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Emotional Abuse, Eating Disorders & Depression
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“The accelerating abuse made no dent in my deep desire for fatherly affection.�
Even at age seven, I couldn’t reconcile how during the week, a man could get drunk and The first time I heard my father abuse his kids, then utter those three meaning-packed show up to church on words, I was in my forties. He Sunday and wipe the was ill. In and out of hospitals ill. And he developed a new habit slate clean.
“I love you.”
of saying that phrase at the end of our telephone calls. It took me by surprise the first time he said it and I stumbled. “Okay,” I vacuously replied. I knew another “I love you” would rear itself at the finish of our next call and I looked for ways to end the conversation before he could make the declaration. How could I navigate clear of the sentiment? As my father audibly inhaled the breath I knew would sustain his newly adopted slogan, my memory flashed back to random childhood snippets. During my childhood, my father dressed in his best Zoot suit, skinny tie, and Fedora hat to go to Catholic Mass. Every Sunday. He was handsome and charming. I was awkward. Lost.
He never went to confession on Saturday, but he always received Communion on Sunday. Every week after Mass,, my father and I walked down the hill from the church in time for the local bar opening. It was the same routine each time. My father ordered a shot of whiskey with a beer back – Budweiser. I got a Shirley Temple. I sat at the mahogany bar slurping through the bendy straw as one by one, the bar filled with men. I was a regular so each one acknowledged my presence with a “hi dear” or “sweetie.” After I finished my first Shirley Temple, I would get a lesson in shooting pool. Sometimes from my father, but usually from one of the other men.
“I wore the black and blue welts on my knees as badges of honor. Proud flesh..
Years later, when I was on a date, I noticed a small leather case on the backseat of my date’s car. “Is that a collapsible pool cue?” I wanted to impress him. “Yes. Do you play?” He sounded pleased. “Oh yes,” I replied. “I learned as a kid when my father took me to the local bar every Sunday after Mass.” My stunned date raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side. “You realize that is not a normal childhood memory,” he stated rather than questioned. I was stunned for a moment, but swallowed hard to recover. “Of course!” I smiled. But it was the first time that I recognized it wasn’t.
Despite the oddness of our Sunday ceremony, it was time spent with my father. I craved fatherly love, completely unaware that my father had no ability to give it. He tried. But as his drinking got more frequent, his jobs got less frequent. No matter his job, things were always easier and less violent at home when he was working. Even then, we barely got by financially. I was too young to understand how destitute we were. And too emotionally starved to care. Sometimes on the weekends, my Dad and I rode bicycles together. I used my older sister’s handed down bike, but she was
Not much different from the other hidden bruises.”
considerably shorter than me so my knees would hit the handlebars as I pedaled. I tried not to complain out of fear that my father would abandon our biking trips and the time together. I wore the black and blue welts on my knees as badges of honor. Proud flesh. Not much different from the other hidden bruises. One day when we were riding,, I was lagging far behind, laboring to pedal with each knee bowed out to the side. I was crying. A car passed by and the driver shook his head as he lost me in his rear-view mirror. When he got alongside my father, he slowed down and said something, his
fist twisting in the air. My father stopped, turned around and waited for me to catch up. The next week, he got an old bike at a garage sale and gave me his. I later overheard my father tell his friend what the man shouted at him: “Why don’t you buy her a bike she fits on, you cheap son-ofa-bitch.” He just never noticed. The summers my father was out of work, which were many, he took me to the local amusement park. The damaged child inside of him came alive. Two misguided, unsupervised children riding the Tilt-A-Whirl until laughter drooled down our faces. Childhood games
seemed our only way to relate. A wide pendulum swing between violent control and innocent camaraderie. Between adversaries and playmates. In middle school, I began performing in theatre productions. I got lost in the unbridled love of Romeo and Juliet and the boundless courage of Joan of Arc. Protagonists with colorful lives, extraordinary love and adventurous travel. Playing other people provided me with the perfect escape to be someone else. Someone easier. Happier. Acting is like wearing a protective mask - everyone sees only who you allow to be shown. I liked the control of being someone whose
life was clearly defined by the playwright’s words. Actions specifically explained. Outcome known. Each role gave me the individual power my external life lacked. I got so lost in being other people I had no idea who I was. An empty shell allowing the playwright’s characters to speak through me. Speak for me. When he was younger, my father was a professional musician – a drummer – and I hoped our mutual interest in the arts would connect us as I grew too old for childhood games. But he seemed more annoyed at my theatrical success than pleased. The gap between
us kept expanding, but the I wanted him to save me. He accelerating abuse made no dent thought I could save him. “I love in my deep desire for It was only in his fatherly affection. One rainy afternoon I upsetting recollection of sat in the chilly darkness that sibling incident, of the theatre production did I realize that the shop when the scale tipped. The smell of entire time I was seeking moth balls mixed with parental love – any turpentine permeated the air as dialog from measure of it – he was the Tennessee Williams balancing on the same classic, The Glass narrow beam. Menagerie echoed from the auditorium, “Rise and shine, rise and shine.” A you,” he said, just as he did the utility knife twirled between my last time. But my perpetual thirst fingers. “I’ll rise but I won’t shine.” to hear the meaning fell victim to An unexpected scream from the my inability to accept it. stage below the shop startled me; the utility knife dropped into the toolbox. I stared at it for a beat. “Okay,” And the scale tipped – just enough – the opposite way. I closed and latched the metal lid. I answered. The year my father’s health Once again. started to fail, he vacantly said one day, “They used to leave me and my brothers alone all the time.” His face contorted with the betrayed pain that only a parent can inflict. “Once when my oldest Cheryl Caruolo brother fell unconscious after losing his grip from swinging on the door jam, my other brother told me he was dead.”
“Sometimes we don’t realize we’re sick until we’re healed.” I remember the smell of potato chips mixed with the salty lake and a flash of a disposable camera. That moment was taken in a place I’ll never forget, and like many others that have suffered with the treacherous ex-boyfriend ED, it wasn’t a physical place, but an emotional place. All of ED’s exes will know what I mean by that. Nearly ten years later, I open a scrapbook containing this ostensibly innocent picture of a
happy sun-kissed girl with the wind blowing through her hair. Anyone else would have just seen a happy girl taking photos with everyone she could. When I see this picture though, I am taken back to another time — another emotional state. A time where I mostly felt hungry, throbbing with perpetual headaches that I grew to tolerate. It got to the point that I’d welcome this pain with a trembling hand.
The photo contains a flatthat’s all it takes. stomached girl with almost an I trail my finger along the sides identical face as the one I wear of the old scrapbook, shuddering today. She wore a confident smile, at the recollection of such sick but hidden in her eyes was the feelings that blanketed me with terror of clawing her way out of darkness and tortured me for that hole. I was emerging from months, and then subtly for years. the clasps of an eating disorder Only months after I began (a.k.a. an emotionally abusive relationship with “ED”) and didn’t even realize that was what it was. All I knew was that I wanted to eat again. My mind had been poisoned by fallacies that the media seemed to live off of by feeding it to the young and vulnerable. Once the mindset sinks in, it can take a lifetime to detach the sucking demons from eating regular meals again, I the consciousness of the truly was diagnosed with Systemic important. It was a hard staircase lupus erythematous due to acne to climb, but I took that first step. medicine I had been taking. The And although it was merely a step, lupus caused weight loss and it was the beginning to recovery. made it hard for me to exercise, Whether good or bad, nothing but surprisingly, I didn’t notice. I can begin without a first step. If thought that I was normal again, we all paused to think about that even though I caught myself before we did something new, glancing at windows and the where would we be? Where would reflection of vending machines as the world be? One step forward, I walked by, making sure I wasn’t one step back, one step at a time— packing on any extra pounds.
“Whether good or bad, nothing can begin without a first step. If we all paused to think about that before we did something new, where would we be? Where would the world be?”
I was thirteen years old at the time and it took me until recently to realize that the mentality I had about my body and how I valued it was completely crooked. Sometimes we don’t realize we’re sick until we’re healed. After closing the rubbery covers of the ladybugembellished scrapbook, I am brought back into the present day. I let the thoughts linger a while long before storing
them back into the edges of my mind. Just a few hours later, after soaking myself in a warm bath, I step out onto the cold tile floor and begin to think. Despite my efforts to push back the memories of my early teenaged eating disorder, I find the image from the scrapbook resurfacing in my pool of thoughts as I glance at my reflection in the mirror. I exchange gazes with the fleshier, older version of that sun-kissed girl from
the scrapbook and marvel at something that hadn’t been quite as apparent as it is in this very moment. This is when I finally let it go: the last ghost of what had haunted me for years, the last lie about the importance of beauty maintenance and calorie counting.
I close my eyes and let it all go; I let go of what was left of that grueling mindset—
—the same one that leeches onto the brain of far too many girls and women in the world today.
I realize that I am the same person, but I really am a woman now, and not an insecure, barely-teenaged girl. I remember a moment that stung me in those awkward years we all fumble through. I was sitting on my bathroom floor in the house my family lived in during my high school days; I had slathered on multiple foams and lotions, and performed the continuous ritual that was my life at that time. I was feeding off of what the fashion programs and magazines were telling me. gulped up the articles about “who looked fat” and “who gained how much.” In that moment on my bathroom floor, something hit me. I was finally content with what I looked like. But once that feeling of hollow accomplishment passed a few seconds later, I felt exactly that: hollow, empty, and barely there in any way. I remember being shocked at the emptiness I felt when I thought to myself, “Now what?” As my twenty-something-year-old self gazes back at me now, about thirty or forty pounds heavier than I was in that moment half a lifetime ago, everything comes full circle.
When I look into my mirror, I now see the thirteenyear-old me staring back with perfectly curled lashes and a face as smooth as honey. In her bathroom, she wears a frown and her eyes reflect the emptiness inside, but in my bathroom now, I feel the ability to finally calm and comfort that insecure girl with the sun-kissed tan and plump, polished lips. The difference between these two versions of me is that now I am happy—truly happy. As I glanced at the woman with curvier hips and fuller thighs, I meet eyes with the person inside. I’ve gone through so much in all of this, and I’ve always thought of my weight as a battle and food as the enemy. My mind finds its way to all of the insecurities and lies that have been fed to me throughout years of anxiety. I finally let myself regurgitate these demons and stop digesting the sharp words that cut me to the core and escape through my tears.
I’m just a little sad that it’s taken this long to realize these aces need to be belched up instead. Elise Pehrson
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,
all of which have the potential to turn a life around.� Leo Buscaglia
Frankly speaking Frank DiNicola
“Where feeling nothing is easier than feeling even the greatest pleasures.”
I found myself stuck inside it when I was younger. The “typical teenage depression” is what I’ve heard it referred to. The type where it hurts more than it should and sometimes you feel like you want it to look like it hurts even more, because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing. I found myself there again not so long ago. I wish I wouldn’t have settled on the thought, because somehow I feel like if I could have avoided it for a little longer, maybe I could have escaped it before it consumed me. Before it takes me over completely. For some people it comes in waves, overtaking them during moments of doubt. For me, it’s the opposite. The happy
moments come sporadically, far and few between. They don’t stick, maybe because they can’t be processed through my brain, or maybe because I don’t want them to change what’s become comfortable. That’s the worst part about depression. The comfort, the hazy blanket that settles within the corners of the mind and shifts perspective into something that seems so much less complicated. Where feeling nothing is easier than feeling even the greatest pleasures. Where a loved one can reach out, struggling to connect themselves back where you once welcomed them, but they just don’t quite fit into the grooves of your mind anymore. It’s easier to pretend that it isn’t complicated. Recognizing that it’s complicated only makes
it more so. And even though you hide it well, so well that nobody has a clue, you spend most of your day feeling like it’s been boldfaced above your head. A label for the label itself, as if being referred to as “depressed” doesn’t feel bad
enough. You know others that are described as the “loud one” or the “goofy one,” while you wonder how they speak when you aren’t around to listen. I’m the one who’s “too stuck up” to join their conversations, only because too many words means I might slip up and accidentally say that I didn’t eat supper last night or that I haven’t showered in two days. I’m not out yet. I might not be out of it next month, or even next year. But one day I’ll find what makes me want to let the light back in. H.S.
H.S,
2. No one is out to get you.
You have a positive attitude, and that’s a good thing. But allow Most people are too busy me to make a few suggestions that might just help you through living their lives to worry about what you’re doing with yourself. this troubling time. If you’re hanging out with people with nothing better to do than tear you down, you might want to find some new people to hang out with. Sure, we’re all going to have criticisms to dole out to one another. That’s just the People may seem scary, way human beings work. But especially when you sit inside just because someone scrutinizes your head contemplating you doesn’t mean they’re trying everything that they say and to hurt you. It also doesn’t mean do. But in reality, people are that they’re right. Repeat after generally pretty docile, easygoing creatures. Sure, every now me: “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter and then you’re going to come across a Cretin, but that’s to don’t mind!” be expected with an estimated population of 7.8 billion worldwide. Find some similar souls, and let yourself flourish alongside them.
1. Stop worrying about what other people think of you.
3. Listen to yourself.
When you’re feeling down or in a slump, do something about it. Make a change. Don’t just sit around doing the same old thing that’s bringing you sorrow. At the end of it all, it’s you who needs to discover a pathway to what makes you happy. The colloquialism here is that it’s “easier said than done” to do something about your depression. But it really just comes down to your commitment to do something about your current situation. Sitting around and worrying about the fact that you’re worrying about stuff isn’t helpful, and projecting your fears onto those around you isn’t a healthy method of interacting with the world either. Find something that challenges you: something that is relevant to your interests. Go try that thing out. Heck, try out a bunch of things!
You’ll never find where you’re going if you don’t take a step every once in a while. And that brings me to my last point.
4. Every step is a step in the right direction.
Don’t be afraid to take chances, and don’t be afraid to fail! I have learned the greatest lessons in my life during times where I didn’t succeed. We all make mistakes and fall down sometimes, but it’s when we stand up and brush the dust from our clothes that we learn how strong we really are, what limits we face, and how to overcome the obstacles placed before us. Go out there and find what challenges await you! And remember:
As long as you’re moving, you’re getting somewhere.
Frank
“I grew up both loved and incredibly sad.”
I’ve been told that I’ve been depressed for a while. It stole away my childhood before I had a chance to understand what it was. I grew up both loved and incredibly sad – the latter worsening when the love became bitter and stopped. When I realized what the sadness was – something deeper and heavier called ‘depression’ – I didn’t know how to deal with it in a serious manner. I had lived with it my entire life. By the time I was in middle school, when I could identify it, I had already gotten into trouble for being this way. I was told that I was choosing to be this way. I was discouraged from expressing any negative emotion, regardless of how brief, and my first suicide attempt was a couple years behind me. By my senior year in high school, my depression stopped being an idle constant in my everyday life. By now, it had taken shape in the form of numerous bad habits. I wasn’t doing anything physically noticeable.
By now, I took up several freelance gigs, and my depression forced me to work and shut myself away from other people. My form of escapism came through writing, but it didn’t always work. Being stuck in my own mind gave me focus only on things that would exhaust me. Freelance was a big catalyst for this. It kept me quiet; it helped me ignore my issues. And when it fell away, I would act in my school’s drama club. For a while, it worked.
It never kept away the nightmares, but it helped when I was awake.
After high school and after my failed attempts at college, my depression had a name, a style, a taste. It was a second person and a constant companion. It made everything uninteresting. All of my interests vanished at once. My attention was only grabbed by things I could wholly invest myself in – anything work related.
Anything that could make me better. Since I was old enough to understand what depression was and what it did to me, it always told me to prove my worth. That whispering turned into fervent coercion when I left college for the second time. I didn’t mean the urgings. I was always pushed to better myself in all of my personal studies. I didn’t find it to be a bad thing. I hardly noticed my eating habits changing. I barely noticed many of the changes. After moving away from a toxic environment, things looked up for a bit. I didn’t hear the bitter, aggressive whispering. That phantom hand that had been holding mine all those years had loosened. It was there, but it was so minute. I found an in-office job working with other people, and I enjoyed it. I shrugged away everything I had been through. I found it easier to ignore the depression, since it was barely
there anymore. After months of peace and stability, a client came in who was the spitting image of the person I more or less ran away from. I felt a sadness that hurt so deeply, so suddenly, that I couldn’t keep myself together. I had to excuse myself to a separate area to cry. It was embarrassing; it was awful. That was the moment that brought back the depression in waves and wails. It dug its claws into me, bringing as many feelings and thoughts to the surface as it could. And I wondered for a long time, especially after having to leave my job, if I was ever going to be okay. After I left my job, my energy started to leave me. It had never done that before. I slept more; I felt much less compelled to be social. This time, though, I could hardly get my mind together to work on things. Nothing proved to be an escape. I was forced to face old harbored feelings. Even
if I went out and spent time with others, it was still working in the back of my mind. For once in a decade, I was scared for myself. I was encouraged by my best friend to finally see a therapist, and I admitted to. “Admitted,” because I never actually got to see my therapist the first time. The second time I made an appointment we talked for a total of five minutes about why I was there, and most of that talk was padded by how the therapist and I lived in the same area (previous to my move). After getting prescribed a number of medicines against my wishes, and after being unable to pay for said medicine, I took it as a sign. It was better, for me, that I deal with this alone. That is how I’ve been dealing with things up until now, and instead of letting the depression sway and change my life, I would fight it aggressively, regardless of the outcome.
I wouldn’t recommend for others to fight it alone as it is difficult, and most times, the battles aren’t easily won – if they are at all. For me, I’m glad to say that I’m fighting bravely. I’m dissecting my issues as something separate from myself, and I’m getting my will back to work. I’m taking joy in my own personal projects instead of using them as catalysts for my own self-neglect. I’m really not sure what the turnout is going to be, but I’m hoping that I can prevent my situation from worsening. If I can do that, then I’ll chip away at the smaller things – work my way up. Right now, after years of suffering, that’s all I can hope for.
J.W.
J.W, Your letter hits a lot of points I’ve experienced myself, and so it’s going to be a little weird writing this response. Essentially, I’m writing a letter back to a previous version of myself, the only real difference being that instead of me writing it to me, I’m writing it to you… but maybe it’s all the same, and we should just move on. I’m no scientist, after all. I don’t understand quantum physics.
Something pools up inside of you, and when you release it you find fantastical mindscapes, perilous journeys, and just…weird shit. That’s what I found inside of myself, anyway. My friend, embrace that passion within you! Use that as a catapult to place yourself back into J.W., I know exactly what it a positive frame of mind! The feels like to love writing. There pain that you have experienced is a catharsis in placing thoughts is a beautiful thing, because into words, bringing worlds into it’s sculpted you into someone being, taking a blank canvas and who can maneuver through the creating an experience from dust. turpid waters of emotion and
come back with treasures that rarely receive mention, attention, and explanation. You should feel blessed for the pain you have been afforded, if not only to tip your hat toward it and thank it for everything that it’s taught you. Listen, I failed out of college twice myself. After working and living on my own for a few years, I found a way to go back to school using grants. I worked full-time as a waiter through the whole thing to pay rent, and had to commute 45 minutes to school every other day. In my first few attempts to conquer school, I had always been pressured to decide on a major. When I went back into college, it
was with no announced major. I took classes that I wanted to take and, rather than focusing on a quick graduation, I focused on courses that peaked my interests. I took art, where I learned that, with the right guidance, I could create something beautiful. I learned how to play the piano which, in the end, taught me that I could never be a concert pianist. I wrote and got to share my writing with an audience of my peers, and that taught me that there were others out there would could understand the workings of my mind. I even acted in a couple of plays, and spent a few years running a talk show on the
campus radio station. I let my major find me, not the other way around. I found a small sect of students who would soon become my friends. They were the creatives: the writers and artists and musicians who were kinda like me, walking around with universes of strange information floating around inside of their heads. We started an Open Mic night and, for the next few years, got up in front of each other once a month to read: to share our inner worlds with one another. As we all grew together, we began to recognize the voices of our peers. At a senior level, writing courses were a combination of creating and sharing: listening to the opinions of those around you and sharing your opinion concerning the
methods, successes, failures, and suggestions of other writers. Before too long, I found myself an editor in the student-run literary magazine, as well as a repeat contributor.
Frankly speaking, it was the life. Of course, college isn’t the only way to learn to write. But it is certainly one option. If you’re not sure about school, look for an Open Mic night somewhere near you. Go and listen, or share your work. Relax and really get into the whole thing. Meet some people who you respect, and surround yourself with brilliant minds. I guarantee that you will find people who amaze you, and if you’re lucky, you’ll amaze a few people yourself.
I didn’t go to school to start a trade or get a job. I went to school to learn: to help myself grow into what I already was. And the pain that I experienced through my life was a major driving point behind my passion to learn and hone those skills. In the end, all I really wanted was to be able to express myself to the world around me so that my story could be heard and understood. So that others could learn and grow from the experiences I had. Do not take your gift for granted, J.W. We’ll never know what we’re missing until you tell us.
Frank
Frank
“Every day is an opportunity for growth.”
Recently, a client said to me, “I have been working on
self improvement
for a long time, but I find that the more I work on my imperfections, the more imperfections I find in myself. It is as if I have opened a Pandora box, and every affliction in the world is coming out of it. It seems that there is no end to it. Am I failing to improve myself? I feel discouraged.” “Do not try to be perfect. Just do your best. Our own ideas of perfection are I replied, “So relax.”
imperfect,”
Most of our ideas of perfection are derived from social and religious dogmas. The universe is always evolving, and so are we. Our ideas of perfection keep changing. Perhaps, we are moving from one perfection to the next perfection, or at least, to a greater perfection. In some Native American tribes when they weave their works of art, upon completion, the weaver pulls out a thread from the finished product. This is done to indicate that nothing in the universe is perfect, nor complete. Not even the greatest works of art. There is always something missing, and this is what makes room for development.
If you feel discouraged with your quest for self improvement, it may be the time to make some adjustments in your approach to the process. This is when the assistance of a helper is needed. I will give you some guidelines to ease the pressure involved in the process of improving yourself.
Repeat after me, “ I am human. I have strengths, I have weaknesses. I love myself. I respect myself. I approve of myself no matter how many faults I may have. I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be respected.� Say these words to yourself out loud every day until you believe it. The subconscious mind loves repetition and routines. Program it to hold these positive words. Replace old ideas and routines with new ones.
When observing yourself, do not focus on trying to change yourself, but rather on trying to
understand yourself.
This would be an important shift in attitude. Be kind to yourself when you find a weakness within. A weakness can be
turned around into strength. Negative energies can be transformed and transmuted. For example, sadness and anger
can be turned into creative energies through: humor, dancing, playing a musical instrument and writing. Talking to a friend, stranger, or a professional counselor, can also be of help.
Drop the role of a critic or judge, and be like a nurturing mother to yourself. Give yourself
unconditional love.
Eventually, you will become of yourself, and more you will flow with life and change, naturally. Do not fight against parts of
accepting
yourself which you disapprove of, but rather them and find constructive ways to transform them.
acknowledge
Be gentle with yourself. It is better to resolve your conflicts through
understanding and compassion than through psychological violence.
Let your process be like the unfolding of rose petals. Do not pry the petals open. It is a gift to be alive and aware. Every day is an opportunity for growth. Gloria Eagle
Š 2015 Essig Inc.