thehiddensouth

[thehiddensouth]

Derron

Laplace, LA - 6/16/2020

I met Derron Cook while he was protesting in front of the sheriff's office in Laplace, LA. Derron is a high school teacher, business owner, and activist.

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Derron: This area had the largest slave uprising in the country in 1811 and we are the descendants of those slaves.

I started this the day that Trump went up with the Bible. I'd already been active online but it was that day that I decided I can no longer sit inside. I started coming out by myself, then my family joined. We don't have a large crowd but every day someone new joins. I ask people, give me just 30 minutes of your time during afternoon rush hour.

We have a lot of people stopping by and many are reluctant to participate but... [ As we were talking, a young white man walked up and gave Derron a couple of cases of Gatorade.]

[Smiling] Then something like that happens. We get that daily. The great part is, a lot of times, it's white males. That was a shocker to me because there were a lot of racial statements made online. People are supportive but we do have some people that say F Black Lives and all that.

I wrote a letter to the city council and they went one by one and said Black Lives Matter, all except two. I challenged the sheriff to do the same. I'm going right down the line and challenging them all.

I also introduced a letter to our council to grant us a permit to March this Friday, Juneteenth. And tomorrow, they are voting on a proposal that I submitted to make Juneteenth a holiday within the parish.

We're at a really bad time in history. This is our civil rights. I have a son of my own. I'm doing this for him and my daughter.

It's not just police brutality. It's financial and systemic racism. When you talk about Cancer Alley, that’s environmental discrimination. When we look at Covid19 we were actually the epicenter in terms of cases per capita and I believe it had a lot to do with us living here in Cancer Alley.

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I’m pleased to report that the parish council voted yesterday and #Juneteenth is now an official holiday in Laplace and all of St. John the Baptist Parish! Join the march starting at 8 AM at Home Depot in #Laplace, just a short drive up the Mississippi from #NewOrleans

#BLM #blacklivesmatter #Laplace #louisiana #plantations

[thehiddensouth]

Courtney New Orleans, LA - 2020/4/20  

Courtney is a traveling ICU nurse who has been working in COVID units since the pandemic began.  

Courtney: I love being an ICU nurse. Outside of working COVID and a few other situations, I wake up excited to go to work. I love the challenge.  

I’ve always been a stoic person. Even with family deaths, I've been the one that keeps it together. But this has been something completely different.  

I've never felt so helpless in my life, just completely unable to help people. You're not allowed to go into the room when someone codes. You can't Ambu bag people and give them breaths because of the nature of the virus. So the number of people I've seen die through a window while they're staring at me, gasping for air, and I can't do anything... it just does something to you.  

I had a patient; a younger, African American, female, 38. No visitors are allowed in the COVID ICU. Phones are the only way we can reach out to family members and let them know how their [loved one] is doing. So every day I would call this woman's mother.  

I’m not great with families. I like to put my head down and do my job but there was something about this woman. It was about her daughter but it also became, "Well, how are you?" And she would tell me to take care of myself and other [kind] things that I knew she meant. I got to the point where I actually looked forward to calling her.  

My last shift, I called her over and over because her daughter's death was imminent but I couldn’t reach her. Later in my shift, a new patient came into the ICU. It was the mother I had been talking to. She passed away by the end of my shift.  

BW: Have you known nurses that have contracted the virus?  

Courtney: Yes. Just last week a nurse in our unit tested positive. They had her quarantine at home for three days and then she came back with just a surgical mask on.  

One of the hospitals I worked at did a pretty good job of having adequate PPE (personal protective equipment) but the other hospital that I worked at, you only get one gown per shift and you don't get an N95 (specialized mask). We have one bathroom for 30 nurses and we all have to change in a linen closet with people barging in.  

I was working at that hospital two Fridays ago and the CFO came through the unit to give us a basket of candy and bags of chips and he looks like the Michelin man with his N95 and spacesuit on and we're all walking around [with nothing]. It's a joke.  

BW: How have you coped?  

Courtney: Well, the first month, I didn't get out of bed on days that I didn't work, I drank all day and ate takeout. I couldn't be in the sunlight. I was not handling it well. That definitely contributed to the demise of my relationship.  

About two weeks ago, one of the doctors I worked with could tell that I hadn't been sleeping. I told her that I couldn't think. I felt like I could barely live at that point. I was in dire straights so she wrote me a prescription for Lexipro.  

BW: Has it helped?  

Courtney: It has helped. I've never taken any kind of depression medication. Exercise has always been my happy pill, but I need to be on this right now. I don’t plan on staying on it for longer than it takes to work through this.  

But I can still feel sadness and I can tell that I need to do other things in addition to taking this medication.   I’ve started therapy and today marks two weeks since I've had a drink. I've made myself workout every single day, no matter what.  

Before this, I took a lot of things for granted in terms of my and my family's health. Now I feel like my eyes are wide open. I feel like this might be the defining thing that makes me stronger than I’ve ever been.  

#caronavirus #COVID19 #nurse #nurses #new orleans #showmeyournola

[thehiddensouth]

Annabell New Orleans, LA - 2020-4-8

Annabell: I grew up in St. Louis and had a relatively normal childhood in an upper-middle-class family.

When I was fifteen I began being sex trafficked. At first, I volunteered to do it because I needed money for my boyfriend. He was trying to sell drugs and not doing a very good job of it.  I was hypersexual at the time. That's why I thought I'd be fine with [sex work]. I was like, whatever, I was labeled a slut in school already, you know?    

I would sneak out in the middle of the night. I thought I was so bad, getting away with stuff but then it turned into more of a situation where I had to do it.

My pimp's name was... you're gonna laugh because it's so stereotypical... Papi.  

Eventually, I worked myself into a corner that I couldn’t get out of. I couldn't tell anyone. My parents didn't know at that point so instead of letting myself out as a harlot and disappointment, I ran away from home.

I was sixteen at that point. I moved in with Papi and was being trafficked all the time.  It was really traumatic.  A lot of it I don't remember because I was addicted to heroin at the time. It clouds my memories but I think that kind of saved my sanity.  

Papi got murdered. He had been violent towards one of the women that I turned tricks with and he ended up killing her. She had a baby daddy and I think he stabbed Papi. While everyone was preoccupied, I ran away.

I ran through North St. Louis. I don’t remember exactly where but it was a warehouse district, not a great place. I just kept on running. I was in booty shorts and a small cami type thing, sprinting through St. Louis with no shoes.  

BW: Sounds like you went through a lot of trauma in your teen years. Do you feel like you've gotten past any of it?  

Annabell: Does anyone ever get past stuff like that? I'm really into psychology. If I can put a name on it I can understand it better.  

BW: PTSD?  

Annabell: Actually, I think it's CPTSD. PTSD happens because of an event in which you feel helpless. CPTSD is developed when you are in situations that have no foreseeable end. Your brain has to adjust to a constant fight or flight mode. POWs are an example of people who can develop CPTSD or children who are in long term abusive situations.

I had a boyfriend a few years ago. We were having a better than usual day. We were so happy and in love. We had dinner at a restaurant. We came back home and were being all cute and funny and making jokes and rolling around, being goofballs and he tries to touch my boob or something,  I went off on him, "Why are you ruining this? We were having a really good fucking day and you just had to blow it all by objectifying me! Turning me into a little fuck thing! Why are you doing this?"  

Objectively that was crazy. We had been dating for a while at that point and it's not like he was trying to force anything on me.

Only recently in my life have I felt comfortable with anything sexually.    

BW: Did your sex drive lower right after you got out of the sex work?      

My boyfriend that I had right after that was very possessive. He hit me one time because he followed me to work and he saw that I hugged one of my coworkers. He saw the coworker grab my butt. I didn't want him to but he did. So I felt like I was cheating if I touched people. It was ground into me that if I interacted physically with other people, there's only one reason for that.    

I was also raped at around six. I don’t remember it at all.    

BW: Somebody told you about it?    

Annabell: I found an old journal when I was eleven or twelve. Actually, I tried to kill myself and was hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar because of that. My mom had told me to clean my closet. Instead of cleaning, I was doddling, going through shit and I read my old journals.    

BW: And you wrote about what happened in the journal?    

Annabell: As much as a six-year-old could. I had a lot of misspellings. Really simple sentence structure. I talked about hurting a lot and being scared and how I couldn't tell mom. Things like that.    

BW: Do you still journal?    

Annabell: No. After that, I stopped journaling and I started painting more. I can paint the things I don’t want to talk about. Images aren't so literal, pardon the pun [laugh].  

#hiddensouth

[thehiddensouth]

Ronni New Orleans, LA - 2020-4-2

BW: How's everything that's been going on affected you?    

Ronni: I'm to the point of sleeping in my car. I have three kids. They're staying with my ex-husband and his wife at the moment.    

BW: How did that happen so quickly?  

Ronni: I'm a waitress and I can't work. I've been at TGI Fridays for eight years now. I live day to day on my tips. It was already slow to begin with. I was only making like $20-$30 a day. And hours were getting cut so I was working maybe four days a week. It doesn't go far. And my car broke down on me so I had to take money out of savings for that.  

I lived in Westwego and the [landlords] aren't very friendly.    

BW: What are you doing in Central City?  

Ronni: On the Westbank, they're gonna harass you. Over here, if you're homeless, they're more understanding of the situation.  

BW: This can be a tough neighborhood though.  

Ronni: It is. I was walking to the store to get something to eat the other night and there was a drive-by right in front of me. I'd never heard a gunshot that close. It was an automatic so it was like [rapid fire sound].  I was like a deer in headlights. A lady came by and pulled me. That's when I realized what was going on.  

There's plenty of people out here that go days without eating. It's hard. You have to find places to take a shower. Being a woman, you can't just go to the bathroom anywhere.   I think that just like when Katrina hit... if gets any worse, with people having to steal to eat, it's gonna be mayhem. It feels like a ticking time bomb.  

BW: What's your plan?  

Ronni: I'm trying to do what I can to make money. A couple of friends of mine and I were talking. We get food stamps so we're talking about trying to make plates for people and selling them for $2 a plate. We gotta do something...  

My kids want to be with me all the time. They're seven, five and three. I can't just tell them, "Yeah, you can sleep in mommy's car with her." I have a little '91 Corolla that doesn't have AC in it and when it's hot, it's hot.    

But I go over and hang out with them every day. The only thing we don't do is the bedtime stuff and wake up together.

#coronavirus #nola #NewOrleans #covid19 #homeless

[thehiddensouth]

From my trip to #Arkanaas a couple of weeks ago. #ozarks #dogpatch #urbex #decay #abandoned #hiddenplaces #hiddensouth #decay #abandonedplaces #urbexworld #urbanexploration #urbexphotography #photography #lostplaces #urban #urbanexploring #urbexphoto #kings #urbandecay #forgotten #art #lostplace #urbanexplorer #urbexpeople #photooftheday #urbexplaces #streetphotography #rurex  (at Dogpatch USA) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Nq1bKpxjF/?igshid=cno3ucfmh590

#arkanaas #ozarks #dogpatch #urbex #decay #abandoned #hiddenplaces #hiddensouth #abandonedplaces #urbexworld #urbanexploration #urbexphotography #photography #lostplaces #urban #urbanexploring #urbexphoto #kings #urbandecay #forgotten #art #lostplace #urbanexplorer #urbexpeople #photooftheday #urbexplaces #streetphotography #rurex

[thehiddensouth]

This is an excerpt from episode #9 of the Hidden South podcast. It is part of a series of written and audio stories called True Romance that will take an honest look at romantic relationships. Gail's story focuses primarily on love, infidelity, suicide, and the grieving process. Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or go to hiddensouth.com https://www.instagram.com/p/B5LWAEKJVcV/?igshid=t96fobg84xnj

#9

[thehiddensouth]

This is Welmon. He's a #NewOrleans artist with an interesting story (He'd tell you to look up Welmon on youtube). He lost his voice a while back. Now he speaks without it. This and many other photos are at hiddensouth.com/shop. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Welmon's photo go to Welmon. (at SecondLine Arts and Antiques) https://www.instagram.com/p/B37SFucpRc7/?igshid=16mn2mfethpuh

#neworleans

[thehiddensouth]

Ashley New Orleans, LA - 2019-08-15 #TrueRomance Ashley: I'm an immigrant child and my parents are from Granada. Their lives were so much different than mine. They had to marry to get where they wanted to be and it was very much the expectation. When I was 14 my mom died. My mom and dad's relationship was yen and yang. Dad worked and mom managed everything. When she died he could not exist anymore. When I became an adult, it was really about being able to stand on my own two feet. I definitely saw any romantic relationship as a distraction. I became single-minded in my attempts to be financially independent. I'm the youngest of three. Both my older siblings are married. Both dated a lot. I did not. I think I come across as a very extroverted person but the truth of the matter is, I'm extremely introverted. I love being alone. I'm a teacher and I get home after a day of work, close my studio apartment door and the silence is exquisite. BW: How old are you? Ashley: 32. Never had a boyfriend, never had a relationship. BW: Are you a sexual person? Ashley: Yeah. But I don't like emotional intimacy or the feeling of needing someone. It bothers me, a lot. BW: Does it bother you that it bothers you? Is there a part of you that thinks you're missing out? Ashley: My brother just got married and he and I are similar. Seeing him fall in love and become a half to someone else was an interesting process because it made me feel for the first time that someone with my personality really could be happy in a marriage. But there is that part of him that is different. He is a very accommodating person and doesn't get frustrated easily. He's all goodness and light and rainbows. I just have this edge. I'm a tough person and I know that about myself. BW: A lot of people have this deep-seated fear that they may die alone. Ashley: Ha. I don't feel that at all because it's been proven wrong. My dad found the love of his life. They grew up together. They were married for over 20 years and she died. Same thing with my grandmother. She loved this guy, she gets a stroke, she's in the bed for seven years alone. The truth is, either way, it hits you. https://www.instagram.com/p/B2MefriAKml/?igshid=1uhvtpw8noktf

#trueromance

[thehiddensouth]

Wali⁠ New Orleans, LA - 2019-08-17⁠ #AudioStories #TrueRomance #GreyMatters⁠ ⁠ I met Wali, from the @the730podcast while he was visiting a friend in New Orleans following a breakup with his girlfriend and his second hospitalization for bipolar disorder. We stayed in touch and when he returned a few months later, he agreed to share his story with me. ⁠ ⁠ Listen to the full story and subscribe to The Hidden South podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or your favorite podcast app. You can also listen to this and view hundreds of stories on hiddensouth.com⁠ https://www.instagram.com/p/B2E55MDJaDl/?igshid=1qwbn97atfqrr

#audiostories #trueromance #greymatters

[thehiddensouth]

Patrick ⁠ BOLD LOVE⁠ New Orleans, LA - 2019-08-12⁠ #TrueRomance #InkdSoul ⁠ ⁠ I met this young couple while they were vacationing in #NewOrleans and asked them to tell me about Patrick’s Knuckle tat. ⁠ ⁠ Patrick: When I got this tattoo I was 18. I came across a guy that did basement tattoos. I was sitting there trying to think of two four-letter words. What I came up with was something I never got through my family. “Bold Love” came to mind. ⁠ ⁠ Obviously whatever tattoos you get your children are going to be intrigued about. They're gonna be like," What does that mean, dad?" and I'm gonna tell them, " I got this for you guys a long time ago.” ⁠ ⁠ BW: You said you didn't get that when you were a kid. Was it not available in the house?⁠ ⁠ Patrick: I got a different kind of love. Don't get me wrong, I had a great childhood. But I saw other people's relationships with their family and it was completely different. My family was very disconnected from me. They didn't really have many emotional things to offer. They weren't involved. I really want that for my children. ⁠ ⁠ BW: She's looking at you right now like she has bold love for you. ⁠ ⁠ Christine: I do have so much love for this man. I adore tattoos and to get them in a bold place means something and when I saw his "Bold Love" tattoo, I had to take a second look. ⁠ ⁠ I fell in love with him so hard. Bold Love sums up our entire experience. We've been together for eight months and we've already gone to Europe and spent three months there. Now we're on our way to Canada so I can introduce him to my father. ⁠ ⁠ #inked #nola #tats #knuckletats #story #stories https://www.instagram.com/p/B2Ez-3ppMoN/?igshid=17tkko7j9n4te

#trueromance #inkdsoul #neworleans #inked #nola #tats #knuckletats #story #stories

[thehiddensouth]

#TrueRomance⁠ ⁠ I’m beginning work on a new series called True Romance. I would like to hear your story of a romantic relationship that really impacted your life for better or worse. You can share your written story at hiddensouth.com or you can share your audio story by calling [phone]. Please spread the word! https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ZHIKdJSR9/?igshid=1af271dp0q72j

#trueromance

[thehiddensouth]

PaulNew Orleans, LA - 2019-04-03#AudioStories⁠ ⁠ Listen to the full #AudioStory at hiddensouth.com or subscribe to The Hidden South Podcast on your favorite podcast app. ⁠ ⁠ I met Paul in an art market just outside the French Quarter where he was selling multi-colored, one of a kind, painted sports coats to tourists. I immediately recognized Paul as someone who had a story to tell. ⁠ ⁠ This interview was recorded at Washington Square Park in the Marigny. Paul told me about his many struggles and his recent victory after finding The Moth in New Orleans @mothstories ⁠ (at New Orleans, Louisiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1HSj1XnO1F/?igshid=1bizzfi31t8c4

#audiostories #audiostory

[thehiddensouth]

Vanessa⁠ New Orleans, LA - 2019-08-06⁠ #InkedSoul⁠ ⁠ Vanessa: I had a really hard break up and a guy from my past came back into my life. He was really trying to be with me and I was low and vulnerable. He was a tattoo artist. I think we had been reunited for a month when he said he wanted to tattoo my lips on his neck. We talked about what I would get if he got that tattoo. ⁠ ⁠ I lived in Sarasota and he lived in Santa Barbara so we went our separate ways. I had kissed a napkin for him before I left. He got my lips tattooed with a lock and then he came back to visit me. I told him, look, I don't want to be with you anymore but you can still tattoo me if you want in a friendship, I still love you, but it's not like that, sort of way. ⁠ ⁠ He tattooed it in my living room and that was that. For me, the tattoo is a reminder that I hold the key to my own heart so I shouldn't just give it away like that. (at New Orleans, Louisiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/B08uTsNJY2I/?igshid=1x4nho2t2i1us

#inkedsoul

[thehiddensouth]

Carole

Greenville, SC - 2018/01/15 #greymatters

Carole: I read a devotion not too long ago that said God has the day planned out, and I should look toward the day with expectation, and I usually don’t. A lot of times I look to it with dread. My mornings are a really bad time, but as the day goes on I feel better.

I believe that the biggest part of my addiction is mental illness. In the [Big Book of AA] it says some of us are on the depressive side, and, well . . . I am depressed. It runs in my family. I’m aware of it now. I do something about it, but that chemical composition of my brain keeps me waking up and dreading the day. A couple of years ago I got really depressed and I was constantly thinking of how to die, wanting to die and that prompted me to go on medication.

I take an antidepressant and when I finally feel better I want to stop. I don’t want to be on this medication. I don’t really agree with these pharmaceutical meds that alter your brain. But it keeps me from wanting to die. The people in AA  help, and my higher power, who is Jesus Christ, certainly is with me, and I can go to him at any time.

BW: When did the depression start?

Carole: I believe as a child. I’m one of four children, and I was the second one, and me and my middle brother just have a terrible battle with it. I think I was always depressed.

BW: Were there any events that happened?

Carole: Yes . . . It’s tough to even talk about, but I was abused when I was very young. I was around four. I was still living in Manhattan. There was a boy who worked with my father. He and my father had fruit and vegetable stores. He molested me.

I was crying all day, and my mother knew something was wrong. She called my father. He came home with this boy, and they were telling me over and over again, “He only kissed you, he only kissed you.” So, I learned that I couldn’t even trust my parents.

I did not think of it until I was sober, maybe 10 years. My sponsor was talking about her abuse. That’s when I remembered him.

BW:  What is it like when you’re really going through a tough time?

Carole: It’s a terrible place to be. It really is. I remember once, my son was six years old. He came home from school and put his arms around me. I remember forcing myself to hug this kid and show some love, and I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to hug him. My son was my joy, my gosh.

It’s a weight. It’s heavy. It has kept me from doing things, socializing with people, going out. Today when I’m around a lot of people and interacting with people, afterward, I’m exhausted.

My father committed suicide. I know what a profound effect it had on me and my siblings. I was 21. I had just gotten married. He went into the garage and asphyxiated himself.

BW: Was he clinically depressed?

Carole: Yeah, and drinking. I believe he drank because he was so depressed.  At first, it does help. It helped me. I say that drinking really saved my life, or helped me so much in my teen years and into maybe 22, 23. Then . . . I just kept trying. I wanted it to help me again.

But it didn’t. I’ve been sober for 12 years. I truly just live a day at a time.

#depression #greymatters #Grey Matters #aa #12 steps

[thehiddensouth]

Mary

Denver, CO - 2018-7-3  #GreyMatters

Mary: By the time I was three years old, I’d had several brain injuries. And when I was three and a half our dog got hit by a car. My dad took it out to the shed and strangled it because there was nothing else to do with the animal. I walked in when he was strangling our dog.

BW: Do you think that impacted your mental health back then?

Mary: Oh, sure. My dad had hit my sister around that time and knocked her jaw out of place too so there was violence in the house. When you’re young, you’re very vulnerable to the circumstances of your environment. It’s at that point in our life we’re formulating what we’re going to be like. 

I also discovered that I had gender identity issues. All this was hitting me when I was very young. My life has been erratic ever since. 

Growing up, I was bullied because I was upfront about my intentions to become a woman. My school chums just hated me. They were relentless. I was one of the biggest kids in school, but because I wouldn’t fight, they would . . . I was scared. I was just terrified. 

When I was 10, I had a seizure following a head-butting game with a friend of mine. Apparently, the injuries I’d had when I was younger put together with that head-butting affected me dramatically. All of a sudden I couldn’t turn in circles anymore. I’d get motion illness very easily. That set me up for the neurological decline which they eventually diagnosed me with a couple of years ago. It turns out I have a white mass covering the inside of my skull plate and scars and lesions.

Also, when I was 10, I was sexually molested by a pediatrician for a year and a half. That gave me multiple personality disorder. Back then, it was just make-believe personalities that I kept inside of me, but then they emerged later as something more real.

By the time I hit adulthood, I realized I was transgendered and eventually went through with the surgery. I didn’t graduate from high school, and I ended up falling into drug abuse most of my adult life. By the time I was 30, I was pretty badly disabled. I’d abused a lot of drugs, and I was just a mess.

I met my partner and moved in with her, and started recovery, sort of. In about 2009, I started taking the recovery more seriously. I entered treatment for a rape that I suffered at the turn of the century from a violent predator. I realized the rape was affecting me pretty severely and causing multiple personalities to come out. 

My partner and I were having a lot of issues. My counselor encouraged me to volunteer, so I started as a receptionist at the Gender Identity Center. I also started volunteering for the crisis unit for WINGS, survivors of childhood sexual assault. They ended up taking a statewide crisis contract for doing phone services and established a peer team. I was the first hire on the team. I did crisis work for a year and a half as a peer specialist on the statewide support line., and that was awesome. 

But a girl on the team committed suicide, and I went down hard. I just couldn’t deal with it. I lost the ability to speak briefly. I was having neurological problems before she died and they became quite pronounced afterward. I had to leave the job. I almost died from stress within a few months. I had a neurological collapse.

It started out just dropping things. Eventually, it affected my speech. I had trouble controlling the left half of my body, even the left half of my tongue. At its worst, the left half of my tongue was hanging slack and the right half of my tongue was doing all the work to make me speak. It’s been two and a half years. 

BW: Has suicide come up for you?

Mary: Oh, yeah. I’ve been tempted many times in my life. If I get really stressed out and things are bad, it’s the first thought that always comes to mind. “I should just kill myself.” Then the sobering thoughts are, “Of course I’m not going to kill myself. That’s out of proportion to the circumstance.” My last attempt was 22 years ago.

BW: What’s helped?

Mary: Just trying to keep hope alive in my heart. If you’ve got hope in your heart, you can make it through just about anything. 

And this little one, she helps stabilize me when I’m getting emotional, anxious, depressed, or angry.

#trans #did

[thehiddensouth]

Episode 6 - Ember⁠ #AudioStories⁠ ⁠ I met with Ember on her fortieth birthday. Our conversation took place on the hood of her bus in the Upper Ninth Ward in New Orleans, LA and focuses predominately on love addiction and borderline personality disorder. ⁠ ⁠ To listen to Ember's story, subscribe to The Hidden South podcast on your favorite podcast app or go to hiddensouth.com⁠ ⁠ #podcast #BPD #loveaddiction #nola #neworleans #hiddensouth #audiostory (at New Orleans, Louisiana) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0WJxsNnCJR/?igshid=tothra8m592c

#audiostories #podcast #bpd #loveaddiction #nola #neworleans #hiddensouth #audiostory

[thehiddensouth]

Dawn

Greenville, SC - 2018-01-16 #GreyMatters

Dawn: I’m a certified peer support specialist. I work with the chronically homeless population with severe and persistent mental illness and/or substance use.

I am diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder is really all about an inability to manage emotions and mood instability. Very much black and white thinking, so you’re either all good or all bad. There is no gray; we are extremely impulsive.

If somebody’s leaving because you’re crazy, that just makes it even more insane, which runs them out the door faster. It's just this giant gaping hole in your soul and no matter what you do, everything you try, it’s just impossible to fill.

The one word that comes to mind is the word manipulator. It’s great if you’re a salesperson, so I’ve been very successful in sales.

October of 2015, I was coming out of multiple hospitalizations. It had been a really rough few years, and one day I decided I couldn’t bear the thought of going to work that day. I’d already called in quite a few days up to that point. So, instead of going to work, I ended up taking about 80 pills, all kinds of them, and went to sleep peacefully. I was in the house for eight hours before my fiancée came home and found me unconscious. I was unconscious for three days in the CCU.

At that time, I was hopeless. There is no cure for BPD and there are no medications designed for it. All I can think of is, is this all my life is gonna be? I’d just come from working as a merchandise manager. I was managing a few hundred employees at a company where we’re bringing in millions of dollars of revenue and making almost $70,000 a year to a giant fall from grace working as a banquet server for minimum wage, part-time, and I hated it. And, I thought, well I’m useless now. What the hell am I doing here?

Most folks who have been diagnosed have had some kind of childhood trauma, and mostly it’s sexual childhood trauma. That was no different for me. I had a family member who began molesting me when I was four years old, and that lasted maybe four years. His friends did as well.

The family member stopped but his friends did not, and it lasted all the way till I was about 16. About eight different folks sexually abused me on a recurring basis, multiple times a month.

I ended up dropping out of school because I wanted to piss my mom off. I was very mad at my mom because I did tell my parents when I was younger and nothing came of it. That’s when my family member stopped, but there were no conversations, there was no therapy, there was zero acknowledgment, like zero.

I told nobody else and I carried this burden, this giant monkey on my back and I’d come to terms with it and just accepted it as, well, it happened, and I’m not a victim, and I will not have that mentality, and I’m gonna be successful regardless, and this doesn’t define me. Right? So I thought.

So I threw myself into everything and tried to be a perfectionist at everything. In the process, I went through multiple relationships. I always managed to be in long-term relationships because I was clinging on for dear life, very co-dependent. And, when they would threaten to leave me. . . I remember one time just holding one of those giant carving knives, and threatening to stab myself if they left me. I mean, you’re straight-up insane.

BW: Are you on medication?

Dawn: I am on seven different medications.

BW: You said there’s nothing made specifically for BPD?

Dawn: No, that’s why I have so many. They throw things at you and say, “Hey, try this. Hey, try that.” And, you go back and you say, “Well, this isn’t really working or it’s causing this.” And they say, “Well here, here’s another one and that’ll take care of that.” It’s always treating the symptoms, not treating the actual issue. It’s always Band-Aids.

Dawn: This is how I really turned the tables completely around from me suffering to me taking control of mental illness. When I was in the hospital for the suicide attempt an NA group came in. Well, nobody wanted to go. I’ve never had an addiction to anything but, I felt bad. These volunteers came all the way out there, so I went.

This woman stood up and put all of her ugly out there. I mean, like nailed herself to the cross and owned it. Her story was so powerful. She had so many more lows than I had, yet somehow she managed to get to the point where she could put it all out there. I, on the other hand, had been hiding it my whole life.

I decided right then and there I wanted to do for other people what she did for me. I went back to my room and fell on my knees, and I cried, and cried, and cried. And, gave my life to Christ, and it was amazing.

So, I began. I went to NAMI. When I got well enough I started volunteering and then applied to this job and six months later got it.

The big difference between who I was then and who I am now is that I went from always thinking about me to thinking about others. When you get to a place of recovery the next step is to turn around and help the next person up. And, that’s what has kept me going.

People are either going to take me or leave me and that has been very hard to accept because all my life I’ve only wanted to be accepted.

So now I put it out there. My friends know. When I was initially starting on this giant uphill road to recovery, my good friends would go with me to NAMI. The only way I’ve been able to maintain my recovery is with the support of others.

BW: What about healing family relationships?

Dawn: After that suicide attempt I was talking to my therapist, and I got some courage. I decided to confront those people and my family member as well. I had him and his wife out to lunch and accused him of it.

He started crying and apologized. His wife was flabbergasted. But once it came out, it was done. You let the beast out and it goes; it flies away. He and I have a fantastic relationship now.

#BPD #greymatters #grey matters