Archive for Depression
Emotional Abandonment, Rejection and Recovery
Posted by: | Comments
Darlene
When I try to conform to what other people want, I realize that I am rejecting myself the same way that I have been rejected by others. I can decide (even subconsciously) that I don’t see the point of trying or that it is too hard to stand up for myself, but that leaves me feeling the same way that I have always felt; empty, unsupported unlovable, unworthy and not good enough.
Rejected and emotionally abandoned.
Loving myself has so much to do with being there for myself. It has so much to do with not leaving myself the way that I was emotionally abandoned by others.
Rejection is not just when someone says “get out of my life”. I was rejected by every single boyfriend that I ever had although I was always the one that left the relationship. I didn’t understand my deep feelings of turmoil in those relationships. I didn’t see the reality of not being accepted. I didn’t realize how hard I tried to conform and comply. I did not realize I had experienced emotional abandonment again. Sometimes I didn’t even understand why I gave up and left.
And I was left with this huge feeling of restlessness about my life and why things didn’t work out, always sure that it was my own fault always looking to change myself, my reactions, my way of doing life. But in reality, I was always rejecting myself the same way that I was being rejected. Every time I saw the need to change me, I was agreeing with them. I was agreeing that the real me was somehow “wrong,” every time I tried to conform in order to make someone else happy.
All of this was combined with the underlying questions about why I was not accepted and trying to understand why I always had to change, and why I was still being rejected and abandoned emotionally by others, even though at the same time I was willing to accept that it must be me who had the problem.
Today I realize that when people asked me to conform to their ideas of who I should be, that’s rejection. When people asked me to be who they want me to be, they are rejecting who I am. They are rejecting who I was born to be; my individuality.
When people who are supposed to love you do this, it cuts really deeply and it is very hard to understand. When we keep trying to meet someone else’s expectations that is the same as rejecting of our own desires. We don’t understand it this way because we have learned that we MUST conform and comply as a child in order to survive; which is a true fact. In order to find freedom and wholeness however, I had to realize I am not a child anymore. When I began to understand this concept I made big progress in overcoming depression and dissociative behaviour.
When I was a child I had to do whatever was necessary for me to survive. I had to try harder to be what they wanted, to please, to make everyone happy. What I am saying now though, is that I had to realize that I am not that child anymore. The truth is that I do not need to conform in order to survive. The truth is that I do not need other adults to take care of me; my survival is not dependant on anyone else anymore. I am not a pawn in someone else’s game.
I had to realize this truth; I can take care of myself now. Then I had to learn to honour myself, to value and appreciate myself for who I am, so that I could “be there” for me. I had to stop rejecting myself in order to accept myself. I had to realize that in all of this learned behaviour, I had become the one who was emotionally abandoning me.
Looking forward to your comments on this one!
From surviving to thriving on the journey to wholeness;
Darlene Ouimet
Related Posts : Click ~ Who am I ~ will I like me?
Click ~ Depression and Identity Crisis
WHO AM I? Will I like Me?
Posted by: | Comments
I remember the day that realized that I was no longer attached to my former identity. My former identity is the identity that was given to me by my family and almost every significant relationship I ever had since a very young age with the exception of a few special girlfriends and maybe a couple of adults along the way. It was how I had come to think of myself, how much guilt and shame that I carried for things that had happened to me and the way that I believed I was not loveable, that I was not good enough and that something about me was just “wrong”. That identity no longer resonated with me. I knew that I was no longer who they said I was. My identity crisis was over, I thought. I was certain that the little voice in my head would go away now. That little voice that whispered every time I accomplished anything; “who the hell do you think YOU are?? Everyone knows you are nothing, everyone knows that you are an imposter and anyone who doesn’t will soon find out”. I was certain that voice would shut up now and that I would never have an imposter issue again! (Unfortunately this was not the end of that issue, but let’s save that for another blog post later on)
I remember that the exact moment I realized that I was no longer who they said I was; that I was no longer defined by them. I felt euphoric and immediately empty. I felt like I had reached a goal, but something was missing. I felt amazing and terrified. I felt free and blank all at the same time. Full of real fear I questioned my therapist; “well if none of that is who I am, then who am I?” It felt scary, dangerous, foreign, lonely and somehow clean, all at the same time.
Prior to this day, in my mind’s eye regarding the process of recovery from all my depressions and dissociative identity etc, I had visions of huge construction equipment digging up buildings, rotten foundations and roots that were miles deep. At first clearing this wreckage ~ what my life had become ~ seemed overwhelming. I didn’t think I could do it, there was so much debris to deal with and the mess went so deep. Sometimes I even pictured huge floodlights so the work could also be done in the dark, as though there was no rest from it. It seemed to go on and on, the things I found in the digging were sometimes shocking, sometimes frightening, and sometimes so enlightening it was like finding diamonds! Most of the time the shocking and frightening stuff eventually was so enlightening that it was like finding treasure too. I found the truth! It was exhausting but somehow I kept going.
Now, on this new day in my mind’s eye I pictured a huge area of land that has been cleared of all trees, structures, garbage, weeds and rubble The land was all smoothed and prepared and the huge construction equipment had been taken away. This new foundation was ready and waiting for me to rebuild on it. I felt shaky at first, as though like a baby, my legs were still wobbly. I was curious about who I would find on this new leg of the journey to discover the real me. Would I recognize myself, and even more frightening, would I like myself? There was still that little voice inside, asking “what if they were right about me”? What if the people that had defined me all my life were right about me after all”? What if I can’t do me? What if no one likes the real me? What am I going to find out next?
Feeling blank has many fears.
The following months were in many ways no less complicated than the prior months in therapy, they were just different. I had to learn how to live in my new belief system, and sometimes it was uncomfortable. I tried new things, and almost everything I did felt like I was doing it for the first time, because I had changed all those old beliefs and I was not the same person anymore. Sometimes I wanted to run back to the old life! At least it was familiar and even comfortable there. At least I knew how to function there.
As I got to know myself, my happiness increased. I felt free, alive, brilliant, strong, dynamic and reborn. I began to feel comfortable; like I was really alright, and in fact I was “right with myself”. I felt like I finally knew what it means to feel like I was who I was meant to be. I was able to impact others in ways that I never did before. I started to feel purposeful and fulfilled. Today I continue to become more and more comfortable in my own skin, more alive, more able to live life fully and to flourish and thrive. I become more “ME” with each passing day and I love who I am!
Please share your own stories, feelings, fears and victories as we travel this road and celebrate our discoveries.
Darlene Ouimet
click here to read the post on my struggle with my identity
Depression and Identity Crisis
Posted by: | Comments
I was stuck for so long believing that if my family could just see me for who I really am, that I could BE who I really am. This was a lie that kept me down for many years. Because “they” my family taught me who I was; because they had defined me and I my identity was grounded in the definition of “me” that they gave me, I did not realize that I could define myself. I felt like I HAD to get their agreement to be me, before I could be me. I felt like being someone that they didn’t think I was or didn’t want me to be was somehow a betrayal of everything they wanted. As though my life would have no meaning and I would be no one if I stood up to them. I felt like I HAD to be who they said I was, or I would be rejected. This was such a big part of the cause of my depressions and my struggle with depression and identity crisis.
This was all tied in with my childhood belief that I could not live without my family. That I would die without them because I could not survive out on the street by myself. When we are children we have to believe that our family is right, because if we believe that it is them who are wrong, there is no hope for us. I could not find my own food, my own shelter. I was scared of rejection and rightly so. I knew that I would not be able to survive without them therefore I would surely die out there in the world by myself. I could not make them change, so I tried to change; I tried hard to be what they wanted me to be so that I would be loved. I wanted to be who (the identity) they wanted me to be but at the same time because I was not recognized as ME or valued for being me, I was no one. (Identity Crisis) That might just be my definition of depression or at least one of my definitions of depression. And that was where it got so confusing.
Somehow I thought that their approval was actually love and I tried to live by their definition of love, which is about compliance, obedience, respect and acceptance of them however they are. I grew up and kept trying harder to be loved (approved of). Even as an adult I didn’t see that my family, and subsequent controllers and abusers did not love me according to their own definition of love; I never realized that they didn’t accept me, they didn’t approve of me the way that I had to approve of them. I never realized that they didn’t accept me, my decisions or my choices, the way that I was required to accept them and their decisions and choices ~ and without question I might add. See how confusing this is? Is it any wonder that I struggled with identity crisis, depression and mental health issues?
At the age of 17 I moved out of the house and I took my childhood belief system with me and all of my damaged self esteem and I moved in with my boyfriend and now I was trying hard to be loved by yet another person who wanted me to love him out of his false definition of love, and wanted me to be who he dreamed the perfect girlfriend would be and I was STILL trying (longing, wishing, praying, hoping, and telling myself that I didn’t care) to get acceptance, approval and love from my family too. And that is a great recipe for depression.
I had grown up not knowing that I was enough, not knowing that I was lovable, that I deserved better then what they offered me then and what they offer me now. I did not trust myself to make good decisions, and everything I did, every choice I made I subconsciously put through a grid of “will this meet with approval from “them”? If the answer was no, I tried to hide my decision or I made some brave “rebellious” stand for myself, feeling so smart and smug, all the while dreading the eventual judgement.
I had been taught and conditioned to believe I needed their approval before I could approve of myself. Realizing this truth was the first step on the journey to self love, self acceptance and recovering my self esteem. I am no longer in any kind of identity crisis; I have discovered the ME that I am and I embrace that truth. Realizing this truth and re-wiring my belief system was how I found my way out of chronic depression and dissociative identity disorder.
As always I look forward to all your comments!
You are the only you there is ~ do you know who you are?
Darlene Ouimet
Standing up to Dysfunctional Relationship Part 2
Posted by: | Comments
My last post (click here) was about standing up to my husband regarding our dysfunctional relationship, that I was mistreated and disrespected and how he was willing to listen to me. Unlike him, not everyone was willing to meet me half way with my desire to change and become my own person instead of a robot that existed to restore everyone else’s value.
I cancelled hosting a family reunion because my mother and my brother were up to their trouble making tricks, and I was just sick of being the one in the family that was never heard, never valued, always expected to just “take it” and always the one who was wrong.
My mother and my brother we up to their trouble making antics again; apparently, there was this big “family horror” going on behind the scenes because I had told my sister in law about some of my childhood, and some of the things that my mother did, and she told my brother who told my mother… and well as you can imagine the you know what hit the fan. Before anyone talked to me or asked me about it, the whole family ~ aunts, cousins ~ everyone had all been contacted, questioned and informed about my “talking”. It wasn’t even what I talked about that was the real problem, it was what I MIGHT have talked about that he was trying to find out.
Did I keep the family secrets, or was I revealing them to everyone? Of course, these kinds of people make sure that they discredit you with each conversation. It is all about control and making sure that the family member who is “talking” is painted as a psycho with issues right from the beginning of the conversation, just in case that family member really has revealed the family secrets. These phone calls were about damage control as well as investigating the damage itself. It would have gone something like this: “Darlene has been saying things about her childhood, that are not true, she has made up this story about (whatever) and I am trying to find out what else she is going around saying. Did Darlene say anything to you about me? I just want to know if she has said anything to you about it don’t believe her because it isn’t true, she is a bit crazy and has been on anti depressants and seeing a therapist you know.”
I didn’t know this was going on of course. My mother called one day and said that she had decided to tell me that she was worried about something I was doing and she told me about this conversation that I had had with my sister in law 6 or 8 months earlier and what a problem that I had caused. (I am assuming that they had been talking about this with each other for 6 or 8 months.)
There were a couple of things that struck me odd;
a) That she totally believed everything that she had been told, without even asking me.
b) And because several things she heard and was upset about were actually the truth.
To the things that I said to my sister in law that were true, I responded, yes, I did tell her that, so what? My mother seemed stunned and didn’t know what to say about my admission or my honest reaction. So the truth was ignored. The fight became about the false.
There were some things that had been exaggerated, and a few things that I had never said but when I told her that I had never said them, my mom said “Darlene, she wrote it down” and I said “that makes it true?” (that was ignored too)
The real fear behind the call was about the stuff I hadn’t told yet. I realized that later. She was actually calling to warn me to keep my mouth shut and to re-establish her control and power over me. She wanted to reprimand me but good, and I didn’t think so. I was finally sick of it.
So a few weeks later my brother called like nothing was going on, telling me all the dates they booked and their schedule for this family reunion that I had agreed to host. (Everyone in my family lives in a different Province or State from each other so arranging this was kind of a big deal.) I told him that I had heard that he was saying all kinds of things about me. He admitted it and told me about how he called everyone in the whole family. (It surprised me when he just told me he had done all that, but that is the degree to which he thought HE was right and that it was right for him to call everyone and he was right to discredit me ~again without ever talking to me first) and we got in the first real fight we had ever had. (I had never dared to stand up to him before) He was ranting and raving and yelling and bullying me so much I started to shake.
I stuck to my decision to cancel hosting or attending the family reunion ~ which stunned everyone! They thought it should be just family as usual, how dare I make a fuss. (How dare I stand up to him or my mother.) I caught him so off guard that he expressed his disappointment but at the same time insisted that the whole thing was my fault. No matter how many times I repeated that nothing I said to his wife was a lie and that I had a right to talk about MY childhood; those statements were NEVER addressed. Again, it was really all about what I MIGHT say. Don’t tell the family secrets. Be who we say you can be. Do what we say you can do.
If I was the problem, like I had been told for so long, then what the heck did they want to be around me for?
(Because I was the biggest servant of the whole family? Because I would do all the cooking? Because there is no real love lost between us? Because they wanted me to believe that they “loved me” enough to “accept me even with my problems”? Because I always complied in the past and never stood up to myself, and suddenly I realized that I had equal value?)
I thought they should be happy and celebrate that they didn’t have to spend a whole week with me! I thought they should have a party to celebrate getting RID of me!
But you know what? They didn’t really want to lose their victim now did they?
Please contribute to this post in any way that you would like to. I look forward to the conversations we have here at Emerging from Broken.
Exposing truth; one snapshot at a time,
Darlene Ouimet
My Coping Method Failed and Depression Increased
Posted by: | Comments
- RUN
It was a big decision to tell my therapist what was going on in my mind. I could tell him what was going on in my life but what was going on inside my head was a different matter.
I lived inside my head for years. I constantly wondered what to say. I constantly wondered what you (or they) wanted me to say, what would make them mad, what would make them like me and accept me. What would keep me safe? Those are a lot of questions going around in my mind that I needed to think about BEFORE I answered anyone. I got quick at it though. This was one of my coping methods.
This was my survival mode. This coping method went so deep that I realized even as an adult, I was always wondering what everyone else was thinking. Always trying to guess what they wanted me to say, who they wanted me to be, what they wanted me to do. I wondered this so long and so deep that I didn’t know what I thought anymore. And worse than that, I didn’t care what I thought most of the time. I don’t think I even thought about what I personally thought; I was too focused on everyone else, believing that understanding and complying with others, would keep me safe. It was one of the ways that I coped, one of the ways that I survived.
I was always afraid that everyone was disapproving of me. I didn’t want to meet with any disapproval. Oh I used to say all the time “I don’t care if “they” like me or not”. But it wasn’t true. I was just saying one more thing that I had heard from someone else. I was lost in a world that was not mine. It was exhausting.
Eventually I fell apart and just could not seem to climb out of the serious depression I kept going back into every time I tried to stop taking the anti-depressant medications. I felt like I was being pulled under water; deep, murky, heavy, mucky, dirty cold and yet comfortable water. Looking back antidepressants really only represented a band-aid and I had come to the point that I needed the cure or I was going to just stay under that water and drown; once and for all.
I went to a therapist again because I was afraid for my life. Not because of others this time, but because I was really aware that I was losing the fight. I was losing my lifelong fight to just be okay and belong somewhere.
So taking into consideration everything that I said above, why would talking to a therapist be any different then talking to someone else? All my approval issues and fear of being hurt came with me to therapy. My “what do you need me to be” mode didn’t go away just because I was paying someone to talk to me. I still worried about what he would think, what he would want me to do and how would I stay safe? I didn’t trust because long ago I had learned to keep my guard up. I’d had a few inappropriate therapists cross my path too. All of this came into the therapy room with me although I didn’t know that. I was operating the exact same way that I always did. Survival and safety, coping and extreme self control came first. I had been groomed that way my whole life.
I was afraid of what he would think of me. I was afraid that I would be in danger if I told him what I had been through and what I was really like, because I was convinced for most of my entire life, that I was the problem. I even told him in that first session that the problem was me. I told him that I had a fantastic life but I just wasn’t happy and I was ungrateful. Something, I told him, is really wrong with me.
I had to break through this wall that stood between me and my recovery before I began to change and the first step was realizing that I although I believed that I all thought about was me, the truth was that I never thought about me.
Stay tuned this post will be continued…… HERE
Exposing Truth ~ One snapshot at a time;
Darlene Ouimet
Poetry ~ Overcoming Sexual Abuse with Kate Swift
Posted by: | Comments
Today I am pleased have guest poet Kate Swift’s work on my blog!
Kate Swift from the website “This Tangled Web” in the UK has written and compiled a collection of poetry. This poetry emerged out of the extreme child sexual abuse that she suffered. Kate’s poetry is deep and haunting and it gives the reader permission to talk about sexual abuse. The first step in recovery from sexual abuse is admitting it happened and talking about it. If you were not taken care of as a victim of child sexual abuse, it is important that you get help and support so that you can move beyond that devastating part of your life. I have read the book and I recommend it to anyone who has a history with sexual abuse or is close to someone who has suffered from the effects of being sexually abused.
Kate has graciously allowed me to share a poem that she wrote, with the readers of Emerging from Broken.
SHAME…NOT ME
Shame on you…for damaging me
Shame on you…for your lies and pretence
Shame on you…for your twisted world
Shame on me…NO THERE IS NO SHAME ON ME
Shame on you…for causing me to suffer so
Shame on you…for not hearing my silent screams
Shame on you…for turning your back on me
Shame on me…NO THERE IS NO SHAME ON ME
Kate Swift 2010
(this poem was used with permission)
It is so important for survivors of sexual abuse to realize that the shame does not belong to them, but to the abuser. Thank you Kate for allowing me to post this inspirational poem on my blog.
You can find more of Kate’s work on her website This Tangled Web http://www.thistangledweb.co.uk/
Kate’s book is available at the following websites;
While I am on the subject of sexual abuse, A reader sent me the following link to an article about the American Statistics regarding sexual abuse from the website Parentdish.com. I thought some of the readers here would be interested in checking that out too.
Here is that article: please click: Child Abuse by the Numbers
In truth and freedom,
Darlene Ouimet
Invalidation ~ When the Truth is not True
Posted by: | Comments
- The truth will set you free
As a child, I had no understanding of why things were the way they were. I don’t think I even thought that the rest of the world was any different from my world. My parents lived in denial which stemmed from their own childhoods and the situations that they were raised in. They had organized their worlds around their own wounds and traumas and they developed their own belief systems. I would imagine that years of denial led them to raise their children in a similar way to how they were raised, expecting their children to have that fierce loyalty that they themselves developed for their parents and never questioning why.
I don’t write this blog to blame my parents for their shortcomings; I refer to them only to illustrate what happened to me in the parts that had to do with my parents. I write about how I came to be an emotional mess, constantly struggling with depression due to many different incidents, how I discovered the lies that formed my belief system and how exposing the lies enabled me to see the truth; the same truth that set me free.
I was conditioned to hold it all in. When we are children, we don’t have a choice if we have not been helped through a trauma. We just go forward from there, with the pain and the scars of the trauma. We can only learn positive self care if we are taught self care but because no one helps us through the things that happened to us, we learn to not take care of ourselves we learn not to speak about the trauma or about anything else. We don’t know the difference between what is serious abuse or what is just a person or parent in a bad mood. Everything becomes our version of “normal” We keep silent because either we have been told to keep silent, or because we have learned from experience that we will not have any impact if we do tell. We learn not to speak about our emotions, believing they are wrong and that no one will listen. If we learn that telling won’t make a difference we also learn that we are not important and we try very hard to prove that we are important. If only we believed it ourselves we wouldn’t have to prove it.
So much of this problem comes from being told who we are and who we are not and from being told who we should be and who we should not be. When we are defined by others we are invalidated as an individual and as a person. Invalid. That means NOT VALID. That is a serious thing for a human being and it can cause serious problems with emotional health, physical health self image, self worth and self esteem. One lie (one false belief about ourselves) builds on another lie and we carry the whole mess with us into our adulthoods.
The false beliefs that we have about ourselves have to be undone if we are going to have any lasting freedom from the results that manifested in our lives from being invalidated, mistreated, unloved, devalued, neglected or abused.
We have to relearn how to validate ourselves.
I had to learn how to validate myself. I had to dig into that foundation that was built on those lies, expose it and talk about it so that I could knock it down and start fresh with the truth. I had to face the fear that the situations and the people who taught me “who I was” might actually be right ~ because in facing that fear, I found out they were wrong.
The truth will set you free,
Darlene Ouimet
Note: This week I did a ten minute audio interview with Christina Enevoldsen from Overcoming Sexual Abuse ~ here is the link : how we uncover the truth.
For the article I wrote and refer to in the audio about the Dr. discovering that I was being psychologically abused ~ you can find it here: Psychological Abuse ~ how self doubt grows
Why Me? Wrong Answers to Abuse Recovery Questions
Posted by: | Comments
Why Me?
I read the following quote on twitter and it really bugged me: If a person who went through domestic violence asks you “Why me?” then answer; “you’ve been put on this Earth to help others who went through the same thing.”
I think not.
This ticks me off because I used to believe this kind of thing; I accepted it as the truth, but today I see it for the skewed way of thinking that it is. If I believe this saying, then I have to believe that there was some grand plan for my life that included me being mistreated, abused, invalidated and devalued. If I believed this then I would believe that abuse is and mistreatment is for character building and actually has a place in our world.
I was not abused because the universe, fate, God or some other higher power had some amazing plan for my life. A plan that included me being beaten down and squished, devalued, mistreated, abused and invalidated for the first 40 or so years of my life, so that I could emerge from the rubble, bleeding and broken and become this fantastic encouragement to the world and make a huge difference. I think not.
I can use my adversities and the struggles that I had to overcome to encourage others, yes, but that isn’t why they happened. We all want the answer to the question “why did this happen to me?” The answer that this was so that we can use our adversity to help others ~ is just the best answer many of us can come up with, but I often think that the reason we come up with that answer is because we don’t want to look at the real answer. People, sick people, abused us psychologically, mentally and emotionally, physically, or sexually ~ the point isn’t how it happened; the point is that it did happen. Sometimes these people were our parents, OR we are afraid to look at the possibility that our parents knew something was wrong and didn’t do anything about it or didn’t look farther into it. The truth will set you free, but we are deathly afraid of it. Some of us were beaten and lived in horrific situations of domestic violence, often daily. Even witnessing abuse is terribly traumatic. I can’t believe that this was “meant to be”.
Some of us were sexually abused and physically abused and completely invalidated in our own homes by people we trusted, people that were supposed to take care of us and we lived in fear, guilt, shame and confusion. Others of us suffered sexual abuse by a neighbor, an uncle, aunt or grandparent, and we were coerced into not telling. I can’t accept that this is because God had a plan to use that situation to better the rest of the world in the future. That would be almost as bad as the abuse itself.
Some of us were called stupid, selfish, useless, ugly and all other manner of abusive and devaluing statements against our personhood. Some of us were told called liars, trouble makers, and told that our feelings were “wrong”. ~ do you really want to accept that this was “all God’s plan” for your life? What kind of God would organize the world that way? No wonder there is so much controversy about God. No wonder people hate the very concept of a God. But it isn’t God that decided this would be the way, it is Man who blames God for the outcome of the world.
All of these types of abuse ~ physical abuse and domestic violence, sexual abuse and psychological abuse, and even witnessing any of these kinds of abuse attack us at the core of who we are. They rip away at our individuality and our personhood; they force us to try and deal with things we have no way to comprehend how to deal with; they tear down our chances of productivity and cause damage that we so often don’t realize was the cause as we grow up in years, resulting in depressions, physical illness, mental breakdowns and mental health problems, low self esteem, failure to thrive in life, oh the list goes on.
Every so often I go on a rant. This was one of those times. Thank you for reading; I would love to hear your comments!
Exposing Truth, one snapshot at a time;
Darlene Ouimet
Patient Rights by Mental Health Advocate Nikki Stone
Posted by: | Comments
- Nikki Stone
Please join me in welcoming Nikki Stone, Mississippi Mental Health Advocate, as she shares a personal experience of being devalued harassed, neglected and psychologically abused by the mental health system and the resulting breakdown. ~ I hope that you will share your own stories and reactions in the comments section. Darlene
Patient Rights ~ by Nikki Stone
In my own experience with the mental health facilities in the state of Mississippi I was not very well informed of my own personal rights. It was not until I took the Peer to peer course in 2008 that NAMI provides that I realized that I have rights first as a person needing medical treatment and second as a patient.
When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder in 2003 I did not get a word of encouragement about treatment or the essential tools of recovery. Instead I was told to meet with a group of others who had just been diagnosed, like myself. We sat and listened while a nurse went into details what the medications could do to us. To me it was traumatic and to add to it I had no community support.
The next day I was ushered in to see the doctor who had never met me before but by the time I walked thru the door to the makes-shift office she already had a treatment plan. The reason I was there in the first place was to adjust my medicine, which could not been done as an out patient. I had agreed to go and was prepared to receive treatment; we could not get the medication to help alleviate the deep depression on outpatient treatment. At that point I sat and listen to the doctor but when she got thru telling me what she wanted to put me on (which would have made me an absolute zombie) I knew I had to take a stand for myself so I refused the treatment and told her I wanted to sign myself out of the hospital.
During the whole 24 hour ordeal I was never given a hospital bracelet and they continuously got my name wrong even though I had written it on all the forms etc. I remember at one point sitting in the day room and there was a woman sitting near me. She and I had talked and she asked me if I would do her a favor. Not sure of what the favor was yet I told her I would. She asked me to take a look at her hip that it was bothering her. As she lowered her jogging pants slightly I looked at her hip and it look like hamburger meat I asked her what happen and she said they had been giving her a lot of shots. To be honest in my opinion the veins in her hip looked as though they were destroyed. I was able to leave after a 24 hour ordeal of harassment and neglect. By the time I got home I was a basket case seven months later in January of 2007 I had a nervous breakdown and the nervous breakdown caused damage to my frontal lobe area of my brain, I now have petit mal seizures.
This could have totally destroyed me but it hasn’t; I am now an active Mental Health Advocate in my state.
Nikki Stone
Nikki is also a gifted photographer; please check out her beautiful pictures at
The Photography and Graphic Art of NkstOne
I Organized my World around Trauma and Abuse
Posted by: | Comments
“Most people have been mistreated to one degree or another in their lives, but the experience of being mistreated alone does not cause someone to develop a victim’s outlook. It is only when a person is abused and then left to deal with it on their own that the victim mentality begins to form. The abused child begins to organize his/her world around the wound.” Mic Hunter author of “Abused Boys the Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse”
This is so true and it is such a good point. In my experience this is not about any one kind of abuse; this statement is true for all types of abuse. It is also important to understand that it does not matter how many times we experienced a trauma or traumatic event. If we did not have help to deal with it at the time, the consequences are deeper, greater and more difficult to live with. When we are children, we have no choice but or organize our world around the abuse. We have to accept it somehow; there is no other option. When we can’t fathom the “why” did this happen we can easily sink into depression, develop behavior problems, physical illnesses, nightmares and all sorts of other manifestations result. When we can’t make sense of what happened or is happening we find other ways to cope.
In my case, coping methods often caused new problems, and I developed coping methods to deal with coping methods, all because I thought they kept me safer; I had childhood depressions, I got physically ill, I withdrew, I made up stories to get attention. (which made it easy for everyone to say that I was the problem in the first place) I was too young to deal with the abuse myself and when my thinking started to derail, (as it is bound to do when we are coping with overwhelming burdens on our own) it just got worse.
Not being seen as an individual who had emotional needs, just by itself, is cause to develop coping methods. If not being heard, not having a voice or trying to have a voice and having no impact is devastating to an adult, how much more so devastating would it be to a child? It is no wonder that we develop coping methods. It is understandable that depression, eating disorders, ill health, stomach aches, nightmares, nervous habits and behavior problems develop.
I tell a story (Psychological abuse ~ How Self Doubt Grows) about how I was not protected from a psychologically abusive teacher when I was in grade five which clearly represents the progression of the struggle to be heard and protected. I had to deal with and process this psychological abuse on my own. I didn’t come up with TRUE conclusions. I sunk into a depression and got really sick. Because this situation was not dealt when it started, the teacher, the abuser, got away with it and her devaluing attitude and psychological abuse towards me got worse. I concluded that my only course of action was to ‘try harder’ to win her favor.
Abusers enjoy watching their victims struggle to suck up to them. As a victim I thought it would work to bend myself into a pretzel for the controller or the person who was abusing me (this is true for physical abuse, sexual abuse and all psychological abuse) and as a victim I believed when it didn’t work that I just needed to try harder, work harder to find the right “key” the right way to prove that I was worthy of the abusers love. Abusers become like a puppet master, enjoying the game of seeing just how far the victim will go to please the abuser. Just how much of the spirit of this victim can the abuser break? It is as though the abuser establishes their own value by how much control the victim gives them and how hard the victim tries to be what they want, but it never ends. It is never enough. These puppet masters always want more.
When I began the process of looking at the things that happened to me and how I processed them as a child, and then looked at how my belief system developed, I realized that in some ways it was the after effects that were the most damaging in the long term. So many of the beliefs that I adopted as the truth, were developed because no one helped me deal with anything. As children we cannot deal with any kind of abuse or devaluing behavior on our own with any kind of effectiveness. As adults we must remember that we were merely children and it was not our defect, nor are we to blame, that we could not overcome the traumatic event on our own.
Please contribute or share your feelings about this post.
Exposing Truth, one snapshot at a time;
Darlene Ouimet
