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"Hello Phoenix call me Carrie and my father suffers from PPD and DPD for nearly 20 years now. I discovered your website during a PPD search and I'm glad to see that my family is not the only one. I want to tell my story becuase now we are in dire straits b/c of him (emotionally and financially) and have nowhere to turn. I know now he will never get well or reintergrate into society as he once had.
In 1990 after I turned 10 and my brother 4, my father became injured and lost his job this triggered the first outward stages of his bizarre behavior. When we went on our first family vacation he was constantly looking over his shoulder, making comments that he saw people pusuing him or "making signals to one another". He constantly nitpicked about money (especially in the cab rides to Disneyland), we realize now he was quite miserly with our family's spending habits but for years we convinced ourselves that we were just "frugal". Niether of my parents drive, therefore do not own a car, when my father enrolled in a local driving school after my parents moved into the apartment in my grandmother's house he quit immediately saying that the driving instructor "had it in for him". He picked on the instructor's tardiness and unsavory attitude making out that the person was instructed to act that way. My father is Hispanic and my mother a 1st American generation Italian, we live in an Irish/Italian Brooklyn residence and let me tell you, the KKK would feel right at home here! When the real estate notary refused to put my father's name in his books as a potential home owner and a neighbor of ours who was selling their house at the time slammed the door in his face he saw these actions of as superpowers raging against him, or people at his job lashing out at him rather than plain everyday racism.
When I had problems in school (with the other kids) he saw it as either my fault or someone from his job instructing the teachers and students to act this way towards me. After he lost his job he went on a mock crusade against the superpowers but instead of him going out and "fighting the good fight" he isolated himself in our apartment and sent my mother out in his place. Like any spouse of a PPD patient she wished to placate him and offer any assistance thinking it might help our situation. My mother is a gentle soul who is naive (until this day) and has had to have things pointed out to her in order to see my father's apparent illness and not that the world was out to get him. From 1993-2000 he shut himself away in the apartment where his behavior got worse. After my grandfather died of the Mad Cow in 1992, my father insisted that our apartment and phones were bugged and we had video/sattelite surveilance on us 24/7. He kept diaries of ordinary people on the street so certain that they were all spies, lists of car license plates he knew had cameras in to watch him or the house, disabled our doorbell and put a call blocking device on our phone to prevent incoming calls. His obsession with legal/military movies and TV dramas and his 007 and Destroyer novels only egged him on. He is intelligent and reads legal books ferverently ranting twisted legalese and pschobabble to us.
He lies without remorse, has stolen money from me and my brother, taken us out of school for long periods of time that has effected our educational development- more seriously my younger brother than me. He loves mind games and managed to convince my mother that from the age of 12 I was also one of the spies against him and I frequently reported to my masters using Hitler's Nazi Youth organizations as examples. I was the one to confront him that I saw through his lies and games and he has lashed out against me violently verbally and physically. Later on my brother has been more outspoken about him and has threatened to call the cops on us because he claims to be the victim of everyone's abuse. He is a packrat, refuses medical/psychological help (he so desperately needs), is unhygenic, when we were given settlement money (a check for $49,000) in 1994 for his on the job injuries he began screaming entrapment and that he will get arrested if he deposited/cashed it. he also rejected two compensation checks from 1990 that my mother was unaware of and planned to use them as "evidence" in his big court case that would pave the way for other victims like him. She will use this in the divorce hearing in order to get the remaining IRA we need to live on until she finds a permanent postion. We are destitute and my father does not care or thinks that this is all an elaborate ruse and we are being kept by the powers that be who are against him.
He enjoys interpreting events to his own understanding that is so removed from reality it's almost funny, puts the blame on our financial problems on our mother including the loss of the credit cards when I can assure you she never even paid the bills by herself until 5 years ago when Con Edison came by to shut off our electricity since we hadn't paid anything to them or the gas and phone companies who were supposedly fudging our bills to wring more money out of him. He refuses to sign his signature since he can't trust anyone with it since they will take it, copy it on some document that will destroy his golden reputation. We have been forced to rely on our family for support for many years that they are just tired of us and I am deathly afraid that my uncle (who runs the house) will sling us onto the street b/c of him. The divorce is taking long and we are also fearful that the judge will allow him to continue to live with us even if the environment is comromised by violence. His drinking is getting worse and he is withdrawing more and more listening in our conversations, his paranois reaching an all-time high.
I can only say that I hope more people who suffer at the hands of these poor idividuals have courage. I'm still hanging on..."
"I don't know how to stop feeling like everyone is against me. I have felt this way ever since I can remember. Of course I grew up in a physically, emotionally, verbally disruptive home. I was and am now usually angry. I try to eat my worries away, therefor, I am always fighting the fat factor. My relationships are almost nonexistent. I sabotage every relationship or begin to avoid someone when I start to mistrust them. I will not go to see a Dr. because I have too much pride. I don't want to be seen as weak. I try to pray my fears away. I can't sleep. I have night mares. I think I'm driving my husband crazy. He is so patient with me, but I am an emotional roller-coaster! I get so frustrated when people don't understand how I feel. They don't see things the way I do, and am usually upset because I think someone is not being fair! I feel like I'm 9 yrs. old every day- a fat, ugly, never going to be anything but a prostitute on the corner, fighting everyday after school, angry, hateful, bitter, resentful, sad girl. I want to grow up now!"
- Anonymous
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This Site Updated 04/09/11
