Childhood Getting This Off My Chest: High School Counselor Issues

[Ava Jarvis]

I'm told that, back in the 80s, child abuse was not really taken seriously.

For instance, I came to my high school counselor to tell him that my parents were abusing me and I was hurt and afraid for my life. So he kept me in his office—I was so sure he was going to call the police, or somebody, and then I'd be out of the house—but he had called my parents. They came into the office. He told them I was lying to him about child abuse and needed to be disciplined. Then he sent me home with them.

Then there was my English teacher. She knew I was being abused. She witnessed it when she walked me home once. She saw how my parents were starving me in my lunches as well—I got two slices of white bread, a slice of cheese, and a small container of milk for lunch from my parents, not because they couldn't afford anything else, but because they were afraid I would get fat—and... Well, I traded helping out with grading for actual lunch food she'd buy for me. But she didn't tell any authorities about what was going on. Maybe she would have lost her job if she did.

After the high school counselor incident I figured people just didn't give a damn. Maybe they still don't.

It makes me sad and angry. But oh well. :/

 

[Silent one]

I get that feeling too, that maybe people just don't give a damn. But... I will never be one of those people! I'm glad you are here. I'm happy to have found this site.

 

[Sideways]

Even if there is a generational thing going on, that was still completely unacceptable and I hope, for the sake of the children that followed, that the counsellor decided to change careers and is now working as a plumber or something where they can't hurt any more kids. A lot of kids never ask for help, so it's critical we get it right first time if they do ask.

I'm glad that part of you is angry about that. I pull out this same old worn-out quote from someone else all the time, but if you're angry, it's because you know you're worth being angry for. And you are definitely worth being angry for.

What amazes me about your posts is that you're able to talk about this stuff the way you do. It's, like, phwoar! You've been through hell, and this counsellor basically condemned you to how many more years of abuse? And yet you seem to have reached a point where you can talk about it almost in a way that (seems) to say, "this was shite, but I'm stronger now..."

This was shite. Really shite. But you have inspirational amounts of strength and courage. This counsellor is just another demon that you've overcome. It's inspiring to read your posts. I'm so sorry you were abandoned by this useless piece of work, but I'm really glad you found this forum, because it's so great having you around:)

 

[Deleted member 33052]

Ava, I'm sickened at the thought of a victim - especially a young victim - being treated this way. I'm sorry that this happened to you after you had the courage to ask for help. You were let down by everyone!

I can only tell you that you will be a stronger and more compassionate person because of this. :hug:

 

[EveHarrington]

Truthfully (I guess I should say IMHO)-------high school guidance counselors are only really good at making schedules.

"Counseling" in high school means counseling on what classes to take (but nobody tells you this.)

 

[Ava Jarvis]

Thanks, all. :blush:

My father told me when I was very little that I had to keep all the abuse quiet. That it was a special secret, only between him and me. And that the abuse meant he loved me. I wouldn't want to destroy that specialness by blabbing, would I?

So yeah, in high school I decided that was bullshit. And from high school on I worked on telling people about what happened. The high school counselor incident should have shut me up, and it did for a while. I learned I had to be way more careful about who I told this stuff to.

At some point I decided that (a) I don't tell this stuff to authorities, because they won't help; (b) I do tell this stuff to friends, because their reaction determines whether they are safe or not (hint: safety is more complicated than that, as it turns out); (c) I do post it on forums and blogs and tumblr and Twitter and wherever else I can. I am so terribly shameless about my pain. And I kept doing it in spite of weird or even dangerous responses I'd get sometimes.

Sometimes I wonder if writing about the abuse and talking about it all the time, even when I didn't have a psychologist or psychiatrist, helped in some way. Definitely it let me process a lot of stuff, though it never managed to integrate my memories, so flashbacks still happen, sigh.

I realize that all sounds terribly promiscuous in a way. But in a world where understanding is hard to come by, I cast my net very, very wide.

 

[Deleted member 33052]

Your perspective is so interesting. I didn't tell anyone because I was convinced that I was responsible for all of it. I was so ashamed...

And you're right - writing is cathartic. :)

 

[Ava Jarvis]

Thanks, @Mal Content.

I want to say that all of you inspire me, too. People say I'm strong, and I guess I am, but that doesn't mean I don't have times when I am terrible and traumatized.

It was easier for me to see my father as responsible earlier than for other folks. I was protective of my mother, and he hit her every chance he got. I did my best to distract him, so he'd hit me instead of her, but it didn't always work out, and sometimes it got too much for me. What I wouldn't have seen if the abuse had been aimed purely at myself, I could see clearly when the abuse was aimed at someone I loved. Even if that person I loved didn't protect me, even if that person I loved told me before a Certain Incident that I shouldn't struggle against my father because he loved us, even if that person demanded that I find a way to get her out after that Certain Incident.

(Certain Incident was a murder attempt I couldn't stop. I was ten. I swear I didn't provoke my father. He tried to strangle me; my mother, in one of her rare and possibly only moment(s) of bravery, attempted to pull him off. He slammed her head through the wall. There was a hole in the wall. He retreated to his bedroom once it was apparent she was still breathing. I took care of the mess. There was a lot of blood, and a hole in the wall. Sigh.)

Anyways, I just ended up taking a different kind of responsibility for a very long time. Man, I got creative as f*ck trying to get us out or get my father to stop or, hell, just temporarily escape my father's murder attempts.

I never did get us both out, because my mother ended up trying to pull me back into the mess harder when she realized what I was doing. I don't understand entirely why she did that. Nobody will really know. I sometimes try to figure it out, but I have concerned myself less and less with that. By that time I was 21 and knew better than the little kid me that would have gone along with it. That had gone along with it for years.

Funnily enough, when I was on the cusp of going to college, my father tried to beat us at the wrong time and I punched him in the nose. There was blood cause apparently that's what happens with nose punches. He ran off to his bedroom. I was ashamed I had stooped to violence. After a while he figured out that I was refusing to hit back. After a while he got brave all over again and returned to his old ways because he'd found the line I wasn't willing to cross.

And then I went to college. Hell would continue for years after even that measure.

 

[Ava Jarvis]

For the record, I did try to get the police to help. My mother always undid it. She'd burn the divorce papers they gave her, she almost drove to the court house once but turned back and insisted we both wait for my father to be released and come home.

Every time I said we needed to get out, she would cry and threaten to kill herself and say that we couldn't survive without dad's money.

I gave in. I loved her so much.

I don't anymore. I don't think it's sad. Some other people told me that it's sad that I don't love even my mother.

But they didn't live with her, so yeah.

ETA: hang the f*ck on. She told me she wanted to get out. But every time I tried to get us out, even after she gave me permission, she sabotaged it or pulled me back in. I don't even know why I didn't think about that contradiction before. What the f*ck is wrong with me.

 

[Stickler]

...She put her shit on you.
An adult putting their responsibility onto a little kid. Pretty outrageous.

 

[Ava Jarvis]

...She put her shit on you.
An adult putting their responsibility onto a little kid. Pretty outrageou...

Yeah. Her life was one long stream of bad decisions after the Vietnam War. Maybe even before then but I have no context for that. I do know she remained rebellious against her parents as long as I knew her. Her parents were the ones who told her to please not get together with my father, they thought he was bad news. Maybe she coudn't take it that they were right.

My grandparents disowned us all when I was little. I'm never going to get back in the family's good graces—I'm a mistake and was never meant to be born. I'm the reason my mother couldn't leave my father. I will never see a cent of money or any bit of acknowledgement. As far as they and the rest of my relatives are concerned, we are all bad eggs, every one of us, better forgotten.

Better off dead.

Hell, mother probably had good reasons to start with for rebelling against her parents. Her brother came by when I was little. She blew him off, too.

My grandparents are, I'm pretty sure, dead. I never got to learn their names.

Heh. I said I was shameless about my pain. I really, really am.

People tell me I ought to check some government database that lists people who are dead, to see if my parents are dead. I wouldn't be surprised if my father eventually did go through with the murder-suicide he had planned on since I was very young. I dunno if they'd be in any such databases—they weren't citizens, but refugees. I was born in the US, so I'm a citizen.

Anyways, I don't check. I used to be afraid of them IRL. Now I'm just afraid of their shadows, but not them directly. People thought me letting go of my fears of them would heal me, magically. It didn't work.

 

[Stickler]

( off topic thought... Since you are kind of stuck not being able to do your old career, and because you write very well, maybe a memoir of growing up would sell?)