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.

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.

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'.

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.

Holocaust Remembrance Day: May 2, 2011

I want to begin my blog with a link to the United States Holocaust Museum.  Click the tilte of this blog and you will be directed to their web page.  We must never forget what has happened in WWII and what continues to happen in so many countries.  I also want to remember the children that suffered tremendously from the evil of that time and the children that suffer from childhood abuse as we speak. 

The following is a You Tube link to remember the children.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Jagovern143#p/u/10/vvBSBQJmaco

Abuse causes an emotionally, crippling, mental disease that is terribly difficult to overcome, if at all possible to defeat.