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When I
was little, I loved to smile and laugh. I enjoyed waking up
in the morning to face the new day. Life was full of
adventure and excitement. When I look back at my early days,
I remember there was always a sense of consistency and
routine. I was a happy kid with two wonderful parents. When
I was two years old, my mother gave birth to my first
sister. When I was 5, she had my brother. I remember when he
was born, I began to feel like the big sister, and I started
taking on that role. By the time my youngest sister was
born, I was almost 7. I had solidly taken my place as the
caretaker in the family.
Shortly
afterward, we moved to a new house that had a home office
for my father, and he rarely had to go to his downtown
office anymore. I liked that he was always around, but it
also meant that he was constantly in work mode. Things
began to deteriorate at home. I’m not quite sure what it
was, but things just weren’t the same.
When I
was about 9 years old, my mother shared with me about her
childhood. She told me that her parents, who are Holocaust
survivors, didn’t show affection to her as a child. As a
result, she found it very hard to show affection to her own
children. I think it was soon after hearing this that I took
on the responsibility of caring for my mother’s emotional
needs, even at the expense of my own. She found it difficult
to hug me on her own, so I would hug her instead. I remember
many nights lying in bed wishing someone would come in, say
good night, and tell me they loved me. I knew my parents
loved me, but they had such funny ways of showing it.
Besides, I was excellent at rationalizing and understanding
my parents’ actions.
At
school, I was teased quite a lot. I was an easy target
because in many ways I was more mature than most of my
classmates due to all the responsibilities I had at home.
Although I always had my group of friends, I did not feel
like I belonged. I don’t think it would have been so bad,
but things at home continued going downhill. As the years
went on, the kids at school grew out of teasing me, and we
all became friends. At home, however, things did not get
better for a long time. I was the responsible one, and got
blamed for all the mishaps because I should have known
better.
I
tried to be the best daughter I could be. Yet, whenever
things frequently went bad between my parents, I would get
the blame. I was told countless times that I was stupid and
that I wasn’t trying hard enough. And I believed it. My
parents couldn’t be wrong, could they? My self-esteem
dropped to low levels. I was 13 or 14 years old and trying
to manage much more than I could. Instead of being
appreciated, I was taken for granted, and expected to do
more. Practically, I could not live up to these
expectations; yet I felt I had to keep trying to do more; I
had to try to be perfect. I believed that since everything
was my fault, if I was better, everything would get better.
I lived life walking on egg shells.
An
air of tension descended on our house and I started to
dislike spending any time at home. I had piano and swimming
lessons, and began to look for other things to fill up my
time. My parents’ fighting kept increasing, and it was
getting to me. I was finding it harder to cover up how
unhappy I was at home. Somehow, I managed. I learned how to
keep a smile on my face no matter what, and I learned how to
laugh even when I felt like doing nothing but cry. I did
everything for everyone, and I often forgot about myself. By
doing this, I didn’t have to live in reality.
As
my father began spending more and more time working, I began
to spend more time with my mother, filling the gaps left by
my father. We often went shopping together, and out for
coffee and dinner. Eventually, I spent most of my free time
with my mother and became her confidante. Every night I
would give my mother a good night kiss and tell her I loved
her, then go to bed and wonder about my life. I definitely
had taken the role of parent and spouse to an extreme.
I
started rationalizing the way my parents treated me. If I
tried to express my feelings to them, I was told I was
stupid and wasn’t seeing things the right way. So I buried
my own emotions; I felt so alone. I would try and talk to my
friends, but I couldn’t be honest with them. So I just shut
down my emotions and tried to live an outwardly “normal”
life.
When
I started High School, I told my mother that I wouldn’t be
able to spend as much time with her because I wanted to have
more time for my friends and extra-curricular activities. I
think I was starting to realize that I needed to become
independent. It was hard for me to tell my mother this
because I saw the hurt in her eyes. The last thing I wanted
to do was hurt her, but a part of me knew that I was making
the right decision.
In
October 1999, in Grade 10, I woke up in the middle of the
night with a debilitating chest pain. For the first time
since I’d been really little, I let them take care of me. My
parents took me to the hospital, and to various specialists.
It turned out that I had something called costal chondritis,
which is an inflammation in the chest triggered by immense
stress. I was so stressed out that my body was starting to
react physically.
In
April 2000 my father went to England with my youngest sister
to visit my great-grandfather. I hated being alone in the
house with my mother because my father was often the buffer
between us. But when they were both home I was blamed for
their arguing.
After
my father had been gone for a week, my mother told those of
us children who were at home that she was thinking of
getting a divorce. I don’t think I was too surprised because
recently most of their fights had ended in the same phrase,
“I want a divorce!” That night my Mother asked my brother
and me to help her search my father’s computer for
something; we started coming across evidence that my father
was having an email affair. Our first reactions were shock
and denial. This wasn’t happening to us. Mommy and Daddy had
issues, yes, but this couldn’t be.
After
20 minutes of shock my brother and I realized that my mother
was in a really bad state. Her whole world was collapsing.
So we took care of her. After my brother went to bed, I
spent the rest of the night up with my mother finding
everything we could on the computer and reading through it
all. That night I supported my mother and helped her with
everything. I held her and put her to sleep at 6 in the
morning.
Late
that evening my father came home and I just tried to sleep.
I heard talking and crying, but I couldn’t deal with it. My
emotions were going crazy. I refused to talk to my father; I
wouldn’t even look at him. I was so disgusted I had lost all
respect for him. Daddy had come off his pedestal, and Mommy
became the victim that needed to be pampered. A couple days
later I turned 16 and, instead of getting my driver’s
permit, I was sitting in a counselors office with my family.
My life was falling apart. I was so angry.
Right
after discovery my parents seemed to be in a honeymoon stage
while at the same time threatening divorce everyday. I tried
to fix their relationship. I got in the middle of every
argument they had, and tried to convince both of them to not
get a divorce. I didn’t know it then but I was ruining
myself emotionally. Somehow I finished Grade 10, though
with disappointingly low grades. I dropped out of my
lifeguard course at the last minute. I felt like a failure,
that I was truly stupid.
That summer one of my
sisters went to sleep away camp and my younger siblings were
in day camp. I was volunteering at a hospital, which left me
lots of time with my mother. We spent hours talking and she
inappropriately told me many details of my father’s acting
out; things I never needed to know. I felt worthless, like I
should never have been born.
That
July my parents discovered SA and S-Anon and started going
to meetings. I thought they’d joined a cult. What the heck
was serenity and why were they preaching it to me? I didn’t
want to hear anything from them. That summer I also met a
boy, and I threw myself into our friendship. I was an
emotional wreck inside. But on the outside, no one knew a
thing. I was leading a double life.
In
October 2000 the boy I’d befriended in the summer showed up
on my doorstep with a long stem rose. He was studying in
Israel for the year and he said he’d flown in just to see
me. It was just the outlet I needed. I had a principle
that I wouldn’t get into a physical relationship until I got
married, and for the first week I was able to maintain it.
I wanted to make him happy, and agreed with his argument
that touching my hair or my clothes wasn’t really touching
me. Then I broke down and let him kiss me and hug me. For
the next two weeks that he was in town I threw everything
that I stood for to the wind. I could rationalize anything I
did because I thought someone cared about me. We didn’t go
physically further than kissing and touching, but for me
that was far enough.
While
this was going on my parents were getting more into program
and they started seeing a doctor who suggested a
psychologist for my siblings and me. I didn’t connect with
her, and couldn’t be honest, as I was used to showing only
the good stuff about me to the world.
I
was now living a triple life, and I couldn’t let them
intersect. I couldn’t be honest anywhere, not even with
myself. I became addicted to my boyfriend and to the relationship I thought we had. I
was infatuated and thought I was going to marry him. But by
the end of November I knew I didn’t like the relationship I
was in, though I didn’t know how to get out of it. I was
addicted. I thought I couldn’t live without him. He was my
escape from the world. Home
was full of fighting and tension, and at school I just
couldn’t be honest about anything.
At the end of December I
accidentally left an Internet chat with my boyfriend on my
father’s computer screen. A few days later my parents sat me
down, and asked
if I knew what I was doing. They knew I was in a
relationship, but they didn’t know about the physical part
of it. I have to thank them for how they dealt with the
whole situation. It’s only because they’d been in program
for a while that they could deal with it as open mindedly as
they did. They asked me not to talk to him for a week. At
the end of that week I told him I wanted to break up, and he
got nasty and threatened to destroy my reputation. Finally I
did end the relationship, and in the same week found out
he’d been seeing two other girls while we’d been going out,
and that he had begun to drink.
I
went in to a severe depression and started to think about
suicide. Thank god I was too intelligent to do more than
just think about it, but I’ve never felt as lonely as I did
then. My parents couldn’t help me; they were too wrapped up
in themselves. To make things worse, my mother had started
to call me a whore when she got really mad at me.
My
friends were the one constant in my life. I had finally told
two of my closest friends about the relationship I’d had.
Even though they didn’t really know what was going on at
home, they could sense something was wrong, and they
supported me as well as they could. I don’t remember that
school year very well, even though it was just over a year
ago. Somehow I got through, but again my marks were falling.
In
January 2001 I was diagnosed with Glaucoma. I was 16 and now
I had to worry about losing my eyesight along with
everything else. But at least it forced my parents to take
care of me. They finally found me a doctor who taught me how
to breathe when I had chest attacks, and with whom I felt
safe being honest about everything that was going on. She
told me that I was young and generally healthy, and that I’d
make it through. She helped me through my depression. I told
her what my parents kept saying – that I was destined to end
up with an addict. She told me that because I was so young
and I had found out about the sexaholism so early, I had a
great chance of recovery, and that as I got healthier I
would be attracted to healthier guys. She was right.
In
February 2001 I participated in the Model United Nations
conference in New York as one of 13 representatives from my
school. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by 500 other
teenagers and discovered that not all guys were awful and
did the things my former boyfriend and my father had done.
A few weeks later I went to my first S-Anon meeting.
Even though I couldn’t really relate to the sharings about
spouses, I discovered a place where other people shared the
same emotions as me. I could finally let down my guard and
be honest about what was going on at home and in my daily
life.
That July I decided at the
last minute to go the SA / S-Anon International Convention
in Virginia. There I experienced my first S-Ateen meeting, and you could say I was
hooked. I met my first other S-Ateen, and we connected right away. That day we went
to the one scheduled S-Ateen meeting and spent the next
eight hours talking. I had never been so open and honest
with someone, and on top of it he understood exactly where I was coming from!
That
was the beginning of my recovery.
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