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My dad
Youngest of 2, grew up lower middle class in Texas, always way too smart for his family, his class, his everything. went to UT then scholarships to Harvard and Yale to study philosophy. Drafted to Vietnam at 26. Went so someone else's kid wouldn't have to. Gave him serious PTSD; also was an alcoholic. Worked mainly as a freelance writer and consultant. -
My mom
My mom is the oldest of four in an upper middle class WASP-y family with an alcoholic mother and an angry/distant father. Boarding school, college/MA for social work. Convinced her mother to stop drinking. Has probably always felt stupid. Severe depression and anxiety. -
my older sister
ashley is 11 years older than me. she is my dad's daughter from his 2nd marriage (actually we aren't sure if he was married when he had his first child, kat, who is 21 years older than me. he was about 19). ashley lived with us summers. we are close-ish now. she teaches in wisconsin. she is married to austin and they have 2 children, langston (mishi) and aylie. i wish that i was closer to her kids. -
My parents marriage
They were married for 35 years before my father died. Both had affairs, my mothers is ongoing (with "Chet") and started as a cyber affair. My father likely had affairs. My father taught philosophy sporadically and worked as a speechwriter, and my mom ran Employee Assistance Programs and saw private clients. They fought all the time. My mom turned us against my dad bc of the drinking so he had no credibility. He was scary when he drank. My mom could be cruel. It was not happy. -
My sister
Nicole was born when I was 4. I mostly remember crying when she cried. She tells me now that she always had me to be a safe person who took care of her, though I don't remember being that person. I do remember speaking up once when she was being sexually harassed and my mother was silent. I have not forgiven myself for cutting and taking away our parents attention, sucking all the oxygen out of that house. We are very close now and I finally am honest with her. -
my early childhood
i was born, my parents lived in NYC for 6 months afterwards before moving to DC in part so my mom could be hospitalized for severe depression. she was in the hospital for 6 weeks. we got a nanny, Christine. My mom never demonstrated the mirroring and responsiveness that is necessary for a secure attachment to form. I believe I mostly attached to Christine. my father was already an alcoholic, as far as i know. -
Christine leaves
Christine, the nanny that I bonded to, had a stroke when I was 7 years old. To me it felt as though she just vanished. this is when I started losing the thread. I started walking around barefoot on sharp objects, watching bees sting me because I was unaware that I could ask for help. I stopped really making friends and started being bullied. I saw a therapist and I believe started meds for the first time. -
first panic attacks, self harm
I had my first panic attack when I was 10; I realized that I am going to die and there is nothing I can do about it.
I also started hurting myself when I was very young, walking on broken glass, scratching off scabs, trying to break my ankles by jumping on them or dropping bikes on them. I wanted someone to take care of me. I went to a special ed school for awhile. I read all the time to escape and books felt more real to me than anything. For a long time I was afraid of almost everything. -
started cutting
when i was in 8th grade i cut myself shaving accidentally and then i started cutting for real. i used to cut literally 100s of times a day. my room was covered with blood and razor blades. my mother once walked in my room and said that she closed her eyes. i was severely anemic from all the blood loss. i cut at school and in the bathrooms at starbucks, bookstores, etc. i didnt think my parents noticed but i was desperate for my teachers to notice and take care of me. -
started seeing Dr Anderson
in high school i started seeing my #therapistforlyfe, Dr Anderson. i saw her from the time i was 15 until i was about 27 or 28. She did therapy, analysis and taught me just about everything that I know about being a person. I miss her every day. She had me hospitalized once because of the cutting 100s of times a day. I'm in a chapter of her book. She is amazing. And she also never taught me to live without her. -
High school/early 20s
I went to a small Quaker high school. I loved it but I also mostly was cutting myself all the time and desperately wanting attention from my teachers. I graduated in 2004 and spent a year fucking around nannying, etc. Went to school and nannied part time for years. Was still living at home, cutting a lot on and off. Graduated HS in 2004. -
Mid 20s
At 25 I moved out of my parents house, started at Goddard College, finished my BA there and became a youth coordinator at my beloved church for 2 years. Then I did the MA program at Goddard while I did student teaching and nannying. I cut a lot sometimes, and very little at other times. Binge eating and taking lots of sleeping pills over the weekends were constants. I graduated from Goddard in 2013 with my MA and teaching license. -
Moving to Vermont
I moved to VT in the fall of 2014 (maybe I also graduated Goddard then, I might have some of my times wrong). I went to VT because Goddard is there. I taught for a few months and loved parts of it and parts were really hard. I did not have a therapist or a PCP or anything else. I was taking a lot of sleeping pills and bingeing and cutting every weekend. -
Dad dies
My father died on March 9 2015. We'd known he was sick and was going to die but were told he had 6-9 months; he had 3. I spoke to him briefly that morning. I wish to god I'd been kinder; he woke me up and I was snappish. He then died two hours later. It was devastating. I miss him more than I can say. I was very close to my dad towards the end because I chose to ignore the alcoholism and we discussed politics a lot. We also discussed his upcoming death with great honesty. -
Brattleboro Retreat
I got into an argument with a teacher at the school where I taught when I tried to get help and support from her and went to far. I went to the school and told the director about it. The next day I left the school, after the teacher yelled at me on the playground and went to the hospital. I was there for 20 days because we didnt have an aftercare plan. After discharge I put my stuff in storage and tried to get back into the same unit for a week, hospitalized overnight 2 separate times. -
Moved in with mom
my mom hadn't lived alone since my dad died. together we moved into their apartment. I started seeing Dr Morrison the day we buried my dad and she quickly became my primary emotional support. She did wound care. She talked to me and loved me and cared about me. My mother became psychotic. I hospitalized her twice before January 2016 when I finally hospitalized her for 2 months at McLean; ECT plus assisted living and she now lives alone. -
McLean
DBT program; I saw Alison/Dr Jenkins. The parts of DBT that are conditional and punitive were very hard for me and made me dig my heels in further. Alison applied the rules sporadically and I never knew where I stood. I started feeling like they were trying to push me until they broke me. Alison and I fought for months and months about a variety of things. I used Dr Morrison as my therapist. I saw Alison/Jenkins from 10/15-7/16. During that time my cutting was extremely serious, in the ER often. -
Fall 2016
I kept working and trying to recover from the death blows that nearly killed me. I was never so suicidal as I was after Dr M left. It remains incredibly hard every single day. I saw Kim briefly as a therapist, then Kat at Column Health, then Kim again when Kat fired me. In December Kim fired me (after promising me she wouldn't). I continue to miss Dr Morrison tremendously. She has not responded to any of my letters. I filed a complaint with McLean. I still have not had a meeting with Alison. -
The Great Undoing
In July '16 Dr Morrison told me her office was closing.
Jenkins sectioned me. I talked myself out of the sectioning but shortly thereafter Alison/Jenkins hospitalized me.
Dr Morrison had said that if I could do as she asked she would see me monthly.
Dr Morrison changed her mind and said she would no longer see me, via text to Alison.
Alison sectioned me into McLean and then fired me with no warning. I still have not had a meeting with her despite her promise. I also have had no closure with Dr M -
The end of America?
Trump is elected. I live in a constant state of terror. I am wearing out the people I love by asking them constantly and desperately for reassurances. I am burning myself out trying to do too much activism and taking in too much news. I am terrified. I thought I was going to be able to move and now I don't know. I do not know how to keep myself saner while also keep fighting. I am chronically depressed and irritable and sometimes feel vaguely stalwart. I oversleep and have weird dreams.