Trying to Give Myself a Boost
This is a somewhat edited reprint from my private journal of a little more than a week ago, which, I guess, by virtue of my posting it here means it's not private anymore! While it's personal, I wanted to share it here because it shows how I can have hope in the healing process and maybe that could help others.
This post gets a trigger warning for link to a news story about abuse.
I'm continually impressed with how hard I work. I honestly never took therapy this seriously or worked this hard at anything in my life. I think I understand what the stakes are and, while I do get down sometimes, I do see progress. I also am thankful for your [speaking to therapist] continued confidence and faith in me and our work. I hope you appreciate that I consider our work to be, in a certain sense, the most important thing in my life. Remember the letter I wrote after being in the hospital? About how important and relevant the hospital is for me? Well, the same is true of our work. Healing is something I am determined to see through. I cannot fully appreciate my children, my marriage, my work, or anything else in my life unless I can find a way to heal.
I heard a short snippet of a news story on my talk radio show on the way home. I would like you to look at it. It was only briefly discussed, but the statements from callers were all along the lines of "We should kill him." I am absolutely not going to make any comparisons between what happened to this girl and what happened to me which end up being invalidating for me. I made that mistake when I heard the news stories of the horrible rapes in Africa.
But you have asked me before what my reaction would be to hearing or reading my records from the church. It's quite clear that what happened to me severely injured me and altered the course of my life in a way that never should have happened and was entirely unjust and unfortunate. This was what I was able to appreciate from my hospitalization in February. I think it's a realization I need to keep in mind now. This will allow me to have empathy and will, ultimately, help me form the collaborations I need to make inside.
You ask me all the time about my level of acceptance of my internal system. I know it's key to my progress. But I did explain to you about why it's extremely difficult for me. This is discussed in Moving Past the 'Band-Aid' Approach.
I committed to myself and to you to work hard, listen, and pay attention. I know I sometimes revert back to "the way it's always been". That simply doesn't work anymore. I cannot go away, have a part take over, and expect things to be okay afterwards.
I'm posting this also partly to give myself a little boost. I'm having trouble holding onto the hope.
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Welcome
"Healing from Trauma and Dissociation"
I'm Paul, a father, husband, scientist, educator, photographer and musician. I'm also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
Mind Parts consists of my own insights on the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse, namely trauma stress and the full spectrum of dissociative coping mechanisms, including dissociative identities. Through a blog, I explore the healing process in a variety of ways—using creative contributions of original art, photography, poetry, and music as well as, hopefully, though-provoking essays. Mind Parts is also home to two support services. The quarterly Ezine Trauma Recovery Highlights is a look at some of the best online resources. Also, the monthly Expressive Arts Carnival makes available activities which are published as a group "Carnival."
Comments are welcomed, but if you prefer, you may contact me offline. My belief is that sites like this one can contribute by offering unique perspectives and knowledge, thereby enhancing opportunities not only for survivors but for readers and society as a whole. Namaste!
I understand how hard you're working. I understand that no one can do things exactly as they want to, or as they think they should, all the time. Everybody falls sometimes. The trick is to pick yourself up and give it another shot, when you fall.
It seems to me you are doing that. You can see that things are not going exactly as you'd like and you are doing the things you need to do to get yourself back where you want to be. Thank you for sharing your journal and your honesty.
Hope. Hope can be a very constricting, yet broadening term. I lose hope so very often. What I hope for is to be normal, or at least perceived as normal. My T told me not long ago that I AM perceived as normal by everyone we share as acquaintances. I work hard to be "normal" and it is only at great cost that I have achieved it. (It is not constant, though).
This is a very intimate aspect of who you are and it does show the hope you have for healing. I greatly appreciate your choice to share it. I also believe you have the right to make that comparison. Were you not a child? Were you not betrayed? Were you not subjected to that which terrified you and hurt you? It doesn't matter that you are an adult now. That poor little girl will someday be an adult, too, with issues all her own.
You would not invalidate yourself to make that comparison, but you would understand the tortured heart of that little girl. She will one day understand the sick and twisted intent of the man who took her, she will need someone to understand.
The virtue of growing up and becoming an adult does not take away the severity, pain, betrayal, and anger that you experienced (still experience). We should NEVER allow our adulthood rob us of the innocence of the children we once were.
Many Hugs
I've always struggled with the concept of hope. Someone once told me that sometimes someone else has to hold onto hope for you - my reply was it's not much good with them, cos I need it!
I came across this quote from Dr. Jerome Groopman's The Anatomy of Hope - "Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see - in the mind's eye - a path to a better future. Hope acknowledges the significant obstacles and deep pitfalls along that path. True hope has no room for delusion... hope gives us the courage to confront our circumstances and the capacity to surmount them."
I quite like this idea as it acknowledges the hard work that you are obviously doing. It goes beyond the superficially happy concept of hope and looks at it from a long term prospect.
Sending positive thoughts.
Take care,
Michelle
Shen: Thank you. I was worried that my post would come off as being too egotistical. I know you didn't say that. I'm just saying that was what I worried about. I think, though, we need to have some sense of a destination. Otherwise, what do we have to hope for?
Ivory: Thank you. I'm sorry to hear you lose hope often. But glad to know we have that in common! The reason I tend not to make comparisons is because they end up being harmful to me. I validate what I hear about others and invalidate my own experiences, saying they were minor compared to others. So, I try to resist doing that now.
Castorgirl: Thank you. I will use your quote and program it onto my iPhone.
I agree that what we do in our lives will be touched by our level of healing. I don't know how much I'll heal but I know healing is absolutely necessary, success in my life and hope are dead without some level of healing. Just like someone ripped a tooth from my head and left it there to fester, so to is my past. There will be scar tissue and ugliness but there will be growth to cover enough that will allow me to smile. I want to smile. I hope you get there too.
Austin
I have noticed that you are generous in your acceptance of others, when you comment or reply. That is an area in which I have done much work because I am like that, too. I genuinely see the positive in most people and I love looking for the goodness in everyone. I just never see it, and don't believe there is, goodness worth seeing in me.
Although, because of the last few years, I have begun to realize that I have been allowing the most toxic people in my life define who I think I am. When I realized that, it made me darn mad. I've been pushing self doubt away ever since. It's not easy.
When you invalidate yourself, you are invalidating everyone who has suffered as you did. Think of it that way. Mr.S often nails me to the wall by saying, "If you were talking to a person who has suffered the way you have, would you tell her she is to blame, or she is useless, or bad?" When he says it like that, I have to give myself some slack. I hope you come to realize that comparisons often show that you are not alone and you are fully capable of understanding and connecting with someone who may desperately be in need of that understanding.
Please, don't ever deprive yourself of those comparisons. You deserve to know that what happened to you is every bit as important as what happened to me, or anyone else who has been harmed.
I'll give you another of Mr.S's quotes, "Don't you dare go back to your childhood memories with the adult knowledge you have now. It's not fair, don't you dare do that to that child."
We try to do the work and then get discouraged because we can't keep our therapists.