Mind Retrofit

Posts Tagged ‘abuse’

Now to relationships of my past, from my last post you heard of the incredible first boyfriend I had. During that relationship, I became extremely depressed, eating disorders were formed, dis morphia, which I still struggle with, self hatred, self doubt, and I ended up in the emergency room from trying to commit suicide. I felt that was my only way out. Things had been escalating and the final straw was when he called me at 6am and told me he had just slept with my best friend. That was it for me. He did save my life by rushing over to my house and waking my mom – he also called 911. I was 16 years old when that happened.

From that I had to start going to a counselor, who just thought I was a teenager in a bad relationship.

I was in a bad relationship but the counselor didn’t go beyond that (do you see a pattern here?). No one asked the right questions. No one dug deeper to find out what was going on in my mind. No one noticed all of my cries for help. This incident did help me get the strength to get out of that relationship. I finally got to the point of saying to him, “Fine if you want to kill me do it! I am not going to let you control what I do!” And I didn’t let him, he tried to run me off the road, he followed me, sent his girlfriend (now wife) after me, but finally she got pregnant and that gave me freedom for a while.

I had started a new relationship.

The guy I started dating was one of my obsessions throughout high school. I had a massive crush on him and I thought he was the one. He would be the man who would love me and we would have a great life now that I escaped the grasp of psycho. Long story short , he was just as much of a jerk as my first. He didn’t physically abuse me but he did mess with me emotionally and mentally. He probably has no clue that he was like that because from what I can tell he is still the same way he was 18 years ago.

I would venture to say that he would say that it was my fault and that I was crazy.

Those were the common answers I got from him. He did things like push me out the front door naked and not let me back in, for our neighbors to see. He thought that was hilarious. He would pin me down and dig his elbow in my chest or back and do the all so lovely pass gas on me. He was a great one for my sensory issues. He would choose to have lunch with other girls at work and talk to many of the gals then say I was jealous. Well I was, I couldn’t understand why he would prefer to be with other people when he had me. I wasn’t possessive I was jealous in the sense of wanting him to choose me. Why not me?  He liked to have parties all the time. I would just get drunk – that was the only way I could cope with all the stuff going on. One of the devastating things he did to me was go behind my back and plan to move back to our home town. He told me on a 15 min. break at work. Later that evening I found out that practically everyone at our place of work knew except for me.

I was crushed and it took a long time to recover from that.

My first boyfriend and my second boyfriend had caused me a lot of pain and confusion. I had no idea how to read them. I looked like such a fool to other people. Everyone else knew all of these things going on and I had no idea. With my first boyfriend, I would befriend the girls he slept with. Why? I don’t know. In both of these relationships I felt I was the one not giving enough, not loving enough, the one who was causing them to behave the way they were. Somehow it had to be me because they understood the world and I didn’t. I tried so hard to do better to give everything I could in the last relationship and I wasn’t good enough.

continue on to part II…

I have to confess that I did have tantrums, freak outs, I would get violent and say some pretty nasty things. That was the only way I knew how to express what I was feeling. If I didn’t lash out I would begin to hold it in and harm myself. I did start cutting myself. I wrote some really dark stories and poems. I wanted to escape. I would spend time alone listening to music praying to die. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be loved. I didn’t even know what love was but I knew it was not what these guys had offered me. After I came to believe in Jesus, which I believe was led by God because no person got me to that point, I got to that point by reading the Bible from beginning to end and having Jesus revealed to me through that.

I believe I had an encounter that opened my eyes and began to show me that I had value.

By the time I met David, I had written off men and decided I would devote myself to Jesus. I devoted my life to doing what I felt Jesus wanted me to do, tell others how much He loves them. I still do that I believe God does love people and our mission on earth is to spread that love through letting others know they are valued. We all have gifts and talents that should be shared. We all need to know that we should be cared for, recognized, cherished for who were are. Not religion, not others interpretation of who God is and how you should live, just acceptance where you are for who you are and build into to you so that you can succeed in being the best unique you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off.

I met David which is a very long story that will have to wait.

He has been the best person to come into my life. I know God placed him in my life because he has loved me with no games. He has been everything that I have needed to overcome past pains. He has helped me to help myself. He has built into to me and encouraged me. He has brought me hope and not only told me that I am valued, he has valued me. We are open and honest with each other. We say what we mean and sometimes we hurt each other without meaning to but we discuss it. We talk. We share. We wrestle with the issues of our faith, the inconsistencies, the personal struggles, we work together to build into our children.

We also hardly leave our house, have limited friends, and keep a fortress of solitude.

We are two people with Aspie traits that just so happen to have enough of the same obsessions along with enough differences to challenge each other constantly. David works from home and I stay home with the kids. We like our life like this. We have to push ourselves to get out because otherwise we would never see anyone and be perfectly happy with that. Well we do like to  socialize but it takes so much out of us, we know that we have to for ourselves and especially our kids. We want to help them be able to to be around people and have fun. Our kids have helped us to be more social. We all work together to help each other.

I say all of that to say it is not ok for people to be treated the way I was.

It is not ok for any person to go through a lot of what I went through but I do not know the major effects it can have on people who are on the autism spectrum. Abuse is not ok. People with autism and on the spectrum need people to be aware for them. We have got to watch out for abuse. I have been very protective of Daniel because he is still unable to tell me if someone has harmed him. He is just beginning to tell me when he has been hurt but still has a hard time telling me where and how. We have got to stay alert and on top of the way people treat those who are different, those who are unable to recognize abuse.

I would like to know how these kinds of situations effect other people on the spectrum.

I feel that several of things I have mentioned may seem quite silly, if I listed all of the things that were done to me I am positive people would think me crazy. However, for me these things were devastating. The situations caused me a lot of pain and suffering. I don’t think I am the only one and that is why I am writing this. I believe that it is both therapeutic for me and others to know that these things are not ok. No one should ever be treated this way and no one should feel like they deserve it. I am thankful to have David who helped me to understand that these things are wrong. If it wasn’t for him walking me through and building into me, I would still feel as though I deserved to be treated poorly by others. I have accepted this from people I dated, people I worked with, people I went to school with, people I went to church with over and over, I have accepted bullying and abuse as my fault. The majority of the time I didn’t even know it was abuse or bullying.

I know this is a long post and I hope you made it through without being terribly bored!

Here are some resources.

http://www.scn.org/autistics/abuse.html

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/relationships/abuse.html

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/center_index.php?id=2

http://www.recovery-man.com/abusive/abusive_signs.htm

http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/commonproblems/Child_Abuse.html