Saturday, April 24, 2010

Incest Recovery---Give Your Child Permission To Say No

Before I get into the topic of this article, I want to invite you to join me on BlogTalkRadio as I am interviewed by Cyrus Webb of Conversations Live at noon Central Standard Time on Thursday, April 29, 2010.  Cyrus has been doing interviews on BlogTalkRadio for seven years.  He is a great interviewer.  I thank you Cyrus for giving me this opportunity to share my message of recovery from incest with a larger audience.  I don't have any prepared list of questions from Cyrus so forgive me if I stumble out of nervousness.  I am excited to do this.  It is a totally new experience for me so there is some fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of not knowing what to say and fear of not doing it right.  The perfectionist in me tends to come out at times like this even though I have wrestled with not being a perfectionist for years.  I know myself well enough to know that I will be stressed out before the interview because that is when all of those old negative tapes will be running through my head.  I know they aren't true but that doesn't stop them from running.  I also know that as soon as Cyrus asks me the very first question, the stress will be gone and I will be comfortable with myself and my story.  I have shared small pieces of my story before and the calmness comes over me as soon as I start to speak.  I also always ask God to give me the right words to say.  If you can't listen to the interview at noon on April 29, Cyrus will have the recording up on his site afterwards.  Here is the link to Cyrus's website:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/conversationslive/2010/04/29/cyrus-webb-presents-the-patricia-singleton-story-o
I will post a reminder in another few days.  I hope you will join us and give me feedback afterwards.

I will warn you that if you are an incest and/or abuse survivor, the rest of this article may be triggering for you.  Precede with caution.  I am sharing things that I have never shared with anyone before.

Since I posted my recent article, "A New Chapter In Incest Recovery @ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-chapter-in-incest-recovery.html , I have been waiting to see what feelings are going to come up for me.  I know that this new work will entail grieving again.  Usually the first emotion to come up, for me, is anger or fear.  There was fear and anger both in the dream that I that I had that started this new chapter of work.  A few nights ago, after thinking about it for awhile, I told my grieving class that the first emotion to come up is anger at my parents and at my uncle for not asking me if I wanted to go with him on the fishing trip and if I wanted to go home with him for the weekend.  I was not asked if I wanted to do either of these things.  I wasn't given a choice of going with this man.  I was told to go because it would be fun.  Being 11 years old and being raped by a man in his 50's was not fun.  It was torture.  And the day of the fishing trip wasn't enough for him.  I was taken home with him and the rape happened several more times over the weekend.  He lied to my parents about other people being at his house.  The two of us were the only ones there for the weekend.  What makes me mad, so far, is that I was not given a choice in the matter.  I was not asked what I wanted.  The fact that I wasn't asked means to those adults that I didn't matter.  I had no value.  I was an object to be used and discarded.  I did not trust adults not to hurt me after that weekend.  I remember that I was afraid of hurting my uncle's feelings if I said anything.  I did not scream out the hurt.  I did not cry through the pain, through the tearing of my immature, 11-year-old body.  I went inside my head and stayed there.  I went as deep inside as I could away from the pain and the fear.  I decided that something was badly wrong with me for me to deserve to be treated this way by the adults in my life.  I can tell you the year that this abuse happened---the year that I was 11 years old which was in 1962.  I can tell you it was the Summer of 1962 because I was wearing shorts and the first night that my uncle visited we sat in chairs in the front yard under the stars.  He was talking to my sister and me.  No other adults were around.  They must have been in the house.  It was unusual for an adult to sit and talk to me so I enjoyed the attention.  I was on one side of him and my sister was in a chair on the other side of him.

I knew something was wrong the second he put his hand down into my shorts and panties but I didn't understand what was wrong.  This was a year before the sex talk that my six grade health teacher had with all of the girls in the class.  I felt uncomfortable with what he was doing but didn't want to hurt his feelings by moving away.  What he was doing didn't hurt but it also wasn't pleasurable to me.  Some part of me knew what he was doing was wrong. 

My sister, sitting on his other side, asked what he was doing.  He put his other hand into her shorts and panties too.  I can't tell you how long this continued.  On some level I must have shut down or my mind went off into the night.  I don't remember.  I do remember being relieved when Mom called us into the house.

The next morning after my dad went to work, my uncle asked Mom if I could spend the day fishing with him.  Without asking me if I wanted to go, she said yes.  I think that I will leave this fishing trip for another article.  I am feeling overwhelmed with what I have written so far.  I am sorry to leave you hanging like this but I need to take care of me.
Patricia

23 comments:

Just Be Real said...

Patricia, I am so very sorry how your uncle abused you. When I read exactly what he did to you, brought to mind how my brother did the same. Different ages, as my brother was experimenting at the time at the age of 14, but same result. The thought that the other adults had no clue to what was going on is so heart wrenching. I am so very sorry.

((((Pat))))

Patricia Singleton said...

JBR, thank you, especially for the hugs.

Patricia Singleton said...

Colleen, thank you for the hugs and prayers. The grieving has started. I cried some earlier tonight. So, the healing begins.

Cindy said...

I want to thank you so much for sharing this with all of us. Being a survivor myself I know all to well how hard it is to talk about it. I hope you find the peace and healing you are seeking. I feel so blessed to have found your blog. I know your strength will help me through my journey and I thank you for that. I send you love,healing and strength.

Patricia Singleton said...

Cindy, you are very welcome. Thank you for the love, healing, and strength. I could use them today and tomorrow. Glad you found my blog too.

Hold Fast said...

Blessings to you, another healing soul. How brave and also freeing for you to write this. It hardly seems fair that each issue needs to be dealt with separately but I have also found that to be true in my own healing. I feel it is like peeling layers of an onion and the closer to the core you get, the more difficult the issues and the more it causes crying. Keep at it and pause to process when you need to. Forwarding positive energy your way. Hugs

Shen said...

Congratulations, Patricia, on your upcoming interview. I'm sure you will do wonderfully. How can I hear it? Sorry, I've never actually figured out how to find those broadcasts.

I didn't read the second part of your post. I'm struggling today and it just seemed like too much of a risk to put myself in, for now.

Patricia Singleton said...

Shen, thank you. The link above at the end of the part about Cyrus and the interview will take you there. The interview is on Thursday, April 29 of this week. I will also post an article about the upcoming interview later today with the link. If you can't watch the interview at noon CST, it will be recorded so you can listen to it anytime after that day. I hope that my daughter can download it to my blog and my Facebook page for me as well, but we will see. I haven't asked her to do it for me yet.

Shen, thank you for your continued support. I understand if you can't read the rest of the post. That is why I put the Trigger Warning on it. I will do the same when I post the second half of the story. You take care of yourself and let me know if I can do anything to help.

Patricia Singleton said...

Hold Fast, thank you for your words of comfort. I can use them today. Yes, I have used the analogy of peeling the layers of an onion myself.

Gail said...

HI PATRICIA

I wanted to stop by and "thank you" for visiting me at my blog. And to tell you my 'story', the condensed version is in a post dated 9/4/08 titled "James-Daniel-Jill", if you are interested.

Exciting about being on the radio show. Wow. I will read more of your blog-truths over time.

So nice to meet you
Love Gail
peace......

Patricia Singleton said...

Gail, you are very welcome. Thanks for sharing the title of your post. I will go back to your blog and read it. Yes, the radio interview is exciting. Looking forward to more interaction with you.

me as i am said...

dear patricia and little patty, i am so so so sorry for what you had to live through. and live with. all these years.

you poor thing. you did not deserve that. it was not your fault. and there is nothing wrong with you. there wasn't. and there isn't.

they should have protected you. they should have kept you safe. they should have asked if you wanted to go.

you are not alone in this world. your bravery and sharing here means so much to so many people. and i'm happy to see that i am not your only support person.

and i think it's great you are taking your time telling these memories. keep taking good care and pacing yourself. you are in charge. you get to say as much or as little as you want. you don't have to do anything.

it sounds like you are keeping yourself safe. and after all this time, you deserve it. i'm so glad you taught yourself how over the years and can now give yourself the things you always needed.

here's a nice, safe hug, only if you want one. ((patricia))

Patricia Singleton said...

Katie, thank you so much. The hug is appreciated and feels nice. Thank you for pointing out that I really have learned to take care of myself. I really have. I am taking care of myself---Patricia and little Pattie.

Clueless said...

I don't know what to say as I am "going away." I do know that I am sorry for what has happened to you and glad that you are recovering from it. Even though, I can be open and frank about my abuse...emotionally, I don't allow myself to feel it because then it becomes more of a reality. Sometime reality sucks.

Shen said...

Oh Patricia. I am in a much stronger place today, and so I decided to go back to this post and read it.

So sad and so very familiar. For me, the abuse started when i was two, and my primary abuser was my father.

It doesn't matter who it was. Like you, I carried the shame of what happened to me because i thought there must be something wrong with me if someone could treat me this way.

I'm sorry for what happened to you. I have been writing about my own abuse and recovery journey, about the mood swings and dissociation, and all the rest of it, at my blog, but I have not been brave enough to confront my family or use my real name... yet. You really have courage.

Rising Rainbow said...

Back in the days of therapy for me I did several interviews on both TV and radio. I found them to be empowering even though they tended to stir things up a bit. I hope the same is true for you.

Patricia Singleton said...

Rising Rainbow, thank you. I want my interview to bring awareness of incest to people that I might not have reached to begin with.

Patricia Singleton said...

Clueless, thank you for your comment. I hope that you are okay. I am not sure what you meant by you are "going away." That concerns me. I am still in a process of recovery, which sometimes means revisiting old issues that haven't been fully resolved yet.

Patricia Singleton said...

Shen, thank you. I am glad that you are better today. Sorry it took me awhile to post your comment and my response. My family and I were out of town for an extended weekend. Glad to be away from all of the storms that Arkansas got over the weekend.

Shen, I am no braver than you are. I appreciate the fact that even though you have been struggling, you returned to finish reading my article and to offer your comment and support. Supporting each other is a blessing for both of us. We are both stronger because of it.

Clueless said...

"Going Away" means that I am starting to dissociate a little. Thank you for your concern. I'm struggling, but am "okay."

Clueless

Patricia Singleton said...

Clueless, I thought that was what you probably meant and I am glad you came back and explained. A friend earlier in the week told me she had been having suicidal thoughts. I didn't think that was what you meant. Either way, I wanted you to know that I care.

I am beginning to understand a little about dissociation from several online friends. Let me say, I understand only as much as an outsider who uses other methods to survive can understand. It is like everything else in life, you can only truly understand if you do it yourself. Thank you for explaining. I do care.

Hold Fast said...

I just listened to your radio interview. Wow, you are as good a speaker as a writer. Your thoughts were very clear and concise. Thank you for being brave and doing this. Just think what you have done if just one child can be saved from a lifetime of horrors and nightmares. You will be an angel to that child forever.

Patricia Singleton said...

Hold Fast, thank you. I just got to listen to the recording myself yesterday. I also listened to it earlier with a friend. I liked what I shared. I am glad that the fear I was feeling inside did not show in my voice. Again, thank you for you support.