Rhoni Reuter
By Tara Overzat
Last night’s Dateline focused on the October 2007 murder of Rhoni Reuter, longtime girlfriend of ‘85 Chicago Bears star Shaun Gayle. Often these Datelines are predictable and all fingers point to the significant other. Reuter, however, who was several months pregnant was instead killed by one of Shaun’s many other girlfriends, a real-estate agent and wannabe model, Marni Yang.
What is disturbing though Read more »
By Tara Overzat
My life is pretty good these days, and I have had some very bright, shining moments, seeing and doing things some people only dream of.
However, I do have my regrets. My biggest one is that I hid the burden of my child abuse for way too long. I realize some people never talk about it, and others don’t begin to talk about it til middle age or later, but I have already seen the consequences of keeping this a secret.
I dated someone in college whom I fear I hurt the most with this secret. Read more »
By Tara Overzat
Despite everything that happened, I had happy times as a child. In retrospect the things that made me happy were so minuscule, the things that children in healthy families take for granted. In addition, I think some of it was just my perception of happiness and my warped perception of what was normal.
Before I was old enough to look around and say, “Hey something’s wrong here…” I remember times when I got along with my mother. Read more »
By Tara Overzat
Just because someone is mentally ill does not mean they should not have and raise children. There are thousands of people who struggle with disorders ranging from depression to schizophrenia, who take steps to lead normal lives and are good parents. And there are plenty of neurotypical (NT) parents who don’t care about their kids and end up being crummy parents as well.
The issue is trying to be a good parent Read more »
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
“Who’s your best friend?” can be a common question when you’re a kid in school.
With my mother pretty much forbidding us from socializing outside of the home (except on rare occasion) until I forced the issue at 14, my honest answer to that question was, “No one.”
That was hard for me. 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 »
By Tara Overzat
My mother’s ritualism extended well beyond holding on to the dust bunnies in our apartment. During the day, for example, the TV always had to be on.
Always.
It did not matter if we were eating dinner Read more »
Justice, Mental Illness, Predators | admin, 1 Aug 09 | 
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