I know my son has issues related to the abuse we went through back in Arizona, and I know that the time in Texas helped with that somewhat, but it didn't fix everything and as he has gotten older and his teen issues have started hitting, the damage to his psyche has become more evident and I really think its time to put my foot down as a parent and say,"This I will bear no more!" and even if it means negotiation and perhaps agreeing to give up my coping tools of smoking to deal with my stress, I am going to insist that he get into counseling for his PTSD.
I know you have read that alot in this blog, and whether you understand it or not, its a bitch to live with and it can destroy you as a person and make live with you, a living hell. At my worst,I would not leave the house, I kept the curtains drawn and the front gates locked, and when I went out for things like groceries, I wouldn't hardly make eye contact with men and I carried a gun...everywhere.Older men who approached me were in danger of getting hurt because they were a threat and I reacted to them as such. My temper was hair trigger because I was ALWAYS on alert, I slept 2-3 hours a night, if I slept at all, I had skull crushing migraines, I didn't eat, in fact I got down to 97 lbs at one point and I wanted to die. I started smoking and drinking and all kinds of self-destructive behaviors to try and cope with the pain, and I avoided people. Its been a damn long road back, and I have lost friends along the way, and made a few as well, and its a constant struggle, but there have been major successes. Finally getting away from Flagstaff and the cause of my worst stress has been huge, and after I did that I had some of my greatest breakthroughs. I no longer carry a weapon at all times, I have gone off,'Alert" status and I have been able to do things like ride public transportation and be in crowds, and even talk to strangers and cut loose a little and have fun and I laugh and smile and I sleep, but I have noticed warning signs in my son, signs that I lived and I am going to to try and get him help before he gets much further down that long dark road.
He commented to me a week or so ago that he related to the song and video,"Love the way you lie" by Eminem, and I didn't really pay attention because I consider that singer a misogynistic punk, but last night I was watching MTV for some odd reason and the video came on and my blood ran cold. I had no idea and I found myself in tears by the end of it as I relived things I never wanted to live again. If you can, imagine that video, only picture a little boy and other children, standing there,watching, and put a gun or a razor in the mans hand. He never threatened to burn me alive.No, he threatened to,"Cut your throat,give you a Columbian necktie,take a picture of it,send it to all your friends and then dump your Goddamned body down a well on the Rez". This was after the time he put a gun to first his and then my head telling me that there was nothing if I left. My son witnessed this, amongst other things, and this is my sin,my burden and my shame that I have to atone for and that I have to fix.
My other children have been in counseling and seem to be coping well, and since they were all very young, they do not remember too much and they didn't understand what all was going on, but since he was much older, and not my ex's biologically, Chance caught the brunt of the overflow and the beating in the front yard was the cumulation of that.
Such a happy, talented child that loved music and art and who had such big dreams, has turned into such an intense and quiet young man who more often than not listens to dark and sad things, and I have to pull him back from the edge.He used to be a talented piper who won awards as one of the youngest bagpipe players in Northern AZ, but now he absolutely refuses to touch them, and hes very negative, even saying that he doesn't want to play sports and he hasn't been skateboarding in weeks, so I have to change that, because we made a deal to leave the darkness behind and I am going to help him do that, even if at first he doesn't want my help.
Made more progress this week. Got a new bank account started and that will enhance the separation from the ex, and give me much more control and autonomy and I finally got a change of address filed as well as my voter registration and library card taken care of,next will be my drivers license even though I do not have a car. I am looking for work and up dating my resume is a bit of a pain in that ass because I am the worlds worst at keeping track of dates and contact information. I am also trying to get all my stuff into NAU so they will finally get the English dept to either give me a yeah or nay response about if I am attending for Fall or if I am starting in Winter, if they screw me around too long I will just get all the stuff on over to Reed and do what I would really life to do and apply there and go back to being a site based student so I am work on my whole,"being around people" issue. Reed is a much more expensive school, but it also seems to be a much better school, so I am not to stressed either way. I just love being back in school, so something has to happen soon either way.
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