abuse

Just a mirage..

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

There was a time when I was really thirsty…I allowed a mirage to deceive me into thinking my thirst would be satiated.

The blind date didn’t start well. Mac came to my house to pick me up with another couple. Once we got on the road, I noticed that they were drinking. They were nervous when a cop passed by and stopped at the nearest gas station long enough to drop off their empties.

It was the early 1990’s…I couldn’t call for a ride home..we were planning on going to a bowling alley, but it was closed. We drove around aimlessly until the driver was almost out of gas. When he went in to pay for gas, his girlfriend went through his wallet. She found the number of another girl and freaked out. She got behind the wheel and pulled recklessly out into traffic. She pulled over on a side road and tried to smash the windows with her purse. Then she ran off into the night. We spent the rest of the night trying to find her…It was awful and I told Mac that I didn’t think there would be a second date.

But Mac pursued me relentlessly. He was charming and it was flattering at first. He made me feel like I couldn’t live without him. He was going to rescue me from my troubled home. It wasn’t long before we moved in together. I knew that my family wouldn’t approve.

Things went well at first, although Mac was into gambling. There were nights we went out that he just had to stop at the casino. He said he would be a few minutes as he left me in the car taking the keys with him. It was cold sitting there what seemed like forever in the winter. Security came to the car a few times asking if I was okay..Really, it will be just a few more minutes..

One night Mac went to the casino most of the night, but had to be to work by 7:30 AM. I left early that morning for school, then I went to work. When I got back home it was 7:30 PM. Mac was still sleeping. He thought it was morning, but he missed a whole day of work. Apparently, it was my fault.

It started slowly at first…a shove, a push..Then he started to say mean things…words that even my daddy didn’t say to me. I threatened to call the police. He told me that he would tell them that I stole money from him. He gave me his work checks to cash. I didn’t place the call. It wasn’t that bad anyway…just a little bruise.

He was threatened that I was going to college. He thought that I would leave him so he tried to sabotage me in any way he could. He told me that my papers were stupid. He cut down my ideas. He even deleted a paper that I wrote right before I had to turn it in to class. Thankfully, I always wrote out a rough draft on paper first.

Things got really bad. Mac grabbed me by the neck and threw me against the wall. I spent a lot of time hiding in the closet crying. It reminded me of growing up. There were times that I was kicked, punched, scratched, bit, or hurt by my brother Matt every day for a long period of time. I started having what seemed like flashbacks. I sat in the closet with my arms around my legs terrified.

I wasn’t allowed to feel angry about what happened to me growing up. Matt couldn’t help it. I was lucky because I was normal. I couldn’t retaliate. This is how I became numb to all feelings. This is when it began.

I told myself with every punch and bruise that it was making me stronger, like I was lifting weights. That’s how I convinced myself as a child that it was good for me. It was my mantra that helped me survive.

I didn’t want violence in my life anymore. This was no oasis in the desert. I had to leave Mac.

Mac read my journals. He tore out pages from them and threatened to send them to my family if I left him. Most of my relatives were very traditional minded, all law and no love. Anything less than perfection was not tolerated. There was no doubt in my mind that I would be disowned by my family. I had already lied to them about ‘shacking up’ with Mac. I was screwed.

He also used my journals to blackmail me in other ways. I bought new tires for his car after he wasted his paycheck at the casino. I had to leave.

One winter day while Mac was at work, I packed my things and left. But Mac didn’t leave me. I would wake up in the morning to flowers left under the windshield wiper of my car with notes begging to take him back. He would come to my house while I slept.

A few months later, I moved in with a friend a block away from Mac. He started hanging out with my roommate. She fell for his charm. He got back into my life again and we became friends. One night he invited me to a party with our old neighbors. I remembered the fun times we had.

When Mac walked away for a few minutes, an old neighbor came up to me and said…I know what he did to you…Leave and don’t come back..

I left.

Several months later, I received a package in the mail. Mac returned all of my scandalous journal pages.

It was finally over.

Autism’s sibling, journal 3 part 1

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Now I am ready to tell you about myself, my family, and you will understand everything..

Everyday Matt would be violent. He would bite me and claw up my arms. I have the scars to prove it, although they faded a little because he’s a little better. But it was awful. Everyday he would be uncontrollable. It was always me he hit.

Once he had this thing about men with beards. He would scream and be awful. Once Matt, mom, and I went grocery shopping and Matt saw a guy with a beard. He got really mad. When mom was checking out, she had to hold him down on the floor because he could hurt someone. 

Or how about the time when we had to move the knives because he took one out and threatened to stab my eyes out.

Or when my mom got a bloody lip because he threw his head back on her. She started crying and it really upset me when I heard her say, “What kid would do this to his mother?”.

The stress was unbearable.

I couldn’t have any friends over because they might have on a fragrance and he might react. So you could say that I never really had many friends over because he would hurt them or me. I couldn’t wear any hair spray or anything with a fragrance.

Other times he would hurt small kids.

We had to do different things. We had to get unfragranced soap, shampoo, deodorant, and laundry soap. We had to close the windows when there was an east wind because the auto exhaust would bother him.

He couldn’t leave the house. He had to eat special foods. We never had anyone over because Matt might hurt them.

He can’t read and when he was younger, he couldn’t talk. He would do weird things like grind his teeth and hit his head. He broke about 5 stereos, one of mine, one of mom’s, and the rest were his.

He couldn’t go swimming because of the chlorine. He would be wild for two or three days in a row. He threatened to run away.

Alissa, 1990

Over time, I have forgotten the magnitude of the stories written by a younger me.

To be honest, something has been scratching at my mind since I stirred up my demons.

My last post was on locker rooms of all things..Talking about locker rooms seemed to bother me more than it should have..Memories swirl through my mind. My mom taking a too old Matt into the girls locker room? There weren’t options back then like there are now. A too old screaming autistic boy in the ladies locker room would have been memorable back then, but I don’t remember more than a flicker.

There are whispers quietly echoing through my mind, but I can’t make out the words.

I am nervous as I type.

Do I really want to remember?

Monday’s dirty laundry

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I started the week off by having to buy a new washing machine. The last couple of weeks it sounded like a gun range in my house every time I threw in a load of laundry. Bang, bang, pop, pop, pop. Then this morning it almost started on fire. Good thing I didn’t throw in a load and leave for work. Stinky smoke billowed out of our utility room. I sure hope this is not an indicator of how the rest of the week will go. Lol. 

Yesterday my mom came over for supper. We spoke about my mother’s childhood years. She said that as the second oldest girl, without older brothers, it was her job to assist her dad in his work. His job was very labor intensive. She spent the summers picking cucumbers to sell to help support her family. She had to help her mother wash clothes, including cloth diapers every day, in a basin with bleach. They did not have a washer or dryer. It sure makes me appreciate my broken washer, or should I say being able to afford to buy a nice new front loader. 

I wish that my mom would write down her stories so I could understand her life more. Just like I hope someday my kids will read my writing and understand me more.
Then we talked about Matt and parenting an autistic child in the late 70’s. She said that she was thinking about writing down everything that happened to help herself heal. At times like this, I am so tempted to tell her about my blog but didn’t. She said that she is helping herself heal by helping others that are struggling. She has more compassion than anyone. She said that she wouldn’t have been able to make it through without her faith in God.

We spoke about the abuse that Matt suffered at the hands of the school. She said that she only saw Matt cry twice in his life. He cried when he spoke of what happened at school. It was absolutely barbaric. The teacher had him sit underneath her desk while she sat at her desk. If Matt touched her, she would kick him. One teacher held him face down on the floor while the other sat on his back. He couldn’t breathe. That is the story he cried about. There was a disabled child that died that year from a teacher that used the same discipline method.

We spoke about my mom’s church friends. I was not aware of this, she said one time when Matt swore in church her friend hit him. Another friend told my mom that they needed to beat it out of him. Oh, my dad did try to beat it out of him. It didn’t work. My mom spoke of when my dad kept hitting Matt over and over trying to beat it out of him. I told her that I remember that day clearly because it was my first childhood memory. I remember the screaming of my dad and Matt. I remember the plunking noise of Matt being knocked back and forth against the cupboards in the kitchen.

My mom said that Matt crawled around on the floor like an animal. He spent a lot of time screaming after he quit talking. 

Later on he became fixated on hurting little girls and I just happened to be the only little girl around. My mom said that she felt terrible that I had to suffer. She spoke of the birth of her first grandchild, my daughter Angel. She said that she was excited and filled with joy the day Angel was born. But her second feeling was horror because she knew what that might mean.

Matt did hurt Angel. What I didn’t tell you was that the two years leading up to the attack, Matt became obsessed with the thought of hurting Angel. He ruminated about it. He asked questions about what it would be like if he pulled her hair, twisted her arm, hit her, or held her head underwater when we were together. My mom and I were worried. I had to take a step back from Matt.

When Matt hurt Angel on her 4th birthday, my mom went in the other room and cried. She was so upset that she didn’t talk and was inconsolable. Luke took Matt home and the whole time it was like he was possessed. He laughed. The voices in his head were whispering over and over out loud. I almost forgot about his maniacal laughter after hurting someone. I could only describe it as evil or demonic.

My mom was at her breaking point. We had to part ways. She quit going to church for the next 3 years. She was angry at God for allowing this to happen. 

We have forgiven Matt for all of the things that happened. But it has been a long road and painful process.

Tomorrow I am going to start another autism series. I have a copy of Matt’s clinical diagnosis report from the early 80’s. I have been holding on to it for the last 20 years. I am going to share it with you along with my feelings about what was written.

Autism’s sibling, journal 2, part 3

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

My mom said that Matt was a smart baby. He was speaking and knew the alphabet. Until he turned 2, that is. Then he quit talking altogether. Instead he screamed. He slept fitfully and had nightmares. For many early childhood years, Matt was nonverbal. Then something strange happened, he started talking.

Previous to the home bound years, my brothers and I attended the same grade school. I remember Matt being in the special ed room that was shared with the library. He spent a lot of time in the naughty box between the two rooms. He kicked and screamed in this box while the kids laughed when we went in for library. He also went out with us at recess. Some of the older girls mocked his bizarre movements and laughed at him. It made me very angry, but they were older and there was nothing I could do about it.

One day Matt told my mom that he didn’t like school. He said that the teacher was mean. He told us that she put him face down on the floor and sat on top of him. He said it was hard to breathe. The teacher also put him under her desk, then sat down squishing and trapping him inside. My mom asked me if this could possibly be true. By the time he could tell us what had happened, the teacher had already quit. The turnover was high and I am sure my brother didn’t help with that.

Matt was very hard to handle. He was so violent in the school setting that he had to be homeschooled for several years right around the time of puberty. We stayed at home 3 years, then Matt went back to school with me. My mom sent my youngest two brothers to two different schools. Some of the teachers at school gave my family a hard time for my autistic brother. They looked down upon us. Some of the kids weren’t much better. Like we wanted this? Or caused this?

When I came back to school my junior year, I was the first person in the school district to return to high school after homeschooling. They did not know what to do with me. They would not accept my transcripts from the accredited correspondence school. Some kids teased me by asking if I took off from school to have a baby.

After awhile Luke ended up going to high school with Matt. They graduated together. Mark graduated from a different school entirely. Matt took the short bus to school everyday. There was always a boy that would terrorize Matt on the bus. Sometimes he would get off of the bus with Matt and threaten to kill him. Mom was a little worried last summer that he would make good on his threat once he made parole for his violent criminal offenses.

After I graduated from high school, I came back to be Matt’s teacher’s aide. My best friend Shelly was his aide at school until she pressed criminal charges against Matt for assault when he pulled her hair. Matt was escorted out of the school in handcuffs. That was the end of Shelly’s employment and our friendship. The charges against Matt were dropped after his competency eval.

Then I was employed as Matt’s teacher’s aide for a short period of time. In the classroom, Matt had his own separate cubicle. Every time that I would try to get him to read or write he would grind his teeth and hit his head. Or sometimes he would hit me. He never did learn to read, write, or do basic math.

 

Old school stalking, part 2

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

After the horrible first date, Mac talked me into going out with him again. The first couple of weeks were great. He became totally obsessed with me. He listened to all of my stories. Laughed at all of my jokes. At first this was all very flattering. He showered me with time and attention making up for several years of being ignored by my dad. He made me feel like I couldn’t live without him. So after a couple of months of being Mr. Wonderful, when he asked me to marry him I said “yes”. It was probably around this time that the problems started. You see, he didn’t have good enough credit to buy me an engagement ring. So I bought my own.

That was not all that I bought. I bought new tires for his car that ended up getting repossessed. He did buy me a nice word processor to type up my college papers on. But he was so jealous that I was in college that he turned it off on me when I was almost finished writing a paper for a 4 credit class. I had to start all over and ended up just turning it in before the class ended that day.

Then there were other things. Like the time I stopped in after work at 7 PM and he had stayed out all night gambling the night before. He woke up at 7 PM thinking that it was 7 AM. He thought I was kidding. He missed work that day. He started taking my prescription drugs.

Then things got really bad. He started to push me around. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me against the wall. He threw me around enough for me to get pretty bruised up. He lost his temper and punched his fist through the bedroom door. When I threatened to call the cops, he told me that he would accuse me of stealing from him after a couple of times that he had me cash his checks for him.

When I threatened to leave him he got very manipulative. He found my diaries and said that if I left him he would send them to my family members.

The final straw happened about this time of year. Mac was very obsessed with his appearance. He dyed his hair blonde and permed it. He even wore foundation to cover his ruddy complexion. One Thanksgiving, I picked him up to go to my grandma’s house. He forgot to put on his foundation and demanded that I stop at my parent’s house on the way so that he could borrow my mom’s makeup. I was appalled. No fricken way was I going to do that. So he was upset with me and during the prim and proper family meal with all of my extended family, we got into a huge fight. Swear words riccoched across the table. He ended up walking out. I wish I could say that it was the end right then and there.

He relentlessly pursued me over the next couple of months. There were times when I had to hide my car when I was at home. I had to have my friend drop me off at work so he wouldn’t see my car there. When he called, my mom told him that I wasn’t there. Once he left a rose under my windshield in the early morning with a apology note asking to get back together. It freaked me out because I lived an hour away from him.

When I lived with a roommate, he charmed her into thinking he was a great guy. She told him everything that he wanted to know about me. That is how I ended up having my name broadcast over the speakers half the night while I was at the county fair with some friends and another guy. “Alissa, please come to the information desk, Mac is looking for you”. I am so glad that I didn’t marry that guy. Had I known, the first date would’ve been the last.

The dark unfeeling cardboard box

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

When I was a young child, I never really liked school a lot. Sure, there were some bad teachers, some good, and some everywhere in between. But it really wasn’t that. It was never that. It had more to do with Matt, my autistic brother. Being less than 2 years younger than me, I could never get away. The school really didn’t know what to do with Matt. He was the first autistic child to come through the school district. When he couldn’t function in a regular classroom, they cut the library in half to make it a special ed room.

For a long period of time, Matt was nonverbal. Oh, he did scream and cry but he did not talk. He was uncontrollable. His teacher at school set up a naughty box for him between the library and special ed room. Almost every time we had library, my brother was in the box screaming and flailing around. The box seemed high at the time because I was so little. When my class lined up to look at books, the kids could peer into the box. Most of the time the kids laughed and I hated them. I put my feelings in a big box that seemed even bigger than the box that Matt was in. Many times I would rather be trapped in that empty box devoid of feelings, life, and light than to face the pain of the real world.

For a long time I floated around in my own little world. How could I make friends with my classmates? How could I like the kids that called my brother a retard? I went deeper and deeper into that box. I stopped eating. I didn’t talk to anyone. I started failing my classes. The only thing that touched my heart was music. I had this focal point that I would always stare at so I didn’t start crying in that class. I was so lost. My mom was very concerned, she had the school counselor talk to me. She was a wonderful person who tried to help me make friends and talk about feelings.

My mom wasn’t in much better shape herself. Mother daughter outings with the extended family ended up with my mom sharing with the family how much she hated autism and all of the things that Matt did or didn’t do. The family just wanted relaxation and fun. They were uncomfortable that my mom was crying and needed their support. They stared at me all the time. When I was alone with family, they peppered me with questions about if my mom was ok and how was Matt. I didn’t feel like anyone cared about me. Most of the time they were just trying to help without being very helpful.

One day Matt started talking again. He told stories of how his teacher in the grade school was abusive towards him. She shoved him under her desk and sat down at her desk squeezing him in there. He also said that the teacher would place him face down on the floor and sit on him making it hard to breathe. My mom asked me if this could be true, she was very upset.

After everything that happened, my mom tried to keep my younger brothers sheltered from going to school with Matt. She sent my brothers to parochial schools and schools that were out of our district. I wonder if that had anything to do with me not responding well to being in school with Matt. Did I save my younger brothers some pain? I hope so.