I spend a lot of time watching crime
documentaries. I know, I know. Both my husband and therapist don't
see it as a constructive or good way to spend my time, listening to a
bunch of people talk about the awful things that happened to them.
Triggers let and right, but I watch them for two reasons. 1. I think
they are interesting and educational. 2. It's the way I look for
answers my abusers can't or won't give me. Maybe if I understand the
mind of people like my mother than I'll know why she did the things
she did. So far it hasn't worked.
Anyways, that's not what this post is
about.
I'm sitting here watching, Your Worst
Nightmare, and it's an episode about a girl that was kidnapped and
held for 3 months. In a rare moment there is a happy ending and the
girl survives, grows up to have kids of her own and talks out about
abuse, ect. On these shows you hear from the victim and the family
and friends. This woman's mother was. . . she was amazing. Man, she
fought for her daughter every second she was gone. Never gave up on
her. I'm not saying that type of person is rare, I believe most
mothers would be that way if their child was taken. I've seen
it—witnessed it, and it got me thinking. That would never be my mom
if I was the one kidnapped.
Okay, yeah. On the surface she would
have acted concerned and try to find me, because it puts the
spotlight on her. However, outside of the public eye she would have
no concern for me—not a single worry. It's always been an act, and
I know friends of my family are screaming right now. “No, not
Danielle. She loves you. She would be so worried, she would turn over
the world looking for her. She's such a wonderful person, so caring.
You don't know what you're talking about!”
I get it, I understand where they are
coming from because Dani would do those things since it wasn't any
good, caring, loving parent would do. Behind closed doors the concern
and worry would magically vanish. Once the limelight dimmed she
wouldn't give two shits about me or my well being. Like all my
thoughts I try to find evidence for or against my opinion, it's how I
undo the twisted way of thinking Dani implanted into my head. That's
when I started thinking back to one event.
Right after I got married and moved
into my own house the bank I was working at got robbed, at gunpoint.
I was taken hostage, a gun shoved into my side and stomach, and told
to empty all the teller stations. The whole thing took over a minute.
Seemed faster than that, but also longer. As I was the closest to the
door when the men left, I was the one that had to get the key and
lock the door per company procedure for robberies. They don't tell
you in bank robbery training that when you do that the men are only
feet from you outside, a thin glass door the only thing between the
two of you. It was. . . devastating, but ask any of my co-workers or
boss who was there, and they will tell you I was stoic. I cried a
little, but after that nothing shook me. We processed everything like
we were suppose to, talked with the cops and FBI, and then closed
down the bank. Our bosses had us contact our family to make sure all
these people didn't come swarming to the bank worried about us.
I told my husband very little on the
phone (didn't want him to worry about me), started with the most
important information. Said I was okay, unharmed and to stay at work.
I would have felt so damn guilty if he left work early for me. Then I
called my mom because she lived 15 minutes from the bank, and news
travels fast in small towns. Dani wasn't worried or anything. She
just said, “well you're fine. But stop by after work. We'll all go
to the fair to take your mind off things (she wanted me to pay to get
everyone in bc she was out of money), and you shouldn't be driving
all shook up.”
I agreed because being with family
sounded good after what happened. After closing the bank I headed
over to my mom's house. I walked into the kitchen and no one even
acknowledged me. Dani didn't look up from the salad she was making,
by brother barely gave a nod my way when I came in. They knew about
what happened. Dani can't keep stuff like that to herself, and it was
all over the news about the cops looking for the one suspect who
escaped. Still, no one asked if I was alright, what happened, if I
needed a drink, or if I even wanted to sit down. Not one word.
It was like they didn't care, but I
gave my family the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they didn't know how
to start the conversation? Maybe they didn't know what they should or
shouldn't ask, so I started talking. I told them, in general, what
happened as we moved into the living room—me following them—as if
it was a normal day. Dani sat in her red recliner watching TV, never
once looking at me, too busy eating and watching NCIS (she loves that
show). Halfway through my retelling my brother makes a sound of
disbelief, and in all his teenage stupidity asks, “How do you even
know the gun was real?”
If I would have had the energy right
then—I won't lie—I would have marched across the living room and
slapped the shit out of him. Doesn't matter if the damn thing was
real or not. Three men, in masks, ran into a bank waving guns in the
air. They grabbed me up from the ground and pushed a gun into my side
and demanded money. Doesn't matter if the weapon was real or not, the
terror was. Of course, because of the build up of emotions I jumped
to anger and responded with, “it felt real enough when it was
shoved into myself, smart-ass!”
I got yelled at for calling my brother
a smart-ass.
Then we all sat there, watching TV like every
other day in the life of my family. Not a one of them comforted me,
it was very much like no one gave a damn. This big thing just
happened in my life, and it meant nothing. I don't know what I was
expecting, this was how every major event has always been treated in
my life. Well, events that happen to me anyway. My sister had to have
her ACL repaired because of a sport injury, and you would have
thought she was going in for life threatening surgery. (For the
record she continued to do dumb shit her Dr. told her not to and tore
it two more times afterwards.)
I sat there with them, watching TV,
dazing off and trying not to think about what I lived through—how
victimized I felt—how it brought me back to all the times people
abused me. I lost it when my husband arrived. I took one look at him
and broke-down. In that moment I felt relief, everything let go all
at once and I reached for him and cried, damn near hysterical.
Between sobs I heard Dani tell my husband, “they took her hostage.”
As if excusing my emotional outburst. There—in that moment—in my
family home—I was made to feel like a weak-ass loser for breaking
down after the bank robbery. It got so much worst in the months to
come, I developed full blown PTSD (I had small hints of it all my
life). I couldn't sleep without an knife under my side of the
mattress, and a lot of times I needed a light on. That fall my
husband took a trip with his father over a long weekend. Now, I grew
up alone in houses, doing my own thing. I was never frightened until
after the robbery. At night I turned on every light in the house,
made all the animals sleep in bed with me and even then I couldn't
fall asleep. That whole weekend I stayed up all night, and slept
during the day. When I would call my mom, Dani, and tell her I was
scared she would brush me off. She would say I was being ridiculous,
so I felt ridiculous. My world was falling apart, and all I felt was
utter shame about it. That's when I started having panic-attacks.
It got near impossible for me to get up
to go to work, I didn't want to leave the house and everyone scared
me. All this came to a head a few years later when my brother and
sister accused me of awful things from when we were little. That was
it, I reached my damn limit and that October my husband came home to
find me passed out, photos all over the place that were burned and
cut into pieces, my arms covered in blood and cuts. My breaking point
had been reached.
When I told my mom about my breakdown
(over a month later) she rolled her eyes at me, and said I was nuts.
That I needed to pull myself together. When I tried different things
to fight my depression she criticized me for it.
So that mother on the show, in my mind,
is the most wonderful woman ever. That level of support and
dedication to her daughter. . . I can't fathom that. To me it's the
most foreign concept in the world. Since the robbery and my breakdown
I've come a long way, there are a lot more good days than bad. My
husband is here with me, giving his support in every way imaginable,
but I still get to the live with the fact that my mother—the women
that gave birth to me—who said it was always us against the
world—whom society tells us to warship as the essence of our
lives—cares more about a salad and NCIS than her daughter after a
violent crime is committed against her. How do you live with that?
How do you go day to day and not suffer seeing people having a
relationship you can NEVER have, all because of the selfishness of
one person?
It's where I struggle most. I don't
miss my mom, I miss a child's fantasy of a mom or even a father. I
grew up with neither.
#ViolentCrime #Survivor #MothersNeeds
#Abuse #Depression #PTSD
~Jax~
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