Saturday, February 15, 2014

Headaches, Blocks To Writing And Not Giving Up

Hi everyone. I know you probably think I abandoned you all but I haven't. I have had a number of issues come and go since the last post in December. I expected that after Christmas things would slow down for me but they haven't. On top of all of the busyness, I have had a headache since sometime in October, at least. I went to my doctor in December and she thought it was my blood pressure causing the headache and added another blood pressure medicine for me to take. The blood pressure is good and the headache is still here.

On December 31, we lost our health insurance because Obamacare decided it wasn't good enough, I suppose. The new insurance has just now kicked in so I made a doctor's appointment for March 25, the closest one I could get with my doctor. I don't want any other doctor. She knows me and my quirkiness about medicines. With a new doctor, I would have to argue and with my headache I don't want to do that. The easiest thing this could be from is a sinus infection. I have had really bad ones before. The worst it could be is a brain tumor like my dad had the last two years of his life. I tell myself it isn't a brain tumor but a small part of me is still afraid that it is because my dad had one.

I forget when exactly it was that I announced that I would write my book about healing from incest but I suspect that is the reason for the headaches. The cause of my headache could just be every day stress of being an incest survivor who has contact with other survivors and their stories on a daily basis. It could be because I am going to be taking another step in exposing my abusers in my book. I was talking in depth with a couple of friends online yesterday about the possible causes of my headaches and I told them both that I would be writing about it today on my day off. I don't have a paid job but I am a volunteer who speaks with abuse survivors Monday - Friday. I think I handle the stress of that quite well but some days it can become overwhelming even for me. It is how I fulfill my purpose of helping other survivors. It is also another reason that I am not on here as much as I used to be. I do a lot of writing with my volunteering. Sometimes I think that would make a great article and then by the end of the day, I just want to get off of the computer so I don't share my writings here.

I have also felt blocked in writing my book and have been going inside of myself to see what that block may be. That block when it is going on affects when I write on here too. I am dealing with breaking the silence of incest again. Each time I work my way through that, I find the voices that tell me to be quiet, to shut up, that no one needs to know what goes on in my family, that no one will believe me, that no one will care what I have to say.  All of those are voices of my abuser that the inner child still carries and still believes. She and they create an internal resistance to my writing. I have to face that again.

As I was talking with my friends yesterday, I shared that back in 1989 when I started going to 12-Step meetings and talking about the incest, that I would come away from everyone of those meetings with a headache for the first year. I figured out after awhile that it was that internal resistance to talking about the incest that created those headaches. I overcame them. They went away, for the most part, after that first year. I could go to meetings and not get a headache.

Now I am going to share with you what I told my friends yesterday. I have had headaches for most of my life at least since the age of five, maybe earlier but I do remember having them when I was five. A friend asked me if I thought they were connected to the abuse that I experienced as a child. I told her that at the age of three I called myself an adulteress and I knew the minister was talking about sex. I also know that something really big happened to me when I was seven years old but I don't know what it is. There is a big blank space around whatever it was that happened. I just know that something happened. Writing that makes me tense up all over. My memories of incest are only from ages 11-17. I don't have any early memories of being sexually abused. I don't know who would have abused me back then. My dad, of course, had the opportunity to do something. So did the uncle that raped me at 11 years old. Another uncle that was my favorite uncle at a very young age could have been my abuser too. He made passes at some of his younger sister-in-laws when they were young. I just don't know who or what was done for me to label myself as an adulteress at age three. Like I said earlier, my headaches were here by at least the age of five. I had my first migraine at the age of 16. I had one a year for every year after that until I left home at age 19. They stopped for the most part until my 30's when the incest was beginning to stir in my mind and my dad was back in my life causing problems. I had an eye doctor check to make sure that the headaches weren't a brain tumor. I was put on an antidepressant that was supposed to stop migraines. It didn't. I took it at bedtime and had problems waking up the next morning but still had the migraines. A year later I started having them three or four times a week. I went to a neurologist who couldn't find a physical reason for them. All of the medicines we tried just made me sicker than the migraines did. Nothing helped. The biofeedback that the doctor wanted me to try was too expensive. My dad backed down and was out of the picture again and the migraines stopped until the next time that he was back. I saw the connection and cut him out of my life totally. Today I rarely have migraines.

I have had headaches off and on since I started writing my blog. Some part of me still wants to be silent. I will not be. I am no longer ashamed of being an incest survivor. It was never my fault and as long as survivors stay quiet, more children will be abused.

I am not writing this for sympathy or to worry anyone. I am writing it to figure out the possible causes and as always sharing my way of processing with all of my readers and also letting you know this is why I haven't been here writing too. I have dealt with headaches all of my life and I only say something to anyone about them when I am in so much pain that I can't function. If I gave into all of the headaches that I have had over my life, I would never have accomplished anything. I don't ignore them as it may look like. I do what I can to find the cause rather than just medicating them. I hate taking pain pills because I don't like the way they make me feel and my stomach doesn't like most of them. Also I am allergic to so many kinds of medicines so I usually try to treat them with natural products but even those don't seem to be working right now.

I am officially telling my inner child and my headache that neither of you is going to stop me from writing. I have a number of posts that are in my head that I will be writing over the next few days and weeks that I have wanted to share with you all for awhile. I am not ignoring my body. I am not ignoring the headaches. Obamacare and its changes couldn't have come at a worse time for me to have to deal with this. It is Winter time and I don't have a lot of cash flow to pay for these tests on my own. I will survive, as I always have in the past. They may slow me down a little bit but they won't win. I don't quit. I just keep pushing forward. My whole life has been that way. I don't know any other way to be. If you pray, I would appreciate your prayers. If you work with healing energy, I would appreciate that too. I love you all for staying with me and being patient.
Patricia

12 comments:

nippercatshome said...

Pat what a fabulous post, and I too believe your headaches may well be from the block that you have about something that bad happened. Not remembering can cause us so much stress. I too have a block about my abuse, that I am working through also. And some days when I think about it it causes me to strike out at those I love, I guess that is my way of dealing with it. We all deal with it differently, but that block for us will eventually come to us, when we don't think about it. I am learning to let it go and just let it come. Being abused and being incest survivors can cause so many stresses in us. I hope you will get the headaches under control and you have my prayers and love on your side my dear friend. Hugs and love to you. <3

Tracie Nall said...

I am praying for you!

When I was fifteen I got a migraine that lasted until the month before I turned eighteen. There was a 14 hour period in there after an extended hospital stay (to treat the migraine) that it went away, but other than that 14 hours, it was constant until I experienced a healing.

At the beginning of that time period I was not being abused, but I was still in denial about it. It was also during that time that I was able to admit to myself what had happened to me, and started to work on healing from the abuse.

I went a lot of years without having any migraines, but in the last two years I have had a couple, and each time it happens I am filled with terror that it won't stop. I think there is definitely a connection between the migraines and the abuse - and when I have experienced them in the last couple of years it has been during periods of time when I've also been dealing with speaking out in a new way or memories and flashbacks.

Anyway. I didn't mean to make your comment section all about me. I just understand how debilitating migraines can be, and also how expensive the tests and medications that go with trying to treat them are. I am so sorry you are dealing with them again.

Thank you for the update on why you have been quiet in this space. I know you will be able to move forward in your writing, and it will touch many lives.

Patricia Singleton said...

Mary, my dear friend, I knew you would understand. Love you. We support each other thru the trying times, don't we. Thank you, Mary.

nippercatshome said...

You're so welcome Pat, and yes we sure do. So much of what we went through is often hard to process, and having someone help you through it, helps us to get there. I wish my block would come to me but am also afraid of what it is, and I am sure this is what you are feeling too. <3

Patricia Singleton said...

Mary, Yes, fear of the unknown is always there waiting but both of us have overcome and faced it before and we will again. Love you, my friend.

Patricia Singleton said...

Tracie, Thank you, my friend. Sorry that you too know the pain of abuse and of migraines. You never have to apologize for sharing your experiences on here. I believe it is the best way to share healing with others, by example of what we have been through and survived and learned from.

Beyond the tears said...

Patricia, I'm sorry you are experiencing such debilitating migraines. And that you are caught in the cross hairs of the insurance policies. I wish for you peace as you access the mind/body/memory/migraine connections. Love and Light, Lynn

Patricia Singleton said...

Lynn, Thank you, my friend. I don't think this is a migraine because most days I am able to still function. With a migraine, I pretty much have to go to bed because pain pills don't do much to help with that kind of pain.

Unknown said...

Hi Patricia. I am in complete awe of your strength, and presence.
It's clear you are seeking peace, rather than sympathy, or even empathy - perhaps!
I think you have explored more than most in an attempt to understand, and so I wonder what, if anything I could offer such a tenacious and incredible human being.

I offer this.

Is it possible, and this goes against my usual processes with clients, that it might be time to cease trying to establish cause, blame, effects?
I'm in no way saying they're unimportant, but I am concerned they may become you, define you.

Would it, could it be possible to consider opening the door to whatever is hidden?

Or, could it be possible to accept and welcome in just who you are today, here and now, in THIS moment?

This moment, you are anything but a victim.
You were!

This moment, you are a beautiful, powerful and oh-so-almost complete individual, as valuable and worthy as any other person on this planet.

Could it be that the past, if it can't be reasonably uncovered and/or processed, can be consigned to that time when it was reasonable and appropriate to feel and think how you might have?

You were a victim, a survivor, but does this need to be you today?

Your body is likely as not telling you everything you need to know.

Please try, if you haven't already, to live a new life based on who you see, who people see, today.

Because today is the reality, the only place of truth and existence. Anything more are simply memories, terrible memories of a time that no longer exists, other than in the video replay of that time now gone.

The memories would of course remain, but over time, with some form of acceptance, they become less attached to emotions. Just memories, hopefully fleeting in their visits.

I truly hope these comments can be considered in the very spirit I intend. I am in no way failing to recognised and appreciate, as much as is possible for me to do so, the incredible experiences you have been subjected to.

I will truly pray you can bring yourself to here, now - the only place that really, truly matters.

With heartfelt compassion.

Bob.

Patricia Singleton said...

Bob, Thank you for everything that you just said. I think that writing this book will give me the ability to do everything you just said. I believe it will be the final closing of that door for me. I am still figuring it out in my mind but I don't see my book as much of a rehashing of old pains as much as a sharing of the healing tools that I have gained during the healing part of my journey. I do appreciate your kind words and do believe that is the direction that I am moving. I agree that my past does not define me today. I only use labels such as survivor and even thriver to encourage those coming behind me on their healing journeys to let them know the pain, rage and hurt is not all there is that is available to them. I do feel your "heartfelt compassion" flowing toward me. Thank you. I will continue to talk about incest and child abuse because it is in the silence of the past that child abuse is allowed to continue. I will quit talking about it when no more children are being abused.

Unknown said...

Then Patricia, you ARE empowered.
Thank you for your kind reply.
Wishing you the peace deserved.
Take care, and best wishes with your book.
I know many will benefit.

Bob.

Patricia Singleton said...

Bob, Yes, sometimes I do tend to forget in moving forward that I am empowered. It is my goal that others become empowered too. I appreciate your stopping in today and giving your encouragement and reminding me of my own spiritual side in all of this.