TIME TO FIND THE WORDS

Where did the time go?

I did not realize how long it has been since I posted anything.  It has been a rough week.  Group was a disaster.  I had to run out of the room.  Then, my T had to come coax me out of the bathroom, because I had locked myself in there and would not open the door.  I was in pain, mentally and physically.  She calls it a body memory.  I call it body misery. 

I am going through a bout with insomnia, which only makes things harder and more stressful.  I am feeling paranoid and not wanting to leave the house.  Then, I start feeling trapped.  Why do I do this to myself?  Nothing will happen to me if I walk to the mailbox.  Nothing will happen to me if I go sit outside.  But, the heat really makes me feel ill, so that is a deterrent to going outside. 

My body has been in hyper sensitive mode.  For about three days, I felt like there was an electrical current cursing through my veins.  I was fighting off memories.  But, they came anyway.  Still, that fight or flight response takes over and I feel out of control. 

My T offered to see me after group, so I took her up on the offer.  It did help.  So, I saw her three times this past week…once in group, twice in my individual session.  I felt better after I saw her Wednesday.  I am trying hard to trust her.  She has a lot of knowledge about so many things.  I want to learn from her.  I am just so afraid to connect to anyone.  But, I think it is happening in spite of the fear.  Of course, that could change within the hour!!  I need to give it time.  After being with my other T for twenty years, and being hurt the way I was, it will take a while. But, what is time?  Time is all I have left.  This is just another learning lesson for us.  Trust.  Trust.  Trust.       Time.  Time.  Time.         T.  T.  T.          ALL THESE ‘T’ WORDS ARE GOING TO DRIVE ME INSANE.  Oh, I forgot, I am already insane.  At least that is how it feels at times. 

Anyway, I have missed by blogger ‘friends’ and I will have to catch up on how everyone is doing.  I hope you are all okay and have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.



Making Sense of Our Lives

What am I doing and where am I going?

The title of this post comes from the book “Mindsight”, written by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

It is a book on what he calls “mindsight”, as being the power to heal our brain from traumatic memories, irrational fears (although we may not think they are irrational), uncontrolled anger, unwanted behaviors that seem to control our lives, conflicts that permeate our relationships dissociation, and attachment disorders.

I do not know about you, but for me—ALL THE ABOVE. 

A child who has a secure attachment with their caregivers will grow up to have good relationships, will be respected by their peers, and will be better able to regulate their emotions.  They are attune to others, are flexible, have empathy, insight, and moral awareness.

On the other end of the spectrum is the child who has a disorganized and avoidant attachment to their caregivers.  These children are often times restricted emotionally, aloof, controlling, anxious, insecure, unable to relate to others, unable to regulate their emotions, have a tendency toward dissociation, and more likely to develop PTSD after a traumatic event occurs in their life.  Memories, even those we do not remember, leave us susceptible to intrusive thoughts, feelings, perceptions, reactions, and bodily sensations.  When a child is abused and becomes “terrified”, the “child is faced with a paradox.”  One part inside is yelling for her/him to get away from the source of the terror, while the attachment part is crying out “Go toward your attachment figure for safety and soothing!  When the same person is activating the brain’s “go away” and “go toward” messages, this is fear without a solution—an unsolvable situation.”  This is when the child becomes fragmented.  This is one of the most inevitable causes of dissociation.  These behaviors follow us into our adult lives and cripple our ability to function in life.

Dr. Siegel highly recommends writing in a journal to activate the narrator function in our minds. He asserts that simply writing down our account of an experience can help increase our sense of well-being, even if we never show it to anyone.  He talks about ‘making sense’ of how our negative experiences have affected us.  “Making sense is a source of strength and resilience.”  He believes that “making sense is essential to our well-being and happiness.”

While I do agree with ‘making sense’, for me this has been one of the most impossible tasks for my brain.  I cannot make sense of the abuse I endured.  But in this book, he writes that having the courage to approach and not avoid the past traumas will help us become free of its “implicit grip” on our minds.  “It is never too late to heal the mind and to bring to ourselves and to those around us the compassion and kindness that arise from that healing and integration.”

“Early experience is not fate:  If we can make sense of our past—if we integrate our narratives—we can free ourselves from what might otherwise be a cross-generational legacy of pain and insecure attachment…taking responsibility for one’s own mind can lead to liberation of the self, and to the ability to offer nurturance and love to the next generation.”

As I am reading this book, I am learning more and more to understand why I act and feel the way I do.  It is helping me acknowledge that this is not my fault, which in turn, lessens my shame and blame. 

Hopefully, this post will help others also.  We are all in this together.  We are not alone.

NONE OF THIS IS OUR FAULT.

This article is taken from the thoughts and words of the book “Mindsight”, by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.   No copyright infringement is intended. 

NO MORE PAIN…PLEASE

I feel like I am going to explode into millions of pieces.  My T is out of town on a trip until Sunday and I am feeling scared and alone.  Can it be that I have begun to connect with her without even realizing it?  This is what I cannot stand…to need someone, to depend on someone, to want to see them and talk to them ALL the time…or at least more often than I am able.  It becomes an obsession.  It is all I can think about, my mind will not shut up.  She said I could text her, but I just cannot let myself do it.  I need to respect her personal time.  I don’t want to intrude. 

Why does all this have to hurt so much?  Why do I continually feel tormented by the past?  The last time I saw T, she asked me if she could sit next to me.  I agreed.  It was safe.  I felt safe.  While I was with her, I believed she cared and truly understood the pain and the confusion.  But, it was short lived.  When we are apart, I cannot remember that feeling.  With my previous T, I could remember it.  I felt that he was with me even though we were miles apart.  I could remember his face and the sound of his voice.  That is not happening with my new T.  I cannot picture her face or remember the sound of her voice.  I guess that will take time.  But, what do I do in the mean time?  How do I keep surviving?  I feel the urge to drink, to cut, to take more pills than I should…I NEED TO BE NUMB.  I feel myself drifting away…I am not sure where I am…am I here??  I think the past is intruding once again and everything is getting blurred.



NOTHING...





Thoughts on the Holocaust…Similarities in Surviving (post #4)

“…not the end of the darkness but its hold over those seeking to find a bit of warmth, a bit of light.” (The Accident, by Elie Wiesel)

This is what my abuse did to me.  It surrounded me in darkness and took root in my soul.  It has left me in the cold…turned my ‘Dawn’ into ‘Night’.  I am always just a breath away from warmth.  I never quite see the light.  Both are elusive and remote.  It seems no matter what I try, the warmth of life never embraces me; the light never shines into my life.  “Memory is our home.”  “…death is not the enemy.” (The Accident, by Elie Wiesel)

I try not to dwell in the past.  I try not to think about death.  But, I have not found a way to control it.  It creeps into my thoughts without my even knowing.  One moment I feel almost sane, nearly alive.  Then the next, I am in chaos, surrounded by all the misery the past suddenly hurls into the present.  I become a stranger to myself.

Maybe I just cannot heal.  Maybe I do not have the courage or the strength to lift myself up from the abyss.  These are hopeless thoughts.  I struggle with hopelessness, despair, loneliness, depression and suicidal ideation.  I long to go ‘home’, because I do not view death as the enemy but as the end—not the end of life, but the end of suffering.  Because, honestly, is not that the truth?  Does not death, hopefully, take us to where we began; to our real home with the Creator?  I do not blame God (or whatever name you choose) for what has happened.  I blame humankind for choosing to do evil.  Every day we make choices that affect each of us.  The results initiating ripples that radiate outward to the other people in our lives, moving beyond them to the people in their lives and on and on.  We are all connected.  We are one.  Any kind of abuse does just this…it is passed on from generation to generation.  The difference is that abuse does not make ripples.  Abuse makes the seas angry and the ripples turn into giant swells sinking any ship in their path. The ramifications are carried on through the years until WE make it stop. 

Do you understand that humans have not learned yet?  Every moment in every day, some form of abuse is being initiated.  Whether it is sexual abuse, genocide, emotional, physical…when is it going to stop?  When are we going to learn?  How many people and children have to die, not only physically but emotionally, before we stop all this evilness? 

My guess is not until the world ends.

The butterfly is the symbol used to represent the children who perished in the Holocaust.  The use of the butterfly originates from this poem by Pavel Friedman (January 7, 1921 – September 29, 1944).

 

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,

So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.

Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing

against a white stone. . . .

Such, such a yellow

Is carried lightly 'way up high.

It went away I'm sure because it wished to

kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,

Penned up inside this ghetto.

But I have found what I love here.

The dandelions call to me

And the white chestnut branches in the court.

Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.

Butterflies don't live in here,

in the ghetto.

Please remember that these are my thoughts and opinions.  You do not have permission to copy or use them in any way.

I KNOW I AM GOING TO GET HURT AGAIN...

It is only a matter of time…

You tell me you know how vulnerable I am and how careful you need to be with my heart.  I want to believe you in the worst way.  I am so tired of trying to survive all of this alone.  I do not know how much longer I can do it.  But, after what happened with the last therapist, how can I let myself feel close to you. 

I feel as if he ripped out my insides and left me lying on the floor to die.  He pretended to try to repair the relationship, but it was nothing more than a sham.  It was to protect him…his wife was so afraid that I might turn him in to the board, that I might cause a problem in his practice, because she said he was crossing boundaries.  Oh, fuck.  What a ludicrous thought.  She is the one that had the problem.  She is the one that was insecure in her marriage.  I was not a real threat to her.  I would have NEVER slept with him.  This is all her fault, but not according to him…we can’t blame her.  It was his choice to change the relationship, to change my therapy, to change the way we interacted.  WHAT A BUNCH OF PSYCHO BABBLE.  I WOULD NEVER do anything to hurt the very person, the ONLY person that had ever reached me, reached my parts.  WELL, we wouldn’t…none of us…absolutely none of us would ever hurt him in any way.   What is so sad is that HE KNOWS THIS TO BE TRUE.  But, he was put in the position, by her, of making a choice that he should have never had to make.  Even now, with all the pain I am in because of his abandonment that is the last thing on my mind.  All I can think about is protecting me.  All I can think about is not getting attached to anyone ever, ever, ever again.  NEVER.  HEAR MY WORDS, NEVER.

But what will happen to us if I do not let her in, if I do not take another chance.  I WILL NOT MAKE IT.  I WILL NOT SURVIVE.  I am not a quitter.  I have been at this for so many years.  I cannot let his flaws, his insecurities, his unwillingness to stand up for what was right and helpful in our therapy destroy everything I have worked so hard for, for so many years.  But, yet I can’t let her in.  This is so wrong.  I should never have been put in this predicament.  But here it is…right here in my face…in my heart. 

She said she understood.  She said she knew that she had to hold my heart in her hand, like a broken bird.  And all I could do was sit there and cry and cry and cry some more.  All I really want right now is my mommy.  That’s it.  THAT IS MY FINAL ANSWER.



I NEED TO BE NUMB...NOW.

 I NEED TO BE NUMB. NOW.

MOTHER OF STONE



Sleepy head photo by Bas Lammers
Open your eyes Mother of Stone

MOTHER OF STONE

Each day I travel through miles of emptiness

Just to be near you.

When finally, I reach my destination,

You stand before me, distant and untouchable.

The tears fall from my eyes, yet you are blind to them.

My cries echo in the void between us, but fall upon deaf ears.

In desperation, on my knees, I beg for your eyes to open

That you might see the child before you.

A child born full of hope and promises—

All of them for you.

As I wait for you to become alive,

I dream that you take me in your arms

To comfort me with a loving embrace,

Where I feel safe and warm, free from all harm.

There, in a peaceful sleep, for a while I stay.

Sadly, the time arrives for me to go.

But, each time I leave your arms,

I run back to you for one last hold, one more touch.

Then violently, I am awakened by the harsh coldness of a stone

And a dark sky falling down around me, turning my world to black.

Memories of a stark stone—a heavy burden for a child to bear,

For a child to carry throughout eternity,

Infinitely waiting, for the reality of the mother of stone to be gone.

By 'R'

6/26/1994

You may not copy or use for any reason.  These words belong to me.



Ejection Day, Rejection Day

My Child and My Inner Child

I know none of you really know me except through this blog. But, I am an honest, upfront person. I can take a lot of crap from people, put up with their bull, etc. etc. But, there comes a time when I cannot take anymore and I have to eject them from my life...yes, just like the eject button in an air force jet. Well, for the GA zillionth time, I pressed the eject button yesterday. Same person was ejected because I was rejected. This is not just any ordinary person. This is my child...my child that I took care of for oh so many years because she has some health issues and some mental issues. I had second cousins sending me 'Happy Mother's Day' wishes and wishing me well. But, what do I get from my child...after getting her car fixed and getting her a new phone, bringing her food (when I am supposed to be giving her "tough love")...an ugly text that her computer is not working and more and more ugly words. Not one word about mother’s day. And it is not because she forgot. Probably the first reaction from people that read this will be "What did you do to her?" "Did you abuse her?" Since, I was abused as a child, many people will rush to judgment and think that I did the same to her...well the answer is NO I DID NOT ABUSE HER.  NO, I WAS NOT PERFECT EITHER.  But, I did everything in my power to protect her and help her while she was growing up. She moved out, moved back in, moved out, moved back in...until, she became angry at us because she had to depend on us. Long story short, I do not understand why this is happening and I can't take it anymore. This pain is so deep and unlike any other pain I have ever felt in my entire life. And believe me when I say that I have been through a LOT OF PAIN from the past, from the memories I have recovered and what all of this has done to my mind and the way I think. But nothing hurts worse than this…NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING.  I keep trying to hold on, to make myself want to live, but now there is just another hole in my heart that cannot be filled.  

DROWNING IN MY PAIN

DesiComments.com | Sad, Sad Girl | Forward this Picture

I HATE YOU BUT I NEED YOU BUT I HATE YOU

JUST STOP IT.  ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS RUN ME OVER.
Why can’t I trust you?  You make no effort to help me.  You just sit there and talk and talk and talk and I don’t even know what the hell you are talking about….surely you know this for a fact.  Do I know ‘IVVY’?  Do I even care?  You won’t help me reach my other parts.  You won’t tell me that you care.  You won’t do anything to help me feel.  I hate therapy.  I hate therapists. I hate you.   You all suck.  Too many mind benders and head games…is that all you learned after so many years in school…All your little certificates hanging in your office.  What does that mean to me?  NADA, NOTHING, ZIP, Bull crap…artificial bait.  You are all the same.  Why can’t you see how much I need your help?  You know that I am hurting.  I can see it in your eyes.  What do you do…ignore me, pretend I do not exist, but I am here…I know you realize I am here and yet you do NOTHING.  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.   You are making me lose my mind.  Oh no, I forget, I am the one making me lose my mind.  I am the one that needs to reach out for your friendship.  NO THANK YOU.  KISS IT.   NEVER, EVER, FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE will I ever reach out to anyone else.  DO NOT HOLD YOUR BREATH.  IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.   You talk about the little ones and you do nothing.  Just stay away from me.  Leave me alone.  I want nothing from you.  I need nothing from you.  You are a jerk.  You are like everyone else in my life.  You make me sick…literally; I could vomit just thinking about you.


Photo from honourandhate.e-monsite.com



Thoughts on the Holocaust…Similarities in Surviving (post #3)

The Color of Night by Samuel Bak

ABUSE AND THE DEATH OF GOD IN THE SOUL

Every day, every moment, I struggle with my beliefs about God and what role He takes in our lives.  Some people believe that God is ‘punishing’ them when bad things happen.  Others may believe in destiny and that our lives are predetermined.  I believe that each person has choices.  We can choose to do good or we can choose to do evil.  These choices that have been made by mankind since the beginning of time trickle down and affect our lives.  Many things are passed from one generation to the next and are repeated over and over until someone breaks the cycle.  Most of the time, people who abuse have themselves been abused.  Please do not take this wrong…I am not excusing any abusers or letting them off the hook.  They could have been the ones to choose to break the cycle.  But, they did not. 

What I want to express and write about today is the abused child’s soul.  Let us contemplate on “…the death of God in the soul of a child who suddenly discovers absolute evil?”  This is a quote by Fracncois Mauriac in the Forward of Night by Elie Wiesel.  Mr. Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.”  In my mind, this is the exact way we who have endured abuse view our circumstances.  We never forget.  At least, I cannot forget.  For those of us with D.I.D., maybe another part holds the memory, but it is still not forgotten.  It is there forever and its memory has forever changed us.   It has done something to our psyche, to our soul.  The abuse caused death.  It cause the death of innocence, self-love, and in some cases the will to live.  I have to agree with Elie Wiesel when he states in Night,  “Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.  Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.  Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God Himself.  Never.”

By no means am I saying that we cannot heal from abuse.  I do believe we can heal to a certain point.  But after years of trying to overcome my past, I feel its breath on my neck; I feel its memory haunting my sleep; I feel the pain of not belonging; I feel the scars on my body; I feel the emptiness in my soul, the longing for connection.  I wonder where God was when all of this was taking place.  Again, I found an answer in the Forward of Night, “‘Where is God?  Where is He?  Where can He be now?’ and a voice within me answered:  ‘Where?  Here He is—He has been hanged here, on these gallows.’”  This is a difficult concept for me to accept.  That God is with us through all things, good and evil.  Because when you are abused, even before you are aware, you feel totally alone in the world.  You feel abandoned, by God, by the world.   I try to make connections with others.  I try to practice ‘faith’.  But in the end,  I am still in the prison created by my past.  It has left my soul hanging.  It has left my inner home broken.  It has left me blue.  The above picture by Samuel Bak, The Color of Night, represents how I continue to feel.

21 Guns

Did someone break your heart inside...

Nothing's ever meant to last...

You're in ruins....

Depression...Chisel away no more

Another day another dollar...really who cares?  Not me.  Although I realize we have to have money to stay alive.  But, I do not really care to be alive…to fight the good fight.  BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.  I wake up before sunrise with tears filling my eyes.  What is the problem?  How do you wake up with tears?   Is it those night terrors making me feel like I cannot breathe; I cannot move; I am paralyzed, suffocating, and dying?  I do not know.  I am just finding it very hard to keep myself going…going to where?  NO WHERE.  I am stuck…that is putting it mildly.  I am cemented in this life of confusion.  I have been chiseling away to no avail.  My tears and my pain have been my chisel.  Look at the picture...Tears falling from stone.  That is how I feel; stone cold, yet crying to break  free.  I am tired of trying to break free.  What is the use?  Yeah…I know, for me.  Which me? 

“I grieve, and dare not show my discontent;

  I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;

  I do not dare to say I never meant,

  I seem stark mute, but inwardly I prate,

  I am, and am not; I freeze and yet am burn’d,

  Since from myself my other self I turned.”

~~Elizabeth I

Thoughts on the Holocaust...Similarities in Surviving (post #2)

Above and Below, By Samuel Bak 2003

Death above or Death below...I ask you what is the difference?



Today I would like to address a subject about with which many survivors struggle.  The psychological term is Suicidal Ideation.  Yes, obsession with death, not just any kind of death, but a self-inflicted death.  It is a very touchy subject for many, especially therapists. However, I never could understand why it was such a big deal to my therapists and is still.  Perhaps, I view death differently than most.  I do not feel afraid of death.  When someone in my family dies, it only touches me for a few minutes and then it is over.  It is not that I do not have feelings, I do.  I feel very deeply about many things.  But, death is different.  As a survivor of extreme childhood abuse, death is a release.  Death is my escape from the pain that never stops; the pain that permeates my soul; the pain that is always right below the surface.  Death is a longing; a desire within reach; a release. So unlike the feelings the past imparts upon my psyche; the past from which I cannot get away.  I would rather someone die than to abandon me.  I know this must sound so uncaring and evil.  But because of what my past did to me, abandonment is worse than death.

In his book, Night, Elie Wiesel describes his thoughts on death during the ‘march’ at Auschwitz.  I use his words because to me, this accurately describes how I feel; this is how suicidal ideation affects my mind.  “Death wrapped itself around me till I was stifled.  It stuck to me.  I felt that I could touch it.  The idea of dying, of no longer being, began to fascinate me.  Not to exist any longer.  Not to feel the horrible pains….NOT TO FEEL ANYTHING, neither weariness, nor cold, nor anything.” p.89 [emphasis mine]   In the Preface for the twenty fifth anniversary edition of Night, Robert McAfee Brown writes of the trials Elie Wiesel encountered when trying to publish this book.  Publishers did not want it:  “Such depressing subject matter.”  When it was finally published, “few people wanted to read about the Holocaust.  Such depressing subject matter.  But we cannot avoid depressing subject matter, particularly if it is true…”  Do not you come across this attitude about sexual childhood abuse?  Is it not a taboo subject in many circles?  For those of us living in this “shame”, does not the denial only cause us more pain?  Mr. Brown continues with, “we would much prefer to disbelieve, treating it as the product of a diseased mind, perhaps.  And there are those today who—feeding on that wish…are trying to persuade the world that the story is not true, urging us to treat it as the product of diseased minds, indeed.  They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another:  telling PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUFFERED EXCRUCIATING PAIN AND LOSS THAT THEIR PAIN AND LOSS WERE ILLUSIONS.”  [emphasis mine]  This book changed the way the Holocaust was viewed.  Because this brave soul, Elie Wiesel told his story, he made believers out of non-believers.  It is the same for those of us with D.I.D.  There are so many non-believers; so many people who do not like the subject matter; so many people who want to deny our existence.  But, if enough of us tell our stories, we too can change the way most of the world views this very horrifying topic.  To quote Mr. Brown, “Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling…if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all.”  Would it not be wonderful if we could change the way people view the rape of a child, the breaking of a child’s will, the destruction of their soul.  We could be the champions of the abused child. 

Again quoting Mr. Brown, “At the end of Night, the immediate devastation has ended:  the war is over, the camps are liberated, that author is alive.  But the ongoing devastation has only begun, THE DEVASTATION THAT WILL NEVER END:  THE DEVASTATION IMPOSED BY MEMORY THAT MAKES THE LINE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH A THIN LINE INDEED. [emphasis mine]  The descriptive term imaging the author at the book’s end is that of a corpse.” 

And for me, here we have come full circle.  Memories so painful, so sordid that I feel my only escape is death, to become a 'corpse'.