Re: Depression and Anger, normal? (Very long)

[Guest guest]

Sadness, rage, anger, depression...the gammut. I rarely express

anger outwardly and never rage. I am chronically depressed, but

cannot cry. I try to cry. I've had many friends tell me that a good

cry does them so much good when they are sad. I cannot for the life

of me shed one tear.

I like the recent posts about liking dolls or not. When I was a

child, mother didn't really do anything for Christmas or birthdays.

She rarely, if ever, even acknowledged my birthday, even though it

was the day before her own. While mother was married to stepfather

no. 1, his parents always bought my brother (their biological

grandchild) and I plenty of toys and clothing. I always got equal

amount of things to my brother, but they were age appropriate for me

and generally for what a girl would want for Christmas rather than a

boy. But, soon after Christmas, all of my toys disappeared or were

broken. The loss of all of my toys, and generally much of my

clothing, was blamed on me breaking or losing it because I didn't

take good care of my things.

My bedroom was devoid of anything. I had a bed, a dresser and a

desk. But, I didn't have book one to read at my desk and school work

(homework) was to be done during school time not at home. My mother

threw away my homework assignments thoughout grade school.

We moved constantly. Sometimes I went to two schools in one year. I

attended 5 grade schools, two junior high schools and three high

schools. I spent an inordinant amount of time falling asleep in

class. I rarely did any school work and by the time I was in the

fifth grade and had gotten a really good teacher, everyone learned

that while I could add simple numbers (one or two digits), I still

could not subtract, multiply or divide. My reading level also was

very poor. It was my fifth grade teacher, thank God, who took me

under her wing and taught me the basics of math and encouranged me to

read and helped me learn to my age level in school. My teacher knew

that after school tutoring or at home help was out of the question,

so she made time during the day to help only me. God bless Mrs.

Gibson whereever she is!

In my rereading of UBM, I picked up on the quote (this probably isn't

exact wording) " Normal mothers sleep at night. Borderline mothers do

not. " What a truth I find that to me in my experience. My mother

rarely if ever slept. This apparently didn't bother my stepfathers

much, but a 12 pack of beer or a bottle of gin before bed is likely

the reason. I think that because mother didn't sleep, neither did I

most nights. A lot of the time mother spent her nights cleaning the

house from top to bottom. She'd scrub the kitchen floor with bleach

and a scrub brush on her hands and knees. She'd scour the bathroom

with ammonia. Our home was as sterile as a hospital. But, when she

would " need " someone to yell at, I was the prime target. She would

come into my room and do one of several things at night.

Occassionally, she would just sit on the edge of my bed, quiet, and

watch me. I was awake, but would pretend to be asleep and would make

sure that my breathing was soft and deep like that of someone

sleeping peacefully. If she knew I was awake, she'd want to talk,

cry or rant. (Just for time sake, I would have been between 7 to 9

around this time). The angery rant would mean that she would come in

to my room, flip on the overhead light (I still cannot stand overhead

lighting and do not use it unless very necessary), rip my clothing

from the closet and drawers and strew it across the room. Scream at

me for keeping my room " such a pig sty " and then I would have to get

up out of bed and refold all of my clothes with her standing over me

raging like a wild woman. The folding had to be perfect and precise

to her specifications. My socks would need to be repaired and

replaced in my sock drawer in order (i.e. rolled to equal measure and

left to right, white bobby socks, white knee socks, navy blue knee

socks, white tights, navy tights). My underwear, which could only be

day of the week underwear because I was too stupid to know which pair

of underwear to wear on a specific day (oh yes, I shit you not), had

to be in order of day of the week, beginning with Sunday and I had to

leave a space for the day of the week that was missing because I was

wearing them at the time. These nights generally took about two

hours to get my room back in " order " and then I would be allowed to

sleep for a couple of hours before she would wake me again for school.

Mother rarely cooked and feeding us was not really a concern of

hers. I generally had milk money (back in those days, $ .15), but no

lunch or lunch money. I went hungry much of the time and still

occassionally deprive myself of food, although I do not consider

myself anorexic, I have to force myself to eat. When we did eat,

table manners were strongly enforced and if I didn't eat " properly "

my food was taken away from me and I would be forced to eat it the

following day, cold and generally not very tasty or spoiled. I once

at a huge bowl of grape nuts over the course of three days, largely

because the amount was too much for me to eat at one time in the

first place. By day three I choked down every last bite of what had

become a curdled brick. I cannot eat grape nuts to this day. The

thought makes me want to vomit.

When mother needed some extra attention, she would make up stories

about me to my stepfather who would then pound the crap out of me.

Hitting me in the head seemed a passtime for them. I've probably had

more than my share of concussions. Punishments would be followed

by " restriction " to my desolate room for long periods of time where I

would be ignored like I didn't even exist. I was allowed out to

attend school and use the bathroom. I had to stand in the doorway of

my room to ask to walk across the hall to go to the bathroom and I

was granted access. Otherwise, I was to sit on the edge of my bed or

on my chair. I could not sleep. I also had to eat in my room,

alone, if there happened to be a mealtime that day.

When I was 9, stepfather no. 2 had a " friend " come to stay with us.

Mother put him in charge of me as my caretaker and made it clear that

I was to do as I was told. He molested me over the course of that

summer. Mother knew, or should have known, and finally told

stepfather no. 2 about it (as he told me later, braggingly) and

stepfather threw the guy out at shotgun point. I believe mother knew

about it, or outright encouraged it, because the nightly clothing

folding and her trips to my bedroom at night, as well as her up all

night cleaning episodes, ended during that time. She was in her room

with stepfather no. 2 " asleep " . I think that she ended it because

she was probably jealous. I did confont mother with this when I was

in my late 20's. Her response was, " what did you want me to do about

it? I was being raped every night too. " Then she told me to " quit

my whining " . It was not long after this conversation that I went NC

with my mother and this conversation was most of my motivation to do

so.

When I was a young teenager, my mother bought my cigarretes. We

smoke pot together. Drank together. She shared her rape stories

with me on a regular basis, as every man she had ever known had raped

her continually, including my father and stepfathers. My mother

didn't have sex, she was raped. She shared extremely explicit and

violent pornography with me and getting some of those images out of

my head I still cannot do today, 25 years later.

I married my N-ex to get out of the house when I was 17 years old.

He was a SOB, but I managed to have two children, raise them the best

I knew how, and stay with his mean ego for a 13 year sentence. The

catalyst to my leaving was a very, very deep depression that for the

most part immobilized me for a good 6 months. I was in bed with a

pillow over my head 20 hours a day and non-functional the other 4

hours. I couldn't cope with my children or the responsibilities of

my children. Poor babies. I lost close to 20 pounds from not eating

and was down to 87 pounds when my ex took me to my OB-GYN who freaked

when she saw me, slapped me on Prozac and said if she didn't see some

improvement in 3 weeks, she would put me on Lithium and admit me to

the nut house. The prozac worked. I snapped out of it and realized

that my life really sucked. I divorced the ex. He kept the girls

for a few years because I could not have financially or emotionally

supported them at the time. But, they eventually came back to live

with me and they are doing fairly well, despite putting up with

several years of abuse from my ex's second Nada who I can only

describe as the Queen of Queens.

I've remarried. He's good to me and for me. Not always the most

understanding of guys, but he's a good guy and I don't always

understand good men. I've known very few in my life. Therapy seems

to give me some solace these days. This group, over the past few

weeks really helps too. This stuff needs to come out of me. I need

to shed the anger and disgust. I'd love to learn how to cry. I'd

like to know what it is like to really feel. I think that's

something that has been taken from me like so much else. Feeling. I

sometimes wonder what it is like to " feel " . I'm hopeful that one day

I might know.

If you have read all of this, thank you. Deep breath.

Khris

[Guest guest]

Dear Khris,

I feel sad reading your post and all that you have endured. I'm glad it's

behind you now and you have a good marriage now, therapy and have found this

listserve. I know that you can unravel the tangle of your early life and

continue to gain emotional wholeness in your life. I, also, have had a hard

time crying. Last month I accidentally had a bread box slip off the top of my

refrig and hit me on the head -- aside from almost knocking me out -- it

resulted in a good long cry that did wonders for me. I understand sad movies

can do the same thing -- I encourage you to try the latter :-)

Blessings and glad you're on this board -- just sorry you qualify~

AZClown

Re: Depression and Anger, normal? (Very long)

Sadness, rage, anger, depression.. .the gammut. I rarely express

anger outwardly and never rage. I am chronically depressed, but

cannot cry. I try to cry. I've had many friends tell me that a good

cry does them so much good when they are sad. I cannot for the life

of me shed one tear.

I like the recent posts about liking dolls or not. When I was a

child, mother didn't really do anything for Christmas or birthdays.

She rarely, if ever, even acknowledged my birthday, even though it

was the day before her own. While mother was married to stepfather

no. 1, his parents always bought my brother (their biological

grandchild) and I plenty of toys and clothing. I always got equal

amount of things to my brother, but they were age appropriate for me

and generally for what a girl would want for Christmas rather than a

boy. But, soon after Christmas, all of my toys disappeared or were

broken. The loss of all of my toys, and generally much of my

clothing, was blamed on me breaking or losing it because I didn't

take good care of my things.

My bedroom was devoid of anything. I had a bed, a dresser and a

desk. But, I didn't have book one to read at my desk and school work

(homework) was to be done during school time not at home. My mother

threw away my homework assignments thoughout grade school.

We moved constantly. Sometimes I went to two schools in one year. I

attended 5 grade schools, two junior high schools and three high

schools. I spent an inordinant amount of time falling asleep in

class. I rarely did any school work and by the time I was in the

fifth grade and had gotten a really good teacher, everyone learned

that while I could add simple numbers (one or two digits), I still

could not subtract, multiply or divide. My reading level also was

very poor. It was my fifth grade teacher, thank God, who took me

under her wing and taught me the basics of math and encouranged me to

read and helped me learn to my age level in school. My teacher knew

that after school tutoring or at home help was out of the question,

so she made time during the day to help only me. God bless Mrs.

Gibson whereever she is!

In my rereading of UBM, I picked up on the quote (this probably isn't

exact wording) " Normal mothers sleep at night. Borderline mothers do

not. " What a truth I find that to me in my experience. My mother

rarely if ever slept. This apparently didn't bother my stepfathers

much, but a 12 pack of beer or a bottle of gin before bed is likely

the reason. I think that because mother didn't sleep, neither did I

most nights. A lot of the time mother spent her nights cleaning the

house from top to bottom. She'd scrub the kitchen floor with bleach

and a scrub brush on her hands and knees. She'd scour the bathroom

with ammonia. Our home was as sterile as a hospital. But, when she

would " need " someone to yell at, I was the prime target. She would

come into my room and do one of several things at night.

Occassionally, she would just sit on the edge of my bed, quiet, and

watch me. I was awake, but would pretend to be asleep and would make

sure that my breathing was soft and deep like that of someone

sleeping peacefully. If she knew I was awake, she'd want to talk,

cry or rant. (Just for time sake, I would have been between 7 to 9

around this time). The angery rant would mean that she would come in

to my room, flip on the overhead light (I still cannot stand overhead

lighting and do not use it unless very necessary), rip my clothing

from the closet and drawers and strew it across the room. Scream at

me for keeping my room " such a pig sty " and then I would have to get

up out of bed and refold all of my clothes with her standing over me

raging like a wild woman. The folding had to be perfect and precise

to her specifications. My socks would need to be repaired and

replaced in my sock drawer in order (i.e. rolled to equal measure and

left to right, white bobby socks, white knee socks, navy blue knee

socks, white tights, navy tights). My underwear, which could only be

day of the week underwear because I was too stupid to know which pair

of underwear to wear on a specific day (oh yes, I shit you not), had

to be in order of day of the week, beginning with Sunday and I had to

leave a space for the day of the week that was missing because I was

wearing them at the time. These nights generally took about two

hours to get my room back in " order " and then I would be allowed to

sleep for a couple of hours before she would wake me again for school.

Mother rarely cooked and feeding us was not really a concern of

hers. I generally had milk money (back in those days, $ ..15), but no

lunch or lunch money. I went hungry much of the time and still

occassionally deprive myself of food, although I do not consider

myself anorexic, I have to force myself to eat. When we did eat,

table manners were strongly enforced and if I didn't eat " properly "

my food was taken away from me and I would be forced to eat it the

following day, cold and generally not very tasty or spoiled. I once

at a huge bowl of grape nuts over the course of three days, largely

because the amount was too much for me to eat at one time in the

first place. By day three I choked down every last bite of what had

become a curdled brick. I cannot eat grape nuts to this day. The

thought makes me want to vomit.

When mother needed some extra attention, she would make up stories

about me to my stepfather who would then pound the crap out of me.

Hitting me in the head seemed a passtime for them. I've probably had

more than my share of concussions. Punishments would be followed

by " restriction " to my desolate room for long periods of time where I

would be ignored like I didn't even exist. I was allowed out to

attend school and use the bathroom. I had to stand in the doorway of

my room to ask to walk across the hall to go to the bathroom and I

was granted access. Otherwise, I was to sit on the edge of my bed or

on my chair. I could not sleep. I also had to eat in my room,

alone, if there happened to be a mealtime that day.

When I was 9, stepfather no. 2 had a " friend " come to stay with us.

Mother put him in charge of me as my caretaker and made it clear that

I was to do as I was told. He molested me over the course of that

summer. Mother knew, or should have known, and finally told

stepfather no. 2 about it (as he told me later, braggingly) and

stepfather threw the guy out at shotgun point. I believe mother knew

about it, or outright encouraged it, because the nightly clothing

folding and her trips to my bedroom at night, as well as her up all

night cleaning episodes, ended during that time. She was in her room

with stepfather no. 2 " asleep " . I think that she ended it because

she was probably jealous. I did confont mother with this when I was

in my late 20's. Her response was, " what did you want me to do about

it? I was being raped every night too. " Then she told me to " quit

my whining " . It was not long after this conversation that I went NC

with my mother and this conversation was most of my motivation to do

so.

When I was a young teenager, my mother bought my cigarretes. We

smoke pot together. Drank together. She shared her rape stories

with me on a regular basis, as every man she had ever known had raped

her continually, including my father and stepfathers. My mother

didn't have sex, she was raped. She shared extremely explicit and

violent pornography with me and getting some of those images out of

my head I still cannot do today, 25 years later.

I married my N-ex to get out of the house when I was 17 years old.

He was a SOB, but I managed to have two children, raise them the best

I knew how, and stay with his mean ego for a 13 year sentence. The

catalyst to my leaving was a very, very deep depression that for the

most part immobilized me for a good 6 months. I was in bed with a

pillow over my head 20 hours a day and non-functional the other 4

hours. I couldn't cope with my children or the responsibilities of

my children. Poor babies. I lost close to 20 pounds from not eating

and was down to 87 pounds when my ex took me to my OB-GYN who freaked

when she saw me, slapped me on Prozac and said if she didn't see some

improvement in 3 weeks, she would put me on Lithium and admit me to

the nut house.. The prozac worked. I snapped out of it and realized

that my life really sucked. I divorced the ex. He kept the girls

for a few years because I could not have financially or emotionally

supported them at the time. But, they eventually came back to live

with me and they are doing fairly well, despite putting up with

several years of abuse from my ex's second Nada who I can only

describe as the Queen of Queens.

I've remarried. He's good to me and for me. Not always the most

understanding of guys, but he's a good guy and I don't always

understand good men. I've known very few in my life. Therapy seems

to give me some solace these days. This group, over the past few

weeks really helps too. This stuff needs to come out of me. I need

to shed the anger and disgust. I'd love to learn how to cry. I'd

like to know what it is like to really feel. I think that's

something that has been taken from me like so much else. Feeling. I

sometimes wonder what it is like to " feel " . I'm hopeful that one day

I might know.

If you have read all of this, thank you. Deep breath.

Khris

________________________________________________________________________________\

____

Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.

http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

[Guest guest]

(((((((((((((((((((((Khris)))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I am so sorry for such a brutal childhood; I am happy for you that you have

survived and are married to someone that loves and cares for you

blessings, mg

[Guest guest]

Dear Khris,

Thank you for sharing your story with us. I'm glad you feel safe on

this board and that you trust us enough to give us your story.

You wrote:

" This stuff needs to come out of me. I need

to shed the anger and disgust. I'd love to learn how to cry. I'd

like to know what it is like to really feel. I think that's

something that has been taken from me like so much else. Feeling. I

sometimes wonder what it is like to " feel " . I'm hopeful that one day

I might know. "

Khris - you're a survivor. You are living proof of survival and the

power of the human spirit to move forward and onward. You are on a

path of rediscovering who you are and the wonderful range of human

emotion. I found it very poignant that you want to learn how to cry,

how you have yet to find that release. When it comes (which it will) I

think it will be an important and beautiful moment in your journey

towards healing. Like Kelley said:

" Keep pushing through it and allow yourself

to experience the pain. Embrace the emotions when they come instead

of trying to stop or hide them. That is what helped me the most. I'd

find myself wanting to cry and then holding back my tears. When I

finally allowed my body to grieve and accepted my emotions as

healing I started to heal. "

I also have a question for you: Where in your life does your

creativity lie? Do you write, sing, dance, act, or cook, etc? I

believe a lot of healing lies within us and is released and its power

is felt when we are creative, when we let it out. Do you play a

musical instrument, or have you ever been drawn to one? Are you a

photographer? Do you paint or draw or juggle or compose poetry? I'm

curious as to how your creativity manifests itself.

[Guest guest]

,

Thank you for your post and question. I am not necessarily creative

in the sense that I have some hobby or play an instrument. That was

never something that was fostered for me as a child and I think that

I learned early on not to let anyone know what I liked to do because

it would somehow be taken away or ruined. I have continued this into

my adulthood. I have only recently begun keeping a journal again. I

did keep a journal when I was a teenager, but, like everything else,

that was violated by my mother as well and used against me on

numerous occassions where they shouldn't have been used. There is

nothing worse to me that to have your mind read and then used against

you. It's extremely violating. But, recently I have begun to do it

again and I'm finding it somewhat of an outlet and I'm recognizing in

what I'm writing a lot of feelings I really never recognized before.

I wouldn't call that a hobby, but it is an outlet for my energy.

Another thing I like is genealogy. Recently it has been too time

consuming for me to keep up with and it takes a good deal of memory

and organization to manage it. My memory is somewhat clogged right

now with past junk that I know I need to deal with so I'm allowing it

to come as it will.

My job does take up a good deal of my time (I am a legal assistant)

outside of the 8 to 5 office. I enjoy it and am well suited for it,

when my memory and organizational skills are not being put to the

test. My job itself sometimes requires additional time reading and

researching (which I love), but it's hard to do impaired. I am

struggling at this point, but the bosses are aware of the problems

and are very compassionate and caring. A bulk of work that would

generally be mine has been relayed to other staff members or the

attorneys are managing it on their own. I think that it helps that I

work for a female owned firm. I do not think that I would

receive the same type of support from a male owned firm, which

is the norm. My prior firm would have likely asked me to take unpaid

leave or resign simply because am not able to manage a full case load

right now. That is not the case here. Thankfully, the partners

appreciate the work that I do enough to wait me out. That's very

complimentary to me and says a lot for them as people.

I do also do a considerable amount of reading other than things that

are work related. Mostly historically based books or novels are my

favorites.

Khris

>

> " This stuff needs to come out of me. I need

> to shed the anger and disgust. I'd love to learn how to cry. I'd

> like to know what it is like to really feel. I think that's

> something that has been taken from me like so much else. Feeling.

I

> sometimes wonder what it is like to " feel " . I'm hopeful that one

day

> I might know. "

>

> Khris - you're a survivor. You are living proof of survival and the

> power of the human spirit to move forward and onward. You are on a

> path of rediscovering who you are and the wonderful range of human

> emotion. I found it very poignant that you want to learn how to cry,

> how you have yet to find that release. When it comes (which it

will) I

> think it will be an important and beautiful moment in your journey

> towards healing. Like Kelley said:

>

> " Keep pushing through it and allow yourself

> to experience the pain. Embrace the emotions when they come instead

> of trying to stop or hide them. That is what helped me the most. I'd

> find myself wanting to cry and then holding back my tears. When I

> finally allowed my body to grieve and accepted my emotions as

> healing I started to heal. "

>

> I also have a question for you: Where in your life does your

> creativity lie? Do you write, sing, dance, act, or cook, etc? I

> believe a lot of healing lies within us and is released and its

power

> is felt when we are creative, when we let it out. Do you play a

> musical instrument, or have you ever been drawn to one? Are you a

> photographer? Do you paint or draw or juggle or compose poetry? I'm

> curious as to how your creativity manifests itself.

>

>

>