Surviving Soberly

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family/when-fathers-day-is-a-painful-reminder/ar-AAyMt0W

This is depression. I go through this every few weeks. This is the most I've had to cut off. These are massive tangles I get in my hair because I'm too depressed to brush it. Now my hair looks terrible but it feels better. Now I can color it again.

By Terri Rimmer I’ve been diagnosed many things but the nickname I hate the most - “Crazy Cat Lady,” - is not one of them, though my neighbors would beg to differ. Oddly enough when I was in my 20s and writing for a small town newspaper, The Camden County Tribune, they published a column I wrote about what different lives my sister and I lead. She’s a therapist and I was the creative type, she was a neatnik and I was messy. But I also addressed the fear that I would one day grow up and be like the crazy cat lady who lived across the street from my mom and step dad at the time. Now this woman was not a Crazy Cat Lady. She was unmarried, morbidly obese, worked, single, and had two cats. But in that neighborhood there were no feral cats. You might run across a stray once in a blue moon and if one had darkened her garage door she probably would’ve fed it but no one in the 80s would’ve said a word. It was a different time. My fear of becoming the Crazy Cat Lady woun...

I wake up this morning and I’m a completely different person than I was the last three days. Although I’m on five medications for bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety, I’m exhausted, because I’ve just come off a rage roller coaster over the weekend. My hormones are out of whack and I can’t afford to go to the doctor so I just have to suffer through this. Last night someone I used to be friends with threatened to call the cops, accusing me of not taking my meds, claiming that I was harassing her when all I was doing was defending a mutual friend. I never met rage until I was 12 when the bottom fell out of my life and I had to go live with my mom and step dad after my dad finally had to answer for abusing my sisters and I. I was getting physically abused at Mom’s house then and bullied at school. The bullying actually started way before that. The only refuge was my mind – not a good place. I can remember once I started driving often times ...

Nov. 4, 2017 Dear McKenna: How is it possible that it’s time for your annual Thanksgiving letter again? What a year it has been! You continue to amaze me all the time and as every year passes I am in wonder of all that you are and do. Seeing you grow up as been the best gift and something I never thought I would get to have. You have such a dedication to the band and I don’t know how you do it all but I admire your persistence and how you push yourself. You have never let anything stop you in your life, no matter the obstacle and that is one of the many things I love about you. I also love seeing you dance, your sense of humor, smile, spirit, creativity, intuition, and courage. It’s hard for me not to tear up as I write this because the pride is strong when I think of you. I’m glad you know what you want to do in life as I did. In Nov. 1983 when I was 17, also your age, I can remember banging out stories and poems on the fire engine red elec...

August 7, 2017 Dear McKenna: Your annual birthday letter is here once again and in eight days you’ll be turning 17. Without fail, you continue to do great things and amaze me and everyone around you. This past Christmas time was such a miracle when you no longer had to depend on using a feeding tube for the first time since you were a toddler. That was a big prayer answered! I want you to know that no matter what anxiety you ever feel on any given day that you are bigger than it and that it doesn’t subtract from who you are as a person – EVER. I know that you can overcome anything and you’ve proven it. I’m proud beyond belief of you and you are always in my thoughts, prayers, daydreams, and often – dreams. I write a lot about you because I’m inspired to do it. Your spirit, drive, and courage give me the same strength. You come from a long line of survivors who have the same attitude when it comes to not stopping and going after what you want. ...

In August 1981 having spent the summer being subjected to more of my dad's sexual abuse and having kept my sister Cindy updated the whole time as to the progression of his behavior, she and I went to a church agency in hopes of getting some help. It was called AGAPE and it was a foster child placement agency where Church of Christ members take in abused and/or neglected children temporarily, sometimes leading to a permanent placement later. Although my sister and I had attended this particular church a few years earlier, we were not currently members but had no other resources at our disposal. Having made the call to Cindy that summer day telling her that things with my dad had escalated to the point where I was in fear for my life and terrified that he was going to cross the line to intercourse with me, she and I now sat in the small lobby of AGAPE and waited to talk to a counselor. Numerous pictures lined the halls and walls in the building of happy families with their ch...