March 18, 2011
Finally...The Final Blog Post
I had a few false starts with this "last official blog post" that I announced way back in October with this post here. The plan was to write my last post on the five-year anniversary of the blog, "Survivors Can Thrive!" This anniversary was November 14, 2010. But, life had other plans and I had a car accident on November 12, and then surgery for my injuries.
I thought about a few different things I would write for this post. Then, I had a little get together with a group of my friends that we sometimes call the "going deeper" group. It's a group of people that tend to have very little tolerance for idle chit chat and bullshit. We like to talk about "deep things." During our last get together, we drank wine and read each other our own obituaries that we had written for ourselves. Here is what mine said:
"The major accomplishment in the life of Marj McCabe was breaking the cycle of abuse. It was a cycle of child abuse--sometimes insidious, always heinous--that she was forced to inherit and had gone on for generations on both sides of her family of origin. Although this accomplishment took the excruciating work of therapy for much of her adult life, she never could have done it without the patience and love of her amazingly supportive husband. She never would have embarked on the perilous journey in the first place, had it not been for the immense love she felt for her own offspring. And while it never received the fanfare or recognition of other achievements having such great potential for positive impact on future generations, Marj could grasp its significance. And for her, it was enough."
Since writing that "obituary," I've thought a lot about just what is enough for me. One of the main reasons I started writing a blog is to find meaning for the abuse I suffered as a child. I'm not sure I've done that, but I have done a lot.
It was a very different world just five short years ago. Blogging was fairly new. When I first conducted a Google search with key words like"survivor," "thriver," "thrive," etc., I found very little out there. Most of the mentions about "survivor" were for the popular network television show of that name. Most of the results for "thrive" were for the insurance company who uses that word as a slogan in it's advertising campaigns. There was absolutely nothing when I looked up "thriver."
So, I got to take that name. I became Thriver. I used it on message boards and in forums, and I was the only one using that name when I first joined Twitter.
In the last five years, many more blogs and websites have started up about surviving and even thriving after child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape, domestic violence, etc. Many books have been written on these important subjects. Many of us have been out there raising awareness and acting as advocates. There are some great advocates linked on Twitter, if you care to follow them as I do.
Now, when you google "survivor" or "survivors," you get results in the millions. The same is true for a search for "thrive." I'm happy to say that "survivors can thrive" brings back hundreds of thousands of result listings and even "thriver" will give you tens of thousands of results.
Another thing I've accomplished over the last five years was founding and growing The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. In June of this year, it will also be celebrating a five-year anniversary. I feel really good about that. Although I no longer maintain the carnival, it is going strong. You can follow it by clicking on the many links on the handy blog carnival widget you see on my sidebar.
So, what I'm doing now (in addition to the ongoing, ever-present therapy work) is taking classes and working on my certificate in botanical illustration. You can read about this dream of mine which is coming true in these posts here and here.
Yes, I'm finally following a dream of mine that I first had when I was an art major in college, 30 years ago. And, yes, I'm moving on with my life.
I guess it finally doesn't matter whether or not I find some "hidden meaning" for my abuse. I guess I've decided that finding meaning in my LIFE is enough. Going on with my life (after evil people tried to break me) is enough. Living a full life is enough. Enjoying a life of meaning and fulfillment is enough. All these things are more than enough for me. And I'm okay with that.
I thought about a few different things I would write for this post. Then, I had a little get together with a group of my friends that we sometimes call the "going deeper" group. It's a group of people that tend to have very little tolerance for idle chit chat and bullshit. We like to talk about "deep things." During our last get together, we drank wine and read each other our own obituaries that we had written for ourselves. Here is what mine said:
"The major accomplishment in the life of Marj McCabe was breaking the cycle of abuse. It was a cycle of child abuse--sometimes insidious, always heinous--that she was forced to inherit and had gone on for generations on both sides of her family of origin. Although this accomplishment took the excruciating work of therapy for much of her adult life, she never could have done it without the patience and love of her amazingly supportive husband. She never would have embarked on the perilous journey in the first place, had it not been for the immense love she felt for her own offspring. And while it never received the fanfare or recognition of other achievements having such great potential for positive impact on future generations, Marj could grasp its significance. And for her, it was enough."
Since writing that "obituary," I've thought a lot about just what is enough for me. One of the main reasons I started writing a blog is to find meaning for the abuse I suffered as a child. I'm not sure I've done that, but I have done a lot.
It was a very different world just five short years ago. Blogging was fairly new. When I first conducted a Google search with key words like"survivor," "thriver," "thrive," etc., I found very little out there. Most of the mentions about "survivor" were for the popular network television show of that name. Most of the results for "thrive" were for the insurance company who uses that word as a slogan in it's advertising campaigns. There was absolutely nothing when I looked up "thriver."
So, I got to take that name. I became Thriver. I used it on message boards and in forums, and I was the only one using that name when I first joined Twitter.
In the last five years, many more blogs and websites have started up about surviving and even thriving after child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape, domestic violence, etc. Many books have been written on these important subjects. Many of us have been out there raising awareness and acting as advocates. There are some great advocates linked on Twitter, if you care to follow them as I do.
Now, when you google "survivor" or "survivors," you get results in the millions. The same is true for a search for "thrive." I'm happy to say that "survivors can thrive" brings back hundreds of thousands of result listings and even "thriver" will give you tens of thousands of results.
Another thing I've accomplished over the last five years was founding and growing The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. In June of this year, it will also be celebrating a five-year anniversary. I feel really good about that. Although I no longer maintain the carnival, it is going strong. You can follow it by clicking on the many links on the handy blog carnival widget you see on my sidebar.
So, what I'm doing now (in addition to the ongoing, ever-present therapy work) is taking classes and working on my certificate in botanical illustration. You can read about this dream of mine which is coming true in these posts here and here.
Yes, I'm finally following a dream of mine that I first had when I was an art major in college, 30 years ago. And, yes, I'm moving on with my life.
I guess it finally doesn't matter whether or not I find some "hidden meaning" for my abuse. I guess I've decided that finding meaning in my LIFE is enough. Going on with my life (after evil people tried to break me) is enough. Living a full life is enough. Enjoying a life of meaning and fulfillment is enough. All these things are more than enough for me. And I'm okay with that.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, anniversary, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, breaking the cycle, child abuse, domestic violence, family of origin, healing, journey, survivors, therapy, thrive, Twitter
January 04, 2011
Something In The Meantime
A little something in the meantime...while I am healing from my surgery...
Saw this today through a link on Twitter. This one really made me cry. Powerful.
Saw this today through a link on Twitter. This one really made me cry. Powerful.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, breaking the cycle, child abuse, child labor, child protection, human trafficking, sexual slavery
April 07, 2010
When It Rains It Pours
Didn't we all learn, back in school, that April showers bring May flowers? Well, April is also a big awareness raising, advocacy month. Did you know that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month AND Sexual Assault Awareness Month? These are two advocacy issues that are near and dear to my heart. Even if they are not so near to yours, I ask you to do something this month to raise your awareness, break the silence, silence the shame, volunteer or advocate to stop the violence.
If nothing else, why not look at one of these videos. I found them both to be extremely powerful and moving. I want to thank Tracie for her tweet over at Twitter for the first video. Amazing!
If nothing else, why not look at one of these videos. I found them both to be extremely powerful and moving. I want to thank Tracie for her tweet over at Twitter for the first video. Amazing!
Labels: abuse, advocacy, assault, awareness, breaking the cycle, child abuse prevention, human trafficking, sexual slavery, sexual violence, Twitter, YouTube
July 09, 2009
Helping Your Inner Child Help You
Alice Miller in, Pictures of Childhood, refers to the "child within me." John Bradshaw, in Healing The Shame That Binds You, talks about "liberating your lost inner child."
There are entire books dedicated to "the inner child." One author, Lucia Capacchione, talks about becoming more creative, intuitive and playful by getting in touch with him/her in Recovery of Your Inner Child. This book's got great inner child exercises that are easy to do and I highly recommend it.
Even medical doctors are hopping on the "inner child" band wagon. Charles L. Whitfield, M.D. has written Healing the Child Within for adult children of dysfunctional families. Many of these books are listed at my Survivors Can Thrive! dot com site's Resources section, "Books for Survivors," with direct links to Amazon dot com.
But who is this inner child and why would we--as abuse and assault survivors--want to get to know him or her? I get asked this question a lot. I've also been asked to write about this topic for a guest post that will appear soon over at Michele's blog about healing PTSD.
Actually, this is one of my favorite "healing and therapy" topics. I love talking about my inner child!
But, this topic wasn't always so rosy for me. One of my earlier therapists back in Illinois asked me to pull out a photograph of myself as a baby. As soon as I got on my reading glasses and really looked into my tiny little face in this photo, I began to sob. Immediately, I realized that my vulnerable, precious, innocent child self was holding immense pain.
In those early days of therapy, I did not want to look at my inner child. Her pain just scared me too much. I thought that I would get lost in it; it would swallow me whole.
I can definitely relate to the idea of the inner child as the "exile" in the book, The Mosaic Mind,
as well as in the Internal Family Systems model of therapy developed by Richard Schwartz PhD. For me, my wounded inner child was long ago exiled to a land far away so that I could get things done, get good grades, be successful, appear reliable and dependable...and not look like I was "crazy" or a "loser."
I have "firefighter" parts (another IFS term) who have gone to great, dysfunctional lengths to keep these fearful, sad, lonely, abandoned exile parts quiet. I've run away in dissociative fugues, I've drank myself into a stupor, I've had sex with questionable partners, I've binged on chocolate and I've spent too much money.
But, the exiled, dissociated, cut-off inner child won't stay quiet forever. She's got a message to deliver, a debt that needs to be paid.
At first, I had no idea what it was she was trying to tell me. I was so cut off from my feelings (and my own body) that I could not listen to them, nor honor them. When I went down to the Colin Ross trauma unit in Dallas a few years ago, I was shocked and dismayed to be given a handout of "feeling words" that contained columns of emotion descriptions that I didn't even know were feelings! Now, I'm a writer and I consider myself to have a pretty strong vocabulary, but I just stared at these words at first; they meant nothing to me on any personal level.
But, the folks at the Ross program have their ways. They gave us patients hand-outs with exercises to complete as homework. And, boy, did these get the feelings going! In fact, I had to work with my assigned therapist there to come up with ways that I could pace myself, instead of being completely flooded with the new-found feelings.
If there's anything I've found that helps get in touch with that sometimes-illusive inner child it is FEEL THE FEELINGS! I recommend that you work with a qualified, experienced therapist in order to succeed at this without re-traumatizing yourself.
But, what I really want to talk about here is how to comfort your inner child. If you're like me and you never had any healthy bonding or attachment with your biological mother, there may be some real re-parenting that needs to happen to help your healing.
Some comforting strategies that I've found helpful are easy to do, quite generic and would probably work for most people. I've got an antique rocking chair that I drug out from the basement and positioned prominently in a cozy little reading nook I have in my home. I have an amazingly soft throw blanket that's stationed on the back of the rocker for soothing and warmth. Simply wrapping myself in the soft throw and rocking away works wonders some days. In the summertime, I find the same joy and sweet soothing on my porch swing.
Most folks I've consulted talk about "stuffies," stuffed animals that they find helpful. Now, I find that I'm a little shy about walking around dragging a beloved, raggedy stuffy with me. And most of the stuffed animals I've bought for myself as an adult have ended up being "adopted" by my own son. But, what I have done is reclaimed some of these cushy animals and I've recently given them an honored spot in a beautiful, old baby buggy I found at an antique doll shop. For everyday snuggling and comfort, I keep a small, spotted cat in my bedside drawer. After my husband awakes and exits the bed (he's an early riser), I'll get out my kitty and snuggle with it on days that I feel my inner children need some comfort. This is especially helpful if I've had a night that consisted of any flashbacks, night fears or nightmares.
If you spend some time thinking about how attached many kids get to their beloved stuffed animals, it can give you some hints for other ways of comforting your inner child. Just think of anything that you always wanted as a child. What were some of the things you asked Santa to bring you for Christmas? Remember how the adults in the movie, The Santa Clause, always wanted a "Dream Date" game and an Oscar Mayer wiener whistle?
Now, you don't have to wait for Santa. Go out and get yourself something kid-like that you always dreamed of when you were little. For me, it was a dollhouse. This was something I always wanted and never got when I was little. So, guess what I did? I went to the craft store and purchased an easy-assembly doll house kit and put it together and painted it. Over the past two years, I've been having a ball buying little miniature furniture pieces, potted plants, kitchen items and tiny porcelain dolls for my inner child's doll house. It's a splurge, but it's fun and my inner child is worth it and she deserves it!
Little inner child comforts, treats and pamperings don't have to cost a fortune. They can be easy to come by, but full of rewards. How 'bout getting some colorful sprinkles on that sundae the next time you treat yourself at the ice cream parlor? Why not read yourself a bedtime story while you sit in that rocking chair? Remember the lullaby songs you sang to your child when he or she was an infant? Singing them to your own inner child can be amazingly soothing when your feelings get hurt or you feel wounded or scared in some other way.
Why not buy your inner child some coloring books and some crayons? If you feel embarrassed in the check-out lane, you can always say you're buying these child-like items for a baby shower, child or grandchild. Heck, most people won't even ask, so there's no need to tell. Some friends and neighbors have given me a few curious looks about my doll house, but I just explain that it's a hobby, a creative outlet and--with some trusted others--a gift to my inner child. I've always gotten a smile and a knowing nod or look at the latter explanation.
Comfort food is a whole other category. Why do you think they call it comfort food any way? Maybe because it comforts your inner child! While I love a home-cooked meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, I have to be careful with comfort food, because I can have a tendency to binge and to gain too much weight. But, I've found that the simplest little things can qualify as comforting in the food category. Remember those sprinkles I spoke of earlier? I bought myself a little jar of them off the shelf in the baking goods aisle of the grocery store and I give myself a shake of them on a little dip of ice cream now and then. I also like whipped cream for a little treat that tells my inner child, "you're special, you're adorable and I love you." Try a little on your coffee in the morning for a quick, inner child pick-me-up. For a totally low fat comforter, hot herbal tea does wonders.
Some fragrances are "tasty" and comforting, but aren't taken internally at all. No calories there! I especially like honey vanilla lip balm (you can find these at health food stores) and hand lotion with the fragrance of cherry blossoms.
Every person I've ever met with DID (previously MPD) talks about their "littles," or little child parts or alters. I especially like Buffalopine's idea of carrying a small toy in her pocket to soothe her littles. In this blog post, she talks about carrying a Stuart Little key chain with her for an entire year. What inner child wouldn't like a little mouse friend to keep him company?
Speaking of Stuart Little, I've talked to lots of folks who, like myself, really enjoy the inner child treat of watching children's movies. If you're too shy to walk into a children's, G-rated movie without a kid in tow, you can always rent one to watch in the privacy of your own home.
I'm smiling right now just thinking of all these comforting, fun, playful ideas for my inner child recovery program. I can't wait to get off the computer and put some of these ideas into action for my own inner child right away. What would you like to do today to comfort and please your inner child? Don't wait! Get up and do some little thing for your little self right now. And leave me a comment with your favorite inner child comforts, play-date ideas and treats and we'll compile and even bigger list!
There are entire books dedicated to "the inner child." One author, Lucia Capacchione, talks about becoming more creative, intuitive and playful by getting in touch with him/her in Recovery of Your Inner Child. This book's got great inner child exercises that are easy to do and I highly recommend it.
Even medical doctors are hopping on the "inner child" band wagon. Charles L. Whitfield, M.D. has written Healing the Child Within for adult children of dysfunctional families. Many of these books are listed at my Survivors Can Thrive! dot com site's Resources section, "Books for Survivors," with direct links to Amazon dot com.
But who is this inner child and why would we--as abuse and assault survivors--want to get to know him or her? I get asked this question a lot. I've also been asked to write about this topic for a guest post that will appear soon over at Michele's blog about healing PTSD.
Actually, this is one of my favorite "healing and therapy" topics. I love talking about my inner child!
But, this topic wasn't always so rosy for me. One of my earlier therapists back in Illinois asked me to pull out a photograph of myself as a baby. As soon as I got on my reading glasses and really looked into my tiny little face in this photo, I began to sob. Immediately, I realized that my vulnerable, precious, innocent child self was holding immense pain.
In those early days of therapy, I did not want to look at my inner child. Her pain just scared me too much. I thought that I would get lost in it; it would swallow me whole.
I can definitely relate to the idea of the inner child as the "exile" in the book, The Mosaic Mind,
as well as in the Internal Family Systems model of therapy developed by Richard Schwartz PhD. For me, my wounded inner child was long ago exiled to a land far away so that I could get things done, get good grades, be successful, appear reliable and dependable...and not look like I was "crazy" or a "loser."
I have "firefighter" parts (another IFS term) who have gone to great, dysfunctional lengths to keep these fearful, sad, lonely, abandoned exile parts quiet. I've run away in dissociative fugues, I've drank myself into a stupor, I've had sex with questionable partners, I've binged on chocolate and I've spent too much money.
But, the exiled, dissociated, cut-off inner child won't stay quiet forever. She's got a message to deliver, a debt that needs to be paid.
At first, I had no idea what it was she was trying to tell me. I was so cut off from my feelings (and my own body) that I could not listen to them, nor honor them. When I went down to the Colin Ross trauma unit in Dallas a few years ago, I was shocked and dismayed to be given a handout of "feeling words" that contained columns of emotion descriptions that I didn't even know were feelings! Now, I'm a writer and I consider myself to have a pretty strong vocabulary, but I just stared at these words at first; they meant nothing to me on any personal level.
But, the folks at the Ross program have their ways. They gave us patients hand-outs with exercises to complete as homework. And, boy, did these get the feelings going! In fact, I had to work with my assigned therapist there to come up with ways that I could pace myself, instead of being completely flooded with the new-found feelings.
If there's anything I've found that helps get in touch with that sometimes-illusive inner child it is FEEL THE FEELINGS! I recommend that you work with a qualified, experienced therapist in order to succeed at this without re-traumatizing yourself.
But, what I really want to talk about here is how to comfort your inner child. If you're like me and you never had any healthy bonding or attachment with your biological mother, there may be some real re-parenting that needs to happen to help your healing.
Some comforting strategies that I've found helpful are easy to do, quite generic and would probably work for most people. I've got an antique rocking chair that I drug out from the basement and positioned prominently in a cozy little reading nook I have in my home. I have an amazingly soft throw blanket that's stationed on the back of the rocker for soothing and warmth. Simply wrapping myself in the soft throw and rocking away works wonders some days. In the summertime, I find the same joy and sweet soothing on my porch swing.
Most folks I've consulted talk about "stuffies," stuffed animals that they find helpful. Now, I find that I'm a little shy about walking around dragging a beloved, raggedy stuffy with me. And most of the stuffed animals I've bought for myself as an adult have ended up being "adopted" by my own son. But, what I have done is reclaimed some of these cushy animals and I've recently given them an honored spot in a beautiful, old baby buggy I found at an antique doll shop. For everyday snuggling and comfort, I keep a small, spotted cat in my bedside drawer. After my husband awakes and exits the bed (he's an early riser), I'll get out my kitty and snuggle with it on days that I feel my inner children need some comfort. This is especially helpful if I've had a night that consisted of any flashbacks, night fears or nightmares.
If you spend some time thinking about how attached many kids get to their beloved stuffed animals, it can give you some hints for other ways of comforting your inner child. Just think of anything that you always wanted as a child. What were some of the things you asked Santa to bring you for Christmas? Remember how the adults in the movie, The Santa Clause, always wanted a "Dream Date" game and an Oscar Mayer wiener whistle?
Now, you don't have to wait for Santa. Go out and get yourself something kid-like that you always dreamed of when you were little. For me, it was a dollhouse. This was something I always wanted and never got when I was little. So, guess what I did? I went to the craft store and purchased an easy-assembly doll house kit and put it together and painted it. Over the past two years, I've been having a ball buying little miniature furniture pieces, potted plants, kitchen items and tiny porcelain dolls for my inner child's doll house. It's a splurge, but it's fun and my inner child is worth it and she deserves it!
Little inner child comforts, treats and pamperings don't have to cost a fortune. They can be easy to come by, but full of rewards. How 'bout getting some colorful sprinkles on that sundae the next time you treat yourself at the ice cream parlor? Why not read yourself a bedtime story while you sit in that rocking chair? Remember the lullaby songs you sang to your child when he or she was an infant? Singing them to your own inner child can be amazingly soothing when your feelings get hurt or you feel wounded or scared in some other way.
Why not buy your inner child some coloring books and some crayons? If you feel embarrassed in the check-out lane, you can always say you're buying these child-like items for a baby shower, child or grandchild. Heck, most people won't even ask, so there's no need to tell. Some friends and neighbors have given me a few curious looks about my doll house, but I just explain that it's a hobby, a creative outlet and--with some trusted others--a gift to my inner child. I've always gotten a smile and a knowing nod or look at the latter explanation.
Comfort food is a whole other category. Why do you think they call it comfort food any way? Maybe because it comforts your inner child! While I love a home-cooked meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, I have to be careful with comfort food, because I can have a tendency to binge and to gain too much weight. But, I've found that the simplest little things can qualify as comforting in the food category. Remember those sprinkles I spoke of earlier? I bought myself a little jar of them off the shelf in the baking goods aisle of the grocery store and I give myself a shake of them on a little dip of ice cream now and then. I also like whipped cream for a little treat that tells my inner child, "you're special, you're adorable and I love you." Try a little on your coffee in the morning for a quick, inner child pick-me-up. For a totally low fat comforter, hot herbal tea does wonders.
Some fragrances are "tasty" and comforting, but aren't taken internally at all. No calories there! I especially like honey vanilla lip balm (you can find these at health food stores) and hand lotion with the fragrance of cherry blossoms.
Every person I've ever met with DID (previously MPD) talks about their "littles," or little child parts or alters. I especially like Buffalopine's idea of carrying a small toy in her pocket to soothe her littles. In this blog post, she talks about carrying a Stuart Little key chain with her for an entire year. What inner child wouldn't like a little mouse friend to keep him company?
Speaking of Stuart Little, I've talked to lots of folks who, like myself, really enjoy the inner child treat of watching children's movies. If you're too shy to walk into a children's, G-rated movie without a kid in tow, you can always rent one to watch in the privacy of your own home.
I'm smiling right now just thinking of all these comforting, fun, playful ideas for my inner child recovery program. I can't wait to get off the computer and put some of these ideas into action for my own inner child right away. What would you like to do today to comfort and please your inner child? Don't wait! Get up and do some little thing for your little self right now. And leave me a comment with your favorite inner child comforts, play-date ideas and treats and we'll compile and even bigger list!
Labels: abuse, alters, attachment, bonding, child abuse, child parts, DID, dissociation, inner child, PTSD
May 12, 2009
Heard of Fibromyalgia?
I'm interested in fibromyalgia because I keep running into survivors who have it. It seems to be right up there with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and migraines--which I suffer with--as survivor health issues that there are no cures for.
Today is National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, so I thought I'd talk about it here. The first person I ever met with fibromyalgia was a roommate I had during one of my hospital stints. She was in so much pain that I felt like I should never complain about my IBS or migraines again. Her pain was pervasive and she had had many tests before her diagnosis.
Many of us are aware that fibromyalgia involves widespread pain and fatigue. But there are some common myths around the condition. The Mayo Clinic website has a helpful article that busts nine common myths about fibromyalgia. I have summarized the first six below.
Today is National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, so I thought I'd talk about it here. The first person I ever met with fibromyalgia was a roommate I had during one of my hospital stints. She was in so much pain that I felt like I should never complain about my IBS or migraines again. Her pain was pervasive and she had had many tests before her diagnosis.
Many of us are aware that fibromyalgia involves widespread pain and fatigue. But there are some common myths around the condition. The Mayo Clinic website has a helpful article that busts nine common myths about fibromyalgia. I have summarized the first six below.
- Myth: Most doctors don't believe fybromyalgia is a real condition. Truth: Fibromyalgia is defined by a list of symptoms and most doctors believe these symptoms are real.
- Myth: Fibromyalgia damages your joints. Truth: While the pain of fibromyalgia may be severe, it does not damage your muscles, joints or bones.
- Myth: You look fine so there's nothing wrong with you. Truth: Friends, family and co-workers may hold this belief because they don't understand. Be willing to talk about it. Raise awareness.
- Myth: You got the fibromyalgia diagnosis because your doctor couldn't find anything wrong with you. Truth: Fibromyalgia is a specific diagnosis based on a specific set of criteria devleoped by The American College of Rheumatology. But, diagnosing fibromyalgia can take time because there's no single test that can confirm you have it.
- Myth: Fibromyalgia only causes pain. Truth: People with fibromyalgia also often experience fatigue and difficulty sleeping, headaches, sensitivity to light, dizziness, memory problems, and numbness and tingling in the arms and legs. IBS, bladder control problems and mood disorders often accompany fibromyalgia.
- Myth: It's no use going to the doctor because no treatments for the condition exist. Truth: There's no standard treatment for it, but the FDA has now approved one drug for treating fibromyalgia and there are many options for controlling the pain, including medications, lifestyle changes, and alternative treatments.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, aftermath, awareness, Bloggers Unite, body connection, IBS, survivors
May 09, 2009
Let's Raise Awareness About: Domestic Violence
I promised the bloggers over at Bloggers Unite that I'd write today about Domestic Violence Awareness. I've gotten most of the information I've used to raise my awareness about domestic violence through my friend Tery (Teresa Lynne) at her blog, Teardrops on Roses.
I really respect Tery. She is a very strong and courageous woman. One of the things I find so admirable about her is that she did something my own mother was not capable of doing: she protected her children from her abusive husband. You can read an interview where Tery is telling part of her story in "Finding The Courage to Leave" here.
Tery and her girls left the alcoholic abuser with only the clothes on their backs. As for protecting her offspring, Tery is quoted as saying, "Having three daughters, I needed to get them away from a bad situation before they became victims of violence themselves.”
Hurray for you, Tery!
One of the reasons I feel so strongly about Domestic Violence is because it is not possible for it not to have an eventual effect on the children in the household. My own ex husband was only physically violent with me once. When we were separated he became enraged, grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the ground. But, all during our marriage, he did things that were very controlling, humiliating and sexually abusive. I made sure that I did not have any children with this unhealthy person and got a divorce when he would not cooperate with marital counselling. I did not want to bring any children into that situation and I'm glad I was able to avoid that.
My own mother was a different story. She did divorce my abusive father, but never did a thing to protect her three children from his abuse. I've repressed a lot of abuse memories from my childhood. One memory, however, I have never forgotten: It is the memory of being awakened in the middle of the night to the shrill sounds of my screaming mother.
My father had her arm wrenched behind her back and my mother was in pain. My older brother came out into the hallway and asked what was going on. My mother used that moment of distraction to get away and run across the street to the neighbors to call the police.
Can you believe what happened next? Well, if you've been reading my blog for very long, you probably can guess. My mother left her innocent, vulnerable, tiny children alone with the raging maniac that she had to make sure she got away from. They eventually divorced, but my mother never did anything to fight the visitation rights given to my father.
Yes, folks, we need to raise awareness about domestic violence. We need to fight it and provide protection and respite for domestic violence victims. You never know how many lives you may be saving when you help a battered woman. She may have children who need protecting as well.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Their website is here.
I really respect Tery. She is a very strong and courageous woman. One of the things I find so admirable about her is that she did something my own mother was not capable of doing: she protected her children from her abusive husband. You can read an interview where Tery is telling part of her story in "Finding The Courage to Leave" here.
Tery and her girls left the alcoholic abuser with only the clothes on their backs. As for protecting her offspring, Tery is quoted as saying, "Having three daughters, I needed to get them away from a bad situation before they became victims of violence themselves.”
Hurray for you, Tery!
One of the reasons I feel so strongly about Domestic Violence is because it is not possible for it not to have an eventual effect on the children in the household. My own ex husband was only physically violent with me once. When we were separated he became enraged, grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the ground. But, all during our marriage, he did things that were very controlling, humiliating and sexually abusive. I made sure that I did not have any children with this unhealthy person and got a divorce when he would not cooperate with marital counselling. I did not want to bring any children into that situation and I'm glad I was able to avoid that.
My own mother was a different story. She did divorce my abusive father, but never did a thing to protect her three children from his abuse. I've repressed a lot of abuse memories from my childhood. One memory, however, I have never forgotten: It is the memory of being awakened in the middle of the night to the shrill sounds of my screaming mother.
My father had her arm wrenched behind her back and my mother was in pain. My older brother came out into the hallway and asked what was going on. My mother used that moment of distraction to get away and run across the street to the neighbors to call the police.
Can you believe what happened next? Well, if you've been reading my blog for very long, you probably can guess. My mother left her innocent, vulnerable, tiny children alone with the raging maniac that she had to make sure she got away from. They eventually divorced, but my mother never did anything to fight the visitation rights given to my father.
Yes, folks, we need to raise awareness about domestic violence. We need to fight it and provide protection and respite for domestic violence victims. You never know how many lives you may be saving when you help a battered woman. She may have children who need protecting as well.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Their website is here.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, awareness, Bloggers Unite, child abuse, child protection, domestic violence
April 19, 2009
Stop the Silence of Child Sexual Abuse
Today, starting at 8:00 a.m., Eastern Time, they ran. They ran in Washington D.C. as part of the Race and Rally to Stop The Silence of Child Sexual Abuse. It was the sixth annual event and they're raising more funds and more awareness every year.
Here's a video about the event:
Now, I'm no runner. And--as much as I'd love to see those cherry blossoms this time of year-- I just couldn't get out to D.C. to go to this rally in person (I hope to some day). But, I'm raising awareness here, at the Child Abuse Survivor ning network and on Twitter. And there's still more that you can do TODAY for this event as well.
First off, check out StopCSA's website to learn more about the cause: As Stop CSA says, It's everyone's problem. For instance, did you know?
Here are some more links, stats, and photos and ways to get involved at the StopCSA site:
Please Note: Rainbow from Haunted House and Child Person from the South have already put up blog posts to Stop the Silence. If you post about it, let me know and I'll link to your blog post, too!
Update: Here are a couple more brave bloggers who submitted posts to Stop the Silence: Mom Writes for a Cause and The Filipina Mom in Denmark. Thanks for your contributions!
If child sexual abuse is everyone's problem, then everyone can also be part of the solution!
Here's a video about the event:
Now, I'm no runner. And--as much as I'd love to see those cherry blossoms this time of year-- I just couldn't get out to D.C. to go to this rally in person (I hope to some day). But, I'm raising awareness here, at the Child Abuse Survivor ning network and on Twitter. And there's still more that you can do TODAY for this event as well.
First off, check out StopCSA's website to learn more about the cause: As Stop CSA says, It's everyone's problem. For instance, did you know?
- 73 percent of prostitutes were sexually abused before the age of 16;
- 83 percent of convicted killers (men and women) were physically and emotionally abused as children, and 32.2 percent were sexually abused;
- 60 percent of teenage mothers were sexually abused as children;
- 43 percent of runaways are sexually abused
Here are some more links, stats, and photos and ways to get involved at the StopCSA site:
- For stats and info on mental health-related problems, substance abuse issues and prevalence in the general population click the "The Cause: Child Sexual Abuse" page.
- If you are a survivor of CSA and you want to tell some of your story and share your photo on their web site, please check out StopCSA's "A Call to Action to Survivors" page.
- If you'd like to read an example of what one survivor had to share, go to the "A Survivor Speaks Out" page.
- If you'd like to view a beautiful slide show of survivors click here.
- Click here: to make a secure donation through Paypal.
- If you'd rather make a purchase with proceeds going to StopCSA, visit the online mall here.
Please Note: Rainbow from Haunted House and Child Person from the South have already put up blog posts to Stop the Silence. If you post about it, let me know and I'll link to your blog post, too!
Update: Here are a couple more brave bloggers who submitted posts to Stop the Silence: Mom Writes for a Cause and The Filipina Mom in Denmark. Thanks for your contributions!
If child sexual abuse is everyone's problem, then everyone can also be part of the solution!
Labels: abuse, advocacy, awareness, Bloggers Unite, breaking the cycle, childhood sexual abuse, network, rape, sexual abuse survivors, sexual violence, Twitter
March 27, 2009
Free The Slaves!
Today is International Free The Slaves Awareness day.
I was definitely a sex slave to my father. If I did not perform one of my "job duties" to his satisfaction, punishment (torture) was swift, cruel and inhumane.
Even before I retrieved the repressed memories of my childhood sexual abuse, I always remembered the verbal abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, etc. I have always felt like my birth guaranteed my parents free slave labor.
With my mother, it was free domestic labor. My sister and I would stand on chairs, as we had the sole responsibility of the family dish washing starting at age seven. We were not yet old enough to reach the kitchen sink. I got so good at scouring toilets, scrubbing bathtubs and mopping floors, that by age 11 I decided to farm out my cleaning skills to the neighbors and I actually got paid for it.
After my parents divorced, the duties I was expected to perform for my mother increased. Her two favorites were forcing me to give her foot massages and rubbing her head when she had a headache (which was daily).
You may call these childhood memories "incest," "parentification," "not age-appropriate" or simply, "chores."
What these memories feel like to me--then and now--adds up to pure slavery. I had no freedom. I had no choice. I had no means of escape.
It seems to me that, when we think of slavery on a large scale, we think of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. We think of Africans being shipped across the ocean, sold, forced to do menial labor, beaten, whipped and treated as less than human--treated as animals, or even below animals. Many of us in the US think of Abraham Lincoln, The Civil War, and The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.
We think it's over.
Indeed, slavery is illegal world-wide. But, it's far from over. In fact, as the United Nations recognized its International Day of Remembrance of The Victims of Slavery on Wednesday, March 25, it reminded us that some 100 milli0n Africans were forced into slavery in the 200 years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Today, FTS--Free The Slaves--estimates that 27 million people are enslaved at the present time.
Folks, that's Right Now!
Have you heard this statistic about modern-day slavery? Think you heard wrong? Well, have you heard any of these terms: child labor, exploitation, trafficking, sexual slavery, child soldiers? These are all forms of modern-day slavery. If you go to the Unicef website, at www.unicef.org, you will find a whopping 22 pages of related articles on modern-day slavery, sprinkled with the terms I've mentioned above.
Since many of us haven't thought of slavery since our US history classes in school, let's do a refresher on the definition of slavery. FTS defines slaves as being "forced to work without pay under threat of violence and unable to walk away." Think this is something that only happens on some remote island, far, far away? FTS provides a glogal map of modern slavery occurrence. There, the US is highlighted prominently, along with China, Russia, India and South American and African countries. Each country/region gets categorized as "slave labour used both internally and exported" or "receiver of slave labour and products."
Here are some statistics you may not know, from the FTS "Top 10 Facts About Modern Slavery:"
FTS believes that we could totally end slavery within 25 years. But we must educate ourselves about the problem. We must raise awareness. Below, I've listed a couple more sites that you can visit to educate yourself about modern-day slavery and raise your own awareness. If you want to help us raise awareness in the blogosphere, go to Bloggers Unite.
I was definitely a sex slave to my father. If I did not perform one of my "job duties" to his satisfaction, punishment (torture) was swift, cruel and inhumane.
Even before I retrieved the repressed memories of my childhood sexual abuse, I always remembered the verbal abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, etc. I have always felt like my birth guaranteed my parents free slave labor.
With my mother, it was free domestic labor. My sister and I would stand on chairs, as we had the sole responsibility of the family dish washing starting at age seven. We were not yet old enough to reach the kitchen sink. I got so good at scouring toilets, scrubbing bathtubs and mopping floors, that by age 11 I decided to farm out my cleaning skills to the neighbors and I actually got paid for it.
After my parents divorced, the duties I was expected to perform for my mother increased. Her two favorites were forcing me to give her foot massages and rubbing her head when she had a headache (which was daily).
You may call these childhood memories "incest," "parentification," "not age-appropriate" or simply, "chores."
What these memories feel like to me--then and now--adds up to pure slavery. I had no freedom. I had no choice. I had no means of escape.
It seems to me that, when we think of slavery on a large scale, we think of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. We think of Africans being shipped across the ocean, sold, forced to do menial labor, beaten, whipped and treated as less than human--treated as animals, or even below animals. Many of us in the US think of Abraham Lincoln, The Civil War, and The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.
We think it's over.
Indeed, slavery is illegal world-wide. But, it's far from over. In fact, as the United Nations recognized its International Day of Remembrance of The Victims of Slavery on Wednesday, March 25, it reminded us that some 100 milli0n Africans were forced into slavery in the 200 years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Today, FTS--Free The Slaves--estimates that 27 million people are enslaved at the present time.
Folks, that's Right Now!
Have you heard this statistic about modern-day slavery? Think you heard wrong? Well, have you heard any of these terms: child labor, exploitation, trafficking, sexual slavery, child soldiers? These are all forms of modern-day slavery. If you go to the Unicef website, at www.unicef.org, you will find a whopping 22 pages of related articles on modern-day slavery, sprinkled with the terms I've mentioned above.
Since many of us haven't thought of slavery since our US history classes in school, let's do a refresher on the definition of slavery. FTS defines slaves as being "forced to work without pay under threat of violence and unable to walk away." Think this is something that only happens on some remote island, far, far away? FTS provides a glogal map of modern slavery occurrence. There, the US is highlighted prominently, along with China, Russia, India and South American and African countries. Each country/region gets categorized as "slave labour used both internally and exported" or "receiver of slave labour and products."
Here are some statistics you may not know, from the FTS "Top 10 Facts About Modern Slavery:"
- At least 14,500 slaves are trafifcked into the United States each year
- Slaves work in fields, mines, brothels, restaurants...even homes
- Slave owners use many words to avoid the term slavery, such as "debt bondage," and "bonded labor"
- Around the world, the average cost to turn a human into a slave is only $90
FTS believes that we could totally end slavery within 25 years. But we must educate ourselves about the problem. We must raise awareness. Below, I've listed a couple more sites that you can visit to educate yourself about modern-day slavery and raise your own awareness. If you want to help us raise awareness in the blogosphere, go to Bloggers Unite.
- While FTS is a movement/charity in the US, Anti-Slavery is international
- Justice Sunday is this Sunday, March 29. Get details at UUSC, The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Labels: abuse, advocacy, awareness, Bloggers Unite, child abuse, child labor, freedom, human dignity, human rights, inhumanity, sexual slavery, survivors, torture
March 12, 2009
Quote of the Day
I've got a couple of posts that I'm ready to put up, but I want to make sure to highlight space here for tomorrow's March edition of The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. So, here are just a few little tidbits from cyberspace that I want to share with you. First of all, I've finally joined Twitter. If you are a Twitterer, let me know so I can follow you there. Twitter is also the place where I found out about this conversation going on today about domestic violence. Check it out here. And, I'll leave you with a little quote to take up just a little more blog space in the meantime, before tomorrow's carnival. This is one of my all-time favorite quotes about sexual violence.
"The solution to sexual violence in America is not more laws, more guns, more police, or more prisons. The solution to sexual violence is the acceptance of reality."
~ Gavin De Becker
Today is a therapy day. So, I'm off to do the seemingly-endless and oh-so-fun work!
"The solution to sexual violence in America is not more laws, more guns, more police, or more prisons. The solution to sexual violence is the acceptance of reality."
~ Gavin De Becker
Today is a therapy day. So, I'm off to do the seemingly-endless and oh-so-fun work!
Labels: abuse, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, domestic violence, quotes, sexual violence, therapy, Twitter
February 21, 2009
Up and Down, In and Out
Whew! The last week has been a roller coaster ride. Up and down. In (as in closed in) and out (as in reaching out) again. As you may have seen from my last quicky post, my computer crashed. (I'm temporarily using a very, old and slow laptop my husband dug out for me--sure am glad he didn't donate or recycle it!)
My desk-top computer started acting really weird and then I think it got a virus. I noticed the weird activity, so asked my husband to put a bunch of my files on a flash drive. I also printed out hard copies of a lot of my poetry and writing for my some-day book. I guess I'm just old fashioned; I like having a nice, secure hard copy of things that may be irreplaceable.
Getting my files saved before my computer crashed was a mixed blessing. One of the things I found on my hard drive was a dissociative rant. It occurred around the end of August, beginning of September, last year. It was before I wrote about the dissociative period in this post here, and later, in this post here. I found new files that had been opened, with strange file names I could not recall. I also found some rants and incongruous writings within some of my existing files of poetry, quotes, book draft, etc. The ranting just went on and on and didn't seem to have any organization to it. I don't remember writing any of it.
Creepy feeling. Damn! I hate the feeling I get when I am forced to stand face-to-face with evidence of my extreme dissociation. It leaves me feeling like a freak, an outcast, a laughing stock, etc. etc. Stinkin' Thinkin' blah!
Then another incident occurred that was also a mixed blessing. I had thought I had found a group of people to meditate with and it turned out to be an unhealthy group (I won't go into the details). I went to a Sunday brunch event outside of the regular meditation time, and it turned out to be a big sales pitch for something affiliated with this group.
Wait just one cotton-pickin' minute! Don't sell to me, don't try to manipulate me, don't misrepresent things or lie to me. I don't like it! And, now--after years of therapy--I will tell you just that!
I then did some research and found out that this group is definitely my definition of unhealthy. I was on the Internet right when the "sales rep" called me up to follow up on the Sunday event. I saw his name and number on my caller i.d. I almost blew it off because I didn't want to confront. Then I started laughing out loud. What a coincidence--or serendipity, or synchronicity--just when I was reading some unpleasant things about this group and making my mind up to stay away from these people, I get a call from one of them! Ha! I decided that, not only was it funny, it was an opportunity to practice my assertiveness skills and keep myself safe.
I got on the phone and the caller asked if I had a few minutes to talk. "Sure," I said, "But, I don't think you're going to like what I'm going to say." I then went on to tell this man that I felt manipulated, sold to, etc. and that I did not like it. I also told him that I would no longer be meditating with the group and to take me off of their call list.
Yay, me! I was very disappointed to find out that something that I had found that I thought would be healthy for me was not, but I managed to confront, be assertive, take care of myself and keep myself safe. I guess there has been progress with all my therapy after all.
So, what does all this mean? I means motivation for another poem, of course! I wrote about my inner child coming out of exile on my dot com site under the Healing Moments page. It existed in prose form until I made a poem out of it. With my computer not working, I had to sketch it out on paper. But, I like the results.
Out of Exile
No crying myself back to sleep
from this nightmare
peace, opening
vast landscapes, possibilities
crisply, now in view.
Vulnerable energy
open, alive
frees a child from exile;
her battened-down isolation
left behind.
So trusting she was
it frightened me,
but I reached in to touch
her curdled scars;
beautiful as her dimpled smile.
She's all of it;
she's joy and pain,
gain, loss, hate and love.
They tell me
she's my inner child,
not someone
my parents could ever recognize.
Copyright 2009 Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
Now that I have use of at least some slow sort of computer, I'll try to get around to some blogs and the Child Abuse Survivor Network and say hello. See ya around the blogosphere!
My desk-top computer started acting really weird and then I think it got a virus. I noticed the weird activity, so asked my husband to put a bunch of my files on a flash drive. I also printed out hard copies of a lot of my poetry and writing for my some-day book. I guess I'm just old fashioned; I like having a nice, secure hard copy of things that may be irreplaceable.
Getting my files saved before my computer crashed was a mixed blessing. One of the things I found on my hard drive was a dissociative rant. It occurred around the end of August, beginning of September, last year. It was before I wrote about the dissociative period in this post here, and later, in this post here. I found new files that had been opened, with strange file names I could not recall. I also found some rants and incongruous writings within some of my existing files of poetry, quotes, book draft, etc. The ranting just went on and on and didn't seem to have any organization to it. I don't remember writing any of it.
Creepy feeling. Damn! I hate the feeling I get when I am forced to stand face-to-face with evidence of my extreme dissociation. It leaves me feeling like a freak, an outcast, a laughing stock, etc. etc. Stinkin' Thinkin' blah!
Then another incident occurred that was also a mixed blessing. I had thought I had found a group of people to meditate with and it turned out to be an unhealthy group (I won't go into the details). I went to a Sunday brunch event outside of the regular meditation time, and it turned out to be a big sales pitch for something affiliated with this group.
Wait just one cotton-pickin' minute! Don't sell to me, don't try to manipulate me, don't misrepresent things or lie to me. I don't like it! And, now--after years of therapy--I will tell you just that!
I then did some research and found out that this group is definitely my definition of unhealthy. I was on the Internet right when the "sales rep" called me up to follow up on the Sunday event. I saw his name and number on my caller i.d. I almost blew it off because I didn't want to confront. Then I started laughing out loud. What a coincidence--or serendipity, or synchronicity--just when I was reading some unpleasant things about this group and making my mind up to stay away from these people, I get a call from one of them! Ha! I decided that, not only was it funny, it was an opportunity to practice my assertiveness skills and keep myself safe.
I got on the phone and the caller asked if I had a few minutes to talk. "Sure," I said, "But, I don't think you're going to like what I'm going to say." I then went on to tell this man that I felt manipulated, sold to, etc. and that I did not like it. I also told him that I would no longer be meditating with the group and to take me off of their call list.
Yay, me! I was very disappointed to find out that something that I had found that I thought would be healthy for me was not, but I managed to confront, be assertive, take care of myself and keep myself safe. I guess there has been progress with all my therapy after all.
So, what does all this mean? I means motivation for another poem, of course! I wrote about my inner child coming out of exile on my dot com site under the Healing Moments page. It existed in prose form until I made a poem out of it. With my computer not working, I had to sketch it out on paper. But, I like the results.
Out of Exile
No crying myself back to sleep
from this nightmare
peace, opening
vast landscapes, possibilities
crisply, now in view.
Vulnerable energy
open, alive
frees a child from exile;
her battened-down isolation
left behind.
So trusting she was
it frightened me,
but I reached in to touch
her curdled scars;
beautiful as her dimpled smile.
She's all of it;
she's joy and pain,
gain, loss, hate and love.
They tell me
she's my inner child,
not someone
my parents could ever recognize.
Copyright 2009 Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
Now that I have use of at least some slow sort of computer, I'll try to get around to some blogs and the Child Abuse Survivor Network and say hello. See ya around the blogosphere!
Labels: abuse, advocacy, aftermath, alters, assertiveness, awareness, child abuse, community, dissociation, embarrassment, inner child, network, ning, poem, Poetry, survivors
February 06, 2009
Our Blog Carnival Turns 21, Sort Of
Nancy, over at Heal & Forgive, tipped me off that this February installment is the 21st edition of our BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE! Holy cow, already? It seems hard to believe. I started this blog carnival back in June of 2006. Now, our most recent edition is up at Nancy's blog here. Nancy's a new host for our carnival. It's the first time in a while that we've had a new host and I'm excited about it.
This is an excellent carnival. It's got lots of new participants, links to 18 posts and a big concentration of articles in the Healing & Therapy category. We survivors are working hard at healing aren't we? Yay for us!
Please take a spin over at the carnival and leave supportive messages for the participants at their blogs, won't you? And, if you've participated in our carnival before, please consider hosting an edition. I'm looking for new hosts and...the next one could be YOU! Thanks for the support--you wonderful child abuse survivor community.
This is an excellent carnival. It's got lots of new participants, links to 18 posts and a big concentration of articles in the Healing & Therapy category. We survivors are working hard at healing aren't we? Yay for us!
Please take a spin over at the carnival and leave supportive messages for the participants at their blogs, won't you? And, if you've participated in our carnival before, please consider hosting an edition. I'm looking for new hosts and...the next one could be YOU! Thanks for the support--you wonderful child abuse survivor community.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, aftermath, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, child abuse, dissociation, healing, links, recovery, support, survivors, therapy, trauma
December 09, 2008
The Tree Is Me
Haven't felt much like writing lately. (Ya think? OMG! I think I'm in danger of becoming a once-a-month blog poster, and I really wanted to do more than that. Ah well, these things go in stages, right?)
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.
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
September 22, 2008
First Day of Autumn & Our Carnival is Back
Hello, Survivors, Thrivers, Supporters and Advocates! Our hiatus for the BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE IS OVER and today--the first day of Fall--our carnival is back.
Please use caution when reading these posts--many topics related to child abuse can, understandably, be quite triggering for some readers.
Transitions
My first Carnival contribution is from Nancy Richards of Heal and Forgive. Nancy is becoming quite a valued, regular contributor to our Carnival. Here, she offers a wonderful, succinct post entitled, "Get over it" vs. "Go through it." There was no category chosen for this submission and, at first, I wasn't sure whether to include it under "Healing & Therapy," or "Advocacy & Awareness." Then, I realized that what she's talking about here is what I asked for in a monthly theme for this September carnival: Transitions. Blasting through memories, flashbacks, phobias, etc. on the way to healing is a huge transition we go through on this Survivor-to-Thriver journey. It's a lot scarier and a lot more work than just "getting over it," but, at least--for me anyway--I know I'm on the right path. Nancy says, "This post is to honor and encourage those who do the hard work to blast through their 'mountains' to get to 'the other side.'" Wow, Nancy. Thanks! I needed that!
Advocacy & Awareness
Austin of Sundrip Journals presents Female Sadists - Therapy Discussion 1of2 posted at The People Behind My Eyes, saying, "To separate female offenders from male offenders is to give them a license to offend. Viewing female offenders differently than male offenders leaves their victims in a different light as well. We must see offenders for who they are and not separate accountability according to gender. Only in this way do we leave no survivor behind." Kudos, Austin and thanks for contributing to the Carnival again!
Amanda Moore highlights a wonderful list of child-help organizations in her post, 106 Organizations That Are Changing the World - Are you helping? posted at AMVA - Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant. Go check this out and do what you can!
Marcella Chester is the founder of the BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST SEXUAL VIOLENCE and an on-going supporter of and contributor to our Carnival Against Child Abuse. Sadly, much child abuse includes the rape of innocent children. In this post, Marcella presents He Just Thinks He's Been Wrongfully Accused Of Rape posted at her blog, abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open.
April_Optimist is another great supporter of ours and regular contributor. This time, she presents A Survivor's Manifesto posted at The Thriver's Toolbox, saying, "Normally I post under healing but...I think this better falls under advocacy since it's about the respect with which I want all of us survivors to be treated. If we stand up for ourselves and expect respect, we are far more likely to get it. It is, in a sense, a transition from seeing myself (and fellow survivors) as flawed or damaged to seeing myself (and fellow survivors) as deserving respect." Thanks, April. And I agree. Respect is such a powerful tool for growth. You know, maybe if we all had more respect for children in general, we'd have a lot less child abuse to begin with. Now there's a novel idea!
Healing & Therapy
Holly Ord has participated in our carnival in the past. Thanks, Holly. Now, she's got a new blog, Healing Yourself Heals the World. Through this new blog, she presents for this Carnival edition, The Force that Drives You to Speak. Holly comments, "Healing Yourself Heals the World is a brand new site that will serve as a personal account of the healing journey from child abuse and childhood sexual assault. There is a force within survivors that pushes them to speak and not only will this site be a personal account of the healing journey, but hopefully it will also serve as a place of encouragement and motivation to other survivors and aid in their own healing journey. Thank you." What a wonderful name for a survivor-healing blog. Best wishes on this new venture, Holly.
Perfect, who writes a blog by the same name, offers us, Sometimes the Dragon Wins. It's a thoughtful post about loving yourself and choosing your battles during the healing journey. Thanks for this wonderful offering, Perfect!
In The News
Nandita joins our carnival and presents Life Imprisonment for Raping Daughter Law Matters posted at law Matters. Thanks for contributing to our carnival, Nandita!
I've included a submission from Michael Snyder at The Moral Collapse Of America here. In this post he lists his 15 Things That Are Wrong With America. If you are dealing with the aftermath of spiritual abuse, as I am, you may want to use Extreme Caution when reading this blog. Mr. Snyder does, however, highlight some statistics on child abuse here. If you like a lively debate, you may want to peruse the comments on this post. I couldn't find an exact match to any of his child abuse statistics on our government's Child Welfare website, Darkness2Light or Child Help dot org, but we all know they are, indeed, alarmingly high. What I found a bit disturbing is the fact that he ranks "Gay Marriage" and "Evolution" higher (#3 and #4 respectively) on his "What's Wrong" list than child abuse (his #8). Hhmmmm, maybe it's not meant to be a hierarchy, but simply a rant.
Poetry
I'll leave you with a poem that I wrote, which could easily be under our "Aftermath" or "Healing" categories as well. It's called, "In My Own World I'll Stay" and it's from my post, Disconnected & Dissociated? here.
That concludes this edition. Thanks to all you brave bloggers that helped us get The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse up and running again after the Summer hiatus. Anyone want to host next month? Please consider! You can submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival against child abuse using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Please use caution when reading these posts--many topics related to child abuse can, understandably, be quite triggering for some readers.
Transitions
My first Carnival contribution is from Nancy Richards of Heal and Forgive. Nancy is becoming quite a valued, regular contributor to our Carnival. Here, she offers a wonderful, succinct post entitled, "Get over it" vs. "Go through it." There was no category chosen for this submission and, at first, I wasn't sure whether to include it under "Healing & Therapy," or "Advocacy & Awareness." Then, I realized that what she's talking about here is what I asked for in a monthly theme for this September carnival: Transitions. Blasting through memories, flashbacks, phobias, etc. on the way to healing is a huge transition we go through on this Survivor-to-Thriver journey. It's a lot scarier and a lot more work than just "getting over it," but, at least--for me anyway--I know I'm on the right path. Nancy says, "This post is to honor and encourage those who do the hard work to blast through their 'mountains' to get to 'the other side.'" Wow, Nancy. Thanks! I needed that!
Advocacy & Awareness
Austin of Sundrip Journals presents Female Sadists - Therapy Discussion 1of2 posted at The People Behind My Eyes, saying, "To separate female offenders from male offenders is to give them a license to offend. Viewing female offenders differently than male offenders leaves their victims in a different light as well. We must see offenders for who they are and not separate accountability according to gender. Only in this way do we leave no survivor behind." Kudos, Austin and thanks for contributing to the Carnival again!
Amanda Moore highlights a wonderful list of child-help organizations in her post, 106 Organizations That Are Changing the World - Are you helping? posted at AMVA - Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant. Go check this out and do what you can!
Marcella Chester is the founder of the BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST SEXUAL VIOLENCE and an on-going supporter of and contributor to our Carnival Against Child Abuse. Sadly, much child abuse includes the rape of innocent children. In this post, Marcella presents He Just Thinks He's Been Wrongfully Accused Of Rape posted at her blog, abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open.
April_Optimist is another great supporter of ours and regular contributor. This time, she presents A Survivor's Manifesto posted at The Thriver's Toolbox, saying, "Normally I post under healing but...I think this better falls under advocacy since it's about the respect with which I want all of us survivors to be treated. If we stand up for ourselves and expect respect, we are far more likely to get it. It is, in a sense, a transition from seeing myself (and fellow survivors) as flawed or damaged to seeing myself (and fellow survivors) as deserving respect." Thanks, April. And I agree. Respect is such a powerful tool for growth. You know, maybe if we all had more respect for children in general, we'd have a lot less child abuse to begin with. Now there's a novel idea!
Healing & Therapy
Holly Ord has participated in our carnival in the past. Thanks, Holly. Now, she's got a new blog, Healing Yourself Heals the World. Through this new blog, she presents for this Carnival edition, The Force that Drives You to Speak. Holly comments, "Healing Yourself Heals the World is a brand new site that will serve as a personal account of the healing journey from child abuse and childhood sexual assault. There is a force within survivors that pushes them to speak and not only will this site be a personal account of the healing journey, but hopefully it will also serve as a place of encouragement and motivation to other survivors and aid in their own healing journey. Thank you." What a wonderful name for a survivor-healing blog. Best wishes on this new venture, Holly.
Perfect, who writes a blog by the same name, offers us, Sometimes the Dragon Wins. It's a thoughtful post about loving yourself and choosing your battles during the healing journey. Thanks for this wonderful offering, Perfect!
In The News
Nandita joins our carnival and presents Life Imprisonment for Raping Daughter Law Matters posted at law Matters. Thanks for contributing to our carnival, Nandita!
I've included a submission from Michael Snyder at The Moral Collapse Of America here. In this post he lists his 15 Things That Are Wrong With America. If you are dealing with the aftermath of spiritual abuse, as I am, you may want to use Extreme Caution when reading this blog. Mr. Snyder does, however, highlight some statistics on child abuse here. If you like a lively debate, you may want to peruse the comments on this post. I couldn't find an exact match to any of his child abuse statistics on our government's Child Welfare website, Darkness2Light or Child Help dot org, but we all know they are, indeed, alarmingly high. What I found a bit disturbing is the fact that he ranks "Gay Marriage" and "Evolution" higher (#3 and #4 respectively) on his "What's Wrong" list than child abuse (his #8). Hhmmmm, maybe it's not meant to be a hierarchy, but simply a rant.
Poetry
I'll leave you with a poem that I wrote, which could easily be under our "Aftermath" or "Healing" categories as well. It's called, "In My Own World I'll Stay" and it's from my post, Disconnected & Dissociated? here.
That concludes this edition. Thanks to all you brave bloggers that helped us get The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse up and running again after the Summer hiatus. Anyone want to host next month? Please consider! You can submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival against child abuse using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, aftermath, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, healing, therapy
March 03, 2008
Updates & Reminders
Me again! Well, it's 9:37 in the morning, here where I live, and my son is still in bed. Another night of insomnia last night for him. I definitely had my suspicions, but now I think I'm seeing the start of a trend. Almost every day, my precious offspring begs not to go to school. Now, he's starting to get those "Sunday Night Blues," like I used to get when I was dreading going back into a job I hated on Monday.
I feel that most of his anxiety symptoms revolve around the school issue as well. An offshoot of that is that he's very nervous about where he'll be going to middle school next year--sixth grade. I started out thinking, "What a lot of pressure to put on young kids. We will simply make it a non-issue and my son will walk to the nearest middle school." Unfortunately--or maybe fortunately--our district has open enrollment and you get to choose where to send your kid. There's another school that has a special program that I think will really meet D's needs much more appropriately.
However, he doesn't know anyone going to that school, so he doesn't want to go there. *Sigh* I'm sure we're going to have a big fight on our hands about it. I hate pushing my kid toward anything he feels really scared about with the assertion that "It's for your own good." A lot of really traumatic and abusive things were done to me as a child under this guise. I've just grown to think, after a lot of research, that this other school--and its specialized program and caring teachers--could really help my son focus on his strengths, boost his self-esteem, and feel good about attending school again. God, I pray that this can happen.
The three of us--me, hubby and child--go in for a consultation on Friday with a guy who comes highly recommended to help special needs kids like our son. One of the things I like about the sounds of him is that he looks for lots of alternatives to pharmaceutical medications. *crosses fingers*
Thank you all so much for your concern, caring comments, thoughts, vibes and prayers on this matter. Please continue to send out positive vibes for our Friday appointment. Thanks in advance! You guys rock and I appreciate you so much. :)
A reminder: The March BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE is coming up and will be here before you know it--Friday, March 14. Enola is hosting and I just know she is going to be an outstanding host! Check out her announcement and call for submissions here. This month's theme is about Spring and new beginnings. Won't you join us for this awareness-raising, supportive event?
I feel that most of his anxiety symptoms revolve around the school issue as well. An offshoot of that is that he's very nervous about where he'll be going to middle school next year--sixth grade. I started out thinking, "What a lot of pressure to put on young kids. We will simply make it a non-issue and my son will walk to the nearest middle school." Unfortunately--or maybe fortunately--our district has open enrollment and you get to choose where to send your kid. There's another school that has a special program that I think will really meet D's needs much more appropriately.
However, he doesn't know anyone going to that school, so he doesn't want to go there. *Sigh* I'm sure we're going to have a big fight on our hands about it. I hate pushing my kid toward anything he feels really scared about with the assertion that "It's for your own good." A lot of really traumatic and abusive things were done to me as a child under this guise. I've just grown to think, after a lot of research, that this other school--and its specialized program and caring teachers--could really help my son focus on his strengths, boost his self-esteem, and feel good about attending school again. God, I pray that this can happen.
The three of us--me, hubby and child--go in for a consultation on Friday with a guy who comes highly recommended to help special needs kids like our son. One of the things I like about the sounds of him is that he looks for lots of alternatives to pharmaceutical medications. *crosses fingers*
Thank you all so much for your concern, caring comments, thoughts, vibes and prayers on this matter. Please continue to send out positive vibes for our Friday appointment. Thanks in advance! You guys rock and I appreciate you so much. :)
A reminder: The March BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE is coming up and will be here before you know it--Friday, March 14. Enola is hosting and I just know she is going to be an outstanding host! Check out her announcement and call for submissions here. This month's theme is about Spring and new beginnings. Won't you join us for this awareness-raising, supportive event?
Labels: abuse, appreciation, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, gratitude, support, trauma
April 20, 2007
Where Am I?
Where am I? Good question. I seem to be getting lost in a sea of parts. I'm too overwhelmed to do it now, but one of these days, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to kinda map them all out.
Right now I'm dealing with a kind of cluster of parts. It's an urgent need. I have to try to work with these parts in order to stay physically safe. I'm not going to go into the triggering details, but I've had a return of some self-injury issues lately. Damn! It had been over three years since I've SI'd! Now I have to deal with that again.
Apparently there's a part who is convinced that I/we/somebody has to be punished. Oh goody. Like I didn't already receive enough punishment from my parents.
What really freaks me out is this part that I've discovered who is really identified with my perpetrator parents. She's especially identified with my mother. I've heard of this and read about this type of thing before. I just can't believe I'm doing it. I feel very frustrated and disgusted about it. Not to mention scared shitless.
About three weeks ago, after I got triggered really bad, I had an SI incident, but it didn't feel like it was me. For one thing, he didn't do it right and was doing it for entirely different reasons from what I consciously did it in the past. In the past, it was in a trance state--kind of a form of dissociation itself--and actually made me feel somewhat better because afterward I would think, "See, I'm alive. I matter at least this much."
This time it was a punishment for supposedly being a bad mother. This person (who felt male) thought he needed to inflict pain as punishment. My therapist and I have been calling this part "The henchman." Apparently, he works for the woman who's identified with my mother. In therapy, she didn't want to be bothered to talk to me or my T, but at home I had one scary encounter with her.
After running into the bathroom and locking the door (which I often do when I'm triggered and switching all over the place). I was having a conversation with DeeGee (as in D.G., which stands for "Doom and Gloom"). She tends to be a very black-or-white thinker and is usually very "Woe is me" negative. She was claiming that we never get a break with my son and I was begging to differ with her--things have been much better with him this school year.
All of a sudden, DeeGee quickly retreated and I got this terrifying feeling and visual. I don't usually get any kind of visual with my parts. I usually sense them, hear them, or they just kinda push me aside (to the back, whatever) and take over. This was like a palpable, terrifying presence in the room. You know, the kind that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It was like some evil creature rising up out of the black deep. Then she spoke. Yikes, she sounded like my mother! She said, "You don't get a break. You don't deserve a break!" Aaaahhhh! I got out of there right away. My bathroom was no longer a safe place at that moment.
I was trying to figure out who this character reminded me of. Yes, a character; someone from a story. I have a boy who was not born until 1997. But, somehow I remember a character from the Disney movie, "The Little Mermaid." I had to Google her. Her name is Ursula, the octopus-type evil sea witch. Good grief! I've got someone like that living inside me? Lord help me!
Mercifully, I don't seem to be aware of her out and wreaking havoc very often. On the other hand, her henchman comes out whenever I think I'm a bad person and get triggered in that way. He wants to bash my head in. Enter another part who keeps the body still so that can't happen. I've been calling her Serena. She's not exactly serene, but she does seem to be successful at keeping everything calm. It's an eerie calm, really. An outside viewer would think me downright catatonic when she's out.
It's not that I'm depressed when I'm in this state. It's just that I don't move. The other day, my husband came home from work while I was sitting in a chair in this state. He finally asked, "Am I speaking to Marj? Where's Marj?" Serena spoke only seven words: "I'm here because I can stay calm." That about sums up her role.
Just the other day--when the urge to be physically violent was particularly overwhelming--Serena got very assertive. She stated very firmly and clearly that we were not permitted to look at anything, hear anything or think about anything. She said that I/we/the body could blink, swallow and breathe. And that was it. Period. My husband and son were arguing at the time and the sound was triggering me badly. So, I reclined on my bedroom floor right next to my humidifier. I clicked it on. It was able to drown out all sound. I stared at the blank, white ceiling. I must of stayed there for almost two hours.
Every time I started to think, "This is stupid." or "This is extreme and unnecessary," and started to get up off the floor, I realized the method to the madness. Anytime I started to think about anything, I got the strong urge to injure myself. So, instead of fighting it, I've just let Serena take over at these stressful times.
I'm starting to feel really ganged up on and out-numbered. But, I'm trying to remember that each part was created for a reason and plays a role. My T asked me if there was a part inside who believed they needed to be punished. I guess it makes sense for the punisher to have a punishee, doesn't it? We've been working on that this week. The pain is immense. I think the depths of the pain scares me even more than the horror of the evil.
I feel like some swimmer who thought she was strong and could take on the crossing of the English Channel. Only, now I'm out here in the water all alone and I realize what I'm crossing is vast. It's a vast sea of grief, pain, terror and horror. What I'm really attempting to cross is the entire Atlantic Ocean. I think, "Of my God! I should never have attempted this! I've got to turn back!" The problem is, I'm halfway across now and it would take just as long to go back as it would to continue on.
Here's the other thing: I have to do it for that little girl who is so convinced that she has no value whatever and deserves all the abuse she gets. She's lost there; scared and alone. I have to sacrifice whatever it takes to finally save her. She deserves that much. I deserve to rescue myself. Even if I have to swim an entire ocean to reach her...to reach the safe shore of my true self.
Right now I'm dealing with a kind of cluster of parts. It's an urgent need. I have to try to work with these parts in order to stay physically safe. I'm not going to go into the triggering details, but I've had a return of some self-injury issues lately. Damn! It had been over three years since I've SI'd! Now I have to deal with that again.
Apparently there's a part who is convinced that I/we/somebody has to be punished. Oh goody. Like I didn't already receive enough punishment from my parents.
What really freaks me out is this part that I've discovered who is really identified with my perpetrator parents. She's especially identified with my mother. I've heard of this and read about this type of thing before. I just can't believe I'm doing it. I feel very frustrated and disgusted about it. Not to mention scared shitless.
About three weeks ago, after I got triggered really bad, I had an SI incident, but it didn't feel like it was me. For one thing, he didn't do it right and was doing it for entirely different reasons from what I consciously did it in the past. In the past, it was in a trance state--kind of a form of dissociation itself--and actually made me feel somewhat better because afterward I would think, "See, I'm alive. I matter at least this much."
This time it was a punishment for supposedly being a bad mother. This person (who felt male) thought he needed to inflict pain as punishment. My therapist and I have been calling this part "The henchman." Apparently, he works for the woman who's identified with my mother. In therapy, she didn't want to be bothered to talk to me or my T, but at home I had one scary encounter with her.
After running into the bathroom and locking the door (which I often do when I'm triggered and switching all over the place). I was having a conversation with DeeGee (as in D.G., which stands for "Doom and Gloom"). She tends to be a very black-or-white thinker and is usually very "Woe is me" negative. She was claiming that we never get a break with my son and I was begging to differ with her--things have been much better with him this school year.
All of a sudden, DeeGee quickly retreated and I got this terrifying feeling and visual. I don't usually get any kind of visual with my parts. I usually sense them, hear them, or they just kinda push me aside (to the back, whatever) and take over. This was like a palpable, terrifying presence in the room. You know, the kind that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It was like some evil creature rising up out of the black deep. Then she spoke. Yikes, she sounded like my mother! She said, "You don't get a break. You don't deserve a break!" Aaaahhhh! I got out of there right away. My bathroom was no longer a safe place at that moment.
I was trying to figure out who this character reminded me of. Yes, a character; someone from a story. I have a boy who was not born until 1997. But, somehow I remember a character from the Disney movie, "The Little Mermaid." I had to Google her. Her name is Ursula, the octopus-type evil sea witch. Good grief! I've got someone like that living inside me? Lord help me!
Mercifully, I don't seem to be aware of her out and wreaking havoc very often. On the other hand, her henchman comes out whenever I think I'm a bad person and get triggered in that way. He wants to bash my head in. Enter another part who keeps the body still so that can't happen. I've been calling her Serena. She's not exactly serene, but she does seem to be successful at keeping everything calm. It's an eerie calm, really. An outside viewer would think me downright catatonic when she's out.
It's not that I'm depressed when I'm in this state. It's just that I don't move. The other day, my husband came home from work while I was sitting in a chair in this state. He finally asked, "Am I speaking to Marj? Where's Marj?" Serena spoke only seven words: "I'm here because I can stay calm." That about sums up her role.
Just the other day--when the urge to be physically violent was particularly overwhelming--Serena got very assertive. She stated very firmly and clearly that we were not permitted to look at anything, hear anything or think about anything. She said that I/we/the body could blink, swallow and breathe. And that was it. Period. My husband and son were arguing at the time and the sound was triggering me badly. So, I reclined on my bedroom floor right next to my humidifier. I clicked it on. It was able to drown out all sound. I stared at the blank, white ceiling. I must of stayed there for almost two hours.
Every time I started to think, "This is stupid." or "This is extreme and unnecessary," and started to get up off the floor, I realized the method to the madness. Anytime I started to think about anything, I got the strong urge to injure myself. So, instead of fighting it, I've just let Serena take over at these stressful times.
I'm starting to feel really ganged up on and out-numbered. But, I'm trying to remember that each part was created for a reason and plays a role. My T asked me if there was a part inside who believed they needed to be punished. I guess it makes sense for the punisher to have a punishee, doesn't it? We've been working on that this week. The pain is immense. I think the depths of the pain scares me even more than the horror of the evil.
I feel like some swimmer who thought she was strong and could take on the crossing of the English Channel. Only, now I'm out here in the water all alone and I realize what I'm crossing is vast. It's a vast sea of grief, pain, terror and horror. What I'm really attempting to cross is the entire Atlantic Ocean. I think, "Of my God! I should never have attempted this! I've got to turn back!" The problem is, I'm halfway across now and it would take just as long to go back as it would to continue on.
Here's the other thing: I have to do it for that little girl who is so convinced that she has no value whatever and deserves all the abuse she gets. She's lost there; scared and alone. I have to sacrifice whatever it takes to finally save her. She deserves that much. I deserve to rescue myself. Even if I have to swim an entire ocean to reach her...to reach the safe shore of my true self.
Labels: abuse, dissociation, parts, recovery
March 20, 2007
Broken to Pieces
So much has been going on during this intense phase of therapy and recovery that I can't keep up. I haven't even been able to keep it all up to date in my paper journal, let alone here on my blog.
I'm going to be out of town for Spring Break next week. I had a new part emerge that scares me to my core (way more than Sentry did in the beginning). I think she's very identified with my perpetrator parents. I decided to put working with her and my therapist on hold until I get back into town. I just don't want to be left hanging in the middle of something huge and scary while I'm out of town and away from my therapist.
So, yesterday, at my T appointment, I ran this past my T and we moved on to "lighter" topics (are there really any light topics?). I decided to run a few physical complaints by her. I've mentioned these to mental health providors in the past and never really gotten anywhere with it. I think I've mentioned these trouble makers on my blog. One is the annoying problem of not being able to swallow food sometimes (unfortunatley, this has not led me to become thin).
My other physical problem is really causing me to lose sleep lately. When I sought advice from a medical doc about it, he wanted to do surgery so I walked out of his office. It's the old complaint about my arms falling asleep and going dead on me again. When I think about the assaults where my arms were pinned down, I can't help but think that this complaint has a trauma component. I seemed to get some relief from this for about two years when I was going to another therapist twice a week and doing a lot of trauma processing. My current T suggested that I inquire within myself as to what this symptom was trying to tell me.
So, this morning after about the millionth time that the rest of me was awake because my arms were asleep, I asked for the message. What came to me was loads of grief--not fear as I would have suspected.
We've all had our hearts broken at least once, right? I know I've been through that kind of "lost love" grief more than once. But, how do you mend the broken heart of a child? How do you pick up the pieces after the ultimate betrayal by the parents who were supposed to love and care for you?
I feel like the proverbial Humpty Dumpty. My heart is broken to pieces, as well as my mind. And all the king's therapists and all the king's doctors will never be able to put all my pieces back together again.
I'm going to be out of town for Spring Break next week. I had a new part emerge that scares me to my core (way more than Sentry did in the beginning). I think she's very identified with my perpetrator parents. I decided to put working with her and my therapist on hold until I get back into town. I just don't want to be left hanging in the middle of something huge and scary while I'm out of town and away from my therapist.
So, yesterday, at my T appointment, I ran this past my T and we moved on to "lighter" topics (are there really any light topics?). I decided to run a few physical complaints by her. I've mentioned these to mental health providors in the past and never really gotten anywhere with it. I think I've mentioned these trouble makers on my blog. One is the annoying problem of not being able to swallow food sometimes (unfortunatley, this has not led me to become thin).
My other physical problem is really causing me to lose sleep lately. When I sought advice from a medical doc about it, he wanted to do surgery so I walked out of his office. It's the old complaint about my arms falling asleep and going dead on me again. When I think about the assaults where my arms were pinned down, I can't help but think that this complaint has a trauma component. I seemed to get some relief from this for about two years when I was going to another therapist twice a week and doing a lot of trauma processing. My current T suggested that I inquire within myself as to what this symptom was trying to tell me.
So, this morning after about the millionth time that the rest of me was awake because my arms were asleep, I asked for the message. What came to me was loads of grief--not fear as I would have suspected.
We've all had our hearts broken at least once, right? I know I've been through that kind of "lost love" grief more than once. But, how do you mend the broken heart of a child? How do you pick up the pieces after the ultimate betrayal by the parents who were supposed to love and care for you?
I feel like the proverbial Humpty Dumpty. My heart is broken to pieces, as well as my mind. And all the king's therapists and all the king's doctors will never be able to put all my pieces back together again.
Labels: abuse, body connection, body memories, child abuse, child parts, dissociation, grieving, healing, inner child, recovery, therapy
June 24, 2006
How Does One Retrieve Repressed Memories of Abuse?
For a long time, I've resisted the urge to write any kind of introduction for my book. I know it's a common problem for writers to get hung up there, editing and revising, and have difficulty progressing with the story. What I've done is skip around. I've gotten a lot written by not spending too much time in any one prescribed area.
I did, however, recently take a stab at a lead-in of sorts for my story of retrieving repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). It's interesting how clueless I was for such a very long time.
I can tell you when the dam broke and the full force of the PTSD flood of my post-traumatic stress disorder came bursting forth (that story is for another time). But, it's harder to say when the cracks first appeared and I started being conscious of the repressed memories of my CSA.
It definitely was not as early on as high school, although the sexual assaults had ended some seven or eight years prior. No, in high school I thought I was a virgin. I told my boyfriends I wanted to stay that way.
The truth was, I wasn't so much waiting for my true love as I was simply petrified with fear of sex. I had my first real boyfriend at age 15. That's when I got my first real kiss. It felt like I had melted. That first kiss was so romantic. I loved the kiss, but I wanted nothing to do with going any further.
Later, there was another boy who was quite stimulating to my hormone-charged teenage self. But, my excitement frightened me. His excitement frightened me even more.
We got terribly close to "going all the way" once. I stopped it at the last possible moment. In a total panic, I managed to squeak out, "Let's not do anything too heavy." I couldn't bring myself to utter the word, "sex." At that point in time, the only clothing that remained on my body was my mint green bikini panties.
It's still amazing to me that this young man stopped. He didn't even call me a tease. I'll be forever grateful to him for that. Once he went off to college, I assume he began an active sex life. He left me behind in high school and left me alone with my chastity.
I lost many boyfriends during those high school years because I wouldn't "put out." I never went to the prom. In many ways, I didn't care. My fear was too great a hurdle for me to clear for any boy. I didn't know why I was so afraid, really. The fear was a powerful force that I was not willing to examine at the time.
I still had no clue about my CSA survivor status as I entered college. I remained chaste and got excellent grades during my freshman year.
During my sophomore year, I joined a sorority and my social life expanded. That's when I met the first love of my life. I was crazy in love and did not question the inevitability that we would have sex.
I still think of this lost love often. I believe I would remain drawn to him if I met up with him again today.
While I loved this young man and gave my body freely to him, I don't have many memories of our sex life. I'm reasonably sure that we made love with the lights off and that I lay beneath him with my eyes closed.
He never complained. He never committed either. I guess you could say that he broke my heart. When he broke off our relationship to date others, I was devastated.
Prior to the break-up, after we had just made love, I told him, "I love you." I got no response. Though he wouldn't commit, wouldn't say he loved me and wanted to date others, I was slow to give up on the relationship. I was desperately in love and couldn't let go. My sorority's spring formal dance was coming up and I begged the guy who had dumped me to go with me anyway. I guess I didn't want to miss the prom again. He did not take me to his fraternity's spring dance; he took someone else. Yet, I happily took him to my formal and, of course, we had sex after the dancing.
During this period of my dissociated devastation, I swung from one end of the sex spectrum to the other. I got stoned and had casual sex with a guy I barely knew. Then I went with another fraternity guy to his spring formal "just as friends." When my "friend" wanted to have sex, I broke down in tears and explained that I couldn't participate because I was still so heart-broken over the breakup with my boyfriend. I guess, because he knew my old boyfriend, he pretended to be understanding at the time.
Later, it was a different story. There was a party at the fraternity house of my "friend." At one point, we went into his room. We'd been in there many times and I was not afraid or suspecting of anything.
We were sitting on his bed talking when suddenly he was on top of me. I said no, cried and tried to turn away. But, he pinned my arms down. I have always felt guilty because I did not scream out or struggle very hard. I think my CSA groomed me to stay quiet and realize that struggling was futile. Some days after the party, when I told my sister about the incident, she was the one who pointed out that my arms had been pinned down and I had, indeed, been raped.
I now know that this period of my life was not nearly as damaging and tortuous as my childhood. Yet it was quite traumatic for me. During this time I became pregnant. I came very close to telling my old boyfriend of my condition. I had him on the phone once but couldn't reveal my secret. I did not know who the father of the child was. I didn't tell my ex because I still loved him and I didn't want to trap him with a child who may not have been his. I decided to get an abortion instead. This added to my trauma.
I never reported the rape. I didn't speak of it again for another decade.
I think I then made the subconscious decision to stick like glue to any man who would finally admit to loving me. That man became my first husband. He was only physically abusive toward me once. It was when we were separated, before our divorce. In a fit of anger, he grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the floor.
During our brief marriage, my mate did many odd things that made me uncomfortable. What drove me crazy was his habit of following me around our small apartment. He often spied on me while I was in the shower. One time, I was coming out of the bathroom after showering wearing only a towel. I was ambushed by my ex who jumped out at me and snatched my towel away. He pushed me onto the bed and snapped a Polaroid picture of me sprawled there naked with a deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face.
During my young adult years following college, my self-esteem was critically low. Hell, I think it had been at this critical depth since about the time I was in junior high. Yet, by the time of my divorce, something started to shift in my mind. A tiny spark of self-confidence told me I had rights and deserved better. I never used the term "abuse." Although I was taking steps to that effect, I never thought or stated, "Nobody will ever abuse me again."
One of those essential steps was quitting my first big job that I thought was leading to a successful career. I had been working at an advertising agency where one of the higher-ups sexually harassed me time and again. I did not sleep my way to the top, but worked hard and got promoted there three times. Despite the promotions and the agency paying my way toward a Master's degree, I decided to leave.
Maybe I just got fed up; within a year, I quit my job in the sexual harassment environment and got divorced. I never did finish my Master's, but I never allowed anyone to ever abuse me again, either.
Copyright 2006 by Marj McCabe. All Rights Reserved.
I did, however, recently take a stab at a lead-in of sorts for my story of retrieving repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). It's interesting how clueless I was for such a very long time.
I can tell you when the dam broke and the full force of the PTSD flood of my post-traumatic stress disorder came bursting forth (that story is for another time). But, it's harder to say when the cracks first appeared and I started being conscious of the repressed memories of my CSA.
It definitely was not as early on as high school, although the sexual assaults had ended some seven or eight years prior. No, in high school I thought I was a virgin. I told my boyfriends I wanted to stay that way.
The truth was, I wasn't so much waiting for my true love as I was simply petrified with fear of sex. I had my first real boyfriend at age 15. That's when I got my first real kiss. It felt like I had melted. That first kiss was so romantic. I loved the kiss, but I wanted nothing to do with going any further.
Later, there was another boy who was quite stimulating to my hormone-charged teenage self. But, my excitement frightened me. His excitement frightened me even more.
We got terribly close to "going all the way" once. I stopped it at the last possible moment. In a total panic, I managed to squeak out, "Let's not do anything too heavy." I couldn't bring myself to utter the word, "sex." At that point in time, the only clothing that remained on my body was my mint green bikini panties.
It's still amazing to me that this young man stopped. He didn't even call me a tease. I'll be forever grateful to him for that. Once he went off to college, I assume he began an active sex life. He left me behind in high school and left me alone with my chastity.
I lost many boyfriends during those high school years because I wouldn't "put out." I never went to the prom. In many ways, I didn't care. My fear was too great a hurdle for me to clear for any boy. I didn't know why I was so afraid, really. The fear was a powerful force that I was not willing to examine at the time.
I still had no clue about my CSA survivor status as I entered college. I remained chaste and got excellent grades during my freshman year.
During my sophomore year, I joined a sorority and my social life expanded. That's when I met the first love of my life. I was crazy in love and did not question the inevitability that we would have sex.
I still think of this lost love often. I believe I would remain drawn to him if I met up with him again today.
While I loved this young man and gave my body freely to him, I don't have many memories of our sex life. I'm reasonably sure that we made love with the lights off and that I lay beneath him with my eyes closed.
He never complained. He never committed either. I guess you could say that he broke my heart. When he broke off our relationship to date others, I was devastated.
Prior to the break-up, after we had just made love, I told him, "I love you." I got no response. Though he wouldn't commit, wouldn't say he loved me and wanted to date others, I was slow to give up on the relationship. I was desperately in love and couldn't let go. My sorority's spring formal dance was coming up and I begged the guy who had dumped me to go with me anyway. I guess I didn't want to miss the prom again. He did not take me to his fraternity's spring dance; he took someone else. Yet, I happily took him to my formal and, of course, we had sex after the dancing.
During this period of my dissociated devastation, I swung from one end of the sex spectrum to the other. I got stoned and had casual sex with a guy I barely knew. Then I went with another fraternity guy to his spring formal "just as friends." When my "friend" wanted to have sex, I broke down in tears and explained that I couldn't participate because I was still so heart-broken over the breakup with my boyfriend. I guess, because he knew my old boyfriend, he pretended to be understanding at the time.
Later, it was a different story. There was a party at the fraternity house of my "friend." At one point, we went into his room. We'd been in there many times and I was not afraid or suspecting of anything.
We were sitting on his bed talking when suddenly he was on top of me. I said no, cried and tried to turn away. But, he pinned my arms down. I have always felt guilty because I did not scream out or struggle very hard. I think my CSA groomed me to stay quiet and realize that struggling was futile. Some days after the party, when I told my sister about the incident, she was the one who pointed out that my arms had been pinned down and I had, indeed, been raped.
I now know that this period of my life was not nearly as damaging and tortuous as my childhood. Yet it was quite traumatic for me. During this time I became pregnant. I came very close to telling my old boyfriend of my condition. I had him on the phone once but couldn't reveal my secret. I did not know who the father of the child was. I didn't tell my ex because I still loved him and I didn't want to trap him with a child who may not have been his. I decided to get an abortion instead. This added to my trauma.
I never reported the rape. I didn't speak of it again for another decade.
I think I then made the subconscious decision to stick like glue to any man who would finally admit to loving me. That man became my first husband. He was only physically abusive toward me once. It was when we were separated, before our divorce. In a fit of anger, he grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the floor.
During our brief marriage, my mate did many odd things that made me uncomfortable. What drove me crazy was his habit of following me around our small apartment. He often spied on me while I was in the shower. One time, I was coming out of the bathroom after showering wearing only a towel. I was ambushed by my ex who jumped out at me and snatched my towel away. He pushed me onto the bed and snapped a Polaroid picture of me sprawled there naked with a deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face.
During my young adult years following college, my self-esteem was critically low. Hell, I think it had been at this critical depth since about the time I was in junior high. Yet, by the time of my divorce, something started to shift in my mind. A tiny spark of self-confidence told me I had rights and deserved better. I never used the term "abuse." Although I was taking steps to that effect, I never thought or stated, "Nobody will ever abuse me again."
One of those essential steps was quitting my first big job that I thought was leading to a successful career. I had been working at an advertising agency where one of the higher-ups sexually harassed me time and again. I did not sleep my way to the top, but worked hard and got promoted there three times. Despite the promotions and the agency paying my way toward a Master's degree, I decided to leave.
Maybe I just got fed up; within a year, I quit my job in the sexual harassment environment and got divorced. I never did finish my Master's, but I never allowed anyone to ever abuse me again, either.
Copyright 2006 by Marj McCabe. All Rights Reserved.
Labels: abuse, acquaintance rape, aftermath, awareness, denial, freeze response, journey, physical abuse, PTSD, rape, sexual harassment, trauma, victims
June 15, 2006
Blog Carnival Child Sexual Abuse Survivor Story--Mine
I got the finalization instructions for posting our blog Carnival Against Child Abuse from Blog Carnival today. I'm going to be able to put in a new permalink for all the carnival links, so now I feel free to put up some other, newer posts. We're going to have at least 20 posts up for the first edition of our Carnival Against Child Abuse on Monday. I noticed as I was going through the submissions, however, that we only had a couple of survivor stories, while we have seven or eight each for "Healing & Therapy" and "Advocacy and Awareness." Yay for us; we're healing and raising awareness! Very important achievements.
I know it's hard to share the details of your personal survivor story. I'm finding it difficult myself, so I believe I will just share a couple of abuse accounts that I already have up on my dot com website, www.survivorscanthrive.com.
Please be careful! **TRIGGER WARNING for the FOLLOWING**
If you have DID, or some other type of dissociative disorder as I do (or PTSD), I recommend you read these accounts only while under the guidance of a trained mental health professional.
The Pink Towel
I know it's hard to share the details of your personal survivor story. I'm finding it difficult myself, so I believe I will just share a couple of abuse accounts that I already have up on my dot com website, www.survivorscanthrive.com.
Please be careful! **TRIGGER WARNING for the FOLLOWING**
If you have DID, or some other type of dissociative disorder as I do (or PTSD), I recommend you read these accounts only while under the guidance of a trained mental health professional.
The Pink Towel
My twin sister and I had just finished taking our bedtime baths. I'm sitting on my bed, carefully smoothing down the pink towel that will protect my pillow from my wet hair during the night. But, there is no one to protect me from the night's inevitable sexual abuse.
I turn to see who has just entered the room. It's my father and he's already unzipped his trousers. He grabs me by the shoulders, turning me toward him and guiding my mouth over his penis. As my father begins to thrust, I close my eyes and my body vanishes. Only my ears remain; they are calmly listening to my sister and mother continuing the bedtime routine in the bathroom just across the hall. Mommy turns on the water in the bathroom sink. Sister brushes her teeth.
By the time my twin spits out the toothpaste, our father is finished. It has been quiet and "uneventful," this routine act of bedtime oral abuse. Tonight I have complied quietly and Daddy is happy. Only a small drop of semen has escaped from my mouth. My father smiles and wipes the little trickle from my cheek. He offers me his finger and I automatically, dutifully, lick it clean. It takes just a moment more for Daddy to slip the towel from my pillow, wipe himself off, zip up his pants and exit the room.
A split second later, my mother glides into the room like June Cleaver. Her cheerful, sing-song voice jolts me out of my dissociated stupor. "What did you do with your towel?" Mommy chides. She doesn't wait for an answer. "C'mon, hurry up and brush your teeth for bed." Unfortunately, my mother follows me into the bathroom. I brush my teeth with a sharp eye on the white porcelain of the sink. I hope I that I can be quick if I spit out a dark, curly hair, so I can flush it down the sink before Mommy sees.
"Please," I pray inside my head. "Don't let Mommy find out what I did with Daddy tonight. Please, God, don't let Mommy tell me what a bad, dirty, evil girl I am."
Copyright 2005 by Marj McCabe. All Rights Reserved.
A Fear of Plastic Shower Curtains
"I'm cold, Daddy," I whine. I'm standing, naked, on the little throw rug in the middle of the bathroom floor. "Come on in, then," says the voice behind the shower curtain. "The water's warm," my father informs.
I hate being cold. Cold equals fear. Showers mean fear, too. What should I do? I dread having to join my father in the shower, but I know I must delay no longer. If I don't hurry, Daddy will get mad, or at least jump out of the shower and twist my cold, hard little nipples.
I move forward and gingerly pull back the shower curtain as if it's made out of rotting flesh. As I step into the tub, my eyes dart around. Everything in here scares me: the smell of the plastic shower curtain liner; the feel of the cold, hard porcelain bathtub and metal plumbing fixtures; and most of all, the sight of my naked father, with his dripping wet penis and icky, matted pubic hair. I know he wants oral sex; I especially hate it in the shower. Daddy always stays right under the shower head. Between the water in my nose and his penis in my mouth, I'm always afraid I'm going to smother.
As soon as Daddy directs my head under the coursing water and toward his privates, I start to flail. My hair gets wet immediately, streaming into my eyes. Daddy pulls too hard and my nose plunges into the wet, sticky mass of hair around his penis. I start to panic and blindly grab for support to ensure my footing and help me get away. Even in my terror, I can remember how painful it can be to hit my head, arm or knee on the faucet, so I stay clear of that obstacle. But, the tub is slick and I'm going down. I remember this pain as well--red, stinging knees battered against the tub. I grope for the shower curtain to pull myself back up to standing. I hear a couple of the curtain's fasteners snap and fly off.
Up to this point, I've no idea what my father's reaction is to my panic. He has probably been simply regarding me with mild amusement. He is often amused by my terror. This time--I guess it is because I've damaged the shower curtain--Daddy is enraged. He grabs me by the throat and pulls me up to his face. His eyes are hot and bulging. "You think that's going to save you?" he demands. "You think this is safe, do you?" He drops me back down to the porcelain and snatches a handful of plastic curtain.
Daddy yanks me up by the throat again and thrusts my little body between the waterproof curtain liner and the outside fabric of the shower curtain. He takes a hand and pushes the plastic against my face. The water provides a seal and the waterproof fabric stays in place. I don't dare attempt to remove it. "There. How do you like that?" my father goads. He gathers the air-tight material close around my neck for further effect.
I do not respond or react in any way to his question; I don't even hear him anymore. Through the translucent fabric, my eyes fix on the bathroom window. A voice in my mind tells me, "Go to the light." And I am gone.
Copyright 2005 by Marj McCabe. All Rights Reserved.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, awareness, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, child abuse, childhood sexual abuse, memory work, survivors, Survivors Can Thrive, triggers
May 13, 2006
Are We Leaving The Door Wide Open For Child Abuse?
Ordinarily, I don't use this space for a lot of venting. Usually, I confine my written ranting to my personal journal (you know, the old-fashioned kind with paper pages) and, occasionally, message board rant forums. But, right now I feel I must update my blog by way of rant. I'm outraged about our society's lack of concern on the issue of child abuse.
I've been rather down lately. Too much illness, therapy management and death. I'm not clinically depressed or spiraling down into the "hopeless/helpless" pit where I've resided in the past. Yet, I am quite frustrated. Frustrated at my inability to affect positive change. I guess the goal of my rant is to channel that frustration and anger outward, instead of turning it inward and feeling depressed like I've done so many times in the past.
I'm pissed off at and absolutely flabbergasted by the lack of concern about the abuse, harm and molestation of our precious, innocent children. I feel like I'm the only one who cares about this important issue sometimes. Rationally, I know I'm not the only one. But, I keep coming up against this seeming uncaring and ambivalence. I just want to scream!
I'll give you some examples from parents in my immediate community: where I live, where my kid goes to school, where my family attends church.
But, first some background. I admit, when I moved to Colorado seven years ago, I was naive. For some reason--the clean air, the beautiful mountains maybe--I had this assumption that my adopted state would be more progressive. I gotta tell you, it is a state that is nowhere near what I would describe as progressive. Much of it is just too backward, right wing and conservative for my personal taste.
Fortunately, I reside in a small enclave where people are quite liberal, proactive and environmentally "green" (relatively speaking anyway). My son attends a school where many students get there on foot and parents are highly active and involved. I attend a Unitarian Universalist church that strongly promotes peace, justice, respect and nonviolence.
Yet, I am baffled by the apparent lack of concern--by these same people--about protecting the safety of innocent children. My first sign came when I realized that I was the only parent of a third grader at my son's school who had signed up for the KidPower program made available there. Not one other third grader attended this valuable workshop to learn how to stay safe.
Another incident occurred recently: A neighbor actually got in an argument with my son's 10-year-old friend and proceeded to slap him across the face. It was rather interesting--the boy who was slapped lives the same distance as I do from the irate neighbor (who has since moved, thank God). The boy and my son, however, chose to run to my house after this happened. As you might imagine (if you've read my work and realize how fervent I am on this topic) I was immediately consumed with righteous anger.
I asked both boys to slow down and calmly tell me their interpretations of what had just transpired. Indeed, it seemed that, while the boy may have become somewhat verbally belligerent, the neighbor got carried away and struck the boy across the face with her hand. I gotta tell ya, if it had been my kid (who can be, at times, equally argumentative and sometimes disrespectful) I would have immediately marched up to that woman's door and told her in no uncertain terms that she is never to touch my child again or I would be calling the police.
But, this was not my child. I felt that any confrontation would be more potent and appropriate coming from the boy's own mother. I asked my son's friend if he wanted to tell his mom about what had happened and he said that he did, but wanted to think it over first. I told him that we would respect that decision, but that I hoped he would eventually feel comfortable sharing because I thought it was important for neighbors to know that we mothers were not going to tolerate having them treat our children in such a violent, disrespectful and unacceptable way.
So, the three of us went outside. The offending neighbor had retreated into her house, but the boy's mother was now outside. The boys ran over and the story came spilling out in all its drama. I was deflated and disappointed by the mom's response: "Oh well, they're moving out of here soon anyway. Besides, if I talked to her about it, it wouldn't do any good." Then, she advised her son that she expected no retaliation out of him.
Damn. I didn't want any retaliation either. I don't agree with meeting violence with violence. But, I was very disappointed that this mother chose not to advocate for her child in any way. My son and I had a long, private talk about the matter and I hope he realizes that I would have stuck up for him in a more assertive way.
The most recent event just occurred this past weekend. My family was attending a little "goodbye" get-together for a neighbor who has decided to move to a lower altitude. In a little conversation circle, we discussed what's been rumored as a similar incident involving the music teacher at my son's school. The teacher has left the school because of allegations that she forcefully touched one of her students (one rumor is that she slapped the kid).
The woman sitting next to me (also a mother with kids at the school) piped up, "I heard that all she did was touch the kid on the shoulders and shove him back down in his seat." She proceeded to lament about how this poor woman (my words) was probably never going to be able to come back to the school "because of the way this school is." I wanted to blurt out, "What way the school is? You mean, intolerant of child abuse?" Though I was seething inside, I stayed quiet because I didn't want to start a heated debate when we were there to say a nice goodbye to a friend. The night was about her, not about me and my soap box.
But then, every single person in our circle proceeded to give their opinion about how society has changed. Maybe I'm reading into the comments, but they all seemed to be of the opinion that our schools today are making a mistake "sparing the rod" when disciplining children. The comments were about how it wasn't that long ago that much stronger force was used to keep kids in line and a teacher wouldn't have to leave the school for something like that. I finally interjected, "But, that was in the days of corporal punishment and I'm glad we no longer have that."
Then, an elderly lady sweetly said, "Yes, but it's a shame that you can't even give a kid a pat on the back or a kind touch on the shoulder anymore." I've been thinking about that one. She's right. It is a shame. But, why is it a shame? Because we can't man-handle kids any more? In my opinion, the shame is that children today are starved for the attention of a healthy touch and a listening ear. I'm a former CASA (court-appointed advocate for abused children), stay-at-home mom and I do volunteer work with a lot of children. I see and hear just how starved these kids are.
I don't think we have a healthy balance in this society. There's definitely got to be a better way.
However, things being as they are, I'm willing to be restricted by the rule that adult leaders of kids programs cannot be alone with children. I prefer that volunteers abide by the strict rules of conduct that CASA requires. I'd even resign myself to a restriction where the healthy touching of children is confined to their own homes and family rather than see innocent children raped, beaten, or otherwise abused. I'd rather live with these new rules than have to live with the fact that one out of every three girls in our country is sexually abused by the time she is 18.
I choose to live with these rules. I choose to talk about the uncomfortable subject of child abuse. I choose to advocate for children. My old therapist thought I took on too many of the world's sorrows and troubles. But, if we don't take on these tough issues, what will happen to the children? What will happen to us as a society, as a species? What will happen to our planet?
Please help me take a stand for children. Please talk about this HUGE, important issue. Please advocate for children--at least your own. Express your righteous anger and outrage when a child is hurt, abused or the victim of any violence. Let the kids know that they can tell and they will be supported and protected. Otherwise, you're leaving the door wide open for the abuse of our children.
I've been rather down lately. Too much illness, therapy management and death. I'm not clinically depressed or spiraling down into the "hopeless/helpless" pit where I've resided in the past. Yet, I am quite frustrated. Frustrated at my inability to affect positive change. I guess the goal of my rant is to channel that frustration and anger outward, instead of turning it inward and feeling depressed like I've done so many times in the past.
I'm pissed off at and absolutely flabbergasted by the lack of concern about the abuse, harm and molestation of our precious, innocent children. I feel like I'm the only one who cares about this important issue sometimes. Rationally, I know I'm not the only one. But, I keep coming up against this seeming uncaring and ambivalence. I just want to scream!
I'll give you some examples from parents in my immediate community: where I live, where my kid goes to school, where my family attends church.
But, first some background. I admit, when I moved to Colorado seven years ago, I was naive. For some reason--the clean air, the beautiful mountains maybe--I had this assumption that my adopted state would be more progressive. I gotta tell you, it is a state that is nowhere near what I would describe as progressive. Much of it is just too backward, right wing and conservative for my personal taste.
Fortunately, I reside in a small enclave where people are quite liberal, proactive and environmentally "green" (relatively speaking anyway). My son attends a school where many students get there on foot and parents are highly active and involved. I attend a Unitarian Universalist church that strongly promotes peace, justice, respect and nonviolence.
Yet, I am baffled by the apparent lack of concern--by these same people--about protecting the safety of innocent children. My first sign came when I realized that I was the only parent of a third grader at my son's school who had signed up for the KidPower program made available there. Not one other third grader attended this valuable workshop to learn how to stay safe.
Another incident occurred recently: A neighbor actually got in an argument with my son's 10-year-old friend and proceeded to slap him across the face. It was rather interesting--the boy who was slapped lives the same distance as I do from the irate neighbor (who has since moved, thank God). The boy and my son, however, chose to run to my house after this happened. As you might imagine (if you've read my work and realize how fervent I am on this topic) I was immediately consumed with righteous anger.
I asked both boys to slow down and calmly tell me their interpretations of what had just transpired. Indeed, it seemed that, while the boy may have become somewhat verbally belligerent, the neighbor got carried away and struck the boy across the face with her hand. I gotta tell ya, if it had been my kid (who can be, at times, equally argumentative and sometimes disrespectful) I would have immediately marched up to that woman's door and told her in no uncertain terms that she is never to touch my child again or I would be calling the police.
But, this was not my child. I felt that any confrontation would be more potent and appropriate coming from the boy's own mother. I asked my son's friend if he wanted to tell his mom about what had happened and he said that he did, but wanted to think it over first. I told him that we would respect that decision, but that I hoped he would eventually feel comfortable sharing because I thought it was important for neighbors to know that we mothers were not going to tolerate having them treat our children in such a violent, disrespectful and unacceptable way.
So, the three of us went outside. The offending neighbor had retreated into her house, but the boy's mother was now outside. The boys ran over and the story came spilling out in all its drama. I was deflated and disappointed by the mom's response: "Oh well, they're moving out of here soon anyway. Besides, if I talked to her about it, it wouldn't do any good." Then, she advised her son that she expected no retaliation out of him.
Damn. I didn't want any retaliation either. I don't agree with meeting violence with violence. But, I was very disappointed that this mother chose not to advocate for her child in any way. My son and I had a long, private talk about the matter and I hope he realizes that I would have stuck up for him in a more assertive way.
The most recent event just occurred this past weekend. My family was attending a little "goodbye" get-together for a neighbor who has decided to move to a lower altitude. In a little conversation circle, we discussed what's been rumored as a similar incident involving the music teacher at my son's school. The teacher has left the school because of allegations that she forcefully touched one of her students (one rumor is that she slapped the kid).
The woman sitting next to me (also a mother with kids at the school) piped up, "I heard that all she did was touch the kid on the shoulders and shove him back down in his seat." She proceeded to lament about how this poor woman (my words) was probably never going to be able to come back to the school "because of the way this school is." I wanted to blurt out, "What way the school is? You mean, intolerant of child abuse?" Though I was seething inside, I stayed quiet because I didn't want to start a heated debate when we were there to say a nice goodbye to a friend. The night was about her, not about me and my soap box.
But then, every single person in our circle proceeded to give their opinion about how society has changed. Maybe I'm reading into the comments, but they all seemed to be of the opinion that our schools today are making a mistake "sparing the rod" when disciplining children. The comments were about how it wasn't that long ago that much stronger force was used to keep kids in line and a teacher wouldn't have to leave the school for something like that. I finally interjected, "But, that was in the days of corporal punishment and I'm glad we no longer have that."
Then, an elderly lady sweetly said, "Yes, but it's a shame that you can't even give a kid a pat on the back or a kind touch on the shoulder anymore." I've been thinking about that one. She's right. It is a shame. But, why is it a shame? Because we can't man-handle kids any more? In my opinion, the shame is that children today are starved for the attention of a healthy touch and a listening ear. I'm a former CASA (court-appointed advocate for abused children), stay-at-home mom and I do volunteer work with a lot of children. I see and hear just how starved these kids are.
I don't think we have a healthy balance in this society. There's definitely got to be a better way.
However, things being as they are, I'm willing to be restricted by the rule that adult leaders of kids programs cannot be alone with children. I prefer that volunteers abide by the strict rules of conduct that CASA requires. I'd even resign myself to a restriction where the healthy touching of children is confined to their own homes and family rather than see innocent children raped, beaten, or otherwise abused. I'd rather live with these new rules than have to live with the fact that one out of every three girls in our country is sexually abused by the time she is 18.
I choose to live with these rules. I choose to talk about the uncomfortable subject of child abuse. I choose to advocate for children. My old therapist thought I took on too many of the world's sorrows and troubles. But, if we don't take on these tough issues, what will happen to the children? What will happen to us as a society, as a species? What will happen to our planet?
Please help me take a stand for children. Please talk about this HUGE, important issue. Please advocate for children--at least your own. Express your righteous anger and outrage when a child is hurt, abused or the victim of any violence. Let the kids know that they can tell and they will be supported and protected. Otherwise, you're leaving the door wide open for the abuse of our children.
Labels: abuse, advocacy, awareness, child abuse, child abuse prevention, child protection
