Tag Archive: sexual abuse


Sitting in Sadness

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
December 28, 2013

I love the sunlight through the trees

I’ve noticed lately that I am getting more comfortable in my sadness.  I am so often sad but I generally hide it behind a mask of fake polite smiles and small talk or jokes.  Lately I just allow myself to sit in the sadness… to allow the emotion to wash through me…to wash over me and pass on.  I have found that by allowing myself to actually feel the emotion it can run its natural course and I am free to feel other things, like joy, anger, passion, fear… I’ve been numb for so long – numb and lost and I’m ready for that part of my life to be over.  I am ready to feel… to feel everything – even if it hurts.  Live is too precious to miss.  I am tired of running – tired of hiding – tired of protecting bullies and abusers.  I will not live my life in fear.  I will not hide and pretend that I do not see the evil in the world.  I want to do it all… I want to sing, to run, to fight, to dance, to paint, to play, to make a big mess and laugh… I do not want to spend the rest of my life in stasis.  I’m ready to rise up.  I want to twirl in the yard with my arms flung out and my face to the sky.  I want to sword fight with sticks and I want to seek out beauty every day – in every place I am.  I want to take long walks by moonlight again and not be afraid…  I want to live my life again… and to think… it all began with me allowing myself to be sad… allowing myself to be.

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Well…I’m Back…

Filed under: Healing — 2 Comments
December 26, 2013

I’ve been gone from here for over a year… and it’s been a tumultuous year.  I’ve been hunkered down in severe self-protection mode hiding from the world and afraid to put my heart back out there…but I cannot live this way.   I was never meant to.  I was meant to live a life of passion.  An old therapist of mine once told me that when he met me two words immediately sprang to mind…. “Sleeping Giant”  Well…this giant is waking up… and I refuse to remain in this state of fear.   So look out, world… I’m awake and ready to stretch my legs once more.

I took this photograph of a Blue Morpho this year....broken and beautiful still

I took this photograph of a Blue Morpho this year….broken and beautiful still

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How the abuse affected me -Writing Exercise #1

Filed under: The Courage to Heal — 4 Comments
September 14, 2012

It is hard for me when I think about how Eddie’s abuse affected me.  I hate that his actions have had such an influence over my life.  It has tainted how I view people.  It has made it nearly impossible to trust anyone – even myself.  I feel isolated much of the time – afraid that if people really knew me they wouldn’t want anything to do with me.  Because of what Eddie did I feel dirty and broken inside and that is not fair.  I feel like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop – waiting to be abandoned and forgotten.  I grew up feeling invisible – I became the perfect chameleon, it’s how I survived.

I am still affected by his abuse today – I am so broken and so afraid.  I cannot function in a healthy relationship without constant guidance and reassurance.  I am afraid to have sex because I dont’ want my marriage tainted by Eddie’s touches.  I don’t want to think of his hands touching me when I should be enjoying my husband’s caress.  Because of the abuse I suffered as a child I feel powerless and tainted and worthless.  My life is still affected in so many areas.  I struggle in my marriage because I am unable to accept and trust love and affection.  I am affected in my job because I struggle to find my voice.  I am affected in my relationship with my family because I am still so afraid of them and I still feel crazy around them – crazy and so small.

One strength I developed because of the abuse is empathy.  I truly have a heart for the suffering.  I have a strongly developed sixth sense about people and their intentions.  It has helped me survive.  I developed a tender and caring heart and a strong desire to fight for the weak.  I developed and artistic eye and a desire to make the world beautiful.  I developed a rich imagination and a poet’s heart.  I escaped into words, books and dreams.  I found a way to wring pleasure out of almost any small thing – whether it is a gift or just the sight of a butterfly.  I am a strong woman.  I had to be to survive my childhood.  I locked myself away inside the warehouse of my mind and kept myself save in there between the dusty shelves.  If I survived this I can do anything.  I WILL make it out of this.  I WILL get better.  I will heal.  I am worth fighting for.  I can do this.

 

Father, I thank you for the strength You gave me to overcome my past.  I invite you into my heart, into my healing, into my broken places and into my marriage.  Come, Jesus.   Make the broken whole again…

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Healing: Part 1 – How do I feel?

Filed under: The Courage to Heal — 4 Comments
September 10, 2012

Excerpt from The Courage to Heal pg xxiv ~” Time will dull the pain, but deep healing doesn’t happen uness you consciously choose it”~

John Eldridge says in his book Wild at Heart that “A wound unfelt is a wound unhealed.”  So I have to ask myself – how do I feel?  How has living with this abuse made me feel…?  Following along in the first chapter of Courage I have journaled the following:

How abuse affected my self esteem: 

I feel…..

  • Bad, dirty, ashamed
  • Like there’s something wrong with me
  • Like if people really knew me they would leave me
  • Like I hate myself
  • Immobilized by fear/can’t get motivated
  • Unable to protect myself
  • Self destructive

I don’t know how to….

  • Identify my own needs
  • Feel good
  • Nurture myself
  • Trust myself
  • Recognize my own interests/talents/goals (my heart)

I feel like I can’t accomplish what I set out to do

I feel like I can’t move on with my life.

I feel compelled to be perfect

I feel like I am missing large parts of my childhood…

How this abuse has affected my body:

I have a hard time:

  • Appreciating and accepting my body
  • Feeling at home in my own skin
  • Being fully present in my body
  • experiencing a full rang of feelings in my body.
  • experiencing my body as a unified whole.

I have:

  • Hurt myself ~abused my body
  • Used alcohol and drugs
  • Had an eating disorder
  • Had a physical illness connected to my abuse
  • Felt as though I sometimes leave my body.

Sometimes I:

  • Am not always aware of the messages my body gives me (hunger, fear, tiredness…)
  • Mistrust my body
  • Feel numb or disconnected from physical sensations
  • Startle easily and have a hard time calming down
  • Am unable to relax and feel physically safe.

Relating to intimacy – Sometimes I:

  • Find it difficult to: trust people, make close friends, create/maintain healthy relationships, give or receive nurturing, be affectionate, say no/set appropriate boundaries.
  • I feel I don’t deserve love
  • I am afraid of people
  • I feel alienated/isolated
  • I rarely feel connected to self/others
  • I don’t know how to trust
  • I feel betrayed and taken advantage of
  • I shut down, get nervous, panic when people get too close
  • I cling to people I care about
  • I expect people to leave me.

It is hard to take an honest look at my life – to survey the damage like I am taking inventory.  I don’t exactly know how to feel about all of this…mosty I look over the different aspects of my life and kind of nod to myself and think…”Well this explains a lot.”

Please bear with me dear readers.  I am by far not through this journey yet.

Peace be with you.

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The Courage to Heal

Filed under: The Courage to Heal — 4 Comments
September 9, 2012

I’ve been absent from the electronic world for quite a while now… I’ve been working on a wonderful book called “The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse” by Laura Davis and Ellen Bass.  It’s a wonderful therapeutic tool with several writing and meditation exercises.  This book has taken me on a journey though my anger, my pain and my memories.  Through it I am finding connections to my past in many unexpected places and through many maladaptive coping mechanisms.  I am learning to identify survival techniques that helped me claw my way out of hell but are no longer serving me now.  I am learning to honor those defense mechanisms and to release them.  By no means have I “arrived” but for possibly the first time in my life I am consistently traveling on the road to healing.  If you will permit me I would like to share more of that healing journey with you through sharing my journaling from this wonderful book as well as my writing exercises from it and an honest look at my anger and fear and the relinquishment of the same.  May love and peace find you-may it find me as well.

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Pain

Filed under: Healing — 4 Comments
June 12, 2012

It feels like a dream … I am walking through a field hoping to find some wild-flowers to make a bouquet… there is mist everywhere and it hangs so heavy I cannot see the ground. As the sun comes out and the mist clears I find that I am not in a meadow at all – but a battle-ground – bodies mutilated all around my feet… every face is my own… The only daisies here are resting on the closed eyes of the dead and my bare feet are wet not with dew but with blood.

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Drowning

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
April 21, 2012

Lately I feel like I am drowning in pain.  All I can think is, “I don’t know how to do this…”  It’s crippling, really…I feel frozen in this spot and I am afraid to reach for help.  No one can help me through this.  The pain of my past has finally caught up with me and is taking hold of my life… it’s ruining my marriage…it’s permeating my relationships….it’s taking over!  I see every relationship or potential relationship through the filter of my parent’s abuse.  I can’t go on living like this.  It is so terrifying and isolating and maddening.  I want to be free of it all.  I wish I could wash this off… I wish I could dust my ands off and be done with it.  I wish I could change my past and give myself a blank slate – a fresh start… I wish there was a pill for bad memories… I wish…I wish…

Image

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Therapy Letter #3 – To my Husband

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
April 19, 2012

Dear M____,
This is the most difficult letter I will ever write to you. I know I have apologized a thousand times to you over the years and I know I have hurt you a million more. I know that you have no reason to hope for me to change, but I promise you I am trying. I realized this morning that I have become an abuser. The cycle must stop with me. You have pointed out to me that I have been abusing myself – but I realized this morning I have been abusing you as well.
All my life I learned that love meant judgement, rejection and pain. Though I had glimmers of real love in my grandmother, sadly, she wasn’t the stronger influence in my life. My toxic parents were…their lessons of love driven home much harder and deeper than hers. This is not an excuse, just an explanation. My life has been filled with overwhelming pain since birth and pain has been my constant companion. I don’t want this anymore.
All of those unhealthy abusive behaviors followed me from my parent’s home into ours. I have neglected you and withdrew into myself and withheld love from you. It does not matter that this was not a conscious decision or done with intent. The result is the same. Pain. Doubt. A crumbling marriage.
I realize this morning that the times I am feeling the most fear and panic and doubt are the times I need to be running to you – not away from you. Because of my fear of love and feelings of worthlessness I have continued my parent’s toxic abuse cycle with you in our marriage. I have been come the thing I hate. No wonder you don’t feel safe with me.
I don’t know why God brought us together but I fear that I don’t have much to offer you. I know I have a long road to recovery ahead of me and I know I won’t get it right all the time – but I promise to get it right more often than I get it wrong.
I want to tell you that I am profoundly sorry fo all the pain I caused you through the course of our relationship. I want to tell you that I truly understand if you don’t want anything to do with me – after all – I am more like our fathers than you mother or my grandmother. I am self-centered and neglectful nd don’t deserve another chance to hurt you. You have this beautiful, loving heart and I have done my best to destroy it. You don’t deserve this.
this is what I can promise you… I love you with all my heart and I am fully committed to you – to us- and I will do everything in my power to break this cycle. I will make better choices – when all of my instincts tell me to withdraw – to hide…I will make a conscious decision to seek your heart that much harder. When I feel like pulling away I will cling to us and to God. I will pray against my strongholds daily and I will seek God in our marriage. I will see you and love you and not hide myself from you. I will fight harder against the lies and patterns I was raised around and I will talk openly about my hopes, beliefs, fears and doubts instead of retreating into my head and locking down my heart.
I take full responsibility for the current problems in our marriage and I beg your forgiveness.
I love you M___. I pray that I haven’t ruined this.
Love,
No Longer Damaged Goods

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Therapy Letter #1 – to Eddie

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
March 8, 2012

Dear Eddie:

How dare you!  I don’t know what’s wrong with you!  Who would do that to a child?  What kind of sick pervert  would touch a child like that?!?  You are a monster and you don’t deserve to live.  I wish you had never been born.  You are disgusting!  It is never ok to force sex on a child.  Children are not sexually attractive.  You diseased, filth-ridden, deplorable man!  You should suffer for what you did to me, to all of us.  You should be tortured slowly over years for the pain you inflicted on us.  You are not a follower of Christ!  You should never pretend to be…. all those years of preaching while raping little girls… you are disgusting, filthy and an abomination to humanity.  You should not call yourslef a man – that is an insult to masculinity.  True men protect those they love – they do not torture them.  True men do not use their strength to coerce – they use it to liberate.   You do not even deserve to be called human – none of what you did to us was humane.  I hope you rot in prison – know that you belong there!

Sincerely,

No Longer Damaged Goods

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The Temptation

Filed under: Healing — 5 Comments
April 16, 2011

I felt the temptation to cut again yesterday stronger than I have in years.  It’s so frustrating… I thought I was past this… Some days the pain is just too much and I want some relief.  The thought of  a sharp blade was so comforting and alluring…like a siren’s song.  I don’t want to go down this path again.  I decide my future, and my future is not drowned in numbness-walking through life like a zombie.  I want to feel and be alive and real.  I want a life of honestly dealing with my emotions not running from them to booze or blade or drugs or sex or danger.  I want to breathe in every second of this precious life – even the parts that are painful or frustrating.   I want to be alive.  Please, God, help me…

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