January 17, 2011
The Whole Harrowing Story
I was just talking to a neighbor who was asking about my November car accident, injuries, and subsequent surgery. I think I finally feel up to doing the typing necessary to tell you all about it here.
It was the perfect birthday present: a botanical illustration retreat in Gateway Canyons, Colorado. Everything that could possibly go wrong, it seems, did when it came to this retreat I had been looking forward to for months. I won't go into the boring details of the other things that happened in the retreat debacle story. But, it culminated with me totaling my car just three miles before I would have made it to the beautiful resort.
I should never trust Mapquest. They are always wrong about at least one...or a dozen things. If it's not the map itself, it's the directions, or the time duration of the trip (those don't seem to ever be even slightly accurate). The Mapquest directions I had printed out for this drive said to go straight at a "T" intersection where my only alternatives were a right or left turn, of course. I got lost.
I had planned on making it to the resort with plenty of daylight left. Instead--by the time I finally find the correct route again--I'm driving down this twisty-turny, beautiful, two-lane canyon highway as the sun is setting behind the mountains. It was gorgeous, but I started to worry.
I saw the "deer crossing" and "bighorn sheep crossing" (yes, we have those out here in The West) signs right away. Ironically, I didn't pass any "elk crossing" signs and I didn't see any deer, or bighorn sheep. But, I did see a ton of elk. First, I saw a few scattered individuals, then I saw a herd that must have been at least 50-strong, in a valley near some water. "Oh, great," I thought to myself, "the animals are going to be coming out of the trees to my right, crossing the damn road, and then going down to get a drink of water and do their evening grazing to my left. I better drive slow and look out." I really did not want to hit an enormous elk with my car.
As much as I was annoyed and frustrated that I would have to slow down and arrive at the resort even later, I felt this was the safe thing to do. I turned off the car stereo and concentrated on looking out for deer, elk and bighorn sheep at the side of the road and/or crossing the road. I hardly saw any cars, people, or man-made structures of any kind. Sometimes, here in Colorado anyway, you can get some great photos of elk or bighorn sheep when you see other cars slowing down for them or stopping to take their own photos. You can also avoid the mule deer we have here (named for their very large ears) in this same way.
By the time I crashed my car, it was completely dark and black as pitch. There were no street lights in this remote location, and no light coming from any nearby buildings. All I had were the headlights of my car. I had just come around a corner and there he was, caught in those headlights. It was a huge mule deer buck. He was standing, right in the middle of the road, in my lane, perpendicular to the line of my car.
It's strange, the things that can go flying through your mind, in a matter of a few seconds at times like these. My first, weird thought was, "Huh. He doesn't look like the proverbial deer in the headlights at all. He looks more like a sedate cow, chewing its cud."
I noticed, however, that he did appear frozen to the spot. Once it was apparent he wasn't going anywhere, I noticed his big rack of antlers. I wondered if I should "T-bone," or broadside this huge animal. I figured the damage to the car would be worse and I had horrific pictures in my mind of this deer's antlers coming through my windshield and skewering me.
I put on the breaks a bit and turned the steering wheel to the left to see if I could just clip him instead of broadsiding him. But, it was like skidding on ice or hydroplaning on the pavement when there is a lot of water. I was aware that I could roll the car and I wanted to avoid that as I knew the damage that could be done there, from hearing about the experience when my sister rolled her car while hydroplaning years ago. But, I knew, no matter what I did, it was going to be bad. I was not making it to the resort that night, that was certain.
I remember the impact of my car hitting the buck. I felt the impact and I heard it as well. Then, I was careening off the road, watching trees whip past me. "Oh, God," I prayed, "please don't let me hit a tree!" I don't remember the airbags deploying (but they did) and I don't remember hitting the tree. (The state troopers told me later--at the ER of the Grand Junction hospital--that I had, indeed, hit a tree.) My life didn't flash before me, but I know I was praying. "I don't want to leave my husband or my child," I prayed, "please, God, don't let me die!"
The next thing I remember, everything was still and quiet. All I could hear was the car's radiator hissing. I had come to rest in a narrow, deep ditch. My first thought at that point was, "Thank you, God! I'm alive!" I was amazed that the windshield hadn't shattered. I looked down at myself and I held out my hands in front of me. There wasn't even any blood anywhere. It was a miracle! But, I was also very scared even though, I'm sure, I was still in shock. I saw a lot of smoke pouring out of the crumpled front end of the car, from under the hood. It was emitting a terrible, noxious smell. I was afraid the car might burst into flames or something; I decided I should get right out of there.
Between the smoke and the dark, I couldn't see very well, but I felt around for my purse. It had gone flying, and my cell phone had flown out somewhere to unknown regions. I unlocked the car doors, I unbuckled my seat belt without any problems and also opened the driver's side door without any trouble. Amazing! I was thinking, "I've got to get away from this smoking car and get to the road to flag somebody down." I didn't have much hope of that, however. I was, literally, in the middle of the beautiful, picturesque nowhere. Somehow--pure adrenalin I'm sure--I marched up the steep incline, out of the ditch.
Miraculously, I spotted a car coming quite soon. It seemed like only about five minutes, but I'm not sure what my perception of time was at that point. I saw the headlights and didn't worry too much about getting hit by the oncoming car. I stood in the middle of the road and waved the car down with everything I had. It was a woman driving a white van. She slowed down. I stepped out of the way. But, she passed on by. "Oh, shit!" I started praying again. "Please, God, make her turn around!" Mercifully, she did. She was the local pastor's wife and I felt that she was an angel. She wondered, at first, what was going on, who I was, and where my car could be. Then, she saw the smoke and figured my car was down in the ditch and she should turn back to help me. Bless her.
She parked the van at the side of the road and walked back to me. She asked me all the questions that I just indicated she had already figured out for herself. Then she asked, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
It's ironic that the auto safety features that saved my life were responsible for my only injuries. I had some really gruesome looking bruises that came from my seat belt's lap belt, I had a bruise across the bridge of my nose from the airbag and the shoulder harness snapped my clavicle. But, it really is a miracle I am alive, and I am grateful.
The next day after my accident, my husband drove out and got me. We went to the vehicle tow lot to get my luggage and other stuff out of the totaled Subaru Outback Legacy wagon. The front end, all the way up to the windshield, was smashed in so completely as to be unrecognizable. You could see lots of broken-off branches and sticks from the tree and the round, broken spots on the windshield where either the buck's antlers or hooves had impacted. The tow truck driver pointed out where the clumps of deer fur were still stuck to my car.
He said he had a "hellava time" getting my car towed out of that deep ditch. He, and everyone else I had met the previous night, kept asking me, "How did you get out of that ditch?" How did I get out? I don't know. That was a miracle, too, I guess. I'm lucky and I'm happy to be alive. My bruises are gone and I'm healing from my collar bone surgery. They put in a plate and some screws to hold the two broken pieces in place, with one final screw between the two portions as a bone graft.
I'm sleeping better now and I've weened myself off Percoset. I am currently weening myself off of Vicodin, which my doctor put me on because, I guess, it is less habit-forming. But, both have side effects and uncomfortable withdrawal effects. I still can't lift much, but I'm doing my assigned physical therapy exercises and I'm getting stronger on my left side again. I can type with both hands now but it is slow and a bit painful. I make a lot of typos. Thank God for spell-check!
And thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, get-well wishes and healing vibes sent. I start my botanical illustration classes up again in the middle of February and I'm looking forward to that. I hope that the winter isn't being too hard on you and that you have something nice to look forward to, too.
It was the perfect birthday present: a botanical illustration retreat in Gateway Canyons, Colorado. Everything that could possibly go wrong, it seems, did when it came to this retreat I had been looking forward to for months. I won't go into the boring details of the other things that happened in the retreat debacle story. But, it culminated with me totaling my car just three miles before I would have made it to the beautiful resort.
I should never trust Mapquest. They are always wrong about at least one...or a dozen things. If it's not the map itself, it's the directions, or the time duration of the trip (those don't seem to ever be even slightly accurate). The Mapquest directions I had printed out for this drive said to go straight at a "T" intersection where my only alternatives were a right or left turn, of course. I got lost.
I had planned on making it to the resort with plenty of daylight left. Instead--by the time I finally find the correct route again--I'm driving down this twisty-turny, beautiful, two-lane canyon highway as the sun is setting behind the mountains. It was gorgeous, but I started to worry.
I saw the "deer crossing" and "bighorn sheep crossing" (yes, we have those out here in The West) signs right away. Ironically, I didn't pass any "elk crossing" signs and I didn't see any deer, or bighorn sheep. But, I did see a ton of elk. First, I saw a few scattered individuals, then I saw a herd that must have been at least 50-strong, in a valley near some water. "Oh, great," I thought to myself, "the animals are going to be coming out of the trees to my right, crossing the damn road, and then going down to get a drink of water and do their evening grazing to my left. I better drive slow and look out." I really did not want to hit an enormous elk with my car.
As much as I was annoyed and frustrated that I would have to slow down and arrive at the resort even later, I felt this was the safe thing to do. I turned off the car stereo and concentrated on looking out for deer, elk and bighorn sheep at the side of the road and/or crossing the road. I hardly saw any cars, people, or man-made structures of any kind. Sometimes, here in Colorado anyway, you can get some great photos of elk or bighorn sheep when you see other cars slowing down for them or stopping to take their own photos. You can also avoid the mule deer we have here (named for their very large ears) in this same way.
By the time I crashed my car, it was completely dark and black as pitch. There were no street lights in this remote location, and no light coming from any nearby buildings. All I had were the headlights of my car. I had just come around a corner and there he was, caught in those headlights. It was a huge mule deer buck. He was standing, right in the middle of the road, in my lane, perpendicular to the line of my car.
It's strange, the things that can go flying through your mind, in a matter of a few seconds at times like these. My first, weird thought was, "Huh. He doesn't look like the proverbial deer in the headlights at all. He looks more like a sedate cow, chewing its cud."
I noticed, however, that he did appear frozen to the spot. Once it was apparent he wasn't going anywhere, I noticed his big rack of antlers. I wondered if I should "T-bone," or broadside this huge animal. I figured the damage to the car would be worse and I had horrific pictures in my mind of this deer's antlers coming through my windshield and skewering me.
I put on the breaks a bit and turned the steering wheel to the left to see if I could just clip him instead of broadsiding him. But, it was like skidding on ice or hydroplaning on the pavement when there is a lot of water. I was aware that I could roll the car and I wanted to avoid that as I knew the damage that could be done there, from hearing about the experience when my sister rolled her car while hydroplaning years ago. But, I knew, no matter what I did, it was going to be bad. I was not making it to the resort that night, that was certain.
I remember the impact of my car hitting the buck. I felt the impact and I heard it as well. Then, I was careening off the road, watching trees whip past me. "Oh, God," I prayed, "please don't let me hit a tree!" I don't remember the airbags deploying (but they did) and I don't remember hitting the tree. (The state troopers told me later--at the ER of the Grand Junction hospital--that I had, indeed, hit a tree.) My life didn't flash before me, but I know I was praying. "I don't want to leave my husband or my child," I prayed, "please, God, don't let me die!"
The next thing I remember, everything was still and quiet. All I could hear was the car's radiator hissing. I had come to rest in a narrow, deep ditch. My first thought at that point was, "Thank you, God! I'm alive!" I was amazed that the windshield hadn't shattered. I looked down at myself and I held out my hands in front of me. There wasn't even any blood anywhere. It was a miracle! But, I was also very scared even though, I'm sure, I was still in shock. I saw a lot of smoke pouring out of the crumpled front end of the car, from under the hood. It was emitting a terrible, noxious smell. I was afraid the car might burst into flames or something; I decided I should get right out of there.
Between the smoke and the dark, I couldn't see very well, but I felt around for my purse. It had gone flying, and my cell phone had flown out somewhere to unknown regions. I unlocked the car doors, I unbuckled my seat belt without any problems and also opened the driver's side door without any trouble. Amazing! I was thinking, "I've got to get away from this smoking car and get to the road to flag somebody down." I didn't have much hope of that, however. I was, literally, in the middle of the beautiful, picturesque nowhere. Somehow--pure adrenalin I'm sure--I marched up the steep incline, out of the ditch.
Miraculously, I spotted a car coming quite soon. It seemed like only about five minutes, but I'm not sure what my perception of time was at that point. I saw the headlights and didn't worry too much about getting hit by the oncoming car. I stood in the middle of the road and waved the car down with everything I had. It was a woman driving a white van. She slowed down. I stepped out of the way. But, she passed on by. "Oh, shit!" I started praying again. "Please, God, make her turn around!" Mercifully, she did. She was the local pastor's wife and I felt that she was an angel. She wondered, at first, what was going on, who I was, and where my car could be. Then, she saw the smoke and figured my car was down in the ditch and she should turn back to help me. Bless her.
She parked the van at the side of the road and walked back to me. She asked me all the questions that I just indicated she had already figured out for herself. Then she asked, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
It's ironic that the auto safety features that saved my life were responsible for my only injuries. I had some really gruesome looking bruises that came from my seat belt's lap belt, I had a bruise across the bridge of my nose from the airbag and the shoulder harness snapped my clavicle. But, it really is a miracle I am alive, and I am grateful.
The next day after my accident, my husband drove out and got me. We went to the vehicle tow lot to get my luggage and other stuff out of the totaled Subaru Outback Legacy wagon. The front end, all the way up to the windshield, was smashed in so completely as to be unrecognizable. You could see lots of broken-off branches and sticks from the tree and the round, broken spots on the windshield where either the buck's antlers or hooves had impacted. The tow truck driver pointed out where the clumps of deer fur were still stuck to my car.
He said he had a "hellava time" getting my car towed out of that deep ditch. He, and everyone else I had met the previous night, kept asking me, "How did you get out of that ditch?" How did I get out? I don't know. That was a miracle, too, I guess. I'm lucky and I'm happy to be alive. My bruises are gone and I'm healing from my collar bone surgery. They put in a plate and some screws to hold the two broken pieces in place, with one final screw between the two portions as a bone graft.
I'm sleeping better now and I've weened myself off Percoset. I am currently weening myself off of Vicodin, which my doctor put me on because, I guess, it is less habit-forming. But, both have side effects and uncomfortable withdrawal effects. I still can't lift much, but I'm doing my assigned physical therapy exercises and I'm getting stronger on my left side again. I can type with both hands now but it is slow and a bit painful. I make a lot of typos. Thank God for spell-check!
And thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, get-well wishes and healing vibes sent. I start my botanical illustration classes up again in the middle of February and I'm looking forward to that. I hope that the winter isn't being too hard on you and that you have something nice to look forward to, too.
Labels: gratitude, healing, miracles, trauma
November 16, 2010
STAND BY
UPDATE, WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 15: i found out yesterday that i will go in 4 surgery on dec 23. meeerrrrrryyy christmas ! oh well, getting rid of pain and a good nite sleep will be a great gift! thank u all 4 checking on me w/ your kindness, hugs and get-well wishes. *hugs back 2 all of u*
the 5-year anniversary/last official blog post has been delayed due to an unforeseen medical emergency. i have a broken collar bone and can't really type right now. i am using the one-handed, hunt-and-peck method here and it is soooo slow. i am okay and i will be back with an update as soon as i can.
get those posts in for the blog carnival, won't you please? i think the details and links are in my last post below, or you can use the bc widget there on my sidebar. thanks! talk soon.
the 5-year anniversary/last official blog post has been delayed due to an unforeseen medical emergency. i have a broken collar bone and can't really type right now. i am using the one-handed, hunt-and-peck method here and it is soooo slow. i am okay and i will be back with an update as soon as i can.
get those posts in for the blog carnival, won't you please? i think the details and links are in my last post below, or you can use the bc widget there on my sidebar. thanks! talk soon.
Labels: advocacy, anniversary, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, trauma
February 17, 2010
A Part Is Born
Well, I was going to write about eugenics and explore "what if I had never been born" for the birthday-themed Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse this month.
TRIGGER WARNING! Some examples of dissociative outbursts and child abuse ahead. Please stay safe.
But, I had what felt like a set-back the other day. I got really triggered and reacted violently. I spent almost a whole day disparaging myself and even had some self-harm return. I tried so hard to pull myself back, but felt so out of control. I pulled out every grounding trick in the book. I did grounding exercises I haven't even thought of in years. But, it still took me about 24 hours to feel like myself again.
I was really disappointed because I allowed some behaviors to come out that I thought I had contracted against with various parts. I've discovered--and begun to work with--two new parts in the last few weeks. Maybe this is yet another new part who has no such contract with me. I'm not sure.
This got me wondering. Just how is a part "born" anyway? Mine seem to have come about for a whole plethora of reasons. Some are like full-fledged personalities and have tried to run away and start their own lives or have pushed me aside and tried to live life their own way with me out of the way, so to speak.
Some parts have very well-defined roles. Many of these roles are quite dysfunctional for my life now, so I've had to define and assign new roles to some parts. Other parts are what my T refers to as "partial splits," without much of a fleshed-out personality of their own at all. These splits seem to have come about for very specific, time-limited functions designed to keep me alive in my childhood's life-threatening situations.
For example, the first part I ever heard of by name--this was three years ago--was Nina. I was told she "comes out when we're in the shower." If you've ever read the account on my dot com site called, "A Fear Of Plastic Shower Curtains," You can understand why my helpless child self might have wanted to create a part just to take over when I need to take a shower. I haven't worked specifically with Nina via any kind of dialogue, but I have done EMDR on the shower torture incidents and I've done a lot of comforting and self-care work in therapy around this daily hygiene challenge.
In the very first chapter of The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook, Deborah Bray Haddock explains, "In systems where extreme splitting occurs, clients report a host of personality fragments created to do specific tasks, such as cooking, cleaning the house or going to school. Once the task is performed, the fragment becomes inactive."
In the book, The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization, the authors talk about "a fragment that has only a minimal set of response patterns to stimuli, life history, and range of emotion/affect but has knowledge for a short period of time." They go on to say that the actions of some of these fragments are very specialized. "Some...have a very specific purpose during traumatization."
In my case, I have another split or fragment, that I don't have a name for, who came about for the sole purpose of helping me hold my breath for a long time when my father would try to drown me in the bath water. I don't know much about these partial splits or fragments, but it makes sense to me that they would not be very developed if their survival purpose was quite distinct and unique to specific situations that I don't repeatedly come across throughout the day as I go about the business of life.
Then, I have some parts who I have named--or labeled--to match their functions. These functions are more broad than the two I've just mentioned, but still don't lead these labeled parts to control the body for any great length of time. There's Sentry, who I first started getting cooperation with in March of 2007. He was a great help to me when some creep followed me on the streets of Chicago once. Sentry is not afraid to get in any one's face in order to protect me. Unfortunately, he was getting up in peoples faces in inappropriate ways that didn't match present-day situations. So, I had to contract with him to stay located in an internal lighthouse and only "come to the rescue" if some stranger approaches me in a dark parking lot, or something like that.
I have another part I call Serena. But, she's not so much serene as she is still. That is, literally, her role: She keeps the body still so that there can be no self-harm or suicide attempts. I haven't felt her around much lately, but I sure coulda used her the other day when I slapped myself in the face seven or eight times. Luckily, I was able to stop myself rather quickly and vowed to engage in no further self-injury, even without any obvious help from Serena.
Whether my part splits are currently helpful in my day-to-day life, or the actions of these fragments are now dysfunctional for me as an adult living in a safe environment, I'm glad I'm learning about them. For a while, I was convinced that unless I found a part who had a high degree of autonomy and emancipation, I wasn't dealing with dissociated pieces of myself. This is one of the reasons why the "Man, I must be crazy" attitude persisted with me for such a long time.
If you are a dissociative child abuse survivor who is uncovering less complex personality fragments and doubting your diagnosis (or your sanity), I encourage you to read the two books I've mentioned in this post. There's a reason why even your smallest, simplest parts were "born" and you very well may be alive today because of them. So, even if I don't have a name for one of these partial personality fragments, I still make it a point to thank them. They helped keep me safe, they helped me stay sane.
TRIGGER WARNING! Some examples of dissociative outbursts and child abuse ahead. Please stay safe.
But, I had what felt like a set-back the other day. I got really triggered and reacted violently. I spent almost a whole day disparaging myself and even had some self-harm return. I tried so hard to pull myself back, but felt so out of control. I pulled out every grounding trick in the book. I did grounding exercises I haven't even thought of in years. But, it still took me about 24 hours to feel like myself again.
I was really disappointed because I allowed some behaviors to come out that I thought I had contracted against with various parts. I've discovered--and begun to work with--two new parts in the last few weeks. Maybe this is yet another new part who has no such contract with me. I'm not sure.
This got me wondering. Just how is a part "born" anyway? Mine seem to have come about for a whole plethora of reasons. Some are like full-fledged personalities and have tried to run away and start their own lives or have pushed me aside and tried to live life their own way with me out of the way, so to speak.
Some parts have very well-defined roles. Many of these roles are quite dysfunctional for my life now, so I've had to define and assign new roles to some parts. Other parts are what my T refers to as "partial splits," without much of a fleshed-out personality of their own at all. These splits seem to have come about for very specific, time-limited functions designed to keep me alive in my childhood's life-threatening situations.
For example, the first part I ever heard of by name--this was three years ago--was Nina. I was told she "comes out when we're in the shower." If you've ever read the account on my dot com site called, "A Fear Of Plastic Shower Curtains," You can understand why my helpless child self might have wanted to create a part just to take over when I need to take a shower. I haven't worked specifically with Nina via any kind of dialogue, but I have done EMDR on the shower torture incidents and I've done a lot of comforting and self-care work in therapy around this daily hygiene challenge.
In the very first chapter of The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook, Deborah Bray Haddock explains, "In systems where extreme splitting occurs, clients report a host of personality fragments created to do specific tasks, such as cooking, cleaning the house or going to school. Once the task is performed, the fragment becomes inactive."
In the book, The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization, the authors talk about "a fragment that has only a minimal set of response patterns to stimuli, life history, and range of emotion/affect but has knowledge for a short period of time." They go on to say that the actions of some of these fragments are very specialized. "Some...have a very specific purpose during traumatization."
In my case, I have another split or fragment, that I don't have a name for, who came about for the sole purpose of helping me hold my breath for a long time when my father would try to drown me in the bath water. I don't know much about these partial splits or fragments, but it makes sense to me that they would not be very developed if their survival purpose was quite distinct and unique to specific situations that I don't repeatedly come across throughout the day as I go about the business of life.
Then, I have some parts who I have named--or labeled--to match their functions. These functions are more broad than the two I've just mentioned, but still don't lead these labeled parts to control the body for any great length of time. There's Sentry, who I first started getting cooperation with in March of 2007. He was a great help to me when some creep followed me on the streets of Chicago once. Sentry is not afraid to get in any one's face in order to protect me. Unfortunately, he was getting up in peoples faces in inappropriate ways that didn't match present-day situations. So, I had to contract with him to stay located in an internal lighthouse and only "come to the rescue" if some stranger approaches me in a dark parking lot, or something like that.
I have another part I call Serena. But, she's not so much serene as she is still. That is, literally, her role: She keeps the body still so that there can be no self-harm or suicide attempts. I haven't felt her around much lately, but I sure coulda used her the other day when I slapped myself in the face seven or eight times. Luckily, I was able to stop myself rather quickly and vowed to engage in no further self-injury, even without any obvious help from Serena.
Whether my part splits are currently helpful in my day-to-day life, or the actions of these fragments are now dysfunctional for me as an adult living in a safe environment, I'm glad I'm learning about them. For a while, I was convinced that unless I found a part who had a high degree of autonomy and emancipation, I wasn't dealing with dissociated pieces of myself. This is one of the reasons why the "Man, I must be crazy" attitude persisted with me for such a long time.
If you are a dissociative child abuse survivor who is uncovering less complex personality fragments and doubting your diagnosis (or your sanity), I encourage you to read the two books I've mentioned in this post. There's a reason why even your smallest, simplest parts were "born" and you very well may be alive today because of them. So, even if I don't have a name for one of these partial personality fragments, I still make it a point to thank them. They helped keep me safe, they helped me stay sane.
Labels: aftermath, alters, birthdays, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, child abuse, dissociation, mapping, memory work, parts, self-care, torture, trauma, triggers
November 13, 2009
My Parts Are Alive...
...With The Sound of Triggers!
Quick request, bloggy buddies, for you to send up a quick prayer, healing thought, positive vibe, etc. My therapist has been rearranging my appointments lately (still doing the double-time every week) because her mother is in the hospital. While I certainly feel for her and know she has her own life, this couldn't have come at a worse time.
I've got these little child parts telling me about torture memories that occurred outside the "family" and I seem to have had some parts who held all the triggering noises for me. Guess what? They're all PTSD and flashback-like now. It seems I'm triggered by just about anything that sounds like it has a motor in it.
I'm doing all I can to comfort and calm without the support of my T while she's out of town, but it's just all I can do to keep it together right now. Yesterday, I heard some motor noise--truck, street sweeper, I don't know--and a scared voice came out of my mouth saying, "It's coming closer. Where is it? I have to see it so I know how close it's getting!" This was quickly followed by a tearful crumpling. I've been ultra sensitive to sounds and having flashbacks today as well. So, I've had my MediaPlayer on all day, playing the same soft garden sounds/music over and over to cover up noises and calm my shattered nerves.
I'm doing a lot of work right now, but it can sure be filled sometimes with trauma triggers and fear. Thanks, in advance, for those thoughts, prayers and vibes, all.
Quick request, bloggy buddies, for you to send up a quick prayer, healing thought, positive vibe, etc. My therapist has been rearranging my appointments lately (still doing the double-time every week) because her mother is in the hospital. While I certainly feel for her and know she has her own life, this couldn't have come at a worse time.
I've got these little child parts telling me about torture memories that occurred outside the "family" and I seem to have had some parts who held all the triggering noises for me. Guess what? They're all PTSD and flashback-like now. It seems I'm triggered by just about anything that sounds like it has a motor in it.
I'm doing all I can to comfort and calm without the support of my T while she's out of town, but it's just all I can do to keep it together right now. Yesterday, I heard some motor noise--truck, street sweeper, I don't know--and a scared voice came out of my mouth saying, "It's coming closer. Where is it? I have to see it so I know how close it's getting!" This was quickly followed by a tearful crumpling. I've been ultra sensitive to sounds and having flashbacks today as well. So, I've had my MediaPlayer on all day, playing the same soft garden sounds/music over and over to cover up noises and calm my shattered nerves.
I'm doing a lot of work right now, but it can sure be filled sometimes with trauma triggers and fear. Thanks, in advance, for those thoughts, prayers and vibes, all.
Labels: aftermath, alters, child abuse, comfort, dissociation, memory work, PTSD, therapy, torture, trauma, triggers
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
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
January 10, 2009
I Resolve to Comfort my Inner Child
After having a much better Christmas than usual or expected--okay, here's the whiny-wiener bad news--I fell while cross-country skiing and injured a few ribs. Then, I got a bad cold. While I was sitting around feeling pain and feeling sorry for myself, I realized that physical illness and injury are big trauma triggers for me.
At my therapist appointment on Thursday, my T said, "You know the actual physical trauma of child abuse gets overlooked and neglected in therapy quite a bit. We focus so much on the emotional trauma and working on feelings, that we don't spend much time on the physical part. As a little girl, you were very, very hurt physically. And most of the time your physical injuries were ignored and received no medical attention."
After she said that, I realized the childhood memory that my recent injury was reminding me of. It wasn't an abuse injury, but the incident reminds me of how many times my childhood injuries and/or illnesses were ignored, overlooked and not attended to in any appropriate, parenting sort of way.
My parents had divorced and, being the upstanding, attentive, appropriate, sane father that he was, dear old "Dad" got full visitation rights with us kids. He had his old, red, two-door jalopy parked in our driveway, waiting to take us to his place for our "visit." I remember that it was winter and there was snow on the ground. My older brother was already seated in the front seat, and my twin sister and I were scooting into the back seat when it happened.
I remember we were all in a hurry to get out of there (even if it was to be with our monster father) because our parents were yelling across the yard at each other: It was the same old topic of, "Where's the child support money?" I got into the back seat first. In her haste to get in after me and close the door behind her, my sister accidentally slammed one of my hands in the heavy car door. I immediately began to wail in pain, while my sister and brother scrambled to get the door back open and release my hand.
My father was oblivious to all this commotion. Instead, he chose this exact moment to zero in and focus on a tiny hole in the knee of my pants, about the size of a dime. Immediately he began to rage. "What the hell do you think you're doing, dressing like this for your visit with me?! Of all the hard-earned money I send to your mother every month, she can't dress you any better than this?! You both have a lot of nerve! Go in and change your clothes immediately! We're not going anywhere with you dressed in rags!" I remember his words and the look of disbelief and outrage on his face. The details of what happened next, however, are rather a blur.
I know my hand hurt like hell. I know all three of us kids did go back inside the house. I know my parents kept on yelling until my father finally drove away alone. I know I did not receive any medical attention--parental attention of any kind--for my smashed hand. There was no emergency room, no doctor's call, no ice pack, nothing. I think I went into the bathroom and ran some cold water in the sink to soothe my throbbing hand.
Now, with a broken rib, all you can do is wait for it to heal. You're not put into a cast. About all you can do is ice it down and take pain meds. It takes about six to eight weeks--and you wait and wait--to get back to normal activity while your ribs heal. That's about all I can do.
There's not much else to be done on this rib issue, when it comes to my healthy, present day self care. But, I started thinking that there are so many ways I can nurture and heal my inner child. This remembrance is an opportunity for me to mourn my lost and neglected childhood and to grieve for the emotional and physical pain that I, as a little girl, had to endure alone. What types of nurturing and basic care did you not receive from the people who were supposed to be your parents?
Hhmmm...let's start a list. Mothering we didn’t get: reassurance, warmth, comfort, empathy, compassion, protection, optimism, confidence, faith, songs, rocking, attachment, holding, gentleness, patience, allowance, acceptance, guidance, safety, reliability, consistency, TLC, caring, attention, medical attention, adoration, play, wisdom, tenderness, joy, trust, LOVE, unconditional love, nurturing, delight...
You are beautiful
At my therapist appointment on Thursday, my T said, "You know the actual physical trauma of child abuse gets overlooked and neglected in therapy quite a bit. We focus so much on the emotional trauma and working on feelings, that we don't spend much time on the physical part. As a little girl, you were very, very hurt physically. And most of the time your physical injuries were ignored and received no medical attention."
After she said that, I realized the childhood memory that my recent injury was reminding me of. It wasn't an abuse injury, but the incident reminds me of how many times my childhood injuries and/or illnesses were ignored, overlooked and not attended to in any appropriate, parenting sort of way.
My parents had divorced and, being the upstanding, attentive, appropriate, sane father that he was, dear old "Dad" got full visitation rights with us kids. He had his old, red, two-door jalopy parked in our driveway, waiting to take us to his place for our "visit." I remember that it was winter and there was snow on the ground. My older brother was already seated in the front seat, and my twin sister and I were scooting into the back seat when it happened.
I remember we were all in a hurry to get out of there (even if it was to be with our monster father) because our parents were yelling across the yard at each other: It was the same old topic of, "Where's the child support money?" I got into the back seat first. In her haste to get in after me and close the door behind her, my sister accidentally slammed one of my hands in the heavy car door. I immediately began to wail in pain, while my sister and brother scrambled to get the door back open and release my hand.
My father was oblivious to all this commotion. Instead, he chose this exact moment to zero in and focus on a tiny hole in the knee of my pants, about the size of a dime. Immediately he began to rage. "What the hell do you think you're doing, dressing like this for your visit with me?! Of all the hard-earned money I send to your mother every month, she can't dress you any better than this?! You both have a lot of nerve! Go in and change your clothes immediately! We're not going anywhere with you dressed in rags!" I remember his words and the look of disbelief and outrage on his face. The details of what happened next, however, are rather a blur.
I know my hand hurt like hell. I know all three of us kids did go back inside the house. I know my parents kept on yelling until my father finally drove away alone. I know I did not receive any medical attention--parental attention of any kind--for my smashed hand. There was no emergency room, no doctor's call, no ice pack, nothing. I think I went into the bathroom and ran some cold water in the sink to soothe my throbbing hand.
Now, with a broken rib, all you can do is wait for it to heal. You're not put into a cast. About all you can do is ice it down and take pain meds. It takes about six to eight weeks--and you wait and wait--to get back to normal activity while your ribs heal. That's about all I can do.
There's not much else to be done on this rib issue, when it comes to my healthy, present day self care. But, I started thinking that there are so many ways I can nurture and heal my inner child. This remembrance is an opportunity for me to mourn my lost and neglected childhood and to grieve for the emotional and physical pain that I, as a little girl, had to endure alone. What types of nurturing and basic care did you not receive from the people who were supposed to be your parents?
Hhmmm...let's start a list. Mothering we didn’t get: reassurance, warmth, comfort, empathy, compassion, protection, optimism, confidence, faith, songs, rocking, attachment, holding, gentleness, patience, allowance, acceptance, guidance, safety, reliability, consistency, TLC, caring, attention, medical attention, adoration, play, wisdom, tenderness, joy, trust, LOVE, unconditional love, nurturing, delight...
Delight. Yes. Don't you like that one? Is it so much to ask that a mother actually take delight in her precious child? It comes so easily for me with my own beautiful son. The day I brought my tiny newborn home from the hospital was about the most elated I've ever been in my life. I was so delighted with my new child. Why was it such an overwhelming burden and impossibility for my own mother?
This is one of the reasons why I did what many may consider an odd thing--I bought a baby doll and I sing to her. In a mindful and sincere way, I sing to my inner child: "You're my beautiful baby girl. You're an angel in this world. You're adorable. My beautiful baby girl."
Using my motherly list I started above, I wrote a poem, which I can also put to music in my head and sing to my inner child. Here it is:
Nurture My Soul
I love you
There, there
Let me comfort you
I care
It’s Okay
It’s okay to cry
I’ll protect you
I’m here
It’s safe now for you to rest
Lay your head down
Here’s my shoulder
I will stroke your hair
It’s okay
You can show me
I will dress your wounds
Sleep now
Close your eyes
I will stay with you
No need to hide
It’s safe for you now
You can be you with me
Run to me
When you’re scared
I will protect you
You can feel
Even your rage
It is safe with me
You are beautiful
The way you are
I find great joy in you
I am patient
With your not knowing
And I will show you how
My arms are open
Fall into them
I will gently rock you
You’re frightened
It’s dark
Be still; I’ll sing to you
Everyone has fears
But the world can be a wonderful place
I’ll help you to see that It’ll be okay.
Copyright 2009 Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
Labels: child abuse, child parts, comfort, inner child, needs, nurturing, pain, Poetry, self-care, therapy, trauma, triggers
November 14, 2008
The Drug of Dissociation
As I promised in my last comment on my previous (October--yikes!) post, here is an update on me.
For the first time ever--at least that I'm aware of--it doesn't look like I'm going to get a break between the "end-of-the-summer/back-to-school freak-out" and my annual "holiday freak-out." Good God! Can we really be coming up on Thanksgiving already? I can't begin to describe to you my exhaustion.
I've also been dealing with a lot of body pain lately. My therapist says they are body memories. I had no idea that my goal of being in my body would be so much fun. Not!
I want to go on record, right here and now, of saying that I officially apologize to anyone on this planet who deals with chronic pain. I'm sorry that I could not empathize with you before. Having been out of my body for most of my life, I must admit that I thought chronic pain sufferers were a bit on the weak side. Of course, I couldn't know their pain--couldn't empathize--because I didn't know pain. If one is not in one's body, one does not know physical, body pain very well.
I also want to admit that I can't take much credit for giving birth to my son without the help of pain killers. It was my goal to have a birth experience that was natural, and not have any drugs in my system or that of my newborn's. Even with back labor, I did not have anything to take the edge off. Now, I'm not saying that I didn't feel anything. And I did have a doula to help me. But, I did get through what must have been some pretty agonizing pain without any drugs, and it wasn't that hard.
I guess, all along, what I had was my drug of choice: it was the drug of dissociation.
Well, guess what, folks? My lifelong drug is wearing off! And, right now, the withdrawal really sucks!
As I think I said in a previous post, this "back-to-school freak-out" season, I've managed to stay out of the hospital. What I've done instead is a shit-load of therapy. Some days have required three hours of therapy. Some weeks have required as much as five hours.
We're getting down to the nitty-gritty of the most heinous torture aspects of my child abuse. I won't get into the gorey, triggering details, but the body pain has been freaky. I've especially had a lot of pain in my wrists, ankles, neck and back. A really weird one is sudden pain at the top of my head...in my scalp! If you can imagine the logistics of immobilizing and torturing a body, you get the idea of maybe why these particular body parts would be telling their story through pain.
And they are telling their abuse story. The good news is that my therapist and I really are getting a lot done in trauma processing as of late. I just don't have much energy for anything else right now.
And sometimes I revert back to the place where I think these memories will kill me. I think, what I did is learn to dissociate at a very early age. I guess I'm convinced that the pain, fear, and knowledge of the abuse will kill me because--through my dissociation--I don't realize that I've actually lived through it already.
Just this Wednesday, I was at the end of my regularly-scheduled therapy session, and I was so consumed by the horror and actual, physical pain of an emerging torture memory, that I got white as a sheet and broke out in a cold sweat. I excused myself and went into the bathroom. I could see in the bathroom mirror that all the color had drained from my face. I felt a bit better when I returned to my T's office, but she was so worried about me that she insisted on walking me to my car. Outside, the fresh air revived me a bit. After sitting in my car for a while, gulping fresh air, I was able to drive home.
Because my T had a cancellation that day, we were able to make another appointment for three hours later. That way, I was able to get some completion on some of this particular trauma processing, and not have it hanging over my head until next week's session.
This is what it's been like for me, being in my body lately.
The upside is that I've been much more consistent at taking care of, pampering, and comforting my body as well. I've been utilizing a lot of these comforting techniques and products these days: deep-penetrating cream for muscle pain, over-the-counter pain meds, calcium and magnesium supplements, my heating pad, massage from my wonderful husband's healing hands (when I can tolerate it), hot tea, soothing music CD's with nature sounds, the cascading water in my fountain, fresh flowers, various types of aromatherapy, cozy, soft pj's and loungewear, stuffed animals...and comfort food. Diet, be damned! As a matter of fact, I'm going for some mac 'n' cheese as soon as I'm done with this post.
When the pain starts to get to me, I've just got to remember some of these cozy, yummy, positive aspects of now being in my body.
Please continue to be patient with me as I continue to comfort, cocoon and convalesce. Thanks!
For the first time ever--at least that I'm aware of--it doesn't look like I'm going to get a break between the "end-of-the-summer/back-to-school freak-out" and my annual "holiday freak-out." Good God! Can we really be coming up on Thanksgiving already? I can't begin to describe to you my exhaustion.
I've also been dealing with a lot of body pain lately. My therapist says they are body memories. I had no idea that my goal of being in my body would be so much fun. Not!
I want to go on record, right here and now, of saying that I officially apologize to anyone on this planet who deals with chronic pain. I'm sorry that I could not empathize with you before. Having been out of my body for most of my life, I must admit that I thought chronic pain sufferers were a bit on the weak side. Of course, I couldn't know their pain--couldn't empathize--because I didn't know pain. If one is not in one's body, one does not know physical, body pain very well.
I also want to admit that I can't take much credit for giving birth to my son without the help of pain killers. It was my goal to have a birth experience that was natural, and not have any drugs in my system or that of my newborn's. Even with back labor, I did not have anything to take the edge off. Now, I'm not saying that I didn't feel anything. And I did have a doula to help me. But, I did get through what must have been some pretty agonizing pain without any drugs, and it wasn't that hard.
I guess, all along, what I had was my drug of choice: it was the drug of dissociation.
Well, guess what, folks? My lifelong drug is wearing off! And, right now, the withdrawal really sucks!
As I think I said in a previous post, this "back-to-school freak-out" season, I've managed to stay out of the hospital. What I've done instead is a shit-load of therapy. Some days have required three hours of therapy. Some weeks have required as much as five hours.
We're getting down to the nitty-gritty of the most heinous torture aspects of my child abuse. I won't get into the gorey, triggering details, but the body pain has been freaky. I've especially had a lot of pain in my wrists, ankles, neck and back. A really weird one is sudden pain at the top of my head...in my scalp! If you can imagine the logistics of immobilizing and torturing a body, you get the idea of maybe why these particular body parts would be telling their story through pain.
And they are telling their abuse story. The good news is that my therapist and I really are getting a lot done in trauma processing as of late. I just don't have much energy for anything else right now.
And sometimes I revert back to the place where I think these memories will kill me. I think, what I did is learn to dissociate at a very early age. I guess I'm convinced that the pain, fear, and knowledge of the abuse will kill me because--through my dissociation--I don't realize that I've actually lived through it already.
Just this Wednesday, I was at the end of my regularly-scheduled therapy session, and I was so consumed by the horror and actual, physical pain of an emerging torture memory, that I got white as a sheet and broke out in a cold sweat. I excused myself and went into the bathroom. I could see in the bathroom mirror that all the color had drained from my face. I felt a bit better when I returned to my T's office, but she was so worried about me that she insisted on walking me to my car. Outside, the fresh air revived me a bit. After sitting in my car for a while, gulping fresh air, I was able to drive home.
Because my T had a cancellation that day, we were able to make another appointment for three hours later. That way, I was able to get some completion on some of this particular trauma processing, and not have it hanging over my head until next week's session.
This is what it's been like for me, being in my body lately.
The upside is that I've been much more consistent at taking care of, pampering, and comforting my body as well. I've been utilizing a lot of these comforting techniques and products these days: deep-penetrating cream for muscle pain, over-the-counter pain meds, calcium and magnesium supplements, my heating pad, massage from my wonderful husband's healing hands (when I can tolerate it), hot tea, soothing music CD's with nature sounds, the cascading water in my fountain, fresh flowers, various types of aromatherapy, cozy, soft pj's and loungewear, stuffed animals...and comfort food. Diet, be damned! As a matter of fact, I'm going for some mac 'n' cheese as soon as I'm done with this post.
When the pain starts to get to me, I've just got to remember some of these cozy, yummy, positive aspects of now being in my body.
Please continue to be patient with me as I continue to comfort, cocoon and convalesce. Thanks!
Labels: anniversary, body connection, body memories, child abuse, comfort, dissociation, holidays, pain, self-care, Thanksgiving, therapy, torture, trauma, trauma processing
September 17, 2008
Dissociative Detour...
...On the Way to Thriving...
...On the Way to The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse...
Well, well, well. I feel like I just woke up from one of those dreams where I'm about to enter a classroom for a final exam I haven't studied one lick for...
...and I discover I'm naked in front of everybody!
I'm feeling embarrassed and a bit like a chastised child.
I had one of the biggest dissociative "episodes" of my life, that I'm aware of any way. It started as we were coming back from our family vacation, just before the new school year began. I think Logan Airport, in Boston--where I'd only been once, on a business trip--was one of the triggers that set it all off. I feel like I'm just now almost completely done "coming down" from the whole dissociative nightmare...I mean, detour...like some kind of really frightening drug or something.
It scared my son so much that he, literally, was like, "Who are you and what have you done with my Mommy?" We're going to see my therapist together today, for "the talk." No, not the "sex talk." This will be the talk where we explain "what's wrong with Mom" to my beloved offspring. I've really resisted the urge to give him "too much information" up to this point; a lesson I learned from my sister as she tried to explain things years ago to her two young children. But, my therapist has worked with dissociative clients for over 20 years and I know she will be a big help. I hope this will assuage some of his fears and help him not worry so much.
So, anyway. The hiatus for the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is supposed to be over, right? I think the deadline for submissions was supposed to be today for a Friday post here, at Survivors Can Thrive! I've been to Blog Carnival dot com a couple of times today and the site is down. See the widget as you scroll down my sidebar? It's messed up.
Ah well, maybe that's a good thing, ya know? I think what I'd like to do anyway is extend the deadline for submissions and run the Carnival on Monday. Would you all be cool with that? As soon as the BC site is back up and I can log in, I'll go and change the dates. So, we have a little breathing room. Aaahhhh...that sounds nice, doesn't it? ;)
How 'bout we make the theme for the September Carnival something about Fall, Summer coming to an end, Transitions, or something like that. I should be able to come up with my own post about this time of year, as it always seems to hold great trauma-related/dissociative surprises for me. I still haven't figured out exactly what it's about. It's not like it's a specific "anniversary" or anything. It seems to sneak up as early as the middle of August, and have the potential to bite me in the ass until about mid-October. Fun, huh? Oh well. At least, this time, I was able to stay out of the hospital. That's improvement, right?
On another Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse note: I don't want to abandon the carnival that I founded and maintain. But, I'm looking for an extended break of sorts. What I'd like to look for supporters for is this idea: I want Carnival participants and past hosts to think about "managing" the Carnival in a guest-like, long-term stint for a commitment of six months to a year. I will still promote the Carnival at my blog and around the survivor-thriver community and submit my own posts. I'm hoping this will help our carnival stay on a month-by-month basis of continuity. Anybody willing out there? Please comment and/or leave me an e-mail message if you'd be interested. Thanks, all!
And get those September/Fall BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE submissions in. As soon as Blog Carnival is back up, I'll insert the submission form for you to use here.
...On the Way to The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse...
Well, well, well. I feel like I just woke up from one of those dreams where I'm about to enter a classroom for a final exam I haven't studied one lick for...
...and I discover I'm naked in front of everybody!
I'm feeling embarrassed and a bit like a chastised child.
I had one of the biggest dissociative "episodes" of my life, that I'm aware of any way. It started as we were coming back from our family vacation, just before the new school year began. I think Logan Airport, in Boston--where I'd only been once, on a business trip--was one of the triggers that set it all off. I feel like I'm just now almost completely done "coming down" from the whole dissociative nightmare...I mean, detour...like some kind of really frightening drug or something.
It scared my son so much that he, literally, was like, "Who are you and what have you done with my Mommy?" We're going to see my therapist together today, for "the talk." No, not the "sex talk." This will be the talk where we explain "what's wrong with Mom" to my beloved offspring. I've really resisted the urge to give him "too much information" up to this point; a lesson I learned from my sister as she tried to explain things years ago to her two young children. But, my therapist has worked with dissociative clients for over 20 years and I know she will be a big help. I hope this will assuage some of his fears and help him not worry so much.
So, anyway. The hiatus for the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is supposed to be over, right? I think the deadline for submissions was supposed to be today for a Friday post here, at Survivors Can Thrive! I've been to Blog Carnival dot com a couple of times today and the site is down. See the widget as you scroll down my sidebar? It's messed up.
Ah well, maybe that's a good thing, ya know? I think what I'd like to do anyway is extend the deadline for submissions and run the Carnival on Monday. Would you all be cool with that? As soon as the BC site is back up and I can log in, I'll go and change the dates. So, we have a little breathing room. Aaahhhh...that sounds nice, doesn't it? ;)
How 'bout we make the theme for the September Carnival something about Fall, Summer coming to an end, Transitions, or something like that. I should be able to come up with my own post about this time of year, as it always seems to hold great trauma-related/dissociative surprises for me. I still haven't figured out exactly what it's about. It's not like it's a specific "anniversary" or anything. It seems to sneak up as early as the middle of August, and have the potential to bite me in the ass until about mid-October. Fun, huh? Oh well. At least, this time, I was able to stay out of the hospital. That's improvement, right?
On another Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse note: I don't want to abandon the carnival that I founded and maintain. But, I'm looking for an extended break of sorts. What I'd like to look for supporters for is this idea: I want Carnival participants and past hosts to think about "managing" the Carnival in a guest-like, long-term stint for a commitment of six months to a year. I will still promote the Carnival at my blog and around the survivor-thriver community and submit my own posts. I'm hoping this will help our carnival stay on a month-by-month basis of continuity. Anybody willing out there? Please comment and/or leave me an e-mail message if you'd be interested. Thanks, all!
And get those September/Fall BLOG CARNIVAL AGAINST CHILD ABUSE submissions in. As soon as Blog Carnival is back up, I'll insert the submission form for you to use here.
Labels: Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, dissociation, therapy, trauma, triggers
June 10, 2008
Therapy for Everybody!
Well dang! I'm noticing that it's Tuesday already and I'm not quite getting that "aaahh, that's better" feeling; catching up on things with my son at his computer day camp this week. This morning, I felt quite stressed out, as a matter of fact. Seems I'm running from appointment to appointment and there isn't any big chunk of time in between for all that catching up on things I wanted to do.
Do you know? I'm in therapy...my son is in therapy...we're going to family therapy to work on communicating about our challenges and issues better....and even the dog is in therapy! Can you believe it? Seems like a little overkill doesn't it?
Well, I had to do something. We were reaching critical meltdown at the end of the school year: It seemed like every week I was getting a negative call from one of the teachers at my son's school; and my son and husband were yelling at each other; and I had to pull my dog off of some poor, unsuspecting walking dog on the bike path next to our house! Aaaaccckkkk! It was out of control!
It appears that trauma has even leaked over into the canine world around here. The pattern that I've picked up on is that my dog gets all stressed out, then aggressive with other female dogs.
See, there's this dog in the neighborhood that I've had problems with (well, her owner, actually). I've had several conversations with this dog's owner, to no avail. This other dog is also a female and is allowed to roam freely around the neighborhood. I'm surprised she hasn't been hit by a car by now. She also has a very territorial, "I'm-the-alpha-female-around-here" attitude. Unless I'm diligent and keep them apart, this other female nails my dog every time they come in contact with each other. There's never been any blood drawn or physical injuries. But, the trainer I'm taking my dog to now says she definitely thinks this other dog has traumatized my dog. Oh, goody!
Anyway, I took my dog, Lyla, to the trainer at 10:00 this morning. That made somewhere I had to be at 8:00, 9:00 and then 10:00 just so far today. Whew! I need a vacation!
In fact, I'm going to do that at the end of this month. I'm also thinking about just letting the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse go on Summer hiatus until the fall. Then, I've got some bloggy book tours I've promised to do. I'm hoping we can weave them into the blog carnival in some way. While we're taking a break, can I get some of you to sign up for monthly hosting slots in the fall? Start thinking about it, okay? Then, just leave a comment or e-mail me.
So, I called the doctor I've been working with on my TOC for my arm/shoulder and I cancelled my appointment for tomorrow. An appointment I can't cancel is with my T on Thursday. Yippy, skippy, oh boy! That surgery I had for the skin cancer has, apparently, dredged up an old torture/abuse memory that I need to work on. Maybe after that, I just might take a dissociative therapy hiatus as well.
What I'm really enjoying working on right now is a project I have in my yard. I'm doing all the design and landscaping work myself. I should have taken "before" pictures, because it's really amazing the changes that are occurring out there. We live in fairly new construction and all that was in my backyard was mulch before. There's a huge slope to my backyard, so all the wood chips have washed down to the fence at the edge of the yard--that left weeds and dirt! Lovely! So, now I'm building an enormous rock garden instead of a retaining wall, to keep everything from migrating down the slope. And I'm putting in a flagstone path with "stepable," ground-cover plants in between instead of a lawn I have to water and mow.
If I can figure out how to do it, I may post some photos of my project. I gotta say, I sure like this sort of work better than therapy!
Okay, so there's an updated blog post. And, I promise I will get around to some blogs this week. I will try my best to also catch up on some of the requests I've gotten in bloggy land. I also hope to do some house cleaning on my template. You know, links and stuff. BTW, does anybody know how to compress the archives for old blog posts? That sidebar list is getting a bit long, wouldn't you agree? Please don't anybody take it personally that I'm so far behind in cyber land. As you can see, there are many areas I need to catch up on, in addition to commenting at other blogs. I'm also behind on everything here at home. I've GOT to get to the grocery store and I estimate I have seven or eight loads of laundry to do. Loads number one and two are working in the washer and dryer as I blog now.
But, the Blog Carnival is on hold for a few months. I hope we can all live with that. Something's just gotta give, ya know? And I'm not willing for it to be my physical or emotional health.
See y'all around the blogosphere!
Do you know? I'm in therapy...my son is in therapy...we're going to family therapy to work on communicating about our challenges and issues better....and even the dog is in therapy! Can you believe it? Seems like a little overkill doesn't it?
Well, I had to do something. We were reaching critical meltdown at the end of the school year: It seemed like every week I was getting a negative call from one of the teachers at my son's school; and my son and husband were yelling at each other; and I had to pull my dog off of some poor, unsuspecting walking dog on the bike path next to our house! Aaaaccckkkk! It was out of control!
It appears that trauma has even leaked over into the canine world around here. The pattern that I've picked up on is that my dog gets all stressed out, then aggressive with other female dogs.
See, there's this dog in the neighborhood that I've had problems with (well, her owner, actually). I've had several conversations with this dog's owner, to no avail. This other dog is also a female and is allowed to roam freely around the neighborhood. I'm surprised she hasn't been hit by a car by now. She also has a very territorial, "I'm-the-alpha-female-around-here" attitude. Unless I'm diligent and keep them apart, this other female nails my dog every time they come in contact with each other. There's never been any blood drawn or physical injuries. But, the trainer I'm taking my dog to now says she definitely thinks this other dog has traumatized my dog. Oh, goody!
Anyway, I took my dog, Lyla, to the trainer at 10:00 this morning. That made somewhere I had to be at 8:00, 9:00 and then 10:00 just so far today. Whew! I need a vacation!
In fact, I'm going to do that at the end of this month. I'm also thinking about just letting the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse go on Summer hiatus until the fall. Then, I've got some bloggy book tours I've promised to do. I'm hoping we can weave them into the blog carnival in some way. While we're taking a break, can I get some of you to sign up for monthly hosting slots in the fall? Start thinking about it, okay? Then, just leave a comment or e-mail me.
So, I called the doctor I've been working with on my TOC for my arm/shoulder and I cancelled my appointment for tomorrow. An appointment I can't cancel is with my T on Thursday. Yippy, skippy, oh boy! That surgery I had for the skin cancer has, apparently, dredged up an old torture/abuse memory that I need to work on. Maybe after that, I just might take a dissociative therapy hiatus as well.
What I'm really enjoying working on right now is a project I have in my yard. I'm doing all the design and landscaping work myself. I should have taken "before" pictures, because it's really amazing the changes that are occurring out there. We live in fairly new construction and all that was in my backyard was mulch before. There's a huge slope to my backyard, so all the wood chips have washed down to the fence at the edge of the yard--that left weeds and dirt! Lovely! So, now I'm building an enormous rock garden instead of a retaining wall, to keep everything from migrating down the slope. And I'm putting in a flagstone path with "stepable," ground-cover plants in between instead of a lawn I have to water and mow.
If I can figure out how to do it, I may post some photos of my project. I gotta say, I sure like this sort of work better than therapy!
Okay, so there's an updated blog post. And, I promise I will get around to some blogs this week. I will try my best to also catch up on some of the requests I've gotten in bloggy land. I also hope to do some house cleaning on my template. You know, links and stuff. BTW, does anybody know how to compress the archives for old blog posts? That sidebar list is getting a bit long, wouldn't you agree? Please don't anybody take it personally that I'm so far behind in cyber land. As you can see, there are many areas I need to catch up on, in addition to commenting at other blogs. I'm also behind on everything here at home. I've GOT to get to the grocery store and I estimate I have seven or eight loads of laundry to do. Loads number one and two are working in the washer and dryer as I blog now.
But, the Blog Carnival is on hold for a few months. I hope we can all live with that. Something's just gotta give, ya know? And I'm not willing for it to be my physical or emotional health.
See y'all around the blogosphere!
Labels: Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, dog training, issues, landscaping, memory work, skin cancer, therapy, TOC, trauma
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
January 28, 2008
My Legacy of Shame--Thanks, Mom!
I've just finished reading The Trauma Spectrum by Robert Scaer. This book is pretty clinical--not easy to read--as it talks about how trauma changes the brain. I was especially interested in the chapter on preverbal trauma, as I am just working with a part who is almost entirely preverbal herself.
I've really been struggling with my mother's involvement in my childhood abuse. This struggle has been major for me during the last couple of years. Even though my father sexually abused me and my twin in just about every way one could imagine--even though he almost killed me, because he was a psycho, raging maniac--I'm almost tempted to say that his behavior damaged me less than my mother's did.
I've had this prickly, gnawing, suspicious feeling about this for these two years now. Sometimes I can't get my brain around it at all, other times it just seems downright crazy. Then, I started reading about maternal bonding, attachment and attunement. I believe that none of these states were ever achieved between my mother and my infant self. I am absolutely convinced of this. Then, Scaer talks in his book about "the influence of maternal behavior and bonding on the ability of the developing infant to achieve optimal states of self-regulation in the face of arousal in later life."
I was set up! Almost from the moment of my birth, I was groomed to be traumatized and dissociate in the face of my abuse.
One particular book passage really hit me hard. Have you ever heard of the concept of "conservation-withdrawal?" In a healthy family, this is a normal developmental process in which a baby can safely explore, then find a safe place where it can regroup and then go out and explore and gain new experiences again.
Scaer says, "If bonding has been successful, this limit-setting behavior and the infant's withdrawal response will continue to foster the development of the reflex regulatory skills that control the infant's ability to handle arousal and stress in an appropriate, healthy fashion."
Then, there's the classic line, "on the other hand..." There it was on page 121. I had to read it a couple of times. *blink*
When speaking of this concept of conservation-withdrawal, Scaer describes, "During this state, the infant averts its face, hangs its head, and becomes relatively immobile."
Whoa. As I read this, I'm thinking, "I do this now! I always do this!"
Am I an infant? Why do I still do this?
I highlighted this next part, and put a big asterisk next to it. "If maternal/infant misattunement is present, especially in the case of the mother's excessive use of shame-inducing limitations, the infant will begin to retreat more frequently into the state of conservation-withdrawal and may develop lifelong behavioral patterns that mimic this state when stressed."
Oh, I see.
Scaer goes so far as to say, "Conservation-withdrawal is the earliest manifestation of dissociation, which if perpetuated becomes a lifelong tendency in the face of threat or stress." (The emphasis here is mine.) He continues, "In the day-to-day life of the child, repeated retreat into states of shame presents as repetitive dissociative symptoms..."
Yeah. And I would add, in the day-to-day life of the adult abuse survivor, too!
I noticed this happening just the other day. It was over some slight--some slightly disrespectful remark that left me feeling rejected. I immediately looked away, hung my head and slumped away. I don't often allow myself to do this in front of others, but I always, eventually become immobile. I'll go into my bedroom and sit or lie down and then just stare off in a stupor.
I was explaining all this to my T. I remembered a line from a poem I wrote. There was something in there about "my empty, blank stare." I found the poem. Here it is:
Safe in My Pillow
I’m diving into my pillow
It’s the only safe harbor I know
Hidden away in my pillow
The terror and anguish don’t show
I’m becoming a part of my pillow
Like a turtle pulling into its shell
Scratching and clawing for my pillow
You can’t drag me into your hell
And if you take me away from my pillow
You won’t know that I’m really not there
I just send my mind to my pillow
It’s behind my empty, blank stare
I know I can trust in my pillow
How my pillow’s safe comfort warms
Like a soft, warm body, my pillow
I pretend it’s a mother’s loving arms
You’ll never really reach me in my pillow
Though my body you’ll batter and harm
This little girl’s all nestled in her pillow
While outside rages the storm
I’ll just stay here, thank you, in my pillow
You can all just call me insane
It’s my own little world, my pillow
While out in your world a nightmare reigns
Years fly by while I fly in my pillow
It starts to feel lonely and cold
I peek out from under my pillow
How did I get to be so old?
You say I must venture from my pillow
I’ve got to come out and face a new world
How can I let go of my pillow?
Can’t you see I’m still a scared little girl?
Copyright 2003 Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
The funny thing is, my stare isn't blank or empty at all. It's full of shame.
I have a legacy of shame. It seems, no matter how much therapy I do, it is always with me. It's the shame of believing to my core that I am not worth existing, not worth being alive. Logic tells me this is not right. But, I don't believe it.
One of the first self-help books I ever read--back before I even knew I was an incest survivor--was John Bradshaw's Healing The Shame That Binds You. Wow. That book was published back in 1988. Maybe I need to go back and read it again.
I've really been struggling with my mother's involvement in my childhood abuse. This struggle has been major for me during the last couple of years. Even though my father sexually abused me and my twin in just about every way one could imagine--even though he almost killed me, because he was a psycho, raging maniac--I'm almost tempted to say that his behavior damaged me less than my mother's did.
I've had this prickly, gnawing, suspicious feeling about this for these two years now. Sometimes I can't get my brain around it at all, other times it just seems downright crazy. Then, I started reading about maternal bonding, attachment and attunement. I believe that none of these states were ever achieved between my mother and my infant self. I am absolutely convinced of this. Then, Scaer talks in his book about "the influence of maternal behavior and bonding on the ability of the developing infant to achieve optimal states of self-regulation in the face of arousal in later life."
I was set up! Almost from the moment of my birth, I was groomed to be traumatized and dissociate in the face of my abuse.
One particular book passage really hit me hard. Have you ever heard of the concept of "conservation-withdrawal?" In a healthy family, this is a normal developmental process in which a baby can safely explore, then find a safe place where it can regroup and then go out and explore and gain new experiences again.
Scaer says, "If bonding has been successful, this limit-setting behavior and the infant's withdrawal response will continue to foster the development of the reflex regulatory skills that control the infant's ability to handle arousal and stress in an appropriate, healthy fashion."
Then, there's the classic line, "on the other hand..." There it was on page 121. I had to read it a couple of times. *blink*
When speaking of this concept of conservation-withdrawal, Scaer describes, "During this state, the infant averts its face, hangs its head, and becomes relatively immobile."
Whoa. As I read this, I'm thinking, "I do this now! I always do this!"
Am I an infant? Why do I still do this?
I highlighted this next part, and put a big asterisk next to it. "If maternal/infant misattunement is present, especially in the case of the mother's excessive use of shame-inducing limitations, the infant will begin to retreat more frequently into the state of conservation-withdrawal and may develop lifelong behavioral patterns that mimic this state when stressed."
Oh, I see.
Scaer goes so far as to say, "Conservation-withdrawal is the earliest manifestation of dissociation, which if perpetuated becomes a lifelong tendency in the face of threat or stress." (The emphasis here is mine.) He continues, "In the day-to-day life of the child, repeated retreat into states of shame presents as repetitive dissociative symptoms..."
Yeah. And I would add, in the day-to-day life of the adult abuse survivor, too!
I noticed this happening just the other day. It was over some slight--some slightly disrespectful remark that left me feeling rejected. I immediately looked away, hung my head and slumped away. I don't often allow myself to do this in front of others, but I always, eventually become immobile. I'll go into my bedroom and sit or lie down and then just stare off in a stupor.
I was explaining all this to my T. I remembered a line from a poem I wrote. There was something in there about "my empty, blank stare." I found the poem. Here it is:
Safe in My Pillow
I’m diving into my pillow
It’s the only safe harbor I know
Hidden away in my pillow
The terror and anguish don’t show
I’m becoming a part of my pillow
Like a turtle pulling into its shell
Scratching and clawing for my pillow
You can’t drag me into your hell
And if you take me away from my pillow
You won’t know that I’m really not there
I just send my mind to my pillow
It’s behind my empty, blank stare
I know I can trust in my pillow
How my pillow’s safe comfort warms
Like a soft, warm body, my pillow
I pretend it’s a mother’s loving arms
You’ll never really reach me in my pillow
Though my body you’ll batter and harm
This little girl’s all nestled in her pillow
While outside rages the storm
I’ll just stay here, thank you, in my pillow
You can all just call me insane
It’s my own little world, my pillow
While out in your world a nightmare reigns
Years fly by while I fly in my pillow
It starts to feel lonely and cold
I peek out from under my pillow
How did I get to be so old?
You say I must venture from my pillow
I’ve got to come out and face a new world
How can I let go of my pillow?
Can’t you see I’m still a scared little girl?
Copyright 2003 Marj McCabe ~ All Rights Reserved
The funny thing is, my stare isn't blank or empty at all. It's full of shame.
I have a legacy of shame. It seems, no matter how much therapy I do, it is always with me. It's the shame of believing to my core that I am not worth existing, not worth being alive. Logic tells me this is not right. But, I don't believe it.
One of the first self-help books I ever read--back before I even knew I was an incest survivor--was John Bradshaw's Healing The Shame That Binds You. Wow. That book was published back in 1988. Maybe I need to go back and read it again.
Labels: attachment, bonding, dissociation, John Bradshaw, poem, Poetry, Robert Scaer, self-help books, self-worth, shame, therapy, trauma
December 13, 2007
Mourning that Abused, Dissociated Child
So, for those of you who were wondering: I did go to the Christmas party Saturday night. I even wore something kinda sexy. But, I went with a girlfriend. Yes, I had a very nice time. No, I did not get rip-roaring drunk. I actually enjoyed some meaningful conversations with some other women there.
Unfortunately, that night I got home and the wine I had did not help me sleep. Neither did it keep the nightmares away. I had one of those dreams that goes on and on, like you're watching a three-hour movie. A new twist on my torture-themed dreams is that this time my husband and I were both being tortured. It reminded me of watching my sister suffer as a child. It was a dream that took place in some third-world country and we kept being detained; weren't allowed to cross the border into safe territory. Both of us were abused, even tortured, by our captors while we were being detained. Aaaaaacccckkkkk!
I wish there was some kind of pill one could take to never have a nightmare again!
But, Monday I had my therapy appointment. (Ya know, I have 'em twice a week, so they come up pretty often :P ) I even brought in a print-out of some of the comments I got on my blog for our discussion. I got a lot of good work done with my therapist and then I came home and sobbed my eyes out. It's painful and it sucks, but the grieving--the feeling of the feelings--is healing for me. Of this I am sure.
There are two major developments that I'm really mourning over right now: First, there's the ongoing facing of the "mom-was-involved" betrayal. It is huge! It's one of the toughest realities that I've ever had to face. I guess, since I'm now a mother myself, I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the fact that this woman facilitated and shamed me for my abuse after carrying me inside her. I was once part of her own body! How does such betrayal, abandonment and inhumanity work? I'll never figure it out, of course. That's one of the things I have to keep working on--the urge to try to "figure it out." Even when it's obviously impossible.
The second thing--and this is huge, too--is that my sister and I have both discovered recently that our abuse did NOT end when our father left the house after my parents divorced. This just shakes my world, I gotta tell ya. So much of what I'd assumed for years is now proven false. I'll have to get into this one later. I've just scratched the surface of it.
What I am delving more deeply into is an issue that ties both of these recent recovery developments together: After the divorce, my mother allowed us full, overnight, unsupervised visitation with the monster who was our father. She did not fight the visitation one iota. Their divorce was solely for my mother's personal preservation and selfish reasons. It had nothing to do with finally protecting her offspring.
To say that I'm feeling enormous amounts of anguish is a vast understatement. When I had my huge crying jag Monday, I kept hearing this little girl wail, "She didn't see me. She never saw me. She didn't see me!" (Talking about the egg donor who we called "Mom.") I kept trying to reach in, but didn't feel very successful. I kept saying aloud, "I see you. I see you." But, I'm not sure anybody heard. To say that I'm feeling guilty and conflicted about not being able to reach in, scoop up and comfort the littlest of my child parts doesn't come close to what I'm feeling either.
I guess I've achieved a little bit more empathy for myself after getting in touch with what I wrote about in my December 7 post. So that's a good thing. But, after being in touch with--and being able to describe--the horror that I wrote about in that post, I realize that I'm seeing this reaching-in challenge as almost a physical impossibility. Trying to scoop up these little girls is like grasping at shadows. They keep slipping through my arms. Their charred little souls have turned to ash. They've been reduced to dust and have blown hither and yon. I'm running in every direction trying to find them, but there seems to be nothing to hold onto.
How does one return the ethereal to viable flesh and bone?
Unfortunately, that night I got home and the wine I had did not help me sleep. Neither did it keep the nightmares away. I had one of those dreams that goes on and on, like you're watching a three-hour movie. A new twist on my torture-themed dreams is that this time my husband and I were both being tortured. It reminded me of watching my sister suffer as a child. It was a dream that took place in some third-world country and we kept being detained; weren't allowed to cross the border into safe territory. Both of us were abused, even tortured, by our captors while we were being detained. Aaaaaacccckkkkk!
I wish there was some kind of pill one could take to never have a nightmare again!
But, Monday I had my therapy appointment. (Ya know, I have 'em twice a week, so they come up pretty often :P ) I even brought in a print-out of some of the comments I got on my blog for our discussion. I got a lot of good work done with my therapist and then I came home and sobbed my eyes out. It's painful and it sucks, but the grieving--the feeling of the feelings--is healing for me. Of this I am sure.
There are two major developments that I'm really mourning over right now: First, there's the ongoing facing of the "mom-was-involved" betrayal. It is huge! It's one of the toughest realities that I've ever had to face. I guess, since I'm now a mother myself, I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the fact that this woman facilitated and shamed me for my abuse after carrying me inside her. I was once part of her own body! How does such betrayal, abandonment and inhumanity work? I'll never figure it out, of course. That's one of the things I have to keep working on--the urge to try to "figure it out." Even when it's obviously impossible.
The second thing--and this is huge, too--is that my sister and I have both discovered recently that our abuse did NOT end when our father left the house after my parents divorced. This just shakes my world, I gotta tell ya. So much of what I'd assumed for years is now proven false. I'll have to get into this one later. I've just scratched the surface of it.
What I am delving more deeply into is an issue that ties both of these recent recovery developments together: After the divorce, my mother allowed us full, overnight, unsupervised visitation with the monster who was our father. She did not fight the visitation one iota. Their divorce was solely for my mother's personal preservation and selfish reasons. It had nothing to do with finally protecting her offspring.
To say that I'm feeling enormous amounts of anguish is a vast understatement. When I had my huge crying jag Monday, I kept hearing this little girl wail, "She didn't see me. She never saw me. She didn't see me!" (Talking about the egg donor who we called "Mom.") I kept trying to reach in, but didn't feel very successful. I kept saying aloud, "I see you. I see you." But, I'm not sure anybody heard. To say that I'm feeling guilty and conflicted about not being able to reach in, scoop up and comfort the littlest of my child parts doesn't come close to what I'm feeling either.
I guess I've achieved a little bit more empathy for myself after getting in touch with what I wrote about in my December 7 post. So that's a good thing. But, after being in touch with--and being able to describe--the horror that I wrote about in that post, I realize that I'm seeing this reaching-in challenge as almost a physical impossibility. Trying to scoop up these little girls is like grasping at shadows. They keep slipping through my arms. Their charred little souls have turned to ash. They've been reduced to dust and have blown hither and yon. I'm running in every direction trying to find them, but there seems to be nothing to hold onto.
How does one return the ethereal to viable flesh and bone?
Labels: abandonment, betrayal, child abuse, child parts, grieving, inhumanity, inner child, mourning, nightmares, therapy, torture, trauma
December 07, 2007
The Tragedy of the Abused, Dissociated Child: The Soul Has Retreated; The Light Has Gone Out.
This post is lifted from my Microsoft Word journal.
I gotta get some of this down on paper. This will be long and rambly, so I'm going to type it rather than hand write in my spiral journal.
Right now, I'm really oscillating between: being depressed that the fantasy escape cruise is over (getting the stomach flu as soon as we returned didn't help); wanting to continue "going about my business" and acting like I'm perfectly normal...whatever that is; and feeling scared about I'm not sure what.
I wonder if I'm afraid that Lisa--my rebellious, young party-girl part--is going to wreak havoc. I've got this Christmas party on Saturday that I'm going to solo (David's leaving for an out-of-town conference). Part of me wants to walk to the party (it's only blocks away and then I'd have no worries about drinking and driving) and get really drunk. I've lost 15 pounds since May and I look better than I have since before I got pregnant with Daniel. I've lost the weight this time in a healthy way, and without smoking, too! I've kept the weight off, even with Halloween candy, birthday cake, a Thanksgiving feast, even the gourmet food on the cruise. I went out and got some new clothes--jeans that are fairly low cut. I look kinda sexy. Uh oh! Danger! Unsafe! Scary!
I dunno. Lisa's been pretty quiet. I have to give her credit: She's done a wonderful job of compromising and living fairly comfortably with the fact that David is my husband and Daniel is my son. I think she's actually starting to like David somewhat.
I don't think it's Lisa. What am I so scared about? Is it Christmas? I know I'm feeling overwhelmed. We came back from the cruise and BAM! All of a sudden we're in the thick of it--it's the holiday season. I haven't purchased one gift. The Christmas cards we ordered need to go out. We were four days late on our advent calendar. December? How could it be December already? At least I got the rotten pumpkin thrown out and the scarecrow and fall wreath put away. At least I put up a Christmas wreath. But, I have no interest in putting up the Christmas tree. If it weren't for Daniel, I wouldn't buy a single present.
Yeah, I'm frustrated and overwhelmed with Christmas, but I don't feel any urge to run away. No, I don't think that's it either.
There's definitely a lot of fear. Maybe it's not about what might happen now or in the near future. Maybe it's from the past. (Oh, gee, ya think?) I got really scared the other day about taking a shower. (Good God, how much trauma processing and therapy am I going to have to do to finally get rid of that fear?) David was even here with me--his turn for the stomach flu and he stayed home that day. After I forced myself into the shower, I felt okay with the water on my body. But, the prospect of putting my head under the water to wash my hair got my fear all going again.
I really had to ground myself. The lavender body wash aromatherapy strategy didn't work at all. I smelled it and felt slightly nauseated. Weird! I did use the aromatherapy hair conditioner, though. It worked well. And I told myself that, if I could just get the shower in and look presentable, I could go to the mall, get the advent treats, get myself a treat and buy myself some new, properly-fitting jeans. That seemed to work. I got it all done and picked up Daniel on time from school.
I was feeling scared and not wanting to get out of bed yesterday. Some fear is still lingering. What is it? For some reason, I think it has to do with my mother. Why? Hhhmmmm....maybe it was that dream the other night. It was an horrific nightmare that was really gross. My therapist used the word "icky" in therapy yesterday. That describes it: "icky." Why should I feel so afraid about something gross and icky? Shouldn't I just feel nauseated instead? Why scared?
Come to think of it, I was nauseated recently. Of course, it was that flu bug. I didn't vomit like David did, but I sure felt like it with that stomach flu. I don't know if I'll ever get over my fear of vomiting. I still do anything I can to avoid it, no matter how sick I am. Maybe it was the flu that brought on the dream; it was really sick and gross. It was more gross and "icky" than it was violent and scary (although it was those things as well).
*****WARNING: MAJOR GRAPHIC, DISTURBING CONTENT TO FOLLOW. USE CAUTION!*****
(Disturbing content will be bracketed for your protection and convenience.)
It was one of those "movie" dreams where the characters are strangers to me. The two main characters were these obese women who looked like nobody I've ever seen in real life before. I guess, since there was the obesity, they could have symbolized my mother. But, there were two of them (sisters?) and they were much younger than my mother. Physically, their features looked nothing like my mother or anyone else in our "family."
It was violent, as usual. It involved knives, as usual. (Will I ever figure out what the hell that's about?) There was one scene where the perpetrator-type woman was slicing the other woman's cheek with a knife. It was bloody and terrifying.
But, it was the yucky grossness that bothered me more. In once scene, the two women were naked and writhing on the ground, their bodies distorted and grotesque. They were doing this writhing, but they were not in pain. What was that about? A big mass of fecal matter comes out of one of them. Then, something else comes oozing out. What was it? Did I know at the time of the dream? I guess I've conveniently forgotten. Whatever it was, it was even grosser than shit. Both times, the excreted mass was enormous. This wouldn't be physically possible in real life...I hope. The thing that stays with me the most is the fact that both of these women seemed proud of their disgusting nature. They seemed to revel in grossing somebody else out.
***END OF THIS GRAPHIC CONTENT***
This aspect of the dream is confusing to me. In the attitude about grossing people out, the two characters seemed together--in on it together. But, in the violent scene, one obviously seemed to be in the role of perpetrator and the other victim. Maybe this has to do with my confusion over discovering that my mother was much more than just another victim of my father--she was a collaborator.
Yep. The fear is about my mother. I was thinking about this as I was waiting for a slice of bread to toast yesterday morning. Would I really be that afraid if I faced my mother today? Yes, absolutely. The fear was still quite palpable when I saw her at my cousin's funeral a year-and-a-half ago. I was scared to death of her. But, I handled the confrontation so well. I took care of myself and kept myself safe. I didn't even allow her to touch me or chit chat with me. I could do it again. I could be a strong, resourceful adult and take care of myself(ves).
As I stood there, at the kitchen counter, I thought about what I would say if I chose to confront my mother. I said it aloud: "How could you allow your husband to torture your child, and then make her feel guilty for it as if it were her fault, telling her she was bad, dirty and evil? How could you do that? How could you do that to your own precious, beautiful, innocent, defenseless little child--the child you once carried inside you?" Fuck! No matter how many times I think, say or type the words, it's just incomprehensible!
The temptation to ask the ridiculous, answerless question, "How could you?" is so strong because the concept is just so incomprehensible. It just seems like an impossibility for any human who ever had any empathy, compassion, nurturing instincts, mothering tendencies...basic humanity.
I was thinking about this and talking about it in therapy yesterday: I've faced the inhumanity, as frightening as that is. I've faced the horror. I've dealt with the terror. I've processed the torture. I've looked at the fact that I was treated as less than human. I've faced the fact that, as a child, I had no basic human rights. Is facing this "icky" grossness as bad as all that? Can that be even more scary than what I've already looked at?
Well, maybe it's more related than I first assumed it was.
*****LOOK OUT BELOW! MORE GRAPHIC CONTENT, INVOLVING DEATH*****
It popped into my head like a flash: something I only watched on TV the other night for a matter of seconds, and then quickly turned the channel. It was some crime show about serial killers. They showed photos of the victims in a mass grave they had discovered. Aaaahhhh! Oh my God, this one picture hit me really hard. I'm sure you've seen photographs like this yourself--even worse, they were probably real photos (not something made up for a television show). Maybe it was a photo from the Holocaust or some war photograph. You know how you react, when you see a picture of a charred body of a person who's been burned to death, or maybe the skeletal remains of a victim who was starved to death? All you really see is a skeleton--a heap of bones. It's become such an "it" rather than a proper "who." It's like it's not really a human person you're looking at anymore.
Yeah, that's it. It goes back to the inhumanity again. This is what I just can't truly admit to having been through. This is what I'm struggling so hard to face. This is what I am so afraid of. Now, what I have here is just a different way of looking at it. This is simply a different spin on the same inhumanity issue I'm struggling with. Yeah, and it's more than just the actions of those people--those people who were supposed to be my guardians--that were inhumane. It's the fact that they saw me as less than human. My status was less than that of a dog. I was that black, charred heap of body parts. I was nothing more than flesh draped over bones. No wonder I've always felt like garbage tossed on the trash pile.
That's what happens, you know. That's what happens to bodies that used to be people. That's what happens in war, to those "others," those unlucky saps who found themselves on the other side. That's what you see in those mass graves, in the clean-up from the remnants of the gas chambers. You see piles of corpses. Your eyes become slits as you squint to look at the photograph. What is that? It can't be human. And it no longer is. The light has gone out of the eyes. The twisted, contorted expressions on what used to be faces are monstrous, not human. Was there ever a person really in there? It seems unlikely.
*****END OF GRAPHIC, DISTURBING CONTENT FOR THIS POST*****
(If you haven't been able to read the above, just go to the comments section and leave me a cyber hug, will ya? I could really use some cyber solace. I feel so scared, devastated and alone.)
The real tragedy is to search a face and find no human there in someone who is actually still alive. Oh dear God, maybe even a child! The soul has retreated. The light has gone out. No ordinary human could endure such inhumanity.
So we became something else. Didn't we?
I know some of you know what I mean.
I gotta get some of this down on paper. This will be long and rambly, so I'm going to type it rather than hand write in my spiral journal.
Right now, I'm really oscillating between: being depressed that the fantasy escape cruise is over (getting the stomach flu as soon as we returned didn't help); wanting to continue "going about my business" and acting like I'm perfectly normal...whatever that is; and feeling scared about I'm not sure what.
I wonder if I'm afraid that Lisa--my rebellious, young party-girl part--is going to wreak havoc. I've got this Christmas party on Saturday that I'm going to solo (David's leaving for an out-of-town conference). Part of me wants to walk to the party (it's only blocks away and then I'd have no worries about drinking and driving) and get really drunk. I've lost 15 pounds since May and I look better than I have since before I got pregnant with Daniel. I've lost the weight this time in a healthy way, and without smoking, too! I've kept the weight off, even with Halloween candy, birthday cake, a Thanksgiving feast, even the gourmet food on the cruise. I went out and got some new clothes--jeans that are fairly low cut. I look kinda sexy. Uh oh! Danger! Unsafe! Scary!
I dunno. Lisa's been pretty quiet. I have to give her credit: She's done a wonderful job of compromising and living fairly comfortably with the fact that David is my husband and Daniel is my son. I think she's actually starting to like David somewhat.
I don't think it's Lisa. What am I so scared about? Is it Christmas? I know I'm feeling overwhelmed. We came back from the cruise and BAM! All of a sudden we're in the thick of it--it's the holiday season. I haven't purchased one gift. The Christmas cards we ordered need to go out. We were four days late on our advent calendar. December? How could it be December already? At least I got the rotten pumpkin thrown out and the scarecrow and fall wreath put away. At least I put up a Christmas wreath. But, I have no interest in putting up the Christmas tree. If it weren't for Daniel, I wouldn't buy a single present.
Yeah, I'm frustrated and overwhelmed with Christmas, but I don't feel any urge to run away. No, I don't think that's it either.
There's definitely a lot of fear. Maybe it's not about what might happen now or in the near future. Maybe it's from the past. (Oh, gee, ya think?) I got really scared the other day about taking a shower. (Good God, how much trauma processing and therapy am I going to have to do to finally get rid of that fear?) David was even here with me--his turn for the stomach flu and he stayed home that day. After I forced myself into the shower, I felt okay with the water on my body. But, the prospect of putting my head under the water to wash my hair got my fear all going again.
I really had to ground myself. The lavender body wash aromatherapy strategy didn't work at all. I smelled it and felt slightly nauseated. Weird! I did use the aromatherapy hair conditioner, though. It worked well. And I told myself that, if I could just get the shower in and look presentable, I could go to the mall, get the advent treats, get myself a treat and buy myself some new, properly-fitting jeans. That seemed to work. I got it all done and picked up Daniel on time from school.
I was feeling scared and not wanting to get out of bed yesterday. Some fear is still lingering. What is it? For some reason, I think it has to do with my mother. Why? Hhhmmmm....maybe it was that dream the other night. It was an horrific nightmare that was really gross. My therapist used the word "icky" in therapy yesterday. That describes it: "icky." Why should I feel so afraid about something gross and icky? Shouldn't I just feel nauseated instead? Why scared?
Come to think of it, I was nauseated recently. Of course, it was that flu bug. I didn't vomit like David did, but I sure felt like it with that stomach flu. I don't know if I'll ever get over my fear of vomiting. I still do anything I can to avoid it, no matter how sick I am. Maybe it was the flu that brought on the dream; it was really sick and gross. It was more gross and "icky" than it was violent and scary (although it was those things as well).
*****WARNING: MAJOR GRAPHIC, DISTURBING CONTENT TO FOLLOW. USE CAUTION!*****
(Disturbing content will be bracketed for your protection and convenience.)
It was one of those "movie" dreams where the characters are strangers to me. The two main characters were these obese women who looked like nobody I've ever seen in real life before. I guess, since there was the obesity, they could have symbolized my mother. But, there were two of them (sisters?) and they were much younger than my mother. Physically, their features looked nothing like my mother or anyone else in our "family."
It was violent, as usual. It involved knives, as usual. (Will I ever figure out what the hell that's about?) There was one scene where the perpetrator-type woman was slicing the other woman's cheek with a knife. It was bloody and terrifying.
But, it was the yucky grossness that bothered me more. In once scene, the two women were naked and writhing on the ground, their bodies distorted and grotesque. They were doing this writhing, but they were not in pain. What was that about? A big mass of fecal matter comes out of one of them. Then, something else comes oozing out. What was it? Did I know at the time of the dream? I guess I've conveniently forgotten. Whatever it was, it was even grosser than shit. Both times, the excreted mass was enormous. This wouldn't be physically possible in real life...I hope. The thing that stays with me the most is the fact that both of these women seemed proud of their disgusting nature. They seemed to revel in grossing somebody else out.
***END OF THIS GRAPHIC CONTENT***
This aspect of the dream is confusing to me. In the attitude about grossing people out, the two characters seemed together--in on it together. But, in the violent scene, one obviously seemed to be in the role of perpetrator and the other victim. Maybe this has to do with my confusion over discovering that my mother was much more than just another victim of my father--she was a collaborator.
Yep. The fear is about my mother. I was thinking about this as I was waiting for a slice of bread to toast yesterday morning. Would I really be that afraid if I faced my mother today? Yes, absolutely. The fear was still quite palpable when I saw her at my cousin's funeral a year-and-a-half ago. I was scared to death of her. But, I handled the confrontation so well. I took care of myself and kept myself safe. I didn't even allow her to touch me or chit chat with me. I could do it again. I could be a strong, resourceful adult and take care of myself(ves).
As I stood there, at the kitchen counter, I thought about what I would say if I chose to confront my mother. I said it aloud: "How could you allow your husband to torture your child, and then make her feel guilty for it as if it were her fault, telling her she was bad, dirty and evil? How could you do that? How could you do that to your own precious, beautiful, innocent, defenseless little child--the child you once carried inside you?" Fuck! No matter how many times I think, say or type the words, it's just incomprehensible!
The temptation to ask the ridiculous, answerless question, "How could you?" is so strong because the concept is just so incomprehensible. It just seems like an impossibility for any human who ever had any empathy, compassion, nurturing instincts, mothering tendencies...basic humanity.
I was thinking about this and talking about it in therapy yesterday: I've faced the inhumanity, as frightening as that is. I've faced the horror. I've dealt with the terror. I've processed the torture. I've looked at the fact that I was treated as less than human. I've faced the fact that, as a child, I had no basic human rights. Is facing this "icky" grossness as bad as all that? Can that be even more scary than what I've already looked at?
Well, maybe it's more related than I first assumed it was.
*****LOOK OUT BELOW! MORE GRAPHIC CONTENT, INVOLVING DEATH*****
It popped into my head like a flash: something I only watched on TV the other night for a matter of seconds, and then quickly turned the channel. It was some crime show about serial killers. They showed photos of the victims in a mass grave they had discovered. Aaaahhhh! Oh my God, this one picture hit me really hard. I'm sure you've seen photographs like this yourself--even worse, they were probably real photos (not something made up for a television show). Maybe it was a photo from the Holocaust or some war photograph. You know how you react, when you see a picture of a charred body of a person who's been burned to death, or maybe the skeletal remains of a victim who was starved to death? All you really see is a skeleton--a heap of bones. It's become such an "it" rather than a proper "who." It's like it's not really a human person you're looking at anymore.
Yeah, that's it. It goes back to the inhumanity again. This is what I just can't truly admit to having been through. This is what I'm struggling so hard to face. This is what I am so afraid of. Now, what I have here is just a different way of looking at it. This is simply a different spin on the same inhumanity issue I'm struggling with. Yeah, and it's more than just the actions of those people--those people who were supposed to be my guardians--that were inhumane. It's the fact that they saw me as less than human. My status was less than that of a dog. I was that black, charred heap of body parts. I was nothing more than flesh draped over bones. No wonder I've always felt like garbage tossed on the trash pile.
That's what happens, you know. That's what happens to bodies that used to be people. That's what happens in war, to those "others," those unlucky saps who found themselves on the other side. That's what you see in those mass graves, in the clean-up from the remnants of the gas chambers. You see piles of corpses. Your eyes become slits as you squint to look at the photograph. What is that? It can't be human. And it no longer is. The light has gone out of the eyes. The twisted, contorted expressions on what used to be faces are monstrous, not human. Was there ever a person really in there? It seems unlikely.
*****END OF GRAPHIC, DISTURBING CONTENT FOR THIS POST*****
(If you haven't been able to read the above, just go to the comments section and leave me a cyber hug, will ya? I could really use some cyber solace. I feel so scared, devastated and alone.)
The real tragedy is to search a face and find no human there in someone who is actually still alive. Oh dear God, maybe even a child! The soul has retreated. The light has gone out. No ordinary human could endure such inhumanity.
So we became something else. Didn't we?
I know some of you know what I mean.
Labels: child abuse, dental fear, Holocaust, inhumanity, murder, nightmares, therapy, torture, trauma, victims
May 20, 2007
The Trauma Twins
I've been on an emotional roller coaster. My twin sister is visiting for three weeks. It's been distracting me big time. I got the blog carnival stuff up, finally. But I'm delayed with posting a meme I got tagged on and a nifty survivor award thing I want to check out...new blogs I want to look at more...blogs I want to post to and links I want to put up on my dot com site, www.survivorscanthrive.com, and preparations I want to start making for the first anniversary of the blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I know I haven't been around to visit my bloggy friends much in the past two weeks either.
When my sister first arrived from the deep south where she lives, it was surreal with my parts. There were Little Ones who were cheering, "Yay! Sissy is coming. We want to see Sissy!" When she actually showed up, their tune changed to, "Who's that lady? Where's Sissy?' I think they truly expected to see a cute little girl with blond pony tails at my door.
Then I had to deal with an older part who really hates my sister. She is slow to forgive the many times I covered up for my twin and often took the fall for her during her rebellious years. I thought I had dealt with this in therapy, but apparently this part still resents the years of being enmeshed and enabling with my sis. She's also jealous as hell that my twin had rebellious years during a time when I was still falling all over my selves trying to please my mother and gain her never-to-be-obtained approval.
I haven't seen my sis much for over ten years. A lot of old baggage has to be checked with this visit. I get annoyed when people say stuff like, "Stop living in the past. You have to be in the present." It's so obvious to me now that, for my parts, the past is the present. It's going to take quite a lot of time, patience and therapy to bring them all up to date.
One thing that has been encouraging, I guess, is that I have parts that feel safe enough to switch out (if that's what you call it) in front of my sister. I've done this many times in front of my husband, but I still try to hide it. With my sister, I not only allow it to happen, I also allow all the fears and tears to come tumbling out at the same time.
Let me give you an example: We were driving back from this nifty little mountain town toy store that I knew both our kid parts would love. We had a wonderful morning together, but I started to notice some physical symptoms sneaking in around lunch time. I had a headache (seems to happen with switching), my guts were rumbling and I had a return of the damn knot in my throat that strangles me and won't let food pass. We were driving back toward my home, taking a very familiar route along the interstate. I began to tell my twin about this pattern I've been noticing. The first part of the pattern is a few days when I act perfectly "normal." Me have parts? No way! Then--as if some parts are attempting to batten down the hatches--I have a day or two where I get physically sick and/or start to have some of the symptoms I just mentioned. Then: POW! All hell--and at least a couple of terrified, devastated and/or pissed off parts--breaks loose. It's a fun way to navigate through life, let me tell ya. Anybody else notice "parts patterns" like this?
Anyway, I'm just getting into telling Sissy about this pattern I've noticed when I discover that I've blown past my exit off the interstate. No problem, I think. I'll jut get off at the next exit. The only problem was I thought the "next exit" was an exit that is, in reality, miles and miles up the highway. Suddenly, nothing looked familiar at all. I tried to read exit signs, but recognized none of the street names. This scared me a lot and I began to panic and sob uncontrollably. Luckily, we were in a slow construction zone and I didn't crash the car. I still remembered how to drive as well, thank God.
Having a difficult morning. Too many nights of not sleeping well and my IBS is flared up worse than it's been in years. I think I'll finish this "twin visit" post later. Thinking of all of you and hoping to get more cauht up in the blogosphere soon.
When my sister first arrived from the deep south where she lives, it was surreal with my parts. There were Little Ones who were cheering, "Yay! Sissy is coming. We want to see Sissy!" When she actually showed up, their tune changed to, "Who's that lady? Where's Sissy?' I think they truly expected to see a cute little girl with blond pony tails at my door.
Then I had to deal with an older part who really hates my sister. She is slow to forgive the many times I covered up for my twin and often took the fall for her during her rebellious years. I thought I had dealt with this in therapy, but apparently this part still resents the years of being enmeshed and enabling with my sis. She's also jealous as hell that my twin had rebellious years during a time when I was still falling all over my selves trying to please my mother and gain her never-to-be-obtained approval.
I haven't seen my sis much for over ten years. A lot of old baggage has to be checked with this visit. I get annoyed when people say stuff like, "Stop living in the past. You have to be in the present." It's so obvious to me now that, for my parts, the past is the present. It's going to take quite a lot of time, patience and therapy to bring them all up to date.
One thing that has been encouraging, I guess, is that I have parts that feel safe enough to switch out (if that's what you call it) in front of my sister. I've done this many times in front of my husband, but I still try to hide it. With my sister, I not only allow it to happen, I also allow all the fears and tears to come tumbling out at the same time.
Let me give you an example: We were driving back from this nifty little mountain town toy store that I knew both our kid parts would love. We had a wonderful morning together, but I started to notice some physical symptoms sneaking in around lunch time. I had a headache (seems to happen with switching), my guts were rumbling and I had a return of the damn knot in my throat that strangles me and won't let food pass. We were driving back toward my home, taking a very familiar route along the interstate. I began to tell my twin about this pattern I've been noticing. The first part of the pattern is a few days when I act perfectly "normal." Me have parts? No way! Then--as if some parts are attempting to batten down the hatches--I have a day or two where I get physically sick and/or start to have some of the symptoms I just mentioned. Then: POW! All hell--and at least a couple of terrified, devastated and/or pissed off parts--breaks loose. It's a fun way to navigate through life, let me tell ya. Anybody else notice "parts patterns" like this?
Anyway, I'm just getting into telling Sissy about this pattern I've noticed when I discover that I've blown past my exit off the interstate. No problem, I think. I'll jut get off at the next exit. The only problem was I thought the "next exit" was an exit that is, in reality, miles and miles up the highway. Suddenly, nothing looked familiar at all. I tried to read exit signs, but recognized none of the street names. This scared me a lot and I began to panic and sob uncontrollably. Luckily, we were in a slow construction zone and I didn't crash the car. I still remembered how to drive as well, thank God.
Having a difficult morning. Too many nights of not sleeping well and my IBS is flared up worse than it's been in years. I think I'll finish this "twin visit" post later. Thinking of all of you and hoping to get more cauht up in the blogosphere soon.
Labels: dissociation, family of origin, trauma
