Domestic Violence Awareness Month

For the Domestic Violence Awareness Month Blog Carnival.

[TW for abusive situations]

I.

Waking up in the morning, I know he's out there, and he's drunk. I go back to sleep until he passes out. I don't want to listen to him today.

II.

Why the fuck can't you let my mother have a little extra cash without whining about it? She pays most of her income towards bills. You obviously have enough extra to get drunk on for two weeks straight, before the money runs out. Why do you have to play these control games?

III.

I love you, you say. The only time all summer you say it to me, and I'm outside beating the rugs that are covered in dirt from your boots. One of many things you do that make me feel like dirt, and I don't even care what you think of me. How much worse for my mother?

IV.

How dare you call me your daughter? You adopted me when you married my mother, but then you disappeared for ten years. You are not my father. Step-father, I grant only because you're married to my mother. My real father doesn't treat me or his wife or my sister like shit.

V.

Flashback to January. I sit on the side of the tub, where I'm hiding, and listen to the shouting. Angry over nothing, everything, he shouts that his life is ruined because we called the ambulance this morning when my uncle thought he was having a heart attack. Our mistake. He was only black-out drunk. Nothing wrong here, sir, now go away.

Dear God, please tell me this is the right decision. My hands shake where I hold the cell phone, debating who to call. "If you throw one more thing at me, I'll call the police," she says. That's when I know. I dial 9-1-1. Breathless, I don't hear the operator the first time he asks me what's wrong. I literally do not recall hearing any sound except the shouting and crying. Then I say it. My Dad is drunk and throwing things at my Mom. Yes, the same place the ambulance was called to this morning.

Knock, knock, five minutes later. I leave the bathroom and open the outside door for the nice officer peering in. There's only one step between the doors. One step to safety. My mother stands there, confused. I say I called them. I love you too, he says sarcastically.

When they're gone, I just hug my mother. She's thankful her brother was asleep through the whole thing, or there would be two men going to jail. One for domestic violence, the other for assault. I almost wish he had been awake. Almost.

VI.

I'm not staying here anymore, while he's here. We did this when I was a kid, and I hid upstairs on my bed. We rented a house, then. I'm twenty now. I can find somewhere else to go.

VII.

You won't have to stay at your father's next time, she tells me. He'll be gone soon. I'm filing divorce papers.

You're so brave, Mom. Thank you for taking care of yourself. I'll be there when you need me.

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If you are in an abusive situation, physical or not, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (US & Canada): 1-800-799-SAFE* or check out their site. RAINN is a site particularly for sexual abuse.

*1-800-799-7233 if you're like me and have a full keyboard on your phone.

On School Policies and Medical Problems

Today I am sad for a girl from my high school. She is a member of the high school marching and concert band. Yesterday I heard via social networking that the principal of the school* had told her she can not perform in the final band show of the year, a major competition, because she was absent for part of the school day on Friday due to a new medication making her dizzy.

Yesterday, about forty people, including me, emailed the mayor asking him to address this. Two hours ago an email arrived in my inbox, sent to the girl in question, the school committee, and the principal, and bcc'ed to those of us who had emailed him. He said, in essence, that there was nothing he could legally do, particularly on short notice. The school rules state: "A full day’s attendance is required in order to participate in any after school activity, game, dance, etc. In extraordinary circumstances that result in an absence from a class or a day of absence, the principal may rule on eligibility for participation in the after school activity. This includes practices, competitions, and extracurricular activities."

It should be noted that the competition is not exactly an extra-curricular activity; it's part of class participation for every member of the marching band except the few color guard students who are not instrumentalists in a different section for the duration of the season.** Marching band is not considered a sport, or anything of that nature. It's a class for which the homework includes practices and performances outside of class.

All that is somewhat beside the point, however: This student is being barred from an activity she's spent three months preparing for, and four years participating in. In her senior year of high school, she's not allowed to go to her last competition as a representative of the band. All because she happened, on a Friday, to take a medicine that had side-effects she couldn't control. She went to school; she just went late, and she didn't feel well when she did.

Now, maybe the medicine will make it impossible for her to participate, anyways, but it's fundamentally unfair to punish someone for doing her best to be responsible in taking care of herself and still attend even part of the school day.

Doubtless there are details I'm missing; I certainly don't know the principal and I haven't asked her why she made that decision. All I'm saying is, I think the student qualifies for the "under extraordinary circumstances" part of that rule, which would have allowed the principal to reverse that decision and allow her to participate in her last competition.

And having had my own medical problems that sometimes present difficulties for full participation in my classes, I don't understand why a medical excuse could not possibly be a valid enough reason to be allowed to participate in an event that happens two days later, as opposed to a football game the same night (which she would also normally be expected to perform at during half-time).

I'm not sure if I'm making sense. I just know that I'm extremely disappointed to hear that this happened in my hometown. I'm further disappointed because I know this girl (her older sister was in my year), and I know how much work and dedication marching band takes. And I know how much that final competition means as a senior.



*whom I don't know. There were at least three principals in the 2.5 years I attended that school, and now apparently there's another.
**That is, the color guard is made up of band members and other students who want to participate but don't play an instrument. The former switch to their instrument during concert band season, the latter just don't have the class during the school day.

Fall Break

Well, I'm more or less on Fall Break, the first of two my uni has (the other being over US Thanksgiving). I have a four day weekend in which to rest and catch up on work. This morning I had my first midterm, in Hebrew, and I think I actually managed to do well on it. I had a lot of vocabulary I had to learn fairly last minute, but the biggest problem was really spelling the words. However, the test didn't ask me to write a lot of words but had things like lists in which to cross out the word that doesn't fit, verb conjugations, fill-in-the-pronoun or preposition, and answering questions. This as opposed to the quizzes which are on the vocab and require being able to spell, which was made harder as soon as we learned the last 10 letters, several of which have similar sounds or functions to the first 12 letters (there are two 't' letters, for example).

At any rate, that's over, and I'm glad for the break in work. I have a lot to catch up on, but I now have the time to do it in, so I should be okay, and I should still be able to get the rest I need for my body to continue healing.

I only have two minor physical annoyances right now: a mouth sore on the inside of my cheek, and a wart that's been treated on my right middle finger. My hip and knee hurt a little, but as long as I pace myself, I do fine.

On the other hand, I received a letter from my health insurance today saying they won't process my claim for physical therapy until I fill out the form they sent, asking how I was injured, etc etc. Except, I already filled out a claims form in which I explicitly stated that it wasn't an accident or injury, but probably a result of a chronic pain condition they should already know about. *facepalm* The woman at the health center who deals with these kinds of things for students is on vacation until Tuesday, so I'll go talk to her next week as soon as I have time. Bleh. I hate insurance processes. I still don't have any paperwork from them saying they processed my claim for seeing a cardiologist last month, either (it's something minor and common, and unrelated to anything but stress, they think; my heart is fine).

Flu Shot

This is my third year getting a flu shot. I guess I can be thankful that I somehow forgot how much it hurts since the last time, because OW OW OW OW. My arm is swollen and ache-y from my shoulder to my elbow (and a little down my wrist).

Tylenol doesn't seem to be doing anything for it. I'm already on piroxicam (aka feldene) and can't take ibuprofen to relieve the swelling. *sigh*

I don't think I'll be getting as much work done tonight as I had expected. Talk about distracting...

ETA a few hours later: My arm FINALLY stopped hurting so much. Yayness.

New (?) symptom and general updatery

Today, I've been having problems with my left foot. It keeps hurting the way my hands sometimes do, except that it's been a shooting pain while walking or leaving my foot in a specific position (apparently). I've also generally been having problems with my feet hurting when I move them into weird or different positions, usually involving something that should merely be a stretch. For example, I sort of spun on the front of my right foot in order to turn around, and suddenly there was pain through my big toe and area around it. I don't really know what's causing this, or why it's happening now.

In other news:

• I had a voice lesson today. Made it through all 50 minutes without too much pain, and then realized when I left that my knees were really objecting to standing up for that long. I ended up taking the medical van to and from my last class.
• My sleep pattern has evened out again. I'm no longer having a hard time waking up, although I really wish I had been able to sleep a little longer this morning. However, someone in the neighborhood using what sounded like a heavy, continuous machine caused those plans to change. Constant droning noise that just grated on my nerves.
• Pain levels are relatively under control, all things considered. I only experienced mild discomfort in my last class, and that was mostly in the last 20 minutes or so of the 80 minute lecture.
• I'm doing better mentally, but am also kind of dreading the weekend. We'll see what happens then.
  

That's all for now. I think I'll try to update at least twice weekly, despite the frequency of posts so far.

Mental Health and Support Systems

[trigger warning: mental health issues, discussion of suicide]

The problem with having a chronic condition is that it takes a toll on my mental health. I've stopped being in so much pain since I started amitriptylene, but my mental health didn't improve at the same time.

Pain causes a very emotional response in me, because I fear it, hate it, and can't function well with it. It's a loss of stability. It's knowing that I can't rely on my body to do what I need or want it to do. It's grief for what I used to be able to do. It's crying for hours because the pain won't stop no matter what I do, and then being exhausted by the emotional outpouring.

When the pain is temporary, has a definite and easily identifiable cause, and lasts only a few days, I can handle it. I might not like it, but I won't fall too far behind in anything in that time span.

When it lasts three weeks, on the other hand, I fall into a danger zone without even realizing it. I neglected to call my school's counseling center at first because I thought I was okay enough to handle it, and that the severe pain was over. Then the pain lasted, and lasted, and lasted. I would be in relatively little pain one day, and then crippling pain the next. I missed classes, I didn't do (still haven't done) reading assignments. I stopped being able to do things I take pride in.

I finally called the counseling center last week, but the psychologist I see didn't have an appointment until tomorrow. I thought I would be okay.

And then the weekend came. With it came relief from pain, but increased emotional distress likely caused by having too much time on my hands to think about it.

Last night, I finally reached out to all of my friends via a private facebook group we use for communication and asked them to check on me constantly. I then emailed three of my most supportive friends and cc'd my class dean and my psychologist on the email. I told them why I needed people to be around me or asking me how I'm doing so often.

I told them I've been having suicidal thoughts, and that none of my coping strategies were working. The coping strategy that has worked was sending that email, and within 15 minutes getting two positive and supportive emails in return. I also had an off-campus friend IMing me while I was awake for the last two nights, which helped with the immediate problems.

I'm better today. Not completely okay, but better.

I had at least six people ask me how I'm doing over lunch. The friends I emailed separately last night are texting me and making plans so that I'm not left alone for too long.

And it turns out that the people I've talked to or ask for help in the last couple of weeks have communicated with each other. A professor called the Dean for Students with Disabilities. That Dean and my Class Dean called my psychologist. One of the doctors I see at the health center noticed the recent visit with someone else that resulted in a new prescription for pain, and called my psychologist and called me. She asked if I wanted to have appointments every other week to keep up with my medical issues. I said yes. All of these people have called or emailed me to see what they can do for me and make suggestions.

I don't know how this works when a student isn't reaching out the way I am, but it's good to see such a response. I suppose that's what ResLife staff members are for: we're supposed to notice the kinds of behavioral changes that indicate a problem like this. Either way, it's amazing that this system is in place here where faculty and staff talk to each other. My friends are equally amazing.

One last note: I had debated putting this out in such a public place, but I decided that it's important to do so. Not just because I needed to sort through the thoughts I've written out here, but also because I know I'm not the only one who has or has had this kind of problem. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what society might tell us.

If you or someone you know is suicidal or on the edge of being suicidal, ask for help and if you can manage it, keep asking until you get it. There are people out there who want to help you.

http://suicidehotlines.com/ has national and local numbers for suicide hotlines, many of which operate 24/7.

I now have two national numbers programmed into my phone, just in case.

Adjustments

I took the amitriptylene at 10pm last night, and set my alarm for 8:15 (didn't go to bed until after midnight). The first couple of times my alarm went off, I felt like I was moving through cotton to get out of bed and hit snooze. It took 25 minutes or so (it's a cell phone alarm that goes off every five minutes), but I finally stopped feeling like that after the third or fourth iteration. I even managed to get up in time to take a shower and such before leaving for class.

And also my mouth felt disgusting. Needed water, I guess.

I have to be at a physical therapy appointment at 8:15am tomorrow. This is going to be interesting.

On the bright side, I feel much less pain than I did half a week ago.