WARNING: THIS CONTENT CAN BE UPSETTING OR TRIGGERING TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN IMPACTED BY ABUSE IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER. IT WAS SUGGESTED THAT I INCLUDE SUCH A DISCLAIMER WITH MY STORY
My primary reason for building this site is to get programs in schools to reach children before they are too broken to ever be fixed. On top of that I have a rare autoimmune/neurodegenerative disease which is slowly paralyzying me: First my legs and now my hands. My secondary reason for building this site, is the fact that I have spent my entire life dealing with Complex PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder. and a multitude of physical problems linked to my past. It wasn’t until I started having seizures that I was finally put in a world renowned neuroscience center. That was when I was told I had complex PTSD. Until then, I had never heard of it. I have documented some of it here. At the time, I told no one. Looking back, my neighbors heard the screaming and gunshots, my teachers had to know; but no one did anything. My father was a cop, so even when the police did show up; they left without even checking inside the house. I was completely alone.
My journey has been long and painful but I am still here which is more than I can say for my brother, who at the ripe old age of 24, decided to blow his brains out rather than live with the trauma we endured growing up. My sister is still alive but mentally, a trainwreck. She was 6 years younger than me so most of the trauma that my brother and I endured, she does not know about. I prefer she never finds out. She has been through enough.
After going through 6 months of seizures I was told I had Complex PTSD. I had never heard of it. Apparently it can cause seizures. I had no idea PTSD could cause seizures but in cases like mine, it can. After all the seizures a few years ago, my shrink told me she wanted me to go into a Trauma Unit down in Baltimore, Maryland which is a 3 hour drive from me. I assumed it would be like every other nut ward I have been in so I really didn’t want to go. Despite my fear, I trusted my shrink and I went. That experience came at a time when I was ready to give up. After decades of therapy and institutions, I felt there was no hope left. I never told my shrink I wanted to die but I guess she sensed it somehow. I have two boys so I couldn’t kill myself. I didn’t want to leave them but I was tired; SO FUCKING TIRED.
I was told I would only be there for a couple weeks but both times I went, they kept me for 6 weeks. It was there that I slept through the night for the first time in my life. I was told at the trauma unit that I also had DID. DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. It explains why I have done many things I don’t remember. I have “sober blackouts” which is pretty scary. I didn’t believe I had it the first time I went there. It wasn’t until my son took a video of me during one of my “loopy times”(what my mother and son called it) that I began to believe I had it. When my son would tell me about some of the things I would do, I thought he was fabricating stories. I truly believed he was gas-lighting me. When I saw the video of me, I was freaked out. I had no memory of doing the things in the video. I know of some things that trigger me. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to avoid them. I would have to completely cut myself off from the world. I would love to go somewhere where there are no people; just dogs.
My oldest memory is of me sitting in front of our porch window at night singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. I was about 4 years old. I was waiting for my dad, who was a police officer, to come home. My mother would keep me up late so I could keep her company while my dad was out drinking all night. My next oldest memory is me asking my mother to please not leave me alone with my brother. He was molesting me every time I was left alone with him. My mother yelled at him one time to keep his hands off me and then she continued to leave me alone with him. The molestation and beatings only got worse so I never spoke of it again.
We were both pretty young when it started. I must have been about 4 or 5 and he was 3 1/2 years older than me. It may not sound like a big age gap but he was 3 times my size. The molesting never stopped and he used me as a punching bag my entire childhood. The way it worked was; my father would get drunk and beat my brother and then my brother would find me and beat me 5 times worse. Because of the size difference between us, all I could do was hope he stopped before he killed me. There were some beatings that were so bad I truly believed I would die. The scariest beating was when he sat on my chest and beat my face bloody. Between his weight on me and choking on the blood running down the back of my throat; I truly believed I was going to die. I just remember I couldn’t breathe. My mother was right in the next room completely oblivious. My brother stopped when my mother said very calmly “You should get off her. Your going to break her little bones”. She was right. I later found out that my ribs and sternum had been broken several times as well as several other bones. It all showed up in a bone scan done a few years ago. I remember the nurse telling me “Wow, you have a lot of old bone breaks”. When I sent this site to some of my friends to get input, I was told about a new trauma unit for children at the University of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, parents who neglect and or abuse their kids, don’t take them to therapy or the doctor. Until the schools start talking to children to make them understand that it is safe to talk about neglect or abuse and what it is; the worst of the abused will not get help.
I had spinal meningitis when I was 15 but my parents never took me to the hospital because they didn’t want to get stuck waiting at the ER because it was July 4th weekend. My parents never took us to doctors or dentists. Anyway, I lost my reflexes so when I was cooking dinner one night, I spilled a hot pan of grease down the front of me. My shirt stuck to the burnt skin so I didn’t know what to do. I had 3rd degree burns from that incident. I called my mother at work but she said I would have to wait until after she finished work to go to the doctor. The doctor found out I had meningitis by accident when I went to him for the burns on my stomach. I remember when the doctor lifted my legs on the table my head jerked back. He asked my mother if I had been sick recently and she proceeded to tell him about how my fever was 106 degrees and I couldn’t lift my head. I was hallucinating and all I remember was the horrible pain in my head and neck. He took a bunch of blood from me and told my parents I had spinal meningitis.
I ended up having to go to some neurologist far away because I was never treated for the meningitis when it occurred. My father and brother took me. My father was drunk and my brother told me repeatedly that they were going to stick a long needle in my back. I was scared to death. That was the first doctor who actually yelled at my father. He kept telling him. “Do you realize she could have died. If she is EVER that sick again, you MUST take her to the hospital.” “Do you understand?” That was the only time my father ever took me to a doctor. Had I not had 3rd degree burns on my stomach with a shirt essentially glued to my stomach, my mother would never have taken me to the doctor.
My mother never ever left work early even when I had a scalpel go through my hand. The school nurse couldn’t believe my mother wouldn’t come get me. Same thing when I got a chunk of glass in my knee on the way to school at 6:30 in the morning. I went back home to get my knee looked at and my mother said to hurry up or I would miss my bus. I went to this private school for girls which took 2 hours each way to get back and forth The girls in that school drove BMW and Mercedes. I took public transportation. I bled so long that by the time my mother showed up after work the doctors couldn’t stitch it because it had been too long.. I ended up having major surgery a couple years later because the glass was never removed so my knee grew a cyst around it. I just remember in catholic school we had to kneel a lot and my knee hurt like hell when I would kneel on it. When they finally did an x-ray they found a hunk of leaded glass in my knee.
I went to a dentist once. My brother, sister, and I had to all be put to sleep because our teeth were all rotten. Brushing your teeth and bathing were not a priority. I honestly don’t remember even having a toothbrush until I was in high school, when I bought my own.
As we got older, my brother would take my father’s handcuffs to handcuff and beat me. He was so full of rage and I was a convenient punching bag. Those beatings were some of the worst because I couldn’t cover my face. I had no way to defend myself. He handcuffed me one time when I was out with my friends. That was a humiliation I will never forget. It was bad enough he kicked me in the back until my legs gave out and my wrist broke, but I was totally humiliated in front of all my friends. I was about 10 or 11 when he did that,. He hated me so bad that he couldn’t walk past me without punching me in the face. He set my room on fire when he was about 4 years old. If my father hadn’t been leaving for work and saw the smoke billowing out my bedroom window, my life would have ended right then. I wasn’t that lucky.
Then there was my dad; a gun wielding alcoholic cop. He would hold us hostage a lot of times at gunpoint. He had no compunction about sticking a gun to your head. I remember going into the basement without knocking first and he grabbed me by the throat and stuck his gun to my head. The first time that happened. I was about 8 years old. He would cut the phone lines and hold us hostage any time my mother threatened to leave. The police came to our house several times because the neighbors heard gunshots. Unfortunately, my father would show his badge at the door and the cops never even looked inside. Back then Philly cops could get away with murder.
I was 9 years old the first time I played Russian Roulette with my dad and brother. I don’t mean that figuratively. It didn’t just “feel” like Russian Roulette. We played with my fathers 38 service revolver. He would load one bullet and spin the chamber. He would pass the gun to my brother first. My brother could never pull the trigger. As a result, my father would call him a “sissy” and a “faggot” as he kicked and beat on him. I always pulled the trigger. I had a therapist ask me one time, what I was thinking about when I did that. Truthfully, I was wondering how big of a mess it would make and whether the bullet would go through the wall into my next door neighbors house. We lived in row homes so it made sense to me at the time. After the first time I pulled the trigger; something inside me died. I guess that was how I coped with it. I stopped caring if I died. A part of me accepted that I was going to die. I just wasn’t sure when.
I prayed constantly for God to make my dad to stop drinking and for the beatings to stop. As time went on my prayers became, “please make my dad die, please make my brother die”. By the age of 8, I was mentally done. I started cutting at the age of 8. I wanted someone to help me so bad. I wanted to control something. I would smash my hands with a hammer, slice my arms, throw myself down the stairs; anything to get some help. I thought I was being watched all the time. I would see a man looking at me in my bedroom window. My room was 3 stories from the ground but at the age of 8, I didn’t think of that. I always slept with a knife under my pillow and a bat under the bed as a kid. I still sleep with a machete next to my bed and a switchblade on my key-chain. I still sleep with clothes on so I can be ready to run in the middle of the night. It’s crazy how long these habits have stayed with me.
I had learned how babies were made from my friend Nancy when I was about 8 years old. I remember my brother brought his friends into our sex games right after that when I was about 9 years old . I didn’t understand anything about menstruation etc.. I just knew how babies were made.. I didn’t understand that I was too young to get pregnant. So I asked my brother “how long does it take to get pregnant?” All I knew was what we all did with his friend was how babies were made. Anyway, my brother responded “9 months” which I took to mean it took 9 months to get pregnant. I remember it so vividly because I spent the entire fourth grade thinking any day I would wake up pregnant. I was terrified every day that year.
I was so happy when I realized I wasn’t pregnant. It wasn’t long after that when my brother and his friends stopped using me for a sex toy. I was no more than a piece of garbage to used and tossed away when they were done with me. One of the guys who had sex with me when I was about 8 or 9 was really good looking and a lot of the girls in my grade had a crush on him a couple years after our encounter. I found it absolutely humiliating to see him at school every day and to hear the girls around me fawn over him. I will never forget him in particular.
I don’t remember the first time I drank alcohol but it was the summer I turned 10 when I first went to the corner drug dealer to buy pot. He would sell us 1 joint for 1 dollar. I remember sharing it with my friends and thinking this shit does nothing. Alcohol numbed me. I love drinking because I didn’t want to be high; I wanted to be unconscious. I always drank hard liquor because beer took too long to numb me.
By the age of 15 I was drinking in the mornings on my way to school. I had really good grades so I was put in a prestigious private school for girls. On top of that my parents thought I needed to straighten out and stop talking like I was from Southwest Philly. I saw it as a chance to reinvent myself.
I spent my last 2 months of my senior year in high school in a Rehab for drinking. I was 17 years old so there weren’t many treatment centers back then that took anyone under 21 The problem was, after I stopped drinking for a while, I would start having nightmares, I also became increasingly suicidal. I remember taking my dad’s service revolver and playing Russian Roulette by myself in my room. I overdosed the first time the summer after I got out of that rehab. I wanted to die and end it once an for all. Living with the memories and the lack of sleep was too much. Sobriety sucked. The longer I stayed sober the more mentally ill I became.
I did go to a 12 step program since that seemed like a safe place to go since I couldn’t drink. Back then no one really understood cutting. After trying to stay sober for a while, my 12 step sponsor recommended I go back into treatment. I confided in my sponsor that I was cutting and she called my therapist. My therapist told me I needed to go back inpatient. I thought I was going to rehab again for a month. I ended up in a young adult mental ward. I spent 2.5 years in that mental institution.. They let me out a couple times but I never lasted more than a couple weeks before I would get drunk and overdose on whatever I could find. That was at a time when mental health inpatient coverage was unlimited up to the age of 21 so that is how long they kept me. During that time, I was strapped down like an animal and spent months in isolation after they found me hanging in my bathroom. I tried to hang myself a couple times but for whatever reason, was found before I was dead. The second time I tried I was in a drunken blackout and didn’t even know I did it until someone told me. I spent years trying to end my life. I overdosed about 12 times but only remember deliberately doing it 9 times. The other times I died, I was in a blackout. I was dead and brought back at least 10 times that I can recall.
I have a bumper sticker on my car that says “Heaven doesn’t want me and Hell is afraid I’ll take over” and I believe it. The last major overdose cause me to lose control of the left side of my body. It also affected my speech and I remember when they moved me from ICU to the locked ward, the nurse put a pair of scrubs on the bed and I had no idea how to put them on. I couldn’t read, my speech was gibberish when it came out. I knew what I wanted to say but I couldn’t get it out. My parents were told I would never be the same. I was told later that I had been in a coma for a while. I had done a lot of damage that time. I died in the hallway but they brought me back. I was brought back to life more times than I can remember. After about a year, I was back to my old self mentally. I went to school to be a nurses aid and then was accepted into nursing school. I aced nursing school and was told with my grades, I could get a scholarship to medical school which is what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be a doctor. During my first winter break in nursing school, my brother blew his brains out. I tried to go back the next semester but my professors knew I was different. My anatomy professor asked me if I was okay and after I told her what happened over winter break, I was advised to take some time off.
I never went back. I started drinking again. I was drunk around the clock. I stayed sober for months after he died but I could smell the gunpowder and blood every time I got in my car and I would have to pull over to throw up. I could feel the sensation of his brain on my thumb when I picked up a box in his room. The Russian Roulette and my brothers brains everywhere were happening at the same time in my nightmares. It was all one long horrific memory that haunted me. I couldn’t take it anymore so I decided to drink and numb myself again. That particular drunk lasted a week or two but I found out what DT’s were. I was screaming about a monster eating my stomach and tearing at my stomach as I thrashed around on the floor of the clubhouse where I attended meetings. I never knew that DT’s involved hallucinations and delusions. I don’t know why I went there other than the fact that it was the only safe place I could think of in my drunken stupor. I was 21 when this occurred.
I soon decided that what I really needed was to settle down and have kids. If I had kids, I wouldn’t drink anymore. I married a widower with a 4 year old boy. His wife was killed in a car accident when his son was 2 so the child had no memory of his mother but I’m sure he felt her loss. His father went on a couple year drug run so Johnny was left with anyone who would take him. When he started kindergarten I was told he was socially and emotionally 2 years old. He stopped growing emotionally when his mom died. He essentially lost both his parents. One died and the other went on a 2 year drug run. That is very traumatic for a kid so young. I was clueless how to be a mom. I was even more clueless how to manage a child with severe emotional problems, dyslexia and ADHD. I did my best to help him but he was so neglected. At 4 years old, he didn’t know any colors, letters. shapes or even the difference between a car and a truck. He had no toys and not one book. I convinced my soon to be husband to get himself an apartment and I was shocked when they moved. Johnny literally had no toys, no books, nothing of his own. That first Christmas I was with him, I bought him a ton of toys and books galore. I spent an entire summer before kindergarten trying to get Johnny up to speed for kindergarten but it was a long and difficult journey. I had him writing his alphabet, studying shapes and drawing them. I did everything I could to get him in line with other kids his age. I lived with John and Johnny for 18 months before we got married. I got pregnant on my honeymoon so by the time I was 25 I already had 2 kids and no idea what I was doing.
I can only write this in increments because it overwhelms me and I get triggered….so all I can say is stay tuned. There is much more to add before I am finished….to be continued…….
My Life in pictures from age 17 to 21
