Thank You malesurvivor.org for helping me think.

            First off, I would like to acknowledge the webpage Malesurvivor.org for helping me through the issue of the Social Worker and my hospital stay the past couple of weeks. The support from members helped me realize that it was only one person’s view that does not know the whole story and really had no basis to even make such a comment. Also, based on HIPPA laws no one is really going to have access to these records and the fact that my Sister was aware and even voiced her dissatisfaction only confirmed in my mind that she was way off base and I am starting to realize that it shows some people still need to be educated on Child Sexual Abuse, especially when it involves family members.

            While reading some of the responses on the page in reference to my problem I came across one members blog who wrote about the view of some people and their comments “Boys will be Boys” or “At that age, it’s all experimental” and came to realize that along with the comments of the Social Worker at the hospital it is so true that after all these years, and all the information out there in the world today that people are still naïve to the feelings and thoughts of survivors. People often view abuse as an Adult/Child situation and really do overlook Child/Child abuse. One fact that really supports this is how Date Rape is just really starting to become widely known and that it does not need a so called “Date Rape Drug” to be involved.

            Incest is another form of Child Sexual Abuse that when mentioned, people automatically think of the father who abuses his daughter, never do you hear about Brother/Sister or Brother/Brother abuse. When I approached my own brother on my abuse years after when it hit me, he said to me that it was only child’s play and that I needed to get over it. He was very charismatic and really had me believing that maybe he was right, even though it hurt me to no end when ever I thought about it. I did not think about how I was fifteen years old when he violently raped me and he was nineteen years old. I did not think about how he made my twelve year old sister watch as he beat me as he did. Had I thought about it I would have questioned how it could be experimental at that age? Maybe, JUST Maybe when I was eight years old and my sister was five one might call it that but not when it is under the direction of a brother who was twelve years old. His mentality and reasons for putting us through what he did and the fact I needed to get over it, showed just how sick he truly was.

            There are so many people, like me and my sister, who have suffered at the hands of siblings or relatives who were the same age or even a little older and the truth needs to be told. The stereo type abuser needing to be an adult needs to be broken with the fact that anyone at any age can become a perpetrator. While the Social Worker was way off tract in my situation because she did not have all the facts, she was correct in fact that had my sister not approved and I was the one doing the act on my own and continuing well past that one situation then even though I was eight years old, I would have been a Sexual Abuser. We really need to become more aware of what is happening in our world today, and the lack of knowledge towards the many different types of abuse shows just how much work is still needed to make the world aware of Child Sexual Abuse and all the different forms there are.

            With today being Christmas Eve, we should all stop and think about all the children who are dealing with what we dealt with when we were children. Pray that they will not have to suffer the way we have because of it, and if they do, pray they find the strength in friends that we all have made in our own struggle to survive to where we are today, For it is from friends that support us where we sometimes find our greatest strengths to make it one more day. And to all who read my blog, thank you for your support because as I look at the views in a day it helps me feel as if I am helping someone by telling my story and my daily life feelings. Until Next Time.

Deep Dark Secret - Kelita (Video by Richard Mayhan)

The video below I found through a link off a friends Facebook page. I felt that this video carried a strong message and was very well made. I am not the author however I knew it needed to be shared.

I can't deal with their views..

            This is actually my second post today and this is something that is really bothering me and I can’t stop thinking about it to the point it woke me up from a nap and I am having shakes and tremors out of what feels like fear. I am referring to the note that the Nurse placed in my intake notes of my medical records stating that I Raped my Sister while my Father watched which is far from truth. I can’t stop thinking about what the Social Worker told me when she asked if my sister was willing. When I said “no” she told me then it was called rape.

            From what she is telling me is that I raped my sister yet I notice that my sister did not rape me, even though I was not willing either. Rolling in my mind is what I was thinking as this act was going on, fear that just like the dogs we raised, we would get stuck. If I was so afraid then why would I force my sister to do that? After many years of dealing with a past from hell, in and out of counseling, major breakdown back in February which has had me out of work since then, in and out of four hospitals and on a ton of medications that has made physical changes to my personal life from side effects in relation to both my memory and sexual life. Now, I can’t get this out of my mind and it is really affecting me to the point where I just can’t deal with it.

            I need to slow my mind down and try to grasp what really happened, but the words of the social worker keep over shadowing my thoughts. If society has been looking at it this way then I question whether or not all my life counselors felt the same way or if the doctors who have treated me thought the same way. I am beginning to wonder where my mind is going and if my life is not what I have been thinking all along. I just can’t get the phrase off my mind about my sister not being willing and because I was the one who penetrated her that I raped her. I am just having major problems and hope I will be able to get answers as to what is going on, was the counselor correct or did she miss speak? This has me really messed up. Until Next Time if not too soon…

Day six for ECT, Unknown day for DID.

            Today is a mile stone in my daughter’s life and again my illness has me away from the event. Something she wanted me to be at for the longest time, take her to her driver’s license road test. Just like several major events in my children’s lives I am not able to attend to see how she will do and the reaction she will have when the instructor hands her the pass/fail slip. This time however I am in the hospital receiving ECT treatments, which today happened to be my sixth one.

            I have yet to truly experience if I have started to feel less depressed or anxiety, but I have noticed that my tremors have increased a tad bit however I do not feel the need to hide in my room like when I am home and retreat to my bedroom. I do wonder what affect this has had on my DID or my Alters as I have not had any communication with any of them. I still sense the presence of Keith, the eight year old, when I go onto Netflix and watch cartoons and Disney and I wonder if the increase in tremors may be a result of the ECT and it’s effects on the body or if it also includes effects on my Alters.

            Most times while I am home, and one of my Alters comes to the forefront of my mind, I can feel my body experience what I call shifts of energy starting in my feet and legs as it moves up my body almost as a numbness of sorts till it reaches my mind. This is the only way that I can describe what happens when I start to dissociate and often drift into my past or feelings that I am experiencing from within and I am almost unable to express them or understand them on my own. One thing I will have to wait is to go home to see my wife because she often is on the receiving end when they do manifest and begin to speak. I do not understand this, unless she is the one who remembers that I drifted and if I am alone or the people who I am with have no idea or the ability to see a change in me. In the past, my actions were often written off as acting childish or just not acting my age. Now I can see why the Doctor told me that I act as if I go into a self hypnosis or trance when I blank out. Blank out because I have no recollection of what I say or do during an episode.

            Well tomorrow will be day number sixteen for being in the hospital and the day they are going to discharge me. Future treatments will be on an outpatient basis where I get to be at the hospital by 6:30 AM and from what I understand I will be home by 11:00 AM which is not to awful bad. In, Shock, Out then back to bed, oh what a plan that is. What really is lousy is the fact that I will not be able to drive for the rest of the day from being drugged up from the procedure. So, for now I will close out and rest my mind for a little while. I still have the dry mouth from this morning, a slight headache and tiredness from this morning. Hopefully I will be able to add some comments tonight. Until Next Time.

Little bit of nothing.

            Today I sit in the TV Room wondering how things are going and if the treatments are helping at all so far. I know I have only had five treatments so far I just do not feel that my emotions have changed for the better as of yet. Today I am feeling stronger then normal tremors throughout my body, and my mood over the last couple of days has been lower, just as I was when I first came to the hospital two weeks ago. I am not sure why these feelings have seemed to creep back, but for some reason my sense of safety is lower and I do not know why.

            One thing for sure is that I have also slept quite a bit, the last three days they have actually come to my room to wake me for all my meals. I have fallen into that deep of a sleep during the day with the inability to go to sleep very easy. I find that I lay down and almost feel like I lay there for an hour before my body decides to fall asleep. Once I get to sleep I fall into that deep sleep and stay there not really wanting to wake up. I am not sure if this is a longer side effect of the ECT treatments or if my body is getting used to the treatments now and my original symptoms are starting to come back to the way they were before I started the first treatment, this I am not sure and I am going to have to ask.

            It does look like my last inpatient treatment is going to be on December 22^nd and I believe I am going to stay until the next day to see how everything goes. At least I will be home on Christmas day which has always been a special day for me, especially growing up as a child. Then four days after that my 45^th birthday, wow am I getting older. One thing I can honestly say is that journaling is somewhat difficult because I have experienced some short term memory loss, more so in the fact that when I think of something I am not so good at keeping the thought in my mind for so long. I don’t really have a big problem with memory of my past but rather things that happen today or over the last several days. One thing they did say was that this would be a side effect of the treatment but that it will not last that long, I don’t think it will last long and I don’t think that my memory loss is a severe as what they have warned me about. In fact, the whole treatment is nothing what they warned me about. We have a new person on the floor who has been receiving outpatient treatments and she said that she is normally in by 6:30 AM and home by 11:00 AM so it really looks like it is going to only be a couple days a week mornings only.

            Well, I am going to make this post short as I am going to go take my medications and relax before dinner comes around 6:00 PM. Tonight I have to stop eating and drinking after midnight as tomorrow is going to be my last inpatient treatments so might as well get ready for that. See if I can order up an extra desert just to keep the taste buds happy. But, this is a hospital so we both know the chance of that is pretty slim, but worth a try. Until Next Time..

ECT number Five.

            As I sit here in the dining room at the hospital, I sit here and wonder about things in my life. I have been dealing with the collapse of my sanity since February and with only days left before Christmas I am still sitting here in a hospital fighting my depression and self worthlessness. I try and look back at everything I have accomplished so far in my life, my family and the things that make our home complete. Even though there are a lot of positives in my life I can’t help but feel, what ever the purpose, that everything I am going through, no matter how negative it may be, has some type of a reason which I don’t know what it is. What I can honestly tell you is that is that it becomes a daily struggle to deal with feelings and changes to my moods. I just finished breakfast after having my fifth ECT out of six inpatient treatments. Wednesday after the sixth treatment I am suppose to go home and start them on an out patient basis.

            ECT has not been anything that I expected, especially after watching videos on YouTube about the procedure. Over all the whole process is painless and not as bad as portrayed by the video, in fact it is far much less embarrassing and about as routine as pulling a sliver out of a finger. The whole process from the morning prep time to the time I return to my room is approximately three hours at best. After all five treatments the only side effect I experienced was a slight head ache which a Motrin was all it took to take care of that. And since I am already aware that the procedure produces seizures, which is uncontrollable movements of your muscles, I already am aware that the muscles that control the bladder will be affected I ask for an adult pad such as a pair of depends, any accident does not become an issue and there is no embarrassing moments.

As with any procedure, there is no eating or drinking past midnight. At about 6 AM they come into my room, take vitals and I am given a shot and a tart tasting drink about the size of a flavored creamer you get at any corner store. The shot is given to cause the mouth the dry up and the drink is to cause the stomach to slow production of the acid which could be regurgitated into the esophagus during the seizure. After about an hour they come to pick you up in a gurney to be transported to the Surgery Recovery Room where ECT is administered. After you arrive your vitals are checked and you’re placed on a heart monitor, oxygen sensor, blood pressure monitor and the leads to the machine that delivers the shock are hooked up. After this minor preparation is complete your ready for the Doctor to come over and administer the shock. He arrives at your bedside, along with the nurse and anesthesiologist and start the ECT. As nurse acknowledges that everyone is there for an ECT, the doctor places the electrodes that will deliver the shock, in my case 45 joules, and medication is given to knock you out.

Once you awake and the treatment is over, you are monitored for a while and your vitals are checked on a regular basis. The whole process has taken 10 minutes from the time the nurse checks for the agreement of the procedure till you awaken enough to remember that you are really awake. There are no side effects that I have experienced aside from a mild headache after each treatment, nothing that a Motrin cannot handle. There is much debate out there whether or not ECT really does work and just how it affects the body. There is another patient here who has been on them and received her eleventh treatment today and I have noticed that she is starting to smile and laugh where when I first arrived the only emotion she had expressed was depression and doubt. That gives me a sense off hope in the fact that maybe I will not be so depressed after I get further along in my treatments. I have one left, which will be on Wednesday and scheduled for two more next week.

Well, that has been my day today. The weekend was long and it’s going to feel like forever until Wednesday when I am suppose to be able to go home. I am hoping that when I do my kids will have started to help their mother and there will be less bickering when I get there. It will be a couple more days before Christmas when I get home and hopefully everything will go smoothly for the rest of the week. The bottom line in all this, I feel that the ECT will work just not in the 3 or 4 treatments but more like 10-14. I will just have to wait and see when it’s all over. Until Next Time…