Growing Up With Abuse & Craziness

I watched Dr. Phil today and he had on parents who were dealing with severely disturbed children who physically attacked them and their other children. I was interested in the show because I have 4 siblings who suffer from mental illness, 2 of whom attacked and almost killed me and some of my younger siblings when I was growing up. One of my older sisters tried to kill me when I was eight years old, and one of my brothers repeatedly attacked us and threatened to kill the entire family. He would do things like come into our rooms at night and stand over us with knives, and constantly threatened to burn the house down. This brother frightened me so much, I was so afraid of him still as an adult that I refused to go to his funeral when he died in 1997. I told my parents that because I was pregnant at the time I couldn't travel, but in truth I was terrified to go, even though we could have driven there. I don't know what I thought would happen; maybe I thought he'd get me through the casket or he had arranged for someone to come shoot us all at the funeral. That was the kind of thing he would say and he harbored such intense hatred toward us, I believed he would do something like that.

I wanted to hear what kind of advice Dr. Phil gave these parents, especially about their responsibilities toward their other children. One of the children profiled on the show in particular reminded me of my brother. This child tried to poison his brother and sisters and step-mother. They were all hospitalized. Not once, but twice this happened. Currently the child is in a juvenile detention home after being in a mental health facility the first time. Do you know the parents are actually contemplating bringing this homicidal child home??? I wanted to reach through the television and shake some sense into them. It was like they had no idea what kind of damage they would do to their other children bringing someone who tried to kill them back into the home. Don't those kids deserve to feel safe? To be safe?

The mom especially reminded me of my mother...she seemed so confused and unable to stand up and protect her other children from this crazy boy. To this day my mother tries to act like she really thought she was making the right decision and just trying to 'keep the family' together. I might believe that IF my mother did not have the education and training she does. My mother has a bachelor's degree in sociology with a minor in psychology, and a master's degree in social work. She did over 3 years of field work with disturbed kids before she even had any children of her own and worked in social work throughout my childhood, so she knew from jump what was likely to happen when you bring a disturbed child into the home or back into the home after they have acted out so aggressively against other children. She knew that it is highly likely they will act out on the other children in the home. I feel that my mother loves me, but part of me feels she intentionally set me and my younger brothers and sisters up to get hurt.

The more I learned about my mother's early childhood the more this makes sense because she experienced severe illness as a child, parental abandonment (my grandfather rarely saw his kids after he and my grandmother divorced and my grandmother left for a few years to attend graduate school when my mother was just a toddler), paralyzing racism, lack of affection and harsh physical discipline from my great-grandparents. Maybe she was subconsciously trying to repeat her own childhood chaos onto her own children.

My father is not exempt from this. He has always maintained that he didn't want any of my crazy siblings to come back into our house, but he still let them back in, to hurt us again and again. Finally he put his foot down after my brother threatened my mother with a butcher knife (another kid on the show actually stabbed his step-mother several times with a butcher knife). My brother remained in a mental facility until his early twenties. When he was released he left to live in the same city his mother lived in, and I only saw him once after that. He looked me up and down lewdly and stared at me with contempt and hatred. I refused to speak to him for the rest of the visit and never saw him again.

When I was in an abusive relationship I didn't think that the craziness and chaotic environment I grew up in had anything at all to do with me being in that situation. I honestly believed that I 'just happened' to fall in love with someone who had severe mental issues, I 'just happened' to leave my parents chaotic home only to find myself living in another chaotic home where I was abused and lived in fear. I felt like it was just chance, just a coincidence.

It is crystal clear to me now that I was just trying to repeat the crazy environment of fear that I grew up in. I was so damaged by that fear...you have no idea. I felt so confused growing up. I didn't understand when I was a child why my parents wouldn't protect me. It made me feel worthless and like I was garbage. Like I was nothing. Why else would you allow someone who seriously tried to kill your child back into your home? But on the other hand my parents, especially my mom, would say that they loved me and that I was special. It is so clear to me now why living with the man who abused me felt right at the time. Someone scaring me, hurting me, telling me I was worthless, telling me they were going to kill me, but then turning around and saying that they loved me more than anything...why, it felt like home.

Currently my brothers and sisters and I, us younger siblings affected the most by the insanity that wrecked my family, have all had turbulent young adulthoods and a difficult time managing life. After I left the abusive relationship at age 20, I struggled and struggled until I was around 25. I didn't really begin to feel a strong sense of emotional stability until I was 30 years old. Now I am 35 and just in the past year felt truly strong enough to understand the complexities of my childhood and how that trauma has had a ripple effect on my life. One of my brothers is an alcoholic who has been unable to live on his own for many years now. One of my sisters has gone back to an abusive relationship. Two of my sisters suffer from severe social anxiety; one to the point where she can barely talk, she speaks in a near whisper and seems afraid of everyone in the family. The other can talk just fine to family members but she freezes up when trying to talk to strangers and has difficulty with getting and keeping a job. She has never lived on her own and lives with our parents.

We are now all in our 30s and I don't see these siblings trying to acknowledge their issues or get better...they don't even seem to want to live a normal, healthy life. I understand I can't do anything about how they choose to live...I just feel a great sense of sadness and loss at their potential. If you could have seen them! Any of us when we were small children before all the craziness happened, you would have seen we could have done anything any of us set our minds to as adults. And I worry what's going to happen to them when our parents are gone. They have all been angered and hurt by my refusal to play into or listen to their drama/victim/crisis mode lifestyles, so most are not speaking to me. Worse still, most of my siblings don't even speak to each other regularly. We all talk to our parents but that's about it. So much for keeping the family together.

Back to the show...basically Dr. Phil told them they would be putting themselves and their other children in harm's way by bringing the severely disturbed children back into the home. He offered them help and treatment options, and both families took it. I wish my parents had gotten help like that.

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How Do I Leave With the Least Amount of Drama to My Child?

A frequent email I get is a question from a woman asking me how to leave an abusive relationship while causing minimal havoc or drama for the child or children involved. I am always stunned and surprised by this question, because living in the situation is already causing extreme damage and havoc to the children, right, but then I remember how I felt when I was living like this. At one time I honestly felt it would wreck my daughter's life to have her parents live apart...more so than seeing me spit on, knocked down, slapped, pushed around, sat on, kicked, etc. Yes, she saw him do all that, and more.

If you are in this situation I don't want to discourage you from emailing me but I am not sure what to tell you, I'm so sorry. I can tell you how I left, you can read it on the blog, but that may not be what's least dramatic for you. Please consider that keeping your child in an abusive situation because of the potential drama of leaving is setting up the very drama you wish to avoid. An abusive family life is never good for a child. Control and abuse is never good for a child to witness. Leaving is going to be dramatic no matter how you do it but it will create a better life for your child, so don't worry about the drama of leaving because that is just temporary.

One thing you can do to cut down on the drama is to make sure you have important documents like birth certificates and stuff so that you have no reason or excuse to go back for anything. If you do forget something or have to leave something, then just forget it. Going back will only suck you back into the relationship. Remember important documents can be replaced. Another thing you can do is seek shelter from people who are prepared to help and protect you. Running to a relative's or friend's house may put them on the spot and it may put their lives in danger as they may not be in a situation to protect you and your children. A battered women's shelter may be your best defense for safe shelter.

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The Drama Triangle: Why Growing Up in Abuse Makes You Seek Out Abuse in Adulthood

I read this over at Why Can't the Past Just Die? a blog on abuse recovery I recently came across:

For those of us who have grown up in families where there was abuse, neglect, alcohol/drug addiction, mental illness or any other circumstances that can create the kind of fear that may distort or prevent our ability to be in touch with who we are and how we feel as individuals, it is likely we will have developed with a lack of understanding into what motivates our behavior within our relationships. This is because the authentic-self is undeveloped or has been cast away in order to play a certain role in the family that is for the family’s benefit. Self-hood is lost and replaced by a shell of a person that is manipulated and who manipulates in turn, engaging in a dance that allows a false sense of order, purpose and identity among the dancers. In reality, the end result is nothing short of chaos, and without a clear understanding of how the Drama Triangle works, attempting to escape the snare may be an almost futile effort.
Read full blog entry

I think it is very interesting and certainly applies to me and my family. I am going to share this with my family in hopes to spark a discussion about why so many of my siblings struggle or struggled with abuse issues and other forms of chaos in our adult lives.

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The Gunfighter : Domestic Violence From a Child's View

This month in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month What About Our Daughters is featuring posts from Black men on the subject of DV. Another brave brother has agreed to wade into the fray. This week's post is courtesy of Gunfighter. Here's a snippet:

Instead of raw numbers, I am going to talk about DV from a personal viewpoint. You see, I know a wee bit about the subject. I witnessed it as a child.

My dad was a wife-beater.

An early memory for five year old Gunfighter was my father coming home after working the late shift at Hamilton Air Force Base, California, and getting into an argument with my mother. I have no idea what it was all about, but I remember the shouting turning into screams. Screams coming from my mother, punctuated by the fist-on-flesh thwacking sound that no child should ever hear coming from his own mother's body.

After scooping my older sister from her bed, my mother ran into the bedroom that I shared with my brother, herded us into our car and drove off into the night. We drove around for a few hours, finally parking on the side of the road, somewhere in Marin County. I am certain that sometime that night, I must have slept, but I remember being awake, as the new day was dawning, and seeing my mother just staring blankly out the window.

It was 1968, my mother was 29 years old... and she had nowhere to go.

I'll bet you know what we did next.

If you guessed "you-waited-until-your-dad-went-to-work-and-then-you-went-back-home", you're right, now, go get yourself a cookie.

My life changed that night. That night put me on the road that I travel today... the road that leads to responsible fatherhood. The road that leads to marital respect, the road that leads to being a true man. Yes, a true man.

That beating wasn't the only one my mother ever got from my father... but it was the worst, and the last. By the summer of 1969, my mother had divorced my father, and we moved to New Jersey to live with my Grandmother.
Read the full essay

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When It's Your Family

What do you do?

I have a sister who is involved with an abusive man. I am so hurt over this. It's one thing to talk about what happened to me, I'm re-hashing it over the distance of 15 years. It's all fine and dandy to post advice on the blog and via email to strangers that ask me questions. It's another thing when it's your family.

I love my sister but I am unable to watch her self-destruction. She is so talented and smart and beautiful...whatever good you think about me, know that my sister is ten times that. She is a gem of a person and this man uses her and treats her like some plastic bauble you get out of a gum machine and throw away. Why doesn't she feel that she is worth so much more than that? Why doesn't she understand that there are men in the world who will treat her with respect, speak to her with kindness, and never threaten her or mistreat her? Why doesn't she see this?

Why didn't I?

When is this ever going to stop for my family? It wasn't just me who experienced this and it's not just her. We have an older sister who was married to a physically abusive man for nearly 20 years, an aunt who divorced her husband because he was an alcoholic who beat her frequently, and several cousins on both sides of our family who have experienced verbal and physical relationship abuse in varying degrees. What happened with the women in my family? Why does this keep happening? My sister can be and do anything she wants, but she is choosing to go through the same pain and drama she saw her older sisters and other women in her family go through. I feel grief and guilt for my part in modeling this kind of relationship to her. I know that I did not cause her to choose this but I do know that as her older sister she looked up to me and learned from me.

Know that when you choose to be abused, younger people close to you are watching you and seeing how you live your life. You never know how what you decide to put up with in a relationship affects the people who love you. Please choose to model healthy, vibrant, and loving relationships without fear and abuse to your daughters, sisters, and other young girls coming up in your family.

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Distraught: News About the Deaths of Jannell Cintron & Cesess Hill

I felt just destroyed while watching the news about Jannell Cintron and Cesess Hill, 2 little girls who were murdered by their mother near where I live. She drowned them allegedly out of frustration with their father. The two of them were involved in an abusive relationship. This has bought up so many painful memories for me...I know the pain and desperation this young mother felt. I am not saying she was right or had no other option, but I know the despair and confusion she felt to do such a horrific thing. I feel so deeply for the father as well, because even though I know the kinds of things he must have said to her including threatening to take their kids from her, I saw this man cry from the bottom of his soul on the news and I feel he loved his children deeply. Two children are DEAD and the lives of their parents are irreparably ruined because neither had the presence of mind to leave the other alone and walk away from a sick and destructive relationship. I wrote about this in my previous post but here is more news:

CLEVELAND -- Court records show a Cleveland woman now accused of drowning her two children, was a victim of domestic abuse. Amber Hill remains in jail after police say she drowned her two little girls inside an apartment on Cleveland's east side.

Court records in Cleveland and Bedford indicate the children's father, Jaime Citron attacked Hill on two separate occasions. In January of 2004, Hill told Warrensville Heights Police Citron jumped on her and grabbed her by the neck. The report says Citron was so angry he punched himself in the face several times. He was later found guilty of domestic violence.

In May of 2006, court records show Citron picked up a hammer and smashed a television screen. The report also says he grabbed her by the neck and shoved her. In an interview with Fox 8 Tuesday, Citron admitted he wasn't always a sensible person. But he says since the abuse convictions, he's been working to change his attitude and his abusive ways.

"We had just got back together like a month and a half ago. Being apart six months was really hard for me," said Cintron. Monday the two most important people in his life, his two daughters, were found floating in a bath tub and the accused killer is a mother.

Citron says he wants to know why she did it. Amber Hill's family says a combination of abuse and depression may have led her to kill.
Local Fox 8 News Report

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RIP: Jannell Cintron & Cesess Hill

Will it ever end? Two little girls are dead as a result of a violent relationship between their parents. Sisters Cesess Hill, age 2, and Janell Cintron, age 4, were found submerged in a bathtub yesterday. Their mother, Amber Hill, is the suspect. Their father, Jamie Cintron, was at work when they were drowned.

I just watched the news where they interviwed Amber Hill's grandmother. She said that the relationship was an abusive one (and there are 2 documented cases of abuse according to the news) and that Amber would often come stay with her when it got too much for her to deal with. But she went back.

She went back.

and now those children are dead.

My heart goes out to their families. I lit candles for their souls and I know those two innocents will go on. Read more here:
Mom suspected of drowning girls in tub

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Face the Issue

What are the symptoms of abuse?

Does your mom, dad, sibling, girlfriend or boyfriend:

• Seem like two different people, constantly switching between two personalities?
• Act extremely jealous of others who pay attention to you, or use jealousy to justify his/her actions?
• Make fun of you, put you down, or embarrass you in front of other people?
• Control your friends and/or your behavior emotionally or sexually?
• Have a history of bad relationships or past violence, always blame his/her problems on other people, or blame you for "making" him/her treat you badly?
• Push, slap, bite,kick or choke you?
• Try to get you drunk, high or messed up or try to get you alone when you don’t want to be?
• Try to control you — by being bossy, not taking your opinion seriously, making all of the decisions about who you see, what you wear, what you do, etc. ?
• Threaten to kill you or commit suicide?
• Talk negatively about people in sexual ways or talk about sex like it’s a game or a contest?
• Stop you from seeing or talking to friends, family or limits your outside involvement?
Unfortunately, without help, the violence will only get worse. If you think you might be in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline or your local domestic violence center to talk with someone about it.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be involved in a relationship that is physically, emotionally or sexually abusive. For more information: National Domestic Hotline http://www.ndvh.org/
Hotline Number: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
http://www.facetheissue.com/abuse.html

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