Finally Ready for Work - My Trauma

[Marilyn_S]

I will start this by saying what my worse fear is. It is that someone with a desire to harm children or someone who is a sexual criminal will read my trauma and get unintensional reinforcement for their sick and twisted behavior. However, I am gently reminding myself that this is part of my healing and also of the serinity prayer:

"God grant me the serinity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change those things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

I can not help if a preditor gets his/her jollies off of my trauma, so I must at this point have the wisdom to realize that this is what I need to do for my own healing.

09/08/2007

Last night I had a bed flash back. I am proud of myself in that I did not allow it to emotionally cripple me. It was disgusting. I flashed to age six. I was wearing a black body suit. It was in a car or some enclosed place I could not tell. I felt a big rough hand slip its way into my body suit and in my panties. The hand just groped me. That's all I flashed back to. I was fully awake when this happened. It was like some sick flash player reeling in my head in a quick instant. I could see it, feel it and even smell it but yet I remained my age. This is progress for me in that although I felt it as real I knew it was the past and did not regress in fear to the age the abuse occured.

I know this is not a healthy emotion but I feel shame. I also feel really really dirty like I need to wash by body over and over again.

I'll say this about shame, IMHO, it is like some invisible wall that makes one different than everybody else. For those whose trauma involved disfigurement, it is not an invisible wall but one that society builds with its disconcerting stares and patronizingly shallow looks of pity. In any case, whatever the trauma, I believe in my heart that the shame is something that must be acknowledged and owned in order for it to dissipate.

Its my shame. Its me feeling it. I have allowed myself to feel it for some reason. I have built the wall. A Pink Floid song that I love says the following:

"If you want to find out whose behind these cold eyes you'll just have to claw your way through this disquise."

For me the song would read more like this,

"If you want to find out who's behind the child's eyes, you'll just have to claw your way through this disquise."

Everything seems so interconected! My God! Its frightening. It makes me want to hide. But I can't hide from reality and the disquise only weighs me down.

[Marilyn_S]

Summer of 1996

I am married to my 1st husband who has just decided to leave me for one of my college friends. He still has the keys to the house. My daughters and I were still living in the huge house he and I had bought 6 months before. It was a new house but because of its size it was very lonely and very creepy. My daughters were in bed sleeping when I heard the key turn the knob. I knew it was him but had no idea why he was coming back to the house at 1AM. He came into the bedroom with a look of hate on his face. He immediately came toward me in the bed and grabbed my hair. He spit in my face while holding my head back. He grabbed my throat and began choking me. I didn't even struggle. His hands were oily. After grabbing my neck he stopped choking me and whispered in my ear to move onto my stomach. I did and when I did he immediately and very abruptly shoved his fist up my rectum. It hurt so bad, worse than childbirth! I felt the pain stream up my back side and all the way up my back but the more I tightened the worse it hurt because he would not take his fist out. I begged him to please take it out and he said shut up bitch. I then started wiggling. He finally relented and pulled his fist out. This incident caused me permanent damage to my rectum and the tissue between the rectum and the vagina, I bled bad for about ten minutes then for several days after that I had residual bleeding.

[Marilyn_S]

sometime when I was eight around 1975:

I see myself lying over the side of my bed. I'm gripping my toy stuffed turtle. I have pink long pants on and they are around my ankles and my bottom is bear. I feel a warm oily solid object slide inbetween my legs. I see the white bed spread. I see the closet in the corner and my dresser with all my dolls on it.

[Marilyn_S]

Wavering, feeling weak. Someone please listen. Someone please care. I hurt. I feel dirty, so dirty. I want to wash my own skin off. I don't want pity, as someone once told me. I want someone to say I will listen, I will care. Perhaps that is being needie. Someone once told me that too. Perhaps I should not listen to this person. Perhaps I should listen to what is inside me, a person who so bad wants to heal, grow, learn, and be there for other survivors of society's secret shame!!!! This type of trauma would not be different if people did not treat it different!!! Yes, I'm angry and have a right to be!!! I own that anger! Its mine! Noone made me feel it. I choose to feel it because its easier at this time to feel the anger than it is to feel the pain or look at myself and my own venerabilities.

[anthony]

Marilyn, look at the last post in http://www.ptsdforum.org/thread12.html for a better understanding of anger regarding emotions. I have expanded the original content of that thread recently.

Now, without following the past with a bombardment of posts and PM's, please elaborate on the feeling of shame please. What makes you feel shame, in that what do you own within this feeling?

Do you feel shame because you where abused?
Do you feel shame telling your abuse?
Do you feel shame because you feel its your fault in some way?

Again, I will read and respond when I have time... lets please not resurrect past behaviour thanks.

[Marilyn_S]

I will not. That is what was in my heart so that is what I said but I will not PM you for anything. I don't plan to make a fool of myself again. Momma once told me, "Marilyn, when you spill your guts to people you just make a big fool of yourself." Once in ignorance twice a fool! Thank you for your kindness in responding at all. I surely did not expect it.

[Marilyn_S]

My "mud story of shame"

I feel shame and I feel dirty because of the sexual abuse itself. Why did I not do something. I have always just sat back and took what ever came my way to protect the peace or at least try to. Mom and dad fought all the time. My sister and I never knew if they were going to kill each other or not or whether dad was just going to kill himself. Then I got married the first time my X never really loved me. He just was an angry man who thought he wanted a family but after I had my first child and no longer had the perfect play boy body he began horribly abusing me especially in a sexually sadistic manner.

I think sexual abuse is like having mud thrown on you that you can't wash off. Its invisible to everybody else but I can see it. And it doesn't matter how one tries to wash the mud offf it doesn't come off. And it is a stinky mud only I can smell. So others can't see it, only me, and others can't smell it, only me. Its a permanent mark that says you've been used and abused, you are dirty and you must keep your dirt a secret from everybody else or you will get it! People will avoid you, dispise you, reject you. You are helpless to stop it, you might as well just not try.

[anthony]

Ok Marilyn, there is a difference in thinking for others though and actually knowing what others think. Your using a negative thinking style to think for others, ie. people will avoid you, despise you, reject you. That is not actually true at all, otherwise you would be rejected by your husband. So immediately you have not been rejected by "everybody" or the like, which is an all or nothing thinking style, over-generalization thinking style.

Ok, the mud is a good explanation actually, though here is the truth to the matter. You have been abused Marilyn, nothing you do or say can change that now. You must accept that this has happened. The difference here though is that you continue to bring your past to your present by using these negative thinking styles, instead of pushing them out of your life and changing your thinking styles to more positive one's.

Only you can change you. Are you waiting for someone to do the work for you?

[Marilyn_S]

Oh, Anthony, I wish I trusted someone enough to let them help me develop different ways of thinking. I am so paranoid!!! I assume people are thinking negative things about me. Its a cycle that is so hard to break. I hear words in my ears. My mothers voice, my father's voice, my grandmother's voice, all seem to ring in my ears like they are my voice. My X was intermittently ( inbetween being sadistic and abusive both physically and verbally) very ego building to me when he would tell me I am smart and talented and a good mother. I guess Pieget would say I am a concrete operational thinker but I don't think I'd be capable of writing the poetry I write if I was intellectually retarded at the stage of concrete operational. But perhas there are different areas of my brain that might, because of the trauma be retarded to the concrete. You are correct about my thinking. OMG, I just wish I felt the strength to fight it. The words in my heart come with such automatic emotions and usually result in me shutting down, zoning off, or going into outer space in my head. But Veiled told me about something I am going to try for the automatic negative self talk. She suggested I use post its of two different colors then put the bad thought on one and a counter thought on the other. I'm going to try this. It sounds simple enough.

[Marilyn_S]

I am fighting voices of the past that are programmed into my brain like software in a computer. For me, the hardest trauma to overcome is the verbal abuse, the use of verbal threats, the use of put downs and sexual terms to discribe me. Both my mother and my father did this. The events that surround the words served to reinforce the meaning of the things being said. Does that make sense? But I will fight it. No one can enter my brain and change the programming but me. That is correct. But there are people who intice me to think in different ways which will help me change my thoughts and thus my emotional responces to the way I think. When this occurs I believe the flash backs will not be quite so traumatizing anymore and when triggers do occur I will not be so inclined to emotional break down. Perhaps in this area I should post some of the mean things that were said to me. Not to get pity. I don't want that, but to help myself see where the roots of my bad thinking stemmed from.

I didn't just wake up one day and say, :"Gee self, I think I'll just be mean to you today and say all kinds of mean things to you."

I'm not trying to just blame others but I think that I am not the one who initially programmed my brain to think so negative and concrete. Knowing that will help me know the source of my (ANST) and will IMHO debunk those thoughts. I guess I just have to remember, I am a person and I would not talk to another person the way I talk to myself.

[Marilyn_S]

Oh yea, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think people are thinking negative about me because I have negative thoughts about myself. I went to the store tonight and got me some post-its. Thanks, Veiled.

[anthony]

Oh, Anthony, I wish I trusted someone enough to let them help me develop different ways of thinking. I am so paranoid!!!
Problem here Marilyn, in that no person can help you change your way of thinking, only you can change it. No amount of help can make you change, only you can make you change because you want to change. You work it out for yourself. First self question would be: "Is what I'm doing working for me?" If the answer is no, then maybe, just maybe, you might want to push paranoia to the side and give something a go that is different to what you know or understand, and I mean really give it a go until you succeed, not just try.

I don't think I'd be capable of writing the poetry I write if I was intellectually retarded
So why aren't you using this valuable piece of knowledge to help yourself when the negative thought comes to your mind? Use your experience first, every negative must be found two positives.

OMG, I just wish I felt the strength to fight it.
Again, nobody can help you if your not going to help yourself. Read that carefully please, I used action words, "going to" not "might" or "maybe" but actually "do it" vs. "think about it". You have to turn your thinking into doing Marilyn, you have to push negatives aside with positives. Not think about it, do it. I and all others can only tell you what you must do, you have to do it.

But Veiled told me about something I am going to try for the automatic negative self talk. She suggested I use post its of two different colors then put the bad thought on one and a counter thought on the other. I'm going to try this. It sounds simple enough.
Don't just try it, don't dismiss it before you have really given it your 150%. If your not giving every little task 200%, then your not giving it enough of you.

I am fighting voices of the past that are programmed into my brain like software in a computer.
Now, this is correct Marilyn. This is what abuse does, it provides a substance structure within your brain to base all future events and thoughts. Now you mention it like software. Software is a tool for programming, it is also a tool for de-programming.

I didn't just wake up one day and say, :"Gee self, I think I'll just be mean to you today and say all kinds of mean things to you."
Marilyn, why are you trying to prove your abuse? That is what this sounds like to me. You need to stop trying to prove what happened to you, which comes from anger towards your abusers generally, and instead start focusing on changing your thoughts and behaviours at the basic levels. If you achieve this, you can then achieve much more detailed self management.

I'm not trying to just blame others but I think that I am not the one who initially programmed my brain to think so negative and concrete.
You didn't program your brain with this Marilyn, your abusers did this on your behalf, especially as a youth.

[Marilyn_S]

I don't understand myself sometimes. I feel more anger at myself than toward my abusers. I do not discount their behavior or condone it, but I can't seem to feel anything towards them. I feel more anger towards a society that perpetuates pedophelia and preditor behavior by an innadiquate justice system, an extremely poor system of social services, and and the glamorization of youthful features as sexually appealing. Its sick! Its wrong! Its bad! And I'm very angry.

I will say the following about myself because I need to build myself up instead of put myself down. I need to give that 200% to creating within myself confidence, self worth, and all the things my abusers tried to steal from me. This is so hard for me. I'm not used to saying good things about myself but here goes.

1.) I'm a good mother because I display love and care for my 5 children. I provide them with guidance and emotional support to foster their growth and development as individuals.
2.) I'm a good wife because I listen to what my husband is trying to communicate to me. I value him by being his best friend and support in times of need. I allow him to be a part of my life and I work to develop interest in the things he enjoys so that we have a basis for interpersonal dialogue. I am faithful to him and committed to him.
3.) I am a good artist and poet.
4.) I am not "a stupid little idiot". I am an intelligent, competent, and credible individual.
5.) I am not "a fat ugly whore". I am an attractive woman and not permisquis.
6.) I have nothing to be ashamed of. My abusers are the ones who should be ashamed.
7.) I am not damaged goods. I am a good person with high morals and strong values.
8.) It is not my fault the abuse continued for so long. I did not ask for it. I was a child and was violated by people I was suppose to be able to trust.

[anthony]

Marilyn, well done. Please continue that line of thinking, though you must adapt that thinking, thus it will kick the negative thoughts out. Two positives for every negative and trust me, the internal mind war.... positives win that way and the negative get out of your head a great deal. More please...

[Marilyn_S]

This next one is a very difficult thought to fight. My mother told me, "Marilyn, when you spill your guts to people you make a big fool of yourself."

This feels so true, it is difficult to fight. Sometimes I'm honest to a fault. Sometimes I say things that dispite their truth make me look quite foolish. So, even though I hurt inside because I believe this statement I will fight it. That is the basis for courage. One has to step out and do something regardless of how it feels.

1.) Being straitforward, honest, and open about one's thoughts, feelings, and ideas is not stupid or foolish but rather being genuine and confident.
2.) If I tell someone something in confidence and they violate that confidence then that is their problem because trust is earned not granted.

[Marilyn_S]

OK, I am a person with a mental illness but I do not have dependent personality. If anything, look at the criteria for borderline personality. I have made it on my own and do now. I do not need my husband to survive. I have ajob and a way to make a living. I made it through school and am currently working on my masters degree. I am NOT dependent. The only criteria I meet for dependency is criteria 3-4-5. I raised two little girls without the help of a man. I didn't meet my current husband until I was divorced for 2 1/2 years. I'm a lot of things but I'm not dependent. Stupid may be but not dependent. Ya know, MOM was right. I am a stupid little idiot for spilling my guts.

[Marilyn_S]

Anthony,

I am sorry for crossing a boundary. I spoke with my best friend and read her the note I wrote you and she told me I had crossed a boundary. I noticed I have lost the PM preveledge. That is OK. I understand. I am not saying this to get your approval, I'm saying this because I see some truth in what you say, though not dependent personality I do have a personality disorder and I do need professional help. I have a therapist that I am working with. I will not attempt to write here anymore if you do not want me to. Once again, I am sorry. Marilyn

[Marilyn_S]

Dear Anthony,

This is the last time I will post. I may have more than just PTSD. I don't know. But I want you to know I meant the things I said when I said I think you are intelligent, knowledgable and care for people. I don't think you care for me but that's OK too. I'm just writing this to say that I am sorry for the things I said in the email I sent you. I tried to email you an apology but I don't think it went through. Two wrongs do not make a right. I value having peace with people because my life has been filled with such chaos and because I value your personhood as an individual crafted by the hand of God just like me and everyone else in this world. I am sorry.

Sincerely,
Marilyn S.