How do you recover from child abuse?

[blind_otter]

It's not actually confrontation that I don't like, because I will defend myself. It's the actual situations which bring on a high level of stress. If I don't care about what you think personally, then I have no problem ripping you a new one!

 

I call it being gun shy. And my recent ex complained about it endlessly. How every time something rocked the boat, I would capsize and it would take so much effort to get me/us seaworthy again.

 

Like one of my dogs, was traumatized by a gun when he was a pup. So now if he hears fireworks, or a car backfiring, he has a freak out and shivers uncontrollably for hours, hiding in my closet. Nothing helps him. I'm like that. Anything that remotely reminds me of the stress and fear makes me hide and shiver.

 

Even if someone raises there voice at me I'll cover my ears and I usually start to cry. It's not like I'm over sensitive. It's fear. Then I feel unsafe and can't trust ANYONE for days...

[Mz. Pixie]

YES! Bo, that's it!

 

I feel almost bruised today. He has his own issues to deal with about abandonment from his last marriage. He actually told me if I wanted to cut and leave then so be it. That is what happened in his past so he thinks it will repeat itself, and I said NOTHING about leaving.

 

For all of his crappy things that he did, my exhusband would have never accused me of using my past as a crutch. I just told my husband that on the phone. I can imagine that it hurt his feelings, but I just can't fathom how he would even suggest that to me.

 

A friend who I've not known long but that I share things with has had a charmed life herself. Her parents are wealthy just like my husbands and she's had everything. She said this morning that although she's never experienced what I have she would have never said that to me, because it's just not true.

 

When I was young if my mom wanted to fight she would pick pick pick until she hit a sore spot. I kinda felt like that is what he did yesterday. He wanted to hurt me so he picked the one thing he thought would.

[Becoming]

He made the mistake of insinuating yesterday that perhaps I use this as a crutch. I won't even go into the drama that happened after that but I can tell you I said, "How dare you- Mr. I have had everything handed to me on a silver platter". He apologized profusely afterwards but actually the damage has been done. I don't feel safe right now to even tell him how I feel. He said he cannot believe that one comment out of everything he's said can cause me to feel that way- which is yet another indicator that he has no clue about how I feel.

 

 

Ouch! I'm sorry, MzP. Early in our marriage I tried to recount what happened to me as a child and got met with deer in headlights incomprehension and insinuation that I was just overly sensitive. From that moment on, I quit telling him and shut that place off in me from him and even myself, believing that it really must have been me, that I was too sensitive. If I'd have had help at that point, countless years of marital conflict could have been avoided.

 

That's why the early advice about sharing it with everyone was, I thought, potentially damaging, not helpful, to people. Not having someone respect what happened and care that you hurt IS like being abused some more (to a lesser degree of course). It reinforces the denial that's at work keeping us from healing--i.e. "It must not really have been that bad. Maybe I did deserve it."

 

Now, 20+ years later, we're both seeing how the conflict of our marriage got set up. As an adored child, he couldn't comprehend, yet I expected him to be able to respond in the way I wanted. I would have liked for him to have read things and tried to understand how this affected me, but when I gave him such things, it didn't seem like he did because he showed no emotion, made no attempt to start a conversation about it. In his world, men just didn't do stuff like this. He was used to showing no emotion. So when he didn't respond the way I wanted, I accused him of not caring, which, because of his issues, set the whole vicious cycle spinning. As an adored child, he was not used to any criticism, so he heard what I was saying as criticism (which, of course it was:D ), then started defending himself against my perceived attack. I was then demonized, which brought out the rage and had me acting like a wildwoman, which was proof that indeed, I was the one who was crazy, sorry. And in the end, no one ended up feeling cared for because they weren't.

 

Part of this is a man thing. Your female friend could express sympathy, but men generally don't. They have to be taught this skill, usually by women.

 

But there's hope: Last night, we went out, had a drink and sat talking about all this until we closed the place down. All my anger has pretty much gone now. (About time!) Instead, I told him I pretty much felt nothing one way or the other about our marriage, which is oddly true, even though it's better now than it's ever been. I dunno, maybe the freak show has pulled out of town! And then he said he understands why that is: he wasn't really there for me or anyone else including himself, which is true. But now it's like he sees the hurting me, the Little One so used to hiding, though he says he has to look hard for her sometimes. But he's looking. And the fact that he is looking is the most amazing healing I've ever had from a human being I haven't been paying to help me through all this.

 

But to get here, I had to leave him alone to deal with his own demons while I fought mine. I had to detach from the expectation that he'd somehow be the prince who'd rescue me (damn that Snow White myth!). And I had to be the one to learn finally, how to take care of me. That, I am still learning.

 

But my kilter's getting much more centered and even-keeled, which feels really good. How's your kilter coming, BOt?

 

I agree about the raised voice and gun shy. I experience that, too. I have to step back and go rational and say, "No this is not like {past}. This is something different, and you can choose how you want to respond to NOW instead of how you want to respond to the past that's only here in your head." See why life gets so exhausting and why it's easier to be alone until this becomes second-nature?

[Mz. Pixie]

So, I printed the stuff out for him and he read it and called me. He said, so what you're saying is because you experienced XY and Z then it causes you to react to stress by either shutting down or getting hysterical??

 

Ummmm yes- that's part of it but there is so much more to it.

 

He said, well, we'll sit down tonight and talk more about it. I say that's a good sign.

[Becoming]

Ok, go get a snack, 'cause this one's a long one. But important.

 

It was the darndest thing, but this a.m. my H and I ended up in a big row because of your post about you and your H, MzP! I was explaining what was happening in your situation, and lo! the same situation unfolded in our bathroom! Amazing. But we learned some things:

 

I was recounting the pain of trying to share all this stuff and what happens when we’re met with no response or a minimization of our pain—it’s a reinforcement of what happened to us as a child when what we are seeking is a healing from it. Because the person was perceived to be safe enough to share this pain with, when we get met with what is verification in our minds that indeed they’re just like the abusers who don’t care about us, the rage that we felt in the initial abusive situation comes out because of the violation that we perceive is similar to the abuse that occurred earlier. When the rage comes out, surprising the other, the other feels they have to run for the hills and starts being defensive and blaming us for what’s currently happening (which, to be honest, is partly true). But the blaming is heard as similar to the same old abusive messages we heard, adding gasoline to the fire the rage further.

 

I’m trying to get my pain heard, empathized with, have someone offer validation for my feelings that I never received from abusers who told me I deserved it, and this just kind of empathy flat-out seems to be impossible for my husband to express, though I think (hope?) is there.

 

But here’s what I saw that I do that sets the situation up. I was presenting a case, just sharing information about it, and when my husband said with regard to your H, “We need you to sit us down and tell us what you need us to do.” I responded with, “We can’t.” The subtle shift that occurred at that point had us then talking about us, but my H didn’t catch the shift; he thought we were still talking about you and yours, when I’d switched into talking about our relationship and all the times I hadn't been heard (yes, the garbage disposal was grinding away in that kitchen sink!). He’s thinking from here on out, “WTF? I was just talking about what MzP’s husband might need to do to help them out. Now why is she lobbing stuff out at me?” (It takes him awhile to shift gears and keep up, but I’ve got so much adrenaline going by this time that I don’t shut up.) And so we’re off. . . .

 

He just told me he felt drawn in to a hypothetical situation and sucker punched with what he’d done wrong in our marriage. Which is true. He was. I didn’t consciously intend that, but that’s what I did. And now I see that I am always testing. Even after 25 years with him that part of me that is masterful at hiding is always testing to see whether it’s safe to come out. And when I do, slyly with such supreme stealth that no one recognizes my presence so they don’t realize they just stepped on me, I scream at them just so they know I’m here and that they (inadvertently) hurt me. Man, we must be a trip to live with!

 

So we get all this sorted out, and we’re back to H’s observation that we just need to sit our H/SO down and tell him what we need from him: empathetic listening, sympathy expressed, what your female friend naturally did, to let you talk it out, cry it out, and be a safe listening and supportive shoulder to cry on.

 

But here’s the thing: to tell them this and have them do it reduces them to a puppet going through the motions when what we need is genuine sympathy and care from another, not something staged or set up that will ring false. So we tell them what we need (if we know it at all!) because it means we can’t get it; we’ll always be wondering if it’s for real. (Except we do know the difference when it happens.) And if it doesn’t happen after we ask for it, that’s devastating, because, again, it reinforces the abusive pattern. So we keep testing and sneaking out and because we stay invisible to them, keep getting hurt.

 

If, on the other hand, I had just said at the beginning of this relationship, “Here’s my baggage that’s always here. I need to get rid of a lot of it, and I’m working on that (with therapist), but I need you to know about it because it’s going to be like a big hole in the livingroom hidden under the rug in our relationship. We’ll keep falling into this pit until we learn how to live with it. I can’t tell you all at once what has happened to me. I can only tell it in parts without being overwhelmed by all the pain. When I do tell you about abusive situations, I need you to treat that very tenderly with care and empathy that lets me know you see my hurt and understand what this means for me. How you treat my telling of what happened to me will tell me much about whether or not our relationship feels good for me. If you do not acknowledge my pain, seek to understand it, comfort me with sympathy, then I am likely to cut you off from having access to that part of me again, which means it'll go guerilla on us. I find it hard to trust, and for me to share this with you is a big deal. It is very intimate. If you minimize or scoff at my pain, you will probably encounter rage, the strong protective part of me that kept me alive through it all. How you respond to that rage will tell me if you’re strong enough to help me. If you run from it and defend yourself, I will think that you’re not big enough to care for anyone but yourself. But if you stand against it with the truth that is love, real love, the love that will not harm, my rage will melt. I am working hard to control that rage, but sometimes it gets the better of me. Stand for me, with me against it. When I see you’re on my side, seeking healing for me, though not at your own expense, I will do most anything for you. I will love you with a love so fierce with gratitude that, again, it might overwhelm. But it will be a good love that seeks wholeness and goodness and peace for all, never intentional harm."

 

Would that I had had that wherewithal at the beginning of this marriage. Hope this helps yours MzP and any others' significant relationships in the future. If we could be up front with the test at the beginning of a relationship, we'd know whether or not it was OK to continue it before we got hooked into it.

[blind_otter]

So we get all this sorted out, and we’re back to H’s observation that we just need to sit our H/SO down and tell him what we need from him: empathetic listening, sympathy expressed, what your female friend naturally did, to let you talk it out, cry it out, and be a safe listening and supportive shoulder to cry on.

 

But this is contrary to the basic way that most men approach problem solving, too...they WANT to fix things. Some kind of concrete activity.

 

My ex wants to pay for my therapy...

[Mz. Pixie]

Wow, Becoming, that was wierd but funny and enlightening all at the same time........

 

Your post was right on in so many ways, especially the part about sneaking out so no one notices??? Boy, sometimes it's like I'm hearing myself talk about me when you post!

 

When I got home last night I had dinner on the stove, and three dozen roses on the table. The laundry was done and the kitchen was spotless. He'd made special shrimp cocktails that looked like they came out of some fancy place. He's quite the cook anyway. Everything was lovely.

 

Ironically last night we watched some recorded Oprah's. I tivo that and Dr Phil everyday and watch them when I can. Oprah's show for some day or another was mothers who stayed with their children's child molesters. Needless to say, that smacked him in the face, considering we had discussed how that affected me.

 

We talked a bit more after we ate and he asked some more questions. He said that from what he could understand about what I'd said and the literature that it wasn't so much the abuse that continued to stress me but the way I reacted to stress and how it made me feel like I was undergoing it again. I was like "BINGO". I explained how I'd developed these coping mechanisms over the years to protect myself and it was just what I did to try and protect myself from the stress. In the info was a good bit about Avoidance and he mentioned how I want to withdraw from everyone- not go to work, not get dressed or interact with people. Which is true. He said I'm like a turtle who goes into their shell and only sticks his head out when he feels it's safe.

 

He's pretty big on me telling him what I expect, rather than him trying to play the guessing game. I told him I needed him to "talk me down" when I was like that, rather than suggesting I needed to change my mindset, because that is insulting to me. Talk soothing to me, do something extra sweet for me. Don't try to fix it. Of course, his wife is in pain and he wants to fix it- I understand and I would LOVE it if he could fix it, but nothing short of a brain erase is going to do it.

 

He asked me if all the blessings in my life now- him, our healthy children, our beautiful home, my amazing inlaws, my good job didn't outweigh the abuse I'd suffered. I told him that was a strange question but I think he feels that as for so long I didn't have much- when growing up- that perhaps having all of this now should be enough. I say that I deserved to have both and didn't so there is still somewhat of a void there.

 

I still think being unmedicated for the first year in many years has alot to do with it all as well.

 

Today instead of being resentful of him going out of town this week and not saying anything, I articulated to him exactly why it bothered me and what I expected from him in the future. That's a big step for me.

 

Also, this morning I found out my sons teacher did something stupid, but I handled it without freaking out and getting hysterical. So, that's positive as well!

[Becoming]

Sounds like a great evening!

 

But this is contrary to the basic way that most men approach problem solving, too...they WANT to fix things. Some kind of concrete activity.

 

Yes. But we've got to teach them that fixing it means doing just what MzP describes:

 

I told him I needed him to "talk me down" when I was like that, rather than suggesting I needed to change my mindset, because that is insulting to me. Talk soothing to me, do something extra sweet for me. Don't try to fix it. Of course, his wife is in pain and he wants to fix it- I understand and I would LOVE it if he could fix it, but nothing short of a brain erase is going to do it.

 

The Bible talks about bearing one another's burdens and thus fulfilling the law of Christ (Gal. 2? 5?) The word for burdens in the Greek is a word used for something so heavy that we can't get out from under it. It's not like a backpack or baggage that we can carry on our own. It's a boulder we're stuck under and we need someone to lift from us in order to be free to go on to carry our own stuff. We need one another to free us, and those who do so are acting as little christs bringing Christ's healing. I love that passage.

 

This past abuse is a boulder that has us trapped. What we need to teach our men, it seems to me, is that by listening and trying to understand and help us out of our past strange patterns instead of getting tripped up by their wiles, they ARE fixing it. Indeed, they are performing divine work.

[enki]

Becoming, this is first to thank you for your inspiration. In just one day I have read your posts from last November until now and it is positively stunning to see how far you have come in such a relatively short time. Your courage and integrity have been the motivators to make me join this site.

 

You have mentioned that "This past abuse is a boulder that has us trapped."

"It's a boulder we're stuck under and we need someone to lift from us in order to be free to go on to carry our own stuff." I thought so too until relativism came in the unlikely form of a scene from "Indianna Jones and the Temple of Doom" where he and the heroine were being pursued down a tunnel by a huge boulder. Suddenly it became clear that although most people have a big stone somewhere in their imagery, not everyone has to carry it. Some are pursued by it, some dig holes in it to see what's inside, some even stand on it to get a better view.

 

On reflection it seemed that "You have to carry this" was what parents taught us as part of their abuse, especially if they scape-goated us to cover up for their own mental disorders and guilt. After that, every time anyone, including the internalised images of my parents, started telling me I had to cart this stone around, I asked "Who says? Carry your own fornicating stone! I'm a kid, not a truck."

 

Hope this suggestion helps, and thank you anyway for the wonderful example you have set.

[Becoming]

Becoming, this is first to thank you for your inspiration. In just one day I have read your posts from last November until now and it is positively stunning to see how far you have come in such a relatively short time. Your courage and integrity have been the motivators to make me join this site.

 

You have mentioned that "This past abuse is a boulder that has us trapped."

"It's a boulder we're stuck under and we need someone to lift from us in order to be free to go on to carry our own stuff." I thought so too until relativism came in the unlikely form of a scene from "Indianna Jones and the Temple of Doom" where he and the heroine were being pursued down a tunnel by a huge boulder. Suddenly it became clear that although most people have a big stone somewhere in their imagery, not everyone has to carry it. Some are pursued by it, some dig holes in it to see what's inside, some even stand on it to get a better view.

 

On reflection it seemed that "You have to carry this" was what parents taught us as part of their abuse, especially if they scape-goated us to cover up for their own mental disorders and guilt. After that, every time anyone, including the internalised images of my parents, started telling me I had to cart this stone around, I asked "Who says? Carry your own fornicating stone! I'm a kid, not a truck."

 

Hope this suggestion helps, and thank you anyway for the wonderful example you have set.

 

 

Wow! This is like a revelation from God for me. THANK YOU! You're absolutely right! There comes a point where we have to speak this Word to that stone.

 

I'm Christian, so I see things through those images and understandings. Forgive me, I don't mean to proselytize, just share truth from that perspective to say now you've really got me thinking: about the stone of the grave that was rolled away at the resurrection which an angel hops up on to announce the good news. About the song, "gonna lay down my burdens, down by the riverside," which, of course, is a reference to baptism and new life in Christ.

 

When am I finally gonna lay the burden down? You're right: it wasn't mine to begin with. Of course, as children we couldn't see that and got stuck under it. But now that we can, thanks to others like those of you here on LS who have lifted that bolder up enough for me to crawl out from under it, why do I continue to believe this is my burden to carry? I keep misplacing my faith in what I learned as a child from my parents instead of placing it in what I learned from my real Parent who rolled the stone away and offers me resurrection life.

 

It's time to lay the burden down once and for all and quit taking it back up.

 

THANK YOU ALL! :bunny: I can see the promised land of health and right relationality and possibility, and I'm ready to go get settled in. I can distinguish between good and evil, choose good, and resist evil. I can see more clearly the patterns of how I trip myself up, thanks to all you've shared, and I know where to place my trust.

 

Most importantly, I know what it is I really believe about what is really true: That boulder was blasted to smithereens by resurrection. It only exists now in my mind that's been distorted by lies I believed. That damn bolder isn't really there anymore except in my mind. And I'm done with it. So in the name of Jesus Christ, I hereby blow it up: Be gone!

 

The old is finished, gone. Behold! New life has begun!

 

Now it'll be interesting to see if I can keep from going back and gathering the pieces of blown rocks and putting them in my backpack to carry. I'll need others to keep me firm in my beliefs even as I continue to help with reclamation efforts for others' sakes.

[blind_otter]

It makes me feel like there is some hope. I've been going through it today and it makes me feel like I have no hope sometimes.

[Becoming]

It makes me feel like there is some hope. I've been going through it today and it makes me feel like I have no hope sometimes.

 

I know. That's why I posted it, even though I'm not inclined to bare my soul this way to much of anyone.

 

Just keep slogging on and let us know how we can help lift that boulder until it's time for you to slide on out from under it, ok? This is gonna be the year you break the seven-year curse.

[enki]

Becoming, thank you for your thought-provoking reply to my post yesterday. Hope these thoughts cheer you and Blind Otter. (Otters are soooo cute!)

“Now it'll be interesting to see if I can keep from going back and gathering the pieces of blown rocks and putting them in my backpack to carry.”

 

“Ah, Love! Could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,

Would we not shatter it to bits – and then

Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!”

(Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 73rd quatrain.)

 

“I'll need others to keep me firm in my beliefs even as I continue to help with reclamation efforts for others' sakes.”

 

With respect Becoming, somebody already has helped to do exactly that.

In Matt. 21:42, Mark 12:10 and Luke 20:17 that same “Somebody” quoted Psalm 118:22.

“The stone which the builders have rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”

 

While I an not qualified to interpret the Bible, I wonder if this quote means that we needn’t carry the broken rock any more, but perhaps we can use rejected or despised bits of it to rebuild a new and stronger connection with Self, or God, or wholeness, or whatever each of us calls it. Rocks aren’t all bad. It’s just not our job to carry them.

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.” (2 Sam. 22:2)

“He is the rock, His work is perfect: for all his ways are justice.” (Deut. 32:4)

 

There seems to be something about the transformative power of love; not love for the creeps who hurt us, but love for the real stone, the dynamic essence of our selves, which our persecutors didn’t even know existed, so they brainwashed us into believing there was a hard heavy lump there instead. But there is a healing force far more powerful than all of their cruelty, whose laws are greater than their perverted rules. We can trust that force to keep us firm in all our beliefs.

 

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep my judgements and do them.” (Ezek. 36:26 & 27)

[blind_otter]

I was at a my ex's house on Friday night. He has a young child. The boy didn't want to go to bed. Not surprising, there's a stranger in the house who is interesting and there's a mysterious "grown up" movie that the adults were waiting to watch after the tot went to bed.

 

Child had temper tantrum and pops had to go "deal with" the child, which meant the back and forth of dad explaining, kid trying to prove his case, dad refuting kid, etc. During their exchange, which became heated sometimes (never abusive or dangerous, though)...sometimes dad would lose his cool and be like "G-D- it, get in bed before I Lose It Completely!!"

 

I freaked out yet again. Covered my ears and started shaking uncontrollably. In my house, growing up, this scene would inevitably lead to my mom losing control and beating me with a broomstick.

 

He was in the back of the house and didn't notice. He ended up snuggling in bed with his son and reading him a story to get him to sleep. Which in turn made me cry, because I realized I had been expecting him to lose it, like my mom always did, and when he didn't, got control of his temper, and used a loving expression to soothe his child instead of an angry outburst to cow him into submission, I guess I cried because I had desperately wanted that growing up. It made me feel weird to see it in action.

 

The next day I was pissed off and upset all day. I didn't have the insight to understand why I was so upset, not with my ex or his son, but just with everything.

 

But then I ended up going to my Mom's house and cutting her hair for her and spending Tet with my family, like it was no thing. Except I was uneasy with my Mom, very deferent. I was trying hard to make her happy with me, I think. Just like when I was little....

[Becoming]

BOt--It's hard to come to awareness. It's like the DT's, I think, coming off the effects of all the numbness we've done in various ways to protect ourselves. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you're really doing well. You actually achieved a great deal of clarity about your reactions in an analogous situation.

 

And always there's that little kid in us that wants someone to notice and care for her. Except they don't most of the time because we're so competent/together or angry that they can't see past our fascades we've erected to hide behind. There's a part of us that wants what that child got but knows that's kinda silly and that we'll never really get it. The time we could have has been lost. I think that's why all the sadness; it's mourning what can never be the way we wanted it. And like any other mourning, you just have to go through it.

 

I watched Grey's Anatomy last night, and at the end Meredith started crying, realizing she didn't want her mother to die alone. I started crying, too, because despite all the things my mother did, I'll always love her. There seems to be this bond that's inescapable between us and our parents no matter how toxic that love was to us. It seems the Little Ones in us always hope and trust and love and want to please.

 

I think it's an amazing testimony to the strength of your eternal spirit, Otter, that despite an awareness of what Fri. night brought, you still showed love for your mother in a deferential way in an intimate act of care. There is hope for reparation of what's broken to some extent. Yes, it'll be like a vase with a big glued-together crack in it, but you can patch together a new relationship with your mother, especially now that she's getting help for her mental illness. Hopefully now you can see that mental illness is largely responsible for what happened to you. It wasn't really about you; it was about someone who was sick and unable to deal with it in constructive ways, who was just sick and tired and overwhelmed with childrearing, which is very stressful.

 

And yes, enki, I agree, know that strength, but also know that it's the church that is the body of Christ's strength incarnate. Sometimes you just want flesh, and other saints standing with you helps encircle you with that power in ways that individual prayer cannot. Lamentably, there aren't too many churches that actually do this, but there are some. And saints like you who remind us of what's true, as you did, help keep us strong when we want to crumple, give up, and have someone come rescue us. There's a part of me that still wants what I didn't get as a child. Probably always will be. Maybe that's true of all of human beings, I don't know.

 

So on we go . . . I realized this a.m. as I woke up that I didn't know how to act free of all of this. The struggle has defined me. So it's interesting. I don't know how to just be.

[Mz. Pixie]

Otter-

 

I'm sorry. I can see how that would have been a HUGE trigger for you. My mom's choices of weapons have fluctuated from the broom, umbrellas, the belt and a fire poker once (that thing you poke in the fireplace with). I took the last one away from her and knocked her up against the wall to keep her from killing me with it. That may have been the last time she tried to put her hands on me.

 

Becoming- I can see alot of hope in what you're posting. Thanks for posting that.

[blind_otter]

Ya know on some level I know I'm making progress slowly. Painfully. I get frustrated frequently and just want to give up. I spent a while wanting to get wasted drunk this weekend but sat with my depression and just made myself go through it. I'm definatley like a skittish wild animal. I freak out and want to run all the time, and staying with my feelings or even in a situation takes all my willpower. I've spent a lot of time running.

 

I think on some level I get very defensive when I feel attacked because I am afraid. I am afraid of letting people get close to me, I feel sure in my heart that they will abandon me (like my father, emotionally) or hurt me (like my mother)...

 

In many ways I think that my issues with my parents was only compounded by my rapes. Because they happened when I was still adolescent, in my mind I had nothing to tell my parents regarding what happened. What would I say, that they failed to protect me yet again? That they had taught me intimately that I was not in control of my own safety?

 

I feel what you mentioned, Becoming. The way our relationship has been changing in my adulthood.

 

I have spent years terrified of having a child. From just being around other people's children, I get stressed out. Afraid to express any emotion in fear of being too reactive and irritable, like my mother. I am very loving and open with my nieces and nephews, but for some reason less giving and open with other children.

[enki]

Mz. Pixie, blind_otter and Becoming,

The "Patrick Gannon" school of thought (which I deeply respect,) tends to discount the "higher power" idea, because as they see it, we were abused by a higher power, viz. our parents. But, now that we are adults, we can realise that parents were not higher powers really: they just made us believe they were. Now we can see there is something bigger, badder and bloodier than they could ever be, and it's on our side to heal us.

 

The feeling of that higher power only comes if we let it, not by trying to force it, but by "just being," just letting ourselves BE, even though that means being in the pain and grief. My own trick is to sit quietly and recite this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, then wait for that other power to come and help. It usually does!

 

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

That only men incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

Beat upward to God's throne in loud access

Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness

In souls as countries lieth silent-bare

Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare

Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express

Grief for thy Dead in silence like to Death -

Most like a monumental statue set

In everlasting watch and moveless woe

Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:

If it could weep, it could arise and go.

[Mz. Pixie]

I spent a while wanting to get wasted drunk this weekend but sat with my depression and just made myself go through it. I'm definatley like a skittish wild animal. I freak out and want to run all the time, and staying with my feelings or even in a situation takes all my willpower. I've spent a lot of time running.

 

 

I have spent years terrified of having a child. From just being around other people's children, I get stressed out. Afraid to express any emotion in fear of being too reactive and irritable, like my mother. I am very loving and open with my nieces and nephews, but for some reason less giving and open with other children.

 

Yes, I would imagine it's hard to try to recover with the thoughts of a drink being only a minute away......I can't imagine how hard that is BO, although I've frequently thought "If I could just get blotto, then all of this will go away" I know it won't, and I've somehow been protected from addiction for some reason. I know I can't go there, even if I want to, because I know I could become a addict very quickly. I'm even afraid if I can't stop the pain I will go there, but I never have.

 

I too was terrified to be a mother, but yet determined that if I did my children would never suffer as I did. It made me go completely the other way. My kids are my first priority. You do need to consider though, how your having children will affect your relationship with her. I had to prevent my mother and stepfather from having contact with my kids. She failed to protect me but I couldn't fail to protect them. It made things very complicated.

[blind_otter]

It's weird with my Mom because she has a mental illness. When she takes her meds (she of course only got treatment after I moved out, love that) she is a different person. The nice one. Growing up there was happy mom and evil mom.

 

When my sisters first started having kids I was jealous of how my mother was with them. The good loving grandma that she never could be as amother...

[Lonestar]

It's weird with my Mom because she has a mental illness. When she takes her meds (she of course only got treatment after I moved out, love that) she is a different person. The nice one. Growing up there was happy mom and evil mom.

 

When my sisters first started having kids I was jealous of how my mother was with them. The good loving grandma that she never could be as amother...

 

I was very jealous of the way my mother was with my first child. She cared about him like nothing else, did so many things with him, never got mad, never abused him. I couldn't understand why my child was getting treated with this fabulous love and respect and yet, I still felt hated by her. Was that a way to punish me futher? To let me know how worthless I was? To show me that it was me that was the problem and not every child?

 

My mother has become a different woman since she and my father got divorced a couple years ago. My brother also died at that time and I think it was a serious wake up call for her. The only one who stood by her side through all of this was me. Since then I have a mother. She loves all my children to death, and will do almost anything I ask of her. She hugs me and kisses me, and tells me she loves me on a regular basis. She also apologized for the way she treated me as a child and believes it was caused by the abuse she suffered from my father.

 

When she was free from him, she stopped hating me. Her transformation has changed a lot for me and the way I feel. My emotional health improved vastly when I suddenly had a mom again. As for my father, we haven't spoken in more than 3 years. The last time I saw him was after I gave birth to my last child and he stopped by the hospital. I didn't want him there, but he just showed up. I will never speak to him or see him again. If I'm contacted when he dies, I don't know if I'll attend the funeral. I'll never forgive him for the things he did to me, and I've had no choice but to accept that my father doesn't love me. I wasn't going to respond to this thread because I hate talking about all this. It still hurts and I try to pretend that it doesn't.

[Mz. Pixie]

Lonestar, thanks for sharing your story with us.

[Becoming]

Good for you, BOt, for sitting with these feelings instead of drinking. I've found books and TV (especially movies) help me forget the pain for awhile. I have to distract myself like you have to distract a little child who can't have something she wants when I get down.

 

Lonestar, you've been going through a rough time, I know, but thanks for sounding forth. It is hard to talk about stuff we've spent most of our life running from and trying to forget.

 

Sounds like we hit the Mother lode, huh? I, too, lived with the evil/good mother who got better once she left my verbally abusive, classic narcissist of a father (after all her kids left home, of course:rolleyes: ). In my case, there was no sexual abuse. Just these are ordinary otherwise decent folks who didn't want me around and beat me if I actually acted like a child. Seeing them in their role as upstanding citizens in the larger community made everything all the more confusing. They were wonderful to everyone else. And I was royally pissed by the wondrous grandma who showed up for my kids (after I let her know what was and was not to be tolerated in dealing with them). I mean, where'd she come from, and why wasn't she there for me? Grrrrr:mad:

 

But people really do change. At least some of them. My mother actually told me watching me mother my own children made her realize what good parenting was really all about and what she'd missed out on and harmed. Is this universe weird, or what?

[blind_otter]

Thanks for sharing, Lonestar...it does help, reading what you guys wrote, that I'm not weird for being jealous of how my mother is now. Why couldn't she bother getting better when I was little? Why couldn't she see, I have all these scars on my body from her.

 

So...for the past 2 weeks I've been dealing with something called a Bartholin's cyst. It's inside the "vestibule" of my nether regions. It's a painful lump. I have to put hot compresses on it and be all gentle with my cooch.

 

Last night in the bath, I was massaging the area, per the nurse's instructions. I've had one before, it's a recurrent thing with me. Last time I didn't care for it as much. I get uncomfortable with prolonged contact with that area. So I ended up having to get the inside of my labia sliced open with a scalpel (with NO anasthetic) so they could put a little plastic tube inside me. Tubes in my vag.

 

I started crying yet again. I seem to be going through it. It only lasted a bit. It was like my private area was depressed. Hah. Honestly, though, I can't remember ever really giving myself a loving touch. I touch myself to get sexual gratification, that's it. I've never been much for foreplay and in fact when I was sexually active after my second rape I could not stand foreplay. Any kind of loving reverent touch from a man would make me feel disgusted with me and him...as if I were too loathesome for anything more than just sex.

[Mz. Pixie]

Ouch, BO. That's painful. I think I've had one before on the outside. HURTS!

 

I don't know what more to say other than I'm sorry.....I'm also so proud of you for the work you're doing in your recovery. You're so intelligent- and it really shines through when your head is clear from the drugs or alcohol.