Silent No More---Resistance To Speaking Out

Writing my book The Case of The Three-Year-Old Adulteress is a new step toward being silent no more. Each such step, for me, has been met by resistance, most of it internal but some of it from others.

The internal resistance can come from my inner child who is still afraid of rejection when I tell. Resistance can come from the fear of being blamed as a victim. Resistance can also come from fear of being misunderstood by others. Some question why I was silent for so long. The adult me doesn't fear any of those things but the inner child does. 

Outer resistance can come from others who want to remain in denial about incest and its long-time effects upon the survivor and her/his loved ones. I say loved ones because the incest affects those close to us. Our feelings, attitudes and reactions can affect our spouses, children and friends who live with us before and during the healing process.

Incest didn't just hurt me. My years of denial---of trying to pretend that I wasn't angry and hurting---and my years of struggling to feel again and to heal hurt my family and friends too. They had to deal with me when I was scared and when I was raging in pain in the years before I learned to control my rage and to face my fears. 

I have bumped into and faced resistance at every step of my healing journey. Feelings for an incest survivor can be extremely painful. No one wants to feel the pain. Resistance to feeling is there. 

Resistance is part of speaking out and telling others about the incest. Resistance comes from fear of the unknown. What will happen the first time you tell someone. Will they believe you? Will they hate you for sharing your painful secret because their own painful secrets are in their face?  What will happen to your abuser when you speak out? Will speaking out destroy your family or make the members stronger? Resistance comes because you often don't know the answers and that is frightening all by itself.

Telling one or two people is different than telling a group of 12-Steppers in meetings filled with 10-30 people in the room. I met resistance when my friend Slade Roberson suggested that I write a blog about being an incest survivor. I have been meeting and talking to survivors through my writing my blog for 8 years now. My 8th year Anniversary for Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker was on June 1, 2015.  During that about 4 or 5 of those years, I have used Facebook and Twitter to meet other survivors. Men survivors came into the picture and started breaking their own silences. 

Society seems to sometimes want to stay in denial of how many of us are being affected on a daily basis by incest and sexual assault. Rarely are children sexually assaulted by strangers as society wants us to believe. Most sexual assault is in the form of incest from a family member or friend who has authority over the child. Even judges and the courts resist believing the damage that can be done to a child by an abuser that the child knows and sometimes loves. This is society resisting change. Often our justice system is sadly lacking when it comes to helping a child to heal and receive some justice against the abusers. Cover-ups are resistance to seeing the truth. 

Writing my book is another instance of me facing my own resistance. My book is a further step in going public with my story of abuse and healing. What are you resisting in your life today? 
Patricia

Being An Advocate And Speaking Out Does Mean I Am Stuck In Victim Mode

Wow! June is almost over, half a year is almost gone. Where has 2014 gone? So much has been going on in my house and family lately. I intended to write more here but have just been too busy. Our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren came to visit. Our son-in-law flew home earlier in the week but our daughter and grandchildren are here for several more weeks. Daniel has taken them hiking at our favorite camping place in Arkansas. Our daughter texted me not long ago to say they were finished with the hiking and were going swimming now. Thankfully, it is only cloudy there, not raining like it has been here off and on for the afternoon. I was supposed to go with them but woke up with a headache and slightly nauseous this morning so I went back to bed for awhile. I just asked if I should think about cooking Supper and was told no so I am here instead.

Recently a family member that I thought understood about my advocacy work and the meaning behind why I blog unfriended me on Facebook because of all of the articles that I post that were taking over her page. She told me that I seemed to be stuck in victim mode and wasn't living my life, that I was stuck in the past and life was passing me by. I was hurt that this person just doesn't understand and doesn't see the good that comes from my advocacy. 

I was angry for awhile too. Then I let go of it. I am sharing this because I know other survivors have been told to "Get over it; to let it go; to get on with their lives; to just stop talking about it." usually by well meaning people that are in denial of their own pain. It does a job on your self-worth when someone so misunderstands you and your mission, especially when it is someone that you thought understood. 

I want this person and others to know that I do have a life off of the computer. So do most survivors. I share my passion for stopping child abuse because it is important if we are going to save all of the children from being abused. I also share because I felt alone so much of my early years of healing. I want other survivors to know they are not alone. I want them to know that they too can have a great life after abuse and healing. Healing work is hard but not as hard as being abused. We need to raise children who don't need healing. As long as pedophiles and molesters are still hurting children, as long as survivors are still being silent about their abuse because they think they are the only ones, my work will not stop. 

Unfriend me if you want to on Facebook, some already have. That is your choice and I honor that choice. Honor my choice to not stop being an advocate for children and survivors. If you choose to be silent then you are part of the group that allows abuse of children to continue. Hide your eyes and close your ears, just don't expect me to.  Child sexual abuse happens in the silence and will continue to happen as long as we let it. I was a part of that silence for too many years before I knew I had a choice to break my silence and speak out. We all have choices. I hope yours protects a child from sexual abuse. We have to educate everyone. If you don't believe me, just look at the court systems who are releasing offenders back out onto the streets to hurt more children. 
Patricia

Stages Of Loss And Grief For Incest Survivors.

Back in 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote her book called On Death and Dying. In that book she gives us the five stages of grief.
Denial and isolation
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Grief takes time to get through. Each person takes however long it takes to get through the grief. Some stay in denial longer, others get angry and stay stuck there for awhile before moving through to the other steps. However long it takes is individual to the person. You can go back and forth between the stages until you finally reach acceptance and the grief ends.

Grief isn't just about death. Each loss in your life brings grief also. With incest survivors, many losses happen because of the abuse. The earlier in childhood that the abuse starts, the more losses you have to deal with. If you don't grieve the losses, they pile up and add to the pain and to the length of time that it takes for you to heal.

As a child being abused, stuffing everything inside is the form of denial that is often used. The brain blocking memories is an extreme form of denial used in order to survive the pain of abuse. I know from certain clues that I have that I don't have access to some early memories. I have written about labeling myself an adulteress several times on this blog. 

As an adult, I used denial in order to try to have a "normal" "happy" life when I first left home and then the first years of being married. I told myself if I didn't think about the incest that I could pretend it didn't happen and it wasn't still affecting me if I didn't think about it. I did my best to convince myself of that and I hoped it was working for about 10 years as I grew more and more angry and unhappy. The denial came to a head one day when I heard myself screaming at my husband and telling him that I hated him and my life. A part of me was standing off watching and listening as I screamed those hurtful words at him. Thankfully that part of me stepped in and took control and knew that the person I hated was myself because I couldn't pretend and I couldn't make the pain and anger go away. That was in the 1970's and there were only 3 books on incest at the county library where we lived. They gave me a little bit of relief but not enough. Self-help books were becoming popular so I read everyone of them that the library had and worked hard on improving me as much as I could. I was blessed that my husband forgave me for those hurtful words that I threw at him that long ago day. 

Isolation played its part in keeping me stuck in the pain too. I felt totally alone in my pain. I always felt alone and different, even in a good marriage. I felt like no one would understand if they knew and I was afraid they would judge and blame me if they knew about the incest. I was married for 8 years before I told my husband because I was afraid he wouldn't love me if he knew. If I stayed isolated, then maybe no one would ever know. Of course isolation just added more to my pain also.

The next stage of anger really scared me. I knew that the anger inside of me had grown to rage. That is what happens when you stuff anger deep inside and don't deal with it. It grows. The only anger I saw in my childhood was my dad's rage and my mom's passive-aggressive behavior. When she was mad, she would get quiet and you knew something was wrong but you never knew what. She always denied that she was angry. The passive-aggressive anger was hurtful and crazy feeling because it was never acknowledged. The rage was scary because it might become dangerous and violent. I was afraid that my own rage would become violent too if I let it all out. 

I was angry that the denial didn't work. I was angry that I was abused by those who should have loved me and protected me. I was angry at myself for being a child and not being able to protect myself. I had to do some blaming in order to get though the anger. I don't recommend staying in the blaming stage because then you just stay stuck in the anger and you do need to move past the anger stage in order to heal.

Bargaining is that stage where you just wish it would all go away and you would do anything to make that happen. You have conversations with God and ask Him to take it away and you may even get angry at Him because He won't. Free will isn't free will if God takes away all of our hurts. It is our responsibility to work our way through the feelings, not God's responsibility to take it away. He loved me through it even when I was angry at Him.

Depression is the stage of feeling all of the deep sadness, shutting down the tears and feelings, and pushing them back inside. Louise Hay says depression is anger turned inward. I have grown to believe this for myself. I know from a very young age, I was full of sadness to the exclusion of all other feelings. I know I carried the deep sadness with me at least as young as 5 years old. It may have been there before that and I just don't remember. It seems like for most of my life, I felt that deep sadness. I didn't know where it came from or how to get rid of it. I hated to cry. I was taught as a child that tears just brought on more hurt from my parents. Have you ever had a parent tell you, "I'll give you something to cry about, if you don't stop that right now." Once I reached this stage of grieving, the tears started. I cried for a year at 12-Step meetings because I didn't want my family to see the tears. I didn't know how to explain them to myself, much less to them. At that point, I still felt that tears were a sign of weakness too. Today I know they are a sign of strength. I still don't like crying but I do it when I need to.

You can go back and forth between all of these stages of grieving until you finally reach the last stage of acceptance.  With acceptance comes relief. When you accept the losses then comes change when you let go of all of the pain caused by the losses. With acceptance the losses lose their power to hurt you any more and the abuser loses his power over you too. With acceptance, you take back your personal power and you move forward with your life. With letting go of the losses, you now have room in your life for laughter and peace to enter. 

Each time that an issue comes up, I find more losses to deal with and more grief to feel and go through these stages again. Today, I get though the grief in only a day or two or three, not weeks, months or years. Today I am aware of what it feels like to grieve. Today, I know that if I want to feel the joy, I also have to feel the grief when it comes. 

I am sharing the link that gave me the idea to write this post and to share my ideas on grief. Remember these are just my opinions and experiences with grief. Grief may be different for you. I do know that if you want to heal from incest, you have to allow yourself to grieve.

"The 5 Stages of Loss and Grief" @
http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/000617

Patricia

Unresolved Anger And Low Self-Esteem

I know February 26 has already come and gone but I wanted to share this affirmation from that day with you. The information reminds me of how I used to be before realizing that I had to feel my anger in order to heal. What I didn't know until much later was that, as the affirmation below says, anger that we stuff, deny and don't express can harm us. We think we are burying the anger deep inside of us but the feelings refuse to stay buried. Mine came out as rage when someone said or did something to set me off. Let me know what this affirmation says to you.

"February 26
Unresolved anger is often the hidden source of low self-esteem.
                                                               ---Bill Bartlow

What we don't see, we can't understand. What we don't understand, we can't influence. And when that blind spot relates to the source of our self-esteem, the results can be devastating.

Hurt that has been denied, mislabeled, or unrecognized still exists, no matter how long ago we were wounded. In fact, such hurt---that is the hard core of all anger---is all the more potent for not being recognized or for being called something else. The trouble with burying something alive is that it will devour us from the inside. Buried does not necessarily mean dead.

At the core of much low self-esteem is just such a hard knot of anger. Anger over the way we were treated as children, rights that were denied, kindnesses that should have been there for us but were not. Love, encouragement, support, perhaps even the basic safety that everyone has a right to---none of these were to be had. Buried, that collection of hurts turned into anger and seeped out sideways. Sometimes the seeping turns into a flood. Often it becomes simply a prevailing state of being---we are just always angry, always hostile, always operating with a short fuse. That doesn't make us very attractive people. To say the least, we're not fun to be with. And so the anger over our long-ago hurt generates loneliness and rejection even today. Lest our tomorrows be affected as well, let us own up to our buried anger.

Hidden anger can kill me. I must recognize it and address it."

From the book Believing In Myself: Daily Meditations for Healing and Building Self-Esteem written by Earnie Larsen & Carol Hegarty, A Fireside Book Published by Simon & Schuster: New York, NY. 1991.

Healing From Incest Vs. Being Stuck In The Past

To often a person who is not a survivor of child sexual abuse looks at a struggling survivor and thinks she/he is stuck in the past. They may even voice their judgments to the survivor and tell them to just get over it or just let it be, it is in the past. Unknown to the person looking on, there is a difference between being a victim still stuck in the past with no apparent way to get out of the pain and a survivor who is revisiting the past in order to heal and work their way through the feelings of the past. In order to heal, especially if you were like me and still in denial that the past was affecting me, you do have to visit the past, look at it really hard and bring awareness that you still hurt because of the past. You still grieve because of the past. All childhood abuse can still hurt badly when you are an adult until you are ready to face it and work through it. Talking about your issues from the past in order to heal from it can look, to an outsider, like you are stuck in the past, especially when you break the silence of abuse and the words flow out of you like water from a broken dam. I had held in the words of abuse from at least age three until I was 38. That is 35 years of words and feelings that had to get out in order to heal.

Some things can be healed fast and you no longer need to talk about them. Incest isn't one of those things that heals fast. The only time I was stuck in the past was when I was still denying it was hurting me. As long as a survivor is taking steps forward, they are healing. It is only when we stand still and refuse to move forward, when we refuse to heal and feel, that we become victims again. Some people do wallow in the attention that they get and refuse to move forward. They could be said to be stuck in the past.

Most survivors are working hard to move forward. Please don't label a survivor as stuck in the past just because you hear them talking over and over again about their abuse. Stop and listen and see if they are moving forward or standing still. Do they just want sympathy or do they want your support and maybe some validation because they are learning to validate themselves. Do they need your love while they are learning to love themselves. I talked for 10 years in 12-Step meetings and I was also writing and looking inward and learning to feel the hurt so that I could release it. Don't judge a person as stuck when you haven't been through their hurt and you haven't walked down their path with them. You have no idea what it feels like to be a survivor of incest unless you too are an incest survivor.

Now I want to talk to the survivors who are reading this article. When you get really really tired of going through the pain of healing, it is okay to take small breaks in your day and do something else that makes you feel good about being you. Do something that makes you laugh out loud. Listen to yourself. Doesn't that feel good. Ask someone for a hug. Talk to someone that you know will really listen and validate what you are feeling. That isn't everyone. Not everyone can be trusted with your vulnerability. Sharing your feelings is always good, as long as the person you share with is a safe person.

 See the hurting little girl or little boy inside of you and sit with them in your mind and ask them if they would like a hug. If it is the first time you have talked with your inner child, don't feel rejected if she/he says no. It takes time to win the trust of your inner child. If you are like I was, for so many years, you totally ignored her and her pain. You may have even blamed her for the pain. Keep trying and over time she/he will come and climb into you lap for a hug. Love yourself and your inner child through the hurt. Forgive yourself for blaming your inner child and ask for her/his forgiveness.

Sit down with the quiet inside of you and talk to God. Ask for his help and guidance. Ask for a sign that you are going the right way. Close your eyes and imagine God and your personal angels hugging you tight. Ask God for the strength that you need to get through the hard times. Don't forget to thank God for the good times when they come. None of us is really alone. You just have to remember to talk to God. He is always there.

Now that you are feeling better, get back to work. One day there won't be as much work to do. One day you will see that you are moving from survivor to thriver. I know if I can do it, so can you, my friend. I love you all. Now please love yourself as well.
Patricia

Biography Of Patricia Caldwell Singleton, Incest Survivor

I am an incest survivor and an adult child of an alcoholic. My dad and my grandfather were mean drunks who influenced me to not drink because I was afraid of becoming like them.  I am also a survivor of domestic violence from my dad's rages when he was at home. Even when he wasn't raging, he was verbally abusive with name-calling and intimidation. He was a dictator with his controlling of the entire family. My mother rarely made an decisions and I wasn't taught how either.  My family was dysfunctional in the extreme.

I have memories of incest happening from age 11-17. The first memories were of being raped by an uncle on a fishing trip and a long weekend alone with him at my grandmother's. He lied to me and my mother when he said my grandmother was home. She came home on Monday afternoon.

A few weeks later, my dad decided I was old enough to take my mother's place working twice a day on weekends helping my dad out at the dairy milking cows. On my first night of helping at the dairy, we went to the hay loft to throw down hay bails. While there, my dad took his shirt off and spread it out on a bail of hay and told me to pull down my pants and to lay down across the hay bail. No explanation was given for his actions. I remember feeling disgusted and thinking to myself, "Not daddy too." That is how the incest started and went on for 6 years. Every time my dad left the house, I was sent with him and I would be raped before we came back home. Sometimes later on he would also wake me up early mornings before the rest of the family woke up and he would abuse me in another room of our house. Most of the abuse took place in the front seat of his truck. My mother sent me on many of those trips. She missed many signs that I was being abused because she didn't want to see them.

At 17, I knew I was strong enough to say no to the sex and not let my dad manipulate me into changing my mind. The sex stopped but the emotional and verbal abuse continued until I ran away when I was 19 on the day after I took my last test of my second year at a junior college. I packed a small shopping bag that I normally carried books in with a few changes of clothes. I gave my sister a note to give to my mother when I didn't come home that night and had my mother drop me off at the college on her way to work that morning. An angel of a friend who was older than my own parents picked me up and took me home and gave me a place to live and helped me get my very first job for the Summer.  After 3 days of my mother lying, she told my dad where I was. He came after me. I went home for the weekend and then went back to my friend's house on Sunday evening. I had broken away from my dad's control. That took more courage than I knew I had. If I had stayed, I would have had a nervous breakdown and would have lost myself completely. I knew that so I was strong enough to not give in to pleas and threats that my dad used to get me to stay.

I went away to college at the end of that Summer and as a Junior at 20 years old, I met and 8 months later married my husband. Before we were married, he knew he was not my first sexual experience but I could not tell him that most of my experience came from my dad. I was too afraid he would leave me. We were married for 8 years (1980) when I told him and my sister both about the incest. Even after telling them both the truth, I continued to pretend that the incest was not affecting my life. In my marriage, I became a controller thinking that would make me feel safe. It didn't. People tried telling me what I was doing but I wasn't ready to hear it until one day my husband came in from work. I got angry about something, I don't even remember what it was about. I do remember hearing myself screaming at my husband that I hated him and I hated everything about my life. A part of me was watching and listening and was in shock that I blamed my husband for the hatred and the anger when it wasn't his fault. I knew in my gut that it was me that I hated, not him. I hated myself for the incest. I thought I was bad because of it. Almost immediately, I apologized to him and started working on changing me. Our county library only had 3 books about incest and none of them offered much help. I started reading books on self-improvement and started working on letting go of some of my controlling behaviors. Small changes happened but still no work on the incest issues. I didn't even know I still had incest issues. I wanted to pretend that I didn't. Today I know that is called denial and it is very unhealthy. Denial keeps you in the hurt.

My real healing started in January 1989 with my first 12-Step meeting. Since my dad and grandfather were both alcoholics, I was considered an adult child. I choose to not drink because of the fear that I would lose control and be a mean drunk too. Thanks to a book called Adult Children of Alcoholics written by Janet G. Woititz, I looked in my newspaper and found an adult child recovery group. In my mind the alcoholism and incest were intertwined. I couldn't separate the issues even though my dad didn't drink all of the time that he abused me.

I used those 12-Step meetings to talk about the incest. Those caring people believed me and didn't judge me or tell me that I was bad. They told me to get a sponsor and to work the Steps. My sponsor should have been a woman but I didn't trust women. The women in my childhood were all judgmental. One of them even told me when I was 5 years old that I was going to Hell for wearing shorts. I picked a man as my sponsor who I felt safe with. Shortly afterwards, he had me start working the 12 Steps and, after finishing with the first three Steps, writing out a very long 4th Step which had over 100 questions for me to answer about my childhood. I don't remember how long it took me to write out all of those answers but I was healing thru writing for the first time. Writing has always been an important tool to my healing. In writing, I don't censor my thoughts. I just write the words and feelings come out with the memories. I still do this today even. Those 12-Step meetings and the work I did with my sponsor saved my life and my marriage. I learned about codependency and dysfunctional families and so much about myself. I also went to 12-Step meetings for families and friends of alcoholics and found out where so many of my characteristics came from. I have written about those 12-Step meetings and the healing that I did in my blog Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker.                                                       (  http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com  )

I do not remember who directed me to read The Courage to Heal written by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis but I am so grateful that they did. Not long after I finished reading The Courage to Heal, the workbook which was written by Laura Davis came out and I wrote my way thru all of the exercises in the Workbook. Those two books helped me to dig deep into the pain to start to do some major healing. I used those and other books and my 12-Step groups to talk, write and to heal my way thru the worst of my incest issues over the next 10 years. I was also in two different incest survivor counseling groups for a total of about 5 years. Because of the 12-Step concept of a Higher Power, I was also able to heal my relationship with God and myself. This was also the beginning of my spiritual journey.

In 2007, I got my first computer and thru meeting a new friend online who offered me much encouragement to write and share my story and also instructed me on how to set up a blog, my blog Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker came into being June 1, 2007. Its growth has been slow and steady as other survivors have found and supported my articles. Regretfully over the past two years, I haven't written as many articles because of health problems and more time away from the computer. I do appreciate all of the support of my readers. It is thru my blog over the past six years that I have come to know a community of survivors and have in the past three years thru my blog, the use of Facebook and Twitter, I have become an advocate for myself and for other survivors of incest, rape, bullying, sibling abuse and domestic violence. I have spoken on a number of radio programs over the past three years to reach out to other survivors and to tell my story so that others know they can also tell their stories and they will be believed. I am an advocate for children, women and men. I am so grateful that men survivors are now breaking their own silence of abuse. Now the picture will come closer to being accurate. Too many of us have suffered in silence. I want survivors to know that they are not alone. I and others are here to hear you and support you back to health and healing.

40 Years Married To The Same Man Is Commitment

My husband Daniel and I are celebrating our 40th Wedding Anniversary today. Forty years married to the same man is commitment, love, compromise, and honesty. Our marriage of that long has also been filled with anger, fear, struggles and sometimes denial of feelings.

Our marriage has seen good years and some bad years. The bad years were among the first 25 when I was either in denial or was angry and sometimes raging because of the lasting effects of incest upon me and my interactions with others.

The first ten years, I was trying to control everything because of my fear of being out of control or under someone else's control like my dad when the incest was happening. I didn't trust Daniel to be able to keep me safe. When I was 27, I hit bottom emotionally when I heard myself screaming at Daniel that I hated him and everything about my life. I heard myself screaming those hateful words and I knew they weren't true. The reality that I faced that day was that I hated myself - the abused and terrified little girl inside of me who thought if she could control everything and everyone then she would never be hurt again. I hated and blamed that little girl for the incest. I hated myself. Somewhere the wisdom came that said that Daniel had nothing to do with me being so unhappy, so angry and so bitter.

I knew that I had to change me if I had any chance of being happy. I still had no idea what healthy was. I knew that trying to change Daniel would not help the situation. In a marriage, or any kind of relationship, you cannot change the other person to make you happy. My happiness came from inside me, not from Daniel. Daniel could do nothing to make me happy.

I wish I could say that I woke up to everything that day but I didn't. I struggled with who I was and what was normal. I didn't know for many years to come that what was normal was rarely healthy. Instead I decided to work on myself which means that I read the three books on incest that the Tyler, Texas library had at the time. I also decided to not have any contact with my dad or his side of the family hoping that would bring me some peace. I was still in denial trying to be okay when I wasn't. Having no contact with my dad's family of origin lasted for ten years and stopped when I realized that they weren't my dad and they shouldn't be punished for what he did. I missed my aunts and uncles and grandmother being in my life.

As I searched for peace, I stuffed emotions until they would come spewing out with the force of a volcano in either tears late at night when no one but my husband could see or rage that hurt those closest to me, mostly Daniel. I couldn't control the feelings so the stuffing and exploding went on for years. Those were the bad years. I missed a lot because I was so focused on trying to not feel the pain of incest. Those years were filled with denial that the incest happened and was a part of my life even though I no longer lived at home with my dad. I didn't leave the incest behind just because my dad was out of my life. I couldn't wish it so no matter how much I tried. Denial just builds more hurt on top of the original.

Wow! I didn't know that I was going to tell you all of that. I don't want you to think that all of our 40 years were bad because they weren't. Daniel and I have had good years too. In the 1970's we moved from Shreveport, Louisiana to Asheville, North Carolina when our son was born and where we spent every Sunday driving through the Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains and absorbing the beauty of God's creation. Daniel and I moved to Asheville when he got a job there in 1973. The three years that we spent in Asheville allowed us to learn to depend upon each other without any family members living nearby. We left Asheville to move back to Louisiana when I was pregnant with our daughter.

The three years we spent in North Carolina strengthened our friendship with each other. I don't believe we would have been married for 40 years if not for our friendship. Marriage, to me, is about liking as well as loving someone else. My husband taught me that someone could love me. Before I met Daniel I didn't think I would ever find someone to love or someone who would love me back. He taught me that I was lovable.

Believe me when I tell you that Daniel taught me all about love over the years. He stayed during the worst of times before and after I started healing from incest. With the healing came a time of great confusion where I had to find out who I was. I had to learn to love myself. In learning to love myself, I was able to give a much greater love to my husband and children. Since our 25th Anniversary, more love, laughter and joy has come into my life. Daniel is responsible for a lot of the changes that I have made. He didn't make the changes, I did, but he is part of the reason that I wanted to make the changes. I wanted the pain to stop but I also wanted to be a better wife and mother for Daniel and our children.

Happy 40th Anniversary my love of my life, Daniel.  You mean more to me that I can express. You are a big part of the reason that I am the person that I am today. I love you with all of my heart. You are my Sweetheart.  You taught me to laugh. You showed me that it is okay to cry. You helped me to build a safe place for me to live in our home and in my own body. Thank you.

I am surprised to see how long this post has become. I hope it makes some sense to you. Let me know what you think.
Patricia

Denial: Pretending Everything Is Okay Doesn't Mean Everything Is Okay

Most of the time denial is not helpful. Sometimes it is. Denial can actually save a life or at least a person's sanity, for awhile, when that person is living with abuse on a daily basis like many children do.

Using denial to leave the abuse behind at home helped me to feel safe each day when I went to school. I always loved going to school. I hated summers and holidays that I couldn't go to school.

I had teachers who cared about me and helped me to feel proud that I could excel at something and make good grades. I didn't get that praise and acknowledgment at home.

On the other hand, those same teachers didn't recognise that I was being abused at home. I had no physical signs of abuse on my body but even if I had, I don't know that the teachers could have or would have done anything about the incest in the 1950's and 1960's in America. A man had more freedom then to do as he pleased with his wife and children and often the law would not intervene. The awareness of abuse just wasn't there or if it was, it was rarely acted upon.

Pretending that everything is okay when it isn't, as an adult, is not helpful most of the time. The very same denial, that protected me as a child, worked against me as an adult. Denial comes at a high cost to the human body and mind.

Holding back emotions, hiding from memories, refusing to see the abuse that is going on or went on in the past - all of these can cause stress that wears out the body and harms the mind of the victim. I didn't know how much energy it took to hold on to my denial until I let go of it.

Holding in emotions rather than feeling them takes tremendous mental control. Your body carries all of that stress whether you want to accept it or not. The stress of shutting down emotionally can do harm in the physical realm of the body by causing symptoms like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and many other conditions.

If you are in denial, stop. Give your mind and body a break. You deserve to have a full life. That doesn't happen when you are in denial. For you to heal, and you are definitely worth taking the time and effort to heal, the denial must go. Yes, letting go of the denial, initially, hurts more. That stage doesn't last. You can get past the hurt. You can survive feeling the hurt. Then as you let go of the hurt, through feeling it, you will heal.

As you heal, joy and peace become a possibility that you can open yourself up to. Ask any survivor/thriver, if letting go of the denial and feeling the pain was worth what they have today. They will tell you that it was. Please do this for yourself. You are worth it.
Patricia

Related Articles:

Resources For An Incest Survivor And Adult Children Of Dysfunctional Families @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/04/resources-for-incest-survivor-and-adult.html

Childhood Memories @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/10/childhood-memories.html

Dialogues With Dignity And 22 Ways To Love Yourself @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/01/dialogues-with-dignity-and-22-ways-to.html

March 2012 Blog Links Love

It is time for to share more of the blogs that I have read this month. Let me and them know what you found interesting or educating. Warning: Some of these may be triggers if you are a survivor.

1.  From the blog, Evil Sits at the Dinner Table, the article entitled "Denial, Repression, and Dissociation in Child Sexual Abusers @
http://ordinaryevil.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/denial-repression-and-dissociation-in-child-sexual-abusers/

2.  A second blog post from the blog, Evil Sits at the Dinner Table, the article is "Suburban Secrets: Affluent, Well-Dressed Fathers Sometimes Rape Their Children" @
http://ordinaryevil.wordpress.com/2012/03/%2017/suburban-secrets-affluent-well-dressed-fathers-sometimes-rape-their-children/

3.  This one is an article from The New York Times and is about the Catholic Church and Survivors' Network. The name of the article is "Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims' Group found at the following link @
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/catholic-church-pressures-victims-network-with-subpoenas.html

4. The blog is called The Secret Survivor and the post is listed under Poems as "Incested" and "A Choice". Here is the link @
http://secret-survivor.blogspot.com/2012/02/choice.html

5.  The blog is called Get the Lid OFF! and the article is "OTB... Cont'd ~ It Wasn't Enough" found at the following link @
http://getthelidoff.blogspot.com/2011/11/otb-contd-it-wasnt-enough.html

6.  With this blog, take you pick of what you want to read. They are all encouraging and uplifting.  pinwheel girls: helping women be true to themselves is one of my favorites to read every week. Here is the link @
http://pinwheelgirls.com/

7.  Silence Is Not Golden is the next site to visit. You will find the JustJess Blog and other information for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse at the link @
http://www.silenceisnotgolden.us/

8.  At the blog healthpsychologyconsultancy blog, you will find the following article: "Counsellor Training: The Importance of Personal Life History" @
http://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/counsellor-training-the-importance-of-personal-life-history/

9.  School Bullying Council wrote the blog post "Teens join anti-bullying effort" @
http://www.schoolbullyingcouncil.com/teens-join-anti-bullying-effort/

10.  The last website is called Who Invented The Internet. The article is "Stop Bullying Now: What should I do if I'm being bullied?" @
http://whoinventedinternet.com/stop-bullying-now/

Forgiveness Is Not Forgetting The Child Abuse

DO NOT EVER FORGET THE CHILD ABUSE HAPPENED!

Over at the blog Emerging From Broken, a conversation is going on about forgiveness.  This isn't your usual discussion of forgiveness that you would hear at your local church or maybe even in your own family discussions on the subject.  This discussion is heartfelt and often bone-weary, by survivors who have thought long and hard about what forgiveness means and what it doesn't mean to them as survivors of abuse.  I have written on the subject of forgiveness more than once or twice here on my blog.  Please bear with me again.

First, and foremost, in my mind is the opening statement above.  I will repeat it so you forget.

DO NOT EVER FORGET THE CHILD ABUSE HAPPENED!

Why?  Because if you forget, the abuse---emotional, physical, sexual---that happened to you or to someone else that you know and love, how can you ever hope to stop the abuse that will damage the next generation of children.  If you forget, someone can come along and abuse you again.  You cannot stop what you are not aware of.  You cannot let that happen.  You could do nothing to stop your own abuse when you were a child.  Yes, the child abuse that you lived through WAS NOT your fault.  [Sorry about the shouting with all the capital letters, but this topic is important to me.] 

STOPPING CHILD ABUSE SHOULD BE IMPORTANT TO EVERY ADULT.  WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN.

Darlene [Emerging From Broken], it looks like I caught your Rant.  Thanks for passing it along.  I hope that I do the same with my words.

Some words about forgiveness:
"You must forgive your parents."
"You must honor and love your parents."
"You should keep family matters in the family."
"Just forgive and move on."
"I am so tired of hearing you complain about your incest issues.  Can you just shut up?"
"Get over it."
"Heal already.  This has gone on long enough."
"I don't want to hear another word about your issues."
"Why can't you just forgive and forget."
"How much longer are you going to talk about this subject?"
"Do you have to talk about the incest all the time?"
"That was a long time ago.  This is now. Shouldn't you be over that by now?"

These are a few of the things that have been said to me to supposedly help me or shut me up and hurry me along on my way to healing and forgiving.  Did any of them work?  No, they just made me angry and hurt and helped me to doubt and abuse myself with questions such as:

"Why can't I just do what they say?"
"Why don't I just shut up and pretend that it doesn't still hurt?"
"Denial isn't so bad. Is it?"
"Forgiveness seems to be so easy for everybody else.  Why can't I do it?"
"I must still be so stupid, like my parents said, because I am just not getting it."
"Forgiveness is just something else that I am screwing up."
"I just can't get anything right."
"I am just no good or I could forgive."
"Maybe my parents were right and I'm just a bad seed."
"Everything I touch goes wrong."
"I am such a stupid Bitch that I can't even do forgiveness right."
"It is all my fault any way."

Did any of those statements make it any easier to heal or to forgive?  NO.  When my own doubts joined with the words of others to further confuse me and the issue of forgiveness, I was actually ever further away from forgiving than when I started out.  These words and doubts just gave me more ways to abuse myself.  Abusing myself is just another something that I have to do forgiveness for.  Is it any wonder that we often feel overwhelmed when we first look at forgiveness?

Well, I think that my Rant just turned into a series of posts because I am just getting started on what I wanted to say about forgiveness.  This post isn't the direction that I thought I would be going when I sat down out here on my front porch to enjoy the mild Autumn temperatures, fresh air and sunshine while I was thinking and writing out my thoughts.

If you reach the place where you can forgive your abusers, DO NOT EVER FORGET THAT YOU WERE ABUSED!
Patricia


Here are the three other blog posts that prompted me to sit down and write out my thoughts about forgiveness:

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
"Prelude To Forgiveness"
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/prelude-to-forgiveness.html

Repeating The Effects Of Growing Up In A Dysfunctional Home

Becoming Your Own Parent, The Solution for Adult Children of Alcoholic and Other Dysfunctional Families , written by Dennis Wholey, Bantam Books, New York, New York, January 1990.
This book was first published by Doubleday in October 1988. 

This is one of the many books that I read back in the early 1990's that helped me to grow so much in my beginning years of recovery.  I gave my original copy of this book away years ago to someone else that I thought would find the information useful.  Sometime in the past year, I found my current copy in a used book store.  I haven't checked with Amazon to see if you can still get the book or if it is out of print.

You will find me quoting from this book for awhile longer yet as I continue to read through it.  Here is some more information that I found in the book that I thought you might find as valuable as I did back in the 1990's and still find very useful today.

page 182-183: 
"People coming out of a dysfunctional home always feel unlovable.  They feel they have been loved for the role they play, not for who they are.  You are only capable of re-creating with another human being the nature of the relationship you have with yourself.  If you punish yourself, you will punish your love partner.  If you hate yourself, you will end up hating your love partner.  If you are afraid of yourself, you will be afraid of your love partner.  A person is incapable of establishing a level of intimacy with another human being that is greater than the level of intimacy he or she has with himself or herself.  You can't go out and find intimacy.  What you can do is adopt a policy of attraction, and who you are limits who's going to be attracted to you.  A woman who needs to be victimized will attract a brutalizing man.  Healthy people attract healthy partners."

My very first date was when I was 19, two years after I had stood up to my dad and said no more sexual abuse is going to happen.  I was still living at home and going to a small junior college near by.  I had a crush on the guy for a year before he finally asked me out.  Even though I was no longer being sexually abused, I was still in victim mode.  I had three dates with this young man.  The first one was the only one that I asked permission from my parents.  The next one I went to spend the night at a girl friend's house and went on the second date from there.  Even though I was 19 and legally an adult, my dad was still telling me what I could do and what I couldn't.  I let him because I wasn't strong enough to do otherwise.  I was 19 but still very immature from never being given choices as a child.  I was also emotionally stuck at 11 years old or younger because of the incest.  I knew none of this when I was 19.

I thank God today that this young man did not ask me to marry him.  If he had, I would have said yes because I thought I loved him.  His version of love was the same as my dad's.  I was someone that he could control.  I would do whatever he said.  When we had sex, I let it happen rather than saying no.  To me, sex was love since that is what my dad had told me for all of my childhood years.  I believed him.  I thought if I said no that he wouldn't "love" me. 

Today I know that sex isn't love.  It can be a part of love but just the act is not love especially if it is abusive too.  Sex with this young man was abusive.  I didn't complain or say no because I didn't know how to be anything else but a victim at that time in my life.  On that first date, we went to his younger sister's where he borrowed some of her clothes for me to wear on our date.  According to him, I wasn't dressed good enough for our date.  I said nothing and went along with it even though my feelings were hurt.  I was proud of the pants suit that I had put together from the few clothes that I had.  Pants suits had become popular for girls to wear in the late 1960's.  This was his first controlling behavior toward me.

Why didn't I ask my parents before going out on the second date?  Because I knew instinctively that my dad hated this young man that had the courage to come and ask for that first date.  I didn't realize at the time that the two were probably jealous of each other.  Both sensed the predator in the other.  Both sensed the controller in each of other.  They were very much alike. They both wanted to control me, not love me.  I just didn't know it at the time.  If we had married, I would have gone from one dictator to another.  With this new dictator, there would have also been physical abuse, not just sexual abuse.  At one point during that first date, the young man made the statement that he really ought to just take me away from my dad.  He said it joyfully and spitefully.  I sensed that something was wrong but didn't know what.  Some part of me was afraid of this young man, but then again, that was familiar to me.  I was afraid of my dad.

The last date we had, I was away at college.  I was still 19 or maybe had just turned 20.  We went to a drive-in movie, my first since I was about 5 years old.  We spent most of the time wrestling in the front seat of his car because I said no to sex.  By then, I had grown a little and was no longer content to be abused or to call sex love any longer.  I had been away from home for a few months.  I had gone through a summer away from home and the influence of my parents.  I loved the freedom to explore what I wanted for myself.  I knew I didn't want to be abused any longer.  I was a long way from knowing who I was but I was able to set a few small boundaries for myself - not being abused or sexual with this person was one of those first boundaries.  He didn't ask me out for another date after that night.  Thank you God.

I would have followed a path similar to the path my sister chose if I had continued to date this young man and married him.  I would have been a battered woman because at that point in my life I didn't know that I deserved better.  Only through the Grace of God did I not go down that path in life.

I was a long way from leaving the victim role behind but still beginning to feel better about myself.  I was at the point where I thought if I wasn't living at home that I could ignore the incest and that meant I wasn't still being affected by it.  I could pretend that was true.  I wanted so badly to be happy and to be free from my past that I pretended that it just didn't happen. It seemed to work for awhile.  Reality is pretending never worked but I continued to lie to myself anyway.  Another familiar pattern, everyone else lied to me so why shouldn't I lie to myself.  I just wanted to be happy and to fit in.

The next date that I attracted into my life was an alcoholic like my dad.  We only dated a few times.  I didn't know at the time that he was an alcoholic.  He dated me for a short time after he and his high school sweetheart broke up.  They went back together sometime after our few dates and eventually married.  Today he is divorced.  Does he still drink?  I have no idea.  Again, I thank God that our paths divided and he went one way and I went another.  Why was I attracted to him?  Probably because he was an alcoholic and that was familiar to me.  It wasn't what I wanted in my life but it was familiar.  I didn't see the signs.  I didn't know about all of the drinking he was doing at the time.  We don't see what we don't want to see.  Because it is familiar, we are attracted to it.  That is why many Adult Children grow up to become alcoholics themselves or they marry them.

By the time that I met my husband, I knew that I didn't want to marry an alcoholic.  Instead I married another Adult Child of an Alcoholic.  Neither of us drinks.  I don't drink because I saw the consequences of living with my dad and my grandfather and their drinking when I was a child.  Drinking scares me.  The thought of losing control like my dad and grandfather did scares me.  My husband doesn't drink because he can't.  It puts him to sleep.  He must be one of those Adult Children that is allergic to alcohol.  For whatever reason, I am grateful.

Well, when I sat down to write this post, I thought I would just give you the quote and leave it at that.  I am glad that the thoughts started pouring into my mind.  I think that the words are much better when you can back them up with personal experiences.  It also helps me to make the connections for myself as I write to you.  I think we all learn much more from the experiences shared.  Hope you are all having a glorious weekend.
Patricia

The Movie "Precious" And Incest

Here is a recent comment that I left on the website Bossip.com . You can find the article that I commented to at the following link: [Warning: the language of the comments may be offensive to some. The video could also be a trigger for some incest survivors.]

http://bossip.com/224627/damn-gabourey-sidibes-precious-audition-tape-is-powerful-video/ .

"Incest is a very big problem in our society. I have never heard Oprah or anyone else say that it only happens in the black community. Believe me, it doesn't.

Those of us who are incest survivors know just how big this problem is. I am an incest survivor and my skin color is white. Black or white, skin color doesn't matter if you are an incest survivor.

This problem has been hidden for so very long. I think we are blessed that Oprah and other celebrities are bringing the secret of incest out into the open. As long as it is hidden, we will never stop it from happening to our children. The children are important. They are our future.

If you don't like Oprah's choice of movies or her topics on her show, don't watch them. Tell [should have been "turn"] the TV off. Don't buy tickets to the movie. You have a simple choice not to go there.

As an incest survivor, I can't turn off my life. My past has molded me into who I am today. Today I am a survivor. "Get over it" as some other commenter said isn't as easy as you would like to believe. Today incest doesn't rule my life like it once did.

If "getting over it" was an easy option, don't you think we would do that. It isn't easy. Incest affects every area of my life. Shame, low-self worth, self-hatred, rage, a hurt so deep that it seems like you will never recover from it---I have dealt with all of these. People who tell you to just "get over it" don't know what the hell they are talking about and I hope that they never learn about incest first hand. Don't let your ignorance make you heartless.

What you want is for me to go back into denial of my incest issues. That isn't healthy and helps no one, lest of all me. Pretending that I am not affected by incest just makes me more of a victim which I refuse to ever be again. How about you stop pretending that incest isn't a part of our world?"

In the video audition, Miss Sidibe say two things that jumped out at me. She said, "I'm tired." and she said, "I've had enough of love."

For most of my life since I was a very small child, I have lived with a bone weary tiredness that never seemed to leave. I think that I still carry some of that feeling in my body. I learned to live with that tiredness a long time ago if I wanted to achieve anything in my life. I have been reading about doing body work on several other blogs over the past few months. Maybe it is time for me to find out if I can trust enough to do body work.

I think that many incest survivors have decided that they have had enough of love. Love to an incest survivor often has the sexual abuse so tied up in the concept of love that it is hard to trust anyone else to be intimate enough to give healthy love a chance to grow. Trust is so much involved with loving another person, letting that person get close enough for love to grow. Some of us have been so abused that trust in another person is almost impossible to even imagine. Having someone abuse you sexually while they are saying that they love you really messes up your concept of trust and love. Having someone tell you, like my dad did, that if you love me you will let me do this makes you not even trust yourself, much less someone else. Only by the grace of God did I take a chance and let myself learn to love my husband when he came into my life back in 1972. He is worth loving and so am I. I don't know where I got the courage to even try. Some incest survivors don't.

Incest and violence neither one are confined to just one race. Neither cares about the color of your skin or what language you speak or if you are even old enough to speak. Sometimes they don't even care if you are male or female. They don't care how much money your family has and they don't care what educational level your family comes from. They don't discriminate like some people would like you to believe.
Patricia

Denial, FEAR's Companion And BFF

Sometimes denial can help us to survive an unbearable situation. Sometimes denial can keep us trapped in that unbearable situation. How do you know the difference?

Denial can be FEAR's closest companion and helper in keeping you trapped in its tight-fisted hold. Denial keeps you from seeing FEAR for what it is. Denial might be considered FEAR's BFF---today's slang meaning "Best Friends Forever". That is how close denial and fear can be to each other. Denial can help fear to become the monster FEAR. A friend recently said that his serenity comes from accepting that "what is is." Denial doesn't let you do that. Denial doesn't want you to do acceptance of your circumstances because if you do denial dies. Denial's death is the beginning of letting go of your fears. When you face your fears, then FEAR is on his way out of your life. Letting go of denial is when you can finally start chipping away at your fears one at a time. FEAR can't live if you do away with its BFF denial and all of its little fears.


Whether you know it or not, you have the courage to face down FEAR. Breaking it down to all of its parts makes FEAR go away. FEAR can't exist in the same room with awareness and acceptance. Have you made your list of fears that I invited you to do in my previous article? I hope that you have because that is the beginning of taming FEAR and running him out of your life. Once you do that don't leave a vacuum around you where FEAR used to reside because he can slip back in. Fill that space with hobbies that you love, people that you love. Fill that space with Love, joy and contentment. "Let Go and Let God" is one of the slogans from Al-Anon that I use to let go of a lot of my fears over the years. Letting God, your Higher Power (whatever that means to you), your Higher Self, a recovery group, your counselor or therapist, your best friend, your spouse, whatever support system that you have be there to help you face your fears and release them from your life. Ask for help when you need it. Asking for help can be one of your fears---fear of rejection, fear of being judged. Face that fear. Reach out to someone who loves you. You don't have to do this work by yourself.

Below you will find links to other articles that I have posted about fear. I invite you to click on the links for more information on the topic of fear.

Gifts Of Facing Your Fears:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/06/gifts-of-facing-your-fears.html

Tools Of The Ego:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/04/tools-of-ego.html

Fear Expressed:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/fear-expressed.html

Fear Is My Friend:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/01/fear-is-my-friend.html

Let me know how you are dealing with facing your fears? Is your fear still the monster FEAR or have you chopped him down to a manageable size? What has worked for you? What didn't work? Remember, you don't have to go through your fears alone.
Patricia

Inspiration, Denial And Incest

This post is the result of a comment that I received on my last post "What Childhood Incest Taught Me". You will find the words from the comment here in italics when I quote it.

Warning this comment and post may be triggering.

I came through here looking for something inspirational to read and this is what I've found. I am feeling overwhelmingly sad for whoever this is. That life is one noone would choose to bare or even wish on the worst of people.

For inspirational, you picked the wrong post. And for "whoever this is", that is me. These were the lessons that I learned. I know from other comments and friends that these were also lessons that they learned from their own childhoods of abuse.

For anyone who has read my blog for very long, you know that some of my blog posts are inspirational. Some of my blog posts are about the very real facts, feelings, memories and stages of living with and dealing with the effects of incest. There is nothing inspirational about those posts. Yes, I know that some of them are difficult to read. They are also difficult for me to write even though I am in a better place in my life today. Sometimes I still feel the pain, sadness, anger and hurt of that abuse. Those blog posts I write are for other abuse survivors to let them know what my own experiences have been and to let them know that they are not alone. I have been there. I know it for the hell that it can be, especially when you feel so alone and so sad that you wonder if life is even worth living. I have always managed to take the next step. Sometimes it is two steps forward and one step back. That is the road to recovery. There is nothing easy about it.


For your experiences, all of you, I am truly heartbroken.

Thank you for your compassion and empathy. They are appreciated.


But there is something you each must realize. You each have suffered, in your own time, some of you maybe once or twice, others for years. But those times are not here, those years are not these years.

Part of my comment reply to this comment fits here: My question to you is, "Have you experienced any major trauma or abuse in your life?" It doesn't sound like it. If you haven't, you have no idea what it is like or how difficult it is to get over it.


You have to realize that sometimes life hands us so much... and all the while the world is so cruel. We start to feel like that is all that is ever to be dealt us. But it just isn't. You must each move on. I know you may think that this is impossible. But I know that as you read this those encounters are distant, very real, experiences. Key word being distant.

You have probably never had flashbacks or nightmares or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Soldiers aren't the only ones who get PTSD. Survivors of child abuse and survivors of sexual abuse do too. When those symptoms happen, you are not in control of your feelings or actions. You can be thrown back into "those years". Nobody wants that to happen but it does, sometimes on a daily basis. It takes years of therapy to recover from these. "Key word being distant." There is nothing distant about those years when you are in the middle of a flashback or nightmare. You can tell me they aren't real but when you are in the middle of it, they are very real. Have you ever had a flashback? If not, you don't know what you are talking about.


You are each holding so closely to something that with every single thought of it your heart breaks inside. Why are you choosing to hold on?

Why would anyone choose to hold on to the kind of emotional pain that most people can't even imagine, if they had a choice? Just choosing to be happy sounds like a really good reality but it is very often the road to denial. I did that road for a lot of years. That road that says, "I don't feel anything about the incest. I don't hate my abusers. I don't hate myself. I don't feel anything so I can't be affected by the incest. It doesn't affect my life, my decisions, my children, me. Life is fine. Life is great." The road to denial is a road of lies. I was disconnected from my feelings, from myself. I did hate myself. I did hate my abusers. I was so full of rage, sadness and hurt that I couldn't feel anything else. If you deny any feelings, you deny them all. I had a volcano of fire inside of me that caused headaches, stomach aches and other physical symptoms that shows what I was holding in rather than dealing with. I was taught all of this denial as a child. The denial didn't stop until I got sick and realized that denial didn't work. That is the real world of an incest survivor.

Just letting go of all of the pain isn't really an option until you have worked through all of your issues. Then the letting go is possible. Is it an instant possibility, just in the case of a miracle. I do believe in miracles. I also know that denial is alive and well until I choose to let go of it and face the reality of incest.


You have to realize that you are something amazing on the inside. That the real true parts of us are ones that NO ONE can touch but you.

I can agree with the above statement. On the spiritual level, my Higher Self is untouchable by what happens to my body. The truth is that each of us is a Light to the world. Sometimes that Light does get hidden by the struggles of Life. This isn't something that a child who is being abused or an adult who is still suffering from the abuse is even aware of. On a spiritual level, I can even say that "Yes, I chose this lifetime to learn the lessons that incest teaches me. My parents chose to help teach me those lessons." It has taken me years to reach the level of acceptance that this requires. Most abuse survivors aren't there yet. Do I condemn them as stupid or not whole or anything else derogatory because they aren't at this level of understanding yet? No, not at all. There are still some days that I question the validity of those beliefs and they are my own. Do I expect everyone else to accept and live by those "spiritual" beliefs? Again, no, not at all. Is it ok if you disagree with me? Yes, absolutely. Do I want to hear how you disagree with me? Only if it is offered in a respectful manner.


What happened to you, happened to your body. And you each, understandably, allowed it to alter more than just your body. You let your spirits still feel the pain.

I don't know about you but, yes, I live in a physical world which affects my mental and emotional world. I believe that my spiritual world encompasses all of the others and uses those others to teach its lessons. I eventually see the blessings that come from going through the pain but not until I have worked through the pain.

Again you used the word "let" as if the victim of abuse knows that they have choices. Victims don't know that they have choices. Choices didn't exist for me for many, many years because I believed the lies of the abuser who told me he was in control and that I had to do what he told me to do. I had no choices until I got into a recovery program and learned what choices meant. That is when I learned that I was responsible for my own life and my own choices. That is a very big lesson for survivors. Not everyone learns that lesson.


Just imagine yourself as a light inside a dark cave. No matter how dark it is on the outside, no matter how it may storm, it doesn't change that there is light on the inside. You are safe because you are that light.

As an incest survivor, I didn't learn that the world was a safe place. Yes, I have always been aware of that inner Light. That inner Light is probably the only thing that kept me from splitting into different personalities as some childhood abuse survivors do. My Spirit has always been and will always be safe. My physical world has never felt safe.


You are you at the happiest moments in your life, not the you that always returns home to your pain.

You live in a world of duality---Light and Dark, Love and Fear, Good and Evil, Day and Night, Sad and Happy, Calm and Chaos. You can't have one without the other. Without Sad how would you know what Happy is? Without Evil how would you know what Good is? Without Fear how would you know what Safe is or Love is? Hate isn't the opposite of Love, Fear is. Lack of Love equals Fear. You can't know what the "happiest moments in your life" are unless you know what the worst moments of your life are.


Let it go now. Move on. Decide you have this one life, and no matter what the world will ever throw at you will never matter.

I have discovered that those people who tell me to "Let it go now. Move on." are usually one of two types. They either have never experienced what I have and therefore know nothing about the process that it takes to heal. Or, they have their own abuse issues that they want to stay in denial of. If you see me going through my issues and haven't dealt with your own, then my struggle threatens your denial. That is why you tell me to let it go and to move on so that you don't have to become aware of your own unresolved issues.

I feel sad for those who are still in denial of their own issues. I have little sympathy for those who don't know what they are talking about because they have never experienced what I have. If you haven't been there, you have no idea of what it takes to live my life and to struggle to get better. Don't tell me to get over it. If you have been where I am and were able to let go of your issues by healing them, then tell me how you did it. Share your experiences and what worked. Don't share your denial of your issues. I don't need that. I did that, on my own, years ago and I know that denial just helps you continue to live in the pain. Denial heals nothing. When you are in denial, you aren't happy. You aren't free. The only way to freedom is through the pain, not around it.


You are stronger now than anyone will ever know. You can take this world on and actually live free from your past.

Yes, I am stronger than even I knew that I would ever be. I am more courageous than I ever thought I could be. I am more compassionate that I ever thought possible. I am proud to be the woman that I am today. I am the best parent that I know how to be to my inner child.

I don't live completely free from my past. I don't believe that that is totally possible. I don't know that I would want it to be. My past has formed who I am today. Without that past I would not be stronger, more courageous, compassionate, proud of who I am today. Without my past, I would not be aware of the blessings of my life today. Yes, today, I can take on whatever the world throws at me. This is true because of my past.


Some of you maybe have already found a church. But some of you may feel like there are far too many questions. But all I can say is...you can walk make the decision to just say goodbye to all that stuff you can't bring back or change. And never have to think about it again. The person that hurt you had their free will, and they chose to storm boldly away from what was right, and you suffered. That makes it the fault of no one but them, not you and definitely not God. Choose to forget and start living your life in the light. Remember these bodies die, but we will never die. Where are you headed, and lets make it great! "Love your neighbor as yourself" said someone very special. It's great advice. Good Luck.

The comment about finding a church can be a future post all of its own. I "found a church", but many others, not just survivors, choose differently. I am happy with my church. That is my choice.

I don't blame God for what happened to me. I never have. I know that some survivors do. I did turn my back on God for a few years because I thought He did nothing to stop the abuse. A part of me always felt His presence in my life. That presence is what gave me the strength to survive when many others didn't.

I know that some don't believe in a God who could allow such abuses to happen to a child. Others look to God for grace and love. I believe in free will and that you are each responsible for your own actions. I know that some of the abused go on to abuse the next generation. Most of you don't. Many choose to stop the abuse rather than pass it on to future generations.

Some of you choose to share your own experiences, as I do, by blogging about them online. Others choose to write in private journals. Some of you still continue in the silence because you haven't found your voice yet. It is for other incest and childhood abuse survivors that I write of my experiences. Any time that someone survives abuse in any form and can write about that journey, that is inspirational. It isn't light, funny inspiration. It is sad, thoughtful, sometimes tearful. It is always heartfelt. Sometimes it comes from a deep well of hurt. It is always healing to be able to bring these thoughts and feelings to the surface and share them with others. It can be educational to share with others who have never experienced abuse in their own lives. Without awareness, you can stop nothing.

If you come here looking for happy and joyful and light, sometimes you will find it here. Other times you won't. I won't apologize for my words. This is my life. I share it to give strength and hope to other survivors. I also share it to spread awareness of the evil disease of abuse that lives in this world. I look forward to hearing what you think about this post and any other post that you want to comment on. I reserve the right to agree or disagree with your comments.
Patricia