The Autobiography

Childhood

One of the earliest memories that I have is crawling out of my crib into my parents bed. Because I didnt have my own room, I slept in my parents’ bed for many years. Despite what some people say and think, I loved it and would never have moved into my own bed if I hadn’t grown too big. I didnt have my own room until I was 13. I slept all over the place. Even on the floor of my brothers room for many months. As I had not known it any differently, it was quite alright as it was.

I loved kindergarden. What is still very vivid in my head from that time is that my Mom used to pick me up, then we went into a store to buy chicken and potato salad, every single day for a very long time. My Mom was on a diet. After that phase I haven’t eaten chicken for about a decade.

That was also the time when my Mom started to work for the Catholic church as a secretary, and we all got heavily involved into things, and spent every Sunday at church, doing this and that.

I was always Daddy’s girl. I went with him to work, to lunch (he never ate at home), everywhere really. My brother got along better with my Mom, I, better with my Dad. It stayed like that for many many years. Around kindergarden age, I developed asthma. It was diagnosed but I never got medication until later. That’s why when I had attacks, my Dad always took me out of the city up a mountain, or to a lake. We slept on the porch, we went for walks. How many nights of how many years we spent outside I can’t remember. But I remember the church bells, the bats, the benches and sleeping in the car.

A Happy Family, Almost

During the summer holidays we went to Italy to the sea, during winter breaks to Flachau to ski.

I had my friends with whom I spent most of my time. My brother had his friends, my Mom with her friends was always busy as was my Dad. We regularly visited my grandparents and my gramps came down to us at least once a week for a visit. My cousins got all of my old clothes and in exchange I either got a pretty dress or skating shoes.

If things started to fall apart at a point or whether we were just masters in disguise, I do not know. Growing up with things makes it all normal, and really everything would have stayed well if people hadnt started to intervene.

The Beginning Of Therapy

The first time I was referred to a psychotherapist, was at a regular checkup at the pediatric lung ambulance. A new doctor had figured out that I was not taking my medication, and because I was not talking (so he said) and seemed really depressed, he suggested to my Dad that I should be evaluated. My Dad refused. Doc 1, Doc 2

The second time neither my parents nor I was given a choice. It was during a stay on the adolescent unit where I was told I would be going “down” later that day. I remember saying I am not stupid!, I remember the little red wooden bench, the thick creme coloured leather doors all over the floor that silenced every noise to the “outside” world. The lady who was heavily perfumed I will never forget nor the pictures on the walls, her desk with photos on it, the three chairs, the sofa, the table with the dolls, the book and the toycase. I remember her talking all the time. I really didn’t want to play with the dolls, nor did I want to play her something on my guitar. My very first therapy session was unreal. I left with a piece of paper with my next appointements on it, with a different therapist, when she went on vacation.

The next therapist was an idiot. He made me draw my family as pets, as well as making me draw him a tree. If he even understood when I told him that I cannot draw I will never know. The whole disaster ended when my Dad was with me in one of the next sessions and did all of the talking. I was declared healthy, and never had to come back.

Anorexia Nervosa

At some point in that year I started to live by what was then called The Hollywood Diet. Because my Mom was always on a diet, we had dozens of diet books at home. I read them all, and the little brown book seemed to have been the most convincing. How it worked is not important, however I religiously lived by it for quite a while. You know the story, you have probably heard it millions of times before all over the place. That diet was my road into full-blown anorexia, which back then was rare, it grew popular a couple of years later.

Because I would very often not eat at all, my parents took everything away that was important to me. They took away my penpals’ mail, the television cables, my bike. They played the guilt game to sick levels. Despite it all, they acted as if everything was perfectly normal.

Intervention, Part 1

During a week long ski trip with my grade, my friend told my teacher that I wasn’t eating. And that was the snowflake that ended in an avalanche and probably changed my whole life, for the worse. On Faschingsdienstag my Mom was called in, and together with my teacher we went to the school doctor’s office. They assumed abuse, and made me agree to go back into therapy. Remember the heavy perfumed lady from above? Thats where I ended up again.

From then on various things happened.

I was watched like a hawk in school. Whenever I appeared worse, my “teacher” always made me go to the school doctor’s office.

Therapy, I was back, and would from now on see her once a week. In one of the following sessions she decided it would be good for me to go inpatient to the ward where I had been the previous year (an adolescent unit, ages 7 – 15). She promised me that I would be able to lose weight on the ward, and that convinced me (how I ever could be that stupid I will never understand). To convince my parents, she made the doctor from the lung ambulance tell my Dad at the next appointement, that I had to be admitted because of my asthma. Without me telling she knew they would never approve otherwise.

Welcome To The Hospital

And thats how it happened. In the beginning it felt like a “hotel”. I slept there, then went to my regular school, and went back to the ward after school was over. After a checkup a few days later I was no longer allowed to go to my school, but instead we decided I should from now on go to the hospital school, which consisted of one classroom, and about 5 teachers. The “school” had a garden in which patients grew herbs and veggies, to school went all the kids that were on the ward who were not bedridden. There was between 4-6 of us who attended there.

My eating came to a complete halt again the day I was admitted. After a couple of days nurses started to drop in to tell me that they could promise me that I could stay even when I ate . I never did eat. Not when the IVs came, the TPN or the tube. Quite the contrary, a huge burden (food!) was taken off my chest, a blessing! They however don’t let you just not eat, I did have to sit down with a nurse every mealtime for one hour with a plate full with food. On the pediatric ward people with eating disorders get a contract. So did I. It basically listed all the things that would happen when I didn’t do this and that. Behaviour modification at its finest.

What all happened behind my back in that time or after is still a mystery. What they told my parents I do not know. My Dad was soon banned from the ward, that I do know, but that didnt stop him. When my parents did come, a nurse was always in the room. I was told I would not go home again.

I saw my therapist every day, and each evening she called and told a nurse to tell me good night. It was a love hate relationship. How often we were seen screaming at each other I don’t remember.

After a few months my parents signed me out, how it finally happened, I do not know. My therapist was furious. She made me come and see her every single day except on weekends. My parents did not approve. I had pressure from them to no longer go and see her, and pressure from her to come and see her. She told me that I always had a bed reserved for me and that when I should turn up in the middle of the night, they all knew what to do.

I went in, and was signed out again. We tried it with outpatient, spending the day on the ward and go home to sleep, which didnt work either.

An Exchange Year Abroad

That year I applied for an exchange year abroad. My therapist was delighted and declared me healthy so that I was able to go, after the organisation in Vienna had very frequent mail contact with the headquarters in Scandinavia discussing if they should let me go or not. The piece of healthyness did the trick. While my therapist was exstatic, my school didn’t want to let me go. One teacher even called to tell them not to take me. My parents, me, my teacher and our headmaster had a meeting to discuss it, I won. The next summer I left for the adventure of my life.

I spent a Highschool year abroad in Morris, Minnesota, with a lovely family of 6. My hostmum at the end of my stay told me that she felt that this was more of a fosteryear, than a normal exchange, but she wouldnt have want to miss out on it anyway. I was really fortunate to have the biggest hearted people from the exchange organisation on my side, and despite what I did, they never sent me home. It was the best year of my life. I had a lot of friends, I was in choir, in swimming, in the fall musical. I was in the variety concert, I performed at various occasions with my guitar. We went on trips and I spent a lot of time with the family that was really close to my host family, the man of that family later told me that when he first saw me, he knew what was wrong with me, and he did.

In that year I learned so many things. Despite the dislike that people over here have against America and Americans, they (you) do have a very good mentality, so very different from ours here, and I took “a lot of it” home with me, a lot of it making up the person that I am today.

When the end came, my parents made the trip over the Atlantic to make sure I would indeed come home again. The story of my life. What all happened in that year, I never told anyone, this will remain my secret.

Intervention, Part 2

After I returned home, my whole life collapsed over me again. Only at that point did I realise what was all not normal at home. I fell so low, I couldn’t have fallen any lower. It was back to my therapist on a daily basis, my host family called to make sure I went back. In secret, because my parents were still very much against me seeing her. She in return threatened me with so many things; that she had the youth welfare involved again, she never hid.

I lived in constant fear. Whenever I heard a car pull up, I felt so sick because I thought they had finally come to take me away. That I loved my family despite everything was hard for her to understand. The chef of the pediatric psychosomatic even said he never saw a person as loyal as me.

In the fall I went back to school and back into my grade, skipping the year that I missed. I was not credited the year that I spent in the American school, I cannot blame them. The first semester I took the regular exams, and did last years exams on top of it. Despite peoples’ belief, I managed it all.

Dads Crisis

After summer had arrived again, my family and me went camping to France. On our way back, we spent a few days on a camping site in Germany, where my Dad and me went daily to the pool right beside the camping site. On the day we actually had planned to leave, my Dad’s heart and breathing stopped while we were in the water. I had a 6th sense that day, and never left my Dads site, not even in the pool. I heard him say that he felt sick, and thats when he started to drown. I pulled him out of the pool. A doctor and a nurse were one of the few people that day that were at the pool too during a regular worksday morning. Can you spell DESTINY? A lady took me away, while they worked on my Dad. He was dead for well past 40 minutes. He survived, but was in the Intensive Care Unit for over 2 weeks. It was nothing short of a miracle when he started to breathe again on his own, at the age of 75 (my Dad is 35 years older than my Mom). He did believe in the first few weeks that we were all prisoners of war (which he was back in the days).

Because I had failed Maths that past year, I had to take an exam at the start of the next school year which would then decide if I had to repeat the last year or was allowed to move on to the next grade. Because my preparation course started only a few days after that thing happened with my Dad, my Mom made us all drive home and leave my Dad behind in the ICU.

What happened in Germany that summer I never told anyone, never. Not my friends nor my teachers. We never spoke about what happened at home either. Master in disguise, remember? If a doctor from the ICU, who called me “little one”, hadn’t told me that I saved my Dad’s life that day, I would still believe that it was all my fault.

I passed my exam despite it all. The Austrian Red Cross brought my Dad home for free. On my birthday my Dad had to have a sextuple bypass. He was in rehab for almost a year, but recovered back to pretty much perfect physical health, and is nowadays told that he will live through his 100th birthday.

You Are Failing Connie

At some point school became a disaster. My head was just too full. To this day I am proud of my 1 point that I got at a three hour math exam. On the day of my three hour french exam, my therapist whom I still saw weekly, threatend again to take my Dad to court and what do I know. Needless to say I failed my french exam too. My teachers were not pleased. Because I didn’t (couldn’t!) send in my Dad to talk to them as they requested over and over again, they kept calling at home, which made my Mom furious. They offered me tutition which a teacher who wanted to remain unnamed was willing to pay. I of course refused, I am my Dad’s daughter, I learn fast.

I was severely depressed and spent my evenings crying in my Panda Bear that I won at a fair. How often I was so low that I wanted to kill myself, I cannot count. I hated myself so much, that I did everything to hurt myself. My eating was insane. A girl that I later met told me that their swimming coach told them how much weight I had lost. Therapy was a disaster (my favourite word, haha). I went regularly, then stopped again.

The End Of It All

I had twice as many oral graduation exams as everyone else. (complicated system that cant be explained really) On my last day of school I completly broke down again. A huge part of my support system that I had always taken for granted, was gone. A while later my therapist retired at the hospital, because I still lived at home, social welfare refused to pay for sessions at her private office (they did pay for another girl). The doctor that I saw told me that I needed help very urgently and introduced me to another therapist. I cancelled my session with her over my Mom’s mobile. That was the end of my over 7 years in therapy.

And What Is Now?

So much and yet nothing has happened since.

My grandpa died when I was 13. My grandma and all of my relatives except my uncle don’t want to have anything to do with us anymore. The church where we spent so much time when I was little changed after our priest died, my Mom was fired and we never went back ever since.

My Dad and I grew apart over the last years, after everything that happened, I cannot blame him. I have hardly had a normal conversation with him in what seems like forever. He either shouts at me or provokes me, right now we don’t talk at all. He made us all ill with his behaviour and actions, but what does Maya Angelou say “He did back then what he knew to do.” I dont blame him.

My Mom after having cancer and fighting severe depression all of her life, had Meningitis twice (a story all in itself) over the last years, which made her nearly deaf, and physically badly impaired. She had to retire early and spends her life infront of the television. She is severly overweighed. Food is the only thing she has left. I cannot blame her.

My brother, I assume, took an overdose while he studied in Vienna. He is mentally far gone most of the time, nevertheless he finished his law studies and is now going for his doctorate. He has his own devils that make him do the things he does. I don’t blame him.

I am alive and still kicking, despite my therapists predictement that I will kill myself sooner than later. I am a survivor.

Whatever it was and is that happens at home, will be forever my secret. In all these years of therapy I kept my secrets well.

Life does whatever is necessary to mold us into shape
and prepare us for greatness. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

I am the brightest shining star, after all I have come that far. ~ Dana

This is by far not all, maybe at a point I will write part 2, who knows. 🙂