December 19, 2008
Blog Carnival: Holiday Edition
Welcome to the Holiday, 2008 edition of The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I want to thank all the bloggers who took time out of their busy pre-holiday schedules to submit articles and raise awareness about child abuse. I am especially impressed and grateful that we got so many holiday-category posts. Thank you, awesome advocates!
Please use caution when reading some of these posts. Child abuse can, understandably, be a very triggering subject. Although it can be scary, we raise our voices because we know that abuse flourishes in silence. As we raise awareness through these posts, please don't forget to link on over to these courageous bloggers and leave a supportive comment. Thanks!
Holiday Harmony
Our first category deals with being a survivor around the holidays. As I said in my call for submissions, this can be an especially challenging time for survivors of child abuse. It is difficult to get over our fantasy of the perfect, Norman Rockwell, holiday family portrait that we never had. Let's use this edition to talk about taking advantage of opportunities to start your own family, initiate new traditions, find balance and practice healthy habits.
Rising Rainbow gives us Holiday Time Thoughts from My Clouds, My Storms and Multiple Personality Disorder, and remarks, "There's nothing like the holidays to bring out the insecurities in all of us. Making our own new traditions can be survived......and actually work out to be a good thing." So true. Thanks, RR!
Enola presents Let Us Eat --- Food Issues posted at her blog, ~Enola~, saying, "So many holidays celebrations involve food. For survivors, there are often food issues. This is my post about my own issues. I was amazed by the number of comments and people that had similar issues." Go join the discussion, folks!
K-Perfect offers her Oh Tannenbaum..... post from her blog ~Perfect~. Perfect remarks, "A post about how Christmas has evolved through my life and how living in the present, instead of in the past or future, has allowed me to finally enjoy the holiday season." What a wonderful accomplishment. Kudos to you, Perfect!
JIP--which stands for Jumping In Puddles--tells us how this Christmas is somewhat of a healing milestone for her life. Here, she presents, We Made A Choice to Find the Spark that Led to Tomorrow . Isn't that a wonderful title? It's at her blog, Lifespacings.
Mike McBride presents Thankfulness posted at Child Abuse Survivor. About this post, Mike points out, "I wrote this at Thanksgiving, but I think it speaks for all the holiday season." It's a message about gratitude and hope. Thanks, Mike!
Enola talks about Nurturing my Inner Child at her blog, ~Enola~, where she points out that, "This entry shows how I have overcome a painful Christmas memory by creating my own traditions. The way I treat myself at Christmas is how I wish I had been treated as a child." Wow, what great ideas, Enola! Talk about comfort and joy! Go read about these, everyone. These holiday traditions will warm your heart.
I, Marj aka Thriver, dug up an old post about healthy eating and boosting your immune system, called, Holiday Thrivers, Boost Your Immune System! at my blog, Survivors Can Thrive! Let's all remember to eat healthy and take our vitamins, even while we're finishing up our Christmas shopping and rushing home with our treasures!
Advocacy & Awareness
Holly Ord highlights the movie, Hounddog posted at her blog called, Healing Yourself Heals the World. I love the name of her awareness-raising blog! Holly comments, "Hounddog is a movie that exudes hope and infuses survivors with a resonating voice that says 'I understand, it isn't your fault, now take back what is yours.'" Thank you for your advocacy, Holly!
Grace presents Child predators use double language to thwart "telling". Welcome, Grace! Grace writes at several blogs, but this post is from The Dirtiest Secret Behind Child Abuse.
Emma joins us with her post, Do you make these mistakes with your baby? posted at Baby-Log. She remarks, "How to handle challenging behavior in kids - creatively." Welcome, Emma!
Aftermath
Dr. Deb raises awareness about a type of self-injury that was new to me as she offers, Self-Embedding Disorder. Thanks for coming back to this blog carnival, Dr. Deb! We missed you! Her writings can be found at Dr. Deb Psychological Perspectives. Survivor Stories
Cornnut32 presents The Picture of my Most Life-Changing Experience, saying, "This post is how I used my religious beliefs to heal. I believe that even those who may not be religious can benefit from this post, because it proves that it is possible to heal through therapy, regardless of your belief system. It is very important to me to share my experiences with others." Welcome, Cornnut! Cornnut blogs at Picture of Experience.
In The News
Dana at Principled Discovery informs us about Nebraska’s safe haven law, which allows mothers to drop off their unwanted infants. This is an informative post which also has a lively dialogue going in comments. Thanks and welcome, Dana!
Megan lets us know about the high Cost of Child Abuse in Australia at her blog, Imaginif Child Protection Became Serious Business. The good news is that the wonderful advocates who campaign at Stop Child Abuse Now have also moved to Australia to help. Alright! Thanks for spreading the news, Megan.
Poetry
Mary is a prolific poet. Here, she gives us Dear God from her blog, NIPPERCAT'S HOME.
Mary offers another, powerful poem entitled, Our Little Game posted at NIPPERCAT'S HOME. You can tell as you read all the comments on this post, that this poem really strikes a chord with readers. Thanks for your courage in sharing, Mary.
That concludes this holiday edition of The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. Thank you all, so much, for helping me revive this carnival after it's spent some time limping along a bit. You can submit your blog article to our next edition our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. Uh, and we do need some "future hosts," folks. I like this to be a true carnival, travelling around to various host blogs in the blogosphere. So think about being an upcoming host in 2009! Thanks! And Happy Holidays to all.
Labels: advocacy, aftermath, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, breaking the cycle, chid abuse, healing, Poetry, survivors
December 18, 2008
A Dissociative "Doh!"
But, then something happened that really freaked me out and reminded me that I need to stick with the therapy, or dissociative "incidents" tend to sneak up and bite me in the butt. So, I was working on the Blog Carnival and I had three or four entries that did not come through the standard submission form at Blog Carnival dot com. One of them I really wanted to include but it was given to me as a "read-only" file.
Now, if you know me at all you know that I refer to myself as a "Cyber Klutz." But, I thought I was being really slick by putting said "read-only" file into Microsoft Word and attaching it to an e-mail from my home account (Hotmail), which I then sent on to my Survivors Can Thrive! e-mail account.
Almost immediately after pressing the "send" button, I got a reply. It was from my Survivors Can Thrive! account. Some sort of automatically-generated response thingy. Here's what it said:
| From: | Marj McCabe (thriver@survivorscanthrive.com) |
| Sent: | Tue 12/16/08 7:17 PM |
| To: | xxxx@hotmail.com |
I'm on Hiatus for the SCT Blog. Be back soon! ;)As I'm trying to figure this out, in my horror, freaked-outness and confusion, I'm hoping and praying that every e-mail that ever attempts to come into my inbox hasn't been getting this reply ever since my blog was on hiatus back in the summer. That was back in July for crying out loud!
What the hell?
I showed it to my husband. He's a cyber klutz too, so I don't know why I bothered. He had no clue.
I had an idea that this was some sort of auto-reply thing, but that was it.
I didn't think I knew how to set something like that up.
And I have never recalled referring to Survivors Can Thrive! as "SCT."
Oh yeah, at the time I "felt so good" and I actually wrote this in that "Hi and Hiatus" July post: "To be honest, I've got a lot going on and am not focusing on the "Surviving-to-Thriving" or therapy issues much right now. I think I'm going to take a bloggy/therapy/"Survivors Can Thrive" break for three or four weeks. I'm doing well and accomplishing other things...and that feels good, really."
Uh huh. That's right before the dissociative sh*t hit the fan big time. Or was it way before that? No wonder I always used to run away in a dissociatve fugue when I'd be this out of it in the past. This is sooo embarrassing.
So, anyway, I'm hoping and praying that nobody else has seen this crazy reply, and then--literally, moments later--I get this e-mail from JIP:
wouldnt have a clue what the hell that means but ok LOL
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:42:02 -0800
> From: thriver@survivorscanthrive.com
> To: xxx@hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: from JIP
>
> I'm on Hiatus for the SCT Blog. Be back soon! ;)
Doh! At least JIP had a good sense of humor about it. I e-mailed her right back and apologized, telling her that there wasn't anything personal meant by the auto-reply e-mail. I hope that all of you out there who also may have received such an auto-reply can just laugh at me and also not take it personally.
Well, long story somewhat shorter: I finally searched around my e-mail homepage and found something called "Edit your Options" which I hadn't remembered ever visiting before, and I deselected the "Away Message Enabled" and the away message that I don't remember ever typing.
Aaacccckkkk! My therapist said, after all the very intense work we've been doing since August--sometimes as much as five hours per week--that we were doing some integration. This doesn't feel very integrated. Please send up a quick prayer or hope into the universe for me that no major nonintegrated, dissociative stuff happens during the holidays of the next few weeks. I hate to be walking on eggshells with myself, wondering what other social faux pas I have or will have committed and "Doh!" dissociative little treats I'll find.
*Sigh* I guess it's a good thing I'm off to another therapy appointment at 11 o'clock. Better get ready to go.
Labels: aftermath, alters, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, DID, dissociation, embarrassment, hiatus, holidays, part activity, parts, shame
December 16, 2008
Holidays: Frightful or Delightful?
Maybe it's because it's the holidays, so I think it's important, I don't know. But, it seems I've been watching The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse die a slow death. We can't let it die, Survivors! I'm doing a quicky holiday edition.
Let's use this edition to talk about taking advantage of opportunities to start your own family, initiate new traditions, find balance and practice healthy habits. Do you have any tips for turning the holiday season from frightful to delightful? Please join us and please help keep our carnival alive!
The deadline is midnight Wednesday, December 17 for a Friday, December 19 edition. Hurry! You can submit using this handy link right here. Thanks...and, um Happy Holidays!
Labels: advocacy, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, Christmas, holidays
December 09, 2008
The Tree Is Me
I did receive this message that I thought was something I really wanted to pass along. To all abuse survivors who fear they may have been completely broken, or at least twisted beyond recognition:
The Spiritual Divine
does not require
what you call
"perfect symmetry."
Look at the tree
that bends
from the whipping winds.
It is tangled and gnarled,
yet its beauty remains.
Labels: abuse, aftermath, beauty, broken
