MEMORIES

The haze of Tom’s death in December has brought him more alive than he ever was in life. Relief that no more snickering and put-downs occur, but also sadness.

Thinking about it too much harms me, yet not allowing in feelings is harmful too. The times he followed me around the hospital when Mom was sick, perhaps wanting to talk.

But only if it were easy for him, if he felt me open to it. As an attorney he didn’t want it in writing fearing it would be used against him?

But that would have felt safer to me. A true apology when it could be felt safely. But he wanted it easy, and safe for him.

Memories of all 4 who have passed make me sad. Then the thought, if I hadn’t lived, they wouldn’t have touched me that way, and THEN they wouldn’t have to carry the guilt and pain of it for life.

And me? What about me? It is so confusing to love, or want to love a family- but cannot, not safely.

SHATTERED- CHAPTER 22: SHATTERED

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or more commonly PTSD: I wondered if that applied to me after years of overly exaggerated responses to everyday encounters, like my kids, husband, or anyone coming from behind or around a corner. I feel a rush of terror, let out a scream and jump away from the perceived threat as if my life were in danger.

Kids thought it funny and scared me purposely until I turned on them, snapping, “That’s NOT funny, stop it!” I attempted to explain, “I get scared very easily and become extremely frightened when you do that.”

It began to sink in that others don’t react as I do; my responses are out of whack. I read about trauma and its effects. Could this be it, so long after childhood?

Trauma causes post-traumatic stress, and one symptom is an exaggerated startle response. That must be it, but what’s the timeframe? I didn’t read anything about how long it lasts. A lifetime? Mine does. I read about veterans returning from war, the suicides, drinking, and the inability to hold down jobs or their marriages. I have deep empathy for them. But I wouldn’t compare myself to them. War? I can’t imagine what they saw or experienced. It’s no comparison. Or is it? I underestimate what was expected of me, how I was trained to feel, which wasn’t what I really felt. I was trained to act like I loved my attackers, so I lived in terror but had to hide it, even from myself.

Like leaves in the wind, parts of me scattered to places I couldn’t reach. How much energy does it take one’s psyche to repress a violent traumatic event, or more than one of them? I became two selves: one that cannot remember, and one that remembers but remains inaccessible. I broke in two, leaving fragments along the way, hard to pick up and paste back into one, not the same one anyway. I am not the me that I could have been had I stayed whole and safe from attack. Our psyche protects us by splitting our spirit or soul apart from physical and emotional trauma. But then we are left that way, broken, with no clue how to put ourselves together again, like Humpty Dumpty.

Could that explain why I don’t have the energy others seem to naturally possess? Repeated and excessive bursts of the hormone cortisol, meant to give us sudden energy quickly, to move us away from life-threatening danger, would spurt through my veins daily, depleting precious reserves. And draining that substance, which was meant to be used and resupplied much less frequently, took a toll on both my nervous and immune systems, burning them up. Chronic fatigue became normal. Though my body’s systems have healed somewhat, full recovery seems unlikely. The glands under my neck, and most likely elsewhere, pop out after very little stress. If I don’t pay attention and go at my own pace, I could weaken what’s left and cause even more damage. But it’s unfamiliar territory, respecting my own needs, because I tend to compare myself with others, and compared to them, I appear like a slug.

Energy used to protect my inner self from annihilation taxed my emotional and physical being, especially during my years as a nurse. But that didn’t stop me from trying to keep up with everyone, if that’s what it took to be “normal.” Being on edge, watchful, crouched internally and cowering in a defensive position for the next attack, exhausted my already limited energy supplies. Just carrying on a conversation with anyone who felt threatening permanently weakened resources over time—and nearly everyone felt threatening.

I craved social outlets, connections, and closeness, but when around others I buzzed anxiously. That feeling, like the excessive speed I experimented with in college, took precedence. I feared connections, yet needed them. I spent much of my adult life split, pieces flying about me like busy electrons, a carnival game trying to catch them and make them stick in the holes. Meditation began to bring the parts together, the feeling of wholeness brand new and magical, even if only momentary.

Meditating doesn’t take away pain, but rather takes me into it. Creative solutions to everyday dilemmas often occur. There’s new evidence suggesting it can help heal a brain damaged by PTSD (1), but I knew none of the latest research over ten years ago when I began practicing meditation. 

1. See Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius for more information.

DICOTOMY OF PEACE & TERROR

Poor Danny. He ran from himself tying to kill himself till finally succeeding.

I run from what he did to me.

Waking several times as has become the custom, finally a glance at the clock and with relief it was 3AM. That beats midnight. Forcing myself to stay became impossible. Opening the door to the hallway the tiredness drove me back to bed.

The realization came that my fear isn’t about Samuel being away, or anything external, it is internal terror writhing like electrified coiled snakes making me run from my own spirit/ soul, body, and fully being. The same scared feelings implode whether he is beside me in bed or not.

Casting off the critic, a softer, wiser voice said, ‘Go there. Be with all of you, it’s OK.’

Over and over as my thoughts and feelings drifted away from my body, that gently guiding mantra made me brave enough to try, going within where real terror lived-sleep came.

The most violent memory lives there, (Chapter 6: Dan, from my memoir SHATTERED), and who wants to be there? Running- running from lying in the dark, jumping at noises under the pine, (only a bunny), running to food to numb, running from my own self most of my life.

The work to stay to continues. The memory of Danny’s violent rape closer to the surface because that part of me that has kept me safe from it is releasing its grip as steps have been taken to honor my needs bringing overwhelming peace and well-being. My home, meadow, the cat and me. Yet terror remains in a memory repressed.

That voice in the night said, ‘it already happened. You are safe.’

C-PTSD

Two weeks of reprieve, sleep coming every night even after waking to use the bathroom, then bam, needing medication two nights in a row.

Is it something within my ability to change?

Worry about being an insensitive friend because Nancy had mentioned in her long email that her kidney needed another operation. Walking too much hurt, but I’d read the email only soaking in the major parts and missed it. That happens a lot with my brain hip-hopping around like it does. Thinking a happy email might be helpful, it included my love of walking in the meadow.

But a few days later my mind began swirling in the night thinking about it, going back to re-read it the voice of mother boomed, “YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!”

That was one of her ways of grooming me into silence so I would not speak of what her sons had done. Abusers aren’t the only groomers, families are excellent groomers too. No sleep for two nights, I’d made an unforgiveable error.

But after apologizing via email about my insensitivity, she writes back happily sharing her travels with family at a B & B. Her medical issues and emotional state did not keep her from fun things with not a thought about anything I said.  

But it agonized me. Going through what she is dealing with would terrorize me. Terror even of Samuel’s hip replacement, causing me to stay close to home not wanting to be with anybody, needing time to collect enough courage to face the entire next day in a hospital.

This thing I do, worrying about not being good enough, doing bad. How does one change that? Can it be healed?

It has to be managed, lived with. It became part of my personality at age 8, all alone, raped, and having to deal it on tiny shoulders, with more traumas to survive for the next several years.

It is a silent ravaging disease, anxiety, C-PTSD, low self-esteem, and so much more. Not many understand, comprehend, or want to, surely not enough to keep them up at night.

My soul shatters, comes together, then shatters again,

and oh so quietly nobody hears, sees, or knows.

REPRESSED MEMORY

An email from Seth set off alarming dreams because of his association with Tom, which pokes at other memories with Chet, Danny, and one other sibling never named. 4 siblings chose to attack me. The nightmare that came with the recurring ache for a home lingers causing nights of chaos unable to sleep.

“Do you have a tape measure?” the two guys asked.

Wanting to continue with my tasks, exasperated, I lied, “No.”

Hating to be anything but honest, (just like real life), I said, “Yes,” moving to get it.

They were both aroused, one coming close enough to feel it. I lashed out shouting.  

The next morning I asked Samuel, “Did I cry out in the night or move suddenly?”

“No,” he said.

But I think I did just like the first attack by Chet as a child when he pinned me down causing a feeling of suffocation threatening my life. Lying still pretending sleep was the only way to survive. But it also allowed him to do just about anything he wanted.   

Naomi Judd shot herself dead. Perhaps her repressed memories drove her to it. As the weight comes off, I feel closer to the repressed trauma of Danny violently raping me. I know it happened, but my mind still won’t allow it up, even at age 69.

Some might say I already lived through it, so I’ll be alright. I might once have said that too, but it’s not true. My child’s brain went somewhere, not knowing, not remembering. To remember would be to live it. How to bear it if it does?

HUMPTY DUMPTY

Sometimes you have to fall apart to come together. For much of my life it has been the falling apart, but now when peace can be sustained for more than two moments at a time… still, there is a monster on my back.

It is sleeplessness. The why? Round and round laps count up to 20 trying to make up for a night of senseless eating- AGAIN. The only trigger that might be attributed to this inability to sleep after 6 nights of improved sleep probably due to drastically decreasing the pot oil, yet on night 6 lying there 2 ½ hours before giving in to a sleep aid, and an hour in front of the TV at midnight- then FOOD, because food has been used to quell anxiety since the age of 8— the only reason that might make sense was a 3 pound weight loss noted that morning.

That ought to be good, right? Celebrated, congratulated, especially after a summer of being stuck? Yet it triggered anxiety. Unless something on the news or a movie set me off, what else could it be?

Weight loss scaring me. Therapists suggest overweight women who have survived childhood sexual abuse become overweight to feel safe. That is an improvement over many who look at an overweight person and think lazy, glutinous, and disgusting.

The thinner my body becomes, the closer to an unwanted memory. What is remembered is horrific enough, but the one repressed memory must have been really bad. Danny said in his twenties when asked what he did to me, “It’s better you don’t know.”

But I do know a rape occurred, there just is no memory of it except before and after. As the weight comes off there is movement toward what was unconsciously repressed.

Lap after lap, talking to myself… I will not be deterred. I will do this, I will do this, I will. And if the memory comes I will be alright. It already happened. I already lived through it. And there are hospitals to stay in if needed. The self talk doesn’t seem to help alleviate the anxious terror.

REPRESSION

No matter how much is put in having body, mind and spirit mesh, the brokenness occurring at age eight might be permanent. That is impossible to accept.

Would work on repression help to mend this divide? The divide between body and mind go on as if no work was done. One positive that can be said, hard work is taken on daily.

With a working mother, my job was clean the kitchen and get dinner ready. No mother awaited us coming home from school no matter how much longing there was for it. That began at age eight when dad died, right there on the floor in front of us. Trauma enough, but every detail is burned into memory- no repression there..

There is at least one severe and traumatic attack that is repressed. Dan’s attack. Would that coming up help at all? Would it help these nights when nothing is much different but my body is on high. Seeing 2 AM while all others sleep SUCKS.

These males, not brothers- once you touch that way you are no brother, or family. I had 7 seven of them. the other three stood by, did nothing once hearing the truth, said nothing, but most injurious are buddies with the remaining attacker, but also were friendly with the ones now gone. It is not OK.

Night after night of uninterrupted zzz’s, then a night when after almost two hours of trying to sleep everything looms as a grave disaster causing a double dose of medication to sleep. What is the cure?

Walks in the meadow lately bring fear; bees, snakes, someone popping out of the forest to scare me, just as the attackers disguised as brothers would do each finding it funny. They must have hated me. Would reading about the repression of Danny’s attack help? Would finding out what repression does to the body help? Would remembering the violence of his rape help?

It must take enormous energy to repress diverting limited resources needed elsewhere. That repressing a memory every minute of every day must depletes precious energy even if it is unconscious.

The search for answers, truth, authenticity, and knowing my real self continues… along with the need to speak up to the origin family about my true anger with each of them. There is certainly a bucket of it, but the cork stuffing it is slow to open.

WHOLE

photos by Patricia

Rather morbid thoughts invade my brain, chased away by simple projects that bring childish excitement, even an over-sized card for my grand-daughter’s birthday. Or puzzles that sit on the table most of the summer untouched. Working on one now lowers anxiety that creeps in as the days grow darker and colder settling the ragged places that threaten tranquility.

Some who grow older wish for youth, not me. No way would living my life over be tenable. It was hard enough the first time separated from myself like super-charged electrons buzzing around my body. My soul in shattered pieces making each decision the wrong one, causing more pain not less. How could one make a decision when disconnected from oneself?

And how can one be connected when taught to act and behave in opposition to the truth of their existence? That those I loved sexually attacked me with violence and malevolence. But Mom wouldn’t have it. You are to love your family. Broken, never to be whole again… but I wouldn’t have that either and worked hard life-long to have a life.

To have the zillions of pieces come home and stay is a revelation that most others take for granted. Whole, at peace, and happy, because feeling peaceful is happiness. That is how my life finally evolved after decades of fracture before piecing back together.

 

PTSD

A day like others, yet when it was time to sleep, sleep won’t come. Maybe it just happens every week or so for no reason other than the zillions of parts of me flying around are more flustered than usual. The usual make up of my parts are more cemented than past years, but still damaged by a life of PTSD.

Could it be that a friend called for a video chat? Why, no, that happens with some regularity without upset. Maybe the efforts launched to stay productive when it has become so much harder with the drop of mood. Could pushing myself that way cause a break between body, mind, and spirit?

Not writing as frequently? Or does it happen just because my body goes off without me sometimes even when using marijuana oil with great success. Instead of getting up to let my prescription do its work, staying in bed until sleep overtakes me worked best.

But that medication makes the next day unproductive. Despite the sunny weather, only one lap was taken. It feels like the worst thing to do is get my heart rate up because it replicates the adrenaline response which has been so easily activated since the age of 8 when the attacks began.

A day of quiet without doing called for repeated messages to self that it is OK to do just that. Much of my days are usually judged by how much was accomplished, but is that really fair? No, sometimes staying quiet and working on kind messages to one’s self are the best medicine despite my yearnings to get moving and get doing.

Sometimes quiet helps recovery. Though there are improvements in my sleep and quality of life including taming wild, negative thoughts, due to the addition of the pot oil, there is still a disease to manage that knocks on my head with an unwelcome ‘hello.’

 

HUNGER

Photos by Patricia (bluebird baby)

Having to pretend since age 8 that the horrors suffered weren’t real, it became customary for me to stuff them away. That took a lot of food, food that mother loved to cook then see others eat. Weight gain, up and down since age 8.

Even mangling my inner organs to be normal. That pleased my mother who told me about the magical operation.

She left out the part that meant intense pain for hours, and countless episodes on the bathroom floor hoping to upchuck the extra teaspoon of food swallowed. What was left of my stomach was  a tiny pouch with only enough room for a tablespoon or so of food.

That is a problem for a person accustomed to using food as an escape from the body, and had since age 8 when my mother’s cure for the first terrifying attack was to stuff with me food. And if my mother’s love was at the end of a spoon it was better than nothing.

To be in my body now is a revelation. Not realizing that my entire life has been an escape, the exploration into this brings up empathy unfounded in my own inner workings. Because usually there is harshness, blame, and self-castigation. Compassion has begun to blossom.

To go through all that all alone. To suffer like that all alone, except for a mother on the side-lines always making it worse because she didn’t want a fat daughter. So she put me in fashion shows, and beauty contests, and then as an adult excitedly telling me about this operation which years later put me in the hospital due to internal bleeding where the inexperienced surgeon make his cuts to rearrange my internal organs.

It was never about weight, but about pain suppressed. About a little girl alone whose only resource was eating because you readily pushed food, loved to cook, and loved even more to see it eaten.

Mom, normal is to feel. Normal is to go to your daughter’s aid and keep any son from attacking me again. It doesn’t matter if you’re left a widow with 8 kids, you’re story over and over again whenever trying to tell you how angry I was at you and why.

You could have 20 kids, just stop and do the right thing. No more attacks, and don’t tell your little daughter who is crying hot tears down her cheeks, that if it ever happens again to tell you. Of course I wouldn’t, too ashamed to do so. As if I had the power to stop it by telling you. YOU STOP IT.

So food became an escape from the body as other sons took what they wanted. And I became more and more invisible as my body got larger. And that was 60 years ago but the same methods of not feeling are still being used.

Yet beauty occurs, that of feeling deep down inside with peace not tsunamis. I can go there and be OK, better than OK. Still tentatively trying it out, but more and more comfortable being there. It is a beautiful thing, one others live daily without question. But for a trauma survivor it is a new place to be that brings wholeness, peace, and love for self.

Instead of self-repugnance for a too big body since childhood, there is the beginnings of understanding and compassion. Food is used to numb, to not be in the body. I have not understood just how terrifying my childhood was. That leaving the body became the norm when my body was attacked, not the other way around which is really the norm when living childhood without trauma.

Without intervention or release of the agony inside me, I ate for the next sixty years. Even when the stomach was butchered into a tiny pouch- I ate. I had to, even though it meant long periods wrapped about the toilet on the cold tile floor. There was still interaction with ‘family’ acting like I loved them because that’s what was required. Of course I ate.

It is a new beginning where food is eaten out of hunger, not all the other hungers, but true physical hunger. And that only begins to happen when love and compassion are heard inside of me filling the ragged holes that food once filled. That is not the head or brain… that is the soul hungry for love.