2, 2001
Jay's story.
I said to Dr Irene I would only post my story when I had
an ending. I guess the reality is you never do have endings; just new days
and new ways of seeing things. The trouble is, you don't always know how
the day will take you.
Four years ago, Pete died. Pete was in his forties and
he and his wife Ali were my chief confidants together with my best friend
Carol and her husband, Jim. Jim was my husband's best friend.
I always thought I was one of the lucky ones; so many
people to be with and who supported me. I had the job I always wanted in
parenting. I had a beautiful teenage daughter and a lovely son. Both
children are very gifted. It was my daughter who sang; my son who was so
clever, the teachers asked me what to do with him...
I thought I was the mean, grumpy one in the family. I
thought I was married to a saint. Giggle! Ooops!
Then my daughter told me she had been abused by a
pedophile. At last I had an explanation for her intense school refusal and
her violence towards me. I was working in parenting and going into work
covered in bruises.
The doctor wouldn't listen. My husband said nothing and
finally I arranged counseling for my daughter. She got better for a while.
I didn't realise she was sniffing glue to help her
forget. I didn't know she was visiting the doctor and had been prescribed
anti depressants without my knowledge.
Then Jim died. Two of my closest friends were widows in
their forties and they needed my support. The last time I remember our
family as a functioning unit was at Jim's funeral. My daughter sang to my
husband's guitar, my son painted a picture, and I spoke..
Jim was the glue that held me and my husband together.
Our families were like close relations.
Our family couldn't cope with the grief. I had already
lost another friend to an AIDS-related disease, and my daughter has ended
up as the reading partner of a girl whose mother was murdered. Just to add
to that, someone we knew and sometimes sat with in church had been raped
and murdered a few years before. A horrific chain of
events...
Enough to send a sane person mad. Or
snap the denial we use to keep us from seeing things the way they are...
Just add in that my daughter started to take
overdoses.....
My whole energy was taken up looking after my daughter.
How my son survived, I don't know. He is the amazingly
sane one, still, in the family. Some days I just want to say; "be a
kid." That is the absolutely best advice you
can give him. He's spent entirely too much of his young life looking after
his family (as I'm sure you once did too). The best news is that this kid
got to see his mom empower herself. Great role modeling. He no longer
needs to assume the caretaker role...
And finally, that my husband one New Year during an argument...
Had me at the top of the stairs, and I thought he was going to throw me
down... He cut the telephone wire when I tried to ring for help.
The police arrived and told us both off. Never mind the
cut wire! Never mind. indeed.
After that I started to see the abuse. Not violent,
usually. If anyone threw stuff, it was me! That is why it was so hard to
see all the passive aggressive stuff. I was so grateful when my husband
finally said "yes," I always managed to forget how many 'no's" there
were in-between. I forgot why I threw the china!
Then work got bad as well. Thinking back I never had a
bad evaluation. I just started to wake up worrying. My boss was supportive
and I made the mistake of admitting I was stressed. They gave me 6 months
off. I guess they must have thought I was worth something to do that.
But at home my daughter continued to be violent and my
husband wouldn't step in. One day she slammed my head against the wall. Uhhhh!
Unbelievably, he didn't ask how I was when I got home from hospital. He
even took my daughter out and bought her some new clothes. Amazingly
passive aggressive behavior...
Then finally the nightmare of all nightmares. My
daughter had had glandular fever. I argued with the school and an
educational social worker they should be supporting her...then I
discovered she was able to walk 3 miles to a park to meet with boys.....
I challenged her. Her revenge: To tell Social Services I
had sexually assaulted her. Even my husband didn't buy that one.. That
whole episode is a story in itself. Amazing. But I
can almost understand her behavior. You, the "grouchy one," was
the one to dump on; blame things on. You took it...
I broke down. Literally. Took pills....I wanted to die.
My husband offered not one word of comfort...I learnt he was worried from
my friends! I spent a week in a psychiatric ward. You
had to. You lived in denial of what was going on in your family, blaming
yourself or allowing yourself to be blamed instead. The sacrificial lamb,
so to speak.
I didn't know it, but the drugs prescribed for my
depression were actually making me suicidal....I overdosed 6 times in a
year. ...
I was a practicing Christian with no faith left....There
has to be a God. That first overdose I took 30 pills. The only ones
available at a service station that usually had a selection. The very ones
that could harm, but not kill me! Didn't know that.
The one thing I knew was I no longer trusted my husband.
He has never said 'sorry.' Having trusted him was
about blind faith; about denial of reality; denial of what your body was
trying to tell you was real.
My daughter refused to come home and ended up getting
raped by a 14 year old at the age of 15.
Finally, I wasn't well enough to return to my job. No.
With this kind of denial breaking down, you would not be.
I could go on about all the stuff since. But the thing
is that all the stuff since is peripheral. My husband's obsessive
compulsion with food...his deliberately undermining any progress with my
relationship with my daughter; all sorts of other bad stuff... So many
lies...or maybe he just sees the truth differently. Or
maybe he distorts, as you used to.
But a lot of this while I was reading the catbox and
posting...in the end the psychologist thought the catbox was the only
thing helping.
I discovered stuff about myself. Like I was LIVING for
the approval of a man who was never going to be able to give it. Yes.
You had no clue what taking care of yourSelf was about. Every time you
even approached taking care of self, your guilt stopped you dead in your
tracks.
That I made myself sound like I wasn't coping at work
when I was. That I let a line manager with control issues convince me I
was doing badly when I had evaluations to the contrary. Yes.
One day I actually
saw her, thinking I wasn't looking, making faces at me as I called
something from another room! You were the consummate
abusive victim.
That I was letting my daughter control me out of fear. Yes.
That I needed to be strong enough to get the police when she was
violent...I freeze in bad situations.....
I wrote to Dr Irene and she thought because of the way I
wrote I was the abuser.......
It was when she clarified things I started to think I
might actually be the victim. whose mis-behavior
makes them appear abusive. Indeed, there was certainly enough stored up
rage to justify angry abusive behavior...
I
realised I was being controlled by both husband and
daughter... Yes... You were soooo busy trying to fix
them; do for them...
It took a long time to admit it to myself.
I had quite a time trying to show you how to listen
to Jay; to care for Jay. I remember one email when I first got through:
challenging your assumption that it was OK to trash yourSelf when you are
God's creation or to that effect.
But I did. And how!
Then the anger came. Fierce, powerful.
Victim rage is a rage
that consumes. Oh boy! Grrrowlll! I see it so often in these pages and my heart aches.
In a rage, the abuser can do no right. Even an attempt to do right is
taken wrongly. Giggle... Yes! It really didn't last
too long with you. Now, you can use your anger appropriately: as a
signal that something is not OK with you.
I think it is about fear.
Yes... If just once you let down the
defenses, you may be hurt again. But life never promised no more hurts. To
heal it is a chance you have to take. And you increase your odds by
developing the verbal and cognitive skills to maintain your boundaries; and
care for yourSelf.
You have to understand you can find the plaster for your
own wounds.
I so wanted to be looked after....
I can't be.....
I let myself be disempowered and lied about rather than
believe in myself.
And finally I let go of the dreams.
I let go of the ideas I had.
It is not selfish to look after me.
I do not NEED a man to support me....
My daughter needs only to see her mother living a life
she will survive. At the right time, in the right place, the healing will
come.
Finally, I took my sanity.
Finally I found my own power.
Finally I found myself.
And I realised I can't be responsible for the healing of
the rest of my family. Only they can.
Jay
