Messy Can't Stop Her

Mother to the Rescue: Sonia tells us how she saved her son from the addiction triggered by emotional abuse

July 07, 2022 Judith Kambia Obatusa (JKO)/SoniaPseudonym Season 2 Episode 12
Messy Can't Stop Her
Mother to the Rescue: Sonia tells us how she saved her son from the addiction triggered by emotional abuse
Show Notes Transcript

Separation is not the end-all and be-all when it comes to domestic violence because in many cases, the impact of the abuse comes along on your journey to freedom. When children are involved, the impact can unfold very slowly with mega chaos erupting just when you think the storm is over. 

In this three-part story, Sonia shares her experience as a mother navigating the mental health and substance use system to help her teenage son recover from the impact of their father’s emotional abuse. 

Sonia’s journey captures the essence of this quote by Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist, essayist and poet - Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

References in this episode

Christian Men Who Hate Women: Healing Hurting Relationships by Margaret J. Rinck

The brain-changing benefits of exercise Wendy Suzuki, TEDWomen 2017

 

Please DM me on Instagram or Facebook @judithobatusa to let me know what you thought of this episode.

If you'll love to share your story on the #MessyCantStopHer podcast, click here to let me know.  

Podcast Music Credit:  https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

 

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Thank you so much for listening.

Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

JKO:       Welcome to this episode of Messy Can't Stop Her, the podcast where we share the stories of women's resilience through chaos, crisis and the challenges of life. We have been on a journey looking at domestic violence and the impact of domestic violence on ourselves as women, on our children, on our families, and on our community. On today's episode, we are going to share one of those stories about how domestic violence almost succeeded in derailing a child's life, but for the resilience of the mother. So in today's episode, I'd like you to join me in welcoming Sonia. 

Sonia, thank you for gracing us with your presence and for the courage you have taken to share your story with others so that we will learn and we can do better. Welcome. 

Sonia:   Thank you, Judith, for having me, and it's my pleasure to be here with you and share my story to help other mothers to overcome the hardship of domestic violence and navigate the broken medical system and support system for abuse. 

JKO:       Thank you, Sonia. So Sonia is going to just give us a little background about herself and her children and tell us how her journey through domestic violence started. So the first thing we want to know is when we talk about domestic violence, tell us a little bit about your experience with that. 

Sonia:   Domestic violence is not only physical abuse. Physical abuse shows embraces and physical damage that is done to a person. There are other aspects of domestic violence that are done in silence, not visible to people around, and that's when it's very difficult for a person to prove that there is a domestic abuse. And I'm going to give a quick background on emotional and psychological abuse, stress that I had to go through and my children as well. It was very difficult to even speak to my friends because I had no proof that this is happening. They had no physical proof other than emotional. So my closest friends and felt they realized until they witnessed the behavior of my spouse, they were still saying, well, he's so nice. Like, no, maybe he's in a bad mood. So it took me a lot of time to prove that, no, it's not physical, but it is emotional abuse. During that time, I was not employed, I was raising my children and I had to make a decision for the best of myself and my children to separate. It was very difficult for all of us because I was staying at home, mom. I had no income at that point, so I made the right decision to separate. 

Shortly after, I noticed one of my children rebelled. I had to stand up on my feet, find the job, support myself, and I was stressed and I was very busy. At the beginning, I thought it's just usual teenager behavior. I found a full time job. That's when I got school, calling me saying, what is happening with your child? And I wasn't aware of anything. My reply was like, what do you mean? I'm at work. So basically I was going to work in the morning. My child was getting ready for school at the time. I came to work, cook dinner, domestic work. My child was semi okay, never really spend too much time outside, stayed home and went to school. There was nothing alarming. So when the school started contacting me, it was already assigned. That's what I would like to share with other parents. When it's visible to others the behavior of the child, it is already time to take action because it means that it already went far. Because at the beginning it's very difficult to notice the parents, to notice that the child is emotionally damaged from the emotional abuse, from the father, mother being busy to support the family. So I became overwhelmed with my full time job and I was given an enormous amount of resources by the authorities to help my child. It was overwhelming.

I was getting lots of emails and lots of brochures to the point that I did not know where to begin. And I realized that my child is in trouble emotionally and to medicate themselves, my child started abusing substance to cope with emotional abuse that my child experience at home. The amount of support was overwhelming and I did not know where to begin. So I brought the brochures home, I left them on the table. I had no energy and did not know where to get help. The best help I ever got was the school counselor who said that, as strange as it might sound, but I had to put myself first. And as a mother we are not used to the concept of putting ourselves first. We do everything to support the family, to do things with the kids. We work, we put a smile on our faces and we keep going. So that was a very strange approach for me to put myself first. I was saying, but my children need so with the support of a counselor and my GP who said that no matter how strong I am and no matter how I put smile on my face, my children feel me by osmosis. They know what's happening. They've been through emotional abuse with their father and they can feel it. 

That was a huge turning point for me when I understood that that is the moment where I have to put myself first. Meaning I had to say cereal for dinner today because I am overlooked. I never did that before. I cooked, I cleaned, I ran around and I was the hero son. That helped me hugely because they understand that I am not invincible, that I am not a hero, that I am a human being who has bad days and good days. During that time we came closer with my children and they stepped in. They would say, mom, you are not having a good day. Let me make a sandwich for dinner. So that was a huge step where I had to change my mindset and include all of us in this process and not be the hero and do it myself. 

My resources were still untouched. My child was in a spiral of trouble finally I decided when I stood up on my feet I made a decision which was the best decision. I never looked back. I still think that was the best decision of my life. It was to quit my full time job in order to help my child. When I quit my job and I was closer to home I was able to connect with my children I was able to prepare nutritious meals on time I was able to answer the phone when they really needed me when they were in distress because working I wasn't able my child would send me a message my anxiety is very high and I am in the middle of the meeting and I could not even ask. So my first step was to quit the job and then my children expressed that they are going through emotional confusion it's a father and it's emotional abuse from the father they had to navigate themselves to all of you in but I was close to them to support them. 

The second thing that was important to me was also I started looking through support system I eliminated the private support because I was unable to pay I eliminated the sliding scale pay because again even though it's a smaller amount I was still unable to pay so I was left with all the names of all the agencies that were free, service was free. Then I realized that I am dealing with two aspects with my child is the emotional distress and substance abuse. If it is only one of those things, the process is a little bit different because if it is only mental health then it's medical professional referrals if it is only the substance abuse then it's a rehab detox different pathway. I was dealing with both they are both connected but they cannot be dealt with at the same time and I had to learn that so basically quit my job approached their resources and what I also was important is because I'm very organized I felt that I had to keep track of every single incident I kept diaries, not a diary telling stories very brief the date, the time, the type of incident and the person I was dealing with that helped me tremendously in a future because I was able to prove the resources wrong I was able to go back to my notes and I am visual so I use the notebook but I would advise use the calendar on your phone laptop however it works to keep track of every single incident. 

So the incident with my child became more intense there wasn't an overdose at home when I had to call the ambulance multiple visits to the hospital incidents with the police, not a charge, but intoxication or a mischief in the street. So my child was never charged. There is no criminal record. Then I learned how the system of support is broken, especially if a parent is faced with both mental health and substance abuse. I visit in a hospital. I always got a discharge paper. I had a short visit with a psychiatrist and there was always the same child is abusing substance, this and this is your call, this is the paper, this is the discharge, follow up and call. So again, I called the support system just to find out that they are not connected. They don't know who I am.

So for me as a parent, I was under the impression that mental health and substance abuse are under some sort of one umbrella where I will get a help, somewhere I can continue with getting my help. And at that point I learned that that is not the case. Some resources fall under Fraser Health, some of them fall under school district if it's involved. Some of them fall under the Ministry of Children, some of them fall under the private sector where you pay and get a treatment. For me as a parent, I thought all those services will be under some sort of one umbrella. It is not the case, nothing is connected. And as a parent, to get help, I had to tell my story multiple times to different people. My story from the very beginning of domestic abuse and my child struggling with emotions and substance abuse as a result of it. People who work in those agencies are also human beings who forget to call back, who forget to make notes and who forget to follow back and who gave me the wrong information because they are just subbing for one day. So the process is excruciating. Through this whole process, I found people who were extremely helpful. And of course, every phone call, every email, everything has been recorded in my notes. So I was running in circles between agency and support and telling my story multiple times from the very beginning until I slowly started finding support. I was strong at that time. I was composed, I was not crying, I was not panicking. I was on a mission to help my child. I did not sleep, I was eating properly. I looked after myself. That took months and months to get to that stage. 

So I was on a mission. No matter what, I'm going to go in circles. I have to help my child. So I learned that I had to really navigate through the system that is broken. And that's what I have been doing. Going in circles, knocking on multiple doors, correcting the wrong information I was giving. I was on a mission and it is a part time job for a parent, the state I'm in now. My child needed help. My child asked for help themselves because the other very important thing is that parent will not get any information or feedback about the child has to initiate their journey and ask for help by themselves. And that's very difficult because of the age, because of the not being fully matured, how the youth can advocate for themselves. If me, an adult, cannot navigate with the system. So I would like to share how difficult it is. And maybe some things can be done. Maybe we can share the information and hold each other's hand through this process of helping our children and ourselves. And that all happened because of the struggling and eventually freeing myself and my family from mental domestic violence. 

JKO:       Thank you so much, Sonia. Thank you so much. You really tried to capture the journey that took years in a few minutes. And I appreciate that. So I want to ask you a couple of questions, because one thing that people always ask us regarding domestic violence, why didn't she leave? And then people have all kinds of questions about why she didn't leave. So how were you able to get strength to leave with two children and no job, no income? Please share a little bit about that so that if there's somebody listening who is in a situation in fact, before we get to that question, I want to ask you one question. I want you to answer this. So when you say emotional abuse, can you give us a couple of examples of the things you were experiencing, your children were experiencing in the home that made the home unbearable and made you know that you just could not continue this? 

Sonia:   It was manipulation. It was some sort of nervous breakdown or lack of emotional support. The father was struggling with his own issues and that was all loaded on us. Manipulation, very irrational behavior. I basically did not know what will happen emotionally in five minutes. So we were living under constant unknown. We could not plan our day because we didn't know what kind of distress emotional will be at home, disappearing for days. At the time he was disappearing, we didn't know where he was. We were scared that something happened. Manipulating children against me, manipulating me against children, just playing tricks on our minds, which was very unhealthy. And living every day, every minute of the day in unknown and being unpredictable put a lot of damage on us. We had no security saying, okay, it's safe, because when the children went to bed, for example, and I was thinking, okay, well, we can sleep through the night. It became some sort of conversation mentor, something that made us all awake at night. So there was no physical? Absolutely. There was no yelling or quarrel. It was very deliberate manipulation of our minds. And it's very tricky because it's invisible. 

JKO:       In a previous episode of Messy Cant’s Stop Her, somebody said the same thing. And I was like, there's a book I read many years ago called Christian Men Who Hate Women. So it's a book that talks about the man is charming, he's nice. So when you come to tell the story, nobody believes you because he's an angel and he's so nice to all, helping everybody. And there's something you talk about, no emotional support. 

Sonia:   That is my best friend who might know she is my soulmate, okay? The closest. Not that she did not believe me, but it was like maybe he's stressed at work, maybe make him tea. And I was saying, no, it's more than that. But there came the time that people believed me and that was the time when they witnessed. So let's say we went for dinner and those friends of mine spent some time with him for a bit and then they were able to slowly start seeing it. They believed me, they supported me. But on the back of their heads was like, well, we are all stressed, right? Like maybe this, maybe that. So at the end, they all stood by me. But it took me a while to explain to people that because he was charming, he was good to kids, he cooked at home, but behind closed doors it was not like that. 

So you asked me question what gave me strength to live? So my friends were telling me their stories, how they left. But I was always on a defensive side saying, no, you are stronger, that's why you left. Or you had work, that's why you left. I have no job, I have nowhere to go, I have no family. And my friends told me you are not ready. And I would ask, when can I be ready? And my friends went through similar things and went on their own. Told me the best words I ever heard. You will know when you are ready, you will know yourself. And I would say, well, but how? And they said, Wait and see. There will be a moment when you will be 100% ready and only you will be the person to know it. And I would be like, no, that's not going to happen. I don't have a job. My kid is a competitive athlete. I have to pay for the club. I have no grammar. My friend said, Wait, go through it, there will be a time. And that's exactly what happened. When there is a time and when the woman is emotionally ready, nothing would stop her. The woman will go into this survival mode, will get the strength out of nowhere and we'll never look back. But that is very individual to everybody. For me, it took two years. I'm not regretting saying I stayed too long, I should have done it earlier because I knew I was not ready. It was two years. I do not regret my decision. I never looked back. And I don't blame myself for staying for two years trying to fix the children, fix the marriage. So my advice to every woman is wait for your time, do your research, get your strength, and the time will come. For some, never. The women are under perception to stay with abuser for the sake of children. I never advise anybody in any decision, but it is damaging for children to stay in a relationship only for the sake of children. Because children feel everything by osmosis. And even ten years or 20 years later, they would remember the incident from a toxic and abusive relationship with the parents. But if the woman is not ready, time will come. Or maybe time will never come. It's up to the strength of the person. 

JKO:       Thank you so much for that. One of the things I found out that domestic violence does to us, it makes you unable to listen to your heart. Of course, a Syrian proverb says your heart is your guide. God gave us our heart as our own personal GPS to direct us, to guide us on our journey of life. But when you are in these situations, it takes away your ability to think or even take a moment. Imagine when it's time to go to bed. That's when somebody starts talk. Talk, create situation that no one can rest. So you're constantly on the edge, not sure how you going to, you don't get to listen to your heart. It took you two years of thinking, evaluating, listening, until when you looked inside your heart and said, I can't do this anymore. I just don't want to live the rest of my life this way. And then that moment you got the strength that you needed. So listening to our heart is the first step to our moving from that level of a situation to a better level. We have to learn, we have to make time. We have to find a way to listen. Yes, one more sorry to interrupt you, one more thing. When we were speaking about the house, I believe in balance between the body, mind and soul. What I had to learn is to look. And that's what is overlooked in many cases, looking after your body. Because if your body gives up, you will not be able to listen to your heart. So if the woman does not sleep, is under constant physical, the abuse is mental. But lack of sleep and lack of eating properly makes your body weaker. When your body, when your mind and when your heart is weak, you have to get all those three things strong in order to move forward, in order to listen to your heart. Your heart will be stronger when your body is stronger. And I think we overlook our bodies. We take our bodies for granted. We run, we go to work, we come home, don't sleep, we cook. But our bodies are failing. We need to give strength to our bodies in order for our mind, because our mind is not working properly. If we do not sleep at night, we cannot listen to our heart. If we have sleepless night, then we are not able to physically listen to our heart. And that's what helped me to listen to my body when it's in time. I would say cereal for dinner. I did not start cooking the three course meal when I felt that I need to sit down. That is my main advice. Listen to your body, listen to your heart, listen to your friends, listen to support. That decision is only ours. Everything around is support. But the main decision about life for ourselves and mainly life for children because they are not adults to make decision. It's our responsibility. And if we crash it's not good for anybody in the family. 

JKO:       So I thank you for saying that about you just segue into self care. Today I was listening to a Ted Talk by Wendy Suzuki, she's a neuroscientist. And she was talking about how exercise helps our minds, our brains and strengthens our brains even against incurable diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. And she was like just 30 minutes. And I'm like, Wow. 

Sonia:   When you crash emotionally, you do not have time energy to exercise. See, it's a cycle. Because when you crash, when you are depressed, you cannot get out of going. Connection is the last on your mind, right? Yes. So, yes, I am not really heavy into physical activity. I go for a walk, I go for a hike. But I'm not a treadmill and gym person. But I do yoga and meditation. It can take just a few minutes of the time and I would find those pockets because to the 24 hours of my day, it wasn't always. I was functioning, but there were pockets of energy during the day. They were short. And I took advantage of this. Okay, let's meditate 1 minute. It doesn't have to be all that the media perceive yoga outfits and candles and aromatherapy. You can meditate anywhere, anytime, and it can be a minute. It doesn't have to be like meditating like a monk in Tibet for 1 hour floating above the ground, right? So people are like, Oh, meditation. No, because I cannot sit. You don't have to sit. You don't have to. I meditate on the sky train. I do. So when I found a little pocket of positivity in my day, I did for a very short time something for selfcare, even have a bath, put some cream on my face. And then those times became a little bit longer. I was able to meditate a little bit longer, five minutes. But I always listen to my body because when I was pregnant and I was upset, I couldn't meditate, my brain was spinning. So I became very much attuned to my body. When I felt a little spark of energy, I took advantage of that moment. I put my cooking on hold and I focused completely on my self care. And those moments started becoming longer and longer and more often. Then I was able to meditate for five minutes, 15 minutes. If I would meditate in a bath, I have spotify music. Depends on my mood. Let's say, oh, I feel like this now. I play this music.