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
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. Read more »
By Tara Overzat
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 Read more »
Tags: Adeline Yen-Mah, child abuse, Dave Pelzer, fear, Jeannette Walls, Living With Child Abuse, Oprah Winfrey, secrecy, speaking up
Healing, Personal, Surviving | admin, 7 Jul 09 | 
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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 | Comments (0)
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
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 Read more »
By Tara Overzat
I was a precocious child, and either my mother saw that and intentionally used that to her advantage, or else she was oblivious to it (as she was often oblivious to me and my brother) and I just fell into the role Read more »
By Tara Overzat
Back in February, I wrote a piece on my current events blog shyextrovert chastising my middle school teachers for not getting involved when it was very obvious there was something going on in my home. The piece was called “The Tyranny of Looking the Other Way.” Read more »
By Tara Overzat
Some of the things I’ve written about are going to sound horrible and shocking to people. But for me and my brother, this was normal. This was life. So, along with the bad times, in our perception, there were plenty of good times too.
Now, our good times may not be your good times. Read more »
