Barbarie and her Miracle Child

This post is all about a woman who is a personal heroine of mine.  I had the good fortune to meet her through Margaret Paul’s healing site, Inner Bonding where we’ve come to know each other, exchanging conversation and stories over the years.  What I’ve come to respect about Barbarie is that she has taken a life full of horrible adversity and challenged that in every way possible.  There simply isn’t a hurdle that she’s failed to overcome and what strikes me most is what a gentle and kind soul she is today.  Most would have succumbed to this life and become bitter.  I hope you all are moved as I was by her story and am proud to know her as a friend, a survivor, soldier and mother.  This is her story of her and her Miracle Child, Courtney when she spoke to her congregation at the urging of her pastor.  I’d like to introduce you to my friend Barbarie.

My Miracle Child

Courtney Who Survived Against All Odds

Good Morning – Pastor Jen approached me and asked if I would give a short testimony of God’s resurrection power. So I am delighted to be able to share with you the incredible miracle of the birth of my daughter, Courtney Marie.

In the Fall of 1992 I was an Active Duty Soldier in the United States Army returning from Operation Desert Storm to my duty station in Germany.  Upon my return to post; I received relocation orders to Ft Bragg, NC.  It had been a very long and lonely two years in Germany and I was ecstatic to be returning stateside.     

One evening, just as our overseas tour was drawing to a close, a few of my fellow soldiers and I went out to the club to celebrate the end of a successful tour in Germany.  At the end of our evening, as I was taking a shortcut back to the barracks; I was violently confronted by four uniformed men.   Without warning, I found myself being gagged, my head covered with a pillowcase and dragged into a very dark alley.  Once I was subdued in the alleyway; I was viciously gang-raped by all four men.  It happened so quickly and without warning that I scarcely had time to think or react.

When it was over; I returned to my room, shaken and terrified to my core.  I was convinced that if I reported the rape I would be dishonorably discharged.  Being a soldier was my life and it was the only life I knew.  I told no one what had happened that night and I did everything within my power to block out the memory of the attack so that I could go on being a Soldier.

I left Germany and reported to my new Unit at Ft Bragg.  I went on with my life as a soldier.  It reported for Physical Training – running six miles a day and completed 15 mile ruck sack marches.  I qualified at the rifle range and I reported for duty every morning at 8 am.  I worked with radar, ran drills as a member of the missile crew and endured training in the NBC gas chamber. I was an active duty soldier in constant readiness condition to deploy at the drop of a dime.

Being a soldier was literally my lifeline.  I had no family support and I certainly did not have any positive parental role models or happy family memories.  I had been orphaned, abused and refused entry back into my family as a child and then made a ward of the state. I had no one that I could turn to; I had nothing but the Army. I had absolutely NO desire to be a parent and have children of my own.

I had joined the Army to following in my Father’s footsteps. Though he had passed away when I was three years old; he was only person with whom I had a soul and spirit connection and I clutched onto that memory with both my hands. It was that one and only thread of connection and hope that gave my life’s journey meaning and purpose.  

It was the one thing that kept me going and I felt that I was in danger of losing it. 

I managed to deny, hide and block any conscious thought of being pregnant until I was in my sixth month.  I even fell 12 feet off of a Radar Tower, breaking my wrist and requiring full body X-rays and surgery, and the baby was never identified or noticed. 

It was about that time when I started to feel movement within me that scared me.  Even though I felt the movement I still denied the possibility of a pregnancy.  I know that sounds impossible to believe but I did not have morning sickness nor did I show any symptoms of being pregnant even with the demanding physical training and physical exertion each and every day. 

It was about the middle of the eight month when I began hurt so bad that I was doubled over in horrible, horrible pain.  This lasted for several days and over a weekend.  I said to myself, after buying Tylenol and some anti-acid over the counter medications, that if the pain does not subside or go away by Monday morning I will go to sick call.

Sure enough that Monday morning after reporting to sick call and a urinalysis, the Dr. came back and said “Mama you going to have a baby and you going to have it today!”  Go to the hospital and report in on the 9^th floor to Labor and Delivery. 

Courtney Marie (though she was yet unnamed) was born 8 hours later that day.  I had no preparations made for a child, no clothing, no diapers and no name.  I had not wanted to believe that it was going to happen.

But there she was.  She was real and she was here and I HAD GIVEN BIRTH … WOW. 

The social workers and other workers asked over and over what I was going to do with the child.  My unconscious mind already knew and spoke to me through spirit that there was absolutely NO WAY I could or would give this child up. 

Due to complications during the birthing process – meconium aspiration – she was whisked away immediately to NICU – I barely saw her for 30 seconds.  4 hours later they had to life flight her to Duke University Medical Center because the military hospital did not have the means to care for this critical newborn.  

Courtney spent the first 7 weeks on life support (ECMO) with a 15% chance of survival.  She only weighed 4.8 pounds, but she had a head full of curly brown hair.   After I was discharged from the hospital three days later; I was finally able to see her for the first time.  Courtney was so small and so frail that all she could do was hold my little pinky.  She was hooked up to so many wires and medical equipment that I nearly fainted when I saw her for the first time.

I spent those first 7 weeks with Courtney 24/7 in the hospital.  In the midst of feeding, learning to diaper and dress and bathe her; I told God that I did not understand all this.  But I vowed that I would do everything within my power to keep Courtney and raise her.  I told him that he would have to provide all the means necessary for me to be a loving committed parent and that he would need to ensure that all our needs would be met because I had no one else to help us.

When Courtney was 18 months old, I found out that she would have permanent nerve damage and a hearing impairment due to the complications at birth.  So added to the trial of being a single parent was the challenge of having a 98% deaf child.

The journey was extremely challenging for us.  After the first year of a compassionate reassignment to stay at Ft Bragg due to Courtney’s medical needs; I had to return to work.  This meant a new duty assignment that brought us here to Ft Lewis.  I was deployed twice for 6 months while Courtney was under the age of 5 and had to take several leaps of faith while leaving Courtney with a family (strangers) or very new Friends when I was deployed for a six month tour in Saudi Arabia. 

I share all this to share how GREAT our GOD IS. What a blessing it is to speak it out and share God’s Redemptive Resurrection Blessings.  God had a different plan for my life; One that I could have never imagined.  God created a child within me that is a precious part of me that can never be taken away nor devalued.  God created and brought forth Courtney Marie White against all the odds.  God sustained me and brought me through tragedy and heartache so that I could be her mother.  To Him be the Glory Forever. 

Amen. 

  

 

Memoirs of the Molested

I’m so excited I can hardly think to put this post together.  But I must share this news with my friends and invite them to dance with me now.

I’m sharing a success that isn’t just my own.  It is one born of the many women and men that I’ve come to know through the unifying experience of trauma and abuse.  We have listened, supported and honored each person’s story.  Together we share the goal of education and enlightenment on a subject usually hidden from view.  The wise words of my friend, Joss Burnel, are relevent to this moment (and I’m paraphrasing), “We must hold hands together until we circle the world”.

My story was accepted to be included in Valerie Perez’s recently published book, Memoirs of the Molested. and displayed in Amazon’s preview “Look Inside” feature. Whoa!

“Memoirs of the Molested is a collection of literary works meant to promote awareness of child molestation and help to educate the public on the effects this type of abuse has on the victims and their families. Proceeds from the sale of this book will benefit a nonprofit organization in the San Antonio area that provides specialized services to children recovering from the trauma of sexual abuse.”

Kudos to Valerie Perez for the courage to put this book together for such a worthy cause. I couldn’t be more pleased to be a part of this journey with the other survivors and authors contained in the book.  What an incredible family we are becoming.

my spa day at the psych hospital

It’s been over a month since I made the pilgrimage to the psych hospital for an evaluation.  My emotions have settled down a bit and I’ve had contact with all the practitioners in my life who require a visit after such an incident.  I’m also able to write about it with a caustic and a wise ass dark humor that I lacked in previous weeks.  I suppose on this matter too, I’ve found my voice.  I should know by now that given enough time and perspective, I usually do find my voice.

The prompting incident was another perfect storm containing all the ingredients for me to “drop my basket”.  In Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Vivian Abbott Walker has a breakdown and is hospitalized in some asylum for months.  She won’t discuss the issue for a long time but eventually coins a phrase to describe her mental collapse where she hallucinated, beat her children all the while forgetting how to chew food and pee in the toilet.  Months later, she finally confides and describes to her Ya-Ya’s how she “dropped her basket”.  In the absence of a better term, I’m going to borrow hers.

In a 6-day rampage of unmanageable BPD symptoms, gross lack of familial support and triggers out the whazoo, I finally consent to let a friend drive me to one of several major hospitals in St. Louis for an evaluation.  I had nothing to lose.  I had been crying for days, couldn’t remember when I’d eaten last, only slept because of the inordinate amount of anxiety medication combined with several other chasers of alcohol, Vicodin and Benedryl.  It was a sure-fire combination to collapse into something resembling sleep but a losing combination in terms of maintaining equilibrium and optimal functioning of the body.  Unconsciousness is the desired state for me when I’m so grossly triggered finding my reality irretrievable. No matter how many DBT skills, prayers, affirmations, walks in the woods, music and every other distraction skill I applied, nothing was working.  I was scared shitless and needed a person.  A real, live, breathing person to sit with me while I piggybacked off of their energy and found my center once again.  And to make matters worse, I had been left alone for 5 days, scorned for the burdensome person that I was which was the tipping point to my basket drop.

This is the truly horrible part about Borderline Personality Disorder, which I probably have as a result of early onset trauma.  It forever changes how our brains work and makes us a scary group of people to be around causing this paradoxical conundrum where even though your loved ones don’t want to hold onto your psyche at this particular moment, its about the only thing that actually works for me.  The DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the American Psychiatric Association classifies BPD with a list of symptoms that the candidate will have at least 5 of the 9 listed.  And even though, there were many symptoms, BPD related or not, swirling around in this muck of 6 days, it was one in particular that probably defines most of my issue of that time.  #1 on the list is “frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment”.  Yes, my efforts were frantic.  I called pretty much everyone I knew in person as well as sought out online friends and even a guy standing outside the convenience store smoking in an effort to make some physical, face to face contact with someone.  Pretty pitiful, huh?  And yes, my abandonment was real AND imagined, I had both to contend with.  And damn, I didn’t do well and definitely “dropped my basket”.

Enter Cindy and Kathy, my two saviors of the weekend.  They sat with me one night until I felt well enough to be in my house alone.  They brought food and conversation and did a fabulous job of distracting me, giving me some solid ground to stand on.  That lasted one day before I was back in the muck; crying, not eating, mixing meds and smoking cigarettes, a habit given up over a decade ago.  When, in 3 more days, I still hadn’t emerged whole, it was Cindy who declared it time to go for an evaluation.  I didn’t argue, just packed a bag and grabbed my insurance card and off we went to the psych unit of her choice.  Now, it sounds like I’m gonna start doggin’ on the state of psychiatric options and hospitals in general, which I’m not.  For at this particular moment, I was damn grateful that I lived in a city where I had an actual choice of which one to go to and that I had insurance to get in the door.  There were certainly patients in the waiting room who didn’t possess the golden ticket of primo insurance that I had, which made me cry even harder.

I was led down and around several corridors which I realize later put me way in the back of the ward in some sort of lockdown room.  I was asked to undress into paper scrubs which is a far cry from the old paper gowns that didn’t close in back.  My clothes were taken from me and within minutes a team of interns with a doctor arrived in a hysterical entourage of tall, rolling, podium like things with computers mounted on top.  When they were speaking to me, all I could see was the back of the screen, not their faces, which made them look like a team of rectangled shaped droids with lab coats and feet.  I found this really amusing and wondered if this would qualify as real or imagined abandonment.  Let’s just say, given the situation, a friendly pat on the arm or some eye contact would have gone a long way.  After giving them all their pertinent information, I was then left alone and I mean left alone.  I didn’t see anyone for hours until I peeked out and told the nurse that finally looked up from her desk computer screen (Is there a theme here?) that I had to go to the bathroom, could she point the way?  She promptly walked me back into the room and opened a low set of cabinet doors which popped out a toilet seat.  She assured me that it was much more convenient for me to pee in this little toilet in the wall than to have to go down the hall but I knew better.  This was the upscale version of a jail cell.  My bladder and I made peace with our given situation as I didn’t feel that as I was shoeless and in paper scrubs in a lockdown room, that it just wasn’t a good time to fuss.  I settled onto the exam table, curled in a semi-fetal position, pulled out my iPod from my purse (which by the way, still was in my possession and contained several prescribed controlled substances) and began to listen to my relaxation tapes.  More hours went by but again, I had my entertainment and a potty, so I was pretty good.  The nurse had given me a cup of water and a few graham crackers from her stash of snacks.  Plus I’d seen a few people who seemed relatively caring and I felt a sense of relief that if nothing else, I was among people.

Then, whack.  As I’m achieving a blissful state of relaxation and calm, thanks to the tools I brought instead of what was offered, the door slams open with the salty, seasoned veteran of the social work brigade.  Now again, you think I’m gonna complain about her but I rather liked her.  She took one look at my iPod declaring it a weapon of mass destruction and exclaiming how I could hurt myself with that.  She took it really well when I told her if I wanted to do that, I would have done it in the three hours prior.  Out she went to scold the graham cracker nurse then charged back in with her exasperated intern following behind.  ”Are you suicidal?”, she asked.  ”No, I’m Laurel”, I replied as I extended my hand to shake hers.  This didn’t faze her as she went on to rapid-fire questions faster than the intern could write them down.  The poor thing didn’t have a robotic scooting computer podium, so I slowed my answers down to accommodate her pace.  No, I didn’t harm or cut myself.  No, I haven’t harmed anyone else.  No, I don’t abuse alcohol or drugs.  She proclaimed me fit to go home unless I opted to stay for the accommodations of graham crackers,  tap water and the potty in the wall.  I declined and called another friend to please come get me.

Another hour later, I was given my iPod, my clothing including my bra which apparently posed a huge threat of strangulation to me here in the hospital.  I will have to draw some stern boundaries with that brassiere when I get home to never threaten me like that again.  The nurse presented me with my bill for the day and asked how I wanted to pay.  I told her that in my despair and turmoil, I hadn’t even considered that to which she replied that I could mail it back with payment.  A hundred dollar day that could have been spent at the day spa with seemingly better results.  I’m thinking a massage and a pedicure.

Again, I will practice gratitude that a clean, well staffed, teaching hospital was available to me.  If I was more chronic, the doctor explained, this might be the place for me.  Since I’m fairly functional with an acute crisis, under the care of a psychiatrist and therapist, there aren’t services there for me.  In other words, there isn’t a place for those of us in between.  One must be out of control, harming themselves or others and pose a huge threat to society before the psych hospital is the place to be.  OK, now I know that.  But I still wonder where then, does one like me go?  Where is the tribe of caring people who will help soothe the ravaged soul, bring tea and sing and rock me until my jangled self comes together.  Shouldn’t there be such a place?  I rely so heavily on myself for self nurturing and awareness but accepting my circumstances and limitations prompts me to always have a Plan B.  I’ll keep looking, it has to be out there somewhere.  At least, I know now where it isn’t.

a day of questions….

It is indeed a day of questions. This particular day of questioning has been followed by weeks of questioning.

Its an awkward junior high dance of where to place my feet, what do I do with my hands, how can I stop sweating each nuance of my being?

I suppose each day brings me closer to my truth.  I’m not sure why my truth has been so buried.  Who decided that it was to be my life’s journey to dig through the muck and proclaim my findings a treasure?  Why is it taking so long?  My post it notes that line the area above my desk say to practice acceptance.  They also remind me that I’m entitled to make mistakes and that I can’t start the chapter of your new life if you keep re-reading the last one.  I wonder if I’m not assimilating the lessons of my life or if I just have too many post it notes?

Today’s biggest question is one of my voice.  Usually my biggest questions are regarding my voice; where it is, how loud is it, how do I use it to the greatest good?  But underneath those questions lie the deepest challenge I face today.  What do you do when it is apparent that your voice and message make those in your life uncomfortable?  Where is the line of discernment between how the individual should proceed when they form a part of a larger  group and what is their responsibility to the greater good? Should one compromise the group for personal benefit?  Does one pray for the fear to be released from the family/community/church/friends with whom you’ve made a life with or does one practice a life unspoken or better yet, a life carefully spoken to those only ready to hear?  And if so, how does one know the difference?

I’ve been quite drawn lately to the plight of the gay person who struggles with whether or not to come out.  I find this a struggle that is similar to mine in the sense that neither can reveal the story truest to themselves without wondering how detrimental or incredible the outcome might be.  How does one make that final, irreversible decision and action?  It’s a long standing fantasy of mine to be able to tell the story of an abused and compromised child only to break the shackles of shame and liberated by the act of coming out.  It seems as if it would be freeing beyond belief.  Not taking the steps toward fulfilling that fantasy is a sort of slow emotional suicide.  That scenario involves lots of pretending, not stating the obvious (well at least the obvious to me) and leading my life with as much rhythm as a flat line on an EKG.  A basically unappealing and empty existence.

Is the solution a matter of re-framing one’s thinking to accommodate only thoughts of gratitude and a positive nature?  Isn’t that denial?

Could the whole matter of avoiding the tough subjects in life some sort of grace that I’ve yet to develop?  Isn’t that fear?

Should I practice more acceptance of what is and isn’t in my life and resign to a life without unabashed celebration of my total self?  Isn’t that numbing and settling?

I’d love to hear from anyone who not only has had the same questions but any solutions to this personal crisis as well.  Wishing I had more answers than questions, I leave that to you.

"Best Moment Award" for a Novel Writing Winter post!

Reblogged from sarahpotterwrites:

Awarding the people who live in the moment,
The noble who write and capture the best in life,
The bold who reminded us what really mattered -
Savoring the experience of quality time.

RULES:

Winners re-post this completely with their acceptance speech. This could be written or video recorded.

Winners have the privilege of awarding the next awardees! The re-post should include a NEW set of people/blogs worthy of the award; and winners notify them of the great news.

Read more… 558 more words

Looks like I got some work to do....Thanks Sarah Potter, you always bring light into my day....

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Primer for Partners of Sexual Abuse Survivors

Reblogged from May We Dance Upon Their Graves:

Unlike my other posts, this isn't written for survivors, but for their partners. Okay, I lied, it's really written for survivors to give to their partners, and has both answers to frequently asked questions and some helpful tips. I'm mixing up the pronouns here, because a lot of this applies to both women and men, but some of it will apply mainly to partners of women sexual assault survivors.

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Here are the words that I wish I could write for the partners of sexual abuse....for now, I will use these...

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Eyes Down

Reblogged from Worldly Winds:

• 

Shhh, don’t tell

don’t let on

that you’re in hell

hush now

Your lips are pursed

don’t tell the doctor

or the nurse

eyes down

What lurks within

can’t be without

masked by a grin

and bear it

So well hidden

the mortal sin

guilt well ridden

(Angels don’t sing)

The mask of norm

slips on by

distorts the form…

Read more… 46 more words

this is where i sit tonight....eyes down, no one daring to look....

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gonna kick the demon in the ass today….

Unlike my usual self, this will be short and to the point.

No graphic, triggering details.  Just the facts.  

Haven’t slept well in days, watched the clock go from 2 am to 3 am to 4 am….Tons of body sensations on my skin, in my brain.  I’ve gnawed at my fingernails and took my anxiety meds.  Practiced DBT and trauma release exercises.  I’ve been through this enough now to know what is happening and how it will play itself out. I’ve identified it, named it and tackled it.

In other words, I’ve got this covered.  I have tools and support.  The memory still came in my sleep disguised as a writhing rattlesnake in my mouth.  That’s what I woke up to was the feeling of it in my mouth and that’s what I’ve spent the day shaking off.  Doesn’t take an expert in dream interpretation to figure out this awful phallic metaphor.  

But you know what?  Its okay.  Today, I can hold onto my soul and refuse to let you have it.  I’m gonna kick the demon in the ass today and let it know who is really the boss around here.  

I’m the alpha bitch and that’s just the way it is.

my shattered voice mends slowly….

I’m keeping this short today.

Too often, I write with frustration and angst of not being able to do something.  Either I can’t write an outline, function as a “normal” person, protect my ultra sensitive self from the world or in the case of today, I’m struggling with my writing voice.

It isn’t frustration that I feel today, its more raw.  The tenderness that precedes healing.  There’s a hint of cohesion and acceptance.  I continue to look at the work that I’m doing with Warner Coaching and my first instinct is to beat my head against the same wall that I’ve beaten a rut into my entire life.  I don’t want to do that now and I’m sure she doesn’t want me to either.

Here’s my question that I’m pondering and hopefully, re-outlining and writing upon.  How do we access and write about memories so cellular that you experienced as a small pre-verbal child?  They are there but yet they aren’t.  How do we assign words and streams of sentences to an experience at a time when the child didn’t have words?  There are fragments.  Shattered, shards of splintering pictures that I, as an adult, must name and tell.  The abused, disassociated child must come together enough to write her story.  The process of sweeping those fragments out from under the rug, identifying and cataloging them is proving to be tougher than I ever imagined.

I’m painstakingly applying glue to delicate, tiny pieces of psyche.  I keep telling myself not to rush it for I want to slap the glue on and hold up my prize proclaiming it as my finished art.  But the glue isn’t dry yet and all the pieces aren’t in place.

My Novel Writing Winter may have evolved into more of a journey into my core viscera.  ”Remembering is not something we do alone….. negotiating an account of the past is a fraught, dangerous process. Memories can be weapons as well as instruments of persuasion. And memory has only a part-time interest in the truth. It deals in scenarios, real ones and imagined ones, making and remaking the self from the partial, damaged information available” from Creative Memories in Harold Pinter’s Old Times by Charles Fernyhough.

So its acceptance that I must practice.  Radical acceptance.  My story will happen and in its own time.  I’m stretching myself in an unchartered direction. I’m learning and rebuilding from the ground floor up, setting a pace for myself that I’ve never reached for before. Marsha Linehan, DBT creator, defines radical acceptance, ”As a practice, acceptance is highly important in working with impulsive, highly sensitive, and reactive clients. Validation is an active acknowledgement, often offered as an antithesis or synthesis to a distorted expectation or belief. It jumps the tracks of demand, soothing or defusing the emotional arousal associated with failure, feat, shame, unreasonably blocked goals, or a variety of other stimuli.”

I reach for the loving support of my family, friends, writing coach and virtual writing pals.  These gifts combined with prayer will suffice for the day. Soon I will know what to do and how to proceed.

Suggested reading:

“Cast Ashore“ http://throughthehealinglens.com/2013/01/24/cast-ashore/

 

My writing life with a coach…

The timing for my decision to hire a writing coach couldn’t have been better.  Several months into this joint project between myself and my coach has left me almost delirious with purpose.

Earlier this winter, I had the good fortune to read a post from Sarah Potter’s blog featuring a concept called Novel Writing Winter.  She explained her kinder and gentler approach to working on her book using the entire winter season to snuggle up and write.  I thought it was so creative, especially for those of us who are hunkered down anyway, facing those bleary grey winter days.  I’d already flunked out of NaNoWriMo and the prospect of having a writing buddy, a pal across the pond in the UK (in her case) sounded delightful.  I pictured many afternoons with an imaginary tea party with Sarah and friends chatting about our projects and realized it was exactly the support that I needed.

To that point, I had been writing.  I had been discovering memories, painstakingly putting them into form on a blog, mostly short and random stories.  It was fulfilling to a point but knew I had a larger purpose for the experience that I had gone through of abuse, childhood violence and recovery.  I wanted this story to be a book but hadn’t a clue of where to go from there.

I quickly joined up with Sarah and friends, put her badge on my blog and sat down with my stories.  Since I was already feeling encouraged by this support, I thought, why not take it to the next level?  The National Association of Memoir Writers, a group that I had belonged to for a year or so, was offering a class on memoir writing given by two women who I have come to love and respect.  Linda Joy Myers, who started NAMW, and Brooke Warner of Warner Coaching, were giving a 4-week introductory class through their Write Your Memoir in Six Months site.  It seemed like a perfect place to start in my quest to find out more and provide my story with some structure.

Yes, I said structure.  The one aspect of this process that was sorely lacking attention.  You see, I love the creative flow, the zone where I’m lost in my mind and pouring out words on the keyboard.  The romantic aspect of writing appeals so greatly to me.  Sitting in the library, books all around me, dog curled up by my side complete with a steaming cup of tea.  I have a good laugh at myself when I realize I’ve cultivated this quirky, dressed in black, elusive artist persona.  Oh, you should see me poised at the window wistfully looking out at the bleary winter sky with the tormented gaze of Virginia Wolff. I seriously have this part down.  I enjoy it so much that to date, it was the only part that was well developed.  But there is a practical, methodical aspect to writing that I hadn’t embraced yet and it seemed its time had come.  These stories needed structure, a place to belong, a linear home.

What I learned, during the 4 week course, was invaluable.  I was able to shift my brain over to the left a bit and look at the “bones” of my book, how I wanted it be outlined, what I wanted it to say.  Both Brooke and Linda are crackerjack at gently and persistently nudging us as writers, to look at the big picture and to work effectively and efficiently toward that goal.  I’m thinking I’ve probably shaved off years of aimless window gazing by finally choosing Brooke from Warner Coaching to be my writing coach.

Now, here’s my disclaimer.  I didn’t feel confident or even competent enough in the beginning to justify the money to hire a writing coach.  In fact, I was a real Nervous Nelly about it.  I had a few days of the inner critic snickering, “You think you’re good enough for this?”  ”She works with professionals in the publishing industry, not wannabe window-gazing writers!”  ”Just keep this dark, miserable writing to yourself, no one will want to read it!”

So, my critic and I had a long chat and I won. Ha. Through this conversation, I pinpointed exactly what I wanted.  In my heart, the reason I started this memoir in the first place, was to give the small child I once was a voice.  She had endured so much pain yet remained stoic and strong for a lifetime, that it was her time to speak.  I wanted more than anything to tell her story and mine and have it help someone along the way.  I just know that there are women, children, men and boys living everyday lives, struggling with secrets and the trauma of abuse.  I want to set them free.

I hired Brooke and what I’ve learned so far is just perfect.  She keeps me focused on the outline, the structure, the message, my voice.  These are not easy tasks for someone like me.  Traumatized children grow up into traumatized adults who don’t come by linear thinking easily.  We gravitate toward chaos.  And because of this special challenge, I needed a coach who would get this.

Why I chose to work with a writing coach, specifically Brooke….

• I needed accountability.  When we have deadlines, we work toward them.  I enjoy having assignments with specific due dates, it keeps me motivated and focused.
• Early on, I realized that I needed to work with a woman.  Trust is such a big issue with me and I work better with women, I trust them more.  That’s a usual conclusion for abused women and one that I honored with this decision.
• Brooke has so much professional experience and is wildly qualified to coach writing.  As the former editor of Seal Press, Brooke has worked with hundreds of authors taking their writing to published works.
• Besides her professional experience, I liked the titles that Seal Press published.  I gravitate toward that genre, it really spoke to me.
• She’s really nice.  Each suggestion is made with a professional grace combined with warmth and concern for my project.  I feel she respects me, my work and my goals.

After 4 sessions, I can feel a relationship forming and my trust in myself as a person and a writer is growing.  This is a monumentally huge accomplishment for a child of trauma, trust is usually very elusive. So, I must take a moment to thank all the wonderful women who so serendipitously have graced my life.  I consider myself so fortunate to have them placed in my path for me to stumble across, sometimes even tripping.  It’s just a great time to be Little L.