Leslie's Story

Warning:  this isn't going to be a pretty post.  I'm going to talk about some things that may be disturbing for some people.  If you're easily upset, don't read any further.  Go find pictures of koi fish swimming in a pond.  Seriously.  They're pretty.

Ok.  For those of you left, here we go.  I want to give some background information so you all know where I'm coming from when I write.

We moved to the Philippines in 1984, when I was five.  Laura was two.  Mom was pregnant with Elaine.  My parents were missionaries, and they taught at a Bible Seminary in Manila.  They tried to help a student with his tuition.  He came and worked in our yard, and they paid at least some of his tuition. 

He molested me.  I have huge holes in my memory, from age 5 to around age 8, and I can't tell you exactly when it started and when it stopped.  What I can remember is kissing, some touching, and some stuff it's still too painful to write about.  I remember his laughter--hearing it outside the house when he was talking to our helper. 

I suppose my curiosity made it easy for him at first.  I was insanely curious about the new place we lived in, in the plants and trees in our yard, and in the way he would cut the grass with a huge machete instead of the mowers I was used to.  I followed him around and watched everything he did, and at first I liked him.

There was a little shed in the back--more like a small room built onto the concrete block wall.  It was made out of concrete block too, and at some point there had been a fire that burnt the roof.  That was where he'd take me, and some details of that place are burned into my memory, like the way the wood from the collapsed roof looked like alligator skin, and how it smelled. 

He told me if I didn't do what he wanted, or if I told anyone, he'd go after Laura.  Eventually he included baby Elaine in that threat, too.  He also would brandish the machete at me to drive the point home.  So great was my fear that I never told anyone, until one summer at church camp after High School.  Eventually he graduated college and moved on--or maybe it ended when we went to the States on furlough, I'm not sure.  The point is, it ended. 

A year later we were back in the Philippines, and my parents found they had to be away from home more often.  They employed two girls who would help cook and clean, and also be kind of nannies for my sisters and I.  This is very common in the Philippines.  One of the girls had an anger problem, as it turns out.  She was a college student, and when Mom and Dad would leave, she would go back to her room to "study."  If anything disturbed her, she would get angry and come out.  She would yell at us, and scream about how our parents obviously didn't love us, or they wouldn't have left us so often.  Sometimes she would throw things.  Sometimes she would beat us.  She told us Mom and Dad would never believe us if we told on her, and sometimes she would say that Mom and Dad gave her permission to beat us if we got out of line.  I never talked about it to Mom and Dad.

By the time I was in middle school, I was seriously depressed.  I also had trouble in school all along, because I had ADHD at a time when they didn't know what it was...and to be a girl who acted "unladylike" and "boisterous" in a Southern-Baptist run Christian school...well...I got a reputation for being a bad kid.  I knew most of my teachers didn't like me.  I knew none of the girls at school really liked me.  I didn't get good grades, so I got in trouble for that at home.  Add that all up and, well, you get the picture.  I was a mess.

I spiralled down into a depression that lasted until around 2002.  Don't get me wrong; it wasn't a clear-cut, I'm depressed/now I'm not kind of thing.  There are STILL days I have to fight the beasts back into the closet and shut the door.  But 2002 was the first year I really felt happy MOST of the time. 

If you're dealing with depression, I want to tell you there's hope.  There IS a light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes the tunnel is so long it just looks like a pinprick.  Keep fighting.  There were days I wanted to give up, days I had my suicide all planned out.  Days I just wanted to pull the blankets over my head and sleep forever.  Days I prayed I would just stop breathing.  But things WILL get better.  Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary situation. 

If you're having suicidal thoughts, please call 1-800-273-TALK.  Reach out to someone.  You are NOT alone. 

I got help.  I worked hard.  I killed my dragon.  I'm still here, and I'll be danged if I go back to that pit again.  You can get out of it too.



 

A (slightly) new direction

I talked a little bit with Elaine about our blog.  See, she has TONS of things that she can write about when it comes to bipolar.  She's doing an excellent job of it.  I can write a little about bipolar, about what it's been like to have a family member with it, about the changes we all had to make, and so on...but I can't give the same kind of first-hand perspective that fosters an understanding.  At least about bipolar. 

I can, however, write about depression and about ADHD.  So I'm going to start writing about that.  I'll still chime in once in awhile about bipolar, or give my perspective on something Elaine's writing about (and she'll do likewise).  We've just decided to maybe take things a bit broader, to more of a mental health focus.  Elaine will also probably chime in about ADHD since she has it too.

Just wanted to give everyone a head's up.  Thanks for reading!