#sometimes i want to scream about my autism from the rooftops | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

danktango319 · 9 months

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My personal story:

Bargaining phase (aka scream it from the rooftops), let’s fucking go! I am posting this here because I want to be done with this part of my story. I’ve been given permission by my mother and sister to talk about their parts in this too. By the way, if my trauma makes you uncomfortable, good. Some days I struggle to make the decision to keep going. I’m keeping names out of this.

My mother had me for the wrong reasons and my father committed suicide eight months after I was born. My mother's family had been deeply affected by mental illness due to their own personal traumas and poverty.

My father's family is an Irish Catholic group that was deeply shamed and unable to process the suicide. They didn't know that I existed. I learned about it much younger than I should have, and it's deeply affected me. I tried to talk to them about it, and I was shamed into silence. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk about that?”

My mother and I struggled to find places to live, and moved frequently. I was switching schools on a regular basis. I struggled making friends. I'm also fairly certain I have autism and adhd, so the constant transitions coupled with the knowledge of what happened to my father made me something of a strange child. I was bullied by peers and adults alike. I was molested on several occasions by teenage boys. My mother and grandmother were constantly at odds, and I was in the middle of all of it. I took on adult responsibilities at a young age and would often walk alone around a somewhat rough part of town with rubber jump ropes in case anyone thought about trying to hurt me. I was physically abused, neglected, and isolated. I started watching TV and playing video games a lot. I was also pretty good at the violin.

A couple of weeks before I turned 11, my 5th grade teacher committed suicide. He had the same name as my father. It hit me really hard because at a young age, I made that connection back with what had happened. It was ironic, and it’s weird to realize that at 10. Then the trauma responses started. Because my family didn’t know what it was, I was labeled an obstinately defiant child. My traumas were never resolved.

My mother then gets married, and gets pregnant with my sister. I had been wishing for years for a sibling. I was very excited about her. I got to feed her the first meal out of the womb, and I let her lay on my chest and just watched her breathe. It was the first time in my life I ever really understood what it meant to fall in love with someone. I loved taking care of her. When I bought my first DSLR, I would make her the subject of my photos. We would walk to the park, I would let her take my stuffed animals, we would play Minecraft in creative mode and make pink cotton houses and listen to Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, and Rihanna, and watch movies. I can’t have kids. I poured a lot of love into her.

I got pretty good at the violin without private lessons because poverty fucking sucks. I made concert mistress three years in a row. I taught myself bass. I started playing with the band at church when I was 14. I started dressing up and people would notice. Sometimes certain comments were made about the size of my chest and it made me uncomfortable because I was a child.

I hit puberty and the PCOS made me gain weight even though I had been skinny my entire childhood. I was picked on by everyone, including family and friends. Not only was I this weird, traumatized kid with a strange past, now I was fat. The target on my back grew.

Honestly, my teenage years were spent isolated in my room talking to my best friend on the phone for hours at a time. I wasn’t really welcomed down where the family was, and I was told that regularly. When the rare family trip happened, I was excluded. Due to our financial situations, if I had saved up money for the things I wanted, sometimes I was expected to give it up for bills, rent, and groceries. I started having breakdowns, and was in the hospital several times. Once for trying to overdose.

I dropped out. I got a part time job filing and doing transcription at the age of 17 for the chiropractor my aunt worked for. I even spent some time when my cousin was born as the receptionist. I was never compensated for my work on the transcription despite being told that I was better than the transcriptionists who had been certified. I was never given a raise for becoming a receptionist. I left to go be a nanny. I made more money doing that than I did as a receptionist.

Then I went to college. I started with night classes because I needed someone to drive me there. Then I got my license and my grandparents bought me my first car. I was going for psychology. My entire life had been a fucking case study thus far, why not make it my profession? I have a natural passion for behavior, for helping, for figuring things out. It made sense.

In the midst of all that, my mother had a messy situation with her husband; he was a pathological liar and it took her a while to figure it out (same girl). He had taken a lot of money from both her account and his mother’s account and they were both several thousand dollars negative. He left three days before my sister’s 6th birthday. Our neighbor and good friend helped us with getting everything together for a party.

A little while later, a friend at church offered for me to live with her. My mother leapt at the opportunity because Savannah was still in the room with her at the age of 6. I went. Then I tried going back to college. But I was told I needed a job. I was driving to New Albany and back for school and struggling to keep up with that, so the thought of doing both was impossible to figure out. I know people can do it, but I’m not one of those people. Then I dropped out AGAIN and I started working. I did odd jobs, cleaned people’s houses, took care of peoples kids, retail, doctor’s offices.

I was in a long-distance relationship where my significant other would often threaten to kill herself if I didn’t respond immediately. I got on OKCupid and met the man I ended up marrying. He’s an IT guy, and it’s relevant to my story. He helped get me in at a good doctors office. I’m there for a year. We get married. It’s small, a Dudeist priest does our ceremony. Everyone has every confidence we’ll last and that the love is real.

I keep getting UTI’s because I’m allergic to a lot of shit and that came up in the bedroom. I had a reaction to a quinolone because that used to be standard practice. With the reaction came certain things, like having panic attacks at work. Despite being a hard worker and having untreated depression because I have the CYP2D6 gene and my medication options are limited, I still did my best and didn't cut corners. Oh, fun fact, the CYP2D6 gene gives you severe anxiety! I was given Klonopin to deal with the panic attacks and didn't have any shame taking them in front of patients.

I took a break from work, but I started dealing with massive amounts of fatigue. I would have to sit down after 15 minutes, when I used to be able to play DDR on expert. Six months later I had to have my gallbladder removed because it only had 7% function. I started having trouble with my tendons popping and tightening for no reason. My knees were giving me trouble. I wouldn’t figure out that it was a reaction to a medication until several years later.

At this point in time, my spouse was cheating on me, and I knew it. I was told he would never do that and I was just paranoid. We move to chase rent prices, and I’m so used to it at that point that I contemplate never unpacking. We move into the same complex as my mother, directly across the breezeway. It would be serendipitous.

My mother has pyelonephritis, and is given levaquin. She has a reaction, and winds up with the same kind of symptoms I had years before that went unanswered. I won’t figure that part out until after the accident.

My grandmother called me frantic because my cousin was showing up to her house unexpectedly. I was told to get her out of her house. I did. It was already late, so we went to a bar. We talked for a little bit, and then I ended up running into people I had known from school. We went our separate ways for a while that night. By the time I caught back up with her, she was talking to a contractor for HopCat.

We lost track of time, I was too drunk to drive, and my cousin was interested in the contractor. He was willing to give us a ride – very willing. It was a single cab truck, and I was heavier than I am now. Ergo, no seat belt. He didn’t make the turn at the 64E Grinstead on ramp. The truck flipped. I’m 99% sure I died for a minute. I woke up against the dashboard with my jaw broken. I couldn’t get myself up off the dashboard because of the whiplash. I was told by a medium years later that there were hands on me in the accident. I wasn’t able to pull myself up, but someone did. I think it was him.

I couldn’t keep my head up. I was bleeding out of several places on my arm. My jaw had broken through in two places and dislocated. One of my canines had shattered and would come out in pieces over the next day. One of the contractors men found us and called 911. He helped pull me out of the car, and I stumbled a few steps and landed face down in the grass. I didn’t have the strength or the energy to turn myself over. I thought I was going to die there because I was fading in and out of consciousness.

Eventually, the ambulance got there. They loaded up my cousin first. She had minor lacerations and a hairline fracture on her nose. She was able to go home that night. Then they struggled to turn me over, and tried to dance around using explicit words that they were struggling because my weight. When they started moving me, I realized just how much I was hurting. When they put me in the ambulance, I was making a lot of noise. My cousin screamed at me to shut up. So I did. I swallowed my pain and I didn’t show it.

I got to the ER, and they immediately dosed me with something that put me to sleep and managed the pain. I had a CT that I don’t remember. In between fading in and out of consciousness, I begged them to call my husband. They did. I woke up once to a nurse cutting away jagged skin and giving me stitches.

Eventually, my husband and my mom came up there. At one point, I had to pee. They kept turning me over and putting a bed pan under me. But because I had a broken spine and whiplash, I couldn’t sit up. With the severe physical trauma, I couldn’t pee. Even with the brain injury and the lingering intoxication, I was lucid enough to beg for a catheter. They didn’t believe me. They said that should be a last resort. I told them that I needed to pee, I couldn’t, I think my body is in shock right now. Give me a catheter. I filled two bags.

They took me up to the ICU because the inflammation and pressure of my jaw was making it difficult for me to breathe. I had an out of body experience. I barely remember my time in there. Eventually, I was out and in the TCU. My nurses loved me and said I was so sweet. My diet consisted of pudding, ensure shakes, and applesauce. Some people I had gone to church with didn’t realize the extent of my injuries and had a hard time seeing me.

It would be five days before they could do surgery. It took them five hours. Their complaint was that my mouth is small, and they were attempting to go in through existing wounds. The break was clean but where it had detached made it difficult to reattach.

I was legally bound from discussing what had happened in case of conflicting interests and swaying public opinion. I get home, and sleep on my mom’s couch for the first night. We had to wait on a hospital bed. I wasn’t allowed to be upright without the TLSO brace, my jaw was wired shut, and my only saving grace was this tooth I lost that I could fit small straws through. The only thing I could really handle eating that had some substance to it was blended chili. It was impossible to go to the bathroom or shower by myself, so my mom and husband helped me. Unfortunately, my mom is in a lot of pain herself.

I struggled to walk at first, but I kept pushing and trying. My knees were really unstable at that point, but I did it anyway. I got weird looks in public because I couldn’t wear a bra and the TLSO brace made it look funny. I had severe dysphoria. Eventually they took off the wires and I was out of the brace. I had to work to get my jaw to open again. I got a barstool to use in my kitchen so I could cook again. After a while I got tired of it and forced myself to stand as much as I could.

One day, I woke up with severe swelling in my knee. I could barely move, the pain was intense. I couldn’t hold my leg straight. They did not give me anti-anxiety or pain medication for the MRI, which I couldn’t complete because of the severity. The technician let me know that that was making his job harder and he was disappointed.

I was told by my husband that we were drowning financially. I got a job at Starbucks, which probably wasn’t the best idea, but I wanted my mobility back and I was told the only way to do that was to keep working for it. I did. At one point, my husband told me he missed being intimate. I did too, but I told him I couldn’t right then, so he could find someone else for that. He said I could too, which was a slap in the face at the time because I couldn’t even think about it with him. I was seriously contemplating suicide because of the pain. I went into the crisis unit at Baptist. While I was there, I found a therapist. We spoke with one of the therapists about our lack of a physical relationship. The therapist told him to listen to me, and he said that he refused to touch me because I was in too much pain and it was too complicated. I’m drowning in medical debts and it will be years before I get my settlement.

My husband started spending questionable amounts of time with my sister on family dinner nights. He would disappear into her room for hours at a time and watch her play video games. My family was encouraging it because he was a “positive male influence”. My sister, 11 or 12 at the time, told me that because I got to spend every other day with him, I couldn’t have his time while we were there. I told her that wasn’t right he’s my husband. I even tried to say something to my mom about it. I was told I was out of line for protesting. My injuries were dismissed. All attempts to medicate me for the pain involved substances that made it difficult to concentrate while I was driving, and I was having to take myself to appointments where doctors were also dismissing what I had been through. I started using cannabis.

I have my deposition about the accident. The lawyers say, why didn’t you call an Uber? What I legally could not say was, “I was not aware of how intoxicated Mr. Dude was, and how is calling for an Uber any different from accepting a ride from someone else?” Even if the argument there is that they are professional drivers, there’s no guarantee they’re not also intoxicated.

The spouse and I move. It was the only way to afford to live at the time, and it provided me with the opportunity to put some distance between him and my family. We were fighting on a regular basis. He’s diving further into this odd dynamic with my sister. My pain is constantly being diminished. He’s withholding affection and physical intimacy because my limited mobility and pain are inconvenient.

My sister goes into IOP. She had been dealing with severe depression and suicidality. Mom and her husband had already planned to go down to Florida, I was supposed to take care of her through it. I saw red. My sister had been self-mutilating and had a suicide plan. Why wasn’t anyone else taking this seriously? She and I weren’t on good terms because my husband had been driving this wedge between us and convincing everyone I was really abusive. I wasn’t. I was rightfully angry about the dynamic and the way he had been treating me after the accident.

I told my mom I wasn’t happy with her leaving while my sister was in the hospital, but I’d do it anyway. I got my things together. I went over. My husband had picked my sister up from school that day and was with her until I was ready to come over. I asked him to prepare Savannah for the fact that he was leaving. He didn’t. My sister and I had a big argument. She ran into her room with a bottle of pills and locked the door. I broke it down, took the pills, told my husband he could take care of her that week, and called mom to let her know what happened. She went to Florida.

My sister starts dealing with a hacker at some point. They’re messing with her Spotify, they’re sending explicit porn through her phone to other minors, they’re shutting her computer down when she tries to play video games, and they are constantly sending her abusive text messages saying truly heinous things. At first they’re trying to control her over other things. Then she gets into a relationship with one of her friends and their ammunition is that she has to leave her boyfriend or they’ll destroy her life. I immediately thought it might be my husband. He was acting strange around my sister anyway. He’s in IT. He’s the highest level technician they have there. It’s really the only thing that makes sense. No one else believed me.

Meanwhile, my settlements come in. A couple of them sat in an account with my lawyers. I take some and buy my Outback with all the safety features. I named it Scooby. I start feeling comfortable driving again.

I’m discussing the relationship between my sister and spouse with my therapist. She said he would never do that, that nothing is inappropriate about their dynamic despite never seeing them outside of the office and his tendency to lie. My spouse raped me twice that year. The rest of the settlements came in. I bought 13 fish tanks. I paid off the $500,000 in medical debts that’d been destroying my credit. I bought him a car outright. I’m smoking a lot of high-end cannabis with shatter and drinking on a regular basis. I retreated into writing, music, television and video games. I was completely isolated. My friends weren’t around and my anger over everything made me cringe apparently.

I leave my therapist because she continues to side with my husband.

I tell the spouse that I want to buy a house with the settlement money. He said no. I did it anyway. I met up with a mortgage broker, repaired our credit, and eventually bought the condo. At this point, we have agreed that it will be (ANUSTART). It was not. We move into the condo, I buy new furniture. Nothing changes. In fact, I’ve stopped going to see my mother and sister on the family dinner nights, but he still goes.

When I tell him I would like some solidarity in creating boundaries with them, he starts telling me that he’s working late on projects at work. In fact, he’s taking entire days off to go see my sister, who had dropped out of school at that point because of the stress from the depression and the hacker. He also took her out of town, offered her elicit substances, had inappropriate conversations, touched her inappropriately, etc. My best friend at the time decided to ghost me. She was talking to the spouse behind my back. He was gaslighting everyone into believing his intentions were good. He just wanted to be my sister’s big brother. I was the one that had the problem because I was so angry and “abusive”.

We buy the condo. I buy new furniture for the new start, and now the settlement money is basically gone. I’m still in a lot of pain and isolated. I’m supposed to get a job but I don’t want to sit in an office all day and lose my mobility and I’m still in too much pain to have a physical job. The hacker is messaging me pictures of my front door. They’re fucking with my devices. I keep begging my mom to get someone else to reset everything for her because I knew that it was him. He was always in his office “working”. I think he was using his resources at work to accomplish what he did.

I have an affair with the neighbors son. He’s an alcoholic and an extreme gambler. He came onto me, and I asked my husband if our agreement still stood. He said yes. I went for it. Then I was the villain. He intentionally stayed home to work so I couldn’t. He told everyone about it and skewed it in his favor. When I finally told my mother, she was only concerned with if I would leave my husband. I am drugged and sodomized and physically assaulted. The man I’m having the affair with doesn’t believe me about what’s going on and I’m in full blown perpetual breakdown mode because I’m dealing with this alone and I don’t see a way out.

In August 2021, I total my car after having a full dissociative blackout. I was listening to a playlist and a specific combination of songs threw me into it. Scoob was my one safe thing in this entire world and I lost that, too. I get COVID. I cut myself for the first time since I was a teenager. I have a breakdown and go into Our Lady of Peace. But I’m on the COVID ward. There’s no one to really talk to about what’s going on. I’m in denial and starting to believe I’m paranoid about everything because no matter how well I word it or how passionately I say it, he’s such a good guy and would never do something like that.

The hacker is doubling down on my sister when she starts to rebel and do whatever she wants. She’s going to stay with her boyfriend, and she’s going to play her games and listen to her music and live her life and she’s going to ignore the constant barrage of messages constantly tearing her down. They’re taking nude photos of her underage friends and sending them out, they’re saying they’re going to ruin her family financially and do all kinds of terrible things if she doesn’t comply.

I started really getting into talking to my stepsister. We would hang out every Friday and just talk. When I told her about what had happened, what I thought and how I felt about it, she told me that she had also found the dynamic weird.

In September, I get a message from the hacker that my sister’s boyfriend is over at her house. My husband doesn’t want my sister to be with him. When I tell my husband he immediately goes over. From the account I was given, he got into this teenage boy’s face and cussed him out. The hacker kept saying that they would turn Dustin into the FBI, and he used that as ammunition to try and force my sister and her boyfriend to break up. My sister saw him for who he was that day and never saw him again.

My husband became very depressed after that. I went to go see my sister on her birthday after not seeing her or my mother for months. She sits down with me and tells me everything over the next few months. I get a job as a kennel manager and I’m driving out to Simpsonville three times a day to walk dogs. It’s not enough money to leave, so I get a second job.

Then, in January, my grandmother sends me a link to a local news article, and we discover that my sister’s father had purposefully neglected to report his mother’s death to collect the social security checks. The house was a wreck, infested with mold and who knows what else. He had backed up the septic into the basement to cover the smell, he had left her in the bed for months and the decomp on the mattress and the floor haunts me to this day. On top of trying to work and everything else that had happened, now I’m trying to help my mother and sister with getting what remains out of the house. We had people harassing us to sell them the house whenever we were there. I told one man that we were grieving, and that the house was in extreme disrepair. He had already left his information with us, and we would call him when we were ready to sell, but there was an investigation so he would have to wait and leave us the fuck alone.

I was told by my manager that I wasn’t allowed to talk to the Vet I worked for about any of this. She was having a lot of financial issues and was really stressed out. I was forgetting things, dissociating, panicking, and still trying to bust my ass at work. It wasn’t good enough. She let me go and I stayed with the mobile groomer. We had a good relationship at first and bonded as disabled women who had to keep working because the system says we’re not worth the disability. She stuck me with another groomer full time on the truck and then everything fell apart.

Then I kicked my husband out. I got a job at a smoke shop. I let someone move in who I didn’t know was a drug-addict. People were coming in and out of my house all the time that I didn’t know, they were a rough crowd, and I was having trouble because I’m a very private person. I was sexually harassed by my boss and gave up. I went through burn out and didn’t leave my house for a couple of months.

Then I started working under the table. I was struggling financially, and my husband moved back in. I was overwhelmed, and everything else had fallen through because I was not given the grace I deserved. He knew how I felt, he knew that I knew, and he knew that if he didn’t help me, I’d take every loss and turn him in. It’s only been five months since then, but I have kicked him out again. After given the opportunity to tell me the truth, he still asserted that he did what he did because of me.

Now I’m at a new job where our awesome little store has been blowing up over the past few weeks and I’m struggling because I’ve also sprained my ankle and my cat sliced open my eyelid. I am fatigued by the weight of this sword I’ve been carrying. But if everything works out right, I’ll get to keep my condo and my car. All of this madness, all of the pain, this whole war my life has been turned into is finally paying off.

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