[tritone]

This is a tough post to write. I’ve wrestled with this for a while, whether to write it or not. I fear it may be disturbing to some – but I need to talk about it with somebody other than my wife.

Maybe someone here will identify or take something helpful away from it. As for me I’m just not sure what to do with all of this. My fear is that if I don’t do something with it, it is going to “hide out” in the back of my mind somewhere and then “come out” in some un-Godly horrible way and in the worst place and at the worst time.

Names are changed. If sexual topics, child abuse or criminal topics are triggers for you please do not continue reading.

In February, we found out that my twelve year old daughter, Nina, was involved in a full-on, adult, sexual relationship with her step-father Matt.
I have two kids, a boy who is 15 named Andy, and my daughter Nina. Their Mother, Heidi, and I never married, but were together for seven years. We parted ways after seven years back in 1999 when she met Matt.

The breakup was really devastating for me – not so much because Heidi and I had a great relationship (it wasn’t) – but because of the kids. Matt moved in the house with Heidi and the kids right away and this was extremely difficult for me. My kids calling someone else daddy was too much. Maybe sometime I'll talk about my own childhood and it will be clear why.

I went off the deep end in a number of ways (I’ll spare you all the details) – career wise I zoomed up and up. But; personally and socially – emotionally – morally – financially – I completely bankrupted myself.

My downward spiral and associated shenanigans led me into a place where I committed a sexual offense (not violent, but plenty wrong just the same) of my own. Something I take full responsibility for – but in all fairness must place a heap of blame on this illness (bipolar I) – undiagnosed at the time – and associated stress and substances. The victim was my daughter – the same one who six years later was abused, some might say raped, by her step father.

I realize that some people will never be able to accept me – regardless of what I do, or how hard I try to be sincere, make amends, or be a better person. I understand this. It is a terrible thing. The most I ask is that people look at the real me – the one who has been sober for six years, the one who never cheated on his wife, the one who never lies, and the one who has taken full responsibility for the past and is determined to make the future better. If you feel a personal responsibility to tell me how reprehensible or unconscionable my past action was – or the need to tell me I am a monster – please save your breath. You are entitled to your opinion. God bless you, but I’ve heard it too many times already. In fact, I’ve already punished myself more than you ever could.

Change focus. After this happened, I was filled with a flood of many, many different kinds of emotion. I was, of course, concerned about my daughter. I wondered how she would ever recover from this. I wondered how she would be able to deal with having had two fathers who crossed this boundary.

At the same time, as upset and angry as I was, I also had empathy for the step-father. I knew, all to well, what a living hell his life was going to become… Prison is the least of it. Try finding a place to live or a job as a registered sex offender. Not fun. Keep looking over your shoulder, because there are folks in the neighborhood who do not want you there.

We also found out that the step father was buying sexual toys for both kids.
Of course ALL of this made the evening news, the papers, etc… News trucks were pulled up outside the house. Everyone was scared to death. Some of the channels responded to reason when we explained the age and impact to the victim - and backed off. Others refused.

There wasn’t much I could do. My wife has had a lovely relationship with my daughter over the years and a great deal of healing had happened. My wife was like a bridge between my daughter and me -and managed to repair a great deal of the damage that had been done. In addition, my wife and I may be the only healthy marriage that my kids have ever been witness to. Then this happened. This guy, Matt, who had a ring side seat to all of this – the abuse I was prosecuted for, the legal action, the two years of court dates, the plea, the registration, the humiliation… he was right there to witness all of that… all of this pain we all endured… and he went and did it himself. It is times like this I have a hard time believing in god.

Heidi, the mother, is not ‘touchy feely’. She’s a tough customer. Self employed small business owner, black belt, former model… has her good qualities, but is essentially all about herself and looking out for numero uno most of the time. It took a great deal or urging by me, my wife, and other parties that she get herself, my daughter, and my son into counseling. They finally are.

At this point, my daughter doesn’t want anything to do with me, which is fine… She can have all the time she wants. She also wants nothing to do with my wife, whom she had a very special relationship with. This has been very hard on my wife. My daughter is showing signs of bipolar disorder in addition to possible dissociative personality issues. She goes from the quiet, sweet kid she has always been to a mean kid who can kick the tar out of her much larger 15 year old brother.

Heidi has a new boyfriend already. She has taken to going out all night and leaving my son, daughter, and their 6 year old half sister home alone with my son in charge. This is insane.

My son, who has ADHD issues, but is very bright and does very well when he is taking strattera (his mother doesn’t believe in meds), has always had behavior problems. We recently found out he was smoking pot.

He’s developed the ability to lie with incredible ease. Recently $2000 went missing in the house. It was his mother’s till from her business for the weekend. The local state trooper investigated the case. My son was staying with me at the time. He called me and said he needed to speak to my son. He wanted me to bring my son in for questioning, but not tell him where we were going. I took a day off from work and brought him in. The cop told me he thought my son had taken the money. My son denied it, most convincingly, and the cop and I were both convinced he mustn’t have taken it. It turns out he did. Apparently the cop paid him another visit at my mother’s house and managed to get him to confess.

I have been there for my son. I have talked to him. I have explained myself, why things are the way they are. I chose to believe him on this when nobody else did. I was going to help him itemize all the things he has spent money on since the theft, with all the money he has earned – so he could prove that he hadn’t bought things with stolen money.

I feel devastated. I guess many people might say I don’t have a right to be devastated about anything since the mistake I made six years ago. But regardless of the past, I am still their father. This stuff DOES hurt me. I know people say this and don’t mean it, but when I say my life has changed and that I’m a different person it is true. I can even tell you exactly why it is true and tell you exactly what has changed.

I thought for sure that suicidality was a thing of the past for me. I’d think about it from time to time, but then I’d think about what an incredible and final f*** you this would be to everyone. I’d think about my wife – and I’d get over it. Or, as in the past, I’d call my PDoc and go inpatient if necessary.
Well at the beginning of May, my PDoc added Klonopin to my cocktail. The dissolving cherry flavored wafers. I was already taking 4 or 5 mg of Ativan a day. I immediately liked the Klonopin a whole lot. I started skipping work, sitting home, and popping benzos .

About four days into this I’m sitting home alone, skipping work, and the kid’s mother calls me. She screams at me and tells me to control my wife. My wife asked my son to keep track to the times she was going out and leaving them at home. Heidi was furious. I didn’t know what to say. I got off the phone and felt so upset, depressed and miserable that I got up out of my chair; went to the kitchen and poured all my meds into a bowl. I swallowed all of it chased with a glass of water. The only *only* thought I had prior to doing this was that this might be the last day I would have to deal with any of this. I know it was terribly selfish, but that’s where I was.

My wife came home from work early that day. (interesting, no?) She found me unconscious on the bed with the dog licking my face. She called the PDoc and managed to wake me enough that I begged and pleaded with her not to call the ambulance. She did and it was touch and go through the night. I came around and then they shipped me up to another hospital. I was there for ten days and it totally sucked, but that’s another story.

I came off the benzos in the hospital and went through some of the most raw, emotional stuff I’ve ever experienced. Life flashbacks. Intense moral inventory. Really deep stuff. I realize now that a lot of it was probably because all the tranquilizers were gone… so my brain was forced to deal with a ton of junk that had been being held back.

I partly see the ‘cause’ of this hospitalization as me not having dealt with what happened to my daughter. I felt guilt. I felt horror. I felt sad for my daughter. I wanted to kill the step father. I felt sorry for the step father. I had no idea what to do with any of this.

I had reached out to the phd who leads the men’s group I was in, but he told me it would be $400 an hour. As I emotionally unraveled over the following weeks he told me I was ‘too big a presence’ in the group. I got so angry and frustrated I finally asked him what he had done that they would give him a PhD. I don’t go to that group any more…

The hardest things right now are that my wife isn’t speaking to my mother (long story), the kid’s mother isn’t speaking to my wife, my daughter isn’t speaking to me or my wife, my son has admitted to larceny and having lied about it – to me – the only person who believed in him, and I found out my boss’s is boss is gunning for me now at work and they are watching every move I make. I won’t go into all those details – but it’s a whole lotta stuff indeed.

Well, I think that’s enough. I’m sorry for having rambled on so – I hope it wasn’t too unfocused.

I’m not sure what to do. I guess it would help to have someone say I’m doing the right thing… or that I’ve tried my best under the circumstances.

T

[Mari]

Dear Tritone,

I hear you.
I think that I am also hearing
frustration, anger, confusion, betrayal.

My god, did your wife really ask your son to keep track of the benzos?

Look people in this story need to start forgiving themselves.
Then they can start forgiving each other.


Tritone, you are a good person.
If your daughter can't let go, that is her struggle. Let her do what she needs to do. She has a tough road.
You can move on. And you had been.
It seems that the step dad's actions set you back.

This is horrible and I am sorry that you are living through it.
On the other hand, like you sort of point out in your post, the living through it that you kind of did when you went off benzos in the hospital might have been a good thing.

You lived it through and have come out the other side.

Lots of thoughts. . .
But I am not as elequent as you and certainly can't be as coherent to go over each main point.
Mostly, I want to know that you are going to keep yourself safe. Have you taken steps to stay on the right side? I mean, I know that you have because you were hinting about them in your last posts.


You seem to be in high energy tonight. Please don't take offense at anything I said.
You gotta admit that you laid out a whole pile of stuff for us to read. Everyone who reads it will process it differently.

I was raised Catholic and have been working with Baptists at a religious-ish workplace. Both groups believe strongly in forgiveness from god. It helps to know that.

If it helps you, I think you are a good person and good soul.
If it doesn't help that I said that, let it go.
I'm letting you know that I am on your side.
I am on your side.

Mari

[tritone]

Hi Mari -

No, She asked my son to keep track of when his Mother was going out and leaving him to be in charge. She probably shouldn't have asked him to do that. When I was 6 and 7 my parents got divorced. It was very difficult, and since then any inter-familial tension has been EXTREMELY difficult for me. That event (phone call) plus the depression from the benzos, knocked me right back 35 years...

I've been seeing my PDoc much more frequently and for longer sessions. I am continuing to stay of the benzos. I'm taking a slightly higher dose of lithium.

I've been trying to do things like deep breathing. I had mentioned the Eckhart Tolle book and the idea of mindfulness... I've also been doing some research on the dialectical therapy you mentioned. I've been suffering from some minor but highly aggravating physical issues, but those seem to be improving. I'm taking a very different tack at work. I cut way back on my caffeine. I really need to start exercising again, but between the probation appointments, and therapy, and the doctors, and work its tough to fit much else in... or at least fit it in and have any time at home with my wife... i'm a bit on thin ice at work due to the absences and the mysterious hospitalization (I can only wonder what they are thinking about that...).

I guess that's the most I can do right now.

Spiritually I've been through many things. I was raised as a very conservative Protestant. I briefly belonged to a pentecostal church and did the whole salvation trip. I believe in God. I believe in Christ. I just don't believe in it the way anyone else does. I've come to love history, so when I read about how certain churches condoned slavery as a charitable act, or allowed conquerors in the Americas to savagely annihilate native people in the name of saving their souls and the holy church it kind of ****** me off. That's my problem with organized religion. I realize it gives many people peace. I just know too much and I can't ignore it. Conversely, I believe there are answers science can't explain. There are things in my life that are miracles to me - the fact that I can sit here and write this is one.

I was thinking about this on the subway today - like would God forgive me. And I thought about it and wondered if I was a good person. I figured that most people probably think they are good people. So I wondered what proof I had to warrant such an appraisal of my self. Ultimately what I feel, in the Christian (and also Buddhist sense depending on how you spin it) that this philosophy of earning your salvation is bunk. I want to believe that people are the sum of their parts - the genetics they inherited, the crap that was done to them, what lessons they learned from their parents, etc... so if you believe that, we are all good souls. Some of us just got the wrong combination of stuff. I really believe that.

Healing comes when we realized our true selves, our soul, are not these events and things... When we can separate that out and just be who we are, we are 'healed' or 'enlightened' or 'saved'. That's just how I feel it. I know that won't seem right for traditional believers. This process, while said to be so simple as just letting go, is really QUITE difficult...

And sometimes, regardless of the logic to what I said in the last paragraph, sometimes all that 'stuff' overtakes me. At that point, I'm over the edge and can't get back without help. Maybe that help is God.

When I say I wonder about the existance of god, it is in a rhetorical sense. Like where was God on 9/11. It doesn't really matter where God was. God as a fatherly figure who guards our every step makes no sense to me. God as an energy - God as the sum of all the matter in the universe - God as the creator and logic behind it all makes perfect sense. So when I said that I mean "how could a God who has his hand in all my business let this happen".

How can I take any offense? You've been nothing but supportive to me - and taking the time to respond means a lot to me.

It does help me to hear you say I am a good person and a good soul. I never felt such a powerful responsibility to be those things prior to this hospitalization.

Just a quick aside - I was in a Catholic hospital. My PDoc was Catholic. Most of the nurses were Catholic. I've never felt the same vibe in another hospital. It was really weird. They all treated me like I was a psychopath. I think they really believed that. All they wanted to hear about were the screwed up things I did between 2000 and 2002. They didn't want to hear about anything prior or since. All I can say is that it was weird - and the social workers leading the groups looked at me with this thing in their faces like there was no hope. The only good thing about that was it made me all the more resolved to prove I am not a sociopath.

[Mari]

Tritone,

You are strong and you are trying. I think that you will prevail.

When I read your first post tonight, the first thing I thought about was that all the players need to stay away from each other.
. . . except you and your wife obviously.. . . and then the children obviously. . . they can’t be left to figure this out by themselves. . . .at the very least they need to know that you are pulling for them.. . I think they know that but if dealing with them means dealing with their mother and your mother, then it’s a hard call.. . . I’m for cutting off family if helps keep one alive. . . but geez your son will look to you . . . I don’t know the whole story, but maybe the money is not a huge deal in the big scheme of his life (the life he has lived and the life he will live).

That’s creepy about the Catholic hospital. So much for the helping professions. It seems that no one you dealt with understood bipolar.

The Christianity that I remember is that we cannot do anything to deserve god’s love. None of our actions would be big enough or good enough to warrant that. Our belief in Christ gets us to heaven. OK this is not exactly catholic because the catholics believe in works as well. But I thought that most of the protestants believe in faith. So be it. The religious discussion might not be relevant.

I was thinking that if god (god in the general sense) can forgive us then certainly we can forgive ourselves.

I have no personal experience with DBT, but apparently one of the groups it works for is the people who had miserable childhoods and need to learn how to manage their lives. That is my impression. And prob each practitioner has his/her own approach.

I don’t think you have to prove that you are not a sociopath. I think for many us, our job on the planet is to live our best life possible. Or something like that. That is what I am aiming for. Actually, I am not even aiming for that. I am aiming to stay alive and to do so with a modicum of grace and decency. I have to live. That’s hard some days. Better now than in the past. Some force of good (one of the miracles you mention) kept me alive. . . also my belief that I deserved to live and that I would come out the other side .. . . so I kept hope and I did pray. . . and I am alive by the grace of god.

I want to believe that people are the sum of their parts - the genetics they inherited, the crap that was done to them, what lessons they learned from their parents, etc... so if you believe that, we are all good souls. Some of us just got the wrong combination of stuff. I really believe that.

When I first read this tonight I was not quite there, but on a second reading I think that that is close to how I would say it. From a buddhist of the many lives version, we are expected to do better than we did the last time. That’s how I see things. We don’t have to be perfect. We have to try. And we have to make a really good try and make some successes along the way. .. . not that I have actually thought through any of this stuff well enough to talk about it. . . but this is what I see as my purpose. . . . .it goes a little bit beyond what I got from a combination of my growing up and my therapy in my late 20s (it runs together in my head) --- which was that we do the best with what we have.

The healing and letting go you refer to shows up in lots of faiths. I think that we have to know when to get out of our own way and trust, . . . or whatever the good word is for that. . . also we have to let go of control. . . I grew up with two control freaks. . . . so I can spot that in it many forms miles away. . . and yet I do it too . . .


I feel a responsibility to be kind. I don’t where/when/why I came up with that but I work on being kind to myself and kind to others. The kind to myself part is difficult.

You sound a bit frenetic. But perhaps that is just in your effort to get it written out/down.

Let your wife help you. I sense that she has wisdom.

Mari

[mymorgy]

I agree so much with what Mari has written. I have been going through a very bad stretch for a very long time. I tell myself I have to grin and bear it because i don't believe there is an exit.
I come from a very dysfunctional family where my father was much worse when he was sober than when he was drunk. I was in charge of him and that started when i was five. He was sick in bed for a year when i was two so i was never really allowed to have a childhood. Later in my early teens i became the family scapegoat.
The other day my house keeper told me to be strong. I almost went ballastic. Then she repeated it. I don't think she understood when I told her I was bipolar and when I push myself to be strong i wind up in a worse situation. I was rapidly moving into that worse situation.
A little later she left and the doorbell rang and it was nextdoor neighbor. She has accomplished a great deal in her life and is continuing to. She has a loving relationship with her elderly mother and husband. I practically broke down. She told me every day she says to herself that God loves her unconditionally. She said that God loves me unconditionally. My mood snapped. I felt like a child bathed in warmth. Can you start saying that to yourself? We have to keep fighting the demons of being bipolar and somehow get ourselves outside their arena. I don't know if therapy works. I adore my psychopharmacologist. He is so grounded and wise and nonjudgmental and caring without being a bleeding heart. I see him for ten or 15 minutes every other week. I see a therapist now every other week. I usually get more depressed after i see her.
I wish you could find the time to exercise and release some of the energy you have. I wish you could start writing music and release creative force within you. I wish you could focus in on what you have control over and what you don't and let go of what you don't. I wonder if you started saying that God loves you unconditionally you might find some warmth
Bobby

[Mrs. Bear]

I heard from a preacher once that the act of forgiveness isn't for those who have harmed us. It is for us. Once we have been able to forgive those who have caused us harm, we are free.

I was also taught to believe that once you offered up your request to God for Him to forgive you and have done so with every intention of being worthy of forgiveness, that He gives it unconditionally. I like that. It still gives me comfort even though I struggle with my belief.

All we can do as the human animal is to be responsible for ourselves and allow ourselves to learn from our past. I always believe that you are constantly learning and growing Titrone. Every time you have explained where you are in your life, you do so with such determination to keep reaching up that I have never doubted you. Ever. I believe in you.

Not a single person on this planet is perfect. And that is just fine, as long as all of us are reaching for a higher place.

[tritone]

Wow… thank you everyone for such kind responses.
I hear the subject come up about forgiving myself again and again. I don’t suppose gobbling down one’s meds is exactly a sign of self forgiveness – but that was really desperation and pain – not self hatred or desire to harm so much.

I think I actually have forgiven myself. I think I know how it happened. I think I know how my ethics and feelings were shaped by my own relationships as a child. I won’t explain, but they were bizarre to say the least. I don’t excuse my choices or actions, but I understand how I could get to that place.

What is very, very difficult for me is constantly facing new people. I just get to a level of trust and familiarity with my probation officer and they change it on me. Then I have to start with a new one, from square one – them assuming the worst and treating me like public enemy number one until they get to know me. Then as soon as I feel like we understand each other it starts all over again.

Then, my recent hospital experience. Regardless of the growth, responsibility, maturity and stability I’ve established in the past six years - it seems like every new person I have to face with this feels a PERSONAL OBLIGATION to make me understand what a horrible thing I did. I already know that, I understand - you know? So no matter how much I forgive myself I am constantly facing this over and over again. It has to go beyond forgiving myself and I have to learn how to not let this get to me. Then there is the media and popular notion of basing the statistics for repeat behavior and risk on the 2% or 3% who are truly dangerous. As I’ve said before, the offenders who are in therapy, who are compliant with probation, who are compliant with drug testing, who keep a job, who follow all the rules – and this is most – are not dangerous. None the less, I often have to face that hysteria – such as when my wife and I moved from the 4th floor (where I owned my apt for 17 years) to the 2nd floor – and the co-op board felt required to leave letters about me with the entire population of my building.
You see, it really has nothing to do with forgiving myself. It has everything to do with trying to make sure my wife and I are safe from vigilantes in the neighborhood. It has everything to do with making sure the authorities aren’t going to make me move because a new day care opens up down the block. This is real stuff. It isn’t obsessive. It isn’t narcissistic.

So combine all of this with the issues my daughter and son are going through. Combine it with the problems between my mother and my wife. It is a bit difficult to say the least. So it IS a miracle that I’m here to write about it. If you really look at it, is it hard to fathom I *might* think I’d be better off dead?

Religion is dangerous topic. But for me, I like Genesis and I like science. We are all comprised of the same atoms that existed at the beginning of time. We are made of stardust. In this sense quite literally we are a chip off the same block. Whatever was before the Big Bang, whatever existed prior to that primordial soup – whatever made that – wherever the energy that makes light and mass and space and time – that is God to me. I’m part of that. You are part of that. Even Hitler was part of that. Mother Theresa was part of that. We all came from the same place. So forgiveness for me is simply remembering that. My personal suffering doesn’t mean anything. Coming to fully understand the fellowship I share with All the Is – does mean something. This is tremendously difficult to maintain when all this ‘realistic’ life crap keeps getting in the way!

[saharie]

Originally Posted by tritone

Religion is dangerous topic. But for me, I like Genesis and I like science. We are all comprised of the same atoms that existed at the beginning of time. We are made of stardust. In this sense quite literally we are a chip off the same block. Whatever was before the Big Bang, whatever existed prior to that primordial soup – whatever made that – wherever the energy that makes light and mass and space and time – that is God to me. I’m part of that. You are part of that. Even Hitler was part of that. Mother Theresa was part of that. We all came from the same place. So forgiveness for me is simply remembering that. My personal suffering doesn’t mean anything. Coming to fully understand the fellowship I share with All the Is – does mean something. This is tremendously difficult to maintain when all this ‘realistic’ life crap keeps getting in the way!

After reading this thread I had to register and tell you how brave I think you are. You truly are a good person. You're carrying the world on your shoulders for so many people I don't think you would believe it if I told you. Keep living and loving. Never forget where you came from.

[bizi]

Dear tritone,
Just how you are keeping a float with all of this ....you must have a strong faith....and wife!

I am so sorry that you went thru a suicide attempt...the benzos are rotten for alot of people, life saving for others....



I will write more later...hubby has fixed supper.

bless you tritone, you are a good man.
(((((HUGS)))))
bizi

[tritone]

Originally Posted by saharie

After reading this thread I had to register

Wow... you signed up because of me? Cool!

Welcome. There are very special people here.