Splinteredones's Blog Hosts November Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse

First, an update for all of you wonderful friends who expressed concern over my bout with pneumonia.  I don't go back to the doctor for a check-up until December 6.  I have had a quiet week surrounding Thanksgiving with my sweet husband taking care of me.  He even cooked his own turkey breast roast for Thanksgiving Day.  It was a simple roast that came with its own cooking pan.  All he had to do was put it in the oven for a little over an hour.  I had a pan of cornbread dressing that I had made and put in the freezer several months ago.  All I had to do was defrost it and put a serving into the microwave to warm it up.  Open a can of his favorite cranberry sauce and a few veggies and he was happy.  I had some fake chicken (I am a vegetarian.), some of my cornbread dressing and some freshly made coleslaw and I had a great meal too.  We both missed the family that we usually have surrounding us at our house on Thanksgiving Day.  Instead they all met at Daniel's mother's house in Louisiana.

I lost 12 pounds from not having an appetite over a week and a half.  I haven't been on the scales recently but have probably gained most of it back since my appetite came back this week.  My energy levels are much better and most importantly because of the breathing treatments that I have been doing, my breathing is back to normal.  I still have a cough, sinus drainage and fluid behind my ear drums.  I have 5 more days of breathing treatments to do. 

Thank you all for your prayers and healing energy that you have sent my way.  I love and appreciate you all.


Splinty over at Splinteredones's Blog is hosting the November Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse.  I hope you will join me in going to her blog and reading all of the submissions for this month's Carnival Against Child Abuse.  I have 3 submissions in the Carnival myself.  I saw some new submitters this month that I am looking forward to meeting through the sharing of their stories.  Here is the link:

http://splinteredones.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/november-blog-carnival-against-child-abuse/

I hope that you all had a glorious Thanksgiving. 
Patricia

My Thanksgiving Will Be Spent With Pneumonia As A Companion

Hi everyone.  I haven't posted a recent article because I have been sick the past 11 days.  I went to the doctor Wed., Nov. 10 because I had a temperature, a weight on my chest that made taking more than half a breath impossible, fluid behind both ear drums, sinus drainage, a low temperature, and a cough.  I woke up with all of this going on Sun., Nov. 7.

The doctor said I either had the flu or was having a heart attack.  We did blood tests, a chest xray and two heart tests.  All the tests were normal.  I got an antibiotic because I still had a slight kidney infection going on from my last doctor's visit several weeks ago.  I got a second antibiotic, a cortizone shot and a cough medicine plus an over the counter antihistimine to take.

I started to feel better except for the breathing and coughing.  I haven't had a temperature in almost 3 days.  My appetite which was almost non-existent is almost back to normal.  I lost 12 pounds from not eating.  I don't suggest anyone try to lose weight that way.  My energy levels have risen.

The coughing got a lot worse last night so I went back to the doctor today.  We did another blood test to check white blood cell levels.  They were normal.  We did another chest xray and this one showed that I have pneumonia in the lower part of my right lung.  I had a breathing treatment which made it easier to breath and made the coughing worse for a little while.  I did feel better for awhile and could even take an almost normal breath.  Tomorrow a saleman will deliver a breathing treatment machine and teach me how to give myself a breathing treatment three times a day for the next two weeks.  I also have another antibiotic plus got a steroid shot at the doctor's office today.

I had to cancel our family gathering for Thanksgiving because it was supposed to be at our house this year.  The doctor wants me doing a lot of resting the next two weeks.  She told me the pneumonia would have already been a lot worse if I hadn't been on the antibiotic for my minor kidney infection of the past several weeks.

I want to wish all of my American friends a glorious Thanksgiving.  Until I get to feeling better, I won't be spending much time on the computer.
Patricia

A Short Biography - Who Am I?

I am a woman who has struggled with knowing who I am and what I want out of Life.

I am a daughter who was neglected and sexually abused as a child and survived.

I am a sister who tried to be perfect and failed as protector of my younger siblings.

I am a wife who loves my kind and very patient husband as best I can with the intimacy scars that I still carry.

I am a mother who swore I would love and protect my own children from incest.

I am an incest survivor who shares my stories to offer hope, strength and healing to other survivors.

I am an incest survivor who refused to ever quit.

I am a wounded child who has learned to thrive as a loving, beautiful woman.

Because of the struggle with incest, I am strong and compassionate when I might not have been otherwise.

I am who I am because of the incest, not in spite of it.

Today I am a survivor and a thriver who loves my family, friends and my life. 

I still struggle some days, but there is also laughter and joy in my life.

I still hurt and get angry at times but have also forgiven my abusers and myself.

I call my blog Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker because my life has been a spiritual journey back to God and his love. 

I call myself a Lightworker because we all, at our centers, are Light. 

I choose to shine my Light to help others heal from the pain of child abuse.

If I can heal, I know that you can heal too.

Will you join me in letting your Light shine and helping someone else to heal?

We all are so much more than our experiences can define us as.

Let your Light shine for the world to see that united we stand to stop child abuse.
Patricia

Guest Post On Emerging From Broken - Self-Worth Gives You Ability To Say No

Today you have to do a little traveling across the internet from the southern USA all the way to the southwestern part of Canada where Darlene Ouimet sits at her computer and puts out her blog Emerging From Broken.  The internet really has made the world smaller.  Without it, Darlene and I would never have met and established our friendship online over the past year.

Today rather than a post here for you to read, Darlene asked me to do a Guest Post for her at her blog Emerging From Broken.  The post is called "Self-Worth Gives You Ability To Say No by Patricia Singleton".  You will find the post at the following link:

http://emergingfrombroken.com/self-worth-gives-you-ability-to-say-no-by-patricia-singleton/

Please feel free to leave comments here afterwords and to also join the conversation at Emerging From Broken.  If you have never visited the blog Emerging From Broken, please take the time to do so and read some of Darlene's thought provoking articles.  You will be glad that you did.

Again, thank you Darlene for allowing me the honor to speak to your blog readers about part of my own journey through recovery from incest.  I appreciate you and the work that you do at Emerging From Broken.
Patricia

In The Process Of Forgiving, Self-Forgiveness Comes After The Feelings

Forgiveness does not mean "getting over it" as some people will tell you to do.  There is no "getting over" no matter how much you try, no matter how much pain you are in, no matter how much you may wish you could "get over it."  In my experience, "getting over it" just doesn't work.

I tried many times and many ways to get over, under, and around the pain of incest.  I even tried denying my pain and feelings and wearing a smiling, happy face for several years.  None of it worked.  I even tried stuffing it down with food and denied myself access to my dad's family of origin for 10 years in an attempt to be happy and normal.  The reality was Hell instead.  I wasn't happy.  I wore a mask of sweetness with my friends and almost continual feelings of rage that kept escaping and affecting me and those I loved. 

In some ways, I recreated the home of my childhood.  I was the raging controller [my dad].  My husband was the passive-aggressive one [my mom].

I tried controlling and fixing everyone else's problems so I wouldn't have to feel my own pain or look at my own problems.  None of it worked and I still couldn't forgive.  I just hated myself more.  I ignored my physical and emotional needs.  I pretended they never existed, just like my parents did when I was a child.

I often tell others that I was blessed to have a dad and grandfather who were alcoholics because when I  was able to see myself as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, I was able to finally see who I was and what the family disease of alcoholism was doing to my life.  Add the incest on top of that and the mixture was even more dysfunctional and often intense.

Getting a sponsor in my 12-Step programs was my second blessing in recovery.  Thank you, Jack.  He made me start attending Al-Anon meetings not long after I started Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings.  I can honestly say that Adult Children meetings saved my life and my sanity and helped me find myself where I was finally able to do forgiveness further down the road.  The Al-Anon meetings were about healthy and unhealthy relationships and helped me save my marriage and start a new relationship of healing and forgiveness with myself and my family.

I had to heal me before I could even think about forgiveness.  I had to feel and work through my feelings of anger, rage, shame, hurt, betrayal, trust, abandonment and safety.  I had to first create a feeling of safety before I could begin to trust myself or anyone else.

My 12-Step sponsor had me make a list of people that I needed to make amends to.  Then he told me to put myself at the top of the list.  Then I had to make a list of things that I needed to forgive myself for first.


That list for self-forgiveness included:

Forgiving myself for believing the lies of my abusers.

Forgiving me, the adult, for ever believing that the child me was capable of protecting herself.  I wasn't given the tools to do that by my parents.  I was just a child.

Forgiving me, the adult, for blaming the child me for the incest.

Forgiving me, the adult, for staying silent about the incest for so long.

Forgiving me, the adult, for abandoning my own inner children when they really needed me the most.

Forgiving me, the adult, for adding on more abuse by listening and believing my inner critic voices for so long.

Forgiving me, the adult, for using food to keep my feelings buried inside for so long.

Forgiving  me, the adult, for being so afraid all the time instead of living my life to its fullest.

Forgiving me, the adult, for allowing my rage to control me and for using that rage to hurt others.

Forgiving me, the adult, for living in denial for so long.

Forgiving me, the adult, for being so controlling of people and circumstances and becoming my dad the dictator, in the early years of my marriage.

Forgiving me, the adult, for hiding behind a mask and not allowing the real me to shine my Light for others to see. 

Forgiving me, the adult, for carrying around the shame of my abusers and believing it was mine.

Forgiving me, the adult, for not seeing the abuse of bullying that my daughter went through in her teenage years of high school because I was so focused on my own needs at the time.

Forgiving me, the adult, for not being a better protector of my daughter when a teenage boy made sexual advances toward her when she was 10 years old.

Forgiving me, the adult, for passing so many of my fears on to my children so that my son suffers from panic attacks today.

Forgiving me, the adult, for not being more emotionally present for my children, when I was so focused on my early recovery that they probably felt that I wasn't there for them.  In many ways, I wasn't.

Forgiving me, the adult, for lashing out at my husband with my rage before I reached the stage of being able to control it and hurting the person, other than my children, that I love the most.


The child that I was doesn't need forgiving.  The abuse was never her fault.  She didn't deserve to be treated the way that she was by her abusers.  She was blameless and shameless for what was done by the adults in her life.
Patricia

Links to other posts on forgiveness:

Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker's post
"Forgiveness Is Not Forgetting The Child Abuse"
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/10/forgiveness-is-not-forgetting-child.html

Emerging From Broken's post
"Forgive the Abusers? A bit of a Rant"
@ http://emergingfrombroken.com/forgive-the-abusers-a-bit-of-a-rant/

Overcoming Sexual Abuse's post
"What About Forgiveness"
@ http://overcomingsexualabuse.com/2010/10/28/what-about-forgiveness/

Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker's post
"Revisiting Forgiveness"
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/06/revisiting-forgiveness.html