Silent No More, Part 2

With freedom from any supervision, my counselor continued leading a support group for women that had similar backgrounds as I did. All the women that came to the group had been seeing her as their counselor for a year. She frequently told the group that she hoped we would “see each other as family and learn to depend on and support one another”. That’s when I began to retreat into myself.

The Great Puppeteer Creates a Cult, (err I mean) Family

Because Kim confidently told our support group to support and lean on each other “like family”, several of us eagerly went out to eat or visit at Starbucks after each meeting. Throughout the next year, (from 2012 to 2013) Kim actively taught co-dependency. When a member shared how she was cutting herself, Kim asked me and this other client into her office where we were told that I was going to be on the other client’s safety plan. That meant calling me when she needed help. I readily agreed since I knew Kim knew what was best for her clients. The problem was, this other client, later diagnosed with a mental illness, began calling me three times a day. The phone calls were so frequent and so long that I had to buy a different phone and calling plan because my husband and I could no longer afford the current bills.

This particular client would call me sitting outside Wal-Mart wanting to go in a buy a knife to cut herself, or working and wanting to use an exacto knife, or at home in the bath having just cut herself. Fearful of her committing suicide, I took all of her phone calls at the expense of my family and friends. My life very quickly became centered on Kim and the support group she was orchestrating. My other friends faded away and even my three kid’s needs were neglected to take care of group members. My sessions with Kim focused more and more on how to handle group member’s emergencies and needs and less and less on anything going on in my life. According to Kim, I was being a good friend.

After one support group meeting, Kim had me instruct one client’s husband about not only hiding all the knives in the house but also preventing her from taking baths as this was a trigger for her. Another time I spoke to a different client’s husband about putting her kids in daycare because she was feeling so overwhelmed dealing with her past abuse. Kim was regularly asking clients to go and check on other clients that she may have concerns about. It was not unusual for me to take a meal to one of her clients, sit with them when they were sad, or even when they had to make difficult phone calls. One time I drove a client to my own appointment with Kim and let her have my appointment as I saw her needs more important than my own. Kim didn’t think twice to call me when a client was suicidal and have me go check on them.

Not once, in the two years that I saw Kim, did she ever ask me how I was handling all these responsibilities.

Fear became the only emotion I felt. Sadly, Kim sometimes used our group to relish in self glory. She surprised us one evening by spending two hours sharing “her story”. She confided in us concerning her abuse (being raped by a neighbor and then raped by multiple teens as a teenager) but the majority of her sharing was concerning the time she left her husband and had an affair with the “love of her life”. We heard how she met him in high school, had two abortions, broke up with him while in college, then met her husband. They too had two abortions, later got married, then realizing she was in a marriage that she didn’t want to be in, she and the “love of her life” came together once again. After seriously contemplating divorce, she finally ended the affair and went back with her husband. Although she did “the right thing” in telling her husband, he put all the finances and house in his name and to this day does not forgive her.

Kim had a captive audience, her own minions, to tell about still pining away for this man that could satisfy all her desires and not only how horrible her life is now but what a Christian saint she is to stay with her vindictive husband.

The co-dependency that Kim was assuredly teaching her underlings quickly degraded any sense I had of myself. Because I saw myself as a worthless rag used only to mop up other’s messes, I quickly decided to permanently get rid of the little girl in me.

I thought often of stabbing the pain out of me but Kim continued to encourage me, through her actions and words, to bury and forget this Unknowable Pain. There was no time or space for my pain amongst the pain of others. My hurts and silent screams went unheard. This just proved true all my core beliefs of being used, not worthy, not noticed and not important. The desire to harm myself became too strong to overcome.