Asking the family for space…

This journey I am on sure has been an emotional rollercoaster… There have been tough moments and happy times, the tough have been really tough at times. Late last year I told my parents (via email as I really did not feel safe having this conversation with them face-to-face) I was going to make some changes in my life as I was not happy and did not feel I was living my life honestly. I told them I had resigned from my job and was going to have a break to put myself first for a change. The changes included not having any further contact with my older brother, not coming back to the family home due to too many bad memories, being honest and truthful about what happened to me (by my brother and they way my parents reacted to the information and their behaviour towards me), no longer keeping the family secret and having to have a break from them as I was angry and hurt by the way they had treated me for most of my life. I asked them for space and to think about what I had written. I asked them to contact me when they were ready to have an honest conversation with me about it all.

My fathers reaction was to write an email back to me telling me how hurt they were that I was doing this to them at Christmas time, a time of forgiveness and family. He also told me to come to my senses and come back to them as the daughter they know and love. Oh and he had to finish the email off telling me how upset they were and why after all this time I was doing this to them now. I chose not to respond to his email as it hurt me too much and made me realise that no matter what I said or did he was not going to give me what I needed. Since then I have had limited contact with my father. I asked my parents and younger brother over after New Year for a BBQ but my father chose not to come telling me he had pride and was a man of honour… what ever that means. I have seen him a couple of times since then at family events and he has come up to my husband and I putting his hands on our shoulders with a smile expecting conversation but I have not bothered. I have a birthday in March and had no acknowledgment from him on the day or thereafter. I was originally upset about his reaction thinking he would be the parent that would understand and respect my wishes, but now realise and accept that he is a man who cares more about how he is perceived by the outside world more so than his daughter’s emotional state. Sad… but true.

My mother originally seemed to be respecting my wishes, sending me a short email thanking me for being honest and letting me know how much she loved me, telling me to contact her when I was ready. But my perspective of giving me some time compared to hers was very different. Anyone who has had to work through emotional hurdles from the past knows it does not take a couple of weeks to work through… but my mother seemed to think that was enough. She soon started emailing me or contacting me through facebook asking when she was going to see me, how much she missed me and how upset she was about what I was doing. She used her drama queen behaviour to try and guilt me into coming back and dropping all the nonsense… Eventually I started having panic attacks/major anxiety when the phone rang or even when a car drove past the house… it was getting ridiculous. I saw her at a family event soon after my birthday and she pretty much threw herself at me with a hug and presented me with a birthday gift… telling me she searched for ages till she found it, it was a charm with the word mum on it… now I am not a mum… so why would I wear a charm that had mum on it… my thoughts were so that I would keep thinking about her because after all it is all about her and my father right?... After this event she seemed to think everything was all good between us so she started contacting me to the point that I had to tell her to back off and deleted her off my facebook account.

After this happened I started to feel more relaxed and free to be myself. I was eating well, going to the gym and had energy. Then one night I was home alone (with the doggies) and had a call from my younger brother. He sounded upset and told me he had spoken to our mother who was very upset with what I had done (hung up on her a few days back and deleted her off facebook) and that what I was doing was wrong. He told me that if I did not make amends with our parents that he could no longer have a relationship with me, ending the call. It was late at night, my husband was on a flight overseas for work and I did not feel I had any friends close enough that I could pick up the phone to talk to about what had just happened. I was feeling soo lost and alone. I felt like my whole world was falling apart. My younger brother was my last link to my family, I loved him so much and would have done anything for him… he for the first time had joined forces with my family and was judging me for putting myself first and doing what I need to do to protect myself, telling me how to live my life. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law who was up and helped me calm down, talking through the phone call and trying to help me see things from my brother’s point of view. My brother then called back claiming he had a missed call from my phone ( I had not called him) then apologised for what he had said and told me to scrap 80% if it… at the time his comments helped but not much as the damage had been done.

Soon after that call I came down with a pretty bad virus that wiped me out for a few weeks (half of which I spent in bed). My mood was very low, I had stopped exercising and my eating choices were not that clean. My emotions were all over the place and the progress I had made in therapy was going down hill. My therapist was concerned about me and kept telling me to be kind and gentle with myself. She told me how when a child goes through trauma the body hold onto the hurt, pain, shame, guilt etc and these emotions come out physically at times. She was right… the pain and hurt I was feeling when I was sick was soo extreme at times I honestly did not know if I would survive. But when I finally realised what was happening and accepted it, things were more bearable. I had to make a huge effort to go to my sessions with my therapist and glad I did. We did heaps of work with my inner child(ren), validating what we had to do to survive growing up and giving myself the protection and attention I needed then, now.  

During this difficult time I unconsciously kept things to myself. I was not sharing with my husband what was happening internally. I think I was doing it to protect him but also myself. I did not want him to realise how screwed up I really was. For what ever reason, I felt that my past was mine and that this journey was something I had to go on by myself no matter how difficult.

More about this in my next blog! Thanx again for showing interest in my story and for all your kind support.

Love Maz

xoxoxo

Thank you

I just want to say a big thank you to the lovely women who have left comments for me and who have chosen to follow my posts. Your kind words and interest in my story has meant soo much to me. I have sought after acceptance and interest from my family for soo many years and never got it, yet people I have never met or spoken to before have offered it freely.

It saddens me because surely these are things that should be easily given by your own family… right? I don’t think I am asking much, am I?

What I have realised over the years is that what I really need is to be able to accept and forgive myself, getting it from family is not going to make me truly happy unless I am getting it from myself.

I appreciate the interest you have shown in me and my story, you have provided me with a feeling of warmth and happiness… so thank you soo very much for that.

Maz

xoxoxo

First post, Tuesday 26th April 2011

Hi! My name is Marianna but prefer to be called Maz :)

When I was a teenager I wrote some poetry that had some truth about something that happened to me as a child and it came back to bite me soo hard that I unconsciously decided not to put my thoughts out there for anyone else to ever read again.

And so here I am 20 years later and this first post is the first time I am putting my thoughts out there for others to read.

When I was 3 years old my family went to Lebanon to visit my grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins. At that time my family consisted of my mum and dad, my older brother and myself. When we came back home my older brother started to sexualy and emotionally abuse me. He would tell me that if I told anyone I would be responsible for hurting and upsetting them. He knew me well, even at such a young age I was always a pleaser, I wanted to make people happy and hated the idea of upsetting anyone. So I believed him and did not tell anyone. I became introverted and kept to myself and started disasociating when ever I was placed in a situation that freaked me out. My younger brother was born 5 years later and the abuse continued, actually got worse. My father was always at work and when home he was never really there and my mother was pre-occupied with a new baby. I was left at home with my older brother when my mother had to go on errands and that is when most of the sexual abuse happened. It continued till I was in my final year of primary school and started menstruating. And that was that... he never said anything to me about it and I kept the secret as I was petrified of what would happen if it ever came out.

As a teenager I piled on the weight as a way of protecting myself from any attention (wanted or unwanted) and again kept to myself. As each year went by I gained more weight and pushed more people away. As an older teenager I met some pretty amazing friends who saw something in me that no one else had. They saw a good person who cared about others, who had something to say and was worth listening too. They gave me courage and strength which helped me find the confidence to share my past with them... something I had not done before.

And when I did share my truth with them they were very supportive and encouraged me to share my past. I eventually found the courage to share my story in a paper for a school project (subconsciously knowing that if the teachers found out then something would have to change) which turned everything upside down and inside out. The teachers called in my mother and social workers and I had to verbally tell them what happened to me. They told my mother that if my parents did not do something to take away the risk (my older brother was still living at home) that they would have to call the police and child protection. This really stressed me out and I think freaked my mother out too. When we got home she called my father who came home and she told him what happened. They told me to go to their bedroom and watch TV as they called my older brother and asked him to come home. The next think I know he has walked into my parents bedroom alone... I am traumatised emotionally all over again. He did appologise for what he did and told me he was glad I had said something as he was sick of keeping it to himself. This did not help me though... soon after he went interstate to do a year of uni. I now realise that was my parents' way of getting rid of the problem.  My parents did send me to a therapist soon after the school was involved but that was because the school suggested it and as a teenager who was petrified and already disheartened with how things panned out when I spoke out, the sessions were pretty much a waste of time and money. I only remember going to a hand full of sessions before the therapist ended it. It was never spoken about after that, swept under the carpet and life went on. I never had the chance to work through any of it with my parents let alone trying any other professionals.

Because of the things that happened to me and how people around me reacted and treated me, I lost my true self. The person I could have been was stolen from me at a very young age and I became a shell of a child. I was quiet, shy, timid, anxious, afraid to trust anyone let alone myself. I did not have many friends and spent alot of time in my bedroom alone. My understanding of emotions and how to express them were all screwed up. My cognitive levels were also screwed up. At school I would drift off and not be able to concentrate very well. I was different and kept to myself and became the target for bullies.

I remained a good girl, always doing things to please others at the detriment of my own feelings and safety. I kept quiet about my past and like a good girl did what I could to keep up the persona that everyone got along and that our family was picture perfect. As I got into my early twenties (still living at home and at times my older brother was living there too) I met an amazing man who showed an interest in me (as a wall flower I was not used to the attention) and for some reason I subconsciously accepted his attention as I must have known he was a good person. We started a relationship and it blossemed quickly (I moved in with him after about a year of being together and we married about 3 years ago). I trusted him and shared with him my past. He was soo supportive and did what he could to help me. He could see that I was struggling and found CASA (Centre against Sexual Assault) for me. He would take me to appointments and be there afterwards when I would cry myself to sleep. Through his help and the support of my counsellor and support group at CASA I made a massive decision. I decided to tell my brother that I did not want him in my life anymore. This ofcourse caused a lot of upheavel in my family. My parents got all defensive and dramatic telling me I was ruining the family and to think about how this would look to others. My older brother started making excuses telling me that he too was sexually abused by a family member when the our family went to Lebanon (when I was 3 years old) and he knew it was wrong to do it to me but he could not stop. It turned my world upside down yet again and I felt all alone other than having my partner there for support. As time went on I would allow myself to get dragged back by my family with all their guilt trips and manipulations and I would play happy families but be dying inside. This pattern went was my yo-yo life, I would pull away and do something for myself and eventually be pulled back by my family to be the introvert good girl they preferred. This is how I lived my life all the way up to about 5 months ago.

If I was reading this post I would be wondering why now, why risk everything and share now. About 5 months ago I reached a point in my life where I could no longer live a life of lies. I was miserable, unhappy and pretty much down right depressed. I was no longer enjoying my job, did not have much interest in my future and relationships with people I cared about were being impacted. I eventually realised that I was allowing my past and other people to control who I was and what I did and I had had enough of not being in control of myself and my life. I decided to take back control of my life and how I lived it. I quit my job (with the support of my amazing husband) and slowly cut people out of my life that dragged me down. I surrounded myself with people who cared about me and wanted the best for me. I finally decided to put myself first and do what I needed to do to look after myself. I started seeing a trauma therapist (she is fantastic - http://www.moonyahcounselling.com.au/) who has helped me see things soo differently that other therapist I had seen only touched the surface of. I gave myself permission to have doona days, to be emotional, to be a child, to be angry and get frustrated. I created some space between myself and my family, allowing myself to feel safe to go through the work I needed to. I joined Michelle Bridges' 12 week body transformation program (http://www.12wbt.com/) in February as I felt ready to tackle my weight issues as I worked on my emotional issues. And boy has that pushed me to my limits! I have a couple of weeks left till round 1 ends and about a month before round 2 begins. I am realising that working through my past is a long term project that has to involve working on my mind, body and spirit at the same time.

Life throws some doozy's at us, some things not even imaginable. How we deal with these doozy's shape who we are today. I had lots of terrible things happen to me as a child, teenager and even as an adult. But I now know that none of it was my fault and that my surviving my past has made me a stronger person today.

I am on an amazing journey, the journey to work through my past and free myself to be the best person I possibly can be. I am nowhere near the end of my journey but at times I do see the light at the end of the tunnel :). Don't get me wrong, a majority of my journey has been very difficult... dealing with anger, sadness, grief and loss, guilt and forgiveness. But thanx to the times when moments are good, I know my journey is worth the challenges I have and will experience to get to the other side.

Believe in yourself, have hope that a better life is out there and that you deserve to live it.

Will write more soon.

Thanx soo much for reading my thoughts.

Maz
xoxo