By Tara Overzat
Over the years, I have been lucky to have a lot of good friends from all over the world. However, I fell into a habit that I was only recently able to shake- getting close to toxic people.
Toxic people may be drug addicts or alcoholics; perverts; criminals; or just normal-seeming people who put you down at every turn, feeding off negative energy and kicking you when you’re down.
While good friends and associates tell you that you are mature, responsible, intelligent and cute (and are straight with you when you miss the mark), toxic people will tell you that you are immature, crazy, dumb and fat all of the time. Any praise you get from them is backhanded and intended to make the toxic person feel better about himself.
Growing up, these dual messages were all I got. When teachers, classmates, or other “outsiders” congratulated me on my accomplishments, all my mother could say was, “They don’t know what you’re like at home!” Read more »
By Tara Overzat
For the survivor of child abuse, the events that happened don’t just go away. If they are not dealt with they may manifest into the strangest of problems in your life. (See The Michael Jackson Tragedy- What Happens When You Don’t Deal With Your Past) As such, all of us who survived child abuse are “living with child abuse” for the rest of our lives.
But we can still have great and accomplished lives. (See What Will Happen to the Children?) Here are some strategies that I have used to deal with the past while living very much in the present.
1) Keep your sense of humor. Read more »
Tags: anxiety, depression, Living With Child Abuse, loving detachment, overwhelmed, regret, surviving child abuse
Acts of Kindness, Alcoholism, Healing, Personal, Surviving | admin, 5 Jul 09 | 
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By Tara Overzat
I never remember being spoke to as a child by either of my parents. My mother used me, from about the age of 5 on, as confidant and, surprisingly, advice giver. So dependent was she on my father, that when he mercifully left, she sincerely did not know how to do the simplest of things.
Not long after my father left, we went to visit my fraternal grandfather, who lived 3 miles away from us in our New York town, a town she had lived in well before I was born. Leaving his home, she got to the stop sign down the street and asked “Left or right?” Read more »
By Tara Overzat
My mother squandered what little money she received from the divorce, and for years we went without.
My father, through means never shared with me but indeed shady, had money to spare. He liked to eat out at nice restaurants, and as usual, me and my brother’s presence would not keep him from doing whatever he wanted. As such, I was going to school unshowered with holes in my shoes Read more »
By Tara Overzat
I would discover years later that not only was the divorce decree between my parents never kept, it was extremely different from what I thought it would be. It would also prove to be completely unenforceable in the State of Florida that my father had cleverly moved to, since my mother never made a move to have it be made legal in that state.
That being said, what started out as short afternoon visits a couple of Sundays out of the month, where we returned to the relative safety of my mother’s care in the evenings, turned into weekend long odysseys where we weren’t quite sure what would happen.
My mother, knowing my father was a drunk, knowing he’d abused us Read more »
