harmful manner and apart from my brain problems, I can get by fine in the outside world, I just don’t like it. I can have healthy relationships, both platonic and intimate, sometimes a mixture of both…  the fact that I’m close to my family doesn’t make me the 30 year old creep living in the My Little Pony bedroom of their childhood.

I’m not a big fan of self-diagnosis, but after tracking things for so long, it’s fairly apparent that I’m bi-polar and that the paranoia (the paranoia, not my paranoia) has ramped up considerably. It’s not so much that the little green men are listening to my brain waves, but that everyone is turning on me and what many people consider conspiracy theories don’t sound so outlandish to me.

I can sense it.

Sometimes I know when i’m being irrational, sometimes I can’t tell because the things I worry about are so boring and every-day. My boss doesn’t like me. They’re all trying to push me out so I quit instead of them having to fire me. And you know, it’s worked. I’ve never been fired from a job because I’ve left before anyone had a chance to. Perhaps if I had just not listened to my own brain and my own senses, I would still have a job. Perhaps I might have moved up to a better position.

But see, I’m starting to rant a little bit and I’m trying to keep this concise.

I have no life skills because I never went to public school and learned how to play the weird games society plays and didn’t learn them anywhere else.  

I don’t know how to deal with authority because neither of my parents are authoritarian types. In fact, I absolutely loathe any sort of authority and am a borderline anarchist. It’s just that I see that an anarchist reality would quickly collapse upon itself and hierarchies would become established, like it or not. Therefore, I mostly see myself as a nihilist, if you really want to know.

My inability to function in the big bad world has led me to do some stupid things.

Part Two >

That Selfish Depression: By Quick Silver Queen

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That Selfish Depression: By Quick Silver Queen

HA note: Quick Silver Queen blogs at The Eighth and Final Square. This story is reprinted with her permission. Also by Quick Silver Queen on Homeschoolers Anonymous: “All My Fault, Not Good Enough” and “My Regret”.

Depression, in my folks’ house, was deemed “selfishness”.

It was a result of thinking too much about yourself and not enough about other people. (All mental disorders, according to my parents, were just a product of bad/selfish choices.) Of course my dad was allowed to be depressed, but nobody else was…we were supposed to put on a happy mask all the time, regardless of our true feelings.

I thought when I left my parents’, everything would be great. And it was, for about ten months. For those ten months I was the happiest I can ever remember being. Then I got unexpectedly pregnant when I didn’t want to be (I wanted to wait a few years), and I immediately fell back into depression. Partly because of the pregnancy hormones I’m sure, and partly because that wasn’t the direction I wanted my life to go at that time.

I felt guilty because I shouldn’t be depressed; life wasn’t as bad as at my folks’, so I didn’t have a right to be depressed, right?

After Ari was born my depression got even worse… it was so bad that I didn’t even want to move or get out of bed. Ari was literally the only reason I got out of bed in the morning, because I had to take care of her. I realized that something was seriously wrong and I needed to get help, so I set up an appointment with a “therapist”, who I never went back to — she spent half the time talking about her kids, and half the time actually talking about me.

After that I was really skittish about trying to go somewhere else.

Unfortunately, depression is a disorder where one of the symptoms is also the lack of motivation about getting help! Partly, I was afraid that I would go and they would tell me I was fine, since everything that happened to me at my parents’ was supposed to be not as bad as whatever happened to everyone else! Everything just felt useless, and I just barely got through the days. I wasn’t suicidal (like at my parents’), but it was still really bad.

About two months ago I just got fed up with it.

I was so tired of feeling tired and depressed with no energy or motivation.

I was always frustrated and irritated and I cried frequently. I just got sick of it. So I got up at 6 am to be at the Family & Children’s building at 8. Family & Children’s helps low-income people with many things including mental disorders. I went through the orientation and intake, and went back three days later to talk to one of the doctors. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD, or just clinical depression), and given Zoloft.

I’ve been on it for six weeks and the difference has been amazing!

I have energy, motivation, and the ability to actually feel happy. I’ve lost 10lbs so far. I’ve been cooking more and keeping the house clean. I’ve also been less irritable and frustrated. Of course I still get depressed sometimes, but it’s not nearly as bad, and it never lasts as long.

When I do get depressed now I think to myself “holy shit, how did I ever live like this for years?!”

The thing is, people like my parents don’t understand that mental disorders are actual physical differences in someone’s brain. Most times it can be helped through medication, just like other physical ailments. It has to do with the balance of chemicals and hormones in one’s brain, and that’s nothing you can consciously fix any more than my dad can will away his ankylosing spondylitis (which he takes medication for). It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though many people are because of the culturally negative connotations of a “mental patient” and people being “crazy”.

As for me…it’s a part of me, whether I like it or not.

I unashamedly take medication for a physical condition I can’t fix. Just because that condition happens to be in my brain and affect my emotions and mood doesn’t make me any less of a whole person than anyone else. I’m writing about this today so hopefully someone will see it and be encouraged to get help for their own mental disorder.

It’s not your fault.

I Hope That I Get To See My Sister Again: Elizabeth’s Story

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I Hope That I Get To See My Sister Again: Elizabeth’s Story

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Elizabeth” is a pseudonym.

Growing up in a fundamentalist family is a unique experience for everyone.

For my ten siblings and I, we were consumed by an “attitude of gratitude” that our parents instilled in us from an early age, and any lack of gratefulness was a rebellion that had to be beaten out. They also taught us that an illness was God teaching us something, and intervention was only acceptable under dire circumstances.

Due to this mentality, we were blind to the mental sickness that was creeping slowly into each and every one of us, accepting it as “normal” and “God’s will”.

Though we all suffer from varying degrees of mental sickness, one sibling experienced hardships that surpass anything the rest of us have faced. When my oldest sister was a little girl, our grandmother (we called her “Nana”) noticed that she was adopting a passive state and not acting normal for a girl her age. When Nana pointed this out to our parents, they just brushed it off and were offended that anything could be wrong with a child under such “attentive” care.

Another factor was that they didn’t (and still don’t) believe in health insurance, so any medical expense was out-of-pocket, and only mild care like dental health was taken care of due to the impoverished lifestyle our parents adopted for all of us. This selective blindness allowed our parents to see my sister as a girl in perfect health and focus on building character and obedience.

Years passed, and my sister became more and more withdrawn, putting on a face to keep our parents happy.

Her life was becoming a miserable mess, but she didn’t show it for fear of punishment and rejection. When she went off to Harvard (something that didn’t happen without a big fight), she was still marred by the view on healthcare we were raised with, and didn’t see a professional to start working through her issues, mostly because she didn’t see them herself. A life of neglect was all she had ever known.

Upon graduation from college, she moved to Germany for business and to be with her husband. She would visit home once or twice a year, trying to maintain a relationship with the rest of us at home even though her relationship with our parents was crumbling. She was able to keep this up for 12 years, but spring of 2007 was the last straw. As everything she had tried to smother surfaced, she was overcome by the depressive state our parents modeled as “normal”.

She stopped coming home.

We kept up by email over the next two years, but she stopped that also because I, in my naivety, had become the synapse between her and our parents. I was hurt then, but looking back, I see that it was the best choice given the situation.

In early 2009, my family came home from vacation to hear a phone message from her (my sister’s) sister-in-law. My sister’s husband had committed suicide. When our parents successfully contacted my sister to express their deepest sorrow, she was very upset that they knew, and replied via an official stamped letter from her lawyer stating that she was changing her legal name so we couldn’t find her. My understanding is that some siblings were in contact with her after that, but those communications were eventually cut off as well, and none of us have seen her in over 6 years, or heard from her in over 4 years.

My family was seen as the pinnacle of perfection by most, and what happened behind closed doors was viewed by select individuals who couldn’t do anything to help.

As I begin to realize how neglected my siblings and I were, it frustrates me even more that our parents think it isn’t their fault. Observing the individuals my siblings and I are becoming, they are blind to the reflection our instability has on them, thinking it’s our fault for leaving the community they created. As some of us seeked out therapy and realized that communicating with our parents regularly was hindering our ability to heal, they compared us to my oldest sister, assuming that the months will turn into years for the rest of us as well.

I hope that I get to see my sister again someday, but I am now starting to understand why she cut off contact.

I can’t hate her for that.

Depression and Spiritual Abuse: By Kierstyn King

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Depression and Spiritual Abuse: By Kierstyn King

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Kierstyn King’s blog Bridging the Gap.  It was originally published on July 17, 2013. This is the second of Kierstyn’s three-part series on mental health. Read Part One here and Part Three here.

Looking back, it’s no wonder that all of the feelings and self loathing that lead to my depression, brought depression. I was taught that I was worthless, that I should never think well of myself, that I needed to be humble, I was never allowed to show any emotion that was not a plastic smile.

Perfection was constantly demanded, and perfection is what I was incapable of.

I am, and was, keenly aware of my failings, of the places I don’t measure up, where I don’t meet parental wishes or requirements — those were held over my head, brought up in arguments to coerce me further into being my family’s slave.

I remember times when my parents would sit there and berate me for hours (under the guise of “concern” and wanting to “help my [spiritual] walk”) and tell me that because I missed doing laundry one day, misheard or misunderstood a demand, that I was a bad sister, a person going down a path of destruction, away from god, if I kept up this “rebellious” attitude.

I remember being bragged about to people (when convenient) only to be later pulled aside in private and told to shape up. I remember dismissal and invisibility.

I was a pawn, a tool, a broom.

I related strongly to cinderella and everyone thought it was cute, but they didn’t realize that I felt as worthless as the dirt she was mopping. That I believed I was as worthless as the dirt she was mopping — to know and be told in actions that I am only loved and approved of when I do things in a certain way, with a certain demeanor regardless of feeling, ill, tired, or stressed. When I was imperfect (as all humans are) I was punished — verbally, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, mentally.

I internalized their words of my failures and believed that I was a failure, who didn’t deserve any good.

This was aided by the fact that my family explicitly believed and taught that it was better to live a life of suffering (by god’s hand, of course) than to live a happy life. That god did not want us to be happy (and by unspoken extension, wanted us to be miserable or persecuted).

It’s no wonder that between the bullying because of my imperfections, and the toxic theology of my parents, that I internalized at the most impressionable ages, my total and utter worthlessness and the only way to deal with that, was to hate myself as much as I perceived I needed to be. It’s no wonder that it escalated. It’s no wonder I shut down, became numb, stopped feeling, and felt robotic.

It’s no wonder I was, and at times still am, utterly ashamed of being a woman (someone who is less because of different anatomy)*.

*by people like my parents, the tendency of republicans in positions of power, and people who perpetuate the theology of “equal but different” where differences justify belittling.

*****

To be continued.

Picking Up the Pieces, But Not in Twelve Steps: By The Prodigal Son’s Brother

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Picking Up the Pieces, But Not in Twelve Steps: By The Prodigal Son’s Brother

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “The Prodigal Son’s Brother” is a pseudonym.

Today, I was denied treatment by a mental health facility.

I set the appointment up through a crisis hotline a month ago, and thinking I was finally going to get help was the glimmer of light on the horizon … and I was denied treatment.

They recognized that I had severe depression. They recognized that I was suicidal. They recognized how much my background in the Homeschool movement has contributed to my issues. They recognized that I am in a new city where I don’t have much of a support network.

But still they denied me therapy, because they said a prerequisite was for me to complete their 12-step-based alcoholism program.

Now, the assessor knew, because I told her, that I have used drinking as a crutch in the past. She also knew that I have been sober for two weeks, through sheer willpower. But before they would even let me talk to a therapist, I had to complete a program, and the one they offered was 12-steps-based. I voiced my opposition to the 12 Steps on religious grounds – the AA 12 steps are incredibly religious – and she denied they were religious. “Atheists use it all the time,” she claimed.

How, I wonder?

Here are the twelve steps, according to Wikipedia:

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
  5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

How do you “make a decision to turn your will and your life over to God” if you don’t believe in god?

How do you “humbly ask” something you don’t believe in to remove your shortcomings?

How do you seek through “prayer and meditation” to something you don’t recognize?

But deeper than the simple religious differences is something much darker. Step one: “We admitted we were powerless…”. Steps five, six, and seven involve “the nature of our wrongs”, the removal of “defects of character”, and “remov[ing] our shortcomings”. For an alcoholic who has been damaging other people with his or her lifestyle, these might make sense. But a prerequisite for therapy for someone who is already dealing with shame?

How exactly can I work with a counselor or therapist to feel my own worth when I’ve just come from a program in which I’m constantly expected to assert my own shortcomings?

Because, as I mentioned, I set this appointment up a month ago. I have been hanging by a thread, but I am alive.

As Penn Jilette said in the Bullshit episode about AA,

What about people who say, ‘But AA works. I’ve got a brother … who was saved through AA.’ Well great, but give your friend some credit: he made the choice to quit when he picked up the phone, and it worked because he wanted it to work, and he made it work. He wasn’t powerless, he was powerful.

And that’s the point that the “mental health” facility didn’t seem to grasp. I cannot enroll in a program that starts off with an honest admission of powerlessness, because my willpower is the thing that has kept me alive for the past month. Even the willpower to ask for help in the first place.

Right now I feel very empty due to the loss of a hope I was holding on to. I am picking up the pieces and determining where to go from here, but the notion of taking my life has not suddenly increased. If anything, I am more determined than ever to live, and I hope I will find the help I need.

Because I am not powerless.

I am powerful.

And so are you.

Of Peers, Homeschooling, and Differentiation: By Gertrude E. Leigh

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Of Peers, Homeschooling, and Differentiation: By Gertrude E. Leigh

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Gertrude E. Leigh” is a pseudonym. Gertrude blogs about growing up in conservative religion, becoming her own person, and LGBT issues (among other things) at http://notstraightandnarrow.wordpress.com.

“What about socialization?”

It’s a question any homeschooler has heard a hundred times if they’ve heard it once. There are several stock answers.

“Oh, it’s definitely a problem – we get too much!”

“Our kids have plenty of friends,” or, “do soccer/debate/art/music.”

Or the most frequent:

“Kids need to interact with a wide variety of people of different ages, not an artificial age-segregated peer group.”

It actually sounds good. Even people who are against homeschooling frequently modify their objections after hearing these answers. After all, being able to interact with a wide variety of people is a huge plus, and if that’s what homeschooling gives you, what’s not to love?

Quite a few things, actually.

As a homeschool graduate who never set foot in a peer-oriented classroom until this year, I see at least two distinct problems that stem from the peer isolation that happens in more separatist homeschool settings.

One is an inability to relate well on a peer level, which is a more serious social issue than most people think. The other is difficulty differentiating, or the inability of children to separate themselves from their parents and become distinct and autonomous persons.

Differentiation as a psychological process begins at a very young age. It is behind the separation anxiety of a child not yet a year old. It is also the cause of two-year-old tantrums and four-year-old defiance and teenage angst. Learning to separate from your parents is an essential step towards being a fully-functioning adult and a person in your own right. Homeschooling doesn’t need to disrupt this normal development, but it definitely can, especially when it is done for the express purpose of sheltering children.

When parents homeschool because they want to avoid secular indoctrination or peer influence, there’s a huge danger that they will end up restricting their children’s mental and social development in ways that are subtle but profound. While the trouble with situations of extreme isolation is obvious, even the family who spends a lot of time socializing with other like-minded families is missing something. The children may appear socially well-adjusted, but they are likely to lack a balanced understanding of how to handle differences in relationships and a sense of personhood.

Peer-to-peer interaction is invaluable in the process of differentiation.

Before a child can come into their own as an independent person, they need to be able to develop their own opinions and perspective. Normally, this happens gradually over time as a person is exposed to people with many different points of view and realizes that it is ok for people to disagree. When parents keep children home to shelter them from the influence of adults with different beliefs and from unsupervised peer interaction, they are depriving them of grasping this fundamental concept. If all the authority figures in a child’s life essentially agree with each other, there is no exposure to independent thinking.

If a child’s relationships with his peers are constantly supervised and censored, there is no safe space to stretch and practice the ability to disagree without disconnecting. This ability is crucial for mature functioning in a free society. It’s also the first step towards developing healthy adult relationships which, in spite of what many of our parents wanted to believe, are almost all peer-based.

When you disagree with your parents, it can be scary. Depending on how controlling and abusive your parents are, it can be terrifying. But when you disagree with a peer, there’s a lot less to lose. Most friendships can survive a difference of opinion or taste. When you are in kindergarten, you might find out your best friend doesn’t like your favorite food. In middle school, you might idolize different singers. By college, the two of you may subscribe to different religious or political views, but you’ve learned that differences don’t have to threaten your friendship. On the other hand, for many homeschooled teens and adults, disagreeing with your parents on anything bigger than food preferences could get you kicked out on the street.

And that’s almost not an exaggeration.

A child who fails to differentiate will become an adult who is easily influenced by those around him. He may be a people-pleaser or an enabler. He will be susceptible to codependent and other dysfunctional relationship patterns. He will make an easy target for abuse. He may have difficulty making decisions. He will certainly place far too much value on what others think of him and may be controlled by fear of his parents’ disapproval long after he has a family of his own. This is not the picture of a healthy adult.

A failure to completely grasp your own autonomy cripples your life more or less severely.

The problem isn’t with homeschooling necessarily. It’s with the reason behind the homeschooling, and it’s with parents like mine who unknowingly buy into an ideology that keeps children from growing up. It’s time we stopped the myth that peer interaction is dangerous (it isn’t) or unnecessary (it’s crucial). Parents need to be aware of the importance of peers to social and mental maturity.

All children, homeschooled or not, should grow up in a safe and healthy environment with all the tools they need to become stable, independent adults.

Life is Pain and Beauty and Truth: By Miriam

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Life is Pain and Beauty and Truth: By Miriam

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Miriam” is a pseudonym.

*****

Trigger warning: graphic descriptions of self-injury and suicidal attempts and thoughts.

*****

“who does these things to you ?”

i do. i hate myself. and, i think i have lost the will to live. i’m tired of fighting to survive. i want to give up. i want to die.

the dark battle with the mental illness i still fight began with me.

i don’t remember a lot of my childhood. i have fragments of memories. but i’ve tried to forget the rest, the good along with the bad.

the bullying and the abuse began in junior high.

there were three adults. the first, a leader at a church. the second, an athletics coach. the third, an academics coach. they were all close friends with my parents. i trusted them. i looked up to them. i respected them. and i endured emotional abuse under each for a total of four years.

they taught me that i was worthless. that anything i tried to do was never good enough.

i can’t count the number of students that bullied me. but it came from everywhere: the church youth group, the debate team, the sports team. some were my friends. some were my role models. they were all tormentors in the end. i couldn’t escape being the victim, for four years of my life.

they taught me that i was fat, weak, gay, emo, worthless, stupid, dirty, and deserved to die.

i could only deal with so much. at age 13, i started fighting depression. it grew worse over the next two years.

at age 15, i was sad. i was tired of living. and i wanted more than anything to escape. to be happy again. i became an expert at pretending to be okay. fake smiles were second nature.

i wouldn’t let anyone close enough to let them hurt me. i couldn’t trust anyone. so no one knew. no one noticed how much it hurt.

i was alone.

may 25, 2012. i was home alone. the pain in my mind was unbearable. the heartache of the shame i felt was too heavy. i wanted to die. but i couldn’t kill myself. i wouldn’t let myself. i was too scared.

so i did the first thing that came to mind, to try and relieve the pain. i broke apart a plastic razor i found in the bathroom cabinet and i took the thin blade from it. i pressed it horizontally to my wrist. and i cut.

six small cuts. barely deep enough to break the skin, but still deep enough to bleed, to hurt. it brought relief like a flood in a way that i can’t explain with words.

i’ve tried to retrace my thoughts since then to figure out what ever gave me the idea of cutting myself in the first place. i’ve hit only dead ends.

but i had found an escape.

for the next month, i was okay. i knew i couldn’t cut my wrists because it was still summer and i couldn’t hide my arms easily. so i cut the skin across my thighs. every night. i got a little more courage. the cuts became a little deeper.

it hurt so good. no one noticed.

they taught in church that god is supposed to be the ultimate source of joy and peace.

i felt a deep shame. if god made christians joyful, why was i depressed. if god gave christians peace, why did i have to get relief from a blade.

i knew i was a bad christian. i knew that god must hate me.

they said that god loves the world and all the people in it. but he didn’t stop my bullies and abusers from hurting me.

i knew. god doesn’t love me. i stopped praying. i stopped reading the bible. i didn’t know why i should anymore. it wasn’t helping me get better. if god didn’t love me then i didn’t see why i should love him.

i didn’t love him anymore. i hated him. he made this happen to me. he made me hurt. he gave me life but then he made it so bad that i wanted to die.

i knew i was a bad christian. so i told my parents. they cried a lot. i promised i would get better and i would never cut myself again. i promised i would start loving god again. i said everything would be okay again.

i lied.

i tried hard to keep my promise. it only lasted a month. then i got worse. i broke down and starting cutting again. every night. deeper and deeper.

i wanted to die. maybe i could get enough courage to try and kill myself someday.

four months later. they found out. my parents took me to the doctor. he asked me a lot of questions and then gave me a bottle of pills to take. once a day. he said it would help me to feel better.

so they all pretended everything was okay now. i had pills. i should get better now.

i got worse again. it was winter now. i started cutting my wrists and worked my way all the way up to my shoulders. i could hide them under jackets and long sleeves. it didn’t matter anymore anyway.

the pills weren’t working. the doctor gave me higher doses of pills.

they took me to a psychologist. she seemed nice. she asked lots of questions. i told her about everything. she wanted to see my cuts. i showed her. she wanted me to talk to my parents. she wanted me to show them my cuts. she wanted me to promise to stop cutting.

i didn’t know what to do.

i said yes.

after it was over, i wore short sleeves again. people stared at the scars lining my arms. they asked me what happened. i told them a dog had scratched me.

i lied.

depression swallowed me again. the doctor gave me more pills. it was a different kind this time. he said they would help me not to feel tired.

but i was tired. i was tired of living. and i was sick. really sick.

i wanted to die. i thought i had enough courage to try.

it was 1:13AM. i couldn’t sleep. i didn’t want to live through the next day. i knew i could die now.

i thought about my knives. i got them and cut deeply into my wrist. i wanted to slice through a vein and bleed to death.

i failed. i was left with a mess of sticky blood. but i was too scared to cut deep enough to die.

i knew i would try again soon.

and i did. two weeks later. i tried reaching a vein again. i almost did it.

there was so much blood. my head hurt and i was dizzy. i couldn’t bring myself to keep cutting deeper. i was too weak and too tired.

i failed again.

i tried to keep living. i hoped that things would get better. maybe the pills would work now.

hope bred more misery.

i was brave enough to give it another shot. the knife couldn’t cut deep enough. i tried something different this time.

i found a large bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet. i swallowed a lot of them. i didn’t count how many. i drank a lot of water and tried to fall asleep.

my stomach hurt. i threw up all the pills.

i failed. for the third time. i used to think that the third time’s a charm.

i was too tired to try again. i cried and fell asleep.

a few weeks later, i tried again.

this time i got scared after i swallowed all the pills.

i called the only person i trusted.

he talked to me for an hour or two. i calmed down.

my stomach still hurt. my head was throbbing. i threw up all the pills.

i had failed. i was still alive, against my will.

i felt like god was laughing at me. i couldn’t stand to live but i couldn’t even get dying right. i was in limbo. in hell.

four attempts and still alive. i was sick. i hated myself. i wanted to die but i couldn’t.

the parts in between are a blur. i didn’t attempt again. i kept visiting the psychologist. i kept taking the antidepressants.

and i started talking to him more.

he asked me about my suicide attempts. we talked about my cutting. about my depression. about my self hate. about my shame. about the bullying and the abuse. about the hurt and the loneliness.

somewhere in all of that, i found myself. i realized that, amidst all the bullshit of life, there were some things that were worth living for. worth staying alive for. he was one of them.

i stopped cutting. i found an alternative. it made him really happy.

i started to talk to my psychologist more. it made him happy too.

i talked to him frequently. no one else cared about me.

the darkness started to clear.

i stopped practicing how to smile in the mirror. he made me smile spontaneously and for real.

i have never met a more beautiful person.

and that is why it hurt so much when he walked out of my life. without a clear explanation. without a spoken goodbye. just a phone call with a vague jumble of words put together that i couldn’t quite process through the shock i was feeling.

it hurt like hell.

and life does that. life is pain and beauty and truth. and i would rather have that than comfort and happiness.

i still have major depressive disorder. i still fight off anxiety attacks. suicidal thoughts dwell in my mind every day. i have constant flashbacks of the abuse.

there are things i’d rather not remember. and things still hurt.

but even though it hurt like hell when he abandoned me, losing my best friend taught me that the outstanding pain i felt from that was worth all that he had taught me when he loved me even though i hated myself.

he taught me how to love myself. to embrace brokenness. to turn shame into beauty. to turn lies into truth. to resist the urge to tear through my skin when i wanted to bleed. to appreciate life even when i felt like i would be better off dead.

through pain, i found myself. because of him.

and so, today, as i was thinking of how to write this, i remembered the first time i told him that i hated myself and wanted to die. when i told him about the abuse.

he asked me, “who does these things to you ?”

i didn’t have a clear answer.

i do now.

i know where i’ve been and what i’ve been through. i remember all the hate and the hurt. i remember all the shame and the sadness. i remember all the trauma and the tears.

and i know now that people like me who have mental illnesses never really do recover. after an experience like this, there is no way to reclaim the person i was before. there is no way i can recover who i once was.

and so, i have decided, to recreate myself. i will create a better life and a better world. there will be pain but there will be love. and i will learn to love myself as i live.

one of the hardest things i’ve ever done is share my story.

i’ve only told a few people. it scares me like hell. it’s tangled and it’s terrifying for me to relive some of the memories. but dragging shame out into the light drains it of its power. i share my story, not because it’s easy, but because it’s needed. because it’s real.

and to the reader: i don’t know what you’ve endured, how you’ve hurt, what you’ve done.

but i am glad that you are still alive.

It’s Going to Be Okay: By Isabella

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It’s Going to Be Okay: By Isabella

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Isabella” is a pseudonym.

*****

This is all your fault.

If you were only a better Christian/Person/Sister/Brother you wouldn’t be dealing with this.

Try to help others more, then you will feel better.

Taking a pill to help is of satan!

Mental Illness isn’t real – it’s all in your head.

This is a result of your sin. Repent; and you shall feel better.

*****

Hello dear friend.

Thanks for meeting me at this small coffee shop to chat. I know you’re nervous about something, that’s okay, I’ll try to do most of the talking. I’m sipping my coffee, and thinking. Today I’m having a quad (four shots of espresso) hazelnut white mocha. Heaven in a cup. I should know. I escaped to coffee houses a lot growing up to “study”.

Didn’t everyone fear their father and try to get out of the house as much as possible?

You’re being quiet while you sip your coffee. Not making eye contact. I get that. Maybe you think what you are dealing with is normal. Dear, it’s not.

I thought my growing up was normal.

The spankings, the yelling, the verbal abuse, all that was normal. Crazy thing is, I thought I was the one messed up. You know, because I was depressed. And dealt with self abuse. And had panic attacks. I must be really messed up if I made dad mad enough to throw my laptop on my bed and threaten to send me a mental hospital. There they would lock me up so I could never see my siblings again. I wasn’t supposed to talk about my self abuse — my depression — my panic attacks. That would make dad even angrier and make him send me away for sure.

Oh honey, I see the look in your eyes. This depression you are dealing with is not your fault. Just because someone tells you something, it doesn’t make it true.  You might be told to shove those feelings aside, that your feelings are wrong. If you hear it enough you might start wondering if it’s true. You might even start to believe it. Even if you have a “perfect family”, you might still deal with depression. It’s not your fault. No one wants to feel sad. No one wants to think about ending their life. No one thinks it’s a great idea to injure yourself or have panic attacks.

That’s not you. That’s not your destiny. Maybe you’ve tried “everything” and still deal with this stuff. That’s okay. That still doesn’t mean you are messed up, a bad person, or deserving of hell.

Dearest friend, this belief that I was messed up because I was dealt with these issues (let’s call them what they are — mental illness) and that I wasn’t supposed to talk about it is a huge lie.

Are you being told that lie? Let me tell you the truth.

The government won’t lock you up for being depressed. They have bigger issues in their hands. You won’t be locked up for talking about it. Talking will probably help you the most. Find help. If all you see is darkness, think of those that you love. I know you don’t think you will get through today. Tomorrow is even more uncertain. I get that.

I totally bawled at my high school graduation because I didn’t think I would be alive to graduate. Really. I was that suicidal.

If you cannot talk to anyone, talk to yourself. Write it out and burn the paper. Tell yourself you will be safe for five minutes, and then five more minutes. Play a game. Listen to music. Knit. Go for a run. Anything really will do, as long as it’s mindless and distracting.

Friend, if you have been out of the abusive situation for a while and are still struggling you might have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I have it, and sometimes I do slip into that dark hole.

I almost didn’t talk to you tonight. I thought that if I was quiet it would be better for everyone.

That’s what our abusers want.

They want us to be quiet about mental illness. God forbid that someone would come out of the perfect homeschooling family with PTSD! But the truth needs to be told.

Mental illness is never your fault.

You will survive this too, and be stronger for it. Find someone you can trust, and talk to that person. You will get through tonight. Deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes. Right now, deal with the next five minutes. It’s okay if that’s all you can do. I don’t expect anything else out of you.

You are perfect just the way you are. Hold onto that hope.

It’s going to be okay, dear one.

My Mind Wasn’t Lost, I Had PTSD: By Susannah

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My Mind Wasn’t Lost, I Had PTSD: By Susannah

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Susannah” is a pseudonym.

Writing about mental illness frightens me.

It’s a topic I don’t like to think or talk about, especially at times when it takes a lot of energy to maintain my emotional equilibrium.

My grandmother used to go through phases when she would sign our birthday cards “Snowflake” instead of “Gramma”, which always unsettled me. Other times she just took her “happy pills”, to my mother’s chagrin. My parents were opposed to “mind-altering drugs” and “worldly philosophies” of psychology. They were also followers of Bill Gothard, whose singular ideas about the root causes of mental illness are legendary. We were taught to smile to create good feelings, to force enthusiasm, to “submit” to authority even when we disagreed, and not to express “bad” feelings.

It was a recipe for disaster.

Though we knew numerous Christian people who suffered from depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and even psychosis at times, prayer–and maybe fasting–was considered the [only] acceptable course of treatment. One did not consult physicians (ours was a Catholic man who prayed with his patients and recommended homeopathic remedies) for problems with spiritual causes. One might consult a trusted pastor, but they never seemed able to offer anything but more prayer and Bible reading, which we certainly did enough of, anyway.

My sisters and I learned that it was better to keep our private internal conflicts inside our own heads.

I started having panic attacks as an adult when my other grandmother, my closest friend outside the world of religious homeschooling, died of cancer. (We used to pray daily that she wouldn’t perish in hell.) I went to the E.R. only to be told that my symptoms were a classic presentation of anxiety. Panic attacks? Me? As the eldest of eleven siblings, I had prided myself on being strong and resilient.

I was not happy to learn that my body had ways of bypassing instruction from my brain!

Like the society in Shyamalan’s “The Village”, the world I was raised in had been hemmed in by fears: fear of God, fear of  Satan, fear of persecution, fear of government control, fear of strangers or nosy neighbors, fear of vaccines and unhealthy foods, fear of ourselves. Though I had left that world years earlier, the patterns of anxiety were worn deep in my psyche. For the next eight months, I struggled with fear, insomnia, and depression. I did seek out a therapist who helped me process the fears of my past.

The fog eventually lifted, and life moved on.

Later on, the panic attacks returned with a vengeance–this time triggered by a college professor whose rude and controlling manner in the classroom dredged up numerous uncalled-for memories of misogynistic “spiritual leaders” from my past. Physically and emotionally overwhelmed, I returned to my therapist, who recognized PTSD. I was a child again, being spanked across my dad’s lap for asking one too many questions. I was a teenager trapped in his office being told my character flaws, or in his car while he asked about my sexual thoughts. I was a young woman in a fundamentalist cult organization where women had to be led, protected, and prevented from “causing” men to lust. I was walking on eggshells in my mom’s kitchen, afraid of accidentally saying, doing, or not doing something that would send her upstairs to her room in tears.

I started reading about C-PTSD, especially as it relates to adults whose childhood was abusive or neglectful. It made so much sense, and I was relieved to know my mind wasn’t “lost”, only responding normally to being bruised again and again. Medication didn’t help my situation a bit (made it worse, actually), but I found that writing and exercise would counteract insomnia and stress-induced pain, while yoga and coloring pictures calmed my hypervigilant and anxious mind. Meanwhile, supportive, healthy friendships gave me a new standard of how respectful adults interact.

Knowing people outside my family whom I can trust and talk to about my struggles means the world to me.

For so many years, I knew no one who would not defend my parents. I was socially isolated and there was no one I could turn to for objective counsel. Every major influence in our lives reinforced the fear and the pressure to conform our everyday emotions to an ideal level of contentment. But my friends and neighbors have never been judgmental; they never assume that depression or anxiety are my fault. More often than not, we end up sharing stories of feeling weak and of overcoming hard things. And when they ask me how I’m doing, I don’t feel I need to make something up.

The realization that all emotions are valid aspects of human experience was a huge relief to me. I am learning to first acknowledge my feelings without judging them, and then to choose how I want to act on them.

Wrestling with God: By Caleigh Royer

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Wrestling with God: By Caleigh Royer

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. It was originally published on July 21, 2013.

It’s been almost two full weeks since I last wrote. It’s been almost two weeks since hitting a really bad low. A low where cutting (I didn’t cut) was very appealing, a low where I actually couldn’t see up. I hit a low where I did the only thing I could think to do; called my therapist and said I need help now.

I got into an appointment the very next morning, and we talked about how I needed a release because the chaos in my head was crushing and choking everything coherent. 

(Just so you all can be clear, cutting is not a suicide attempt. It usually has nothing with wanting to kill oneself. Cutting is about release. It is about having something that will distract you from the pain; emotionally, mentally, physically. It may help release the pain in that moment but it is not a healthy, good release. If anyone is wanting to cut, or is, or has cut, then please, go see a professional counselor or therapist. They are trained to help you find a healthy release for the pain!)

I expect a few more of these low lows before I can really start climbing up out of the depression and pain. I have willingly opened a door and walked through it. Opening that door is a bold, courageous, and scary move. Opening that door has given me no choice but to face my past head on and deal with it.

Can I just say that this absolutely sucks most days?

But there is a silver lining here. Even though I am being weighed down with more frequent days of depression, I am more easily triggered and face flashbacks of really bad experiences, I am moving forward. I am facing the demons that haunt me, I am standing up and saying no more. Most days forget standing, I’m half kneeling, half lying flat on the ground, but I am fighting back.

Some of the demons and triggers have had to do with hope, beliefs. I am still working on the “daddy” glasses I see God through. I still have a hard time believing that God is a loving, giving father to me. Believing that for others, my husband, friends, that’s no big deal. I can easily see God being a giving god for others, but for me? I don’t know how to believe that I won’t have anything good ripped away the moment I get it. I don’t know how to get back to the place where touching, opening, reading an actual physical Bible doesn’t make me shudder and become blind to the words. I don’t know how to reconcile the things I grew up being taught to what I know of God now.

I like to say that I have a whispering/yelling relationship with God right now.

He’s whispering to me, and I’m yelling at him. A friend asked a question on facebook the other day. She asked what it meant for us individually to wrestle with God. I realized that wrestling with God looks like being honest with him and saying I really don’t know if I want to trust him, I don’t want to keep not reading my Bible, I don’t know how to get to a place of being at peace with that again.

We’re planning on visiting an actual church on this coming Sunday, and I am just about scared out of my mind if I think about it hard. I haven’t been in an actual church building since the end of January. I am still not comfortable labeling myself under a certain denomination. I am still not quite to the point of being able to thoroughly lay out the nuances of my beliefs.

I am resting on the things I know for certain but everything else is still quite fuzzy.

It’s hard looking back at the few years I spent in CLC and how those years really cemented some bad theology. Theology I picked up while I went to Covenant Life Church, and theology I grew up with. I am thinking for myself now, and that was never encouraged no matter which environment I was in. I am wrestling with God and not hiding my feelings, pain, confusion behind randomly picked scriptures that are supposed to be all you need when life get particularly hard.

I don’t believe that scripture is all we need when life picks us up, spins us around until the entire world is a blur, and throws us down the stairs.

I believe that we need to stand before God and yell, scream, argue, cry about whatever our heart really is saying. He can handle it, and I believe that until we are fully honest with God we can’t be fully honest with others or even with ourselves.  I feel a real God when I am most honest before him. It is easier for me to believe him when I sit down, having cried, yelled, cried some more until I have no more tears, and all I hear is “I am with you. I love you. You are precious to me.”

I have an opened a door that will not close until the demons have been dealt with and put to death. Until I can lay the past to rest and have more good days than bad, depressed days, I will continue to fight. Healing is more important to me than staying cowed by the demons pulling the triggers.

I am seeing the progress I have made since starting therapy almost 4 months ago. I am seeing the strength I have becoming stronger as the winds continue to pound, throwing me around in the storm. I may be fighting a fight I purposefully walked into, but I am winning this fight even when it doesn’t feel like winning.

I am wrestling with God and finding peace.