Rip VanWinkle

One of the fairy tales I recall from my childhood is that of Rip VanWinkle.
Remember that one?
This young guy falls under a spell and sleeps away his entire life.
He wakes up years later only to find that he has become an old man;
complete with a long white beard. That’s what I recall most vividly.
Poor old Rip looking in a mirror with shock at the sight of that old face.
A boy inside an old man's body touching that long gnarly beard.

Call me Rip.
I’m in shock and I’m grieving.
I slept through most of my life too. I should be a teenager, but I’m not.
I look in the mirror and I feel shock and confusion too.
It’s not because of vanity that I can never remember my real age.
I have to consciously think of my husbands age, then subtract 4 years.
Even then I’m never really sure.
Dissociative identity disorder, (DID), saved my life and my sanity.
There is a price for survival. I missed almost everything.
What I have in my memory banks reads more like a scrapbook
or a youtube montage video. Highlights and snapshots, stories and fantasy.

I sat in my therapists office yesterday and it hit me. I’m about fourteen.
I don’t know too many fourteen year olds who want to be married
to a fifty-one year old man or who want the responsibility of parenting
teens and twenty-somethings. I’m overwhelmed and afraid.
I feel trapped and I’m angry. I feel ripped off.
I awoke to a face that isn’t mine and the body of a middle aged mother of three.
How did I get here?
Oh, sure, I can flip through the images in my memory banks
and I can see exactly how I got here, but I’m still confused.
I can see it, but it doesn’t feel real.

The Attic

As I lay in bed last night I tried to go to “the attic” of my mind
where my emotional parts live.
Several times I said aloud, “Go up, up, up.”  “Up, up, up” 
but I couldn’t really get there.
I thought it would be easier to do for some reason, but it was not.

Then, I found myself lying on my back, wrists crossed
and arms extended over my head.
My legs shook and I heard a voice, “Open up. Spread your legs Gaye.”
My left ear shut off and I felt a part coming up. I felt small and silent.
I felt that familiar pressure on my abdomen and a cramping feeling.
I felt a warm sensation between my legs
and I had a gripping pain in my right thigh.
My ankles felt stuck to the bed and I couldn’t close my legs.

I heard a male voice with my ears, not just in my mind but
I couldn’t really make out what the word was that he had said.
It was something like “Julie or Jules” or something, but I heard it.
I started to doze off and I was awakened by a clinking sound.
It sounded like something metal on my headboard. I heard it twice.
I heard it with my ears. My heart raced and my eyes popped open.
I lay there frozen; motionless and terrified. Eventually, I fell asleep.
I had dreams but I don’t remember them now.

I woke up with the distinct sensation that I had been choked.
I feel a dull ache in my neck to the left of my trachea.
It hurts to swallow and when I touch it, but it’s not a sore throat.

I have a hard time sometimes to separate body memories
from actual pain unrelated to flashbacks, triggers or memories.
They all hurt and they all feel real.
Usually though, once I identify that it is a body memory, it goes away.
A couple of times over the past few weeks I have been alarmed by a clear feeling that someone is squeezing my upper right arm.
It’s real and it hurts.
I knew immediately that this was a body memory and it went away fairly quickly.
This has happened two, maybe three times over the past few weeks.
I believe that not only was I restrained probably with handcuffs,
but I think I was either choked or held down by my throat.

I woke up early, sometime before six o’clock, and I lay in bed and prayed.
I went to “the attic” briefly.
One thing I noticed is that I think there are “garment bags” hanging
on one side and I feel that someone or more than one
someone is hiding behind or inside of them.
I wonder if it’s my bigger, older parts.
Some of my parts aren’t afraid and have come out a lot over the years.
Where are they? Why don’t I see them when I go there?
If they aren’t afraid, then why don’t they come out?
The wee ones that hide under the eaves seem afraid.
Jersey girl, (the scrapper), miss showmanship, (the great entertainer),
and the sexy one aren’t afraid.
Where are they?
Who else is in there?

"Taking the Trigger Train to Crazy Town!"

I woke up this morning feeling good. Hubby has the day off,
the sun is finally shining.
The coffee was already made when I got up...
A great start to this Independence Day!

Last night, our 20 year old son was supposed to have loaded the dishwasher, (with mostly all his own dirty dishes), but instead he fell asleep on the couch. Before I went to bed, I woke him up to send him to bed and tell him to get up early in the morning and get them done.

Today, when I got up, my son was still asleep in his bed.
I came downstairs, got my coffee and came in to see my husband,
when I noticed that he had done the dishes himself.
I was so mad!
My husband is always so nice; he’s a very thoughtful man. Unfortunately,
he enables our son and we fight about that more than anything else.

I went to the landing of the stairs and hollered up to our son to get up.
I scolded him for not getting up early to do the dishes as he had said he would.
He made a wise remark and I reacted by hollering
at him to get out of bed and contribute something to the house.
He made a wise crack and then I really yelled! 


I came out to the sunporch and reamed out my husband.
I began to feel some familiar feelings from my childhood
that have repeated into my adult life.
I felt disregarded and unheard.
I could feel something escalating inside and I fought against it at first,
trying to communicate my feelings in a controlled, adult way.

The next thing I know I'm SCREAMING at my husband to "Do something!"
"Don’t just stand there, do something!" Of course, he just stood there...
I’m sure he was stunned!
It began with one good shove; then I hit him. Then, all hell broke loose.
I started wailing on him as hard as I could with both fists.
I hit him over and over again, screaming
at him. I kept telling him how much I hate him. 

Neither one of us is violent and hardly ever even yell or anything.
He was stunned, teary eyed standing there letting me pound and pummel him.
I don't remember some parts of it but suddenly, I came to the realization
that none of this had anything to do with my husband.
I don't hate him-I adore him.
Although I realized that the rage was misdirected, I still couldn't stop.
I continued the raging and punching and screaming.
I just kept screaming over and over, "Goddamn it! Goddamn it! Goddamn it!" 

Then I turned it on myself and pulled my hair and began to punch myself
in the head. I was like a crazy woman!
Then I just screamed but no words-just screaming and crying.
My husband stopped me, held me by my wrists and hugged me tight to keep me from hurting myself.
I fought until I was exhausted.
He tried to get me to sit down, but I resisted and then came ‘round two’ of the screaming and more crying. I backed away from him and cried some more. He just stood there until I calmed down. I kept saying, "I'm sorry" over and over. He held me for a long time.

By then I wanted to sit down because I was shaking and exhausted.
I sat and put my head on his belly while he stood beside me,
holding me for a long time.
To some, my husband standing there allowing me to unleash on him
might seem like weakness,
but let me tell you, he showed such strength and compassion in that moment.
Don is my rock and my safety.
Almost like he’s magic, Don has a calming affect on me.

Then he said, as if to lighten to mood,
"If I'm ever involved in a brawl, I want you on my team!" 
He always knows what to say to make me feel better.

Other than some tired, achey muscles, a really sore hand, a sore throat
and pulling out some hair, I'm OK now.
I keep sighing. I feel relieved and exhausted.
This feels as if it came out of nowhere
and although, I'm a bit embarrassed, I’m grateful.
I'm grateful for my husband and for getting rid of some of that rage
that I’ve carried around for over forty years.
My husband helped me explain triggers and flashbacks to our son,
so it turned out to be a good opportunity for bonding and healing
and I am also grateful for that!

“My name is Mabel and my glasses catch my tears.”

Early one morning as I was waking up, I met her. 

So small and sad- so afraid.
Mabel has all my sadness and she cries very quietly. 

She told me that she wears those big glasses
to catch all the tears so they don’t leak out. 

She is small and tender. I’m guessing she’s around eight and she is very sad. 

Mabel knows it wasn’t safe to cry.
She knows what happened to me that made me sad 

and she has done the crying for me.
She doesn't believe that it's OK to cry. 

I wish she would let me have the pain so she could rest.

Wait, which one of us is in charge?

    My little ones live in the attic of my mind, under the eaves in the shadows in the back of my head. Each one is contained within a bubble, oblivious to one another and to me. Some of them have bodies but others only heads. Some have words while others only have feelings. It’s dark in there and the only light is what comes in through the windows of my eyes. They are small, lonely and afraid.

    The one I am most familiar with is Gaye. She’s about 14 and she is my fighter, my NJ girl, the boss. She has been in the driver’s seat much of my life-I just didn’t know it. With her, it’s like I’m the co-pilot. I see what she does and I hear what she says and I know how she feels, but I can’t always do anything about it. She’s a scrapper and she can be scary-even to me. I went by the name Gaye until I was about 12 when I took back my legal name. Just because we share the same name doesn’t mean that she is anything like I was when I was young. I think she’s more like what I WISH I was. She will go toe to toe with the best of them and believe me, she has!
    It was Gaye who 'threw down' years ago with that old drunk when we were at Wal-Mart. That big, nasty, scary man shoved my 6 year old son. I was scared, but Gaye stepped right out, getting in his face. She wasn’t backing down either. Unfortunately, I was pregnant with our youngest daughter and could have gotten hurt if security hadn’t come along when they did. Gaye didn’t seem to notice me or the fact that I was very pregnant but even if she had, I don’t think she’d have stopped. She is my constant protector and I love her.

    Having an adolescent in charge when you’re an adult can be problematic, especially when it comes to marriage. My little ‘go-to-girl’ loves my husband in the same way any little girl loves her father. She doesn’t recognize him as my husband, she relates to him like he’s her Daddy. The good kind of Daddy; not the kind of Daddy that has sex with his daughter. Not the kind of Daddy I had.
    You can imagine how this complicates my marriage. Gaye is very strong willed and she gets so mad at my husband for wanting to be intimate with us. From her perspective, that makes sense. Of course she gets mad! Fourteen year old girls want their daddy’s to love and cherish them. They want to be nurtured and cared for. They don’t want to be thought of “in that way” by the man who’s job it is to protect her. Gaye believes that my husband is her Daddy and as long as sex isn’t a factor, she likes him. She loves him, but she puts up one heck of a fight whenever we think about anything sexual-especially where he is concerned. Within a nanosecond, I can go from thinking about the possibility of being intimate with my husband and starting to believe I can do it, to a raging teenager smashing the windows in my mind!
    Shutting down is what I have learned to do best to avoid the her wrath. Shutting down is how I avoid the mixed up emotions; the guilt, shame and sadness. Unfortunately, shutting down has caused the man I love more than life itself, so much pain. I can hardly bear to think about it.

    A couple of weeks ago, my therapist made this simple, factual statement: He said, “ You know you’re not a virgin.” Any rational person with any intellect whatsoever, would seed that point without question. The indisputable fact is that I have been married for 23 years and have 3 kids. Of course I’m not a virgin!
Let me tell you though, Gaye was pissed! She glared at him, clenched her teeth and didn’t hear much of what he had to say after that. Those words replayed in my head all week and I felt her raging and then sulking about it. Gaye ranted  about his observation; “What kind of sick thing is that to say to a child?!” “I am SO a VIRGIN!” “P-I-I-I-I-G!” She hated my therapist for a few days.
I felt really confused by it all. I felt sad. I vacillated between sad, angry and confused. I’m not sure which one of us was feeling what feelings, but it all left me kind of queasy and embarrassed...and guilty...
...Always so ashamed and guilty.

I paved the way for us

Recently, someone I love disclosed a history of sexual abuse to me.
Once I got past the tears for her and the outrage at the abuser,
my next thought was about how I could help.
I thought about all that I had been through in my search for healing.
The multitude of failed attempts.
The litany of treatments that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars and two decades of my life.
Neither of these things will I ever get back and none of them helped.
There was no way I could let this person whom I love so dearly suffer as I had and lose what I did. I want to be there for her in her hour of need. This will no doubt be a painful and difficult journey for her, but if I can make it even a little bit easier for her, I will. My experience is like a "what not to do" in the search for healing. I pray that my ordeal will be an example of perseverance but also that it can help her to get to what does work sooner.

Over the years, I have done everything in my power to get help. 
I have attended workshops and 12 step groups.
I’ve bought motivational tapes, listened to subliminal C.D.’s.
I've done guided visualizations, role play, inner child work. 
You name it and I’ve done it!
I went to therapy alone, in groups and with my husband.
I prayed, hard and often.
I sat under a full spectrum light for half an hour a day, I took prescription medicine, vitamins, herbal remedies. I used creams and gels. I went on special diets. I exercised.
We went on marriage retreat weekends. I tried “tapping in” with EFT.  I looked into the mirror reciting daily affirmations. There were chakras, auras, crystals, contacting the dead and even the Ouija board.
I was broken and needed fixing. I was desperate.
I have been treated for dysthymia, post-partum depression, adult A.D.D., multiple medical issues, anxiety, eating disorders, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, dyspareunia, seasonal-affective disorder and bi-polar disorder. Many of these were outright misdiagnoses while others were merely symptoms or aftereffects of abuse.
I ended up having a total hysterectomy at thirty-nine after a lifetime of endometriosis, uterine fibroids and ovarian cysts. I had a gastric bypass at forty after a thirty-four year struggle with obesity. I had multiple plastic surgeries to correct damage done to my body after gaining and losing 180 pounds. None of these things ever dealt with the real issue.
Every practitioner was aware of my history of sexual abuse, but none of them ever really put two and two together. I saw counselors, social workers, family physicians, gynecologists, an endocrinologist, a uro-gynecologist, a psychologist, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, my priest, a marriage counselor, a Christian counselor and finally, the right therapist.
At 46 years old, I found Robert, a masters level social worker who is also a Christian man. Robert is EMDR level 2 certified and a gift from God. Robert and I have covered more ground and made more progress in 7 months than I ever did or would have done without him. E.M.D.R.- eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is an amazing therapy.
With this therapy, we have gotten down to some long buried feelings and thought patterns. We’ve even uncovered some memories with it.
The real turning point for me though, was when Robert spoke the words, “dissociative identity disorder.” That’s when it all finally made sense to me. I still have a way to go, but the end is in sight now and although it took twenty years to get here, I’m here and that’s a good thing. A very good thing.

Working Harder Than I Ever Have Before.

Yesterday, I woke up with a flicker of an image in my mind. I saw a foreskin being retracted. It was disproportionately large compared to me and I felt nauseated. I feel certain that this was a memory fragment. I am not aware of any personal experience in my adult life with an uncircumcised male, although as a nurse, I have taken care of male patients like this.
I believe this is a memory for two reasons. The first reason being how large the penis was and how close it was to my face. Even though it was only a flash of an image, there was movement and it was quite detailed. Which leads me to the second reason I believe it is a memory; the way it made me feel. I felt repulsed, nauseated and disturbed. I held my breath and I winced. Clearly, this would be the reaction of a child being sexually abused and not the reaction of a registered nurse caring for a patient.
You might think that as a survivor, I’d have difficulty dealing with people’s personal hygiene and handling various body parts. However, I have become very good at compartmentalizing. The “me” that goes to work has had absolutely nothing to do with the “me” that was sexually assaulted. These parts are distinctly different and until recently, they had never even met.
This really got me thinking about the part of me that functions out in the world. The one that raises a family, manages a home and goes to work. I realize now how much mental energy is required to pull that off and that I have always struggled to find balance in my life.
Of course I don’t do “balance” well in my “black and white” world. I have one foot in the past and one TRYING to stay in the present. I’m like one of those Irish River Dancers jigging around trying to stay here and function while simultaneously trying to run from the past AND the present. All the while, not moving anything above my waist in an attempt to look “NORMAL!”  Honestly, it’s exhausting...and not very attractive!
I have spent a great deal of time living in my head completely detached from my feelings and my body. This has served me well in my work life in so far as being able to work 12 to 16 hour shifts on my feet, running from patient to patient, (often without a break to eat or go to the bathroom). In true “care giver” fashion, being detached from myself has allowed me to put the needs of my patients above my own.
This worked well for me throughout my professional career EXCEPT, while in therapy recently, I cracked open the Pandora’s Box of feelings and memories. Having used up every drop of mental energy trying to stay in my head so that I could function at work has really taken a toll on me. I started dissociating more and found myself being triggered badly at work. What used to invoke compassion, concern and empathy now caused me tremendous anxiety, lots of non-hunger related eating and sometimes overwhelming rage. I have always been the type of nurse to sit with my crying patients, holding them and praying for them. I now found my heart racing and imagining I could cover my ears and scream to drown out my patients moans and cries!
I just couldn’t STAND it anymore! Something had to give. I had a choice to make. Therapy or work. For now at least, I just can’t manage to do both. For two decades, I put the work of healing on hold in order for me to function but now I found myself depressed, dissociated and barely existing. I want to live my life. I want to heal and feel and the only way to get there is to do it.
I have had to take some time off from working so that I can focus on the excruciating work of feeling and healing. I am working harder now than I ever have, but this time, I’m working on myself. I am so grateful to have my husband supporting me and encouraging me through the fight of a lifetime. I want to make him proud and I won’t let him down!

Gaye and the Little Ones

    Almost every morning I wake up with a phrase, a word, a name or a place in my head. I either hear myself saying it or another voice saying it. Sometimes it relates to a dream I had or sometimes it seems arbitrary. Sometimes it’s familiar and other times it’s something I’ve never heard of before. Often it leaves my mind quickly but sometimes it sticks with me and I find myself replaying it throughout the day or even longer.
    Yesterday, I woke up to my own voice saying, “I met myself last night”. That statement haunted me all day yesterday and it got me thinking about my most pronounced, developed alter part of myself, “Gaye.”
    My therapist thinks "Gaye" is about 14 now. She was about 8 or 10 when we first became aware of her last summer. It seems as if her role has primarily been my protector, my “go-to girl.” The “boss.”  That describes her really well.
    As I thought about that, I had a very clear memory of being a small child with my babysitter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy. I don’t know how old I was, but I had to have been less than 8 and I’d guess much less because I was standing up in the back seat of their car leaning up against the back of the bench seat. So, maybe I was about 5.
    I remember the white leather interior with red trim and it smelled of cigars, (I HATE the smell of cigars). Mr. Murphy was driving and Mrs. Murphy was riding in the passenger seat and we were talking. I think I said something cute or funny and he turned his head to look at me. I was a VERY shy little girl, so what came out of my mouth would have been unexpected and surprising I’m sure. I boldly, precociously said to him “keep your eyes on the road!” Based upon his response to me, I must have sounded like I meant business because he replied, “OK boss!” They both found it amusing but he did turn back and kept his “eyes on the road.”
    I think that’s my first memory of “Gaye” as a separate, protector part of me. Something about being in his car and the way he looked at me scared me subconsciously and she stepped right in to save me. I don’t have any memory of anything bad ever happening to me while I was in the care of the Murphy's, but I think I was triggered by the way he looked at me and by being in his car. Maybe that’s when I figured out “Gaye” was the boss and she could handle what I couldn’t.
    I will always be grateful to the parts of myself that took the abuse so that I wouldn’t have to. They allowed me to go up to “the attic” of my mind, to live in TV land as one of the Brady Bunch, to float away to wonderful places and to “sleep” through it. Without “Gaye” and the little ones, I surely would not have survived. They allowed me to get up and go to school everyday, to make friends, to go to college, date, meet my husband and raise a family. The blessings I have in my life, I have largely because of them.
    The challenge I face today is in discovering, reconnecting and putting my “pieces” together again. What once saved my life, now gets in the way of living that life. I had no awareness of this internal family of mine and because I was oblivious to it, I abandoned those little parts of myself. You can imagine how hurt, scared and angry little ones might feel about having to “stay and take it” without any thanks; about being left behind and forgotten and finally, about being rejected and resented once they were noticed. I owe it to them to come back for them. I owe them my gratitude, acceptance and nurturing. I'm trying to earn back their trust and get them to share memories and feelings with me. Today I need them to help me remember who I was and what I've experienced. I need them to help me heal. I want to help them too and I promise to never forget them again.

Resolving to Keep My New Year's Resolution!

So I took the first public step towards keeping my new year's resolution. Along with a link to this blog; I posted this as my Facebook status: 

"This is my New Years resolution. I will be real. I will not lie to protect someone's reputation. I will not pretend to be who others want me to be. I will be genuine no matter how much it scares me."

 I "outed myself" on Facebook for all the social networking world to see! Since then I have put into practice the notion of being "real" and not pretending to be what it is I think others want me to be... and it has NOT been easy! It is a risk that I'm finally ready to take. 

As an incest survivor, I learned very early on, not to believe what I see, hear or feel. I learned that it isn't safe to tell the truth about myself or my life. I learned that you cannot believe people and I learned that I am not OK as I am. I have believed that my purpose is to fulfill the needs of others and to be what people want me to be. As a child, I dissociated so much that I created different parts of myself to meet those needs and to keep me from knowing the terrible truth that was my life. Shame permeated every fiber of my being. I was bad- period. 

Unraveling truth from lies and re-learning four decades of false teachings is a daunting process for sure. Like poor shattered Humpty Dumpty, it's time to start putting my pieces together again. Telling the truth seems to be the place for me to start. 

I know all too well the lies I was taught by my parents. Lies that were reinforced time and time again by teachers, cruel children, the church and abusive relationships. Even therapists and doctors unwittingly participated in the perpetuation of the facade. I didn't even know the truth about who I really was and what I've experienced. I bought it, "hook, line and sinker." I've been drowning for 46 years.

So, what IS true about me? I haven't got it all figured out yet and I'm learning more and more as time goes by, but there are some truths I do know. I am God's girl. He is my perfect father and He loves me- just as I am. When I was a tiny helpless child being violated and shamed in my own little bed in my own little room in our little house, God was right there with me. He was crying with me and for me. He has always been right here with me and I could not be brave enough to do what I'm doing without Him. 

I know that the Lord has a plan for me and that He is using my pain for good. I can help others who are going through this. With the statistics that tell us that as many as 1 in every 3 children have been, or are being sexually abused; odds are that a child I know needs help. I want to be that safe person to whom a child can turn. If I were to remain silent for fear of embarrassing my family or making people uncomfortable, I might miss that opportunity. I cannot imagine what might have been different in my life if I had someone to turn to. I wish I would have known that I wasn't the only one. Even that knowledge would have made a difference to me.

Goodbye to the 2010 me; hello to the 2011 me...

I have turned a corner and there's no going back now.
2010 has been a miserable but important year for me. It's like a culmination, no, it's more like a cataclysm of life events that have led to this last day of 2010.
I spent the first 24 years of my life in complete denial of any childhood abuse whatsoever. The signs were all there, but I never even saw it coming.
First there was the shock and upheaval of discovering even the possibility that I had been sexually abused as a child.  Then there was the subconscious decision to bury it again in order to carry on with the business of raising a family and attempting to live my life. I spent the next 22 years in limbo, in the fog of dissociation, gaining more and more weight every year. Recently, there has been a resurgence of the chaos of the aftereffects of incest. 
It was 5 years ago that I had weight loss surgery and lost more than half of my former self- 180 pounds. Suddenly, there I was, small and exposed. I could no longer hide inside of my fat cocoon. Food didn't make me numb and sleepy as it had always done in the past. I felt like my nerve endings were raw and it hurt just to be in my own skin.
I liked feeling as if I had permission to walk among the "normal" people now that I looked like them. 
I liked fitting into restaurant seats and being able to buy clothes, but I always knew it wouldn't last. I knew I was doomed to live in the shadows as an outcast, filthy and ashamed. It was just a matter of time. For the past 2 years, with both my parents now dead and the sexual abuse stuff rearing it's ugly head, it has all begun to unravel. I can't work, I am gaining weight and my life has become unmanageable. I need to get out of my own way and allow God to work in my life.
Now, here I am. I can't go back and I'm terrified to go forward, but I have finally decided that the pain and suffering of pretending and trying to numb myself is worse than the terror of the unknown I'm facing on this healing journey.
In my head at least, I know that the worst of it is over. The abuse is in the past. But down deep inside where my little self lives, I am still terrified. I am still Gaye, the shy little fat girl.
I have done everything I could to avoid admitting that my father, whom I loved and longed for had used and discarded me like yesterday's newspaper. Like trash. That my own mother didn't love me enough to protect me or even to believe me when I finally told her 5 years after my father died. 
I could not face the pain of admitting that the life I thought I had was a lie.
Instead, I have opted for believing that I am bad, broken and defective, just as I was trained to believe.
Living a facade of a life in dissociation, isolation and despair has taken it's toll on me. It has taken a toll on my marriage.
The price is too high for avoiding the pain. I simply cannot go on living the way that I have for the past 46 years. I'd rather die than have to do that, but I am choosing to live instead.
It's by the grace of God that I am able to say goodbye to the me that I have always known and take a step towards the REAL me. The me that I was born to be before they nearly destroyed me .