I’ve been quiet on this blog lately for a couple of reasons. One of which is that I have a couple of book manuscripts I have been working on, but the other is that I was considering the feelings of a family member who after not speaking to me for a very long time, rang me up to discuss this site. In considering this family member’s feelings, I stopped writing for a little bit.

But, like I have said before on this site, child abuse thrives on silence. On secrecy. On being too afraid of what someone will say or do to you.

If you ask me to stop helping myself and others, then fall off the face of the planet again, then why did I stop in the first place? The “favor” you ask of me is to shut up and sit down. And when I do, you disappear again. You don’t support me. You don’t maintain a relationship with me. Remind me why should I do you a “favor” again?

Anyone who asks you to do something that hurts you, or is a huge step backwards for you, is not your friend. This person does not have your best interest at heart, only their own.

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!” My mother created an alternate reality where I was stupid, talentless and unlovable- as a teen and adult, I sometimes found myself attracted to people that mimicked this “personal truth” for me. I sought out and kept around some people who would tell me how horrible I was only to turn right around and ask for a favor, just like my mother did.

The first step in shaking off the toxic people in my life was the hardest. I had to fully embrace the fact that I was a good person. Not perfect, but good and trying to be even better. I was not all these negative things the toxic people in my life said I was. That took a very long time to realize (and I still struggle with it).

Next I had to create distance between myself and these people, which was hard because I cared about them. Realizing you could care about someone without putting yourself in harm’s way was a difficult concept to grasp, one often called “loving detachment.”

Finally, I knew I could make and keep friendships with the positive people in my life, the people who had been, and would truly be, my friends. The people who’d tell me I’m wrong when I have made a mistake and lift me up when I fall; not the people who’d degrade me everyday just to satisfy their own egos.

I think about the numerous reasons I stayed quiet about being abused until now, and even as an adult I have a fear of retaliation for speaking up.

Some of it was very likely programmed into me as a child, the overt threats and abominable lies that kept me in line. Threats of an even worse life; threats of death.

Today I can’t help but fear that some boogeyman is going to get me for writing about all this. I have not received a single threat, but still the fear lingers… would someone I know actually kill me over this? Or have I been watching too much Law & Order?

All I know for sure are the wise words of Mark Twain, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.” I will not stop because I feel afraid or unsure of what will come next. Truly, none of us know what will happen next year, next week or even in the next few minutes. Fear cannot paralyze us or we will never learn how to live.

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. When I moved away from home at 18, I settled into college life in north Florida and was doing exceptionally well academically, socially and extra-curricularly. I also happened to fall in love. My first love.

Everything in my life was great, and I could not have asked for more.

The summer after my freshman year things changed. I was hit with flashbacks and an overwhelming feeling of sinking, followed by dissociation. The summer term at college was very quiet, and perhaps the lack of distraction caused all these things I had been holding down for years to surface.

I wound up seeking counseling and was first disastrously put on Prozac, and later switched to a low dosage of lorazepam. I was neurotypical; I was a healthy person having flashbacks of a hellish childhood.

But I didn’t tell my boyfriend that. All he knew was that I was vaguely having some weird issues and was taking some pills. I wasn’t ready to admit to myself what was happening, let alone him. I think I was afraid that he would all of a sudden see me as some gutter trash that not even her parents could love, and leave me.

Instead, the mystery caused a bigger problem. He was a 19 year old boy, and though he was very mature, I do not think he could handle the idea of being with someone who he perhaps thought was going to be chronically mentally ill.

I wish I had just told him the truth. It would have helped the both of us. It was towards the end of that summer that I stopped taking the lorazepam altogether- I didn’t feel like myself on it and it severely lowered my libido along with the annoying side effect of memory loss after taking it in the evenings and mornings. I have not been on any medication since, and am again working on my issues and fears from my childhood with a clear mind.

I do have a great boyfriend now. A job that works with my schedule. I still find time to travel. But, I am still guilty about what I put that young man through all those years ago. I loved him, but was scared. Scared to tell him what was actually wrong, and scared to tell him clearly and without inhibition how I felt about him. It reminds me of a song we used to listen to:

“You were fighting every day

So hard to hide the pain

I know you never said goodbye

I had so much left to say…”

(Angel’s Son, Sevendust)

And today, I am angry. When my parents were abusing me, did they have any idea just how far-reaching the effects would be? That I would not be able to have a relationship with someone where I could be honest and open about the past until today? That all those people had to be hurt along the way?

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. I remember her playing Scrabble with me and my brother at the kitchen table, (with a bit more liberal use of the dictionary than the rules allow.) My mother liked words and word games, so it was a natural fit for her. There was no concept of “letting the kids win” but we sometimes did.

I remember being around 8 or 9 years old and my mother giving me a quarter to make the beds. I excitedly took the warm, fresh-from-the-dryer bedsheets and made her queen sized bed and the twin beds. She was trying to establish a routine of chore-based allowance. This was short lived though, because with her not working herself, the quarters ran out.

There was a dinner she made every Sunday. The recipe had been taking off the side of a tomato sauce can when she was married to my father, well before I was born, we were told. It was a pretty simple dish, inaptly called “Chicken Fricassee.” (I was actually very surprised years later to order chicken fricassee in a restaurant and have stewed chicken in a cream sauce come to the table.) It basically consisted of chicken breast with the bones still in it that we three split, canned tomato sauce, onions and green peppers, and white rice (usually burnt). A pretty straightforward and typical dinner for some, but my mother prepared this with much fanfare, and yes, compared to our usual “dinners” this was something worth singing about. I think she really thought that cooking a normal meal that did not include a deep fryer full of dirty oil was doing something special, doing something for her family. Just maybe she did…

There were glimmers at times of a mother. And that fed my hopes. That, and the fact that for the longest time I thought we were like every other divorced family in the world. If my schoolmates’ lives were different it was because they had two parents instead of one. As divorce became more common this rationale could not even begin to explain the anomaly of my life.

Not only has going public been difficult, embarrassing, and painful, it was something that even a few months ago I would never have dreamed of doing. I had always kept my mouth shut, and suffered the terrible consequences of doing so- one of which was not allowing people to get too close to me. My denial of the past cost me people I wish were in my life today, people I may not be able to get back.

I tried quietly to handle this within my own family and received nothing but push back and excuses, my favorite being, “Everyone goes through hell in life? What’s your problem?!” This version of “get over it” completely misses the point.

While telling my story I hope will help others, it is also an effort to continue healing me. I have survived and accomplished things so far and I need to keep working to cure myself as much as I can.

I also wonder if survivors sharing their stories, from known figures like Oprah Winfrey, Jeannette Walls, Adeline Yen-Mah and Dave Pelzer, to bloggers online, will help protect the next generation. Abuse thrives in the dark of secrecy. If enough of us speak up, abusers will have to think twice becuase children may be less afraid to tell someone what is happening at home. Evil cannot last under a hot spotlight.

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.

Find something comical everyday. It can be a funny website, like lolcats.com, or a sitcom that makes you laugh. Maybe you have a friend who is hilarious to be around. It could even be a favorite comedy movie or book.

And always, be ready to laugh at yourself. None of us are perfect. And if you can find humor in your own situation, you may also find a way to make it right.

2. One step at a time. Baby steps are okay, too.

When you’re mired in depression, anxiety or shame, getting back to happiness, to feeling normal, can seem nearly impossible. But by breaking it down into little steps and taking as many of those little steps you can everyday, you will start to feel better and one day you will wake up to see that the finish line is in sight.

I was so shy around people in my middle school. With all the bullying and ostracization I encountered my self-esteem was zilch. When I tried to make friends with new classmates, I was petrified. I started out very small. I said, “Hello,” in class. On a good day, I may ask what someone got for problem #27 on their algebra homework. These little queries were just meaningless small talk for my classmates, but for me it was huge. I eventually made long-lasting friendships with some of these people. And it started with finding the courage to take a baby step in the right direction.

3. Grieve “what could have been” without wallowing.

In recent years, my big problem has been an overwhelming sense of regret. Despite the things I have accomplished in my life (perhaps because of them), I feel like I was robbed of a chance to do even more. Maybe, instead of taking care of my mother while she forbade me to leave the apartment, I could have been taking dance or acting lessons. Maybe I could have been skipped a year ahead in school. Maybe in high school, instead of working so many hours, I could have had the time to study more and been valedictorian of my class. If I hadn’t felt the need to stay close to my Florida hometown when I went off to college, I could have gone a to a really great school out of state. The list of maybes and what ifs can go on and on.

All of us who were robbed of childhoods and adequate emotional support from our families feel like maybe we could have been someone better. Someone smarter, better looking, more athletic, more admired.

The truth is, we are here today because of all the moments and seconds in our lives that came before. Change any moment, any second of our lives and we would be unrecognizable. We may not even be here at all.

It is okay to grieve over a lost opportunity every once in a while. But to wallow in that grief, to not do anything with today because we are so upset at what happened yesterday only further ruins our chances of making our lives great.

4. You’re important. But there are things bigger than you, too.

Devoting time to a volunteer organization or to help a friend or family member in need can help divert your attention from your problems just long enough for you to put your problems in focus. When people are counting on you to help cook a meal for the homeless or your little cousin is expecting you to cheer him on at his softball game, you have to get yourself out of bed, get dressed and put on a smile.

One caveat: I became a workaholic and avoided my issues altogether. As with all things in life there is a balance. Don’t completely ignore yourself!

5. Never give up hope. Ever.

Human beings are incredibly resilient. People survive horrific accidents. Wars. Concentration camps. Survivors are the people who never gave up hope. Whatever you are going through, never give up.

In order to create a better tomorrow for ourselves, we have to be able to imagine what that tomorrow will look like and how we expect to get there. The essence of hope is that this beautiful future is possible.

6. Know when to let go. (Loving Detachment)

While healthy human beings have an innate instinct to help one another, change starts with the individual. If a person does not want to change and become a better person you cannot force them to.

With alcoholics, drug addicts, and anyone else with a life-blocking issue, unless they want to face that they have a problem, there is no way you can help them. This does not mean, however, that you do not love them.

I love both my parents; but they have seriously derailed their lives and put their children through hell in the process. I cannot sustain a healthy relationship with either them unless they seek treatment.

I love them, but have detached myself from their dysfunction. In order to save myself, I had to jump ship. The captain of the boat is the only one who can change course. And I refuse to aide and abet them anymore in their unhealthy ways, and reinforce and reward their negative habits.

“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. As I got older and started to grasp that something was wrong with the way we were living, I made our lives more normal, I forced some miniscule bits of normalcy into our home. I eventually made friends, friends whom I hung out with after school (which always caused a fight with my mother) and yes, friends I invited to our apartment, again risking the wrath of my mother. These “strangers” invaded her ritualized snactuary, changing her routine. She’d keep an okay front with some of my friends for a little while, but irrespective of how she behaved in front of them, I’d always get an earful of her awful shrieking later.

So, even though I started making friends at 12/13, these people I did not think could be my “best friends” because everyone already had one. Kids make best friends in elementary school and some sooner. I always felt like I was too late.

Another coping strategy I used as a child was dissociation. I daydreamed a lot. By daydreaming I could have fun and do things while being quiet (silence was what all the adults in my life wanted including my mother who was too engrossed in her rituals; my father who was too drunk to handle anything that couldn’t be done on autopilot; and my teachers who were trying to rein in classes of 25 hyper kids).

Dissociation made it possible to deal with the mental and physical abuse by my parents, and to not be dragged down into an even deeper depression by my classmates who, acting by social instinct, ruthlessly made fun of me and ostracized me for years in school. I mention in “The Tyranny of Looking the Other Way,” that many of these classmates remained in class with me through high school and some even would up at my college. This caused an embarassment that was awful to bear, and while I did well in school I was anxious many days around these upper-middle class kids who probably remembered clearly my days of being the smelly, poor, fat girl in the room.

The funny thing about dissociation is that too much of it can be a bad thing. Dissociation can lead to derealization, where everything around you can seem surreal. Derealization is like walking through a dream… except even dreams can seem real, whereas derealization never does. You can be experiencing things mentally and even expressing the correct emotions on your face, but not be wholly feeling the moment.

As things slowly got better in my life, around age 12, I had to fight my desire to slip into daydreaming instead of interacting with people. The people around me were so cruel that it just seemed safer to stay inside myself. It took a long time for me to be more social (such a pity, since I remember when I was quite young being gregarious when I was away from my parents), and when I’m feeling down I still revert inside myself and only want to socialize with people I already feel close to.

I am still struggling with the idea that my childhood was not my fault. Logically, I get that. Emotionally, it is still a challenge. But I am glad that I can recognize my feelings for what they are now and can continue living my life the best I can… which is the most any of us are able to do.

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 and poorly fitted secondhand clothes, but got to eat filet mignon and occasionally escargot on the weekend.

It was deliriously strange and contradictory. I had a grasp of the “finer things” in life, but lived lower class most days of the year. What’s worse, is that I didn’t have a clear blueprint for how one gets out of rancid food from dirty pots and pans to French cuisine. It was never clear where my father’s money came from, and I was being well trained by my mother to manipulate people (like my father) for pennies on the dollar. Surely, that was not a career, and surely that was no way to move into a higher social class.

I felt alone in this odd situation until I read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. I related strongly to the struggling March family being invited to dine with the wealthy Laurences, or oldest daughter Meg only having one nice dress to wear while her friends had many. Like Meg’s one fine dress, I too had the occasional gift from my father that was clearly expensive and stood in stark contrast to the other poor quality items in my mother’s apartment.

My father maybe was oblivious to me and my brother’s financial predicament. Maybe he did not want to reward my mother’s shoddy work ethic. At any rate, this lack of consistency was confusing… and hurtful. Our father had so much money, and our mother had none and as kids, we could not figure out why.

As a child, it was not at all apparent to me that my mother was not working, or only working part-time. I had nothing to compare this to; it did not seem odd at all.

I was too young to make the connection between working in order to have money, and that the better job you had, the more money you made, and that if you were struggling to make ends meet you did not sit on your ass watching TV all day- you got a second job! And at the very least, you did not train your oldest child to lie and manipulate a gross old drunk man for your “rent check.” (see Visits to My Father)