A few weeks ago I wrote this.  I was shocked to see that my entire adult life had seriously twisted mental hellth nightmare treatments going on.  I consider the "help" I have gotten to be traumatic.  It took a couple weeks to come out of shock from this.

Here is my story.

When I was 20 I broke up with an alcoholic who physically abused me. I wanted help with trauma recovery and to avoid abuse in the future. I went to a therapist in Norwich, NY. On that first meeting, she told me I was ritually abused by my father in a Satanic cult, even though I never had any memories of this. Dutifully, because she is the therapist expert, I did therapy for this with the book Courage to Heal. Now, I do have PTSD, but it wasn't from ritual abuse, but reading about other people's abuse endlessly made my PTSD much worse and I got crazy.

Trying to see the best, I went to River Oaks, a sexual abuse hopsital run by Masters & Johnson. This nearly bankrupted my mother. The psychiatrist there told me I was bipolar, because I talk so fast. (Now I know that in women ADHD hyperactivity really displays as hypertalkitivity, but at that time they just saw it as hypomania.)

A psychologist worked hard with me to get some memories of this ritual abuse, and sent me to a psychiatrist. He asked me two questions, "Are you sleeping?" (no) and "Are you crying?" (yes) and handed me Zoloft. I attempted suicide that week. Today the ads in TV for Zoloft explain that is a risk for young people, but this doctor told me, "Oh that means you have bipolar disorder" and sent me away.

I tried to work with a therapist at the women's center in Columbus, OH. She said I was talking too fast and had bipolar disorder, so she sent me to a psychiatrist, who put me on Lithium. I stopped trying to do any therapy about abuse and decided I just had a chemical brain disorder.

In Toronto for 6 years I saw one of the top psychiatrists for bipolar disorder. We met for 20 minutes twice a month. She told me not to have therapy because she felt it upset me, but she did offer me endless amounts of anti-psychotics. I was still not sleeping and very anxious, even to the point of not leaving my home for weeks at a time, but she said that was "atypical depression bipolar". I spent a few years sleeping 13 hours a day and gained 60 pounds. My mother was worried because I had stopped talking.

My psychiatrist asked me to be a part of a study to see in CBT works for persons with bipolar. On three occaisions, the researchers never were there at the appointed time and I had come for no reason. The therapist in that study heard my young husband left to be in a band in San Francisco. "Oh, he left you because you are bipolar," she said sweetly. No, that's not why he left me. But she helped convince me that bipolar made me unlovable.

I found an arts therapy group for women who have been abused. http://www.schliferclinic.com/schliferClinic.html I didn't know if I was abused. Living on the street, everyone is abused. I wasn't set on fire by my dad like some kids I knew, so I didn't think anything bad ever happened to me. When therapists asked if I had a history of abuse, I said no. Doesn't everyone get beaten by their boyfriend? The therapy helped a lot. It was the first time I began to see changes in my anxiety levels. I have had useless art therapy with some of the top art therapists in the world, but this woman was amazing.

Now I moved to LA to get married. Kaiser-Permamente gave me a therapist who talked about her sexual issues with her boyfriend and what sort of lingerie she wore. They put me in an emotional eaters support group. (Guess what? Being on Zyprexa means you'll gain 100 lbs. It's not emotional eating, it is the drugs you are giving me.)

My psychiatrist told me on our first meeting, "I can get you to 75% normal, don't expect more than that. And if you want to kill yourself, I cannot stop you, so don't call me."

I went to Las Encinas, a mental health resort with pretty grounds, a pool, and parrots. Everyone there, especially if they had a drug history, were told they were bipolar and handed pills. I just needed somewhere safe to go when my husband freaked out on me.

My husband would hit the walls screaming, "You don't need to have a mental illness! Stop it!" until I cried that I wanted to die, I hated myself and felt so scared. To try to be what he wanted I worked on bipolar workbooks every day for hours to get "normal". Meanwhile, with all of his yelling at me, I started to have panic attacks. Then I started to have depersonalization - where I was dissociating so much that I thought I stopped existing. This is normal with PTSD, but the doctor said I was psychotic and drugged me more. Also, I was terrified that zombies were trying to kill me, so I'd hide in the closet terrified and suicidal. This was my way of trying to make sense of the terror I felt.

The reason I was so terrified and having severe mental health issues in LA was because my husband hated women. He'd talk about how all women are evil - you have to videotape them when you have sex, so they won't lie and say you raped them. You have to put cayenne pepper in condoms so they won't impregnate themselves to trick you into marriage. He yelled at me for an hour when I disagreed about a piece by Henry (macho loser) Rollins wrote. In it, Rollins says that a girl said she'd have sex with him, but then changed her mind and fell asleep, so Rollins jerked off in her hair. I said that was sexual assault, and my husband freaked out defending Rollins. Women are evil - "But you're one of the good ones". I asked if I was black would he tell me I was one of the good niggers, and he said I was crazy.

My anxiety attacks grew more severe. He told me that he didn't want to have kids because he knew how men look at 14 year old girls. If we had a daughter and she brought her friends over in bikinis, he'd be too turned on to handle it. His prom date, he said, had promised to have sex with him, but then she passed out. "I should have fucked her anyway," he said bitterly. Once I had moved in, he stopped wanting to have sex with. He told me that 90% of the population would agree with him that I wasn't attractive enough to have sex with. He would talk about how he saw 100 hot girls everyday and thought about sex constantly, but at night he slept on the couch so he could look at porn while I cried myself to sleep in bedroom. On our honeymoon he wouldn't make love to me, saying I was too fat. When I cried, he yelled at me for ruining "his vacation" and threatened to leave me in Dublin.

But I was isolated and financially dependent. I couldn't admit that he was what he was. I had to believe he was good and I was crazy to survive. Which made me crazy. My whole life story of having to deny my truth about being abused to survive. Living on the streets as a teenager, I had to shut off my morals and fears. I'd watch friends be beaten unconscious by their boyfriends. I'd watch people hit a drug dealer with a lead pipe til he was dead. I'd watch children cry for food while junkies stole their urine for piss tests. And I had to not feel anything. Because I needed a couch to crash on.

I got a new psychiatrist through Las Encinas. He told me proudly that he saw 90 patients in one day, as he handed me pills and sent me off. I cannot even find math that explains how he saw 90 patients in one day. But that is what success is, not who you help get better, but how many people you get pills to.

My husband told me that he couldn't handle being married to someone with a disability who doesn't work, even though I had brought this up many times before I moved in and he had said it was fine. He now said it scared him how vulnerable I am with no one to take care of me - so he told me to leave. "You don't have a bad bone in your body, but I cannot handle the bipolar." His friend who has an MSW told me, "I understand why he's leaving you, dealing with people with bipolar is hard." I hated myself so much.

Luckily I found a therapist at Fuller Seminary named Jennifer Toler Smith who listened to me week after week telling her the lists of things my husband said were wrong with me. On our last session, she said to me, "Heather, you're fine. Your husband has a lot of problems." I was floored.

I went to VT. I was totally insane. I was seeing zombies everywhere and watching my body fade away. I cried nonstop. My exhusband called and told me to get it together or I'd be a bag lady and raped on the streets, just like my biggest fear is. I got worse after that. I know what that is like. That's why I am insane, asshole. He was telling me I'd be punished for having been abused.

My psychiatrist in Montpelier told me he was a shaman in all his past lives, but in this life he had no ego. He would yell at me to get rid of my ego. Once he asked me to find an exorcist for a patient hearing voices.

At this time I was remembering how at a party in LA, my exhusband and I met a 13 year old girl who was watching "What the bleep do we know?" and drawing. Her Dad was the type of crack addict who was on the evening news. When we left the party, my exhusband said to me, "She's going to end up a hooker. She was manipulating men with her body all night. One day she'll get her ass kicked." In Vermont, I became obsessed with this young woman and mailed gifts to her through friends who knew her parents. I wanted to rescue her.

And then it hit me. I was raped at age 14. No wonder my exhusband's comments were triggering me and making me crazy! When I was 14 in Ithaca, NY, there was the king of the street punks. He told everyone to leave me alone and punched them if they hit on me. He told me he loved me and was my big brother. He knew I was a virgin and wanted to stay one. One night he climbed into bed with me (I want to throw up writing this) and we started to make out. Then he raped me. Next thing I remember, he is lying with his back to me and says, "You're not a virgin anymore, go check for blood." As if I was watching a movie from above, I watched myself check for the blood and passed out. I don't know if I ever felt anything again after that. The next day he told everyone I was his girlfriend, and in my daze, I half heartedly agreed, and started doing heroin. For years I was dependant on and off on this man for my survival.

After realizing this, I had my last conversation with my exhusband and tried to kill myself.

My therapist at Otter Creek Matrix told me that bipolar had been cured (along with cancer) by "the Germans" with a technique of tapping on the brain.

I bounced around from therapist to therapist, psychiatric nurse to nurse, in Burlington, where there is a shortage of psychiatrists. Finally I met Dr Lasek. He took one look at me and knew I didn't have bipolar disorder. I was on Lithium, Lamictal, Depakote, Ativan, Rozeram, Clonopin, and about three other pills. If I had bipolar, I would have been helped by Lithium, not attempting suicide. The fact that I wasn't passed out on the floor told him I had ADHD. That hyperactivity kept me awake.

It was very hard for me to believe him. I was told by doctors for a decade that without these pills I'd commit suicide. I was told also that whenever I had a mood change to call my doctor and get more pills. Dr Lasek didn't understand this brainwashing I had had about bipolar. I was terrified I was going to die. Also my self image went nuts. I thought I was bipolar and made sense of my past and my life in those terms. To change the paradigm to one of trauma - of PTSD - made no sense to me. I thought my personality was bipolar girl.

The Howard Center gave me two therapists. The first wanted to know if I was evil and cast hexes on people because I am Pagan. The second did nothing but cry when I told the story of my rape.

The Howard Center's Assist safe house's director yelled at me, "You are pissing me off, you are pushing my buttons, you are a smart ass!" when I told her I was suicidal, sobbing and having a flashback of being raped. An Assist worker trained in PTSD stood by and let this happen.

And their Crisis hotline always just says to take a bath and then hangs up. Eventually I learned to self harm to get attention, something I had never done before.

The first therapist I told the story of my rape in details to said to me, "I am sorry, but what part of that was traumatic for you?"

I tried the Adams Center for therapy, but they mixed me up with another client and started me on someone else's healing plan. I had to ask for an apology from Sue Adams, because no one apologized for the mistake. The therapist I got, when I told her about being raped and asked, "Is that real? Do you believe me?", said "It doesn't matter if I believe you, we need to work on why you want me to validate it for you." If you know anything about rape, the main fear is that no one believes you and the main role of a therapist is to reassure you that it was rape.

Many times I called the Women's Rape Crisis Center, leaving VM at different mail boxes, and never got a return call. When I finally did catch someone, they said they were mailing me information which they never mailed. When I tried email to reach them, the email address on their website didn't work. I was on their wait list for a year for the support group, but then they forgot about me and didn't call.

Being off the anti-psychotics, I found that I have lifetime tartive disconesia from them. I cannot stop blinking. Botox hasn't helped yet, and my life is impaired severely by this.

Here it is 19 years after I went to a therapist to get help for having been abused, having severe anxiety issues, and wanting to learn how to not be abused anymore. I still haven't gotten that help. But I got this story. And a lot worse. My PTSD is more severe now that I know there is no help. I cannot trust anyone. I don't think I can get better because there are no trained people to help persons with PTSD who have been raped.

Northern Tradition shaman Raven Kaldera http://www.northernshamanism.org/readings.html recently told me that the Gods chose me as a sacrifice. "It was not personal. They needed someone to experience this and help others, and you were chosen because you wouldn't die, and most people would not have made it. You've lost your freedom because you were God-touched."

And so here I am.