“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.

Rage peeks out, then hides again.

    I’m supposed to reflect on what we talked about in therapy this week and then, stop thinking about it on Friday or I’ll mess up my whole week. On Wednesday when my therapist said that it sounded plausible enough.
    Here it is Friday and I feel as if I missed my opportunity to mull it over and get any mileage out of the EMDR we did 2 days ago. When I was supposed to be thinking about it, I barely got any alone time to do it. Now, here it is Friday and I’m alone. I can neither think of it nor not. I’m fog bound and stuck ... again!
    Goddamn it! I hate myself and I feel like I’ll never get it right. My therapist tells me that I can’t trust my compass right now and part of me understands that. My feelings are messed up and I’m confused. All I know is that I’m MAD!

***Warning Possible Triggers***
    I feel so MAD! I want to kill. I want to stab, rip, tear and destroy! Smash, stomp and scream. FUCK YOU!!! I want to bite, kick and spit. I want to rip flesh from bone with my teeth! Snarl and growl. Back off! Get OFF of me!
    I hate you. I hate your mouth. Your tongue. Your smell. You devil. You Satan. You pig! I’m disgusted by the very thought of you. You make me want to vomit. I want to tear at your face with my claws and laugh at you. I feel like I have a demon inside and I’m evil-just like you.
    I hate you! That smirk. That filthy lusty look on your face. The way you lick your lips. I want to slash your face to bits and stab your eyes out! I don’t want your DNA-your blood-your smell-your spit-your breath-your filth. You make me sick. I detest you. I want to kill you! I want to draw back my legs like a kangaroo and send you flying onto hell where you belong!
***End Possible Triggers***       

    I sat here silently for a while and then I reread what I had written. I feel confused and numb. I don’t know who I wrote this about. I think it should be about my father. I can’t even remember my father right now. I can easily get this mad at my husband but part of me knows it has absolutely nothing to do with him. I feel this mad at myself-a lot! Why do I see my mother’s face then? I’m so confused. I feel queasy. I feel tired and numb.

Triggers and Learning To Do Things Differently.

     Last night I was triggered and ended up feeling helpless and cornered which led me quickly to rage and the familiar feeling of wanting to run away. I felt like I hated everyone and wanted to throw things and scream.  I wanted to run away from home. I became short tempered and it felt like my nerves were raw. Noise bothered me even more than usual and I was seething inside. I snapped at my daughter for making too much noise while doing the dishes and was furious with my son for unplugging the wireless router by mistake. I pushed the dog away from me and wished I could disappear.
     However, I didn't run away from home or scream or throw things and I didn't allow myself to disappear.  I toughed it out and talked about it. The difference for me these days is that I can recognize triggers sooner and talk about it which helps it go away quicker and not to escalate. Last night was a good example of how choosing not to act instinctively on my feelings, but listening to my head is a much better choice.
     My feelings last night were not really rooted in the “here and now” anyway. These feelings had much more to do with the "back there and then." My usual emotional reaction has been to feel cornered, get mad and then to run away either physically or emotionally. If I had listened to that and reacted as I'd always done, I'd still feel badly today and be fighting with my "here and now" family.  In reality, it was really my "back there and then" family that I was mad at.
     Because I did what I knew to be right rather than what I felt like doing, I was able to talk to my husband and even to apologize to my daughter for biting her head off. I decided to post it on Facebook, (which I NEVER would have done before), and got some good support from people I wouldn't have expected it from. I told the truth about how I felt and I didn't die! That might sound silly, but that's really how I used to feel. I was so afraid of letting anyone see the ugliness I had inside that I actually thought it might kill me to do so. In the past, I always pretended I was alright, no matter how bad I felt.     
     Today I am learning to be real with myself and others, so, today is a whole new day and I'm OK just as I am!

Will the Real Me Please Stand Up...

I’m beginning to emerge from my recent hibernation and today, 

I can see that light at the end of the tunnel! 

     I had gone into hiding for a couple of months feeling pretty hopeless. I stopped returning phone calls, stayed home alone as often as I could and I found it difficult to find my words. I was feeling disconnected from my family, friends, my therapist, God and myself. My mind wandered back into thoughts of self loathing and despair. Again, I found myself in that familiar dark place. 

     When I go there it frightens me because crazy things begin to seem rational. In that place, death feels inevitable and welcome. I flirt with the macabre and fantasize about dying. When I’m there I am unable to reach out for help. I don’t even want help when things are that bad. I want only unhealthy things. I don’t sleep enough and I eat too much. I can’t stop worrying about how messy my house is, yet I feel powerless to clean it.

When I’m that bad, I can barely manage to shower or brush my teeth.

    Considering how badly I have been feeling, it seems especially freeing to crawl out from the isolation and sadness into the light of a new day. I have turned another corner and I have hope. So how did this happen exactly? What is different today than last week or last month?

I think there are a few things that may have contributed to this upturn. 

     The days are getting longer and there are signs that spring has indeed “sprung!” Warmer weather and brighter days have always helped to lighten my mood, but there is something more going on here.
    I’ve continued to move forward with the work of healing even when I didn’t feel like it was working because I still have faith that it will. I am blessed with a loving husband, dear friends and an awesome therapist, but mostly with the belief that God has not forgotten me.

These things sustain me even when I feel like I cannot take one more step.

    Even though I can’t always find my words, I still connect through on-line support groups and social media like facebook. Reading what others have written about their struggles, writing about my own; supporting them and being supported by them has helped more than I ever would have imagined.
    All these things have made a difference, but perhaps the biggest change I have made is that I have become more genuine with others, with myself and with God.

I am allowing myself to be real. 

     It’s not that I’ve been a phoney or have pretended, but it has been my practice to try to be what I think others want or expect me to be. I have a real fear of letting people down or disappointing them. I hide my pain, fear and shame. I worry about making others comfortable at my own expense. I stuff my anger and I hide my true self because I’m sure I’m no where near good enough.

I want to please and I want to be acceptable, although I rarely believe that I am.

    Today, however I am choosing to believe that I am God’s girl and that He loves me; therefore I’m lovable. I know that I will have hard times again and I pray that I can remember how I feel right now. I want to remember that today, I feel hopeful. I want to be helpful to my fellow survivors when they too have dark days. I want a better life for myself, my husband, my kids and for God who does indeed have a plan for my life.
     I will end on this positive note and I hope that you, the reader will help yourself to my strength today. God knows, I may need to borrow some of yours someday!

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.

The Courage to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Our youngest daughter got a pair of hermit crabs for Christmas.
As much as I hate the little buggers, I can really relate to them!
If you pick up a hermit crab and wait long enough, it will start to emerge from it’s shell. Slowly, one claw peaks out. Then another begins to show itself. However, the instant you being to touch one of these tiny appendages, the cautious little crab retreats back into the safety of it’s traveling home. In an instant, the crab is gone! All that's left is a shiny red painted shell with a pair of jiggling plastic eyes glued on. Creepy, yet effective!
It reminds me of being a child, eyes closed and hands over my ears, chanting, “I can’t hear you, I can't hear you...”
If I had one, I would have hidden myself away inside the safety of my shell too!
I didn’t have a fancy painted shell Per Se, but I certainly knew how to retreat into my own metaphorical shell! I spent a fair amount of time curled up inside pretending nobody could see me. Hoping that if I were still enough, I could become invisible.
Peeking out of my shell was a risk that I rarely took and I paid a price for it.
Although it may be safe being hidden away in here, it also gets lonely.
As an adult I have found that I am able to take risks,
and in many ways, I know I am brave.
I find it frustrating though, that there are still areas of my life where I am just as fearful as the little hermit crab. There is a part of me deep inside that, like the crab, is small, fragile, tentative and ugly.
I keep a proper looking shell, so nobody knows I’m in here if I don’t want them to. Unfortunately, I’m so accustomed to hiding that sometimes people don’t know I’m here even when I wish they would!
I can imagine that the fear of making myself vulnerable by sharing my real feelings is something like what the crab might experience when it ventures out of it’s shell. These days, it’s the hermit crab’s sudden retreat when threatened that I relate to most.
I catch myself doing an about face when I begin feeling vulnerable.
On Valentine’s Day, I made my husband a card and inside, I wrote a note. It was real, honest and not particularly well written. I felt uncertain and embarrassed about sharing these genuine feelings.
What I had to say seemed childish and I felt stupid. I thought about starting over, but I stopped myself from rewriting it. I had made myself vulnerable and as always, my husband was loving and didn’t judge me at all.
I do enough judging on my own!
We exchanged cards, candy and even stuffed animals and we had a lovely dinner at home with the family. Seems like one of those “Hallmark” moments, right? Not to my scared little parts hiding inside. I took a big risk and even though I am safe and loved, my fear was too much for my little ones to handle and I retreated back into my shell. I got angry with my kids and at my husband. I felt ashamed and exposed and like those ugly little hermit crabs, I was gone! Nothing left but a shell; an angry shell.
I did catch myself and I was able to reel it in before I did any harm or hurt any feelings, but I still felt small and angry. I was scared and defensive, but I was able to recognize it.
I am starting to understand that I am safe and I am slowly learning that it’s OK to be me.
These days the good news is that I am putting myself in the position to feel this terrifying feeling much more often as I continue doing the work of healing.
I know that I am brave because I am choosing to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

I was reading one of my favorite online blogs today and the topic was
“Setting boundaries with abusive family.” This was my comment:

“My parents are dead. 
They are buried about one and a half hours west of where I live. 
My aunt is angry with me for not tending to the grave. 
This is just about the only boundary left for me to set. 
My father stole my innocence, my sexuality and very nearly, my soul. 
My mother did nothing while it was happening. She refused to help or believe me when I did disclose to her. I can think of NO good reason why I should drive an hour and a half to a town that I hate to pick weeds and plant flowers for them. 
I will NEVER get on my knees for him again! 
PS-I think I'm starting to get in touch with my anger.”
I started thinking about the way that my idea of boundaries has changed over the years. As I was growing up, I thought people who were clear with their boundaries were mean, scary or selfish. I had absolutely no idea that it was OK to say, “No!”  The notion that I didn’t have the right to set limits also extended to the emotional. I didn’t even have the right to FEEL what I was feeling! 
I had to say, “Yes” and I had to LIKE it too. Well, I didn’t like it. As a matter of fact, I hated it! I hated that I wasn't allowed to get mad. I hated that I had no right to privacy, individuality, safety or my own feelings.
Even the air I breathed was contaminated. I was subjected to all manner of pain and humiliation and I was subjected to a house and car filled with cigarette smoke. I couldn’t protest my abuse, (in fact, I couldn’t even THINK about it.) However, I did do my very best to protest the stinging, suffocating air I had to breathe.
What happened when I did speak up? I was ignored at first, and then belittled and called “a pest.” When I was in the fourth grade, I presented my mother with materials I got from school that talked about the dangers of smoking, but I was laughed at. I begged for an open window in the car and sometimes they would crack it open about half an inch or so, hoping to shut me up. Eventually, I would be punished for continuing to complain about the smoke.
Smoking remains a big issue for me to this day. For me, it symbolizes the years of abuse and rejection I endured and how helpless I was. I didn't even have air! My buttons are pushed and I recognize how I am triggered right back into the role of that helpless child when I’m near a smoker. I absolutely hate it! I remain militant about not allowing anyone to smoke near me or my children.
As an adult, I have gone overboard in setting this boundary.
Never learning healthy boundaries can be very confusing when it comes to setting or keeping them today. Like so many things in my life, I have been very “black and white” with boundaries. I have often found myself vulnerable with no limits whatsoever, or locked into an unbending ideal with no room for compromise. I was angry, but didn't know that I was allowed to feel that way. This has led to depression that comes when you are not allowed to feel your feelings. Rage that has been buried, now needs to come out.
Several years ago, I took a class at the Baptist church called “Boundaries.” It was good for me and I learned a lot; but one thing really stayed with me. Healthy boundaries are loving and necessary. It is loving and kind to say, “No?” Wow! Now there’s an idea! Children need healthy boundaries to feel safe and secure. They need loving limits to know who they are and where they fit into the world. I never got that growing up. I’m learning how to be real with people and speak up about how I feel and what I think. I am finding that the clearer I am with my boundaries and the sooner I set them, the easier it is to navigate through the twists and turns of life. I'm starting to get in touch with some of that repressed anger. I can see now that I have a right to be angry. It feels good to be real and I like myself better this way.