Today is not a good day. Memories that I thought I’d buried deep keep surfacing and no amount of trying to push them down is working. I am so tired of constantly fighting myself. How do you get away from yourself? You can’t… Believe me, I’ve tried many times over the years that have past. You can run, but you have to keep running, for as soon as you stop, you catch up with yourself…
I have been so proud of myself over the past 20 or so years, for even if my PTSD demons would rear their ugly heads from time to time, I was still able to cope with the everyday shit that’s been thrown my way. My ability to shake it off and keep going but now… To much has happened over a short period of time and I haven’t been able to deal with one thing before the next bomb hits. I’ve had to up my medication, which for me feels like a failure, even though my conscious mind knows I have every right to be down right now and those that know me, are surprised that I’m still on my 2 feet fighting back. I’m a fighter and survivor and I REFUSE to give up. I will fight till the day I die and even if I find myself laying flat on my back, I’ll kick and bite until I draw my final breath…
Just to name a few things that have happened over the past 11 years… My son and I made the move back to the US (Florida) spring of 2001 to live with a friend (or so I thought) until we’d found a place of our own. Little did I know that he, Timothy was a sociopath. He wanted my son and wanted me out of their lives. Little by little he managed to convince my son, which was 16 yrs old at the time that I was evil. Mike, my son really looked up to this man and believed every word that came out of his mouth. I even married Timothy, so that it would be easier for my son to get his green card. I didn’t know enough then to know that since I am a US citizen myself by birthright, I didn’t need to be married. Mike could file and get his green card as well as US citizenship under my citizenship, since he was still a minor…
After about a year they under the guise of starting a new job at a club in West Palm Beach picked up and moved, telling me that as soon as they found a suitable place to live, I was to follow… I had a job in Miami Beach, so I had to stay there until I managed to find a job in West Palm Beach, which was the city they had moved to. I would talk to Mike on the phone every day and daily I could hear in his voice how he changed his demeanor towards me. He would accuse me of being jealous of Timothy. Which of course was true, since I had understood that he was forcing me out of my sons life… What mother wouldn’t be furious when facing something like that?
I became sick (my PTSD hit me full force again) and I could no longer work, so I asked my son if I could move up to live with them until I got better. His answer was No, you are not welcome in our home… So, there I was… My disability pension from Sweden wasn’t enough for me to survive on, I knew no one that I could move in with. Timothy had made sure that everyone he/we knew disliked me. I packed my suitcases and took the train to WPB and tried to beg my son to take me in. I even talked to Timothy whom I was legally married to but he just coldly smiled at me and told me that he couldn’t go against my sons wishes… But I was welcome to stay one night and then I had to go… Spent the night writing a 6 page letter to my son. Telling him everything I had managed to find out about Timothy. All the lies he had told, all the different versions of those lies, since Timothy could never remember what he had said to whom…
The day after, I asked to talk to my son in private before I left. Said that I wanted to say my goodbye’s in private. Something he reluctantly agreed to… Once alone with him I told him that there were a few things I needed to tell him about Timothy. He snapped at me and said that he didn’t want to hear anymore of my lies. I calmly told him that it was my job as his mother to tell him what I had found out and that if he would just be quiet and listen, I would be out of his life as soon as I had finished telling him what I felt he needed to hear. His reply was, “Well, you can’t force me to believe anything you say”. I told him, no, you don’t have to believe me. All I ask of you is to remember what I’m about to tell you and to listen carefully to what Timothy says in the future and remember what he said the last time he told what ever story he tells. Read to him the 6 page letter I had written during the night. Handed it to him when I was finished and told him that I would always love him and that if he ever needed me, he knew where to find me, as I had bought a ticket back to Sweden with my last paycheck and disability check. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to just turn my back and walk away from my son.
Why didn’t I force him to go with me?
Reason #1. He had turned 18.
Reason #2. He would have just turned around at the airport in Sweden and flown back to Timothy.
I needed him to find out for himself what a sick individual Timothy was. I wish I could have been there to protect him but no money, nowhere to stay… I had no choice but believe in my heart that he would figure it out. He is a smart boy and I knew that if I planted the seed of doubt, it would grow…
I cried all the way back to Sweden on the plane… Once back here in my house, which I thankfully had kept and not sold, I called him and gave him my phone number. Told him I loved him and hung up…
3 moths later, I received a phone call in the middle of the night from Mike, asking me to please send him the 6 page letter that I had written to him again… I asked him what was wrong and he said. “I think something is wrong with Timothy”. I admit I had the hardest time keeping the wide smile on my face from him being able to hear it on the phone. Told him, yes, I have it here on my computer, I’ll email it to you as soon as I hang up. 2 weeks later he was outside my door asking if he could come in…
Oh my god!!! The things he told me about Timothy made my skin crawl and filled me with rage beyond anything. I swear, if I had had that lowlife of a piss ant within arms reach, I would have torn him from limb to limb and fed him to the dogs!!
The club they had been working at was a gay porn club, where Timothy, whom was the manager at the time had Mike dance totally nude, have unprotected penetration sex with multiple porn stars on stage, as well as work several “VIP” rooms per night when he was still only 17 years old. Timothy would tell him that he was going to sell him over and over like a used car… As if this wasn’t enough, he also repeatedly sexually abused Mike at home… To say I FLIPPED, is an understatement. Had I known ANY of this before I left the States, I would have gladly served out a life sentence for taking this predator out!
Mike asked me if I would please move back to Florida with him, as he now had a respectable job at an airline and I would be able to receive both health and flight benefits being his mother. I said yes. I was ecstatic to have gotten my son back…
Timothy knew I was returning to Florida, so he made sure he was GONE before I landed… I wanted to file charges against him but Mike was in the process of filing for US citizenship and his immigration lawyer advised against stirring up things. As he put it. “You don’t air your dirty laundry in front of the INS”. Mike begged me for his sake to just let it go, as he was worried that he wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the States if the INS found out he had worked at a porn club before he was of legal age… I could see his point, even if it ate away at my inner core not being able to put this creep behind bars, or 6 feet under where he in my opinion belongs…
I lived with my son in his house for almost 1 year before our fighting became to much for me. Timothy’s “programming” was still very much a large part of Mike’s psyche and one day, Mike kicked me out again… Back to Sweden and my house for yet another 6 months before he called me again, begging me to come back. Promising me that things would be different this time. Call me stupid or just wanting to believe my son, the only person I had in my life that I loved unconditionally, I was on the next flight over to Florida AGAIN… Got myself a job as a phone rep for a limo company, which meant I could work from home. Gave my son my whole Swedish disability check each month, which was about $700 + bought food and everything else we needed for the household from my weekly $200 paycheck from the limo company… After yet another year, I had had ENOUGH… Told him, sweetheart, you are now 21 years old, I’m tired of dealing with your shit, I’m going home and it’s no use you calling me begging me to come back. If you can’t hack it over here, you can move back to Sweden… 3 days later I was gone…
Within a year, he hit rock bottom. Had lost his job with the airline, got a new job at a gay club as bar manager and was rapidly drinking himself to death, or at least to full-blown alcoholism. Day before he was to be evicted from his apartment and homeless, his stepmother and I managed to get the money together and send him a one-way ticket back to Sweden…
Picked him up at the airport and I could barely recognize my son. He looked as if he had aged at least 10 years and was haggard and wild-eyed. Thankfully, he at least hadn’t gotten into the drug scene. The alcoholism was bad enough… But living with me out here in the forest with no money and no alcohol, did straighten him out a little… At least for awhile… He “imported” his gay lover from Florida and they both lived out here with me for a few months, until Mike managed to find a job in a nearby town and moved with his boyfriend to share an apartment with a friend….
I then did the most stupid thing I’ve ever done… My flying back and forth between Sweden and the US had really hurt me financially and I was stuck between a rock and a hard spot. Had the bill collectors chasing me all hours of the day/night and I was afraid that I was going to loose my house… So, I signed my house over to my son…. BIG MISSTAKE… I’ve always claimed to be highly intelligent but I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to my son, I’m downright STUPID!!!
4 months later, he evicted me from my own house… He had bought a small rundown summer cabin on the property next to my house and told me that I could live there if I wanted to… Now, this is Sweden and winters over here are COLD and the cabin was basically not fit to live in to start with, had paper thin walls, roof nearly falling in and when you looked at the floor where the floor met the walls, you could see the grass outside through the huge cracks in the foundation. I lived there from June to January with only 2 small electrical heaters and an electric blanket as heat sorces. I would put the blanket in my recliner, so it would keep my backside warm, put one electric heater on each side of the recliner, pile 4 quilts on top of me, plus my 5 cats on top of that and both my big dogs laying on the floor next to me… Saying that I froze is more than an understatement… Come morning there would be about an inch of ice in the dogs/cats water bowl… During the days, it was pretty much ok. We had a “deal”, I would cook and clean for my son and his 3 friends whom all lived in the house and also eat my meals there. Come evening I had to leave and go back to the cabin… I don’t know how many nights I stood outside my house just inside of the forest line crying, begging the gods or any entity that resided out there to please help me get my house back… Hell, I’ve never been sane, so why start now?
Shortly after that Mike started to have severe panic attacks and would scream and DEMAND that I come help him, which I of course did… He would then totally change personality and become something evil. If you’ve seen the movie The Exorcist, you know what I’m talking about. Only thing he didn’t do was spin his head around and puke green slime… His voice would change and he would scream profanities at me and everyone else that was there. He would say extremely hurtful things and wouldn’t stop until he had me in tears. Once I was in tears, he would laugh at me and tell me I was weak and not worthy of being Mike’s mother. He claimed that he wasn’t Mike but wouldn’t tell us his name…
He would finally pass out and sleep for the rest of the night and not remember the day after what he had said or done…
One cold night in January I really thought I was going to freeze to death, so I called Mike and begged him to let me come up to the house, at least for the night… He just told me no, I’m to old to live with my mother, you can check into a hotel if you can’t handle living in the cabin. Told hm that I didn’t have the money to pay for a hotel room. He told me that wasn’t his problem and hung up the phone… Next evening when I was walking back down to the cabin, I slipped and fell so bad that I broke my ankle in 3 places. Only had enough money on my pay as you go cell phone to send one text message and I sent that to the girl that was living with them, being that she was the only one in that household that cared about me but was scared of Mike… She came running. She got in her car and backed it up as close to me as she could and I did a perfect imitation of combat crawling in the mud to get to her car. Managed to pull myself up in the seat on the passenger side and being that I weighed about 137 kg (301 lbs) at the time, I must have gotten the strength from some outer source…
I’m thankful that I broke my ankle, even though I have no idea how I managed to break it. Yes, it was icy on the slope down to the cabins property but where I actually fell there was no ice, just soft green moss… It resulted in social services helping me get an emergency apartment in town, as there was no way I was going to be able to manage being in a wheelchair out in the woods, with no running water indoors or toilet/shower…
I spent the next 2 years living in town and even moved into a bigger apartment. Missed my house but didn’t miss the daily drama. Even met a wonderful man that had offered to take my dog (had to re home one of them) on daily walks and one thing led to another. Usually joke about not being able to get away from him. Since I was in a wheelchair, I didn‘t stand a chance… *smile*
Put in an application for a larger apartment and the day before I was going to move into it, Mike called me and asked if I would be interested in a trade… I could have my house back, if they could have the apartment… Errrrr…. HELL YES!! I asked him why he’d changed his mind and wanted to move but he didn’t want to answer, just told me it was more convenient for them to live in town…
Day after they had moved out, we drove out to the house and when we walked in, the place looked like they had literally fled the house. Personal belongings strewn everywhere… Furniture upstairs with personal belongings still in the drawers. Place was a mess and really looked like they’d been in some serious hurry to get out of here. Almost as if they had been chased out of the house. Mike still doesn’t want to talk about it and it took him the better of 2 years to dare set foot in the house again… Have heard bits and pieces of what happened. All of them seeing dark shadows, something sitting on the end of his bed staring at him. Something throwing him down the stairs on 3 occasions… I guess my “praying” to whatever is out here heard me… Call me crazy if you want but sometimes the things that “go bump in the night”, really exist…
Anyhow, I got my house back and whatever was/is out here seems to be ok with the fact that things are once again “back to normal”.
Mike is now getting professional help for what they now believe is Borderline, even though I seriously believe that’s just the tip of the iceberg… He still has his “fits” of anxiety and change of personality and yes, I still drive over to his apartment to help and confront whoever it is that has taken him over… But I have also renewed my contact with the psychiatric professionals, as I realize I need help in dealing with all this shit, as it has waken up all my own PTSD demons and I desperately need help, or at least someone that will listen to me and give me advise how to handle the situation with Mike.
Some days, I just want to pack up my things and leave… No forwarding address, just poof gone…. Start a new life somewhere. Yes, I know my personal demons will always be with me but I know those “guys” and know that as long as I can have peace and quiet around me, I’m ok…
Fighting My PTSD Demons 