WHY WE WRITE



Writing...


These writings are our journey to find the 'self'.  Writing is the only 'voice' we have to talk about the pain we have endured.  We started this blog, in hopes to find others who have endured similar experiences and in hopes to find a connection to the 'outside' world.  That continues to be our mission.  Everyone has their own path in this world.  Everyone is unique and sees life through different lenses.  So, I am not here to compete.  I am not here to win a popularity contest.  And as I write these words, I realize that some people may take offense.  This is not my intent.  Our only hope for writing this blog is to help release the pain.  If someone is helped by this, then I say 'Alleluia'.  I am not trying to guide anyone to travel down the same path on which I am treading.  Only you can decide what will help you heal.  Only you can determine what is best for your soul.  There is a Hebrew Proverb, "Physician, heal thyself."  But in this case I will say to all of you, 'Teacher, heal thyself.'  We all have something to teach...something to contribute.

Have a safe journey. 

The End.

Thoughts on the Holocaust...Similarities in Surviving.



Unable to Work by David Olère. 131x162 cm, A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, New York.
Inability to work was often an immediate death sentence. In the background of this painting, smoke rises from the crematorium to form the SS insignia.





"Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man."  (Primo Levi, "Survival in Aushwitz" p.26)

Do you ever feel like the words are not in your mind to express the pain you went through as a child?  You have all these memories, thoughts, and pictures extremely vivid in your minds eye, yet you do not have the ability to utter a word.  From my studies about the Holocaust, this is how a lot of survivors feel about their experience.  This is also how I feel about surviving extreme physical, sexual, and emotional child abuse.   I have a strong suspicion that many survivors of childhood abuse have the same problem.  Words do not accurately describe what we feel.  Why?  Because, it was the 'demolition' of a child.  My psyche was demolished.  Among many things I lost my childhood.  I lost 'me'.  I lost 'all'.  "...for he who loses all often easily loses himself."  (Primo Levi, "Survival in Aushwitz" p. 27)

As survivors we were stripped of our dignity.  We were stripped of our innocence.  They took away our very essence.  "They will even take away our name:  and if we want to keep it, we will have to find ourselves the strength to do so, TO MANAGE SOMEHOW SO THAT BEHIND THE NAME SOMETHING OF US, OF US AS WE WERE, still remains."  (Primo Levi, "Survival in Aushwitz" p. 27)   (emphasis added by me).   For people with D.I.D., they did not take away our name as such, but created many more names.   I believe the key to healing is this:   To dig as deep as we can until we find our true self...the self before the abuse.  Some of us will have to go very far back.  Maybe even as far back as infancy.  We have to find the 'us as we were'...the innocent child hidden inside.  Until we do, I do not know how we can begin to heal.  We need to rescue our child.  We need to wage a war against our attackers.  I do not mean this literally, but as a metaphor.  We need to assemble all our inner warriors and defend this child.  Here is where our healing will begin.   Here is where we will find our innocence and free ourselves from blame.  This child will take away our shame.  "The truth shall set you free".  We will come to know ourselves through the innocence of her eyes.  Let your journey begin there.

PTSD--when healing hits a wall. From Heal my PTSD website.

http://healmyptsd.com/2009/10/treating-ptsd-when-your-healing-hits-a-wall.html

This is a great article about PTSD.  I hope it will help those suffering with this painful process.

WHY CAN'T I MOVE

I am barely functioning.  I can't move.  I have been lying around all day doing nothing except coming in and out of awareness.  It hurts.  I hurt.  There is no one to talk to, to reach out to for help.  I don't want to do this any more.  I can't take it.  I can't take the pain of existence.  I was shattered so long ago and the pieces are scattered like "Dust in the Wind...all we are is Dust in the Wind" (Kansas lyrics).




DUST STORMS





EASTER

I remember this being your favorite Holiday.   Some of us have been thinking about you quite often these days.  It is sad to not be seeing you any longer.  It is difficult to understand.  I guess this is just part of life.  I guess this is just another path we have begun to travel.  It is all so confusing to me.  Life has a way of  'pulling the rug out from under you'.  I have not gotten back up as of yet.

Happy Easter.

From 'R'

Anastasia's Eyes By: Dan Fogelberg



LARITHA LEE ART on Face Book




Anastasia's Eyes lyrics

There's thorns on the cactus tree
There's thorns on the rose
There's thorns in the heart of me
That nobody knows
They tear at the flesh until
The tears start to rise
They form in my heart
But they fall from Anastasia's eyes.
And I was lost in the wilderness
Without courage or hope
I was setting my signal fires
And watching the smoke
When out of the smoke appeared
The sweetest surprise
And I knew I'd been found
When first I looked in
To Anastasia's eyes.
There's thorns on the cactus tree
There's thorns on the rose
There's thorns in the heart of me
That nobody knows
But finally I've found out where
My salvation lies
It lies in the love that lives
In Anastasia's eyes.

DEDICATED TO: ANASTASIA, our inner salvation, our flower among the thorns.

I NEED YOUR HELP...

to know who I am.  to know where I am.  to know where I have been.  to know if I have eaten.  to know what to do next.  to know when to get up.  to know when to sink.   to know when to swim.  to know when I am drowning.  to know my past.  to know the child.  to know the teen.  to know the adult.  to know when to leave.  to know when to stay.  to know how to survive.  to know how to live.  to know if I can trust.  to know if I am in pain.  to know if I am bleeding.  to know me.  to know.  to.

Tell me what to do.  Tell me who I am in this very moment.  Tell me where I belong.  Tell me who to trust.  Tell me why I am in pain.  Tell me who has my mind.  Tell me what room I belong in.  Tell me something.  Tell me.  Tell.

Make the noise in my brain stop.  Make the memories fade.  Make me into someone I can recognize. 

Don't leave me here alone.  Don't leave me.  Don't leave.  Don't.

Broken Girl by Matthew West

This is a You Tube Video I found on another blog "Bongo Is Me". I do not think she will mind if I post it on my blog. Her blog is...well, one of those things in life which I use the description, "for which there is no language". This is a thought that I came across in my studies of the Holocaust. I think it was from Lawrence Langer, but I am not totally sure. My memory is foggy about that time.

So, thank you 'Bongo' for sharing so much of yourself, your pain, your journey. It helps me to not feel all alone in the world.

Stop Hurting the Body

If I could only remember what I did last night.  Maybe I do not remember, but the scar will remind me of what I do not remember.  I know this means that one of my 'parts' is in terrible pain.  How can I help them?  We go to therapy tomorrow (not that it helps them).  They will not participate in our sessions any more since we changed therapists.  Maybe leaving 'B' was the wrong decision.  But, I could not take the distance between us any longer.  I could not pretend that the relationship had not changed drastically.  It was too painful for me and for some of the other 'parts'.  Now, none of us feel close or connected to anyone, especially the new therapist 'N'.  But, it took about two years for us to trust 'B', and we have only been with this new person for a few months.  I feel so alone.  I want to cry, but I cannot let the tears flow.  I feel like if I do, I will go away and never come back.  I will fall into the darkness of my abysmal childhood, never to return.  'B' was always there to help me come back to me.  Okay, I have to stop writing because I feel like I am going away.

LOST in The Darkness of a Life....

This is a video that shows a little bit about D.I.D.  POSSIBLE TRIGGER!!!

YOU TUBE VIDEO (POSSIBLE TRIGGER)

FORGIVENESS

THIS IS THE HARDEST PART OF HEALING...

FORGIVENES/YOU TUBE VIDEO

Plumb - Cut (Possible Trigger)

Why did you abandon us?

Hardly a day goes by that I do not think of you and the twenty years we spent in therapy with you.  This month would have been twenty years.  I know that we are the ones that 'left', or at least some of us were...I was not one of them.  I would have stayed.  But, it was 'A  ie' who made the final decision.  And the god of our system, 'D', agreed that it had become more destructive than helpful.  This is so messed up.  What happened to everything?  I do not understand why everything changed so drastically.  Was it us?  I know I will probably never get an answer because I will probably never see you again.  But, sometimes, it drives me to the brink of insanity.  I miss you so much; I miss our sessions; I miss the help you gave us; I miss the connection we had; I miss having someone to help me through the pain.  This has been and continues to be very hard for me.  I cannot be with the new therapist.  I will not even come out in the sessions with her.  She is too 'out there'.  Maybe this is just me.  Me not wanting to trust or get close to anyone again.  But, I do not think that is the only reason.  It deeply saddens me that our life will probably never get any better than it is now.  We have stopped growing and changing.  We are just floundering, living day to day with no purpose, with no hope.  I guess as long as we had you as a mentor, there was hope.   Please know that I am not blaming you.  I guess I have lost my train of thought.  I do not know where I am going with this note.  That is what happens...I just shut down.
'R'

GROUPS, W T H

So, I am trying to keep this blog 'clean', free from 'cuss' words.  LA TE DA!!  The title is not what I wanted to go with.  Instead of 'wth', I wanted to use the ef word.  But hey, far be it from me to ef up this precious blog.  It is not really my blog, but I am allowed to use it under the rules of a certain dictator in my system.  All joking aside, why are we going to this group?  I have no idea.  N our therapists thinks it is a great idea.  But then what the ef does she know???  Not much.  ef ef ef.  I do not think she realizes what condition we come home in after sitting there, like a freak, thinking who the heck are these people and what do I have in common with them.  But that is the problem...I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON WITH THEM.  If they only knew me, they would run and hide.  Obviously, some one else wants to be in the group.  If this is true then why don't they show up and STAY THERE instead of running away and hiding. 

I feel so angry.  Me and anger don't do too great.  I have to make it stop by hurting myself.  It is the only proven remedy.  I thought maybe if I wrote about being angry it would help.  Honestly, it just makes me more angry.  N is out of town AGAIN and I have no one to talk to or to call or anything special like that...not that I want to anyhow. 

Life is a beach and you best not step out too far in the water...because, the undertow will pull you under and take you out to sea, leaving you floundering until you effing drown.  So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

DEV

A Day in the Life...

Oh no.  The dreaded Monday.  The day of reckoning.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Do I set foot out of the house?  I mean this literally.  Do I dare open the door?  I mean this literally, also.  Do I take the short trip down the drive to fetch the mail?  Yes, literally.   And most of all, can I make it to the store?  You may think that I am insane, but you see, these seemingly mundane tasks are monumental to me.  Agoraphobia rules my world.  What is agoraphobia you ask?  According to "Merriam-Webster",  it is 'the abnormal fear of being in a helpless, embarrassing or inescapable situation characterized esp. by avoidance of open or public places.'  Such a nice, neat little definition.  However, it does not do it justice.  'Avoidance', 'abnormal'...excellent terms.  But, truly...'abnormal fear', NO, NO, NO.  Come on people.  GET REAL!!  Let us go with PARALYZING FEAR.   Or SUFFOCATING FEAR.  And the 'situation' would be avoiding the PRISON of the outside world.  Because once the door is opened,  the prison engulfs you and you are trapped forever in a maze filled with obstacles that will not let you go forward.  A maze filled with monsters lurking around every corner, ready to attack you and take you their prisoner for life.   'Open or public places', there is nothing 'open' about them in my eyes.  They are traps or cells.  They are bounded spaces.  There is no exit.   No, I am not schizophrenic.  No, once again, I am not CRAZY.  No, this is not your run of the mill paranoia.  THIS IS A GENERALIZED FEAR.  This is a day in my life...or more accurately stated, this is just the first few minutes of my day.  The 'inescapable situation'...well, that would be my past.  It is NEVER far behind me.  Believe me when I say I have tried to forget, to put it all behind me.  It just will not go away.  How could it?  It was my life.  I lived through it and all the memories are etched in my brain.  They have carved a path deeper than the Grand Canyon.  What would it take to fill the Grand Canyon?  My answer...either a miracle or a monumental disaster.  So, here I am, biding time, waiting for one of the inevitable to free me from this prison called life. 

Email/fear/relief

I saw your email.  It made me cry.  Yeah, a wimp as usual.  'wimpy, wimpy, wimpy....hefty, hefty, hefty'.  We have both.  The hefty lion and the wimpy little lamb.  One moment I am the lion the next I am less than a lamb.  I am still seventeen, going on ????  I am not even sure.  I would have to do the math.  All kidding aside, I was so glad to see your name pop up when we pressed the dreaded Send/Receive button.  But, then in crept the fear.  'ART'.  Yes, indeed, it is still hovering over us like the clouds in the sky.  There are times I want to go back for your help.  Then 'ART' comes along and rears its ugly head.  It can still be a paralyzing emotion.  It can keep me from doing what needs to be done.  So abandonment, rejection and trust still rule my world.  It ROCKS!!  (you need to change the first two letters of this word to get the real meaning...this one goes in the 'code' book along with 'fine')

At last we come to relief.  I am relieved you are not so angry with us that you do not totally ignore us.  I am relieved to hear that you are well.  I am relieved to know you still think of us.  I am relieved.  So, thank you very much for responding to her email.  I can assure you it meant a lot to those members of which I am aware.  I do miss you very much.
"R"

I am Not Evil--Don't Be Afraid

Please do not be afraid of me.  I am not evil.  Maybe evil things were done to me, but I was a child.  I am merely in pain.  All I want is for someone to stay with me through the pain; to be my friend until death causes us to part.  That is a lot to ask, I know.  That is why it will never happen.

Insomnia Strikes Again

I cannot sleep.  My mind is racing.  Thoughts that I do not want keep intruding, INTERRUPTING.  Please go away and leave me alone.  Will I ever know peace?  Will I ever know normal, whatever 'normal' is?  There is no one out there to whom I can talk, no one who can understand.  The more I hold things back, the more they permeate my thoughts.  But, I cannot go through the pain again, not right now, not tonight.  I feel I will not return, I will never come back from its darkness.  What will happen to me if I cry?  Where will the tears fall?  They will fall upon deaf ears, just as these words fall upon this empty page.  What happened to "The Voice"?  Where did it go?  It was my fortress; it was my strength.  Now it is just an echo, slipping farther and farther from my grasp.  Is it possible to 'grasp' a voice?  It was not really 'The Voice' that gave me the connection...it was the soul.  It was the essence of human kindness, the unexpected gift of the heart that helped me soar.  And now it is just the echo...it is not really here.  It is slipping away through the mountains and the valleys, until one day it will no longer be heard.