Mother and Caregiver: Background
Background 1963 - 1975
She was born February 27, 1963. The happiest day
of our lives was when each of our children was born. When we took my older daughter
home from the hospital she would not drink her bottle. It would take her up to 2 hours
for her to take her bottle. Of course we did not know this was odd until we had our
second and our third daughters who drank the bottle in nano seconds.
She was a delightful child and the apple of her father’s eye. She
adored her sisters, spoke early, and walked at 15 months. Besides having trouble
drinking the bottle she was also very sensitive. Her feelings were hurt easily. This was
evident when she started school and would cry at the slightest happening. Everyday I
called a friend of mine who listened to me trying to figure out what was wrong with my
daughter. My daughter also had trouble learning to read. I did not understand this until
her middle sister entered school and by 1st grade was reading. She was in 3rd grade having
difficulty. At that time I went back to school to become a teacher and find out why my
child could not read since no one in school could help me. I found there was a disability
called Dyslexia. I had her examined at Columbia Presyperterian Hospital and they agreed
she had Dyslexia. I was also tested and it showed I too had it. She needed to be taught to
read by sight not by the new method of phonics. Needless to say it was not easy getting
the school to change the way she was taught. By this time the damage was done. Her
self confidence was at its lowest. Her estimation of herself was that she was stupid. By
this time she was in 6th grade and developing to be a beautiful girl. She was blessed with
a large bust. The boys teased her. Therefore, with the low self esteem and extreme
sensitivity and the need for acceptance she fell in with the wrong crowd, dabbled in
drugs and smoked. Every step of the way my husband and I were trying to get her
psychological help, fighting with her, punishing her, and even following her and finding
out about the drugs.
“As a young girl my parents discovered I had dyslexia. They brought me to
several specialists who also felt I had ADD because I had such trouble concentrating in
school. My work in school was modified but in the late 1960’s medicines such as Ritalin
were not yet approved. I struggled through elementary school but had two wonderful
parents who were always behind me. My mother worked very hard at teaching me to
read. She went back to school to be a teacher so she could understand why I could not
learn and the process I needed to learn. I began to learn not to transpose so many letters
but math still caused me great difficulty. I was put in the resource room for math and
reading comprehension. At this point I was called names like retard or dummy because
there were only 4 other children who went for special help in those years. I went home
everyday feeling stupid. I have 2 younger sisters who basically excelled at school. This
made my feelings of inadequacy feel worse. At this point I was in 7th grade and my
parents had to move to El Paso, Texas because my dad had to change his job. This was
1974. My junior high school was 75% Mexican. There were many groups either
popular or potheads. Having poor self esteem I just wanted to fit in and there was no
middle ground unless you were very intelligent. I also did not feel very pretty. I wore
braces and glasses. I tried making friends but it was tough because I did not really fit in
anywhere. The potheads could be so nice if you went along with what they did. I began
smoking cigarettes and eventually pot. This even began fights with Mexicans who were
not overjoyed accepting an Anglo kid into their group. I started coming home from
school stoned and my school worked suffered. My father would not allow me to be
home alone and I was continually grounded for nasty behavior to my mother.
My father refused to let me become a drug addict at age 12. Now that I look back that is when the mental illness set in. I would continually pace back and forth in front of everyone and scream things out of no where. It came to a point my father had to make me stay in my room when I was going through these outbursts. My parents did not realize what was really happening to me. I was coming off the marijuana because I was taken to and from school and not allowed out after school, I continued to worsen thinking the world hated me because I could never stop talking about bad and how stupid I was. I still believe the reason I wanted to smoke marijuana and possibly get into more drugs was because I was depressed and unhappy with myself. I never realized at this age I could have mental illness and have very strange thoughts in my head and people like my own father could not tolerate my personality. My father had to move us back to New Jersey to get me out of this school I was going to. This was a very selfless thing a father can do for a daughter. We moved back to a wealthy part of New Jersey with a good school system but this made me more uncomfortable because no matter how hard my parents worked they could not afford to live in this town. “
Sophomore Year 1976
At age 16 my daughter meets her sole mate. She was finally happy. Little did
she know he too suffered from a form of mental illness. He saw a physiatrist weekly for
personality disorder. This relationship gave her a new way to look at herself. Finally
she was accepted. She did better in school, she had two friends and seemed very happy
for a few years.
“My parents had me going to group therapy, within the school, to try and help me with my depressed moods. Most of the other kids were from homes of abuse and alcoholism. I felt like I didn’t belong in these groups.”
“I went out socially on the weekends with my friends. Now I realize they thought I was fun when I was in my manic mood. I felt happier in my manic mood. “
“Growing up I had great parents but something was wrong. “I always
compared myself to my sisters. always had a weight problem. I was never comfortable
in my body. My Mom is the sweetest person you could ever meet. By this time I was already a freshman in high school and my Mom was still helping me with my homework. She explained by failing now would really hurt me later since I had dreams of going to college. Sometimes I would become so frustrated I would scream and yell over math homework which was my downfall. I even sat there
and threw and crumpled papers and wrote the answers to tests on my hands. I finally did
excel at English because I had a wonderful creative writing teacher who let me write
stories about depression. In a creative way, I wrote one story about leaves dancing
around but I was circling so fast I could not escape. To my surprise, I won the creative
writing award and saw my parents so proud. “
1977, 1978 Junior, Senor Years of High School
1982 2 year AA College degree
“In my junior year my middle sister entered her freshman year and I felt
happy because she understood me better than my friends. My middle sister is a very
quite person but one day she totally surprised me. Since I started to look better, the
braces came off, my hair grew long and I actually had the boys chasing me. One football
player liked me and his cheerleader girlfriend decided she was going to beat me up. We
were in the bathroom and she pushed me into a sink. My sister came at her and told her
if she did not leave me alone she would go straight to the principal. This same girl
started to have her friends calling me names like slut and stupid. My depression
worsened from being thin I started on a weight gain eating tons of candy bars and
drinking cans of coke. I would cry to my mother that I was fat and she bought me
clothes to cover me up a bit. I felt I would never go to college and my sisters were much
smarter than I would ever be. Finally I got out of high school with D’s. The community
college did accept me because I did excel at writing and English. I took early childhood
education and psychology which I pulled A’s in. I was fascinated with psychology and
enjoyed studying early childhood education. My GPA was low because I had to
take Math and Science. I had to take biology and psychology and statistics which were
required subjects. I had tutors and I eventually graduated with a degree in early
childhood education. “
1984
My daughter marries her sole mate in 1984 and over the next 10 years they have
3 children.
“My husband was an unusual person. He didn’t talk too much but kind of understood me. He tried to go to school to be a chiropractor and when that did not work out he finished college and got a business degree. He would also talk about becoming a Born Again Christian. I was accepting of all religions, his changing his faith did not upset me.
I got a job in a nursery school and worked there for two years. I was not making enough money as a nursery school teacher so I left my job and got a job in customer service. This did not last long because I had trouble using the computer and was demoted to a file clerk. I found that I could not accept constructive criticism and started to go from job to job. I was still earning money but could not type or use a computer. I found a job doing survey work at a mall. It did not pay a lot but I enjoyed talking to all types of people. I still didn’t feel very good about myself because I had to use a computer to input the peoples responses. I took a job in Burger King. I liked this job, I spoke to people and was busy all the time.
I loved animals and had a special way with them. I also had a special way with
children. My husband got a cute poodle who was a stray from a very bad neighborhood.
We bathed him and fed him and he started to fill out. He became my best friend. I then
became pregnant and was absolutely thrilled. My daughter was born and we were
blessed with a wonderful child. I sent her to nursery school at age 3 and was told how
accept ional she was. She was fascinated with books rather than toys and started to read
at age 3. My husband had a typewriter and she was fascinated with that also. She would
sit and type the alphabet and then words. By the time she entered kindergarten she was
writing letters to her grandparents. She was very friendly and made a lot of friends in
school. “
“When we got married and started having children my husband changed. He just didn’t want to deal with the children. He didn’t want to deal with responsibility or money. He was a college graduate and had his own business as a landscaper but could not deal with the public. He is an only child and was constantly running home to help his parents.
My husband could not work for anyone and opened his own landscaping
business. He was never home but when he was my daughter was the light of his life.
Then more problems began. He had a very physical business. He came home around
7 pm every night and I had his dinner ready. Then he started not to come home for
dinner. He left his equipment at his parents house and had dinner there. He would not
even call me he was going to be late. I began to feel unappreciated and went into my
first real depression. I took in stray dogs who I took good care of. I took them to the vet which I could not afford. My daughter loved animals. Then I became pregnant again with my son. He was a severely colicky baby and I had to drive around all night so everyone else could sleep. My husband closed his business because he could not interface with the customers or keep up with the large landscaping
businesses that were springing up. He took a job as a residence counselor. He learned a
lot less money and worked all night and slept all day. My son was such a colicky baby I
rarely got any sleep or help from my husband. My husband then took a second job. My
daughter was six and my son was three and things started to become a little easier. The
elementary school felt my daughter was so intelligent they wanted to skip her a grade. I
said no because I felt she wasn’t socially ready. This is one of the very few times in my
life I felt so proud. My husband was never around now so I could not share to good or
bad moments with him. When he was home he was always so tired and disinterested in
the children. I called my mother everyday now discussing the children. I felt like a
single mother and alone but I could not share my true feelings about my husband. The
depression started to return. Then my husband lost his jobs. The money was dwindling.
I got a job working at a department store at night and baby sitting during the day.
I would come home and he would be asleep on the couch and the children ages 6 and 3
were running around the house. I was not feeling that well and discovered I was
pregnant again. My husband kept asking his parents to pay the mortgage instead of
looking for another job. Being a college graduate, I knew he could find some type of
job. His parents were quite wealthy and he felt they could pay the mortgage. I never
understood why they did not try to set him up in a business so he could try to help
himself. He took a job as a truck driver, not sending me money for weeks at a time.
He was totally disinterested in my pregnancy. I had to go on food stamps and could not
pay the bills or my mortgage. My parents kept sending me money for food and taking
me shopping. My pregnancy was tough because the doctors found I had lupus and in
the 6th month thought I would lose my baby. Fortunately my daughter was born healthly
and on time. The bank finally foreclosed on the house, the sheriff put the lock on the
door and my children and I were left out in the cold. My youngest daughter was 2 years
old, my son was 6 and oldest daughter 9. I had no choice but to move in with my
parents and tell them the truth.
Today my x-husband does not work and takes care of his elderly father living in approximately a million dollar home. In 1997 we separated.”
First Separation 1997
My daughter moved in to our house with the 3 children and the dog in February
1997. She lived with us for 9 months. When she moved in she was very fragile.
We really did not know what kind of help to get her until we experienced her first
mental breakdown. All I could associate with is my mother leaving for 3 years. My
daughter had no money and no insurance.. We certainly could not afford the kind of
medical help she needed. I took her to the nearest hospital and brought her through as an
emergency through the clinic. This was the beginning of many mental breakdowns. We
nursed her back to health, took care of our grandkids, and she got a job.
She says” I know it was such a burden on my family living with 3 small children, the youngest was 2 and screamed all night. My x-husband wanted too reconcile, what I didn’t realize he just did not want to pay child support. He got us an apartment in New Milford, a drug infested house, where we slept in the attic like squirrels.” In 2000 the x-husband’s mother paid for a lawyer for him to divorce me and leave the family to fend for themselves. He and his family felt my parents should take care of me and the kids. This killed me because I knew the responsibility of my family should be taken care of by my husband and myself. “
The divorce was final in May 22, 2000.
2001 - 2004
In 2001, my daughter meets a single man who has one daughter and moves in
with him. For a period of about a year, this is very good for her and the kids. The man
is very good with her son who is very difficult to handle because of his ADHD and
Tourettes. Her younger daughter has a friend in the man’s daughter and the older
daughter likes the school. My daughter finds a job in a supermarket, which she
excels at, since the line is always moving. Things are actually good
for a while. We all take a breather. Then she starts having seizures. The first seizure is
at work. These seizures are diagnosed as Lupus seizures and are accompanied with
depression that is diagnosed as bipolar disorder. My daughter starts to have a lot of pain
in her joints from the lupus and the depression gets worse and worse. She has a neighbor
who introduces her to a lupus doctor and he prescribes pain meds. The pain meds not
only helped her joint pain but because she could move again the depression was not as
bad and they seemed to control the manic episodes. She tried to go back to work but
couldn’t. The depression got worse, she became dependent on pain meds. Her children
were not getting along with the man’s daughter and now there was no money. I had
started the process for her to get SSD in 2001 when she could not work. In September
2003 my daughter is awarded disability based on he Lupus and Bipolar disorder. Now it
it is 2005, the man became abusive to her and her older daughter and she knows she has
to leave. Where was she to go? She did not want to move the children out of
Lyndhurst, her older daughter had one more year of high school and she would graduate.
The x-husbands father said he would pay for an apartment in Lyndhurst for one year so
the older child could graduate. He did not care after that. We offered to pay half of the
rent if they took an apartment on the ground floor. The only apartment they would take
was one on the 2nd floor and my daughter, with Lupus would have a hard time living
there. I would not help with this apartment, they took it anyway. It was very dangerous
and dangerous to park. My daughter eventually fell down the stairs, tore her ACL and
needed an operation. The pain was excruciating and she had to be given pain meds…….
This once again started her dependency on pain medicine..
February 2005
“When we moved into the second Lyndhurst apartment everything was falling apart in the apartment and in my life. At this point the only thing that made me feel better were the pain meds being prescribed for the Lupus joint pain. That was usually vicodin. My mother and father finally understood what was going on. I felt so guilty I could not support myself and my children in a normal way. I made trips to the food bank. My older daughter was working so I even took money from her for food. My son did not want to go to school and my younger daughter was in resource room in school. I began doing terrible things like going from doctor to doctor to get pain killers. I was also taking clonopin which I got from my psychiatrist. So the cycle began, every February
or late January, and late June or early July I seem to have a nervous breakdown. I can’t live in my body and I go looking for relief in the form of an overdose to calm my nerves.”
