J.S. Memoirs
A Collective of memoirs by J.S. about Trauma + Mental Health + Abuse + Healing.
|
#selfproclamations #abuse #trauma #healing #childabuse #attack #PTSD ♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤ Curled up on the couch, a soft fur blanket drapped around my body, fingers laced with my husbands' --- feels like home. We are watching a Netflix original, trying to keep our eyes open past 1am to enjoy our greatest version of a date. Alone time after the three kids go to sleep. Hearts calm and bodies relaxed, enjoying the lack of awareness of day or time. It is winter and no responsibilities are calling our names here in the night. He kisses my cheek and I smile, feeling warm and content as he admires the outline of my silhouette and runs his finger down my nose. There is an intimacy between us that can forever be unmatched. A safety in his touch and the presence of the space he takes up next to me, legs intertwined and feet touching. A feeling builds up in my chest, a quick pick up of breathing and lack of exhales causing me to raise my left hand to my chest, bare beneath the neckline of my shirt collar. My ears are picking up something from the depth beyond the shut wooden door that keeps us time blocked in date night. A thump. A creek. And a sudden shriek of the door POPPING loose and dragging open in the dark. Just as my body sensed its movement, my nerves LEAP with intensified fear. Neck whipping, I turn to my husband and ask him to check if a child is out of bed or if something pushed the latch open. It is silly, but I am frightened. He gets up in serious fashion to explore what is most likely a toddler awaiting retrieval from the baby gated bedroom across from ours. Instead, he meets gaze with a dark, empty hall and turns to me to smile gently for reassurance that everything is ok. I am up behind him already. He shuts the door and tells me that it was nothing. As his body passed mine to return to the couch, I turn back away from the door and it POPS open again. This time, my shaking hand meeting the backside and shoving it shut. I am pale and I can feel the goosebumps rising over my back underneath my silky top. Heart pounding and tears welling up along with the thump, thump, pause. Thump, THUMP, PAUSE --- I am met, chest to chest wit an understanding hug as he holds me. As he repeats, "YOU'RE OK. YOU'RE OK." Hand caressing my back. He knows. --- Unmatched intimacy. He knows. ♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤ PTSD sometimes looks like knowing 5 seconds before it happens. It's feeling the air change. Or an expression alter. It's seeing something there that no one else sees because it happened, just a long time ago. For me, PTSD looks like petite hands pressing a wooden door shut at 2am and making bruises on a strong, thin calf of someone prying the door open in order to reach me. 2am, hair grasped in fist and screams, inaudible, felt in vibrations down my spine. Goosebumps and chills. Fear she will get in. Fear of what happens if I am not strong enough to shut the door. A final slam and standing fast on feet to hold the door shut from inside. Desperately looking around for something to hold it shut, absent of a lock on the cheap brass handle of the eggshell white portal I desperately beg to cease moving. So I tug heavily at the vintage dresser and get the corner to pass the door. I keep pushing and manage to shove a heavy, 9 drawer natural wood IKEA vanity across the right corner of the room. I melt down in front of it and press my body to the drawers. Knobs resting my head and spine between them. PTSD is not remembering how many hours i slept on that hardwood floor that night or what got me into school the next morning. Just knowing I reached an adult I trusted instead of taking my midterm, to shakily pass words I had been waiting to utter for years. "Attacked". My PTSD shows up during normal hours. It does not pencil in meetings with me or request a call. It just comes, unannounced. Like a walk-in for an important meeting. A meeting of timelines. A recollection of truths. As I grow older, gaining understanding of what is happening and learning how to say PTSD in line with my name... I realize the foreign sound of this term only means I have not presently associated with my past. February 2019 was my first real diagnosis with this term. It was not until summer that the pronunciation felt right. Past reminders in current situations. Pre processing of past events. So what does healing look like for someone with PTSD? For me, it is the meeting between past and present in order to map out a healthy future. It means using my senses and my present awareness to assist in honoring boundaries to make the flashes subside and the title "healing" feel attainable. It means I will have the whole body experience of hitting "play" on my life. J.S. Jaded Savior ♡ An excerpt from "STUCK ON PAUSE", an autobiography about living with PTSD, depression, anxiety, trauma, abuse etc. Coming in 2020 ☆ 
0 Comments
My truths look different than the truths other family members have in my family. Everyone is affected differently by Trauma. And not everyone in the family gets abused by the abuser. In fact, it can be common for one person to be singled out while everyone else is unaware of it. Narcissistic people often surround themselves by adoring fans in order to not raise suspicions and successfully gas light TF out of their victim. I was in abusive, volatile situations my first 16 years of life. It took me years after to ACTUALLY, cognitively, process what had happened. To come to terms with definitions like addict, narcissist, schizophrenic etc. To gain validation from actual medical professionals once both parents of mine went into the hospital for near death experiences due to their addictions. My father was found nearly dead from a heroin overdose. He was brought into the hospital and soon after admitted into a long term in-patient program. My mother had seizures and passed out during Thanksgiving in front of her siblings and parents, having an ambulance take her out. She was admitted only a few days then sent home. Alcohol poisoning and problems with her body. I had called the hospital when my mother went in. I let them know I was her only child and that she was an addict, so medications should be provided with caution. They ignored it. Both of my parents began drinking and doing drugs in their early teens. I would figure out decades later that they both suffered from abuse since childhood and mental health issues, without any diagnosis or treatments until they began self medicating and got harmed by it. Common for people struggling with mental health issues, such as bipolar and schizophrenia, each of them did not actually know what was wrong with themselves until they were very deep in dangerous symptoms of their conditions. No one in my family ever talked to me about their conditions or their addictions. In fact, my mother was often just eye rolled at when she peeled off the foil seal of a new bottle at a holiday dinner or even a get together. "There goes Cathy, drinking again" was the closest I ever heard to anyone pointing out a bad behavior, though sharp tongued as to say it was as annoying and typical as nail biting. And soon after, discarded as a lost cause. I remember how much anxiety I felt whenever my mother, who had residential custody of me, took me to family events. My father on the other hand did not want to see his family as the years went on. He cut them all off. He even cut off his childhood best friend. His girlfriends. And then finally me. I remember wishing other people could see what I saw. I wanted someone to say something to both of them. To call them out on their problems. But when it did not happen, I felt crazy. Had I imagined everything to be worse than it was? After all, both of my parents were adults and bought their substances with their own money. They both held jobs. They both had relationships. And relatives who still wanted to invite them to things. I often thought I earned it. That I must have been a bad kid. So bad my parents did not want any more. So bad, they divorced. So bad that I was punished often because I was not living up to their standards. My mother would do this thing whenever we saw my cousins. Any cousins from any side of the family. She would let me play with them. Let me get messy. Let me run around laughing and having a good time. Then the whole car ride home, she would talk about how messy I was. How loud I was. How I was not "as smart as", "as pretty as", "as obedient as". I was a bad girl. A fresh girl who liked to talk back. A girl who ripped her tights and wrinkled her dress because she did not care to be polite or neat. When my father took me from my mother to go to an event or play date, he actually brought me rugged Jean's + t shirts. I dressed down and took my hair loose. I went out in the yard. I got dirty. Then I would get dropped off home and face the ridicule of a lifetime for looking and smelling the way I did. They knew each other like warning labels --- there was no way it was accidental, this exchange of a pawn. A checkmate between dirt and clorox. --------------------------- When I reflect now, I have a whirlwind of emotions. At 29, I still ask myself sometimes if I "imagine to be worse than it was". I also have to sit with the fact that not everyone in my family experienced the same behaviors or abuse from my parents. That to some, it looked like I had a normal childhood. My parents were both high functioning. And their Jekyl/Hyde personalities fooled a lot of people. There were other abusers in my families. All 3 families, since my mother was remarried by the time I was 6. I knew narcissists, emotionally and physically abusive members, other addicts, and even a pedophile. I was sure of it. In my silence, I also grew up hyper vigilant. I carry guilt for not being able to expose those truths. And pain for all the enablers or people who just kept a blind eye for convenience. But something very important I discovered this year changed my life. MY TRUTHS ARE THE TRUTH. For me, the experiences were REAL. They happened to me. It was not an illusion. And I AM SURE of what is healthy v.s. not. So what helps me through these struggles? The FACT that I KNOW RIGHT V.S. WRONG. I know what abuse looks like, from education and awareness. Even though I no longer live in those toxic situations, I still relive the memories. But this time, I am able to process the guilt and pain. To justify how I felt and what it all did to me. And I can release the thoughts I have about anyone else I grew up around. I can tell myself that everyone has their own experience. I have to accept that some people loved the abusers in my families'. That some people loved and love my parents. I have to detach from the notion that my family has to validate the abuse in order to validate that I experienced it. It is not true or necessary. So I release it all. Anyone else's feelings or examination of my truths. I also stay introspective because that is healthy. I had to make that boundary myself. To ONLY THINK ABOUT MY OWN EMOTIONS and not try to process or control anyone else's. It is true that some people do not have the same truths or realizations I do. But just because someone else was not abused like I was, by the same person, does not mean that person was not abusive. A narcissist is still a narcissist and an abuser is still an abuser. IF SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING UNHEALTHY AND IMMORAL TO SOMEONE ELSE, EVEN JUST ONE VICTIM, IT ABSOLUTELY MAKES THEM WRONG. Toxic is toxic. And no one else can speak for me to say I was not abused. No one else was there, but even if they had been ------> someone else having a lack of capacity or awareness of what is right and wrong should not affect in any way what I know to be right or wrong. And even if no one else is able to have the same realizations I have, it is my job alone to create my own boundaries. To keep myself safe. I have had to keep my safety and distance ---> not just for myself but for my children. I have had to break the cycle of abuse by deeming it not okay to be around addicts or abusive people EVER. I have to be able to live with my own decisions. And I can, every single day that I choose HEALTHY in order to break the cycle. ♡ J.S. Jaded Savior #christmas #addictions #trauma #homeless #abuse #neglect #awareness Today is my birth fathers birthday and I have no idea how old he is. Though I know his birthday, I don't care to do the math. In many ways, it feels like his life ceased many years ago. At least, for me. As an only child, I grew up bouncing between divorced parents and had two entirely different relationships with them. Cathy had full custody which meant she could dangle me over Charlie's head like a cat toy, while her hostile husband watched with scissors hanging low to his side. Charlie did pills and heroine. On and off he tried to get clean throughout my childhood but it just never quite "stuck". No one in my family ever uttered the words mental illness. It would take years and years after he abandoned me at 15 for him to overdose on heroine and be found unconscious only to be revived in the emergency room and sent to an 18 month program. But rehab didn't stick either. In my mid twenties, while raising my little girl as a single mom in college, I discovered he was in that program and finally diagnosed. Schizophrenia, I was told. Mania. Depression. Organ failures. Addictions. "Accidental overdose". I was pretty sure it was very on purpose. I cannot stomach the show "shameless". My father is every bit of FRANK minus the hunger for cash. He longs for appreciation and attention, apparently. So Charlie kept himself constantly talking about anything to make himself sound good. Charlie never got high in front of me. Just like I never knew what high looked like, until I saw him at 16. After Cathy and her husband told me to "go find my father" when I announced my pregnancy. So I walked 3 towns in rubber flats and morning sickness in the summer heat to locate him. All I knew at the time was his last job address, so I tried there. The whole walk I stomped angrily and replayed the last voice mail I had sent him, about a year prior. He had been jealous and angry that I was dating. That his 15 year old CHILD had a boyfriend and that he was no longer getting "listened to" or "seen as much". I remember screaming at him in the snow around 11 pm because Cathy had been black out drunk and done something horrible. So I ran out and called him what felt like 100 times to pick me up because I was scared. And only in pajamas. But he didn't -- No, he wouldn't, answer. So I chewed him out in the allotted 4 minutes that answering machine allowed and I thanked him so very much for abandoning me when I needed him. And for not even having the decency to end our relationship with an apology. Because he simply stopped showing up for weeks. And then months went by. And every Saturday that i cried in his absence, Cathy made sure to rub the sand in my eyes. Their entire relationship after the divorce had simply been a contest of who would build a better sandcastle. Frank Gallagher reminds me of Charlie because he has only one commitment in this world. And that is to himself. Though I am the only surviving child of his, I paid dearly for years as he lived in his own mind. It did not matter finding out an actual diagnosis for Charlie. I spent my childhood idolizing an addict who was childlike and had a broken personality. Several of them actually. When I arrived at his job the day I told him I was pregnant, I met one of them eye to bumper. His problem solving method of discovering I was pregnant was to get in his big work truck and start the engine in my direction --- His eyes yellow and raging like a rattled snake. He did not see me, but beyond me, that moment. It did not give me relief to know he was also homeless. For years actually. The day after the episode at his job, the 4 brothers who owned the company and had daughters my age fired him. They had been absolutely mortified at what Charlie did. So he spent years after on the streets. Doing god knows what. He then lived with a woman for a while and "helped" with her triplet teenagers. One of them contacted me and we even met up at the mall. As it turns out, we had something major in common. We both hated Charlie. After we met, I never heard from her again. But I put to rest any ounce of sadness or curiosity I had of his existence. He was real shit to them. And did nothing to actually help provide or be a "dad". Which, duh. But it was one of those things that just put the cherry on top. He'd told them Cathy wouldn't let me talk with him. He had made himself out to be a helpless hero who was stripped of his own child. He had told them stories about me, ones he wouldn't have known ---> unless he made them up. The breadcrumbs he had gotten out of my Nana that I was in college and a young parent, he used to his advantage. Everything was always to make him look good. To pass as sane. He was back out on the streets not long after I met her. Again on drugs. Homeless and jobless. I found out last year he had been hospitalized for a heart attack. Twice. Also a stroke. Organ problems. Still using. Still not wanting to seek help. He had been brought in because someone called 911. And like a FRANK, he made sure to take photos to soak up the "are you oks?" He then reached out to me via social media. He had a prepaid phone and would use Facebook to connect with old friends + distant relatives. So he wanted to connect with me. Discuss apologies. Make amends. And when I WOULD NOT give him one -- yes, he meant me -- he got hostile. But within a few weeks time and messages between us, I tried to be calm + patient. It had been so many years and I was now married with 3 kids. In a safe space. Grown. I thought I would handle it just fine. Try my best to rationalize his mental illness. His addictions. Not seek out a father. Or a friend. Just accept this person and situation for what it was and trail away silently after. But all the drama and stories came rolling back in. The gas lighting. The guilt games. The clear delusions that I now knew were part of his sickness. So I tried my best to do what I thought was "being a bigger person". Over the years, on and off I'd wanted to reach out. I can't tell you exactly what it was I wanted. I did not "miss my daddy". Growing up he had acted like a big child. He would converse with me like so and want to hang out like we were friends catching up. He was messy and dirty, often quick to snap or explode from confrontation of any kind. He was poor but he made damn sure to let me know who made him that way. What was everyone else's fault. I'd heard years worth of why everyone abandoned him. He would also ask me advice with women. He dated quite a few throughout my 15 yrs of him. And each time they hated me + wanted him to move away with them. Then dropped him out on the street shortly after with nothing. "Just like my mother did". I learned from a young age that daughter meant "emotional consultant", "psychiatrist", "bullshit buyer", "punching bag". He never hit me. In fact, he never hit anyone in his life besides the one hit that ended his marriage to Cathy, after he finally snapped at her for all she had done. But I also learned young that words hurt much much more than hits. And so do "no show, no call" waits at the window. I tried my best last year, before starting my blog or tackling my own emotional issues. I hadn't thought into healing or facing my trauma yet. I thought years passing meant healing. That "time healed all wounds", because that's what trauma victims are told. Go on. Laugh with me. I was wrong. It was painful to talk with him. When he would be nice and friendly, I felt safe to keep talking. When he would tell me the great details of his life, I felt pity. And sadness. He was homeless, living for years on the streets in his favorite town. A town his parents loved when he was little. A town he had brought me to for years, when I was a kid. So many fond memories had been since tainted by truth but were in that place. Like a ghost, he wandered those streets and "built a life" as he puts it. Playing his guitar on the streets. He was doing something amazing, he said. Charlie told me he was playing guitar for the youths of the town. And the great people at Starbucks. He was talking with a youth leader at the local church theater program and would soon be teaching music. A homeless man with addictions, health problems and no education or training what so ever. He swore to this and said they all told him how amazing and talented he is. That he would be such a high value to the program. And that this would be his big break. So I said ok. I kept the line open. He soon asked how I was and how my kids were. Hesitant, I replied and told him my kids were well. That I was fine. And happy. He said things like "you are so smart" and "you are so beautiful" to compliment where I was at in life. He told me he was going to make slingshots for my sons. And that one day we should plan to meet. I knew I was brushing off something I should say NO to. And I knew some children of addicts spent their whole life caring for their parent + not leaving them in spite of the abuse. But I vowed to never live my life for my parents. So when each let me go, it was just as necessary for me to let go of them. To let adults live with the consequences of their own actions. To let sick people be sick if it was of their own choosing. I was not aware of definitions like Trauma or Disassociation then. I only knew the life of addicts and what mental illness looked like when it came knocking at my door for something. Shortly after, Charlie announced via Facebook that he was in love and dating. As a homeless addict, he was dating what Facebook checked out to be an 18 yr old high school senior. He told me, searching for a congrats, and then told me she was a celebrities cousin. And she loved his music. That she was in love with him too. Days later he would message me again, this time asking for dating advice. Wanting to know my thoughts because as he put it "I was wise in this area". Me, his child who dated way too young -- got pregnant and abandoned at 16 -- then dated an abusive sociopath for years mixed in with several NARCS in between. Me. His adult, legally emancipated and fed up daughter. He wanted to know if they should have sex already or wait. At that point, my head spun. I was blinded by anger. We begun to argue via messages and I thought to myself "Why in the hell did I let myself even begin the contact with him?" What I really needed to ask myself was why do I expect an unhealthy person to be healthy? What would make me think that someone in his position could be any different without the help or the rehab? Without long term rehabilitation. Longer than 18 months? Longer than the few years he spent as a teen living at a facility after his father died... He had been sick his whole life. And I answered the door every single time chaos knocked. And then scolded it for ruining the party. I ended the connection that day. I blocked him and made sure to vent after about my feelings to my partner, whom I feel safe to confide in. I felt shame, more than anything else. Every year I had felt hurt. Not by the man who existed but for the man who never did. I never had a real father figure. I had something no one inherently wants. A frank. Weeks later I would come to find out he was on the news and articles were published online. He had robbed a car of Christmas gifts right in the driveway and the owner tackled him down til the cops came. Today, one year ago, he thought it would be a brilliant idea -- while high -- to steal someone's gifts. I don't know why but that article made me weep deeply. Not for him. Maybe for me. Maybe just for the situation. The idea that Charlie was and will always be a FRANK. I decided to Google his name in May, when I was forming my blog and diving head first into what "trauma" actually looked like. Charlie had been in the news twice. Once as a criminal, once as a hero. A duality shining light on his illness. In the other article, he was interviewed about planned development of his beloved town. "despite the project providing new income and growth for the small city, some residents are opposed to the project. [Name removed for privacy] is a street performer and aspiring actor in Glen Cove. For thirty years, he drove a tow truck until a heart attack forced him to retire. He feels that the redevelopment has some benefits but is more of a money grab." I've wanted to talk about that article since discovering it. To write about mental illness and its many faces. I wanted to share with you how is got angry and commented on the news blog that they were incorrect and had quoted a homeless criminal. And actually got the comments shut off. I was pissed. Again. I realize only now that Charlie was a pain point in my life long after he left it because I lacked awareness and education of what he was and what I was for experiencing it all. The flashbacks, the nightmares, the panic attacks. The PTSD I did not know I had. Outside of myself, the things wrong about his behaviors and the decisions he made... He was not acting like a healthy adult because he isn't one. He is likely going to leave this world in the same condition. I've struggled with how to write about Charlie because I think people need to know what it feels like to be raised by addicts. To have a father that had an amazing father. Who then died suddenly. And left his family of 5 in poverty and extreme depression. My father hovers around that beloved town like a ghost from haunted hill, repetitive in his steps and cyclical in his down fall. It was his fathers favorite place. In many ways, my father left this world when his father did. Emotional stability cracked. He swears the day my grandpa passed he saw him in the mirror saying goodbye. He knew before the telephone rang and my Nama dropped to her knees in grief that his father had left the world. He said he told him. Spiritual or practical, what I feel about that story is that my 14 year old father took the wheel. And has been driving on autopilot ever since. Drugs numbed and blurred the memories that haunted him but all he ranted about for years was the way everyone would abandon him. How everyone always left. 14 year old Charlie was devastated. And no one was equipped to notice. I want to write about my experiences to raise awareness. To invoke all different emotions. There is no one and no right way to feel. Not as the victim of someone else's abuse. Not as the child who played psychiatrist to her parents. Not as the grown woman who now has to get educated and understand what mental illness and addiction does to the brain, body, and soul. All the while still feeling angry at the man who only ever let her down. If everyone else idolizes their hero father but you loath him, does that make you wrong? Unaware? Apathetic? When you are the abused person and you do not see the ailments, just the abuser --- should you have to stay quiet? My journey now is towards education and awareness because I wish to be informed AND express my emotions even at the risk of feeling irrational. Of feeling angry and sad and bitter and detached. For weeping at the loss, no the absence of a healthy father. Of a grandfather for my kids. Of a parent to have given me off at my wedding. As a father to have gotten out of bed at 11 pm to find me cold and shivering in the snow. I expected more. So I wont let anyone shame me for feeling like I got so much less. Some of you may have a FRANK. I had a FRANK AND MONICA. "Shameless" [the series] gives me panic attacks and crying fits. But I can't look away. I feel normal when I see or hear about situations like i had. It was the loneliness that hurt me most growing up. I don't feel good that more people struggle with abusive parents. Or addict parents. But if I don't speak out about it, or hear someone else's story ---> I will perpetuate my trauma and own struggles. So I choose to process it all. And to share it visibly. Today is my father's birthday. I don't know where he is or how old he is. I dont know much about him now that I created my boundary and honored it. Zero contact. Zero wonder. I would rather heal than extend a hand to an illusion. I can't say if I will ever have closure. Or be able to breathe without holding my breathe all the time. I don't know when my anxiety or depression will go away. But I'm thankful for my life. For raising myself. For learning what not to do and how to survive. J.S. Jaded Savior REFERENCES: https://patch.com/new-york/glencove/homeowner-chases-down-thief-glen-cove-police http://www.millenniummagazine.com/real-estate/garvies-point-city-life-suburban-surroundings-glen-cove-is-getting-a-much-needed-billion-dollar-makeover/  |
J.S. Memoirs
|
RSS Feed
|
TRIGGER WARNING: Content mention of Rape, Abuse, Neglect, Addictions, Mental Illness, Kidnap, Molestation, Child abuse, Teen Pregnancy, Abortion, birth, body image, gender/identity dysphoria, sexuality, personal trauma, domestic violence and other extremely personal stories. Please practice caution. I am not a licensed physician or mental health professional. No medical prescribing is provided on this site, Only personal insights, experience stories, and advice; All stories published have had prior authorization. Questions? Contact Jean at: jadedsaviorblog@gmail.com |
EMPOWERING MINDS SINCE 2019
|