Laura's note: This story is not an easy read, but in the end it's about a triumph over "the system" and is a textbook example of how children often receive diagnoses, treatment, and punishment instead of help and intervention when they are being abused. I've often wondered how my own experience growing up would have diverged had I "acted out" instead of internalizing by way of "freeze" and "fawn" -- this account below is how. I'd bet there are thousands of others who can say the same.
I was born in 1982 into a divided family and grew up below the poverty level. My mom and dad divorced before I was a year old, and my family did not get together unless we had a funeral to attend. From a very young age, I was abused verbally, emotionally, sexually, and physically by my parents and family members. In addition to suffering from an unstable home life, I was bullied by my peers and the popular kids at school. When I started showing signs of this abuse and neglect—including rages, relationship challenges, and defiance, which were really cries for help—I was passed around among the local clinicians. They diagnosed my behaviors as mental disorders instead of holding my abusers accountable and addressing the trauma I was living through. By the time I was 10 years old, I had been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Attachment Disorder, Adjustment Disorder, parent-child relational problems, a partner relational disorder, and a developmental disorder. One doctor even hooked me up to an EKG and then told me I had “abnormal brain cells” that caused my blackout rages.
Though I did try to tell my mom and Child Protective Services (CPS) about all the bad things going on in my life, my mom (who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) insisted that I had inherited her “biochemical imbalances.” So doctors also placed me on one psychiatric medication after another, including Zoloft, Tegretol, and Tofranil, to name a few. A few years later, doctors prescribed Seroquel after adding Bipolar Disorder to the other pathologies I’d been diagnosed with.
I was placed in special education due to additional diagnoses of emotional disturbance, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD, and other disorders. And when I was no longer able to function in a regular classroom due to my continued disruptive behavior and flunking grades, I was pushed into the juvenile justice system. Among other “crimes,” I was considered a chronic runaway: My mother used to pick fights with me, which sometimes escalated into violence. Then she’d kick me out of the house and call the police saying I’d fled our home. Once I entered the system, I had to attend a school with boot camp drill instructors who yelled and cursed at us daily during physical training and normal classes.
A Downward Spiral
Needless to say, due to all of these struggles, I never felt safe. When I was released from the system at 17 years old, I literally could not function in society. Since I was medicated for my behavioral issues for so long, I lacked developmentally appropriate skills such as self-regulation, problem-solving, critical thinking, and emotional stability. I fell into what all the statistics predict, including drug addictions. It started out with smoking marijuana. That led to harder drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and crystal meth, along with prescription drugs purchased on the street, including Xanax and hydrocodone.
It was a vicious cycle: Grown, well-respected men in my community had introduced me to the “partying” lifestyle and passed me around to their buddies and other men I met at their gatherings. Since I was exposed to so many destructive things in these circles, I did not trust people and used more drugs to drown out feelings and emotions that were too painful to cope with. Eventually, I became pregnant, homeless, and stuck in a lifestyle from which it seemed I could not escape. Addiction and my lack of life skills continued to interfere with my ability to function; I struggled to hold a steady job and be a stable single mother to my twin sons in their critical, early stages of development.
[To read the rest of this post by Tabitha Ferguson, click here.]
[Image: Unsplash.com]
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