My name is Jennifer Lee Rossman. I am a 29-year-old science fiction and fantasy author from Binghamton, New York. I am bisexual, autistic, and I have spinal muscular atrophy.
I was raised by abusive parents. They were told when I was diagnosed at nine months old that I probably wouldn’t live past five. They spoiled me, they loved me, they bought a cemetery plot for me.
My dad was abusive. He left. Well, technically we made him leave. Then it was just me and my mom, and for a while it was awesome. But then it wasn’t.
In retrospect, the abusive tendencies were there since childhood. It just got worse as I got older.
I knew things were not good, but I didn't know how bad they were for a while. Or maybe I wouldn't let myself realize it. It's hard, when you know the only thing you have ever known is not right, but you don't have anything to compare it to. You start telling yourself that this is normal, that it is acceptable. Or maybe it's your fault. Maybe you deserve it. It isn't true, you know it isn't true, but as long as you pretend to believe it, nothing will change. Your life might not be good, but at least it is familiar.
I lived in that mind frame for a little over two years, watching it escalate but not knowing how to stop it. Crying myself to sleep at night because I wanted to get away, but being terrified of changing the status quo.
Eventually, I was ready.
In retrospect, the abusive tendencies were there since childhood. It just got worse as I got older.
I knew things were not good, but I didn't know how bad they were for a while. Or maybe I wouldn't let myself realize it. It's hard, when you know the only thing you have ever known is not right, but you don't have anything to compare it to. You start telling yourself that this is normal, that it is acceptable. Or maybe it's your fault. Maybe you deserve it. It isn't true, you know it isn't true, but as long as you pretend to believe it, nothing will change. Your life might not be good, but at least it is familiar.
I lived in that mind frame for a little over two years, watching it escalate but not knowing how to stop it. Crying myself to sleep at night because I wanted to get away, but being terrified of changing the status quo.
Eventually, I was ready.
But here’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say: I have a pretty severe disability. I can’t walk, can’t bathe myself, dress myself, feed myself. Basically, until I develop telekinesis, I am totally dependent on other people to keep me alive and comfortable. And for most of my life, “people“ meant my mom and nobody else.
Escaping abuse is never easy, but it was even harder for me because I literally have nowhere to go, no one to take care of me.
Escaping abuse is never easy, but it was even harder for me because I literally have nowhere to go, no one to take care of me.
I will go into more detail about how I got out in other parts of the blog, but this is the basic story.
On February 2, 2019, I decided I needed to move out. I spent the month of February planning with my team, who included care managers, my neighbor, my aunt, and my friend.
Near the end of February, we had the bare bones of a plan, which we would put into place in a few weeks, maybe around the second week of March. On February 26, something happened and I felt like it couldn’t wait. So we went to the emergency plan.
Some of my team came to my apartment, police and EMTs were there because we didn’t know what would happen or if we would have a wheelchair accessible van available. We didn’t, and I left in an ambulance on a gurney. I have not seen or talked to my mother since.
I spent the night in the hospital as a “social admission“. That was the first night I ever spent away from my parents. That was also the first night I advocated for myself. I was 28, and that was the night I became an adult.
The next afternoon, they found a nursing home that could take me until a group home became available. I spent a month there. It was awful and amazing and scary and fun. I made friends, some of whom I am still in touch with, and my favorite aides helped me develop severely needed social skills during my stay.
I’m not gonna lie, at first I hated it. At first, I didn’t get along with most people. I had a huge fight with one of the aids on the first night. But by the time I left, she and I were crying as we said goodbye.
I was at the nursing home for about a week and a half when a group home became available, and I spent the night there to see if I liked it. That was its own version of scary and amazing and terrible and wonderful. I knew it wouldn’t be perfect for me, at least not right away, but on the first night, when I added the house number to my phone, I had to stop myself from naming the contact “home.”
(The contact is called “the house,“ but as soon as I officially moved in, I nicknamed it “home.“ It feels amazing to be able to say “hey Siri, call home.“)
But most importantly, I feel safe. Safe to express opinions, to ask for things I need, to be myself. I trust the people here. A few of the people, I trust maybe more than I ever trusted my mother, at least as far as knowing the “true me“ is concerned. Everyone here knows that I like girls, and why I hate food some days, and how much I like to sing Queen songs.
They know the things my mother said and did to me, and how much it still affects me.
These people are my family. And that is a word that has never meant anything before. I have a biological family. I care about most of them, they care about me. But I've never lived with a family before. People who say good night and good morning, people who joke around but don't mean anything cruel. People who I would do absolutely anything for.
My housemates are my brothers and sisters. The staff are my siblings, my aunts and uncles, my moms.
One of my favorite people here, my big brother who pretends to fight with me because that's how we show we care, took me to my counseling appointment on July 16, 2019, and I was given an assignment:
Write about my past, my present, and my future.
I went a little off track, and I started talking about how there is no place for disabled people living in abuse to turn. There aren’t any resources for us, at least not that I could find. So I decided to make one.
Divider image by Mahua Sarkar from Pixabay
They know the things my mother said and did to me, and how much it still affects me.
These people are my family. And that is a word that has never meant anything before. I have a biological family. I care about most of them, they care about me. But I've never lived with a family before. People who say good night and good morning, people who joke around but don't mean anything cruel. People who I would do absolutely anything for.
My housemates are my brothers and sisters. The staff are my siblings, my aunts and uncles, my moms.
One of my favorite people here, my big brother who pretends to fight with me because that's how we show we care, took me to my counseling appointment on July 16, 2019, and I was given an assignment:
Write about my past, my present, and my future.
I went a little off track, and I started talking about how there is no place for disabled people living in abuse to turn. There aren’t any resources for us, at least not that I could find. So I decided to make one.
Divider image by Mahua Sarkar from Pixabay
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