F.E.A.R.

I shared a quote from Zig Zigler with my counselor:

FEAR = Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise. She loved it! I have spent the majority of my years doing the first thing...Forget Everything And Run. I have forgotten by repressing my difficult memories. I have lived without facing my past. Now my past is affecting everything. It controls me. It has caused the failure of my last 3 jobs. It has placed a heavy burden on my family. It has weakened my faith in God. Now I find myself at 55, jobless and without any idea what path I should take. Should I find a job, or accept disability payments?

This week I received call to tell me that 2 appointments have been set up for me with 2 doctors to help make a decision concerning being eligible for disability. One doctor is a general practitioner and one is a clinical psychologist. My counselor told me to tell the CP about my childhood and MBBC and the PTSD...also the multiple hits to the head and resulting concussions. Dad knocked me unconscious at least twice. Once with a wooden plank. I fell and

slid on the street after falling off of my bike, cutting my ear half-off. I did not wake up from that fall until I was in the car on the way to the hospital. On one of my many youth trips, riding on a bus, an amplifier fell out of the upper storage bin and hit me on the head knocking me out. While in seminary, riding in the front passenger seat of a car, we hit a truck coming from the other direction. My head hit the windshield and cracked it, again knocking me out. When I was 4 or 5, a neighbor boy threw a brick at me, almost putting my eye out, once again knocking me out. I have had stitches to close up wounds on my head at least 5 times. I don't know if this is the reason for my double-vision and dizziness or not.

I sat down recently and wrote a letter to my boys. I wanted to explain to them why I am not working, and what is going on.

Letter to boys -  May 2013

Ben and Alex,

I know family life has been difficult for you, especially the past 8 years, which should have been enjoyable and meaningful years for you. I never really told you what happened to me at Mountain Brook Baptist. It began while I was pastor of the church in Jacksonville, Florida. I had served Mountain Brook as Associate Pastor before Murray Hill Baptist in Jacksonville. While I was in Jacksonville I got a call from JM, SR Pastor. He said the church wanted me to come back to Mountain Brook Baptist (MBBC). They created a new position for me as Minister. I was told by JM that he would retire in 2 years. I was told that he and I would work together in leading the church. He gave me many promises that he never intended to keep. We moved back to MB.  My 6 years working there were filled with highs and lows. The high points were the preaching and pastoral care duties. I loved the people and they loved me. But then I hit a brick wall in JM. Although we were supposed to be a team, I had no authority...no say in any important decisions. Many of the church members saw me as their pastor, because I was the one with them in the hospital, during surgeries, or deaths. So JM knew he had to get rid of me. He changed my original job description 5 times, until he gave me a job description that no one could fulfill. I was put in charge of pastoral care, meaning I had the responsibility to be in the hospitals every day and at every surgery. But he also put me in charge of the church building, which meant I oversaw the cooks, custodians, and Day Care. This job required me to be at the church everyday trying to run things. So you see what he did, I had to be in the hospitals everyday...and I had to be at the church running things everyday. He gave me an impossible job so that he could get me fired. Since he ran the church, he got what he wanted and I resigned. No one would listen to my side.  I was helpless and my life went into a downward spiral. What I had worked for all of my life, my very identity was taken from me. I tried to find another church, but they always asked why I had to resign from MBBC. JM and the personnel committee made me sign a letter stating that I would not tell anyone why I left MBBC. Other churches were wary about hiring me since I couldn't tell them why I left my last church. So, I believed my life was over. I went into a deep depression. But what the thing with JM did was open up very old wounds from my childhood. You see, my dad physically abused me. Almost everyday he would beat me either with his fists, pieces of wood, belt, boards... . When I tried to block his fists from hitting me in the face, it only made him more angry. I have talked with some of my siblings. They knew nothing about it. I was the only one that dad physically abused. My mom told him one day that if he didn't stop hitting me, she would leave him. That was the only time she stood up for me. Dad did not stop the abuse and mom didn't care. She was usually out of it on drugs anyway. Dad and I had a better relationship when I got older and moved away...but he never apologized for his abuse. I have physical scars on my head where he would hit me with a board and knock me unconscious. I lived in a family of eight, but I was all alone and dreaded every night when dad came home. At times I thought "just get the beating over with so that I can go to my room".

What happened at MBBC opened up all of those childhood feelings of weakness and

helplessness. The childhood abuse was always a shadow over me, then after MBBC those feelings came back with a vengeance. I spent the next few years being numb, depressed, even suicidal. My job performance  with hospice and the law firm were affected greatly by my deep depression. And I know that you were both affected by it.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Usually soldiers coming back from military service have PTSD. But victims of abuse can also have PTSD. And I do. I am going through weekly treatment for it. The treatment is very intense and difficult. I usually cry through most of my sessions because it is bringing back memories that I had blocked out. I don't remember but  4 or 5 things from earlier than 12th grade. But when I go through my weekly sessions and I am hooked up to the monitor I remember the abuse as if it took place yesterday. I feel the pain. That is why I am in bed some days. The Dr. said I would have days of deep depression. Mother's Day and Father's Day are  hard for me because my mom was never a mother to me. We had to take care of her, she never took care of us. And of course I had a father who beat me almost everyday and even knocked me out. I had to have stitches in 2 places where he hit me.

Let's talk about the present. I am not working. I have worked my whole life since I was 12. I payed my own way through college, bought my own clothes...My parents gave me nothing, not even their love, until I became an adult.

I want to work. I want to be able to wake up and get dressed and go to a job I enjoy and bring home the money we need. That is my greatest desire now...to take care of my family like I was able to for many years.

My counselor does not think I am ready to go back to work. With the PTSD and my Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and also the doctor tells me that I have had more blunt head trauma than most quarterbacks. I have had 5 concussions. It has affected my memory and probably is what caused me to have double vision.

My counselor says that my therapy is my work for the time being. She recommended that I go on Disability. I fought it for a long time because I don't want to be disabled. But she says that I am the poster-child for Mental and Physical Disabilty. So I have applied for it. I should know something in a month or so.

That doesn't mean that I will always be on Disabilty. I dream a lot about pastoring a full-time church again. Or I my work in the law field. I don't know what the future holds. But I wanted you to know where I am right now and what has caused my behavior over the past 7 or 8 years. I know that, because of my problems, you did not have a happy childhood. Things weren't normal in our house. I want to apologize for robbing you of your childhood. If I could go back and change things I would in a heartbeat. But know this: (I'm crying as I write this)...Know that I have always loved you and will always love you. You have both turned into young men that I am proud of, despite of what problems I caused. You're mom had to take on double duty because of my mentally absent years.

I wasn't diagnosed with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder until recently, I wish I had dealt with it years ago, so that we could have given you the childhood you deserved.

The good thing is that I am finally, at 55  years old, doing something about my PTSD and depression. I will get better.

I love you both, Dad