My First Breakdown

My first “mental breakdown” was a good 7 years in the making (since age 12 for sure), but really longer.  Everything in my life had piled up to the point where it was suffocating me.  I couldn’t make sense of it.  I couldn’t stay on top of it.  I literally could not imagine the future.  When I imagined it, I only saw blackness.  I literally had no idea what my future held for me.  I couldn’t imagine anything at all.  Everything I had experienced had basically been endured (family, school) and I simply could not comprehend the idea of having a life over which I had control.  I couldn’t imagine a life worth living.

At the age of 19, I had my first boyfriend, Owen.  It was an intense and volatile relationship.  We both came from dysfunctional families and had no idea what a normal relationship looked like.  That relationship, like any romantic relationship, activated my core emotions and all of the baggage that comes along with that.  I couldn’t handle it. 

I had been having violent outbursts.  I had a terrible therapist and an even worse psychiatrist.  They gave me an anti-seizure medication to control my increasing anger.  My anger towards my parent had reached disturbing levels for no apparent reason.  I hated them and had thoughts of killing them.  I never would have done that, not even in my darkest moment, but that’s how much I hated them at that time.  I felt like I was crazy.  I didn’t understand (like I do now) that the floodgates had opened and that 19 years worth of hurt, frustration, and anger had boiled to the surface.

I hated myself and didn’t understand what was going on.  I started to “self injure,” although I was reluctant to admit it.  Whatever thoughts of hurting other people I had, I turned against myself and took out on myself.

One night, Owen and I had been drinking and got in a verbal fight in the car on the way home.  He was driving my car.  I was so out of control, I started banging my head against the passenger window of the car while Owen drove.  When we were almost home, he punched the rearview mirror of my car, knocking it off.  For some reason, that act totally sent me over the edge.  By the time we got to his apartment building, I was completely out of control.  When he got out of the car, I also got out and started punching him.  I had enough self-control not to go for his face, so I punched him in the chest instead.  At the exact moment he used a karate move on me (he was a black belt), a neighbor looked out the window to see what was going on.  The only thing he saw was Owen “throwing” me to the ground.

The neighbor happened to be an off-duty police officer.  He called the cops and immediately came outside with his girlfriend.  They thought Owen had been attacking me.  Owen realized how bad the situation looked for him and immediately took off to get my parents, who lived a half-mile away.  When my parents showed up a few minutes later, my dad said something I guess (??!!) in an attempt to calm me down.  He said something like we all have a hard time sometimes.  I told him to f^ck off.  Maybe he was trying to be supportive, but I felt like he was minimizing my experience, implying I was overreacting.  Granted, I was overreacting to the situation at hand, but that’s because I had under-reacted to countless years of other people’s bullshit and my top had completely blown off, so to speak.

My First Everything

Although he was not always the best influence on me, Owen meant well.  He actually did the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.  He encouraged me to apply to the main campus of the University I was attending.  It was a school that is very difficult to get into.  Even though I was already attending a commuter campus, I had to apply as a new student in order to “transfer” to the main campus.  I was totally intimidated because only the smartest people in the state and country went there and I didn’t think I was one of “them.”  But, Owen always told me I was smart and insisted I apply to attend the following year.

So, with his urging and support, I started filling out the application.  I got stuck on my personal statement, but he stayed on my case until I finished it and submitted the application packet. 

 

A few months later, to my shock and amazement, I was accepted!  I could not believe it was real.  I was just accepted to one of the best schools in the country.  I was finally going to be able to get out of this horrible town I grew up in.  I was finally going to be able to get away from my family.  I was jubilant.  My hope that things might get better was renewed.

It was still a rough ride from there.  It took me many years to work through all of my issues, including the abuse and neglect I experienced during the first two decades of my life.  I had three “mental breakdowns” to get through over the following 14 years.

I don’t know what would have happened to me if Owen had not insisted I take that risk. 

I don’t know if I would be alive today.  I don’t think I would have made it.  I certainly wouldn’t be in one piece.  Based on my two short-lived stays in my hometown since originally departing, I know my addiction issues would have been much worse.  And the available mental health care was terrible.  The therapist I saw before I finally “escaped” my family and hometown insisted I had been sexually abused as a child (which I had not been).  And the psychiatrist I saw gave me anti-seizure medications instead of the anti-depressants I desparately needed.  He also shared inappropriate sex-related information with me and prescribed a medication that decreased the efficacy of the birth control pills I was taking without telling me that this was the case.  If I hadn’t escaped that “madhouse,” I would have ended up like my grandmother Bernadine.

My Life as (Less of an) Introvert

 

As I wrote in a previous post, I am an introvert.  There are few people with whom I have felt comfortable enough to be honest about what I am really thinking, let alone what I am really feeling.  Two years of therapy a few years back helped get me on the track of being more honest with the people in my life about what was REALLY going on with me.  I learned to share difficult and “negative” things and learned that people still loved me.  They didn’t think anything less of me.  They wanted to help me.

Since beginning my blogs back in August (about 2 months ago), I’ve noticed some really wonderful things happen.  First, it is a lot more fun than I expected.  Even on my blogs that don’t have much readership, I still enjoy writing.  Second, I am making meaningful connections with other bloggers.  That’s something I hadn’t expected.  I didn’t really know how the blog world worked.  I was pleasantly surprised to find how interactive it is and how supportive folks are of each other.  Third, there have been several moments where, as I am typing something, I make a connection…kind of like an “aha” moment, normally the kind I would have in therapy.  The process of writing and sorting through my history is allowing me to make seemingly obvious connections that I have not had the objectivity to make for myself…until now.

Fourth, but not last, is that I noticed I am being more honest with more people.  I was having lunch with coworkers last Friday and we were talking about family dynamics and family secrets.  I had a story to share.  In the past, I would have sat there without saying a word.  Instead, I stepped out of my comfort zone and shared a story.  It was more serious than the other stories shared, but it was the story I thought of when I heard my co-worker’s stories.  I’m realizing it’s okay to say things, even if they aren’t as “positive” as what others have to say. 

I made sure to end the story on the most positive note possible.  I shared the story very matter-of-factly, partly because I have been writing about my family history and am feeling more comfortable with it.  It’s my family history, for better or worse.  I have been in situations like this at least a hundred times in the past, where people are telling stories and I don’t feel like it’s okay to tell mine.  It looks like those days are coming to an end.

High School Pretty Much Sucked

I don’t know how I made it through high school.  I was so unhappy.  Not quite depressed, but definitely not happy.  I had fun and was happy at times, but I hated school and didn’t care for most of my school mates.  There were at least 1,500 kids in my school, neatly divided into clicks.  There were the stoners (working class kids), the popular kids, the black kids (there weren’t many of them but their status was somewhere near the status of the popular kids), the nerds, and the punkers.

 

I was kind of preppie and probably belonged in the popular click, but I didn’t like the popular people all that much.  I kind of fit in with the punkers because of my reckless attitude and drug use.  At the same time, I kind of fit in with the nerds because I was apparently “smart” and they liked me, but I wasn’t a thoroughbred nerd because I didn’t look nerdy, I had cool friends, and I didn’t give a f^ck about doing well in school.  I had no aspirations for the future, so grades didn’t matter.  It was just a fluke that I did well in school, because I sure as hell wasn’t trying.

An Epiphany 12 Years in the Making

I had a (negative) epiphany in the 7^th grade, when I was 12.  It seems like epiphanies are usually described as a positive event.  I remember the exact moment.  I was sitting in French class.  I realized I felt down.  And more importantly, I realized there was no one around me to notice, let alone do anything to cheer me up. 

This was a really depressing realization because I had spent a lot of time and energy in my life up until this point noticing when people weren’t happy and cheering them up.  I did it at home, probably as a survival mechanism.  I did it at school, with my friends.  And here I was, feeling down and realizing no one was going to return the favor. 

It was a devastating realization.  It was a turning point for me.  There was some switch in my brain that I consciously turned off.  I thought to myself, f^ck everyone.  I’m not going to keep giving if no one is going to give to me when I need it. 

Looking back, that was clearly the first significant sign of my depression, at age 12.  I was fed up with giving and not getting the same in return.  My family had sucked me dry.  I was emotionally depleted.

Grandma Bernadine

Yesterday, I wrote about my dad’s mother, Grandma Vera.  Today I am about to write about my mom’s mother.  I don’t even know her name, partly because I never actually knew her. 

The content of this post is depressing, but it’s the truth.  I will move on to happier topics ASAP, I promise!

My Grandmother Bernadine (I just found her name through a strategic Google search) was not a happy person.  Her family had emigrated to the US from France, via Canada.  Her most noteworthy recollection from her own childhood was of her own mother attempting to sell her to strangers.  I suspect that’s not exactly what happened, but I’ll get into that another time.  She married my grandfather, who had been abandoned by his own parents and raised by his grandparents.

My grandfather was an alcoholic.  So was Bernadine.  Bernadine spent a lot of time drunk, passed out on the couch.  She also spent a lot of time standing in the kitchen, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and repeatedly banging her fist against her thigh.  Other times she was prone to various types of drama, although I’m sure I never heard about most of it.  What I did hear is that she once drowned a cat in the toilet in a drunken rage.  I am sorry to even include that, but it’s the sad truth.  Bernadine and her husband fought…a lot.  A gun was fired in the house on at least one occasion.  Some of the fights managed to spill out into the front yard.

At one point Bernadine managed to get into the car that was parked in the driveway and locked the doors.  My grandfather climbed on top of the car and banged on it with his fists.  This is the kind of chaos, humiliation, and fear my mother grew up with.

After many years of marriage, raising four children, and witnessing the arrival of a number of grandchildren, Bernadine killed herself.  I have no idea what finally sent her over the edge.  I’ve always been too afraid to ask many questions about her.  Apparently she died the year I was born.  What I do know is that I grew up with her ghost, so to speak.  I was born to a woman whose own mother had just killed (or was just about to kill) herself.  She, in subtle and indirect ways, has been a huge part of my life.

Crazy Women in my Family…or Were They Just Feminists?

I can’t write about life without writing about mental health…and I can’t write about mental health without writing about my parents…and their parents…

Although I had three grandmothers, the two crazy ones (of course!) were blood-related.  I’ll talk about my step-grandma last because she was normal and by the time I get to her, the mood will need some lightening up.

I’ll start by telling you what little I know about my paternal grandmother, “Grandma Vera.”  By the time I was old enough to develop any memories of her, she was a small, feeble woman and her boobs hung down past her waist (sorry, I’m just sharing what I remember!).  Since she had trouble getting around, my brother and I would stay with her on the weekends to help out.  I was in elementary school at the time.  She didn’t like us sleeping in the same room, but we did anyway.

The way it was explained to us was that she used to be a teacher in a juvenile detention home and suspected only the worst from children.  At some point, I asked my parents what Grandma Vera was like when she was younger.  Apparently, when she was younger she weighed somewhere between 300 and 400 lbs.  I was later quite relieved to realize that’s why her boobs were so long (she shrunk, but her skin didn’t).  For years, I had been afraid that’s what my boobs would like like when I got old.

Grandma Vera drove around in a flashy pink convertible and didn’t allow her children to call her “mom”; instead, they had to address her by her first name.  She was not known for being nurturing.  She didn’t seem to care for children, although she had 6 of them.  Life must have sucked before birth control…and career options.  God knows she didn’t go into teaching because she loved children.  It must have been her only option.

My dad recalls, with some resentment, how Vera pampered his sisters, but not the boys in the family.  The boys barely had enough clothes between them to get dressed in the morning.  My father went through high school with a single pair of jeans and a missing front tooth while his sisters wore dresses and took piano lessons.  This hurt my father, but he never seemed to hold it against her.  He was always there for her in her final years.

One cool thing I remember about my grandma…she taught me to read before I learned in school.  I remember how exciting it was to learn to read.

Life as an Introvert

Overall, I am a pretty quiet person.  I have always been more of a listener than a talker.  Over the years, with the best of intentions, friends have tried to coax me out of my shell.  Then, during those rare times when my brain and my mouth actually worked together in harmony, I overwhelmed people with the quantity, intensity, and speed of my thought process.  Although my tendency to be so quiet is sometimes frustrating and unsettling to the people around me, at least they don’t worry about my sanity when I’m quiet.  So, for years, I took the safer road and didn’t talk much.

The safe road has been fascinating.  I’m quiet, have good eye contact, and am an intent listener.  I have a way of putting people at ease…or maybe I make them uncomfortable…either way, I tend to have an “effect” on people.  People spill their guts to me.  I’m not just talking about friends.  I’m talking about acquaintances…and complete strangers. 

What has struck me most over the years of listening to people is how alone each person feels in whatever it is they are experiencing or have experienced in the past.  I have become, over the years, a walking encyclopedia of second-hand human experience.  Probably hundreds of people have confided their secrets to me…and not a single secret has shocked me.  Well, I take that back.  The extent of the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse so many people have endured shocks me.

The downside of being such a good listener is that I never learned to fully share myself with other people.  After hearing so many stories, my story didn’t feel as compelling, interesting, or worthwhile as other people’s stories.  I gave into my childhood tendency of empathizing with other people to the detriment of embracing and validating my own experience.  Fortunately, I finally found a good therapist and over the course of almost two years of therapy (twice a week), I told my story to another person.

I finally allowed another person to listen to me.  I finally took center stage, even though I don’t like being the center of attention.  I shared my issues with someone else.  Unlike the people I’ve listened to over the years, I knew I was not alone.  Instead, I had to learn how to stop discounting my own experiences just because they weren’t always as horrible as other people’s experiences.  The traumas I experienced growing up in no way pushed the boundaries of human experience, but they were traumatic to me.  They hurt me, disabled me, and affect me to this day.

Blogging as Therapy

I started a blog several years ago, but didn’t keep up with it.  It was in the earlier days of blogs, before I had gotten used to the idea…and had enough trust in web sites to not lose my information. 

At home, I have been keeping my personal journal writing going back 20 years.  My writing has been sporadic, but somehow consistent enough over the years to add up to a significant amount of writing to sort through.  I am almost finished organizing it by year.

For years, I have wanted to write some kind of life history.  Now, thanks to technology, I have a single place to incorporate everthing I have ever written, if I so desire.  I doubt I’ll ever have the patience to data enter all of my old writing.  To be honest, it probably wouldn’t be worth it because most of it is not that interesting. 

Assuming my writing is now interesting enough to be worth reading, it’s because I’ve had plenty of practice writing.  Also, now that I have been an adult for almost 20 years, I have accumulated plenty of life experience to provide interesting content.  And finally, I have developed a strong sense of perspective, which makes writing even easier.

Thank You: United Airlines Flight 93

On this 7th anniversary of September 11, 2001, I am so grateful to the people on board United Airlines Flight 93 that morning.  The anniversaries have gotten easier for me over the years, but this year is harder than last.  Probably because I visited the Newseum in Washington, DC earlier this summer, where there is a permanent exhibit dedicated to 9/11.  It’s a powerful multimedia exhibit.  And last weekend, I watched a program about 9/11 on the National Geographic channel.  Every time I hear the timeline of the events that morning, I try to remember exactly where I was.

That morning turned into a blur.  After the fact, I was able to piece together that I drove past the Pentagon roughly 20 minutes before the plane hit it.  I was eating breakfast with my son at Union Station when it hit…or maybe it hit while I was walking him to day care a few blocks away.  What I do remember is that when I got to work and asked my coworker/friend Sarah if she was ready to take me to the airport, she said, “You’re not going anywhere.  All of the airports in the country are closed.”  I had no idea what she was talking about.  I thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t the only person acting strangely.

Moments later, we were in the board room, watching live coverage on a TV screen.  I have no idea how long I stared at the screen.  I was watching footage of the twin towers…and then the pentagon…and then heard a mention of a fourth plane…I unconsciously did the math…I realized the fourth plane was likely headed for the US Capitol, 3 blocks away.  Sarah and I turned to eachother at the exact same time and said “We have to get Baby Bear.” 

Although I had walked Baby Bear to day care, my car was parked in the parking lot adjacent to the building.  I rushed to grab my keys, left my cell phone behind, and we rushed to my car.  I drove, in a complete state of panic, to pick my son up from day care.  I have never been so scared in my life.  I was shaking so badly that my right leg was bouncing up and down every time I took my foot off the gas.  I wondered if I should get out and run and let my Sarah drive, but the traffic wasn’t bad yet…people were just beginning to realize what was happening.  I picked him up from day care less than an hour after dropping him off.

We decided to head to Sarah’s apartment, which was a good 15 blocks east of the Capitol.  That seemed like a safe distance.  Unfortunately, we got stuck in gridlock traffic just north of the Capitol.  It was terrifying to be stuck in traffic next to the most likely target of the fourth plane.  By the time we reached her place, the media had kicked into full gear.  We discovered the fourth plane had crashed in Shanksville, PA.  The immediate threat was over. 

I am so grateful to the people on board that flight.  They gave their own lives to save others.  My heart goes out to their family and friends, who also made an unthinkable sacrifice that day.