Scattered pieces

Dear young one,

First of all, you are young.  You are not a little adult, you are a young girl…  This alone should explain so much to you, but it won’t because I know you are fighting and struggling to make sense of the world you find yourself in.  You are strong, brave and stubborn…  You take on so much of the world around you, that it is hard to make you out as an individual identity.  But, please remember that you are a young girl…

I sense that you need to hear the words “I forgive you”, but there is nothing to forgive you for.  You did an amazing job holding it all together when those around you were hurting you and themselves.  I’m so sorry that you had to take on this burden of abuse.  This burden had nothing to do with how pretty, thin, attractive or loud you were…  there are no reasons why… there are excuses, but no reasons.  I’m not sure what will ease your sense of guilt and ownership over the abuse… I could quote you research about alcoholic fathers, absentee mothers, sibling rivalry and a society built around ignoring the child as an individual with rights, but I know that you will look for excuses within that research… You will look for any proof that the abuse was, and is, your fault.  So I won’t hand you that information to confuse you further, instead I would like to do what should have happened long ago… get down to your eye level, look you straight in the eye and say “It wasn’t your fault”.  You hold no blame for what happened, they were events done to you, not by you.  Even the events where you are sure you were the instigator, you weren’t.  You were trying to find new ways to protect yourself and ease the burden.

I stand in awe of what you accomplished through all of the pain of what was happening to you.  Do you know that?  I don’t know how you did it.  You have a strength I cannot fathom.  The amount of times you picked yourself up and kept on going… the amount of times you looked towards the pain and kept on going.  I’m so proud to consider that you are what I have come from.  You excelled in all that you tried – I have the reports which tell of your intelligence, I’m told you moved with grace and poise on the dance floor and you played above your grade in sports you enjoyed.  I know you consider these accomplishments nothing, and I wish you could tell them with pride.  But what really amazes me, is that you defended those around you whom you thought were being picked on.  Your sense of social justice remained intact, despite all of what happened to you.  Not only did it remain intact, but you actively found ways to defend and help those who were being victimised.  You couldn’t succeed all the time, but you tried… and kept on trying no matter what.

I’m not sure that I will ever understand what happened to you.  Looking back, I don’t know what advice I could give you that would ease your burden.  I could say “don’t trust people”, but then I wonder if you didn’t have some form of trust, whether you would still hold to that sense of social justice?  I could tell you not to go near the kindergarten playground, or near that woodshed… but I know that this wouldn’t solve the problems you faced.  I want to protect you from the pain you faced, but I know I am helpless to do so.  My only hope now, is to help you heal.  I’m not sure how to do this, and in this I need your help.  I need to know what you need, and when you need it.  I try my best to help you heal, but I know I make mistakes.  I hope you forgive these errors… I know this is asking a lot of you, especially when so many people have let you down in the past, but I again need you to be strong.  This is a different strength, this isn’t about putting up with more pain… this is about telling me when it hurts, telling me when you are scared, telling me when you need help.  We all need help young one, but it takes strength to ask and receive that help…

Thank you for all you have done for me, young one.  You have given me so many gifts, it is now my turn to return some of those gifts, if you will let me.  You will notice that I don’t mention the word “love”… I avoid using this word as we all know that I don’t understand the concept… instead, please understand that I respect and admire you.  I couldn’t have made it this far without you…

Yours sincerely,
M

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Now playing: Anna Nalick – Breathe
via FoxyTunes

While in respite, the respite house owner/carer turned to me and directly asked me how I was.  It had been a hectic day with the other women in respite acting out in various ways, meanwhile we’d been quietly in our room doing art and drinking water.  The question was asked directly, and we deflected it nicely by saying that we were fine.  It was her follow up statement that threw me, and cut to the core of our issues while growing up – “It’s always the quiet ones who get overlooked”.  I was that quiet one.  I always have been.  I actively become quiet when things are bad with my mental health or if people are hurting me.  It’s one of the ways to become invisible, to become so quiet that no one sees you.  If no one sees you, then no one can hurt you and no one can ask you difficult questions.  So, we became very good at being quiet and flying under the radar.  The respite carer knew this technique…

When we relayed this incident to the mother after we’d come out of respite, we couldn’t do it without tearing up…  The carer “saw us” in that brief moment of asking the how we were.  In contrast, when telling the mother, she looked away, uncomfortable with the situation and the tears in my eyes.  I try not to blame my mother for her reactions, she had tough parenting and has never been in therapy long enough to change the habits of being an absentee parent herself.  She does try to show she cares in various ways, they’re just not very productive or meaningful.  Instead of apologising for the oversights in the past, she washes my windows…

We remain that quiet one.  We do this in therapy as well.  Liz has now realised the extent of our avoidance and quietness during therapy.  Our resolve for the New Year is to try and tease out the anger that sits within the system.  In many ways I don’t mind if this happens, I’m so out of touch with the anger that I don’t recognise it as existing.  But, at times when I do get a sense of the anger being there, it terrifies me to think that we will be looking at it more closely.  It’s something that has been tucked away and growing for the last 30 odd years, I’m not quite sure what it will look like when we do lift the lid.  Liz assures me that we will lift the lid very slowly and with great care…

Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak is one of my favourite children’s books.  As a child, I remember being scared of the things, but also being drawn to them.  As an adult, I recognise the book as a brilliant glimpse into a child’s anger.  Yesterday, I went and saw Spike Jonze’s cinematic interpretation of the book, and was amazed at how much it affected me. As a generalisation, I think the movie would ring true for many survivors of childhood abuse.  Sitting in the theatre witnessing Carol’s uncontrollable rage at things he can’t change or understand, or hearing Alexander say several times “no one listens to me”… it rings true of the confusion, loneliness, pain and fear we experience during abuse.  The things couldn’t verbalise their pain, they could only feel it and react when it became too much.  Like the things, childhood abuse survivors rarely verbalise their pain during the event(s), or for many years afterwards.

I sat through the movie, next to the mother (yes, she ignored my requests not to come up), hoping that she would relate the movie to my childhood.  But she came out saying that the movie wasn’t what she was expecting.  She’d been disappointed.  But to me, the movie was validating – THAT is how I coped with the anger, I couldn’t destroy trees or other people’s home with my anger like Carol, so I compartmentalised it.  I now try to express that anger through my self-injury, suicidal ideation and intent.  This is me destroying people’s houses and striking out in the only way I can.  I still can’t verbalise that anger, but I can hurt this body.  This hurting is the language of the ones holding the anger and pain.  At the moment, it’s their only language.

I’ve read reviews of the movie, where it has been considered a cautionary tale for adults expecting someone to come along as a false king, and save them from themselves.  I think this holds true for those of us during our healing journey too.  We can’t expect anyone to come and “save us” or be our king, but we can hope to have someone offer guidance and help.  Healing and holding this anger is hard work, but in the end we are the only ones who can do the healing for ourselves.  The skill of those around us will influence the rate of healing, but they can’t do the hard work in our place.

I know that we can continue on this healing journey, but we need to maintain our safety in the process.  Our safety has become more of an issue over the last two weeks, to the point that I will hopefully be going into some form of respite care on Boxing Day.  I need to do this to try and work through some of my anger in a safe environment.  I know the anger has to be there, I need to get in touch with it and release some of it before it consumes me.

I said in my last post that I’m treading water in an ocean rip… well the current just got bumped up a notch or three…

I had my last session for the year with Liz on Tuesday.  I’ve totally forgotten everything that was said except for one thing… I told her that I wasn’t angry and she laughed, saying that she didn’t believe me as she could cut the pain and anger that was in the air with a knife.  I’m honestly not aware of the pain and anger.  Sometimes I can get a glimpse of annoyance with something, but not pain and anger.  But they must be there, I’ve disclosed two more abusive events over the last two weeks, that must generate some emotion… surely.

As a result of the session, I had a really bad night trying to work through the different messages and fantasies that were coming through.  It was a blur of switching, talking to a friend and negative behaviours.  By morning the previous day was a gone from my memory and I had a made a firm commitment to taking further steps toward respite care.  I still hadn’t heard back from my psychiatrist, so I went to see my GP yesterday afternoon.  The appointment was very surreal…  I explained why I needed respite care and she was so unprepared for organising it that she didn’t have the right referral forms with her and was unsure if they would accept me because I have suicidal ideation.  I can understand them not wanting to accept someone with suicidal intent, and I’m not sure how far along the scale I am between ideation and intent, so I’m possibly not a safe bet for respite.  But I have to try.

When I got home, after assurances that the doctor will fill in the forms the next day and send them off, I found an email from my psychiatrist.  I’d also asked him about respite, but basically he passed the buck to the crisis team.  To put this into context, I haven’t physically seen the man in over six months.  He’s changed and increased prescriptions via email based on my reporting of issues.  So this latest passing of the buck is a bit of a blow.  Whenever I’ve asked the crisis team about respite care in the past, they’ve always said that they are full.  The only option is the psychiatric ward.  The psychiatrist said that he will warn them that I might need respite care… well that’s pretty meaningless in the scheme of things…

So… I have no therapist for the next month; a GP who has said that I might not get into respite because of suicidal ideation; if I do get into respite, it could take weeks to get a spot; and a psychiatrist who is fairly casual in their level of response.  I wasn’t expecting anyone to come and save me… but at least someone to offer some realistic hope would’ve been good.  I’m now at work and can feel the heaviness of the depression and hopelessness closing in.

In the good news stakes, the mother has suggested that she doesn’t come up for Christmas.  I can’t yet bring myself to confirming that I don’t want her here, but I know I have to.

“I always thought there was something going on.”

Those are the words my mother has repeated to me several times about one of the sisters boyfriends who was abusing me.

“I always thought there was something going on.”

Those words are possibly meant to validate what I experienced… sort of a vote that the mother believes we may have been hurt…  But this is what those words say to some of us…

“You were not worth worrying about.  I suspected you were being hurt, but you weren’t as important as the sister… our reputation… my feelings… anything… you are, and were, worthless and meaningless.”

Because of how we view that sentence by the mother, I think there is a deep seeded feeling of resentment towards her.  I don’t know if it is anger, maybe it is.  I don’t know what anger feels like…  Liz tried to explain to me that my feelings of anger drive my self-injury and suicidal ideation.  If this is the case then I’m in trouble, as the mother is coming up for a two week visit over the Christmas break.  Already the craziness has started…  Last night I spent a disastrous night in the local psychiatric ward because I felt so unsafe.

Last nights experiences again raises the question of where I can get effective help in keeping myself safe.  I talked to Liz about my safety last week and she suggested respite care places I’d never heard about before.  This might be my only hope of finding somewhere I can go to stay safe and have the space to work on what I need to internally.  Last night has shown me that I won’t find that environment in our public health system.  So my only hope is to work this through myself with the basic level of assistance that Liz can offer.  I realise that I can’t do this with the mother here.  I could try to cancel her visit, but this is unlikely to occur as she has sold her house and will effectively be homeless over Christmas.  So, my devious side has come up with a plan to use her to feed our cat while we go into respite care.  I’m not sure if I can work it – it will depend on the psychiatrist saying that it is necessary, the respite places having an opening and me being able to cope with the place without necessary things like my computer – I will have the iPhone though, as long as they have wifi or 3G…  I’ll also have the camera…

I realise that the people in the respite care won’t have any specialisation in trauma or DID.  But, as a friend suggested, I need to work on this stuff internally or else I’m in trouble.  So, if I can’t look for external sources for that help, then I’d better find some way of facing the internal chaos in my own way.  I won’t necessarily find the answers or get the insight that would come with an external opinion, but it’s better than treading water in an ocean rip like I’m currently doing.

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Now playing: Hollie Smith – Bathe in the river
via FoxyTunes

The other night I watched Sunitha Krishnan’s TED India talk about her fight against sex slavery and Deliver us from evil: The Catholic Church lies, a documentary about clergy sexual abuse.  As a note: both the talk and documentary carry trigger and adult content warnings. I’m not familiar with either of these forms of abuse, other than what I’ve read and seen through the media, but both of these clips affected me.

Sunitha talked with passion and courage when describing the horrific stories of some of the people she has rescued. To see the smiling photos of the children who had been used so badly by society that they died of HIV/AIDS before their 10th birthday…  The main focus of her talk, was not to tell horrific stories, but rather to confront societies attitude towards the survivors that she and her organisation Prajwala have rescued.  She was challenging our intolerance, judgments and the cruelty directed towards this group of survivors.  Turning a blind eye to the abuse is not acceptable… Finding excuses not to employ these survivors is not acceptable…  Society shuns these victims and ostracizes them to the fringes, making it difficult to find employment and develop a sense of self.  Society refuses to open our minds and hearts to their plight…

Within my context, I know that my mental health issues would be treated with scorn, derision and skepticism amongst my co-workers.  I know this, because I have seen how they have treated students who have mental health issues – with one being labeled a stalker!  Because I had to take time off work after my ex-husband attacked me, everyone at work knew that I was a victim of domestic violence.  In the months that followed, I got sympathy and understanding from some people, but I also heard domestic violence jokes from others.  If this is the reaction within my small workplace to what is a relatively common occurrence, I’d hate to imagine how they would react to my full abuse history – would I hear child abuse or suicide jokes?

My situation cannot be compared to the situation of those rescued from sexual slavery.  I live in a relatively wealthy farm based city where homelessness and drug problems are considered the greatest blight on our landscape.  I will never know the horror of the sexual slave industry as experienced by those children; and looking at their stories of survival, I’ll never experience their strength.  The context and extremity of the situations is worlds apart, yet there is still a general theme regarding a lack of acceptance by society.  Both situations show how people can be stigmatised for being a victim…

The documentary, Deliver us from evil, affected me for several reasons – our family was asked not to return to the Catholic Church after the mother started using birth control, and we have been subjected to varying forms of odd Catholic based indoctrination by the father, youth groups and camps.  But, the single thing that affected me the most about the documentary, was witnessing the father’s pain at knowing his daughter had been victimised by one of the priests.  The priest was a man the family had welcomed into their home, and he had abused that trust on so many levels.  The images of this grown man crying and distraught over the pain inflicted on his daughter and his inability to protect her were so confusing for us.  Is this how an otherwise healthy family reacts to such an event?  When I told the mother that I had been raped by three teenagers when I was 7 or 8, I don’t think she shed a tear.  I know she told my oldest brother, but he hasn’t said anything to me about any of my abuse history…  I compare this to when my sister was raped by her boyfriend when she was in her late teens, and both my brothers were willing to track him down and beat him up.  They didn’t, but there was some emotional response.  Am I so worthless that I don’t deserve such emotions?  I don’t want anyone to be hurt because of what happened to me, but some sort of reaction would have helped me gain some form of validation that I am a person worthy of concern.

Again, I can’t compare what happened to me to those who suffered at the hands of the abusive clergy.  There can be no generalisations made that those who were victims of the clergy were from otherwise healthy families or that all parents were as demonstrative in their grief over what had occurred to their children.  The daughter of the man who was open with his grief had been abused for years, and the daughter had made a conscious decision not to tell about the abuse for fear of her father being sent to jail for killing the offending priest – basic questioning as a child had led her to believe this as being a very real possibility.  So again, there are some similar general themes, but the context is totally different.

Sex slavery, sexual abuse by the clergy and my own situation should never be compared in regard to their severity; but there are similar themes which run through all incidents – societies acceptance and reaction to the victim seems to be the most common.  Anger seems to be the another.  Sunitha mentioned that she trained her survivors in male dominated trades because they have the courage and strength to push through and succeed in that area – she mentions anger as being one of the drivers.  The survivors of the clergy abuse, openly and strongly voiced their anger.  I’m just starting to realise that I might be angry about what happened to me, and more importantly how angry I am at those around me at the time – the mother suspected something but did nothing, while my sister would’ve been blind not to notice.

The question for all of us is, what do we do with that anger?

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Now playing: Audioslave – Like a Stone
via FoxyTunes

Ivory mentioned in her blog about making new traditions around important dates – Christmas in particular.  I also need to do this, to shake off the rubbish from the past and get out of the loop of negativity and repeating patterns that I find myself in.  She mentions sharing a Christmas story and recipe that has meaning or tradition for us.  Being in the Southern Hemisphere where Christmas tends to be a very hot day, our traditions revolve around a barbie (bar-be-que) and pavlova…

Here’s the recipe for this deliciously light dessert…

4 egg whites
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon white vinegar
2 teaspoons cornflour (cornstarch)

Preheat the oven to 150°C.
Beat egg whites and salt in a bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add the castor sugar while beating. Continue until stiff peaks form. Beat in the remaining ingredients, vanilla essence, vinegar and cornflour. Turn mixture out onto a baking paper covered tray. Shape into a circle approximately 23 cm (9 in) in diameter.

Reduce oven temperature to 140°C. Bake for 15 minutes, then further reduce the oven temperature to 120°C and bake for 1 ¼ hours. Cool completely in the oven with the oven door ajar.

Top with whipped or brandy cream and your choice of fresh fruit – traditionally strawberries, kiwifruit and a sprinkle of icing sugar.

There is debate over whether the pavlova was first made in New Zealand or Australia, but we consider it a New Zealand dish :)

As for a story or tradition, possibly my favourite Christmas memory is making home-made Christmas crackers with my Nanna (grandmother).  We were on holiday in Okiwi Bay, sitting around the kitchen table picking out presents for each person, adding the popper tape and wrapping them up in paper.  It was simple fun and the presents in each cracker were so much better than the ones you get in the store brought Christmas crackers.

My past isn’t always painful…

I was 24 when I last talked to the father. It was during my first year of being on-campus at university and I’d agreed to stay with him for a long weekend. He hadn’t been contributing to our care since the divorce when we were 16, but we still a sense of duty to him because… well, he is the father. To say that the weekend was a disaster, would be an understatement. He lived alone in a cold, small, two bedroom semi-detached house situated at the bottom of a hill. The house felt dirty, but I think that was our association of his dirtiness getting mixed up in the perception of the house. He had become a bitter, mean old man who took pleasure in putting others down and feeding his narcissistic desires.  He was not pleasant to be near.

In a move similar to asking the mother to leave when she came to visit, I left the father’s house earlier than planned. I couldn’t cope with him. The day I left I knew that I would not be able to see him again as he was too toxic. I grieved on the drive home… grieved for the father I realised I would never have, and the one I was now leaving behind.  While listening to the radio during the drive, a song came on that started the tears – Stand by me by Ben E. King.  To me, the song is about being strong enough to face the darkness of your fears, as long as there is someone standing beside you.  During that car trip, this was particularly meaningful… I knew I was about to tell the family about my decision to no longer have contact with the father.  I also knew that I was probably going to have to confront the father as well.

At the time I was living alone – I didn’t even have Winnie (our cat).  So, I knew that there would be no one standing beside me, instead it would be up to the dissociative system to come together in a meaningful way to protect us all.  This was at a time when I had no working knowledge of my dissociation, but I remember the internal conversations which evolved as I was taking the long trip home…  There was fear, screaming, celebrations and physical pain caused by tension…  But then, in a shift that I’ve now come to identify as M taking over, there was a sudden calmness and knowledge of what needed to be done.  This calmness allowed Sophie to listen to the song and begin our grieving.  I don’t think we fully explored the grief, but the song allowed us to cry for things we wouldn’t have and to get to a place of accepting what was happening.

When we got home, we made the necessary phone calls to the family.  I don’t remember much about that time, but I do remember slamming the phone down on the father with the parting words that he and I had “never been able to talk”.  I have seen him since that time – grandfather’s funeral etc.  We’ve tried to be civil to him, purely out of fear and not wanting to cause more trouble within the family.  But I know that under that veneer of civility, Frank is waiting to tell the father just what damage he has done.  I also know that such a discussion would be pointless, as he is incapable of seeing his own faults and it would only serve to frustrate us further.

There have been other versions of the song done, but it’s Ben E. King’s version that affects us the most…

Last week I knew that I was going to talk to Liz about denial.  In many ways I see my denial as attention seeking – like I’m wanting Liz (or whomever) to say “of course it happened” or “you’re right, it didn’t happen and you’re just attention seeking”.  It feels manipulative to be in denial, like I’m playing games.  But then, when I’m in the denial, it seems as if I’m playing games when I say that the abuse happened.  It’s an awful place to be in.  You have the clarity to see your actions in the past and you judge those actions, every word or behaviour is analysed and destroyed.  As a perfectionist, I’m my own worst critic, so nothing is spared.

Liz questioned me as to why this was happening now, when 2 weeks ago I said that I needed to turn and face the past, instead of continuing to run from it.  I’m not sure of the answer to that question.  I think it is partly due to the stress that I’m faced with – wedding anniversary, disastrous visit from my mother, yearly performance review at work, etc.  Objectively I understand that I may be stressed and this is what has caused the denial/lock-down, but I don’t get any sense of being stressed.  When I’m like this I don’t feel much of anything, sort of like I’m on auto-pilot.

In order to sort through some of the issues, Liz said that I needed to try and re-frame the anniversary into a new context as a way of trying to move forward.  We were nearly out of session time, so this was very much a passing comment.  I know what she means, but this year it was impossible to do.  I’m not aware of any real reaction, other than losing great chunks of time.

I almost broke through the denial yesterday by listening to Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue, but it didn’t last.  As it’s a long weekend in New Zealand, I’m not seeing Liz this week.  Possibly the wrong time to have an interruption in sessions, but it couldn’t be avoided.

I’m dreading looking at the dissociative walls again – whether it be to knock them down, or to reinforce that they never existed to begin with.  I know that this is not a positive place to be in, but I’m not sure how to move beyond it.  I also know that living like this is full of contradictions…  How can I be losing chunks of time and not be dissociative?  How can I have no personal history beyond newspaper headlines and not be dissociative?  It’s confusing and yet meaningless all at once, for when I’m like this, I only live in the present moment with headlines as reminders of what I need to do.

It feels very odd and very normal all at once.

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Now playing: Sting – Fields of Gold
via FoxyTunes