In a Nutshell

 

In a Nutshell

A Story of One with Emotion Sickness

by Teak Kilmer

 

I was born disturbed, oversensitive.  I was agitated, cried a lot, banged my head into the crib walls and onto the floor, and this continued through my infancy.  In fact I soon reverted into the head-banging behavior when my father always punished me whenever there was any disturbance with either of my siblings.  I never got to defend myself, and I was always sent to my room – banished until morning.  I would cry, scream and bang my head in protest into the bedroom wall until so exhausted I could do it no more, fall asleep, wake up and start over.  No one came to my rescue. To this day the left side of the back of my head is pushed in

 

Parenting was nonexistent to brutal.

 

My mother had been variously diagnosed including with paranoid schizophrenia.  By age of seven, I had lost what there had been of my mother. When at home, she was a vegetable who lived on the couch and in the bed.  She was in mental institutions about a third of our childhoods and ever more so as the years progressed. She would sometimes go after my father with a knife to get more medications, as she was so desperate.  This (and many other behaviors) would again have her carted off with her arms tied behind her back protesting, wailing, despairing. We (especially I) would be sobbing and cowering, and I would be horrified almost beyond bearing.  Writing of this disturbs me so much I have not written of it for the first 69 years of my difficult life.

 

My father was very likely (though undiagnosed) hypo manic (mild to moderate bipolar) and was an alcoholic who drank every night to inebriation. He owned his own appliance store, and after working all day brought his accounting home with him and did the books after dinner in front of the TV while swilling Gallo Port wine, eating Planter’s Cocktail Peanuts and talking with no one.  He showed more affection for our pets than for his kids; but for some reason, he really had it in for me.  He was in love and lust with my slightly older sister.  My brother and sister did not, as I, have their own mental health problems ─ yet. In my inherited mother’s genes, in my disturbance, I added to my father’s woes, and he dumped on me for it.

 

My five year younger brother struggled too, but seemed always to be able to manage, even today life is easier for him than for us.  My sister was popular and also managed…until she attempted to kill herself at age 20.  She too has been variously diagnosed including with schizophrenia; she too has suffered almost daily.

 

Desperate, I turned to the church, Roman Catholic, that we were raised in, the Church that had told me my non Catholic friends would all go to Hell, and that I should not be friends with them any more, the Church that made almost everything evil, especially normal sexual thoughts and expression.  They taught me fear, guilt, shame and complete dread of death.  This was truly piling-on.  But the coup de gras was yet to come from this for me institution of soul bludgeoning.  I went to Father Giblin with my distress; he said he was not qualified and referred me to Monsignor Curtin.  He told me religious drivel that had never helped; he lied to me, avoided me and finally completely convinced me by his dishonest and failed behaviors with me that God hated me … Shame was and, when too well reminded, is my middle name.  He even lied to me via his housekeeper that he was not in the rectory and could not been seen although I had see him see me through the window that was ensconced in the front door. He saw me, and I saw him, and that was the last I ever saw him on a personal level. I felt so betrayed and so desperate.

 

I was absolutely sure at that point with the Monsignor that God hated me, that I was in a kind of hell and that I was headed hopelessly for the really bad eternal one.  I really wanted to die, but was so afraid death would be worse that though I thought about and considered suicide every day for at least sixteen to seventeen years straight and many other days interspersed throughout the rest, I could not kill myself as I feared to be forever in an even worse misery.

 

One week ago a friend shamed me about something that he could just have befriended me about. He was mean in his wording, judgmental, made wrong assumptions and buried me under this dump.  I again wanted to kill myself.  I could not sleep at all that night; all I could think about was this dumping and how evil a person I must be.  I was nearly psychotic by the next day. 

 

I called COPE, and they wanted me to volunteer myself to go into a psych ward.  My memories of this are so dreadful, and you give up many rights; you do not know who your doctors will be and because of all my physical diseases (THAT IN THEMSELVES CAUSE SEVERE  MENTAL ILLNESS SYMPTOMS – directly and indirectly), I opted for anything short of this possible entrapment.

 

I next called The Crisis Center; we were on the phone for a long time; he asked me if I thought I should check into a psych ward.  I called several friends; I cried a lot, sobbed, grieved, screamed, wondered why this man chose to judge me, make me bad and wrong. It is one week later, and I am still devastated despite about all I have done for the week is to get “this” to go away.

 

Oh, how I yearn and have yearned for a drug that would rescue me or at least give me a hand, but I am allergic to all psychotropic and sleep meds!

 

I try to avoid unsafe situations.  I was blindsided at a should have been safe place – a spiritual men’s group.  It has gotten me, trembling, to write this piece which I have lifelong avoided.  I am wounded, wobbly, reaching out … and I am digging for the pony in this pile of manure I am in.

 

I hardly remember anything about my childhood, what I do recall is mainly the indelible repeated horrors, the never ending fear, anxiety, tension … dread, hopelessness and helplessness.  I do recall, and mostly fondly, Christmases and the vacations.  The tensions came with us and sometimes the horrors, but we were opening myriad gifts or out in nature, in amusement parks, in and on lakes, in oceans and seas, at camps and at cottages, in museums, at historical sites, but always in fulfilling experiences, in distractions from what we lived within even while we were simultaneously in it.

 

In adolescence I had no self confidence to speak of, was in constant anxiety and depression, and had to teach myself how to behave, because what came naturally to me scared and put people off.  I was picked-on and avoided, made fun of, yet variously I was able to control my impulses and model functional kids’ behaviors and get along alright.  I was either acting-out or efforting to control my impulses. I often hated myself. I almost always hated my life.  I avoided going home.  Dating was very scary. I dated anyway.  I had a strong drive to mate, to bond to satisfy lust.  The Church so horrified me about pursuing sex that I would not touch a girl in that way for fear of Hell and that the girls would tell others that I had tried something with them and I would then be completely socially castigated.

 

I was taught that sex was so evil that when I found out that people have children by having sex, I was totally stunned.  My parents could never perform such an evil act. What do I do with these conflicts that were so visceral?  More visceral wounding.

 

I saved up allowance money when I was about thirteen so I could go to a psychiatrist.  He was an acquaintance’s father.  He was a nuttier than I was which explained his son’s behavior. No aunt nor uncle, no parent of any friend, no neighbor, no teacher, no anyone took me in, to mentor, to console me even for a while. 

 

Two aunts sometimes helped. My mom’s sister, Aunt Katherine, would come over to do housework; more rarely their other sister Margaret would join her.  I always got faulted by them too.  They too mistook my struggles for willfulness and trouble making.  Before my brother was born, my dad’s sister Aleen would take me and Elizabeth to her apartment overnight; It was glorious rescue.  Only my new brother Marty got to go there after he was born – for me, one more devastation, grievous abandonment and no place to go to get away.

 

Unlike with my brother and sister, I was rarely allowed by my friends’ parents to stay overnight.  My brain chemistry foiled me at every turn.

 

We had to learn how to cook, iron, wash and clean the house, because it was: we did it or mostly it did not get done.  Very rarely could we could have friends in the house.  The only other company were relatives that came over only at Christmas.

 

Our last grandparent died when I was one year old.  I had only four first cousins - one nineteen years older with bipolar and shell shock (PTSD) and the others were eighty miles away whom we saw twice.  I had four uncles whom I probably saw, in total, fewer than thirty times in my life.

 

And just for grins let it be known: Binghamton, NY, where I grew up, had the second fewest days of sunshine of any city in the contiguous states.

Refer to An Intro-Teak, The Poet Tree for my victories despite the above.