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I Love Ritalin - I Hate Those Who Made Me Need It

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AthenaErdmann

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I am so very angry again. Warning - this is not too coherent, I'm just sort of blurting things out.


The trigger for my anger this time was double: 1) all the media attention lately on the sexual child abuse in various churches and other organizations and 2) there were some practical problems in getting my methylphenidate (Ritalin) prescription renewed.


To be sure that I would not run out of medicine while the prescription renewal was pending, I started to take my minimum daily dose instead of my normal dose, which is up to 50% higher. In just three days I was waking up at 04:30 or 05:00 AM, sweaty from nightmares, and catching myself in nightmarish fears also several times during the day. I am so relieved that things worked out and I am back on my normal dosage, but I am so ANGRY that I need to take this medication at all.


I know it is not certain, but it is possible that I could have developed a more normal brain, if I had not since birth been alternatingly kept inadequately nourished (over- or underfed) or intentionally fed food that made me sick, and since age 3 been beaten, yelled at, berated, molested, denied proper health care, repeatedly separated from those few adults who were genuinely caring and safe, denied the physical freedom to develop a normal relationship with my body and physical activity, left alone to care for my younger sisters when I was way too young for that responsibility (and they too young to be without proper adult care and supervision), repeatedly showed and told things that a kid should not hear of or see (violent, sexual, scary medical stuff concerning insanity etc.), kept working until midnight at household chores and for the family business (also on school nights), required to produce straight As only, first forbidden to work outside the home and later tricked, cajoled and blackmailed to work in the family business for next to nothing, get cheated out of a sizable part of my inheritance, and all the time being told how thankful I should be “for all that my parents - especially my mother - have done for me” and “how lucky I am compared to most kids in the world”.


I am just boiling with anger against the people who caused me so much physical pain, degradation, confusion and mental anguish throughout most of my childhood and teenage years that my brain likely will never be normal, however peaceful and happy my life has become. I am dependent on these medicines for my sanity and ability to function, and while I am really happy that I can get these medicines, I simultaneously deeply resent both my parents, my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather for the roles they played in causing my condition.


I will not accept what happened to me and my sisters. I will not hide my feelings from myself anymore. It was wrong, and much of it was illegal.


Hitting kids, dragging her (or him) around by the hair, and throwing them against furniture and walls is never right, and in many parts of the world it is illegal, as it should. Claiming afterwards that no violence ever happened is adding insult to injury, and a gross lie. Yelling at a kid who is ill or hurt, blaming her/him for the illness or accident is a form of sadism, and wrong. Daily telling a kid that she is worthless, ugly, disgusting, and in every manner “below par” is mental abuse, a lie, and wrong - in some parts of the world also illegal. Leaving an ill kid alone for extended times and/or in the hands of a known child-molester is so wrong it is illegal (at least on paper) almost everywhere where there are laws. Feeding a kid, who has chronic stomach problems, an “experimental” diet, instead of taking her/him to a doctor is gross negligence - even farm animals are required to be treated better than that. Giving adult medicines to kids without those medicines being prescribed to each kid personally is medically irresponsible and probably illegal (both my parents were medical doctors, so our environment assumed that they were taking good care of us). Sexually touching a child is both deeply wrong and illegal. Causing a child pain for one's own (sexual and /or sadistic) enjoyment is sick, SICK – and illegal. Leaving a 19-year-old to care for a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old, and to oversee the family business and a building site is incomprehensibly irresponsible and self-centered (I'm sure my mom was upset after my dad committed suicide, but fleeing abroad for six months, and leaving the main responsibility for everything to us kids, including keeping an eye on her elderly mother - well, that's not exactly a grown-up way of dealing with things, to put it mildly). Secretly using a kid's tuition money to pay one's own taxes, and then blaming the kids for getting angry and upset, because one “had no other choice”, is - well, words fail me. Blackmailing one's kids to accept a legal settlement in exchange of replacing that tuition money, and thus pushing all one's kids into several years of unnecessary and in many ways dangerous poverty is totally un-parent-like. Trying to push an alike legal settlement onto the next generation (one's grandchildren), disguised as a gift... That's when I feel like buying a gun (don't worry, though - I won't, that much sense I have even when extremely angry). Thankfully, there is nothing that could trick my husband or myself to accept such a gift - we will keep our kids away from my mother's controlling grasp. It took too long for me to get free, I'm not letting my kids fall into even a small part of the same trap.


Deep sigh.


Getting that written down helped a lot. I'm still angry, but now that feeling is not all-encompassing, it does not completely dominate me. Now I can get some studying and work done today. Seeing in practice that I can indeed accomplish things independently and well is one very effective form of therapy. My parents were so wrong to claim that my sisters and I could only survive in this world as their little assistants, tightly in their control - there is so much more to life than that, both professionally and privately.


Thanks, each and every one who reads this, and special thanks to anthony for starting this forum. Even though I don't have time to read or write nearly as often as I would like, just knowing that you all are out there somewhere makes a really big difference in my life.


Athena
 
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