When I first wrote about Brett Reider here I had just seen the documentary BRETT KILLED MOM: A SISTER’S DIARY on HBO and I wanted to write about my feelings and also to encourage everyone to watch what I thought was a very important film. I wasn’t even thinking that other people, who were, like me, wondering what had happened to Brett, would be searching the internet and coming to my site for answers. I posted what I had been able to find out here. I was saddened by the site that stated that Brett had committed suicide. I wanted a happy ending for this young man. As much as I wanted to know the truth I never imagined that I would receive an email from Brett’s wife Sara. She had heard about my site from a friend and wrote to let me know that not only is Brett alive, he is married with two beautiful boys and another baby on the way.

 

 

 

 

I emailed her back expressing my gratitude for her taking the time to not only contact me, but for providing photos so that I could see for myself that Brett now has a beautiful wife and two darling little boys. I also asked her if she would mind if I wrote a little note on my site stating that Brett was OK. I promised not to use any of the photos and to respect their privacy as it was clear that they have moved on. To my surprise she kindly gave me permission to not only pass on the information but to post the photos as well.

 

In Sara’s own words (I will place them in italics to make it easier for you, the reader, to differentiate between her words and my own),

“Brett and I just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. He turned
30 this year. I am 37. We have two boys - Gavin (3) and Garrett (1). We
also have another (of unknown sex) on the way. Our oldest, Gavin was
diagnosed with Autism at 13 months old - so our lives revolve around
that. Parenting an autistic child is very challenging. Brett is a
wonderful father and Gavin has come along way because of all of the
time and attention Brett is able to give him.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Brett just lives a normal life. We moved from Nebraska to the coast of
North Carolina and he enjoys his anonymity. The documentary was filmed
when Brett was 16 years old - and they still air it now and again. We
did ask for them to put a written update at the end - but they never
responded and Brett has no rights or control over the program.”

 

 

 

“…we have received thousands of emails, letters and phone calls over the years
with horrific stories of abuse. Some similar to Brett’s - some much
worse. It really gets to be too much sometimes…because it is so sad
how common it is and can be very depressing. Brett also couldn’t
possibly respond to them all - which is why he doesn’t.”

 

“We are grateful to all of the people who have reached out to Brett over
the years - many of whom wrote the parole board and were critical to
his early release. We would like everyone to know this. We would also like for people to know that our focus now is on our son and advocating for Autism awareness. It truly
consumes our life.”

“We really aren’t hiding – we have just moved on and have so many other things to deal with now.
Hopefully, people searching from here on out will find your site and be
able to get the information they are seeking.”

 

Sara also let me know that Brett’s sister, “Alissa, is married and also has two boys aged 2 and 4″.

 

Sara also closed her email with a link to a website dedicated to autism http://www.generationrescue.org/

 

I myself have a nephew with autism and I have seen first hand the time and effort my sister and brother in law have put into making sure that their son lives the best life possible.

 

For me, this whole experience has been a lesson in hope and the ability of a person to not only survive horrifying abuse suffered at the hands of the ones who should ultimately protect us, our parents, but to rise above the idea that the cycle of abuse can’t be broken by going on to become wonderful spouses and parents.

 

My sincerest thanks to the Reider family for not only sharing this information and these photos with me, but also for allowing me to share them with the thousands of people who have been searching the internet to find out what happened to Brett Reider after his release from prison.

For those of you who have commented or emailed me with your stories of abuse please know that you are not alone. So many of us unfortunately share this common bond. If you are currently in an abusive situation don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you are out of the abusive situation but still finding it difficult to deal with the pain and/or the low self esteem that often follows there is help out there for you too. So many suffer in silence.

11/21/07 Edited to add that Brett’s wife Sara saw that people were curious about Brett’s current occupation, and she wrote me to say “Brett is a construction foreman who works on multi-million dollar projects.”

 

 

 

My mind has been positively racing as of late, but I’ve felt unable to write it down because my brain moves too fast. At times like these I wonder if maybe I am bipolar but I don’t say anything because this drug thing? It’s getting so old. I honestly don’t feel that I can have a journal all about me and my depression and anxiety. It’s boring even for me, the subject matter. I could go on about the cold I can’t shake and how I feel dead inside right now. I suppose the Paxil has kicked in. I feel empty. Is it normal to have the reaction that you’re somehow dying inside? I resisted the doctor’s orders to put me on medication in 1986. I thought that it was important to feel, but it was all so overwhelming. I caved in 1993, and it’s been on and off since then.

I imagine that you, my reader, have to have a shelf life of how long you can pay attention to listening to some woman on the internet drone on about a depression that can’t be cured. I have been looking for other subject matter.

My Mom asked me recently what I loved to do; what I wanted to do with my life. I told her that I’d never been as happy as when I worked as a volunteer feeding the homeless.

“How are you going to make money at that?” was her reply. But that wasn’t her original question. She asked me what I loved to do. I like to feed the hungry. It might sound silly but it is such a simple and complex thing, removing hunger from someone’s life, even temporarily. I have been on both sides of it; having dealt with a severe lack of food both as a child and as an adult and it’s amazing what a meal can do to really fill someone.

“Hold tight. We’re in for nasty weather”

Yesterday I was grumpy. Polly was being her usual chatterbox self and I felt as if I needed some quiet. She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. I ended up getting snappy with her and I feel guilty about that. The dog doesn’t like to go outside when it’s raining. That has been a struggle, this being Portland, Oregon and all. So yesterday I was doing the dishes and she shit all over the carpet. Diarrhea. It was my fault, because she should have been in her crate, but I wanted to let her out to roam the house a bit. I took her out and then came in to clean the mess. The whole house smelled and I couldn’t find any incense and I wanted to crawl into bed and hide. I was uncertain as to whether I needed to make a cup of coffee to perk me up, or perhaps have a nice relaxing cup of herbal tea? I considered taking a walk to the store to buy a bottle of wine. Maybe that would relax me?

I remembered how when I was a kid my Mom used to put a pot on the stove with water in it, and cinnamon sticks and cloves. She would simmer it and the whole house would smell wonderful. I grabbed a pot, filled it with water, dropped in some spices and then threw in some vanilla and a good dash of the lemon oil that I bought last year for some cookie recipe. I put it on the stovetop and went back to the dishes. I heard a sound, turned my head, and Woosh! The whole thing was on fire. I stared at it in disbelief for a second. The top of the pot was covered in flames, under the burner was on fire and flames were licking the wall. I put it out as quickly as I could. The kids came out of their rooms.

All that feng shui crap about not having fire across from water suddenly made sense. While you’re doing the dishes the whole house could burn down. After the fire was out Nathan looked at me and said, “Well, at least it smells better in here” and went back into his room.

The smoke detectors went off as I was wiping the black marks off of the wall above the burner. Alex came from upstairs where he had been sleeping, looked at me, turned around and walked back upstairs without asking me what I had done.

I grabbed my coat and walked to the store in the rain. Once there I decided that I wanted to have a beer. I looked in the cooler and they had Budweiser, Corona, and Heinekin. “Heinekin! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!” I remembered. I smiled and bought the Heinekin, forgetting that it loses its good flavor on the ship over from Holland and always tastes nasty to me.

On the walk back home the rain stopped and I saw a double rainbow and I felt better. Not great, but better.

I am currently watching “Melinda and Melinda”. The title of this post is from the movie.

I haven’t been writing because I’ve been processing.

I had an appointment with a surgeon/gynecologist and she said that I need to have a hysterectomy asap. I told her that I needed some time to think it over, to get a second opinion even. I called my sister (opinion #2), I called my Mom (opinion #3). I made an appointment with another doctor. She can’t see me until September 10th. I can’t think of any reason why I don’t want to have this surgery done except for I don’t want to. Is that a a reason? It counts in my book.

I have been working a lot which is good. I get obsessive about things sometimes. I don’t want to think about surgery. I can’t imagine my kids with their mother recovering from major surgery for ? weeks. I was all ready to go in to this doctor and argue my right to have a tubal ligation even though she practices out of a Catholic hospital. I was fire and brimstone and mad at the pope for thinking that he can make such choices for the masses. It didn’t matter in the end. She wants to take it all out.

I finished Polly’s room. Of course I wasn’t done when she came back from the beach, despite having stayed up until 4 a.m. to paint, and she cried when she walked through the door. I underestimated the length of time it would take me to do the room. Just the spackling alone took hours. She went a little crazy in there with the staple gun, and the thumb tacks, and the good old fashioned hammer and nails. It looks so much nicer now. I even bought her new carpet, as hers had met its match in a red kool-aid spill. She seemed to have fun decorating once it was time for her to move back in, and we were all glad to get her things out of the living room. She is a little pack rat.

Last night, after my kids recommended it to me, I watched Freedom Writers. I didn’t expect to like it, even though I definitely liked Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby. It was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, not too horrible, not too good. It did however open up the lines of communication regarding race issues with my kids. I thought the depiction of the separation between the teens of different races was a bit extreme. After telling my kids what I’d thought, Polly stated that I was right; the kids in her junior high school were not divided by race. Nathan assured me that at the first school that he attended last year it was exactly as it had been in the movie, all of the kids divided up according to ethnicity; White, Black, Latino, and Asian.

My husband happens to be half Hispanic. It hasn’t been something that we’ve given much thought, to be honest. When we first moved in together he asked why I didn’t buy tortillas, beans, salsa and hot sauce and so I bought all of those things and he was happy. Maybe he is only Mexican at dinner time. When we had children Nathan came out dark like his father, and much to our surprise Polly is fair skinned and blond, like me. I have had numerous people ask me if my children have different fathers. Nathan went through a bit of an identity crisis in high school, unsure of which group he fit into. He ended up with the Latino kids. He once told me in anger that he wished his dad had married a Mexican woman. I was both amazed and confused. I had hoped that we had as a society had gone beyond voluntary segregation. I underestimated the need for my son to fit in, to feel as if he had a proper place within a group.

When I was growing up I felt more of a division in the schools based on socioeconomic status. Of course I went to private schools and what I was experiencing might have been based on my own struggle to pretend that I didn’t care that I had old, hand me down underwear and ill fitting shoes. I struggled to be “cool”. I tried very hard to pretend that I didn’t care. I am learning that the struggles my son faces are different than anything I have ever been through. Even his father is a bit baffled, as he never gave any thought to the fact that he had friends of many different races in high school. He didn’t feel the pressure to chose between Hispanic and white and stay within the confines of a group. I sincerely hope that in time Nathan feels at home within himself, and the world.

I took Polly to a play at her school tonight. After the three hour play and drinking a large bottle of water I needed to use the restroom. I walked down the hall to the facilities. When I exited the stall there was a little girl there, maybe four years old, washing her hands at the sink. When she was finished she reached for a paper towel to dry her hands on and her mother exclaimed, “No, Experience, No! Remember to let your hands air dry. Save the earth!”
The girl walked out with her hands shaking in front of her as she tried to get the water off of them.
My first impression: Experience? What kind of name is that? My second impression: Save the earth by not drying your hands? Give me a break. I used two after I’d finished washing mine, just because.

I am off to watch The Pursuit of Happyness. I’ve heard that it’s good so I am really looking forward to it. I hope that everyone is having a good weekend.

if I am still breathing, eating, drinking, moving, cooking, cleaning, talking, recycling, taking the garbage out, feeding the kids and cats, going to the store, replacing the toilet paper when the roll runs out, loading the washer, the dryer, the dishwasher, answering the telephone, the e-mails, the kids, the mom, the husband, reading the newspaper, watching the news, making sympathetic head tilts and appropriate noises over sad news, chuckling over funny things, taking my daughter to school, picking her up again, thinking about the future, wondering if I’ll ever amount to anything, wondering if I have amounted to anything, growing tired of wondering, watching movies I’ve been waiting to see (Babel, Factotum, Stranger Than Fiction), planning what book to read next (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas),bathing, brushing teeth and hair, dreaming, remembering Birthdays, planning a garden, mopping the floor, remembering to get the mail, pay the bills, sign permission slips, pack lunches, play board games, pull weeds, pop pills each day. I must be okay then.

The Christmas cookie idea worked. Both kids came out of their rooms to help me cut them out and then they both had fun decorating them. Score 1 for me.

Christmas morning Nathan tried to pout around and pretend that he didn’t care about what was under the tree for him or the contents of his stocking. Finally his Dad went and picked him up, threw him over his shoulder, and told him to open his gifts while he (Alex) was still awake to see it. Working the graveyard shift takes a heavy toll. It is hard to flip flop back and forth on your days off. I remember this well from my years as a baker. Nathan ended up laughing and opening gifts.

After breakfast and a couple of hours of present induced giddiness both Nathan and Polly went down for naps. Giddy from the excitement of this unexpected alone time, Alex and I ate sandwiches which he kindly fixed, watched A Christmas Story on TV (I had never seen it) and Alex surprised me with a hidden gift, a Magic Wand. I love trying out new sex toys and haven’t had a new one that I really liked since The Eroscillator. The Magic Wand didn’t disappoint and I was able to achieve mind and body numbing orgasms quickly. It is nice to have a husband who isn’t threatened to bring sex toys into the bedroom.
I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow with a woman I like quite a bit. I hope that things go smoothly and she doesn’t try to change me from the current cocktail of drugs that seem to be working well for me.

I find myself looking forward to the New Year, college, my spring garden, and whatever lies before me on the path of motherhood. It has certainly been the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted, but the joy is immeasurable.

I just finished watching the Libertine. Highly recommended. I tend to watch anything Johnny Depp stars in because chances are it will be good, with few exceptions. This was no different.

Cazzy and Leonardo, I am still preparing to respond to your comments and they are always appreciated. Hopefully tomorrow will afford me more time.

2 and a 1/2 hours to get Nathan out of bed for school this morning. Any of you who are dealing or have dealt with kids who won’t get out of bed to go to school; my heart goes out to you. Not knowing exactly what to do is not helping. I was looking online at this website and I read this in the advice for family members caring for someone with a mood disorder “Don’t take your loved one’s actions or hurtful words personally.”

Okay. I obviously am struggling with that one. Is my son inside of this disease somewhere or is the disease inside of him? Where does one end and the other begin? At what point is he responsible for his behavior? I took him to his psychiatrist last Friday and after I gave him the run down on what had been going on he said, “Why are you punishing him for being bipolar?” I was stunned. So he’s allowed to scream and yell obscenities at me when he doesn’t get his way, threaten me physically, refuse to do what is asked of him, refuse to do what his teachers ask of him and I am supposed to let him play video games all day and talk on the phone all night? I don’t fucking think so. There has to be some sort of personal accountability here, even with an illness. Honestly, I am thinking of looking for another doctor. Every time we go in there I feel like it’s “You’ve got a very sick boy here and you’re doing the wrong things in response to X Y & Z. Here are some more pills to try. See you in two weeks.” Just when I thought things were looking up, BAM, setback.

Anyway, and now for something completely different, I finished the book I was reading, “ Leaving Las Vegas” last night. I saw the movie years ago but had never read the book. I highly recommend it. The movie mostly focuses on the relationship between Ben and Sera. The book goes into greater detail about them and their lives and the paths they have been on long before the characters meet. When I got to the end and read that the author had died in 1994 I got up and did an internet search on him. John O’Brien committed suicide two weeks after he found out his book was to be made into a movie.

I put my head down on the desk and wept. I am not even sure what I was crying about. Maybe I just needed the release.

My first grade photo. I am hoping to get my camera fixed this week so I can get some new photos on this site.

So Janet Jackson has come out and said that her brother, Michael, called her “fat butt” when she was growing up which gave her issues with her weight. My brother told me that bugs would crawl into my ears and tunnel through to my brain, creating entire colonies and living there happily until I died, except when another species of bug would enter and there would be wars between the two. This led to years of me not allowing my Mom to put my hair up into pig tails, only a ponytail that covered my ears and made her sigh with frustration, “Tammy, this would look a lot better if you let me pull it up and over your ears”, but no, I couldn’t do it. The threat was so real. I slept with cotton in my ears. My Mom never had a lot of money so instead of buying cotton she saved the cotton from the tops of medicine bottles, so for years I went through life with aspirin scented cotton wads showed in my ears while I slept. They were called earwigs for a reason, right?

Anyway, I would have expected something juicer from Janet, such as my brother used to dangle me over balconies, make me wear a blanket over my head when we left the house, slip elephant man bones into my bed while I slept, try to get my little male friends to sleepover in his room, and in later years, refer me to plastic surgeons who would do a wonderful job on my nose.

Truthfully, I was never a fan of Janet’s music, but I watched “ Good Times” religiously as a little girl. I loved that show so much I wanted to be a poor family living in the projects in Chicago in a too small apartment. They seemed so much happier than my family, living in a too small house in a lower middle class neighborhood. At least the parents talked to the kids. I felt like a stranger who just got in the way.

On that show there were these paintings that they showed depicting African American people. I still love those paintings but I’ve never been able to find out anything about them. If anyone knows who the artist was let me know in the comments or drop me an e-mail.

I have decided that I need to buy a laptop because I can never get on this computer. I have no idea how I am going to afford such a thing but it’s good to have dreams, yes? Between my husband and our two kids I am always 4th in line. I have planned on writing late at night when the kids are asleep and Alex is at work (he works the graveyard shift) but I am just so damned tired these days. I think it might just be a side effect from the Prozac or the increase in Klonopin my doctor put me on. I am not going to read all of those pieces of paper that come with the meds or do any research about side effects online though, because I will then get every bad side effect they write about. Trust me; I’ve made that mistake before.

Polly is going to outdoor school soon. My first reaction was that there was no way she was ready to be away from me for a whole week. I mean, this is the little girl who wakes me up in the middle of the night because she heard a scary noise. She seems okay about the trip though, so my second reaction was that maybe it is me who isn’t ready to let my youngest go just yet, and my third reaction was, “Damn, I’d better buy her a new sleeping bag, hers doesn’t look so good anymore.”

Nathan is doing okay. He’s had a cold and a sore throat and he even had the audacity to tell me that his ears hurt because I let us run out of Q-tips and he couldn’t clean his ears. Everything, my fault. I tried to take him to the doctor but he didn’t want to go so I am just keeping an eye on him. Plus, he has been eating three or four grapefruit a day, and I’m thinking that if his throat hurt that bad he couldn’t handle anything so acidic.

I am still trying to sell my Mom’s house for her while she is in Ireland drinking Guinness with her sister. We agreed to a $20,000 price drop and that seemed to renew interest so I am hoping.

Other than that I am okay. The panic attacks have dropped considerably and I am traveling by bus without too much trouble. I started reading “ Out Of Africa”. I am not far enough into it to tell whether I like it or not, but it came highly recommended by someone I trust so I have high hopes. I rented the movie “ The Human Stain” which I am going to hopefully watch tonight after Alex leaves for work. That is if I don’t fall asleep first.