Category: ptsd

My mother is going to hell, and I’m fine with that

Posted on by Grayson

I’ve shied away from sharing much in the way of many details on how I grew up. It’s become apparent to me though that, like with my illness journey, I need to share as much as possible. It will help me to explain more about myself and my illnesses in the long run.

This isn’t just for me, but for others who have lived through similar situations. They need to know they’re not alone.

I was born to a single mother who was not ready to be a mother, as many mothers are. The fact that she was raised in an abusive household herself does not go unnoticed… and yet, it is not to be seen as an excuse either.

I remember being beaten during potty training for having accidents. To this day, I hate going to the bathroom when people can hear me because I feel as though I’ll be judged or harmed. Yes, I realize I’m 27. My brain doesn’t care.

My sister was born before I turned four, a product of a relationship gone wrong once again. My mother went into a deep depression for which she never got treatment post-partum. She was horrible to Kelsey from the start, ignoring her cries out of spite while pampering me. She tried to make me in her image, trying to dye and perm my hair by the time I was four years old.

By the time I was in kindergarten and had gotten sick, this gap in treatment grew. There is always a gap between a very sick sibling and the others, but this was different. My sister’s maladies were ignored altogether. Since my mother believed that the MMR vaccine caused the onset of my SJIA, neither of us received other vaccines under my mother’s care. From the time I was seven on, neither my sister nor I received dental or medical care of any kind – not when we had abscesses, wisdom teeth, or more.

That alone is enough to warrant the way I feel about my mother, that she would medically neglect an SJIA child… It gets worse.

In addition to the neglect, my mother and grandmother both beat my sister horribly. I’ve mentioned a few times incidents with a belt and my mother. They used her to do things like deep clean the bathroom by giving her positive feedback only on those things.

To add to that, they “ran” a daycare. When my mother was home, she did crafty things while I wound up molested by one of the other children. My sister suffered this repeatedly. As a result of all this, my sister acted out a lot. Negative attention was basically all that she got after all.

Oh, and we didn’t go to school. I was pulled out about a month into first grade and my sister never went… not until fourth grade. We didn’t get social skills and interactions with children our own age. By the time we were allowed to go to school (in my case, again), we had missed out on the foundations of an education.

They’ll tell you, my mother and grandmother, that they taught us.

They did jack shit.

I was given quizzes based on shows on the History channel for the first few months, written by my mother… who also had me write a paper on why Hitler was an amazing man.

I’m not kidding.

After that time, she stopped helping and I did everything to TEACH MYSELF from history to math to playing the piano. I did start in eighth grade doing very well, though interacting more with the teachers and smart kids than others. That was fine for me at least.

My sister was bullied constantly. She started speaking with a counselor about it and spoke too much about other things for my mother’s liking. We were told that we were going to be taken away from mother if sis kept speaking to this woman.

It’s a shame because it really did help her.

One day, my mother had me come with her to visit her boyfriend at the time two hours away. It’s worth noting that this man was married at the time he started dating my mother. She found out within five months and continued to date him, using the wife’s endometriosis as an excuse to keep going (which is just such bullshit as someone who knows and loves to many with that disease). He made a million jokes inappropriately about me and to me in front of her and she thought nothing of it.

This wasn’t the first time we’d visited, but my sister was at a sleepover so it was the first time I would visit alone with my mother. By the end of the night, she wanted to stay there. Instead of staying at his house, my mother got a ONE BED hotel room.

She had sex with him right next to me, without giving a shit about whether or not I was asleep.

I laid awake, freaked the fuck out and wanting to just die.

It got worse.

He sexually assaulted me.

It took me six weeks to tell her, long after bruises had gone. Her initial reaction was to question if I even knew what I was saying. That couldn’t have happened.

I laid awake that night too, crying again because my mother failed to believe me.

She kept fucking him long after she knew.

Sis saw him try to kiss me at one point when mother forced us to stay the night there again, this time while the wife was there with an elaborate story about being a coworker’s family. Only when sis shared did mother believe.

She still kept treating us like shit. The neglect kept happening. The emotional abuse kept happening.

At one point, my grandmother tried to hit my sister in front of friends I had. That gave me the strength to grab the phone and dial 9-1 – threatening to finish it off. Of course, that was to her an overreaction.

See, my grandmother was the worst offender in number of times she abused my sister. Once, I helped hide sis when we were very young. Grandmother asked me why sis was scared and I said something along the lines of ‘because you’re big and fat and scary and hurt her a lot.’ That was met with the same incredulity.

There is much more I could share especially into my teenage years – how my mother’s current husband and her commit fraud against the state of Wisconsin, how they’ve broken laws and then been upset when people rightfully need help, how this man feels the need to prove that he has a penis to anyone who might challenge his ideas, words, or thoughts.

This man, a tea partier in nature, has pushed my mother to live up to the worst of her potential. She began to be emotionally abusive even more to my sister’s daughter shortly before sis & fam moved out of that house.

I refused to see sis stuck there. I refused to see Missy grow up as we grew up.

So what does this all mean for right now?

I have 10+ medical conditions, almost all of which I’ve had for my entire life but am just finally getting taken care of. I’m dealing with structural issues with my body that could’ve been prevented, as is sis.

Sis and I need thousands upon thousands of medical and dental treatment. I’m lucky to have a good job with adequate insurance. Sis does not.

We both need and have needed a ton of therapy due to our anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder from growing up with our mother.

This is a post that is all over the place. I know it may not make sense to some or all. After today, after sis needing emergency dental care that will cost far too much for her, I couldn’t wait anymore. I needed to get this out and get so much of this told.

If my mother is reading this despite the cease and desist letter sent to her, I hope that she knows how horribly she screwed up. There are many things I hope for her, but they’re all negative and not the types of things that one should share aloud about another human being – even if they’re completely inhuman and inhumane in all action and thought. I know that I’ll never talk to her again, but I knew that when she uninvited herself to my wedding. I also know that she won’t care about anything I say, using that same old adage about me exaggerating and misunderstanding everything.

But I know the truth about things that happened. Now, you do too.

If you’ll excuse me, I have cheesecake and wine to finish.

June 27th is National PTSD Awareness Day

Posted on by Grayson

Tomorrow, June 27th, is National PTSD Awareness Day. You can learn more about what you can do to help raise awareness here.

There are, unfortunately, so many of us living with PTSD. Sometimes we don’t know it, or we do but can’t access resources we need.

If someone tells you that they don’t like certain things and are very reserved about why, please be patient with them. It could be PTSD related and you could be triggering a bad memory. Be kind and ask them what things you can avoid doing or what you can do to help them feel safer. Oftentimes, it’s just being around, caring, and being aware of triggers.

One thing you can do is wear teal (one of my favorite colors btw) in solidarity tomorrow.

PTSD: what it is, what it feels like, and why I hate it

Posted on by Grayson

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is something that I’ve been struggling with. It’s something that I try to be pretty open about on here because I know it helps myself process things but it also helps to raise awareness and help others feel as though they’re not so alone.

It’s common in our veterans but also occurs in a wide variety of people depending on their experiences. My comrades in being afraid all the time can include child soldiers, kidnap or assault victims, terrorism, bullying, those who witness death and natural disasters, or other traumatic and stress causing events. It’s actually a lot more common than people think. There is also a genetic component though it needs to be investigated more.

My brain even looks worse hooray!

In very very basic terms, PTSD is essentially where your mind and body are in constant fight-or-flight mode. Sometimes it’s just lurking and subdued, but can be triggered by a number of things. To expand, the trauma affect the levels and productions of certain chemicals in your brain like cortisol, adrenaline/epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine. It can affect your prefrontal cortex and other areas in the brain as well as chemicals that regulate your temperature, growth, and metabolism… and your amygdala, which helps regulate emotions and learning and your memories.

Basically it just messes with your entire body. NBD.

There are a lot of things that happen as a result of this body-wide issue. I used to be very short with everyone and get overly angry at little things. I’m happy to say that I’m over that for the most part, because I’ve learned to communicate what I’m dealing with and express myself.

If you live with other chronic illnesses, you may notice that some of these are things we deal with due to rheumatic disease or other things – difficulty sleeping, irritability, difficulty concentrating, memory issues, etc. I feel like I’ve gone to Culvers and gotten a delicious meal to find it tripled in my bag.

But like with things I don’t like in it instead of delicious custardy goodness.

Anhedonia is when you stop getting pleasure or joy out of things you normally love. That one sucks. I would say for me that it’s the same as feeling flat but eh. There are have been days where I come home and the piggies are so excited to see me and I’m just kinda like…

That breaks my heart because I love them like they were human babies… which can lead into questioning myself on what the fuck is wrong with me and how I thought I could be a parent to animals let alone kids in the future being so fucked up, etc, etc.

That, hypervigilence, flashbacks, and intrusive thoughts are definitely my least favorite.

Hypervigilence is just exhausting honestly. Do you ever have the feeling that something bad is about to happen (like the dude walking behind you creeped you out) so you’re extra aware of your surroundings? Or where you might hold your keys in your hands in a way to fight back just in case you’re mugged or whatever?

That feeling has its place, which is exactly in those situations. It doesn’t need to be in your every day life. It’s exhausting, harms your muscles because they’re often tense, and mentally is hard to process unless you go into the CIA or something.

Sadly, I did not.

Sometimes I like my spy skills but not usually.

Flashbacks are just hard. For me they tend to involve moments where I didn’t protect my sister and instead watched her being beaten. That happens so much so actually that it’s almost refreshing when my flashbacks are of myself being beaten or assaulted or molested.

 

This image takes you through some of the steps that can happen over the course of a single PTSD episode but also of the initial trauma. If we think of it as a guide for being triggered, we can use one of my issues to walk through it (why do I share some of these things?). In case it needs to be said, from now to the next picture is going to contain major triggering talk for child physical abuse.

Right now I’m not able to watch Law & Order SVU which sucks so much because it’s my favorite. Katy and I used to watch it practically whenever we weren’t in class in college, so it also may be part of why some of my energy drink fueled papers sucked.

This is going to be a fictional trigger with a real result, but it’ll help shed some light on these attacks.

I’m watching an SVU episode and it turns out the child’s mother was helping her boyfriend to sexually assault her daughter. I usually can figure these types of twists out easily, but sometimes I miss them and they take me by surprise. When that happens, it’s almost like I can feel myself shutting down or I have to go do everything on my list ever NOW to get away.

I’ll explain.

When I’m initially triggered, I get the chemical fight-or-flight reaction. It makes my hair stand on end and I get a shiver in my back or neck. I may breathe differently – more rapidly and audibly, like I may cry or hyperventilate. My temperature changes. I zone out if I don’t go do other things because that’s a technique that kept me sane and from fighting/talking back. I’ll interact with you intelligently but may not remember our conversation. It feels like everything is still and taking forever because I feel slowed down.

Sometimes this is where it ends. Eventually I watch something funny or go do something and wake up out of this.

Other times I’m not so lucky. Maybe the SVU episode showed some of the interaction or showed a parent beating and degrading a child. I go through the process above, but with some add-ons.

It takes me back to sitting in one of the two rooms that was once part of the garage in the house I grew up in. They turned part of the garage into two rooms before we moved in – one with blue carpeting that was sometimes a kitchenette or pet room depending on the era, and the other with red carpet which was either a bedroom or a movie/hangout room. In the memory I bring up, the blue room was a kitchenette with storage and the red room was a bedroom.

There was one of those white wire shoe rack type things on the back of the door to the red room (which you got to through the blue room) where mom hung her belts in addition to shoes I think. All that ever stands out in my mind are the belts.

My sister is crying and screaming and begging as my mother drags her into the red room and closes the door and locks it. I’ve run after them wanting to know what happens, telling my sick six year old self that I can help my sissy. I know I can pick the lock but I don’t want to leave because what will happen to sissy. I’m presumed that me being near will help things not go too far. I’m scared as hell.

The wire rack hits the door as mom yanks her belt down. You can hear the clinking of the belt buckle, a noise that to this day elicits this memory. If my pants are falling down, please just keep it to yourself because fuck belts man. Fuck belts.

Whatever happened made mom angrier than normal. Normally, Kelsey just got hit with the inserty end of the leather belt. This time she isn’t so lucky. You can hear her still struggling as Michelle tries to get her into a position to whip. Maybe that’s part of why she got so angry? I have no idea. All the while Michelle is hurling horrid horrid insults at my baby sisser. They’re so bad I can’t access them. I know I remember but my brain won’t let me go there.

I move to hiding in a further corner and by this point I’m crying. Things haven’t even fully started yet.

But then they do.

And all I can hear is the snap of the belt, the violent clinking of the buckle, as it hits Kelsey’s skin… and her blood curdling scream. Every lash makes me cry out and by the time it’s almost over I could fill in for Niagara Falls. My throat hurts from holding in as much as I have.

It’s done and mom throws down the belt, which she’ll later ask me to pick up and put away before demanding that I cuddle with her. Touching this weapon and being so close to the woman who just did this makes me want to vomit. For now, Kelsey sits there crying and Michelle yells at her for it before leaving the room. She uses the old parent line about how this hurt her more than it did the child who was just beaten. She walks back to the main part of the house, not seeing me hiding in the corner thank god.

Kelsey has welts and bruises that quickly develop on her back. They really hurt her.

I feel like shit. I didn’t do anything to stand up for her or to wake my mother up to what she was really doing. I didn’t get help from other adults, though we were threatened with the knowledge that we’d be taken away and likely split up because who wants two broken girls. I feel like shit for still not really sharing details of this with anyone (this is the first time even T has heard this story in detail here). I feel awful for treating my sisser so poorly and for not protecting her. That’s what big sisters are supposed to do and I have failed.

I parented my mother enough at times that I feel guilty for not chastising her… until I remember that I was a six year old who everyone thought was literally dying. What could I do?

I feel helpless, hopeless, like shit. I’m worthless because I don’t do anything to stop this. I get angry with my mother, with her parents and grandparents. What did they do to raise this monster that bore me? My grandmother is much the same and has done similar things to my sister. She is, in fact, the one person I’ve ever called 911 on… Well, dialed 91 and threatened to finish.

It was much easier to stand up to her because (remember I’m in my six year old brain here) she is fat and can’t move as fast as mom. She also doesn’t sleep in the same bed with us or do nurturing things that mother does. Mother made me think that she was doing this because Kelsey was bad. Everything turned into her fault somehow.

My sister was treated like shit her entire life. My mother never cared to connect with sis – until I left and lessened contact. Then sis suddenly became this amazing child who could do no wrong, save not sending her poor mother money.

Sometimes this storm of thoughts builds and builds and I think about other events that happened or mistakes that I made. I spiral downwards until I’m numb and seem like a zombie. This happened everywhere – at work, school, lying in bed at 3am not sleeping, even during sex.

If I think about this, I get angry. Fuck you Michelle. Fuck you for all of this. It doesn’t matter how you were raised – you had a responsibility to do better by us, to love us and protect us, and instead you beat us physically and emotionally and allowed us to be sexually abused without doing shit about any of it. How fucking dare you?! And even more, you gaslight us. You try to act like what we remember didn’t happen. Then why the FUCK do we have the same or very similar memories? Why won’t you ever admit fault? That you did even one thing – maybe this particular thing?

Because of my research, my adult brain knows why. It’s because Michelle and Patricia are mentally ill. They need serious help that neither of them will ever get for many reasons, but namely the illness itself. Well, and not believing that they need it.

This all goes through my head in the span of a few seconds. While I’m zoned out, I notice everything. Hooray for special spy skills.

Now I’m just exhausted – physically, emotionally, mentally. I cry, sometimes in front of T or in the bathroom or at my desk at work or driving. My crumpled and angry body is done, spent, completely out of spoons in such a way that that phrase doesn’t do it justice.

It’s interesting to look at this image because so much of it has to do with ableism too, doesn’t it? Dismissing others as unimportant or unworthy? It’s like a family hobby. It gets so bad you think that you really are lying, like that episode of Star Trek.

The hardest thing about PTSD is that it’s a physiological response to an event or a series of events. When those events aren’t around anymore, though, your brain and body don’t know how to adjust. It still is prepared to protect itself. I’m grateful for the thought behind it, but living with the result is really hard.

Working on recovery is hard. It means revisiting a lot of this and allowing myself to feel the emotions and really be there with them. It sucks so many donkey balls.

I think the hardest thing is that sometimes the most innocent things trigger me. Sure, SVU is a perfect example, but sometimes it’s blinking a certain way or hearing a child scream (even happily) or a word or just someone being angry or berating/putting down someone else – even if they think it’s funny.

Of course, there is also the belt sound triggers. I hate public restrooms between this and being beaten during potty training.

I hate having a good memory honestly.

The good thing is that my antidepressant really helps. My therapist and I are working on some coping skills – and really working hard to get to the bottom of some things. I know that if I want to be more normal or have certain hobbies back, I have to get through some of this trauma. It’s not going to be easy and there will be days where I want to stop. I just have to tell myself that I’m different and will always be so, which is totes fine.

But you know what? I’m also unbreakable.

Therapeutic Thursday: flashback central

Posted on by Grayson

Lately I’ve been dealing with flashbacks from growing up.

Last week I actually broke down hard and just lost it. I remembered the physical violence I endured as a very small child. Then I remembered that I felt relieved when Kelsey became the one to fill that role. I didn’t do much to protect her. Yes, I was a small child and couldn’t do much anyway, but part of me was happy that I wasn’t that person anymore. I even blamed her for some things – a common sibling thing to do I know… but it led to her getting hurt.

And I just lost it.

T did a really good job of helping me talk through what I could, holding me while I cried, and reminding me that both Kelsey and I are safe now. He told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I did what I could when I could.

I know he’s right. It brings back a feeling of helplessness though to know I couldn’t do much though.

A few days later, I had another flashback situation while at work. I was grateful it was one of the days that my officemate was gone. I was able to speak with Dawn who runs #spooniechat about what I was going through and she helped me deal.

The AI conference came at a perfect time.

I needed that togetherness, that group of people who know what you’ve been through and don’t see you as lesser for it. The amazing people I met there – whether for the first time or finally in person – helped me to deal with my feelings of inadequacy more than they will know.

Something that helped me immensely was being in a place where I could just let go of the tensions. I was able to drop everything and just exist for the first time in a long, long time. There were no sessions on healing from abuse, nothing specifically geared towards me in that regard, but the letting go of expectations was so fantastic. People offered to let me sleep in their rooms if I was too tired or gave me Biofreeze to help me deal.

I’ve tried to carry that feeling throughout this week. If plans change, I’m not going to get annoyed or mad. If issues pop up, we’ll handle them. If I’m uncomfortable, I’ll switch things up so I get comfortable.

That’s come in handy with regards to these flashbacks.

They’re SO real. I know that I’m not there, but my body doesn’t. It reacts the way it did in the moment – sweating, heavy labored breathing, shaking with fear, etc. It gets really hard to shake that feeling, especially when you can’t get your mind out of it. I often have to resort to watching something like Bob’s Burgers to quell that feeling.

I’m all for that, but flashbacks don’t always happen when you can stop and watch these things or take silly quizzes.

So that’s where these other experiences will come in handy. Recalling T’s voice telling me that it’s okay and that I’m safe helps. Knowing that my sister is away from crazy people helps. Knowing that my niblings won’t grow up how we grew up helps.

It’s still hard. It’s still going to be something that I have to deal with my entire life. I won’t pretend that it doesn’t affect me anymore, but I will work to move past it, to stop giving those who abused me the ability to fuck up my life.

If you’re dealing with similar issues, come listen to my fighting back playlist. Some of it is to remind me that I’m awesome and alive, but a lot of it is there to help me express anger when I need to.

Self-Care Sunday: dealing with the past

Posted on by Grayson

Real talk: you do seriously need to watch this. If you haven’t yet:

Kimmy: I can’t even do a dream date right!
Titus: Probably because you’re bottling up the past. The past is not a root beer Kimmy Schmidt!

Today, we’re going to talk about what to do for yourself when you’re dealing with rough things from the past.

Do you feel like your should-be self is interfering with your right-now life? And who you want to be? Check out this piece. And if you feel like you were over some past things but recently discovered you weren’t, please please please read this post from Blessing Manifesting. Spot on.

It’s important in so many ways to both own and tell your story. Maybe you’re on the path to finding out your story and learning why it’s so important to share. Remember that there are always ways to get through the hard times.

Kimmy: Do you think going through something like that – a war or whatever – makes you a better person? Or, deep down, does it just make you bitter and angry?

Have you been abused by family or others too? There are lots of guides out there on how to heal, but I found this one helpful. One really tough part about all of this is figuring out that you contain worth and you matter. You’re not just taking up space. People like me often find comfort in becoming a bit of a control freak. In reality, we need to let go and work on how to deal with less emotional pain. Sometimes that means working through the abuse. Sometimes that means ignoring it. For others, that means focusing on the good that’s come out of the situation.

The important thing to remember is that standing up for yourself gives you the power in the relationship and negates much of the power they hold over you. Learn to say no and set up real and proper boundaries. It isn’t easy and you will have set backs, but believing in yourself and your experiences will help get you to where you need to be.

If you’re dealing with PTSD or other issues that cause flashbacks, learn about how and why they happen.

If you can’t remove yourself from a situation by cutting contact like I did, try these steps when you’re in a high pressure situation. It’s easier said than done to keep your cool, but it can help to step back from the emotions of the situation.

Make sure that you address all the dimensions of self care that there are. Help the others around you by talking about empathy and asking for help when you need it. If you need it, check out resources on DBT and other ways to get through crisis moments. Processing traumatic events is really hard. Maybe practice some self care? If you’re really stuck on that though, try helping someone else. It always makes me feel better.

It won’t be easy but you can make it – because you’re:

Therapeutic Thursday: the importance of sharing your truth

Posted on by Grayson

It can be really hard to stick to your guns when others act like you’re in the wrong on something. It’s even harder when that something has to do with your personal well being.

If you’re anything like me, you see standing up for yourself in some aspects as not worth the confrontation or conflict that may come along. You’ve been conditioned, whether through people or other influences in your life, to see yourself as unworthy, little, and puny. Sure, everyone has days like that. For some of us, that’s what makes up the bulk of our thoughts.

The biggest problem with growing up in a home or being in any position where you’re conditioned to think like this is that it affects every aspect of your life. It will make you think your bronchitis is just a cold – that you’re upplaying the affects of any illness or just unworthy of getting treatment – and that you don’t need to seek medical help. You don’t go for promotions or better jobs because you ‘just know’ you won’t get them. It affects your confidence to the point that if, by some miracle you did apply for a job, you wouldn’t get past the interview stage because you become a nervous and anxious wreck. Your personal relationships suck because you either have no friends or you have ‘friends’ who walk all over you and make you feel worse about yourself.

It’s almost as if every user can sense you’re a good usee.

On top of that, you get to deal with that little voice in the back of your head that reminds you how not good enough to accomplish things you are. Oftentimes, that voice is the voice of the bully or abuser or oppressor that you’ve dealt with.

A good way to combat these feelings is to be assertive and to speak your truth.

I know that speaking your truth sounds silly, but that’s exactly what it is – your truth. Just because your abuser didn’t see what she did as abuse doesn’t mean it isn’t. If you felt abused, that is your truth. No one has the right to tell a victim whether or not they were victimized.

These issues will just keep popping up until you get help and work on sharing what you’ve gone through. Not everyone is as into sharing as I am, but I believe that it really does help the healing process along for others to hear and know about why you’re triggered by the smell of beer or why people yelling at others bothers you.

Sharing can be a really hard step for a few reasons – the biggest perhaps is that sharing makes what you’ve gone through real. I began to talk with other abuse survivors and the things and stories we had in common were frightening honestly. It became more real to me.

Right now I am dealing with the realest feelings from the abuses I’ve suffered. I’m dealing with flashbacks that I have a really hard time getting out of. I’m dealing with pent up anger at remembering more and more things that happened as I was growing up. All this is happening because I’m sharing more in my relationships and in therapy. But it also means I’m working through these issues.

I am solid in the knowledge that I suffered through things a child shouldn’t even have to think about let alone endure or witness. I know for a fact that the adults in the home where I grew up have some serious personality and mental health issues that need to be addressed but likely never will. I am dealing with the fact that my family was not dysfunctional but abusive and that it stunted my emotional growth horribly.

I own everything that I am, including what has happened to me. In order to embrace myself – faults and all – I must embrace the scared little girl that still resides inside of me. I have to help her find her voice.

My mother can’t seem to keep herself out of my life. She continues to read what I’m doing here on this blog and trying to creep on me via multiple social media sites. My sister has been asked to rein me in to stop me from talking about what I’ve gone through.

I’m not a little girl anymore. I can’t be scared by comments that my sister will be taken away and my mother put in jail if I talk about the abuse or what happened in our home. I won’t be frightened into silence anymore.

And if you don’t like what I have to say, I have only one thing to say to you:

Your opinion doesn’t matter anyway.

You need to watch The Unbreakable Kimmy Scmidt

Posted on by Grayson
I’ve got a new obsession – The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The show follows Kimmy as she tries to start living a normal life after being trapped in a bunker for 15 years by a doomsday reverend. In the first episode, she and the three other ‘mole women’ appear on the Today show. As their shuttle leaves the set and is driving to the airport, she has them pull over and decides to stay in New York. Everyone back in Indiana, she’s afraid, will always see her as a victim. She wants to be someone other than that.

Throughout the show, Kimmy has a number of PTSD episodes. They, and her social awkwardness, interfere with work, her love life, and more. She takes a job as a nanny for a rich family and moves in with Titus, a fantastic singer whose life-long dream of hitting Broadway keeps getting smashed.

I actually started watching this show mid-PTSD attack. I couldn’t get a sexual assault experience out of my head. I knew that this show, while funny, also addressed PTSD issues. I thought it could snap me out of the flashbacks, and I was right.

This show is funny, but it also deals with some hard topics. She mentions a few times that there was ‘weird sex stuff’ when she was being held, but the show doesn’t focus on that. It doesn’t focus on her having to live with strangers or the logistics of girls mentally handling captivity. The whole show focuses on her life afterwards. She’s working to move on, fit in, and make something of herself, even though she’s still got so much growing up to do.

There is a scene in the first episode that resonated with me really well. She hasn’t told her roommate about her past (and really doesn’t tell anyone) because she wants to be normal. She goes through being robbed and then losing her job, and comes back to the apartment freaking out. She goes into a rant talking to herself about how she’ll never be normal.

It resonated with me so well because I have these often – not as often as I used to, but still at least once every day.

I also try to rap far more than this white girl maybe should.

But, I mean, clearly Kimmy and I both got skills so why hide them. Am I right?

We’re so similar though – it’s almost creepy.
I wasn’t kept in a bunker for 15 years, but I was homeschooled and cut off from others for about seven years – and not allowed to do much even after that. I wasn’t abused by Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, but I was abused by another little girl growing up in addition to my mother’s (now finally) ex-boyfriend (whom she continued to see after I told her about the abuse). I didn’t just magically have to start living on my own with no skills whatsoever – I did have some. I am, though, incredibly dorky just like Kimmy.
I don’t know that I’d have it any other way though.

I do still believe in good, in the fact that people are inherently good but we’re all just so preoccupied with ourselves and our take out, instant gratification culture to see it. I love bunnies and my piggies and every single animal – even snakes. Most of all, I believe Sandra don’t need a man. You can do this all by yourself girl!

And I know that we can get through anything if we just take it tiny steps at a time. You know why? Because we’re tough!

And if you still don’t feel like you can handle something, you can always try to fool yourself.

I just finished watching the first season, exclusively on Netflix, who was smart enough to order a second season before filming even started. My therapist said she started watching it as well and she definitely appreciated the parallels between her patients’ lives and what this girl goes through.

Have you watched it? I’d love to hear what you think about the show!

Maddened Monday: Unikitty, Lego, and Anger

Posted on by Grayson

Have you seen The Lego Movie? Because you really really should for many reasons.

My favorite character in the whole movie is Unikitty. She’s a unicorn kitty.

She’s also like literally me as a Lego. If you have time for a video, check out one here with her best moments, some of which are in gif form below.

She’s generally very happy, but has a wee bit of an anger problem. That also, in the end, turns out to be a great thing because she’s able to save her friends thanks to going on a rampage.
Another nice thing is that I’ve also learned that some anger can be healthy and even protect us from events or people:

Put another way, anger is to be respected and heard. It shows us where our boundaries are, and when they have been crossed. It acts as a guide, letting us know when we’ve taken a wrong turn in life, or need to try a different path. Anger is a compass, pointing us in the next right direction.

All that said, I try to not be angry. It bothers me to have more negative emotions like that because they often take a toll on my physical well-being too. A large part of that is because I hold things back instead of expressing emotions because it isn’t always polite or proper – or because I’m worried what I will do with that anger if I try to express it. Physically, I generally end up hurting myself if I work out angry because I ignore my body’s warning signs and don’t stop when I should.
I think I’m also very fearful of turning into any of the adults I grew up with because they all were far too expressive of their anger, physically and verbally. I don’t want to turn into that, so I hold everything inside. Because I don’t express my feelings readily, I end up in denial about a lot of things. I’ve always felt that the denial balances out the potential to turn evil. I try to tell myself that anyway.
All of this is a huge part of why I meditate. I really honestly need to meditate more than I do right now, because I’m falling behind. Thich Nhat Hanh has a great quote about mindfulness and anger here:

Mindfulness does not fight anger or despair. Mindfulness is there in order to recognize. To be mindful of something is to recognize that something is there in the present moment. Mindfulness is the capacity of being aware of what is going on in the present moment. “Breathing in, I know that anger has manifested in me; breathing out, I smile towards my anger.” This is not an act of suppression or of fighting. It is an act of recognizing. Once we recognize our anger, we embrace it with a lot of awareness, a lot of tenderness.

He goes on to say that we should approach these negative emotions like an older sibling would an angry younger sibling. You let that little one experience those emotions without trying to downplay or stifle them, then you help him or her to rebuild.
All of this is honestly a huge part of my fight for self-care and self-love. If I loved enough and thought highly enough of myself to practice more compassion towards myself, I could be able to process my feelings more easily – especially the negative ones like anger.
I’m getting there, but hey I’m a work in progress.
So why am I talking about all this?
I had a moment last night where I learned and remembered more information on the things my mother has done to abuse others, from neglecting to get them care to flat out hurting them and not understanding when she’s not received as warmly afterwards.

It was really bad. I was shaking with anger, but then got creepy-calm angry. I’m not sure which was worse, but both bothered me immensely. I was too sleepy to think too irrationally thank goodness, because my awake self would’ve wanted to go to my mother and chew her out. There are things as a parent that you don’t share with your children or expose them to or withhold from them. What I learned last night violated all three of those things and more.

I had literally the same reaction as Unikitty does here. I’m obviously still upset about it this morning.
I refuse to break my no contact with my mother. I know it’ll do no good, and that it’ll just stir up more depression and anxiety on my part. My therapist and the amazing friends I have in my life all agree. I feel upset that there will never be justice though. My mother will never have to pay for the abuse she doled out, nor will her mother or grandfather. None of them will get a trial or face a night in jail. They’ll never face charges for the sexual abuse that they learned about and did nothing to help with, save in some cases removing the abuser (oh hey, fyi, carrying on an intimate relationship with the abuser after that nullifies the removal).
Meanwhile, my sister and I are left with the remnants of lives, trying to pick up the pieces and figure out how to be real people. It’s always been her and me against the world. I’m grateful that we have some amazing friends who are now a part of our real family now, giving us help, guidance, and validation when needed. I’m even more thankful that we have great partners in our lives to help both of us work through all of this.
There are people who obviously aren’t happy about this situation – about how open I’m being with the things I endured growing up. There are people who think these things are best reserved for closed door conversations if they’re talked about at all – you know, family secrets. I believe in being open with this situation just as I have with my disease, because I know that it will help someone. If I can make it so that someone doesn’t feel as alone and as tortured about their family life as I have, then it’ll be worth it.

Therapeutic Thursdays: PTSD & me

Posted on by Grayson

On Tuesday, my therapist and I decided to step up my appointments from every other week to every week because I have a new diagnosis: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The biggest factor is of course the home in which I was raised. I witnessed, was exposed to, and endured some very difficult things. Some of the things I shared with the therapist this week were things that no one has details on. It felt good to get those things out, for someone else to share that burden.

For most people, finding out they have a mental illness that affects 1 in 3 troops returning from the field might be too much. I mean, how can my childhood compare to war?

It’s true that PTSD doesn’t just affect those who’ve been in war or similar combat, and I know that, but still. I downplay so much of what I’m dealing with in my every day life. I use this blog and my social media to express myself in ways I’ve found very hard to do so in person. Part of that is my mental illness issues and part of that has to do with boundaries and lack of social interactions during key ages.

In reading more about PTSD, a lot of things in my life started to make more sense – my hypervigilance, trust issues, sleep issues, detachment, random flashbacks… Even the issues I’ve had with anger, expressing anger, and dealing with confrontation.

It’s not necessarily that I don’t want to remember these events, but there is a time and a place for working through them. My body waking me up at 3AM because I’ve had a flashback in a dream isn’t it. Other not-its? Driving, intimate moments with my husband, watching a movie, cooking, in line at the grocery store, in a big meeting for my job, etc.

I’m grateful for this label. I’m grateful that this is legitimate. I’m grateful that the impact of all these events has not been in my head. I’m grateful that my feelings are being validated, even though that isn’t absolutely needed… I know that, at times, I’ve needed that reassurance. I’m so used to gaslighting that I question myself on too many things.

Most of all, I’m grateful that myself and my loved ones are safe, that we’re not in the position we used to be.

Right now, I’m ready to face what I’ve gone through. There will be times when I want to quit and times where I need to go more slowly. I know that nothing ever changes overnight and that anything worth doing isn’t easy. The most important thing is that I know that it’s worth it – that my relationships, my career, my family, my very own self are all worth the fight.