Writing as a Trauma Survivor

 

 

I watch a light dusting of snow come down on this idyllic winter afternoon. Even though we’ve been on a stretch of gloomy, sun deprived days, the opportunity to curl up and tend to some writing projects allure me. I feel a tug of inspiration. There are no appointments or projects outside the house today for which I’m grateful. The dogs are snuggled up near me, one at my side, one at my feet and are content, full and warm. My husband is happily creating in his studio and my grown daughter is busily occupied with her life on the other side of the city.

I can’t locate any apparent danger. Safety of myself and loved ones…check.

I scan the room and everything seems in order. The doors are locked and my home appears secure and safe. The curtains are drawn enough to keep anyone from looking in and startling me. I’m snug in my couch, my back to the wall, facing the entry to my home. I know what I’m doing even as I’m doing it.

Hypervigilence calmed by assessing my surroundings….check.

I sit with myself for a moment to insure that I am centered and safe enough to begin the journey inward to visit the inner world of the child that holds the stories. I’ve eaten today and have had a decent night’s sleep. No triggering memories or events have surfaced, I feel grounded and connected to reality, present in the moment. I think I’m good to go.

Assessment of self …. check.

Feeling somewhat reassured by my physical and emotional safety checklist, I pop open the laptop and see if she’s willing to talk.

The reality is that I have an article to complete. In fact, I have several submissions to compose and a book to finish that is 70,000 words in and 9/10ths done. I’m looking forward to knocking some of this work off of my to-do list.

As I begin to review my material, I feel the familiar stir. At first, I’m just unsettled, then it seizes me. My heart picks up it’s pace and I feel my anxiety mounting, not with what I’ve discovered to be a traditional writer’s block but with a terrorized struggle between my little one and the adult “me”. The adult wants to meet the deadlines, actively participate in various writing projects and continue the advocacy for my cause yet the little one who holds the details of my stories begins pulling back the reins something fierce right now. She’s telling me something but I don’t exactly know what it is. The capitulation is activated.

I’ve encountered this conundrum before as I’ve attempted to balance between the intoxicating freedom of allowing my voice versus the terror of actually parting with information that I’ve held captive for decades. Information that has brilliantly saved my life simultaneously keeping me safe…..yet stuck in so many ways. A paradox for sure.

I’ve discovered a powerful and innate desire to connect to the smallest parts of myself silenced by trauma and shame. I want to know her, I want to hear her dark secrets, I want to desperately reunite with her. And over the years since recovering my repressed memories I’ve done exactly that. But right now, I can’t get her to talk, let alone whisper to me.

Photo by Zohre Nemati on Unsplash

As a survivor, I long to tell my story for reasons that go beyond the simple recollection of my history. I have a fundamental need to create a coherent narrative of my past. Trauma has fragmented, repressed and distorted my core memories and history. It has lied to me viciously, telling me I’m worthless with no right to even utter a word of what has happened to me. It tells me to shut up in the most violent voice and remain quiet to preserve the pathology of its existence. It has stolen my past and I want it back.

It’s hardwired in my recovery process to be able to give voice to the muted child and reclaim my narrative. In a sense, survivors desire to purge what little we do know AS we attempt to discover what we don’t know. Each and every time, we must return to the scene of the crime, hoping for the best. The conflict of wanting to purge the story while revisiting it creates great anxiety because in the unearthing comes the intense jarring of being “there” again. Exhuming our stories challenge us intensely and take us to places that we vowed to escape. We must straddle two planes of existence, the “now” versus the “then” and be grounded enough in ourselves to know the difference.

It’s an incredibly tricky process. In an effort to excavate the missing elements of our memories and snap together the pieces of the past, we must think about the very things that are unthinkable IF we can remember them at all.

So how do we accomplish the unearthing process when often our trauma occurred at a young age or perhaps even a preverbal time in our lives? How do we form the elusive coherent narrative from flashbulb moments, create a linear timeline from disordered and fragmented emotions or moments encoded and imprinted with so much fear that it feels impossible? Is this even possible as we attempt to access a time when we most probably lacked words to match our feelings and experiences or when often attachments were distorted or non-existent?

My solution is broad as it is incomplete.

Over time, I’ve shaped an emotional safety plan to hold me steady as I venture into the very place that flipped my world upside down, a place that imprinted upon my vulnerable nervous system a trauma that compromised my neuro-physiological wiring for a lifetime.

It’s a work-in-progress, delicate dance comprised of her beckoning “listen to me” as I step toward her while she simultaneously pushes away. It ebbs and flows, shifts and changes…sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes I lean in harder with some solid reassurance that we are strong now, that I know what it takes to protect her and keep her safe. I tell her how much we’ve grown and have mostly mastered our day to day functioning, that this is a journey that we are capable of making together. I console her with the fact that she will never be alone in this odyssey again and that our discovery will be more a “recalling” process instead of a “reliving”.

She relaxes and says she’ll think about this. The anxiety lets up for a moment and I feel the shift of my nervous system to a more decelerated rate. I feel some satisfaction in the knowing that we made progress but a twinge of disappointment from unfinished work. But I know we are done for the day. I read her body signals well and am getting well versed at the dance.

The snow has let up and there’s still time for a short walk before the grey skies go dark. Jack the dog is excited as he sees me put on my boots and coat, grabbing the leash. We crunch through the snow feeling the cold air on my face and I promise the little girl that if she has any words for me, I am listening.

Conversational Narcissism

I finally have a word for it.

Conversational Narcissism.

This word defines a phenomena that I’ve experienced in my husband’s family pretty much 100% of the time I’ve known them, dominating each and every conversation I’ve had with them.  Something that I’ve come home with, shaking my head, trying to figure out why these holidays, vacations and gatherings seem so hollow and confusing.

I’ve been angry, dismayed, disappointed at the endless spinning of conversation designed around anything and everything THEM.  For years, I sat dutifully as my in-laws laughed and told tales of their vacations, their careers, their homes, the decor in each of these homes, details of friends I’d never met as well as stories of their children, their jobs, where they live.  While I thought I was being polite to my elders by listening albeit feigning interest often, it began to occur to me that they knew NOTHING about me.  It hit me hard one day when one of the in-laws or one of my sisters-in-law (can’t remember which), were listing all the professions represented in the family as a sort of parlor game.  The list comprised of a doctor, several teachers, an engineer, a technical theatre designer, a business owner.  One of the sisters said it sure would be great to have a nurse in the family to round out this list.

I was dumbfounded….I probably even shook my head in disbelief…. I’m sitting right there as a nurse with 20+ years in the field and they didn’t even know that? It would be less embarrassing to say that I’d only been in their family for several weeks or months….and I cringe when I say this, that I’d been married to my husband for over 5 years.  How did they not know anything about me or more importantly, how did they never stop talking about themselves long enough to ask?

Needless to say, I seized the opportunity to enlighten them that they did indeed have a nurse in the family, my background and education. I continued and went on to tell them about my daughter, their new granddaughter and niece, and all of her interests and accomplishments.  But it left the most bizarre taste in my mouth because I’d never, ever met a family that operated like this.  After this awkward informational session, I figured  we had struck new territory, that they indeed had a bit of background now and from then on we’d have healthier, more give-and-take kind of conversations.

I was so wrong.  The dynamics of this family were so well entrenched that nothing changed.  There were no probing questions or interested inquiries.  I continued to find myself listening as a bystander becoming more invisible through each of their never ceasing conversations of self.  His parents would continue to invite us over for a “visit” which meant come over and sit and listen to us talk about ourselves.  Even during tragic moments, suicide of a grandson’s friend, my own heart attack and hospitalization, or the mental breakdown of a cousin, would ANY subject besides themselves be approached.  The invalidation that I and my daughter felt was so palpable that we stopped going to functions and holidays because even though our bodies were there, we simply didn’t exist to this family.

Fast forward to today.

When I found this article featured in Oprah‘s magazine entitled, “The Mistake I Made with my Grieving Friend” by Celeste Headlee, I literally yelled WOW.

I finally have a word for this disrespectful and disproportional soapbox that I witnessed. Conversational Narcissism.

In this article, the author admittedly realizes that she is using the “shift” to make a conversation about her during a moment when her friend is grief stricken by the loss of her father.

Sociologist Charles Derber describes this tendency to insert oneself into a conversation as “conversational narcissism.” It’s the desire to take over a conversation, to do most of the talking and to turn the focus of the exchange to yourself. It is often subtle and unconscious. Derber writes that conversational narcissism “is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in America. It occurs in informal conversations among friends, family and co-workers. The profusion of popular literature about listening and the etiquette of managing those who talk constantly about themselves suggests its pervasiveness in everyday life.” Derber describes two kinds of responses in conversations: a shift response and a support response. The first shifts attention back to yourself, and the second supports the other person’s comment.

 

Here’s what it looks like taken from actual conversations with my husband’s family.

Shift Response:

Laurel: Did you hear that your grandson Ben lost a friend to suicide?

In Laws:  No, I didn’t.  A lady from church just lost her grandson recently in a car accident, it was awful. She’s having a really hard time.

Support Response: 

Laurel:  Did you hear that your grandson Ben lost a friend to suicide?

In Laws:  No, I didn’t!  What happened?  Have you spoken with Ben or his friend’s family?  We need to reach out to him and give him some support during this rough time.

Shift Response: 

Laurel: I’m unable to attend Thanksgiving this year because I just got out of the hospital and don’t feel well enough.

In Laws:  Okay, I’ll just ask my daughters to bring the food that you would have normally brought. We always have so much food at our gatherings.

Support Response:  

Laurel: I’m unable to attend Thanksgiving this year because I just got out of the hospital and don’t feel well enough.

In Laws:  I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in the hospital again.  We’d love to have you come and don’t worry about bringing food.  If you can’t make it, I’d love to send some food over to you later.  How are you feeling?

You get the idea.

The excitement that I feel when meeting a new person or even getting to know more about an old friend is based on the healthiest of a give and take conversation.  I love to talk but I also love to listen.  And ask questions and probe into the depths of a person’s stories and soul.  You know, meat and potatoes stuff. I can’t imagine it any other way. I want a dialogue, not a monologue.

But for the “conversational narcissist”, the goal is to get their needs met, not to get to know a person.  It is an ego feeding maneuver which is entirely one sided and executed to keep the attention on them.

For myself and my daughter, we simply had enough of these experiences and now are a no-show to family functions which interestingly, aren’t even really noticed.  As long as enough of the audience shows up, this family can conduct their usual lopsided interplays and never be the wiser to the fact that we’ve ditched them. Actually, they still haven’t stopped talking about themselves long enough to notice.

 

Sacred Longing

 

In the wee hours of the morning, we rise.

the time when our dreamtime sleep is pierced with the wounds of the past.

we startle awake, frantically searching

          our surroundings for safety,

          our bodies for breath,

         our minds for unity of our many selves shattered at the hands of our violators,

         our gods and goddesses for harmony within our spirit.

One by one, we stumble into the darkness, leaving the places where our bodies reside but our spirits restlessly search.

The old woman, long ago widowed, crawls from her warm bed where she sleeps alone.

The new mother stands from the chair where she’s been rocking her infant for hours.  

The young father checks his slumbering children before creeping out of the door.

The maiden whispers goodbye to her lover in his sleep.

The aching isolation of our souls prompt each of us to emerge from our earthly dwellings looking for that place beyond ourselves

for our tribe

our kindred connection

our family.

Once outside, we stand in the darkness, drinking in its moist feminine energy,

simultaneously fearing the danger darkness can bring yet slowly stepping into it.

For we sense a beckoning, a sacred longing that begins to ease our fears.   

The clouds part as a path is illuminated by Grandmother Moon for safe and easy travel.

The faint distant rhythm of a drum synchronizes with our own heartbeat.

A far away glow beckons us where a fire already tended crackles warmly.

And we descend upon it.

In that fire circle we sit, bathed in the moonlight, faces illuminated by the brilliance of the embers and we glow.

We greet each other by simply looking.

And it is there we truly begin to see.

Our tribe, made of many wounded souls.  

Some faces empty, devoid of emotion. staring.

Some young with wide frightened eyes.

Some wrinkled, filled with years of despair and longing.

Some with eyes closed, deep in thought.

One cradles her baby to her breast and while he nurses, she weeps softly.

One pokes and tends the fire, focuses on his task, never looking up.

One screams at the moon until wordless and spent, sinking to the ground.

One rocks a sobbing adolescent sprawled awkwardly across her lap.

One lurches out of the circle, purging and retching from her deepest parts.

The elderly crone stretches her crooked legs out in front of her and softly begins to sing.

Some reach out for another’s hand,

some stare at the fire,

some sway to the song of the crone.

In the night, we join each other.

Bonded by our wounds and the desire to transcend them.

In the night, we hold space for each other, knowing each of our paths differ as much as the pace that we travel them.  

The wise crone stands, reaches deep into her medicine pouch that sways from her middle and tosses white sage onto the hot stones and we witness the hissing smoke that arises.  

Young and old, we hush in unison, casting our prayers onto the smoke that travels to the heavens.  

The owl who guards us from the trees above, gives a guttural hoot in support of our ceremonial gesture.

 

The crone continues around the circle toward the young woman who nurses her baby, still quietly weeping.  

She stands behind her, gently places her gnarled hands into her long, thick hair,

stroking and raking,

stroking and raking.

The young one’s body relaxes and responds with gratitude, leans into her as the crone weaves magic into her hair.

 

Maybe Tomorrow, I’m Triggered Today

*this post is gently re-blogged from Jennifer Kindera*, Trauma Recovery Coach

I can’t look in the mirror today. I’ve done it before, looked at me when I’m triggered and I know what I will see. Vacant eyes telling a thousand stories that I can’t face yet again. I don’t want to face it yet again. When I’m like this, it’s all I can do to get out of bed. Function normally? Yeah, not so much. My brain knows that it’s because of the PTSD, the funk of being triggered, marinating in the past, reliving pain that I put to bed over and over again, through therapy, EMDR and mindfulness. I recognize the signs, my signs. I’ve been doing this thing for a while, walking through triggered, the chaos of heart rate, the anxiety anvil which sits on my chest, over-reacting to the little things, bottling up, stuffing down all the emotional warfare going on inside me, the chaos waiting to swallow me whole.

My Littles have been tearful and enraged by turns for a few days. It’s not my new normal, just my normal. Holidays, I trantrum. We put the Christmas tree up yesterday and that always seems to send me into the darkness. The abyss that is so real, where other people have twinkly lights and nice families and happily-ever-afters and I just blindly can’t see in the pitch-black pit of silent gore. But it’s not the tree or the holidays or <fill in the blank.> It’s my trauma rearing it’s head again. It’s wading in the desolate mire that says, oh you didn’t think I wouldn’t visit again, did you? My Inner Critic delights in the coming, it’s like a four year old the day before their birthday party, jumping up and down telling me everything I’ve done to heal isn’t enough, I better get busier, be better, let go more, or my old frenimie Shame will come a-knocking.

 

How long does it last? The awful apathy, nothing is good enough, leave me the fuck alone backasswards like I’m Sissypus and just one more time I’m gonna push that boulder up the mountain and it’s going to slide right back down.

Maybe tomorrow it will fade. I took my herbs today, made sure I ate, tried to work, used my tools. The lethargy is all-consuming though. I do know that once what took me three weeks to work through now might take three days. That’s great, wait what day am I on? How many layers are there anyway to this trauma recovery?

A friend said today, don’t give up. Don’t give in, whatever that looks like. If it means my socks don’t match and I stay in my pajamas all day, then that’s a win because I’m upright. If I hold my tongue when the nasty words want to spill out and rip across another person to project my pain, then that’s a win. The broken pieces of me are like shards of glass and as I keep on keeping on, shining light into the dark places it feels like infection spreading. There was a time when I thought I was the infection. I know in my head, if not in my heart that if I am struggling it’s okay.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s my mantra today. It’s.Okay.

It’s okay if you are struggling too. It’s okay because our healing isn’t linear or logical, it’s messy and ugly sometimes. It’s okay because some days it’s all we can do to breathe in and breathe out. It’s okay because no matter how dark it gets, the dawn will come. It’s okay because I may not be able to see the dawn for a few days, but at some point this panic weight will lift and I will settle again. It’s okay because I get to lean into the feelings, and peel back another layer of my painful past. It’s okay when it sucks and I don’t want to do just one more thing. Longer perhaps in between now and the next time, maybe. The Roman philosipher Seneca said, “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” I agree.

And, it’s okay.

 

 

“Dear Dad” – Anonymous Submission

Juggling the Jenkins

*The following has been submitted to me, and the writer has asked to remain anonymous. Names have been changed to protect the identity of those involved.*

I keep telling myself it’s okay to be angry. How could I not be angry after all the anger that my body endured from a man who was supposed to love me.

That being said…

Dear Dad,

This is for me, not for you. 

From the prime age of nine, the words “I hate our fucking kids, I wish they were dead.” Curved and shaped the memory of my Limbic System. I don’t blame you for being mad, you did tell us to have the toy room cleaned by the time you were home; we just weren’t quick enough.

Age 10, quite literally over spilt milk I was kicked out of our home and slept in the tree house for four nights. I know…

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When Will People Stop Blaming Survivors Of Sexual Trauma For Surviving?

November 19, 2017

I’ll Never Stop Being Resilient & Fighting for Truth

** TRIGGER ALERT **

BY RACHEL THOMPSON, REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR ON TIR

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I’m sorry you have to read what’s next. It was hard to write and I hope you will stay with me for the rest.

Do you know what it’s like to be ordered to lick a man’s penis ‘like an ice cream cone’ when you’re eleven years old? I can’t imagine most of the population can comprehend that. 

I can.

Because a man forced me to. More than once.

When the police eventually questioned me, after more than a year of various forms of abuse, I didn’t tell. Terrified this giant of a man, an army sergeant with a gun who lived next door, would kill my baby sister, I kept quiet. But my eyes dripped tears of tales untold, an admission of guilt owned by the intentions of men.

Eventually, I did tell. Two trials — taunting, haunting, harrowing, narrowing my world between him and me once again. “How will I ever escape the confines of this man’s world?” I wanted to scream, in words I didn’t know how to utter as I testified, twice, before God and man and him, specifying in impolite, forensic detail the ways he abolished my soul.

Telling isn’t justice, and justice isn’t handed down when victim blaming is first on everyone’s mind. Why are survivors forced to own our abusers’ intentions? He got eighteen months, then moved back home — right next door and mere feet away from my window — for another eight years. Long, slow days full of his kids’ accusatory stares and his wife’s accusatory lips.

How will I ever escape the confines of this man’s world?

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HOW DO SURVIVORS BECOME RESPONSIBLE FOR CRIMES WE DIDN’T COMMIT?

People tell survivors we are somehow complicit if we don’t tell. We are told he will hurt someone else if we keep quiet and it’s somehow our fault he is a criminal who will continue to commit crimes. We are to blame for the behavior of men.

It’s all very easy for non-survivors to make these statements. Do this, do that, and done. One, two, three. They cannot comprehend why we wouldn’t want to tell.

Have you been online lately? The myriad of reasons survivors don’t report is justifiable and lengthy: shame, fear of job loss, not being believed, minimizing our own experiences, bullying, ranking the abuse…it goes on. The worst part, however, is the verbal abuse people pile on, full of judgment about situations of which they know nothing.

The immensity of survival isn’t so facile, though, is it? The ulcerating pain in my stomach that reminds me of the terror, even forty years later. The powerlessness as I slide into a dissociated state of nothingness, the only area of my being he cannot invade. The daily flashbacks, something I’ve learned from an early age to redirect to happier thoughts so I don’t break down into numbing blankness or worse, go back to his world. Again.

What were you wearing?
What didn’t you stop it?
Why didn’t you tell anyone when it happened?
Why didn’t you fight back?
Where’s the proof?

What’s amazing is the questions people ask me and other survivors of sexual trauma (particularly rape survivors), as if we had the intention of becoming the victims of sexual predators. Let’s flip that language, that paradigm, that fucked-up thought process. Let’s ask these predators: Why did you do it? Why didn’t you know it was wrong? Why didn’t you tell anyone you raped her? Why didn’t you stop?

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THE REALITY OF REPORTING OUR ABUSE

If you look at the statistics of reporting, most sexual crimes go unreported. Those that do are rarely prosecuted. Lawyers go out of their way to discredit witnesses for lying, wanting attention, or being unreliable (particularly if they had been drinking). What’s so terribly sad is the end result: victims don’t come forward and report because who wants this kind of attention?

Given that not every sexual assault victim is raped (and even if they are, not every victim undergoes the invasive rape kit procedure, and even if they did, not every rape kit is processed), how can we possibly provide the proof people need to believe us? And my god, why should we have to?

Why is the assumption that survivors (regardless of gender) are lying? For all that awesome attention people give us? In all studies of false reporting crimes, false rape reports are lower than other crimes, despite what the Internet and MRA groups tell you.

I’m not here to debate statistics, because people are not stats. I’m here to focus on survivors.

 

YOU CAN LEARN RESILIENCE NOW

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UNDERSTANDING SEXUAL ABUSE

When will people stop blaming survivors of sexual trauma for being survivors of sexual trauma, and start focusing on why this happens? Do those who blame survivors understand that the crime itself is not about sexual gratification but about power?

Sexual abuse, assault, rape and harassment aren’t political acts. They are acts of control and they all cause harm.

There is no scale of best to worst. It’s all bad.

We see much made about this candidate did this, or this director did that. The #MeToo stories these past few months are both heartbreaking and yet, empowering for many of us.

For those who continue to make it a Democrat or Republican thing, please stop. Hold abusers accountable not because of their politics, but because of their crimes.

What is behind this phenomenon of blaming victims at all? We don’t blame people for being robbed, or shot. Why do we blame survivors for being sexually assaulted? There is no logic there. There certainly is no compassion.

Some tell us it’s on us, the ‘victim’ (in the legal sense of the word) to not put ourselves in high-risk situations. We should “know better,” particularly women, who may have worn a skirt one inch too high or a top one inch too low (because clothing creates the situation for rapists to rape, apparently, or who may have taken a business meeting that put us in a high-risk situation. This always makes me laugh ruefully as if we can predict when someone will make the choice to sexually abuse someone else. As if men are mere animals who see a flash of skin and turn into mindless monsters without thought or free will or the choice not to sexually assault or rape.

How disrespectful is that to the good men of this world?

The issue here is, again, people relentlessly placing blame for a criminal’s behavior on his victim, thus removing the responsibility for the crime from the criminal. In fact, the language here completely removes the criminal from the sentence. The onus is on the victim to not get raped, as opposed to the rapist to not rape:

Rachel is molested.

– versus –

The neighbor molested Rachel.

See the difference between those two sentences?

In my situation, at the age of eleven, I, along with a bunch of other neighborhood kids, would take turns getting scooter rides with the Pied Piper. This guy had grooming down: he’d give us candy—it was fun and not something our parents would do with us. Most non-survivors won’t understand or take into consideration something like grooming, yet it’s always part of an abuser’s arsenal, particularly with young children. They make us feel special, wanted, and cherished. Said the spider to the fly.

Sexual abuse of any kind is a conscious decision made by an abuser. Child molestation, sexual assault, and rape are crimes, make no mistake about it, and what happens to survivors is criminal. Regardless of what happens to our abuser, our sentence is lifelong. The effects of sexual trauma are long-term: PTSD, anxiety, depression, migraines, even immune disorders.

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So why didn’t I speak out initially, unprompted by police?

• Terror, for one. I truly believed he would kill my baby sister, or worse, my entire family. He had a gun, and he told me he would use it.
• Grooming, for another; convincing me nobody would believe me Why would I have reason to doubt an authority figure? He used my naiveté against me, as most abusers do.
• And finally, my introverted nature. Never a loud, gregarious child, I withdrew further into myself and my safe, imaginary, quiet world of stories, where little girls destroyed monsters, not the other way around.

In this impossible situation, this sick abuser steals my innocence, my being, my soul.

Eventually, I find all the scattered pieces and pull myself back together; broken, chipped, yet still capable of breaking through the enormous barriers of fear and shame to tell my story and help others feel less alone.

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WE ALL HEAL DIFFERENTLY

How? Therapy and meds helped immensely, but I didn’t get the help I intensely needed until my mid-thirties after the birth of my daughter when my world came crashing down — how could I keep her safe? All my carefully swept carpets broke apart and I became an anxious, panic-stricken shell (you can read more in my books and posts about how I worked through that).

What helped me most? I gave myself permission to write my first book dealing with my abuse experiences, Broken Pieces. With prose and poetry, I delve into what it was like to live the pieces of who I became after the abuse, not understanding how the abuse affected me as a girl, a woman, and a mother. Releasing Broken Places a few years later, I continue sharing my story of survival and the after-effects of the abuse.

The response was astounding – people (primarily women, but many men, too) contacted me with their own stories of sexual abuse and still do almost daily. I released the first book in 2013, the second in 2015. I’m writing Broken People now. With the initial release, I felt blessed by their gift of trust, yet stymied by how to help them (beyond giving them information to RAINN, a wonderful organization for rape, assault, and incest survivors), as I’m not a shrink.

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CONNECTING WITH OTHER SURVIVORS

So, I reached out and connected with the fabulous Bobbi Parish, herself an incest survivor and author, and founded #SexAbuseChat, which Bobbi and I co-host every Tuesday on Twitter, 6pm pst/9pm est. All survivors are welcome. Each week we discuss different topics affecting survivors. You can view previous chats by going to our public Facebook page (likes welcome!), so even if you’re not on Twitter, feel free to look through our chats.

I also started @SpeakOurStories with Dr. Shruti Kapoor, founder of @SayftyCom (whose goal is to help keep women safe worldwide). The SOS platform is to give all survivors, regardless of gender, a safe place to share their stories – anonymously is fine – and offer resources to get help. Submit your story here.

We all heal in our own way. We all deserve to recover in our own way. What survivors don’t need is for family, friends, and total strangers to blame us for crimes we did not commit. We don’t sexually abuse ourselves. We don’t want pity; we want support, compassion, help, and love.

For one tiny second, put yourself in my small shoes at the very beginning of this piece. Close your eyes, and feel what I felt. Now open your eyes. Poof. Gone. It’s nice to make that go away, isn’t it?

Survivors can’t do that. In the best of circumstances, we work through it, creating a good life just like anyone else. We can and do thrive.

Believe us. That’s all we ask.

Rachel Thompson, Author

If you have been sexually assaulted or know someone who has, please connect with RAINN.org here.

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What If REcovery Is Not What You Need To Survive? The Role of DIScovery and UNcovering in Trauma and Abuse Healing

 

This re-blogged nugget of wisdom is from the awesome YA author-advocate G. Donald Cribbs. I take no credit for any of the following words or thoughts but do align with many of the thought provoking points he makes.  We have both had the opportunity to join forces with Bobbi L. Parish to be part of her first-ever Trauma Recovery Coaching Certification class. And oh yeah, check out his books and buy a few for someone you love!

 

*****Trigger Warning*****

What if recovery is the wrong word, the wrong approach, the wrong lens to view the treatment and healing process? This question brought me to at least attempt to process this thought all the way through and blog about it so you have the opportunity to join the conversation, which I hope you’ll do in the comment section below. Let’s begin.

First, let’s start with the question, what is recovery anyway?

The definition gives us a few inroads and insights to begin from, but it doesn’t really get at what recovery is, or hopes, or attempts to be for a person in the treatment and healing process. The first definition, “a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength,” implies that there is a right state of health or wellness, and there is a wrong state. This sounds very much like a victim of abuse must choose whether they are on one side or the other. Thus, a person who is in “recovery,” carries with himself or herself a stigma that they are not well, and further, that they are in fact in a wrong state of wellness. Victim blaming, anyone? Ouch. That one stings a bit.

The second definition, “the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost,” suggests that a trauma that has occurred has somehow robbed the victim of his or her innocence, and he or she should strive to “get back,” what is rightfully his or hers to own. The heart or intent of this sentiment is at first a nice thought: surely, every child has a right to retain his or her innocence, right?

We have a right to be a child when we are children, and not be thrust into the very adult world of child sexual abuse, where our childhoods are essentially robbed from us, right? Every survivor of child sexual abuse knows this just isn’t true. We know what that horror feels like every day that follows from the moment our sexual abuse first began. But the truth is: the world isn’t a safe place where children retain their right to be innocent and free from the weight of being thrust forward into adulthood. We don’t all chase butterflies, or toss copious amounts of glitter on things, or frolic with unicorns. So the idea of regaining something I never had seems ludicrous to me. I never had that fantasy or fairytale childhood. It didn’t exist for me. Instead, I found myself forced to make the very adult choice to take the bullet and comply with my abuser’s sexual demands in order to spare my siblings from this horror, not realizing the world isn’t fair, and my abuser had no intention of holding up his end of the bargain. I cannot regain what I never had. Sure, I was robbed. So for me, that happened when I was only four years old. As I approach my own treatment and healing from child sexual abuse, I am no longer certain recovery is the right approach. Another way to state this is recovery may not be the right word.

So where does that leave us? It’s such a common feeling for a survivor to not fit in with “normal” people. We are outsiders. We don’t belong. We are the quintessential square peg trying to fit into a round hole. We just don’t. Fit, that is.

For a survivor of child sexual abuse, recovery just isn’t a good fit. For us, we need something that meets our unique healing and treatment needs. This led me to the following thought:

What if REcovery was more like DIScovery and UNcovering our TRUE SELVES?

Give that a minute to soak in. Feeling okay? Are you ready to move forward? It might take a few moments for you to fully absorb what I’m saying here. Let me try another way: I’m going to break each of these down a bit further to help clarify:

REcovery is supposed to equal getting back what was taken from you. This seems legitimate as long as you had something prior to your abuse that was taken, apart from your right to live an abuse-free life, that you can “RE,” or RE-COVER, or get back.

 

What if you could, instead, DIScover, or not focus on getting something that was lost or stolen back in the first place? What if, instead, you could choose to do what YOU want to do with the cover. For me, “cover” represents the aspect of abuse that is hidden or covered up.

 

When you work to regain yourself, you pull the covers off, and reveal the secret. This step can be very triggering, and should not be attempted without the help and support necessary to fully go through this process. If you are considering this step, don’t do it alone. Make sure you are ready, and you have professional support with a licensed professional, preferably one who is trauma-informed, and can attend to your unique therapeutic needs.

 

Before I can get to the final step in the “cover” process, I need to veer off from the main topic for a bit. You see, our abuser took all his or her responsibility for the abuse they inflicted on us, and placed the blame entirely on our shoulders. We tried to resist this, but over time, they wore us down. Eventually, we succumbed to their repeated statements (gas lighting) and treatment. They told us we were nothing, we were worthless, it was our fault. Then, they treated us as if we were nothing, as if we were worthless, and as if it was actually our fault.

 

To truly understand the process that took me from REcovery to DIScovery to UNcovering the TRUE SELF, check out “The Lying Triad and it’s Dark Guard,” by Bobbi L. Parish, MA on YouTube:

 

This brings me to the UNcover part: that the true task is to 1: Uncover the secret of the abuse, rip the cover off of the secret, and expose it for what it is. By taking the lie off of ourselves, we reveal what has been hidden all along: the lie our abuser gave to us, (that you are broken, deserving of your abuse, and essentially the Lying Triad and the Dark Guard Bobbi was talking about,) in order to avoid facing any consequences for abusing us, is finally given back to our abuser, and our TRUE SELF is seen for the first time. 2: The second task is to seek to fully know and embrace the TRUE SELF and allow the TRUE SELF to regain his or her power back.

 

If we as survivors are ever to regain anything, it is the truth of our TRUE SELVES. And this very important part of our healing journey can only be achieved if we move from REcovery to DIScovery and eventually arrive at UNcovering what has been hidden by our abuse: our TRUE SELVES.

 

If you’ve read this entire blog post, from the bottom of my heart to the tips of my toes and the top of my head, I thank you. I appreciate you hearing me out. You may not agree with anything I’ve said here. You might agree with some parts of it, or all of it. I invite you to join the conversation. Sound off in the comments below and let me know what this brought up for you, how you connect or disconnect from this concept about the recovery process. Healing from trauma and abuse have unique aspects that are not the same as other treatment and healing processes.

 

It is my hope that this can be the beginning of a conversation about those needs for true recovery and healing to happen in the survivor community. If you have an idea for a blog post in response to this one, I hope you’ll post a link in the comments below and I look forward to reading your reactions, comments, and posts.

 

I will close with a checklist for recovery, “Guiding Principles of Recovery”:

Pioneers of Change

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are not my beautiful words but those of Sophie Bashford; intuitive, spiritual writer and blogger.  

You may find her at her website, Facebook and Twitter…

 

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Pioneers of Change

Carving out new ways of being, of living, of loving, of creating, of working – this is what pioneers do.

Pioneers of change are rare because at some point, they always have to stop caring about what others think of them. They have to risk possible disapproval from others, because a part of creating freedom is being free to follow your own inner guidance, regardless of what it brings up for other people.

As you bring in new consciousness, you reach down deep – deeper than you ever believed was possible – and haul out the ancient treasure, the old wisdom, the cosmic truths, the wild and untamed instinct. This may sound easy, but many who have eschewed the familiar, domesticated, soul-restrained, heart-numbed paths will tell you that it is not.

It takes enormous, usually daily or even hourly, courage to stand apart from the herd and assert the newness, the shining fresh-air, the less-understood rhythms of Life and Universe.

Make no mistake, every single pioneer that you look up to, have learned from, take spiritual succour from, recognise as having blazed a trail for you to follow: every single person who changes vibration and consciousness has had to endure sometimes agonising inner and outer transformations and dark nights of the soul.

They wouldn’t be able to hold the energy they do if this was not the case.

If you wish to rise up and grow into your Soul’s Light, realise your spiritual destiny and make a difference here, you must know that the darker times are vital in order to build your sacred muscles.

When you look back on all your times of loneliness and alienation, confusion, insecurity, lostness, and intense fear at bringing the spiritual light of you out to be seen, and used as the Universe desires – you will come to see that this is the process of a pioneer.

When you are waking up to the truth of your destiny, you have to be plunged into the sacred fires of purification and oceanic depths of the Unknown. Many, many people will not understand why you are changing so much, why you are choosing this path, why you are speaking out, and why you have to stand alone in many ways in order to purify yourself from the mass conditioned mind.

True pioneers have to make hard choices about their lives.

No-one else can do it for them.

If this is you, then you have what it takes. You were designed for it. Not everyone will like, or approve of it. In many ways, that is a sign that you are doing it perfectly.

No-one who ever created the New, did so without determination, perseverance, patience, and extreme – though perhaps hidden – levels of courage.

They were all scared. They just carried on and did it in spite of the fear.

They didn’t wait for another day.

They did something that their Souls craved and yearned for – even if it terrified them, especially if it did – they did it today.

And thus they were lifted, deeply supported and touched the hearts and souls of the world.

 

 

How to Speak to Someone About an Unspeakable Loss

 

Reblogged from Linda Carroll at http://www.lindaacarroll.com/blog.php via Uplift

 

Five Ways to Help When You Feel There is Nothing You Can Do

“It’s not about saying the right things. It’s about doing the right things.” ~Unknown

 

Years ago, my family and I moved to a bucolic little town in New Zealand, where we were immediately swept up into a group of ex-pats and locals. We felt deeply connected to this community by the time I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in the local hospital.
When our son was three months old, a doctor heard a heart murmur. Twenty-four hours later, he died.

In the days and weeks that followed, I wandered in my own fog of grief as I went about the necessary tasks of ordinary life: shopping for food, taking our other kids to school, doing the usual mounds of laundry.

Meanwhile, my new friends kept their distance. I saw them take great care to avoid me: to cross the street, switch supermarket aisles, literally do an about-face when they saw me coming.

Invitations stopped coming. The phone went silent. My grief was marked by a deeper isolation than I’d ever known.

Later, many of these people apologized. They told me they were terribly sad and distressed about what had happened, but hadn’t known what to say. My loss was so enormous that words seemed inadequate, even pitiful.

They said nothing, out of fear that they would say the wrong thing.
This sort of experience repeats itself in many different forms: a friend gets dumped by the love of her life, a colleague is given notice at a job he’s held for two decades, or a loved one receives the dreaded news that she has inoperable cancer.

What can you say?

While it’s not an easy question to answer, one thing is certain: It’s worse to say nothing than to say the wrong thing. Here are five ways to respond helpfully to people who have suffered an enormous loss.

 

1. Manage your own feelings first.
When we learn that disaster has befallen a loved one, we initially feel shock. Our heart rate increases, our thoughts either speed up or slow down, and we may experience nausea or dizziness.

The anxiety we feel is real and personal. Our instinct, though, is to ignore it, find ways to numb it or minimize it. That’s a mistake.

If we address our own anxiety first, we’ll be in a much stronger position to respond well to the person most directly affected. Do the things you know how to do to manage stress. A walk in the woods, some meditation or yoga, or talking to a trusted friend can help.

Make sure your own body and emotions are regulated before you turn to the person in grief.

 

2. Now focus on the other person.
Remember that the isolation they feel is almost as painful as the shock and the sadness of the loss itself. If you avoid them because you don’t know what to say, this avoidance serves only your needs.

Our friends and other loved ones need our comfort, support, and involvement during times of sorrow.

Although there isn’t a right thing to say, there are some things to never say. They include the current favorite, “Everything happens for a reason,” or “I know just how you feel.” How do you know there’s a reason, and what difference would it make to a grieving person, anyway? And you don’t know how they feel—only they do.

 

3. Admit that you don’t know what to say.
That’s a good start. Try something simple that breaks the ice and starts a conversation, or at least sends a message to the other person that they’re not alone.

“I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I wish I could say the perfect thing, but I know there’s nothing to fix it. I just wanted you to know I care and am here with you.”

 

4. Listen.
If the person is willing to talk, listen. It’s the single most vital thing you can do.

Listen to their story without interrupting. Don’t turn the conversation back to you with statements like, “I know what you’re going through—my dog died last year.”

Don’t tell them what they will, or should, feel. Simply acknowledge their pain and listen to what it’s like for them.

We all have different styles of managing shock and distress. Some people are angry, while others seem numb. Still others turn to gallows humor. Your job is not to correct them but to give them space to be the way they need to be.

 

5. Rather than saying, ”Let me know if I can do anything,” offer to do something practical and specific.
Taking on an ordinary task is often most helpful. Offer to shop for groceries, run errands, drive the kids somewhere, or to cook a meal or two. Ask if you can call tomorrow, or if they want to be left alone for a few days.

When Survey Monkey’s CEO Dave Goldberg died suddenly, his wife, Sheryl Sandberg, wrote the following:

When I am asked, “How are you?” I stop myself from shouting, “My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am?” When I hear “How are you today?” I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.

Today, as I recall the loss of my own infant son, I think about the one person who did truly comfort me. She arrived at my house with a bottle of fine brandy and said, “This is everyone’s worst nightmare. I am so, so sorry this has happened.”

Then we sat on the lawn and she poured me a drink as she listened to every horrible detail.

As I look back now, I still feel how much her gesture helped me cope through those early days of pain. She didn’t try to fix me or try to make sense of what happened. She didn’t even try to comfort me. The comfort she gave came through her being in it with me.

You can’t fix what happened, but you can sit with someone, side by side, so they don’t feel quite so alone. That requires only intention, a willingness to feel awkward, and an open, listening heart. It’s the one gift that can make a difference.

 

About Linda

Linda Carroll was born in 1944 in San Francisco and adopted into an Italian Catholic family. Very early, she discovered poetry as a form of prayer and a window into an expanded life. In 1961, when Linda graduated from high school, San Francisco was already buzzing with counterculture music, arts, and style, and Linda found herself selling beads and going to peace marches.

After finishing her bachelors degree in Oregon in the seventies, she moved to New Zealand, where she raised children on an 86-acre sheep farm. She returned to Oregon in the eighties and received a masters in counseling, and began practicing as a therapist.

In the nineties, she and her veterinarian husband, Tim Barraud, began to teach a couples course based on the Imago work of Harville Hendrix, the PAIRS training of Dr. Laurie Gordon, and their own insights, study and practices. They continue to offer retreats and seminars all over the world; Linda’s third book, Love Cycles, newly published, is based on this work.

As an adult, Linda found her birth mother, the novelist Paula Fox, and began to understand her deep-seated love of poetry anew. In 2006, her memoir, Her Mother’s Daughter, was published by Doubleday. In 2008, Remember Who You Are was published by Conari Press.

Linda’s new book, Love Cycles: The Five Essential Stages of Lasting Love, is now available. Sign up for her mailing list to learn the latest news for this terrific book. And follow her on Facebook.

Linda has five children and ten grandchildren. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with her husband and three Jack Russells* and continues her lifelong path of spiritual seeking.

 

Wrestling with the Terror in the Night by @BobbiLParish