When The Past Revisits

What do you do when the past pops up? For some of us our abuse happened years ago while others are going through it right now. So for those of you that have had years to process your abuse or at least recognize when it’s happened, this may hit home a little harder for you. While others who are just now starting to deal with the abuse, hopefully this will help you for the future.

In the last two weeks, there have been situations and people from the past that have resurfaced. It didn’t have anything to do with my abuse, however it went on during the exposure of my abuse. Therefore re-exposing some feelings of the past that I have not had to deal with for many many years. This situation brought up many feelings, one of them being betrayal. Betrayal goes hand in hand with abuse. Anyone who has been abused has been betrayed. Plain and simple it’s a betrayal of the mind, body, and spirit. So what do you do when a betrayal strikes again and reminds you of all the abuse and hurt?

Years ago, I would have reached for any drug or drink I could have gotten my hands on and soothed my pain that way. Knowing that once the high was gone, the pain would return and then I would numb myself again. It would be a vicious cycle with no good ending. I have ten years clean, thank God for that, so I didn’t contemplate numbing myself this time. I chose to take it on head on. I decided that even though I was feeling betrayed, I had to stop and realize I wasn’t actually being betrayed. When things creep back from the past that haven’t been dealt with, all those loose ends are dangling and waiting to hit you. My experience has been that when betrayed it seriously takes a toll on who you are, how you react to certain things, and how you trust. You can quickly feel “like” you’re being betrayed all over again, but in all honesty you aren’t. How we react to things lay in our hands, not our abuser, not our betrayer. So when we get into those feelings, where am I allowing the power to rest? Not in my hands at all, but in the hands of the person who betrayed me, and who hurt me.

My point is this; this is Life, and  we all will experience pain and hurt from time to time. When we are aware of our emotions and how we deal with things, we can be more in control to Decide how we want to respond to NEW pain. We don’t have to go back to the past, we can choose to stay in the present. I’m not saying this is easy. I think for anyone it will take a lot of practice and patience with yourself. I didn’t immediately figure all this out, NOT at all!! I went right back to my past, I felt hurt, I felt anger, and I was not in control of my emotions at all. It was days of processing all the events that had happened before I could step out of it enough to realize yes I’m hurt and my hurt is justified, but I have not been betrayed all over again and that is not justified!

Months ago I wrote about healing and how to heal. Well this is just another step in that process. I thing it’s ever evolving, and never-ending. We can heal little bits of ourselves when we decide to do it one step at a time. One Tear at a time. One hurt at a time. It’s healing. I’m so grateful and thankful that through all of this pain and hurt and healing process that I can teach my kids how to heal. How to talk about what they are feeling and how they can Choose to react to that feeling. What a gift to grow up with really! I’m blessed to know that good things have come out of the pain!

It’s Been Some Time

Hi Guys!! I’m back! I want to take a moment and explain my absence.

I took on  a  new career venture in August, by October  I was bogged down with learning the new world of Health and Life Insurance,as I am now a licensed agent. I love what I’m doing. On top of that I was introduced to Advocare through my cousin. My husband and I did a 24 day challenge which is a nutritional program, that teaches you to eat better and take supplementation to fill in the gaps! I’ve lost 30 pounds, my husband lost 20, I got my dad on it, he’s lost over 20 ect.. Well I realized that I could help so many other people who have struggled with their weight and self-esteem through Advocare. So I jumped on board that too and I’m happy to say, I’ve been able to help so many wonderful people, family and friends and it brings me so much joy to know I’m helping others find the best them they have!

Often abuse pulls us down, makes us feel unworthy of  a healthy lifestyle, nice body and receiving compliments.  I don’t care what type of Abuse it is, it has the same horrible impact of shame, not feeling good enough, ugliness and self loathing! I was stuck in that for years and while I’ve always “worked” at my weight by starving myself, taking the latest and greatest magic diet pill, shots, weight watchers, Atkin’s, ect.. I never found any of them to work. I was missing the nutrition, eating good things for my body. I’ve learned how to eat and eat all day! I use supplements to help me along that are all natural and good for me, and I’ve never felt better, or had more energy and I have never felt more deserving of the body I’m seeing unveiling itself to me! Abuse is damaging, followed up by damaging thoughts, followed up usually by us doing damage to ourselves by drugs, alcohol, over eating, or starving ourselves. Whatever the walk for you has been, I encourage you to look at your lifestyle and ask yourself if you have turned into abusing yourself? I don’t mean just with drugs, I mean with food or the lack of it, or the kind of food! I was! I was abusing me by eating like crap, not exercising, over eating or starving my self, taking horrible synthetic pills that did horrible things to my body, ect.. I did that because I didn’t feel worthy of anything better for myself. So this challenge did way for me than lose weight, gain muscle, gain energy, it renewed my love for Me!!

It has been an incredible last few months! It has been full of discovery, excitement, nerves, stress, joy and fulfillment! I appreciate you all being so patient with me, sending me emails, asking where I’ve been and if I’m coming back. Some of you messaged me on Facebook to tell me they missed the blog and they were really learning from it! Thank you ! Thank you for letting me know this is useful to you all. I want it to be educational as well as emotional.  I want us all to grow from it and learn to help others. Remember, you never know who you may meet that has walked out a life of abuse, or still is. Our words our powerful, make sure you are using yours in a way in which is uplifting to others, that one word may be the word that stops them from taking their life!

Some of you out there are struggling with their weight and don’t feel worthy of loosing it. Please Please either check out my website, or email me, I promise you, you will never be the same! Advocare isn’t a diet or magic pill, it’s a way of life that will transform your mind and body! I promise…

So I’m back, and I will have another post soon that will be more of an abuse post. I wanted to take this post and explain where I’ve been, where I’m going and my deepest thanks to you all!!

I’ll Be Seeing You!

M.

We Are Family

I’m dedicating this post to my niece who recently has been through a very horrible experience and through her I’ve learned even more about the pain of abuse. I think it’s important that when we learn, to share and get even more education out there. Especially if you are ” Family” of an abused person. Often you find yourselves at a loss for what to say, what to do, what to talk about or not talk about, and how to handle certain situations. It’s a difficult line that many of you walk every day and I know as a survivor I didn’t always make it easy for my family.

This is a situation where there was physical and sexual, and verbal abuse going on. She grew up in it and was groomed very well so much so that she didn’t trust anyone on her father’s side of her family for many years. She only saw her dad on the weekends for a long time. She would lie about scars, wounds ect.. she was a child and kids can be accident prone, but there were other Red Flags in this little girl that were missed.  Because let’s face it, when we have kids, we don’t rush out and by a book or do research on signs of abuse, we live in our little fairytale that it won’t happen to our children or children in our family, Right? That’s very common in all parents and unfortunately in the world we live in. Your child has more of a chance of being sexually, or physically abused than they do getting chicken pox anymore!  So like we look up the signs and symptoms of a common cold, we should be looking up signs and symptoms of abuse! This goes for family or parents of Boys too, just because they are male doesn’t mean they are safe!

After years of abuse my niece suffered she finally spoke out and told her family. She moved in with her dad full time and found much trust and comfort in her grandmother who she has lived with off and on through the last couple of years. She has found “safety” in her. Her father like most dads, in denial, shock, anger and sadness, didn’t really know how to deal with this situation. Took her to a therapist, but she had learned how to lie so well she completely snowed the therapist. Boiling with her anger,sadness,poor self-esteem, ect.. the list goes on and on, she continued to spiral out of control and her father just didn’t know how to handle it other than giving her what life he thought she should have and try to help her with what interests she had. This is all good, but the big thing was being missed, Getting her help and open communication between them. Her rebellion became the main focus and she was left feeling inadequate and not good enough and started making poor choices.  She recently ran away and would not tell any of us where she was. I’ve talked her a lot in the last year and we were making progress with her memories and feelings of her childhood, lack of a mother, and feelings of general mistrust. Sadly it wasn’t enough or often enough to get her to a place of really healing and moving past the abuse. She felt alone, angry and left.

When she did call home to her grandmother she would ask about her dad, what did he say, is he angry, does he miss me? She was reaching out, but again the focus was on the “behavior” of what she had done. I’m not condoning her actions in running away, but I understand her actions, her anger, her mistrust and her sadness. I wanted to get through to her that no matter what was going on, her family loved her. Her grandmother did a fine job of communicating with her on the phone, and her and I would talk everyday almost and I would try to help her understand where she was at mentally because it’s foreign to someone who hasn’t been there.

We all need to become more available to each other emotionally. All of us that have been abused are “family”, we understand each other sometimes when the world doesn’t or when our own family doesn’t. Parents, your child wants to talk to you, maybe not about details of the abuse, but why they are angry, sad, depressed, suicidal maybe ect.. they want to know that what they have been through is of interest to you and that you care. It will be a long road for her, she is home now, Thank God, but some damage has been done for sure and even more damage to her trust in men, and family.

Reach out to people who love you, if you feel alone, my email is on the home page, contact me. If you have no one in your life that understands you, I do and I will gladly communicate with you.

Do you have a story of needing family, or are you a family member who doesn’t understand this process and feels lost in it? If so, please contact me with any questions or comments.

There are support groups out there as well and I encourage any family member of an abused person to go to some, you don’t have to talk, just listen.

 

I’ll be seeing you,

M.

Serenity and the Smokies

Pic of my boys with New Found Gap behind them. One of the only pics saved from our vacation 😦

Let me start by apologizing for not posting while on vacation. I’ve had more technological issues in the last 7 days than I have in my whole life. Between shotty wi-fi, and my phone crashing and losing all of our pictures, it’s been a rough and impossible week to post! I apologize though because I do not like setting an expectation and not meeting it! This post will be a bit longer than normal as I have quite a bit to say, so I hope that you continue to read and take the time. Hopefully it will be worth it  🙂

For those of you who don’t know me, I live in Florida, flat, hot, humid, but beautiful beaches which keep me here! Driving into the foothills of the mountains in north Georgia brought me back to memories of my childhood, looking out the passenger window and seeing these magnificent hills growing and growing until you get into North Carolina and you understand why they are called the Smoky Mountains! They literally reach the sky up into the clouds! I’m still in awe of their beauty and demanding presence; they take over your mind and spirit. Their is a calmness and serenity to them that captures your soul instantly. I loved watching my husband and two boys as we got up into the mountains and they too in awe and wonder of something so much bigger than ourselves. It was simply incredible.

Memories flooded my mind as we passed places and attractions that I had been to so many years ago with my parents and now there I was with my children. It was a beautiful full circle moment for me, because there was a time in my life that I thought a family vacation with kids, my kids, would never happen! Certainly not a vacation like this! I loved reminiscing with them and they enjoyed hearing the stories about mom when she was little doing the same thing they were doing. My heart leaped as I thought to myself,” they are experiencing all these awesome, fun, wonderful things and they don’t have the thought of abuse in the back of their mind.”

” They are not worried what might happen tonight when they go to bed, they can totally enjoy and soak up this memory and fun time!” That is priceless to me because in all the fun memories I have of the mountains they are tainted with abuse and a feeling of underlying fear. So while I was doing all these fun things all over again with my kids, I too was making new memories for myself! I too was no longer worried about going to bed because I went to bed with the warm comfort of my husband’s loving arms every night and the there was NO underlying feeling of fear! Whew… what more could I ask for?

As we approached the town that my grandparents’ place was I started feeling uneasy and nervous. What if I couldn’t do it, what if I totally lost it in front of my children?  I became very anxious and almost decided to turn around, and then that little girl spoke up as if she was in charge of this mission, not me, and said, NO, No…we’ve made it this far and we need to do this. I reluctantly agreed and proceeded with caution. I kept telling myself that I am not these feelings, I’m simply the vehicle for the feelings and I’m not a little girl, I am a woman who’s all grown up and away from any harm. When we pulled in to the park I couldn’t believe how much time had stood still there. Hardly anything looked different, and in fact that payphone that I called home in desperation was still there! I looked at my husband as he was cautiously reading my face and knowing at any moment I could burst into tears. He was keeping me grounded whether he knew it or not. I told him where to turn and when we got to the hill that I ran down, I was shocked that in my memory it looked so large, but really wasn’t all that large at all! I saw the cabin and noticed the difference in paint and an addition car port, but other than that, the place had not changed at all! I was quickly greeted by a neighbor and I told them who I was and that I would like to meet the new owners and ask permission to walk around. The new owner who is the owner that bought the place from my grandparents was very warm and friendly and told me that I was welcome to walk around, take pictures and show my husband and children.

I approached the cabin and the windows were open, the smell from the cabin came flooding out to the open air and I was instantly taken back to my childhood. The smell was exactly the same as if my grandparents were still there and I was in shock; tears flooded my eyes as I thought about the memories that existed on the other side of the door. I walked in and again, the place looked the same. The current owners have kept some of the furnishings that my grandparents left when they sold it and so it was like stepping back into time. Everything was the same down to the comforter on the bed! I had not prepped myself for this at all! I took pictures of everything because I was just in shock how nothing had changed. Same tables, couch, decorations, stove, refrigerator, and smell!! It was a sweet smell mixed with wood and mountain air. A clean smell and I thought how dirty the memories to such a sweet smelling dwelling.  I walked through the place like it was a national museum touching and remembering good and bad. Showing my kids things and walking them around to the back yard where I used to climb up the mountain and go for adventurous hikes when I was younger with my brother. The creek that sat behind and below their place is where I use to escape to and be alone. It has dried up now and at first I was saddened about that,but then I thought to myself, like the past, it is gone and so is my fear, my sadness. Like the creek it has dried up! A smile emerged and in that moment by what use to be that old creek, I told that little girl thank you for all she had done and that we had climbed the mountain of healing together and had found the other side. I took a deep breath and as I exhaled, I released all the bad feelings surrounding that cabin and embraced the good. I was thrilled the creek was gone, and I didn’t need to escape to it anymore!

I turned to see my husband and boys watching me and smiled through tears and have never been so thankful for all I have in my life. For all the bad that was endured has lead me to this exact moment in my life. I have learned nothing is more precious than this moment in time. Every minute of every day to have my family, to have my amazing friends, and  to have struggled, but to have learned so much. How to love, how to forgive, how to embrace the bad to find the good, how to hurt and how to heal. It’s all a journey. An ongoing journey to always be growing and learning and living; to just exist would be an insult!

I will never completely understand all the Why’s behind my sexual abuse, but what I do understand is this. It doesn’t define me, it is not who I am. I am a survivor and for whatever reason behind it, I was meant to have the life I’ve had and I could not make choices for myself as a child, but I can now and I chose to live the best life I can possibly have with my family, with my friends and with everything I love!

I hope and pray that you all too choose to live and not let your abuse define your life and who you are. Climb that mountain of healing and forgiveness, get out of victim role and step into survivor and take charge of your life. I’ll promise you this; you will not regret it when you get to the top of the mountain and look down on all that you’ve accomplished and find serenity!

I’ll be seeing you!

M.

Come Away With Me….

 

 

Well today we leave for a family vacation, which is a first in 5 years! So the excitement in the house is indescribable as you can imagine  🙂

No, me going on vacation has nothing to do with sexual abuse, however what I will be doing on vacation does!

My grandparents use to have a cabin in North Carolina, which as a child my family visited every summer! I have many great memories of the Smoky Mountains and playing with my brother in cold streams,exploring, catching lightening bugs, and tubing with my cousins. I also have dark memories of abuse that took place in the cabin and on the mountain in which they lived on. A few times I went to NC alone with my grandparents. My parents sending me off, thinking I would have a great time and why wouldn’t they? He was to be trusted. However, he took this free time and abuse across states lines and mountains and there was no safe place from him. I thought he would leave me alone when I was up there, but I was wrong. Sexually abusing me was an addiction to him and he was getting his fix no matter the state we were in physically.

This is also the place that I found my voice at 13 years old and conquered the fear of saying the word, ” NO” to him. I was up there to spend 2 weeks with them and as usual within a few days of being up there he started abusing me, and romancing me. For the first time in my life I had a boyfriend and I realized he was treating me like my boyfriend did. Complimenting me, bringing me gifts, and trying to please me in a non grandfather way. I realized how wrong this was and knew it had been, but because of fear of the unknown and all the threats he had taught me to believe, I just froze and went into self-protection mode and survival mode and kept quiet. The little girl inside me who was growing up and had protected me all these years was taking over and giving me the courage to stop the abuse.

I will never forget that moment in the cabin when he sneaked into my bed at night while my grandmother was asleep. He was naked from the waist down and he grabbed me and pulled me onto him. I froze as usual and then something clicked in me and I said,”NO!”, ” Get off of me, you will never touch me again and if you do I will tell everyone what you’ve been doing to me.” I got up and ran down the mountain in my pajamas to a pay phone near some cottages that sat below their place. I called home frantically to my mom and dad and insisted they come and get me NOW! Of course I couldn’t tell them what was going on, and so I made up a lie that I was terribly homesick and sick and that I needed to come home. Luckily the urgency in my voice was convincing enough and they left that night and drove 12 hours to pick me up! I’ve not been back since!

I have decided to go to that cabin while I’m up there this coming week. I want to be in that space as a grown woman, who is safe and not threatened by him any longer. I want to thank that little girl inside of me for that moment of courage and be there to see the landscape differently and set a different memory with that space. It’s a wonderful tool to use when you’re in the process of healing to experience things differently than you did when abuse was taking place. To know how much you’ve healed and to begin to heal even more. Sure, not everyone needs to do what I’m doing, but I’ve done it with every place he abused me because they have been local and I know how healing it has been for me to do so and so I feel compelled to do it with this space as well. I invite you to come along with me. I will be posting pictures and blogs that will give you insight to my continued journey of healing and surviving sexual abuse!

My beloved therapist, after hearing what I was getting ready to do, reminded me of this and I wanted to share it with all of you:

You are not the feelings, emotions, sensations, perceptions, be they anger, sadness,

            fear, joy, bliss, what ever ~~~ you are the AWARENESS that knows of the anger, sadness, fear,  joy, bliss. 

 

            And, one more time ~~~ you are that (the awareness)

            which knows of the feelings, emotions, perceptions……..

 

            And again; “I am the AWARENESS that knows of the feelings, emotions, sensations, perceptions……………….”

And as always, I’m in awe and gracious for the continued support from all of you and the chance to help so many others through my story!

I ask for prayers and support from you all as I go on this next journey!

I’ll be seeing you,

M.

 

Abuser or Enabler ?

I had a very hard time dealing with the fact that my grandmother knew the abuse was taking place and turning a blind eye! I have memories upon memories of her walking into the room while he was molesting me and her turning around and shutting the door as if to give us privacy. I have a memory of her putting me in the bathtub and “cleaning” me before my unknowing parents arrived to pick me up after a weekend visit! She didn’t just okay what he was doing, she participated in the act! When my grandfather was finally confronted and it all came to the surface she was also confronted on her part of it which she totally down played as if she had amnesia and didn’t remember any of it. She knew something wasn’t “right” she said, but never did she think that was going on and if so then I must have liked it because I had never said anything to her or anyone else!!  It was my fault that I had climbed up in his lap as an innocent 3 year old and he took advantage!

There is a fine line between enabling something and also abusing. For me I feel like she was both. Anyone who can stand in the balance and know abuse is taking place, but turn a blind eye is enabling the abuse to continue. Anyone who can assist the abuser by cleaning up the situation or lying for them is an abuser themselves!

She would later say to me that she was sorry, but he was her husband and you didn’t go against your husband! She told me that one day when I was married I would understand! Well I can tell you that I am married and if my husband ever did anything to harm a child, (which he never would) I would Never be able to look the other way! Especially my own flesh and blood! This was insanity!

I often think how different my life would have been had she stepped up and protected me and stopped the abuse.  What a thought! I would not have thought of myself as an object for so many years, but a person. I would not have known the fear of men to the point that I lost my whole childhood with my other grandfather who was love and kindness. I would have trusted more and loved with wild abandon perhaps. I would have walked with my graduating class instead of being in a mental institution and going to homeschool because I was such a rebellious teen who was hooked on cocaine to numb the pain. I would have experienced homecoming dances and prom.  I would have had respect for myself instead of throwing myself at men who were undeserving of me.  Maybe I would not have lost the friends that I have because it was so hard to be my friend back then.  There are a lot of things that perhaps would have been very different for me, but  I don’t get angry anymore because I know I am exactly who I am supposed to be and without the experiences I’ve had I would not be. I also know I made a lot of my own choices and I knew wrong from right, but couldn’t see past the pain to pick those.

If you find yourself in a position where you know someone is abusing a person, you have a duty to tell and protect that person.  The victim probably can’t find their voice, or they have been groomed so well that they don’t realize abuse is taking place yet. This applies to ANY type of abuse, not just sexual abuse.  Imagine what you could be giving back to them by speaking up or speaking out. You could be giving them a life that they aren’t even aware they deserve or think they want! People are under the assumption that it’s none of their business or maybe I’m wrong. Saving a life is ALL of our businesses and again, intuition is the most powerful tool when used correctly.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~ Mark Twain

For The Love Of Books!!

It’s a rainy day here in Florida with a tropical storm out in the water and days like this make me slow down a bit and take in the weather! These days make me slow down and remember some sweet memories of my childhood that are sometimes hard to recall. I wanted to share with you not just the bad and ugly, but the sweet and the good too!

I can remember as a little girl I loved to read. I had a desk in my room and I was small enough to fit into the alcove where a chair should be, but instead it found me. I would shut my door, grab a blanket, and take cover under the security of my desk! I loved books and still do to this day, but books for me back then went far beyond the pages. I could escape! I could become whichever character I was reading about. Whether it was Laura Ingalls and I was living in the little house on the prairie, or Anne of Green Gables, or Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing.

Rainy days for me meant freedom, and peace. Most children hate rainy days because they are trapped inside all day, but for me it was a chance to just be me. I didn’t have to interact and be someone I wasn’t to the outside world. The book didn’t care who I was, it just cared that I was reading it. The blanket I lay wrapped in hugged me with out wanting anything in return from  me and my desk became a fortress that was built just for me!

See, with so much insanity and abuse going on, and all the lies and secrets I had to tell and keep, my mind would become overloaded and clogged. My reality was different from most children and sometimes I wondered why I was even alive. These stories I read gave me hope for something more. They kept me wanting more for myself, and they took me away to a day that I hoped and dreamed about.

Obviously I made it and I’m here today to talk about it. Many of my dreams have become reality and others I’m still working for. I’m so thankful for all those days and afternoons that I had with just me, my books, my blanket and my desk! Simple things really,but they meant the world to me!

Have I Been Abused, Really?

Was I really abused? Was that a dream? Did that really happen to me? Am I possibly making this up?

All of these questions you have probably pondered since your abuse. Let me first start out by saying, there is no such thing as a little bit of abuse or molestation! You can’t be a little bit pregnant, as my beloved therapist taught me. You’re either pregnant or not, Right? Well it’s the same with any abuse, it either happened or it didn’t and it doesn’t mean if you were only abused once that you don’t have the same struggles, pain, fear, problems, or healing process to go through! You absolutely do!

If you have never dealt and come to terms with your abuse you may have buried the abuse in a sub conscious part of the brain that it seems foggy or maybe not real. The details are hazy, you struggle to make sense of the flashes you may be having. This is normal and you may or may not be able to recall all the details without a trained therapist to get them out of you. A great technique to get you started is keeping a journal. Every time you have a memory, or a flashback or dream write it down. Read it often!One memory can lead to another sometimes.

I recall my therapist asking me what I did remember and what I was comfortable sharing. I was able to recall some things, but I knew there was more to it that I wasn’t allowing myself to remember because of fear. My first memory was a young memory,  and through discussing with my parents and telling them what I remembered they were able to pin point the age to 3 years old! When she asked me to dig down deep and tell her more I didn’t want to relive that pain, and I didn’t want to talk about it! She guided me gently down the road of memories, and she explained to me that once I remembered I could deal with the pain and fix it. The hard part would be over, and like an onion the more you peel away in layers you can shed all those feeling of hurt and anger. However, the little girl in me was terrified. She had buried those memories for good reason and who was I to now start trying to make her relive them? That “little girl me” had done all the protecting and I was getting ready to shatter it, or so I thought! Sometimes in abuse we do what’s called dissociation. That means that your brain as magnificent as it is separated your conscious and unconscious thoughts and memories. So that if you have memories that you seem to be watching on a movie screen you probably dissociated yourself during the abuse, kind of like an out-of-body experience and that is why your memories will seem more foggy.  When you have a memory that you are seeing out of your eyes and not in the distance like a movie screen then chances are that your memories are much more vivid and you didn’t disassociate. There is much more to dissociation than I can explain in one blog entry. A whole blog could be written about dissociation! I’m giving you the quick version of it so that you can decipher perhaps what kind of memories your having. Dissociated memories are harder to interpret and seem “not real”, but they are and you should pay attention to them!

My memories were very dissociated and my therapist knew I may not be able to recall them all on my own. She discussed with me different ways to get the memories to come to the surface when I was ready, and one of the ways was to talk to that little girl inside of myself and let her know that I was thankful and grateful for the work she had done to protect me and that I was now ready to take over and start protecting myself. This sounds simple and almost laughable, but let me tell you, It’s Powerful and the memories came! This process was not an overnight process, it was over the span of years and years. We also used hypnosis which was another powerful tool to help loosen those memories that were buried so deep.

My abuser died when I was 19 years old, and the last memory I had was two years ago! So be patient with yourself if you’re becoming frustrated and feel like you can’t remember everything. You will know when you have remembered all that you need to know, you may never need to remember everything in order to heal and move on in your healing process.  I feel like I have remembered everything now and I understand why it took me years to remember all of them. Some things were so degrading and disgusting that had I remembered them at too early of an age perhaps I would not have recovered from them ever! Let’s remember this was my grandfather, my family, my mom’s father and a man who was never held accountable for his crimes in a court. He admitted only what he wanted to admit to before his death and so when he died and the memories started coming even faster and more powerful than before I grew more angry than I ever had been before! I felt like once again he had won a power over me that I had no control of at the time. He didn’t, but that’s how I felt at the time.

Memories are powerful things that amaze me. Some memories, have such color, sound, and even smell sometimes that you are right back in that time instantly reliving all of the memory. The brain is such an incredible filing system that organizes and deciphers what is needed and not needed to sustain life. Remember that as you go on this journey, your brain is the best machine out there and if you need to remember and you’ve accepted knowing all the memories then they will come.

For those of you that maybe have  family or a friend going through this process, then I invite you to help them if you feel comfortable. Tell them you are there for them and that if they need to talk about the memory you will listen. You may not know what to say, but that you will always listen and be a cheerleader for their efforts in dealing with their abuse. You can encourage them to talk through the memory and you will write it down for them, you can comfort them or hold them as they cry or while they remember. Sometimes a simple touch or hug can mean the difference to someone. If they don’t want to talk then accept that too and let them know you are thinking about them and when they are ready to talk your ears will be open to hear them. You could buy them a journal to write their thoughts down in, and  maybe you write them a special first entry into it. One of the most treasured gifts I have to this day is a journal that a friend bought me years ago for my thoughts and memories. That was her way of saying, I’m here, I hear you and I love you!

No matter what your path has been, no matter how unimportant or discouraged  you feel at times I want you to know your life matters, and we all have a purpose in this life. Don’t let your past dictate your future, but allow it to be part of you and turn it into a journey of finding yourself!

Until Next Time…

This is a picture of me shortly after the abuse had started. I’m 4 in this picture. No 4-year-old should know that kind of pain and hurt!

Melanie age 4