My Therapy (part one)

     I don't go to therapy, I probably should but I don't have the time or inclination to pay someone ninety bucks an hour to stare and nod with the occasional "How did you feel about that?" sprinkled in.  I process my emotions through writing. I haven't done so publicly until starting a Blog.

          I am dealing with a lot of emotions right now. I guess to understand them I have to go back  through my childhood and what led me to have the relationship I now have with my family.

    I was born to a 15 year old mother and a 16 year old father. My father had issues with drugs and alcohol and my mother was not ready for the responsibility of an infant. We lived with my grandparents in a basement apartment and my grandmother kept me while my mother went to school and participated in all those things that high school kids do (dances, talent shows, and clubs). I think to the extent that my mother was capable, she loved me. I was more like a doll or a pet to her, than a child though. My grandmother filled the role of "mother"for me. There were issues with mother and daughter before I came along and my mother dating my "bad boy" father and becoming pregnant was her misguided stab at my grandmother. I quickly became a pawn in their struggle for control. My mother wanted desperately to be independent of my grandparents, who had an even tighter reign on her after my birth because she needed them to provide child care, diapers, housing and so on.

       Eventually, my grandfather bought the house next door to them for my mother. I had spent the first 8 years of my life able to spend days with my grandmother, who got me ready for school and picked me up from school and made my snacks. Honestly, my memories of my mother are vague. She was a shadow in my early childhood. My grandmother was also a disturbed woman, whose emotions towards me and my mother fluctuated wildly. She would tell me my mother loved me one minute and if my mother spurned her she would tell me I had a bad mother who didn't know how to care for me. This, of course, enraged my mother who wanted so badly to be free of her parents.


 Then my mother did what a lot of women do in that situation. She married someone who was more financially stable and moved away.


   I had already begun to show disturbing signs of mental illness and stress. At 8 years old I was not potty trained and had difficulty sleeping. I thought that there was a robot coming down the street to get me. I can still remember the sound of metal grinding as the heavy foot steps grew closer. Every night I would listen to them grow closer, paralyzed with fear. I would spend hours fixated on the swaying trees at night, from which I saw monsters rise. I was self abusive and over sensitive. I would slap my legs until red welts rose on my skin in violent fits. I remember feeling so out of control with no way to explain it to anyone around me. In second grade I was tested and found to have a very high IQ. For my family that served as an explanation for my more bizarre behavior.

 When my mom remarried my problems intensified. My step father was physically and emotionally abusive towards me. He was obsessed with control and order. I had strict rules, many chores, and even our food and "family time" was delegated to the nth degree. By 9 years old I had what should have been recognized as full-blown mental illness. I became obsessed with germs, I washed my hands until the skin was peeling and bleeding. I pulled out my hair and ate it. I thought I had Muscular Dystrophy and heart palpitations and would beg my mother (who had by now gotten her nursing degree) to check my heart with her stethoscope every night. I also developed an obsession with the weather. I was terrified of tornadoes and wouldn't go outside if a single dark cloud loomed. I had to watch the weather every morning ( a particular channel, Eric Thomas was the only weather guy who knew what he was talking about) and if storms were called for, I wanted to spend the day huddled in the basement. My step dad was intolerant of my peculiarities, he would get angry and force me into the car and drive me around during storms. I would absolutely panic, screaming, kicking the seats and windows and begging to go home because I was frightened. He would scream at me and berate me for being so "absurd."

         While my parents and grandparents battled furiously over who would raise me (my grandfather once showing up with a shot gun after finding bruises on me) I descended even further into madness.

  I began to starve myself. I don't even know why really. I was a chubby, freckle faced and unattractive kid. I wanted to be thin and attractive, but now that I look back I think it was much a stab at gaining some sort of control as anything else. My step dad would have none of it, he forced me to sit at the table until I ate. I then began making myself vomit. When my mother discovered what I was doing I hid it by throwing up into jars and hiding them. By the time I was 12 I had a very serious eating disorder. Only then did they take me to therapy. By that time anger and rage had consumed me. I resisted talking to the therapist. I would destroy things that belonged to my mother and did anything that I felt would irritate her. Once an honor roll student in gifted classes, I was now acting out in school.

  At 12 years old I had morphed from a weird, nerdy, and somewhat disturbed kid into the preteen from hell. It was if another personality had developed to protect the little girl inside who was still so fragile. Later on , in therapy, I learned that eating disorders are often viewed that way and that girls who have them go through a distinct personality change.
    I provoked my mother and step father at every opportunity. I embarrassed them any time I felt I could and blatantly did the opposite of everything they said. I hated them and wanted to live with my grandparents, who were still fighting to have me live with them. It finally exploded into a violent altercation between me and my stepfather. My mother called the ambulance to have me hauled away to the nuthouse, but when the police arrived they found me sitting in the kitchen crying and on the phone with my psychiatrist. My clothing had been ripped and I had red rings on my throat. My step dad felt confident that I would be arrested, but the cop didn't feel that way at all. He threatened to arrest my step dad for child abuse. My mother had since had another baby and the prospect of losing her new family was too much. I was disposable, my step dad was not. In order to prevent legal trouble I was packed up and sent to my grandmother and grandfather.

   It was far from a happy ending for me. The next chapter in my life would lead me down even darker paths and give me a glimpse into the origins of my mother's dysfunction. I often wondered how a human being could be as devoid of emotion as my mother seemed to be. She seemed to be a broken person, clinging desperately to the illusion of a "good Christian home" despite the obvious chaos under our roof. I saw this as duplicity and deception on her part, I felt that she wanted to present a certain image to the world. Later I would realize that this was denial and detachment on her part. I would soon learn why.