“I believe you.”

I’ve mentioned before that I am a survivor of child sexual abuse.  My attacker was my uncle, more specifically, my mother’s brother.  The sexual abuse started when I was around 6 or 7, and continued on and off until I was 12.  The worst part of it was between ages 11 and 12.  My uncle has 3 children, 2 boys, and the youngest is a girl.  She is a year younger than me, and when we were little, we were best friends.  We used to live about 45 minutes away from each other, so I would spend a lot of nights and their house.  When I was 10 we moved to the same town as them.  After moving to the same town as them, her and I got much closer, but the sexual abuse got worse.  After a particular incident on my 12th birthday, I stopped hanging around there, I would only visit for holidays, more so just to make my parents happy, but I didn’t tell anyone what happened until I was 18.  I was very embarrassed about what happened, and I know that is a common thing for sexual abuse survivors to feel.

When I told my parents what happened, they didn’t do anything about it, I’m not sure they really knew what to do, so they continued on with life like I hadn’t even said anything.  That hurt me.  My life went drastically down hill until I was 22 and I tried to kill my self.  My parents finally stepped up to take responsibly for what happened, but no one else did, no one in the whole family believed me.  My parents cut ties with my uncle, but unfortunately, when cutting ties with him, we cut ties with my cousins as well.  For the last 5 years, the family has shunned us, like we were the ones that did something wrong.

In October of 2014 my uncle died in a car accident.  This news to me, wasn’t bad news.  I wasn’t jumping for joy that the man was dead, I of course thought about his kids, and his wife.  But it was a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.  I had done a pretty god job of healing, but with him gone, I finally had the closer that I needed for my life to get even better.  Since his death, communication with my cousins has been a bit easier.  There is no longer an elephant in the room that we have to try to ignore, we can just carry on.

Yesterday I got a message from my cousin, the one that I used to be really close with, my uncles daughter.  She, of course knew of the accusations and refused to believe me, like the rest of the family.  She told me that I ruined her father, that in the last 5 years he became a heavy drinker and very suicidal.  That the family had shunned him.  She went on to tell me that she wanted to know my side of the story, she wanted to know if her father was the monster that I made him out to be.  I think she wanted to know that if his suffering that past few years was really my fault or was it his own fault.  So because I didn’t have anything to lose, I sat down and wrote her a very detailed description of what had happened to me when I was little.  What I shared with her was very hard to do, there were things that I told her that I haven’t told anyone but my therapist.  I also told her about the terrible things other family members have said to and about me over the past couple years.  My one aunt telling me that unless I was raped, he didn’t do anything to me.  Another aunt told my mother that I was a flirty little girl, and I probably deserved what ever my uncle did to me.  Not to mention I was manipulating and a drama queen, that I didn’t actually try to commit suicide, I faked it as a way to get my parents attention.  It took her a couple hours to respond, but she did.  Her response wasn’t something that I expected.  She told me that she was sorry, and that she believed me 100%.  I have to say, no one has told me that they believe me.  My parents haven’t even uttered those words, and although I know they believe me, I didn’t know how good it would be to hear those words, or to read them.  My cousin didn’t know that we were the ones that had been shunned, and that her father had more support from the family than she thought.

We went on to talk about all the fun and silly things that we used to do together when we were little.  And I feel like I got an old friend back that I missed so much.

I haven’t had a family member believe me in so long, I didn’t even realize how much I wanted them to believe me.  Of course my friends believe me, why would I tell them something like that, if it hadn’t really happened.  But his own daughter believes me now, and I can’t express how amazing that feels.  Now if only the rest of my family can be as big of a person as she was yesterday.  But I won’t hold my breath for that, I’m just going to relish in the fact that someone believes me.

Guilt.

Last night my family and I went out for a nice dinner to celebrate my birthweek.  If you didn’t read my last post, my birthday is the week of my birthday, a tradition in my family to celebrate the whole week.  After dinner, my mom mentioned that she needed to stop at walmart, since we all car pooled, we accompanied her to walmart.  James (my husband) decided to go in with her, said he wanted to grab poop bags for Moxxi, our dog.  Dad and I stayed in the truck, he just pulled up to the front of the store and waited.  I sat in the back watching some videos on youtube when after a few minutes my dad rolled down his window and I hear a voice say “You wouldn’t happened to have a dollar so I could get home would you?”  I instantly grabbed my purse and started to pull out my wallet when my dad responded “No sorry.”  I opened my mouth to tell my dad that I had money to give to the man when both my mother and my husband opened the doors to the truck and started to get in.  Before I could do anything the man was already walking to the other car that was pulled up by the front of walmart, dad put it in drive and drove away.  I didn’t even get to see his face.

As I laid in bed last night I couldn’t help but think about the man who was asking for money.  Everyone knows that one dollar would not get him home, and judging by his attire, he wasn’t trying to go home.  He looked homeless, he was hoping asking for a small amount like one dollar would get more of a response than asking for anymore, and by saying he needed to get home, it plays on someones heart strings a little more than if he were to ask for money for food.  The problem is, I’ve been that person.  For 2 months in the dead of summer I lived in the back of a friends Suburban because I didn’t have anywhere to go.  Then for another 4 months I lived in the scariest motel you can ever imagine.  I paid my weekly rent by collecting scrape, in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the area, and turning that in at the scrape yard for cash.  That money would pay for my weekly rent, some gas for the truck and the rest for food, if I had anything left.  My next door neighbor to the left of me were crack addicts, the next door neighbor to the right of me was a homeless schizophrenic man, the state was paying for his room at the motel.  There was a family that lived across the parking lot from me, they were also crack addicts, they had a little 7 year old girl, she was adorable.  Their neighbor was a man hiding from his gang, he wanted out, they shot him, he was tending to that wound while he lived there.  I was terrified every night when I went to bed that there would be a drive by, or someone would try to break in.  Although I was scared, it was less scary being there, than it was being at home where my childhood abuser could come over at any time.  At least he didn’t know where I was.

After a few weeks, the owner of the property, a Middle Easter man about 45, offered to pay me a little money to clean the rooms.  Now mind you, he rented rooms by the hour, and if you don’t know what that means, I’m happy for you.  What he paid me wasn’t much, it was under the table but it got me some food and took a little pressure off of me.  I did constantly have to turn down more money, he wasn’t totally accustomed to America, and running a hotel the way he did, I think he just assumed every american women was a prostitute.  I would have long conversations with him about how that isn’t everyone’s way of life, and asking that of random people isn’t appropriate.  I’m not sure if I ever really got through to him but he did eventually stop asking.

In total I lived like this, with no real place to call home, for 6 months.  And I believe I’m one of the lucky ones.  This was all I could think about last night when I was trying to sleep.  Wondering if that man ever found someone to give him a couple dollars.  Knowing how very cold it was going to get last night, and hoping he at least had a warm place to sleep.  I feel so guilty, I was going to give him money, I should have told my dad to wait, but I didn’t.  It really did remind me of how very hard I worked to get to where I am right now though.  And how grateful I am to be where I am.

My Diagnosis and my path to getting treatment.

I was going to hold off on posting about this.  I was first going to talk about my sexual abuse and my abusive boyfriend but I think I’m going to touch on it now.

My depression started when I was around 12 or 13, it was mild, pretty common I think for a girl that age.  What wasn’t common was how is progressively got worse.  I had always gotten anxiety attacks, since I can remember.  I had always been more of a sensitive person.  Though I think me having anxiety my whole life is what really got my depression to spiral.  I have spoken before about my child sexual abuse, and at the time, not only did I not realize that I was depressed, but I also didn’t realize that a lot of my depression stemmed from that abuse.

Years went on and I got more depressed.  At age 18 I told my parents about my sexual abuse and they didn’t do anything.  No one did anything, and that’s when this uncontrollable black beast sunk it’s fangs in.

I was 19 when I was admitted to the first psych ward.  My boyfriend at the time (High School sweetheart) noticed that I had been self harming and he drove me to the hospital and told me that I had to admit my self.  So I did.  To this day, I don’t even know if my parents know that I was in there.  Shortly before this I had attended a therapist meeting with that same boyfriend.  Her and I had an off the books talk one day.  I told her about my abuse.  She laughed at me.  She told me that if what I claim happened, really happened, I would have reported it, and because I didn’t, she didn’t believe me.  I’ll talk more about that another time.

At the hospital I started talking to a doctor and sitting in group meetings with other people who were just as depressed as I was.  That doctor originally diagnosed me as bipolar.  I don’t know know how I felt about what he told me.  I was so lost at the time, my mind so clouded, plus they had me on a lot of different medication, I don’t remember a lot of my time there.  That particular doctor went on vacation, I don’t remember what holiday it was, memorial day maybe?

I woke up on the 4th morning with a doctor sitting on the wall heater next to my bed, his binder open.  I was extremely groggy from the sleeping medication they gave me the night before.  My insomnia was bad during this time, I wasn’t getting much sleep, and even the sleeping medication was having a hard time getting me to sleep.  I opened my eyes and the doctor looked at me, and the first words out of his mouth were “Why are you here”.  I was annoyed by this question.  I told him that everything should be in his binder.  He told me he wanted to here it from me.  I told him I was tired and I didn’t want to talk.  He slammed his binder shut and told me he was stopping all of my medication until I talked to him, then left my room.  I went to the nurse’s station and requested to talk to the head of the hospital, a few hour later I was in a room with the head of the hospital and I told her how rude the doctor had been, and that I wanted her to let me out, because the doctor wouldn’t sign off.  I think she feared that someone would sue the hospital, so she let me leave.  I never got a bill from them.

I was 20 when I was admitted to the psych ward the second time.  This time by a different guy I was dating, more specifically, the one who was abusive.  Pretty much same story, he noticed I was self harming, brought me to the hospital and told me to admit my self. And again, I did.  It was a different hospital this time, and although I didn’t think they would help me, at least while I was in there, he wouldn’t be around me.  I was there for a full week.  The doctor who saw me refused to diagnose me.  I told him about the doctor who laughed at me, the one who said I was bipolar and the other who stopped my medication.  He said that he wanted me to get more help before he would accept a diagnosis.  I didn’t understand that, but I didn’t question him.  After my week of talking with group therapy and one on one sessions, scheduled meals and medication, I left to continue state funded treatment for a few months until I stopped.

I was 22 when I downed a full bottle of xanex and was rushed to the emergency room.  My parents were there this time, they wouldn’t allow my boyfriend, still the abusive one, to see me.  They apologized for not being there, they told me to move back in with them, that I could go back on my fathers insurance, that they wanted me to get real help and that they would do whatever they could to save me.  I was able to go home that night, I slept in my bed for the first time since I was 18.  I found a therapist that I loved, we talked a lot, she diagnosed me with Cyclothymia.  Cyclothymia is pretty much the stage before bipolar I or II.  People with Cyclothymia don’t normally tend to attempt suicide but because of what I had gone through, I was pushed to that point.  I was on proper medication and I saw her at first, 3 times a week.

I tune 27 next week.  I am no longer on medication, because I can recognize my depression and handle it without the need to self harm or any other negative coping mechanism.  I still see my therapist from time to time, to talk and I have my parents and my husband and a few really good friends who help me as well.

I’m not perfect, but I’m surviving.