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
July 06, 2010
Going Through The Memories
So, I had a request in the comments of my last post that I will try to address here. I know, I know, I still have some guest blog and interview requests that I have yet to fulfill, but those folks aren't exactly coming to my blog every day, either. This is for a reader that I know wants to hear about something specific right now.
I feel very honored, actually. This new reader is coming to my dot com site, Survivors Can Thrive! and my blog at the referral of her therapist. I had no idea anything like that was happening. I'm am touched. And like I said, I feel honored.
This reader wanted to know if I had any advice about how to help her share an abuse memory during a counseling session, but, "not go through and experience it again in my mind." I told this reader that I always hesitate to give advice and that I am aware that each person's healing experience is different.
However, this is a huge survivor healing issue. At times, I am really struck by how much it sucks that someone else did this to us--abused us and caused trauma--but we are the ones who must be responsible for our healing and do the work to recover. But, this is the ironic reality.
Another ironic reality, that I have struggled to come to terms with in my own healing, is the fact that I have not been successful at finding any way to go around the painful feelings associated with the abuse. It sounds cliche, but for me, I have found that I really have to go through it to get to the other side. For me, this "other side" is life more in the moment, feeling safe, having functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) relationships, and no longer feeling completely disabled about the prospect of living my day-to-day life.
Now, before I launch into my battle cry of "feel the feelings; it's the key to healing," and you tune my pie-in-the-sky message out, let me tell you a little bit about how I came to this point and this conclusion.
First of all, you need to know that I have had many false starts in therapy and have really floundered many, many times. One of the reasons I blog and keep my dot com site going is in the hopes that some survivors reading about my story can avoid at least some of the long, drawn out, painful detours of recovery that I've experienced. For starters, I have been working on recovery from extreme child abuse, incest, torture, PTSD and a dissociative disorder for about 15 years. I think you could call me a therapy "veteran."
Now, I didn't even find out I had PTSD until about 10 years ago. Then, it took me a while to realize that a diagnosis of a dissociative disorder was appropriate for my situation. That came about eight years ago. I finally got a really excellent therapist who has a lot of expertise (over 20 years worth) in dissociation in January of 2007. You can read about how I started really (finally) working on my dissociative disorder in this post from 1/07 here.
Back before I found my current therapist--and after my family moved to Colorado--I was given the diagnosis of PTSD. At this time, I attempted EMDR. As many of us know by now, EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. You can link to some EMDR sites on my dot com site's "Treatment & Research" page here.
My first experience with EMDR started out amazingly hopeful but almost ended in disaster. The practitioner that I went to the first time around promised me that the feelings I would experience surrounding a particular trauma memory that we would process in this way would be significantly reduced, or neutralized so to speak, at the end of a session. I want to say that there were times when I experienced this to actually be the case. Unfortunately, my first EMDR therapist neglected to get me appropriately grounded before we started doing EMDR and I became extremely re-traumatized.
I always tell folks, who ask me what I think about EMDR, how important I feel that the grounding piece is. Now, I'm not a doctor, and I would have a hard time advising anyone on exactly what they would need to do, individually, to get grounded before this type of therapy. But, I do advise that you look into the prospect of finding a T who is an expert in traumatic stress if you want to go this route. That person should know exactly what to do to help you get grounded before EMDR...and will know what this means. My second therapist here in Colorado is an expert in traumatic stress and he taught me many grounding exercises. Some of them I still do, almost on a daily basis. If you want to find one of these experts yourself, there are links to lists of therapists who are board certified experts in traumatic stress on the same Treatment page of my dot com site that I mentioned earlier.
But you know what? Reducing the feeling stress associated with my childhood trauma hasn't worked out to be the key to my healing at all. I didn't hear this battle cry of "Feel the Feelings" until I went down to the Colin Ross program down in Dallas in September of 2006. There is a link to the Colin A. Ross Institute For Psychological Trauma on my dot com Treatment page as well.
Down in Dallas, they were really big on "Feel The Feelings!" I didn't really know why at the time, but after I allowed myself to feel the buried feelings associated with my response to my childhood abuse, I would feel amazingly better. First, I would be amazed that the feelings didn't somehow kill me...then I'd feel devastated...then, slowly, I'd feel better...somehow more healed. One of the "Feel-The-Feelings" exercises I did with materials from the Ross program is talked about in this post here from December of 2006. It really gets into the feelings of grief and loss.
What I later learned is that my dissociated parts were keeping many of the feelings from me in order to protect me. A child just can't come face to face with those kinds of life-shattering feelings during the childhood abuse and still expect to be a kid, go to school, and grow up to be an adult. It was my dissociated parts who really needed to realize (and still continue this process today) that I am now not going to die when I get in touch with these feelings. Also, they need to know that they can now let go of their burden. I am the adult and I can carry it on my own now, with the help of my therapist.
One of the things my current therapist always comes back to, in regards to her training, is something called the BASK model. Unfortunately, I can never find much written about it. If I had a book on it, I would add it to my survivor-to-thriver library. I do know that it was developed by Bennett Braun as a model of dissociation. The letters in the BASK acronym stand for Behavior, Affect, Sensation and Knowledge. You can read a little bit about it using this link here.
Here's what I understand about BASK: First of all, my dissociation kept all Knowledge--the "K" in BASK-- of the sexual abuse and torture from my conscious awareness. But, I started to get clues to how my childhood abuse led to my disorder by my Behavior--the "B" in BASK. One of the classic behaviors I exhibited was gravitating toward other abusers. I had "Victim" stamped on my forehead for years. One of the "Sensation" mysteries that always astounded me was my extremely high tolerance for pain. But later, when I was diagnosed with PTSD and started therapy about my child abuse, I started having body memories of physical pain.
What was missing for such a long time was the "Affect" piece. These are my feelings and how I express them. If you--like me at one time--are walking around like a robot with a smile plastered on your face that doesn't seem sincere, I'm going to guess you are also not yet dealing with the feelings, and have little affect showing at this time.
My therapist firmly believes that I need to join all four of these BASK pieces--Behavior, Sensation, Knowledge and Affect--as they relate to my trauma memories, in order to stop relying on dissociation in order to cope...and to recover and heal. I have to say that I've come to the point where I agree with her.
It's an on-going process. I am continuing the journey. But, I am amazed and truly pleased that I am now finding myself much further down along the path than I ever thought I would be!
I feel very honored, actually. This new reader is coming to my dot com site, Survivors Can Thrive! and my blog at the referral of her therapist. I had no idea anything like that was happening. I'm am touched. And like I said, I feel honored.
This reader wanted to know if I had any advice about how to help her share an abuse memory during a counseling session, but, "not go through and experience it again in my mind." I told this reader that I always hesitate to give advice and that I am aware that each person's healing experience is different.
However, this is a huge survivor healing issue. At times, I am really struck by how much it sucks that someone else did this to us--abused us and caused trauma--but we are the ones who must be responsible for our healing and do the work to recover. But, this is the ironic reality.
Another ironic reality, that I have struggled to come to terms with in my own healing, is the fact that I have not been successful at finding any way to go around the painful feelings associated with the abuse. It sounds cliche, but for me, I have found that I really have to go through it to get to the other side. For me, this "other side" is life more in the moment, feeling safe, having functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) relationships, and no longer feeling completely disabled about the prospect of living my day-to-day life.
Now, before I launch into my battle cry of "feel the feelings; it's the key to healing," and you tune my pie-in-the-sky message out, let me tell you a little bit about how I came to this point and this conclusion.
First of all, you need to know that I have had many false starts in therapy and have really floundered many, many times. One of the reasons I blog and keep my dot com site going is in the hopes that some survivors reading about my story can avoid at least some of the long, drawn out, painful detours of recovery that I've experienced. For starters, I have been working on recovery from extreme child abuse, incest, torture, PTSD and a dissociative disorder for about 15 years. I think you could call me a therapy "veteran."
Now, I didn't even find out I had PTSD until about 10 years ago. Then, it took me a while to realize that a diagnosis of a dissociative disorder was appropriate for my situation. That came about eight years ago. I finally got a really excellent therapist who has a lot of expertise (over 20 years worth) in dissociation in January of 2007. You can read about how I started really (finally) working on my dissociative disorder in this post from 1/07 here.
Back before I found my current therapist--and after my family moved to Colorado--I was given the diagnosis of PTSD. At this time, I attempted EMDR. As many of us know by now, EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. You can link to some EMDR sites on my dot com site's "Treatment & Research" page here.
My first experience with EMDR started out amazingly hopeful but almost ended in disaster. The practitioner that I went to the first time around promised me that the feelings I would experience surrounding a particular trauma memory that we would process in this way would be significantly reduced, or neutralized so to speak, at the end of a session. I want to say that there were times when I experienced this to actually be the case. Unfortunately, my first EMDR therapist neglected to get me appropriately grounded before we started doing EMDR and I became extremely re-traumatized.
I always tell folks, who ask me what I think about EMDR, how important I feel that the grounding piece is. Now, I'm not a doctor, and I would have a hard time advising anyone on exactly what they would need to do, individually, to get grounded before this type of therapy. But, I do advise that you look into the prospect of finding a T who is an expert in traumatic stress if you want to go this route. That person should know exactly what to do to help you get grounded before EMDR...and will know what this means. My second therapist here in Colorado is an expert in traumatic stress and he taught me many grounding exercises. Some of them I still do, almost on a daily basis. If you want to find one of these experts yourself, there are links to lists of therapists who are board certified experts in traumatic stress on the same Treatment page of my dot com site that I mentioned earlier.
But you know what? Reducing the feeling stress associated with my childhood trauma hasn't worked out to be the key to my healing at all. I didn't hear this battle cry of "Feel the Feelings" until I went down to the Colin Ross program down in Dallas in September of 2006. There is a link to the Colin A. Ross Institute For Psychological Trauma on my dot com Treatment page as well.
Down in Dallas, they were really big on "Feel The Feelings!" I didn't really know why at the time, but after I allowed myself to feel the buried feelings associated with my response to my childhood abuse, I would feel amazingly better. First, I would be amazed that the feelings didn't somehow kill me...then I'd feel devastated...then, slowly, I'd feel better...somehow more healed. One of the "Feel-The-Feelings" exercises I did with materials from the Ross program is talked about in this post here from December of 2006. It really gets into the feelings of grief and loss.
What I later learned is that my dissociated parts were keeping many of the feelings from me in order to protect me. A child just can't come face to face with those kinds of life-shattering feelings during the childhood abuse and still expect to be a kid, go to school, and grow up to be an adult. It was my dissociated parts who really needed to realize (and still continue this process today) that I am now not going to die when I get in touch with these feelings. Also, they need to know that they can now let go of their burden. I am the adult and I can carry it on my own now, with the help of my therapist.
One of the things my current therapist always comes back to, in regards to her training, is something called the BASK model. Unfortunately, I can never find much written about it. If I had a book on it, I would add it to my survivor-to-thriver library. I do know that it was developed by Bennett Braun as a model of dissociation. The letters in the BASK acronym stand for Behavior, Affect, Sensation and Knowledge. You can read a little bit about it using this link here.
Here's what I understand about BASK: First of all, my dissociation kept all Knowledge--the "K" in BASK-- of the sexual abuse and torture from my conscious awareness. But, I started to get clues to how my childhood abuse led to my disorder by my Behavior--the "B" in BASK. One of the classic behaviors I exhibited was gravitating toward other abusers. I had "Victim" stamped on my forehead for years. One of the "Sensation" mysteries that always astounded me was my extremely high tolerance for pain. But later, when I was diagnosed with PTSD and started therapy about my child abuse, I started having body memories of physical pain.
What was missing for such a long time was the "Affect" piece. These are my feelings and how I express them. If you--like me at one time--are walking around like a robot with a smile plastered on your face that doesn't seem sincere, I'm going to guess you are also not yet dealing with the feelings, and have little affect showing at this time.
My therapist firmly believes that I need to join all four of these BASK pieces--Behavior, Sensation, Knowledge and Affect--as they relate to my trauma memories, in order to stop relying on dissociation in order to cope...and to recover and heal. I have to say that I've come to the point where I agree with her.
It's an on-going process. I am continuing the journey. But, I am amazed and truly pleased that I am now finding myself much further down along the path than I ever thought I would be!
Labels: body memories, child abuse, dissociation, feelings, healing, journey, parts, PTSD, recovery, Survivors Can Thrive, therapy, torture, trauma processing
March 29, 2010
Aware AND Alive: Finding Joy
Hey, folks. I'm back from Spring Break. We couldn't afford to fly anywhere this year and my husband wanted to save money by camping instead of staying in a hotel. I was afraid we were going to freeze our buns off! We had to drive all the way down to Sedona, AZ to find some sunshine and warmth, but it was worth the long road trip. We camped in Oak Creek Canyon where it was gorgeous. I've never slept so well on a camping trip. The sound of the creek was a wonderful lullaby!
Now that I'm back, I'm reading the posts in this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. Mike at Child Abuse Survivor had such a wonderful idea. To help celebrate his Irish heritage and the Irish humor he so appreciates, Mike set up a theme for this edition of humor, joy and survivors finding happiness.
You know, child abuse is such a serious subject and we do need to be warriors fighting against it, raising awareness and working for prevention and recovery. But, we can also celebrate survivors finding joy, humor and a sense of wholeness and happiness. That's the whole reason I decided a long time ago to name my dot com site and my blog Survivors Can Thrive! Don't we all want to emerge from surviving and start thriving in our lives? Sometimes, while I'm down in the trenches of my own recovery, working on my healing, I forget that. Thanks for the reminder, Mike!
Yes, thanks indeed, Mike, for coming up with such an inspired theme. I am smiling reading these posts. I so appreciate our survivor solidarity where we can share our sorrows and our joys. Thanks to all for participating and thank you, in advance, for going to the carnival, reading and sharing your comments on the posts. You'll be glad you stopped by. Go get a smile! :)
Now that I'm back, I'm reading the posts in this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. Mike at Child Abuse Survivor had such a wonderful idea. To help celebrate his Irish heritage and the Irish humor he so appreciates, Mike set up a theme for this edition of humor, joy and survivors finding happiness.
You know, child abuse is such a serious subject and we do need to be warriors fighting against it, raising awareness and working for prevention and recovery. But, we can also celebrate survivors finding joy, humor and a sense of wholeness and happiness. That's the whole reason I decided a long time ago to name my dot com site and my blog Survivors Can Thrive! Don't we all want to emerge from surviving and start thriving in our lives? Sometimes, while I'm down in the trenches of my own recovery, working on my healing, I forget that. Thanks for the reminder, Mike!
Yes, thanks indeed, Mike, for coming up with such an inspired theme. I am smiling reading these posts. I so appreciate our survivor solidarity where we can share our sorrows and our joys. Thanks to all for participating and thank you, in advance, for going to the carnival, reading and sharing your comments on the posts. You'll be glad you stopped by. Go get a smile! :)
Labels: appreciation, beauty, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, child abuse, comfort, community, gratitude, healing, hope, inner child, journey, Poetry, thrive
March 02, 2010
Allowing Myself To Dream Again
Hey, everybody. Sorry I haven't been around the blogosphere all that much as of late. But, one of the main reasons I've been distracted is a good thing. As some of you may know, I'm working on achieving my certificate in botanical illustration.
Dream Job: Botanical Illustrator by MarjakaThriver(on break) on Polyvore.com
I am really enjoying it. My T really likes this for me as she says that it really helps me with my level of competency and self-esteem. I agree. It is also so freeing to dream again. For such a long time, I've felt like recovery, healing, therapy--those things were my full-time job. Now, I feel like some of my old talents and skills have returned and I'm enjoying practicing those things. My undergraduate degree is in commercial art. From the beginning--as an art major in college--I wanted to be an illustrator.
But, I also knew I did not want to be a "starving artist." Therefore, I went to work in Chicago in advertising and corporate communications until all hell broke loose. I got married, got laid off, had a baby and started working on my recovery from child abuse.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm coming out of a long nightmare. It feels wonderful to be dreaming again. It feels even better to be working toward making my dream come true! What dreams do you have that you're working on to make reality?
Dream Job: Botanical Illustrator by MarjakaThriver(on break) on Polyvore.com
I am really enjoying it. My T really likes this for me as she says that it really helps me with my level of competency and self-esteem. I agree. It is also so freeing to dream again. For such a long time, I've felt like recovery, healing, therapy--those things were my full-time job. Now, I feel like some of my old talents and skills have returned and I'm enjoying practicing those things. My undergraduate degree is in commercial art. From the beginning--as an art major in college--I wanted to be an illustrator.
But, I also knew I did not want to be a "starving artist." Therefore, I went to work in Chicago in advertising and corporate communications until all hell broke loose. I got married, got laid off, had a baby and started working on my recovery from child abuse.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm coming out of a long nightmare. It feels wonderful to be dreaming again. It feels even better to be working toward making my dream come true! What dreams do you have that you're working on to make reality?
Labels: healing, hope, journey, recovery, self-esteem, therapy
October 15, 2009
Frozen in Mid-Step; What Now?
I Don't Know Who I Am by Marj aka Thriver on Polyvore.com
So, I'm feeling frustrated, disappointed and overwhelmed in the therapy department. The healing journey is, once again, feeling like an attempt to reach the Mt. Everest summit. Right now, I feel like I've hit a raging blizzard and I'm clawing the jagged rocks, trying not to slip back down, negating a thousand feet of hard-won ascent progress. To be honest, I feel like I need to set up camp and hunker down in my tent while I wait for the storm to pass.
Unfortunately, recovery from a trauma-induced dissociative disorder doesn't work that way. When the storm hits is when I have to muster up the strength and courage to work even harder and keep on climbing, even if it feels like I'm barely putting one foot in front of the other and I can't see where I'm going.
What prompted this, you ask? Well, I've been talking to my twin sister a lot lately about the progress she made at the WIIT program --The Women's Institute For Incorporation Therapy--in Florida. It's a one-of-a-kind treatment facility that practices incorporation therapy for dissociative trauma survivors. The more I talked with her, the more I wanted to try to attend this program myself. I feel like it could help me progress light years faster than the progress I'm making in individual therapy right now.
Let me give you some background detail that may explain why I got so excited about this idea. You see, I've been working a lot lately with parts that I used to call the "punisher parts" in the beginning. In the last year, it's really become apparent to me that these self-harming parts work overtime to maintain the abuse secret.
Here's the scenario I often get, but have just become aware of and started to understand: A young part starts to feel some feelings (not allowed!) of sadness, abandonment, fear, etc. Then a part I like to call a "firefighter" type comes out and jumps through all kinds of crazy hoops trying to shut off/down the feelings. This could include running away in dissociative fugues, getting suicidal, getting drunk, over-spending, etc. etc. Then, one of these protector (punisher) parts comes out and says, "You're getting out of hand. You're drawing too much attention to yourself. You are acting crazy. You're going to blow it. People will find out the secret." So then there's usually some self-injury type behavior. The problem with this is that it brings about huge feelings of shame and guilt, which threatens to start the whole feelings--avoiding feelings spiral all over again. So, I have a part named Serena who takes over and shuts the whole body down. I don't move, I don't talk, I don't do anything.
I'm trying to break this cycle of dissociative dysfunction. I have found--yeah, my therapist was right--that most of these self-destructive parts are really trying to be protective. They think that, if the secret gets out, I am going to be killed. I have found (as scary as they are, at first, to approach) that they are often quite cooperative once we get a dialogue going, get a contract not to self-harm "signed," and then I find them some more appropriate job to do that makes them still feel useful. I have a part named Sentry, for example, who does NOT get to be inappropriate and in people's faces anymore, but he gets the job of always being alert and aware of my surroundings whenever I'm getting out of my car and it's dark outside.
Sounds great, right? Well the difficulty I'm having now is that I've got a few of these protector (punisher) parts "standing down" with contracts and/or new jobs and now all hell is breaking loose with lots of previously-exiled little parts wanting to tell me their part of the story. They're all clamoring to be heard. They have sadness, fear, betrayal, rejection, abandonment, etc. issues to express and abuse memories they have been holding and are now ready to hand off to me. I told my therapist I feel like there's a long line of them stretched out in the dark, waiting to come into the light and be healed. This is great healing/therapy news and sign of progress. But, you can only imagine how overwhelming it is. It's gotten so bad that I'm back to a lot of PTSD symptoms like huge startle response and triggers that are sending me into full-blown flashbacks again. These are symptoms that I've had under control for a few years. So, you can understand why I fear I'm already starting to backslide.
I really thought that the WIIT program would be a great place to process all this in some kind of timely manner with lots of support and without the distractions of my special needs son, my husband, house cleaning, cooking, blah blah blah, etc. Well, I finally got hold of a real, live person at WIIT on the phone yesterday. I was hoping, since I am private pay (no mental health coverage for this pre-existing condition; we pay cash), I would be able to customize my own treatment plan there. Nope. This intake person I talked to wasn't budging. She told me that out-of-state patients are required to spend a minimum of one week inpatient at this facility and then two weeks of intensive outpatient. The alternative is to stay two whole weeks inpatient. She quoted me a price for this that was a small fortune. It was enough to pay for a new car, as a matter of fact!
So, the long and the short of it is that I'm not going. Crap! I might try to stay in a hotel for several days and see my therapist for several hours for a week and see how much we're able to accomplish that way. I don't know. I'll keep you all posted. Pray for a miracle??
Labels: dissociation, journey, overwhelm, parts, PTSD, self-injury, therapy, trauma, triggers
July 25, 2007
I Choose To Be, Now I Am Free!
I wrote this poem over a year ago. It was during a productive time, before I retrieved new childhood abuse memories, that led to the depression, that sent me down to the Colin Ross trauma program in Dallas, Texas. The poem is called I Am Whole. The last line says, "Now I am free!" I have to admit, I don't always believe these lines. But then, The Memory Artist came on my blog and commented with the following:
"Beautiful poem Marj.Just remember that swimming through those dark waters is not entirely about getting to the other side.It is about being immersed and yet, still able to care for your wounded selves along the way.This really is the most difficult kind of love to find, and it sounds like you are finding it. What an amazingly healing and nurturing way to speak to these parts of yourself. Sometimes poetry says things in a way that simple language cannot. " (emphasis mine)
Yes, it may sound cliche, but it is about the journey. Every day I choose to heal to be whole. Each day I choose to recover my freedom. I am reclaiming my soul from those people who so desperately tried to murder it. They did not succeed. I am free and whole!
So, here's something from my Meditations page of my website, www.survivorscanthrive.com:
Somewhere along the journey from victim, to survivor to thriver, you realize: you are not broken; you are whole.
I Am Whole
I am whole
Nothing can shake me
No one can break me
I am whole
It's what I know
Let go control
I am whole
Can't be defined
One heart, one mind
I am whole
Thought I was broken
Cruel words were spoken
But, I am whole
I choose to be
Now I am free!
Copyright 2006 by Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
"Beautiful poem Marj.Just remember that swimming through those dark waters is not entirely about getting to the other side.It is about being immersed and yet, still able to care for your wounded selves along the way.This really is the most difficult kind of love to find, and it sounds like you are finding it. What an amazingly healing and nurturing way to speak to these parts of yourself. Sometimes poetry says things in a way that simple language cannot. " (emphasis mine)
Yes, it may sound cliche, but it is about the journey. Every day I choose to heal to be whole. Each day I choose to recover my freedom. I am reclaiming my soul from those people who so desperately tried to murder it. They did not succeed. I am free and whole!
So, here's something from my Meditations page of my website, www.survivorscanthrive.com:
Somewhere along the journey from victim, to survivor to thriver, you realize: you are not broken; you are whole.
"It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive
to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts."
~ Robert H. Schuller
***
~ Robert H. Schuller
***
I Am Whole
I am whole
Nothing can shake me
No one can break me
I am whole
It's what I know
Let go control
I am whole
Can't be defined
One heart, one mind
I am whole
Thought I was broken
Cruel words were spoken
But, I am whole
I choose to be
Now I am free!
Copyright 2006 by Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
Labels: freedom, healing, journey, Poetry, recovery
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
