Father's Day And Incest

I know that Father's Day, and Mother's Day too, for that matter, can be hard days to get through if you were abused as a child by your parents. You just don't have the good feelings that you would have if your parents were good at their jobs. You can even envy your friends who had good parents. You can take it so far as to resent that your own kids have good parents. No one says feelings have to be rational. They aren't always. 

I decided a long time ago, before my dad died, that I could celebrate the fact that my husband Daniel is a good father to our two children. I could teach my children to honor their father in the way that I can't honor my dad who sexually abused me as a child. 

Daniel is a good dad. He has always played an active part in the lives of our children. He changed diapers and cleaned up messes as well as being there for the good parts of being a dad. I was more the disciplinarian but most moms are. Daniel played with the kids more and made us all laugh. He has always been there for our children and still is today with our children moving into their late 30's. I think he has always tried to be the dad that he didn't have as a child. Daniel's dad was 55 when he was born and health issues prevented him from doing the recreational things that Daniel made sure that he did with our two children when they were growing up. Daniel's dad died shortly after retirement when Daniel was still in high school.

Neither of our grown children have had a chance to wish their dad Happy Father's Day yet because he went to a reenactment this weekend in Mississippi. He will be home around early evening probably. I know he had a good time because he and I have talked briefly a few times since he left but not today. I don't know if he realizes that today is Father's Day. I didn't until sometime Friday afternoon. 

Happy Father's Day, Daniel and to any of my readers who are good dad's to your children.

As I came on Facebook today and also checked my emails, I read other blogger friends' articles about Father's Day and so I am sharing those links with you here. They all talk about the mixed emotions that survivors share about their parents and why Father's Day is difficult for them.
Patricia

Fathers Day! @
http://speak4change.com/blogging/fathers-day/ 

Father's Day - Lessons learned, Love lost, Life Reclaimed @
http://www.mskinnermusic/home/fathers-day-lessons-learned-love-lost-life-reclaimed/ 

When Dad Enables Mom in Emotionally Abusive Family Relationships @
http://emergingfrombroken.com/when-dad-enables-mom-in-emotionally-abusive-family-relationships/ 

Trust Is Earned, Not Freely Given

Trust and forgiveness are two of the hardest issues for survivors of childhood abuse whether it is sexual, physical or emotional abuse. I have written a number of articles about forgiveness and probably will write a few more in the future. Trust is what I want to talk about today.

Another blogger got me to thinking about the issue of trust. Darlene Ouimet of the blog Emerging From Broken recently posted an article - Is Trust a Necessary Key to Emotional Healing? I will share the link to this post at the end of my article for those who would like to read it.

Trust is not one of the very first issues that I dealt with in my healing journey.  I didn't even realize that trust was an issue that I needed to work on. At that point in my journey, I just didn't trust much at all. My husband and a few close friends had my trust and that was it.  Many survivors know what I mean when I say that I didn't trust.

Looking back at my childhood, I remember being in the first grade and learning that promises were not to be made because they were going to be broken. I am sure that my parents were the ones to teach me that one. When you live with lies, secrets and broken promises, you don't learn to trust, not even yourself.

Trust has two extremes. Neither one is healthy.
1. You don't trust anyone.
2. You trust everyone until they prove that you shouldn't trust them.

Even if you aren't an abuse survivor, trust needs to be earned rather than freely given. I have been blessed with many close friends over the years that I have made the decision to trust after they proved that they could be trusted. Most have not hurt me. A few have.

Two of those friends that come to mind were also my teachers. I won't share the details of the betrayals here. The important thing is what I learned from those teachers.
1. I learned to value who I am.
2. I learned that sometimes teachers are only with you for a short time.
3. I learned that sometimes we grow and our teachers don't.
4. I learned that sometimes trust of a person doesn't have to be forever.
5. I learned that even if you forgive that person, it doesn't mean that they automatically get your trust back if they come back into your life.
6. Sometimes people come back into your life just so that you can see that whatever business you had with them has been finished.

I learned that I have grown considerably since those teachers were in my life the first time. I don't need their guidance like I once did. I do love them for what they taught me.  I am just not the same person who took them at face value before. I have learned caution when it comes to trusting others. I don't trust as easily the second time and I don't trust completely. I learned my lessons and have moved on. I don't think that either of these teachers see the changes but I do. I am not angry with either of them and I don't feel hurt by their past actions so I guess you could say that I have forgiven them. I just don't need what they have to offer right now. The first time, I walked away in anger and hurt. This time, I walked away with peace and comfort in my own abilities and in making my own decisions. I listen to my inner teacher rather than needing an outer teacher. That was a big lesson for me.
Patricia


Is Trust a Necessary Key to Emotional Healing? @
http://emergingfrombroken.com/is-trust-a-necessary-key-to-emotional-healing/

YouTube Video - Facebook Parenting for the Troubled Teen

Warning: If you are a survivor of childhood abuse, the following video may be triggering for you. At the very least, the video should be disturbing to more people that it is. This video shows that we are still a society that doesn't always recognize emotional abuse, especially when it is abuse of children.

Have you seen the YouTube Video entitled "Facebook Parenting for the Troubled Teen"? If you haven't here is the link for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl1ujzRidmU&feature=share

Please go watch this video and then return to read my views on the video.

When I visited YouTube this video had over 276,000 Likes and over 25,000 Dislikes.  I will share with you why I disliked the video below.

Here is my comment when I posted this video on my Facebook page:
"Warning: This may be triggering for some survivors. In order to be respected by your children, you need to respect them too. If she disappoints her dad enough, is she going to be the next thing he shoots? Have you never had a rant in which you said things you later regret and did things you wish you hadn't? In this instance posting the rants to FB (Facebook) might not have been a good idea for either of them. For many years I didn't respect my children or my husband because I didn't respect myself. I wasn't given or taught respect as an abused child. I had to learn it as a recovering adult."

As an adult, I am taking the side of the child. Yes, at 15, she is still considered a child. She may be a spoiled brat but who made her into that? I know that as an abused child living in an adult's body that I gave my two children more that they probably needed because of my own neglected inner children. Spoiling them was my fault. Many of us in trying to meet our own needs do this to our children.

(To my two children, I am not calling you spoiled brats. You weren't. Amazingly, you took some of the good that your dad and I were able to give you and you became adults that I am proud to call my children. You are both blessings to me and your dad. That is not to say you are perfect. I have never expected you to be perfect. I know that I am far from perfect as I know you will both agree.)

As I said above, the teenaged girl's rant on Facebook probably wasn't a good idea. Her dad's public rant didn't make the situation any better. He is supposed to be an adult. I know that he spoke out of frustration and he is an adult.

Two things about the video disturbed me as a parent and as an incest survivor. The dad's public humiliation of his daughter and his bringing a gun into the video. Humiliation is emotional abuse whether you are a child or an adult. Humiliation isn't about discipline. That dad was showing that he controlled his daughter, her possessions and even her life. Controlling her life is what the use of the gun represented to me. That gun said to me, "This time I will destroy your laptop. Next time it could be you." The gun was a silent threat but it was a threat. The dad may not have recognized it as such but it was. My dad did the same kind of threats when I was a child. 

The idea that this is the way his dad would have reacted when he was a child doesn't hold much value with me. This kind of activity was wrong then and it is wrong now. We should all learn from the mistakes of the generation before us. Continuing to make those same kind of behaviors is how we develop generational abuse patterns.  Incest has been a generational abuse pattern that I and many survivors are determined to stop. Emotional abuse of our children is another of those patterns that we need to stop. Parental bullying needs to stop.  Bullying is such an epidemic because so many parents use it and teach it to their children. Fear and humiliation shouldn't be used to discipline children.

My dad was a dictator who had to control his children and wife with a firm hand. Because I grew up that way, I did some of the same controling behaviors when my kids were small. As I grew and healed, I was able to stop some of those behaviors. I hope that this dad will take a look at his rant on this video and see that his own behavior isn't healthy. I do believe in giving children responsibilities but I don't believe in taking advantage of them either. I don't think that teenagers are entitled to everything that they want. I do believe that they have the right to express their feelings. Her dad needs to be more interested in what the girl is trying to tell him rather than how he or she looks on Facebook. The dad's reaction shows that he needs to do some growing up of his own.

The dad did a follow-up video that I haven't seen. I hope that he and his daughter have both been able to sit down and talk to each other, privately. I hope that he has been able to listen and to really hear what she is saying. Both need to let go of the anger and talk honestly with each other. Both need to feel valued. What neither of them seems to understand is that value comes from inside, not outside. I didn't do a very good job of teaching my children that because I didn't learn it until I was an adult. 

When two people are ranting, they both lose. Listening is the only solution for either of them. Listening has to be on both sides. I know that the dad is acting out his frustration. So is the daughter. I hope that they can talk and learn from each other. Children and adults both are entitled to their feelings. They aren't entitled to use that anger to hurt each other. That is where responsibility comes into the picture.

You don't have to agree or disagree with me on this post. These are just my own observations and my opinion. Your opinion is just as valid as mine. My opinions come from the filters of my own experiences just like yours do.

I want to address the matter of the gun again before I close. The gun brings out fear in me. Guns represent violence, even when the words aren't said. Guns kill. Guns represent the threat of killing. I grew up fearful that if I told my mother about the incest that she would kill my dad. That fear came from a story that I remember from sometime in my childhood. I don't remember how old I was the first time that I heard the story.

Sometime in the first year of my parents' marriage before I was born, my dad hit my mother. I don't remember being told why he thought it was okay to hit her. What I do remember is that she said she picked up his rifle, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. She was so angry that she didn't think to load the gun first. I am assuming that she thought it was loaded. She pulled the trigger. That is the important thing in this story. She intended to kill him because he hit her. Because of this one incidence, I assumed that if I told my mom that my dad had hurt me sexually that she would kill him and then she would go to prison and I would have no parents. That story was a very real threat to me. As a child, I probably thought that I would die too without my parents. Either way, as a child I thought it would have all been my fault if I told my mother about the incest.

That gun that the dad pulled out in the video represents a very real threat in the mind of his child, even if she is 15 years old. Threats can be just as damaging to the mind of a child. Fear of violence is a valid fear.

Thank you to Darlene Ouimet of the blog Emerging From Broken for making me aware of this video. Here is a link to the blog post from Darlene on this video. Remember that Darlene and I both write our blog posts from our own experiences of healing from incest. Emotional abuse and physical abuse are both parts of the abuse of incest. Here is the link to Darlene's blog post entitled, "Facebook Parenting for the Troubled Teen ~ How Kids are Devalued":

http://emergingfrombroken.com/facebook-parenting-for-the-troubled-teen-how-kids-are-devalued/

I ask that any discussions here be respectful of all concerned. Thank you.
Patricia

Healing Tools That I Have Learned

Some important healing tools that I have learned and used over the years are as follows:

1. I can't fix someone else's problems but I can listen because sometimes a good listener is all that is needed. Become an active listener instead of planning what you are going to say when the other person shuts up.

2.  If someone else's words upset me or make me angry, I need to look at where my reaction is coming from. What wounded part of me is feeling the anger, hate, fear or confusion? What can I do to change from reacting to acting? My upset is mine, not the other person's.

3.  Don't attack someone else because of what I am feeling.  I sometimes fail miserably at this one.  I have to think and act or not, rather than react to what I feel. I can do a lot of harm if I simply react out of my hurt, anger or fear. I can say I am sorry and make changes in my behavior if need be to make things right.

4.  Look at my own feelings and figure out where they are coming from. What do I still need to heal?  What steps can I take to heal these feelings? My feelings are my responsibility. The other person rarely sets out just to make me upset. What I do with my feelings is my own responsibility. I can choose to heal. I can make the committment to do my own healing work.

5.  Share from my own experiences rather than offering advice.  Advice makes me sound healthier, stronger, wiser - whatever superior word that my ego likes to add to make me appear better.  I am not any of those things.  I am equally wise and unwise, healthy and not so healthy, strong and weak in different areas and at different times.  I don't need to feed my ego to be the person I am or to be the person that I want to become. I am better than I was and I still have a long way to go to be who I want to be. Some days I am healthy and some days I am dysfunctional.  Some days I am a kind person and some days I can be mean and irritable.

6.  When I attack others, I am coming from my own place of woundedness which is something that I don't want to do.  Rather than attack, I try to look at what is going on inside of me.  Again, sometimes I am not so good at doing this one in a healthy manner. Progress is more important than perfection.

7.  My truth is my truth.  It may not be yours. I don't have the right to use my truth as absolute to attack you with.  I don't know your story.  You don't know mine.  Even when you share a part of your story here, it is just a part of your story so I can't and shouldn't make judgments about you or your story.  I ask the same consideration from you about me and my stories. I hope to always treat others with dignity and expect the same from others toward me.

8.  I am just as human, just as fallible as everyone else. Life is a constant journey with many ups and downs.  Many times I fall and have to get back up. It is the getting back up that is most important. Baby steps are better than no steps at all. Holding someone else's hand when I get scared helps. Lending someone else a helping hand helps them but it also helps me to become a better person.  Shared experiences and shared hope make for an easier journey.

9. I may be further along on my healing path than some others but it only takes one trigger to make me feel like that hurting, frightened child again. I have learned to take the time to comfort that child as my parents never did.  Reparenting my inner child has been an important step in healing.

10.  If I leave at the very first sign of trouble, how does anything get resolved.  Running away doesn't help.  It just keeps me in denial that I have a problem.

These healing tools were part of a comment that I left on the blog Emerging From Broken.  Here is a link to the article that I commented on:

http://emergingfrombroken.com/my-mother-doesn%e2%80%99t-love-me-and-the-process-of-grieving/

What healing tools help you in your life?
Patricia

Healing From Abuse Means Doing The Work of Healing

Healing from abuse means doing the work of healing, not just talking about the abuse.  Yes, in the beginning of healing, talking about what happened to you is important.  In fact, talking, in itself, is very healing and breaks the bonds of silence that your abusers taught you.  At what point in the journey, do some survivors get stuck in the drama of telling their stories and never move beyond that point?  How do you tell when you are healing from telling your story and when you are just plain stuck?

For me, I told my story over and over for about 10 years but that wasn't all that I was doing.  I was reading books on healing from incest.  I was writing about my own experiences.  I talked to other survivors who were doing their own work.  I went to two different groups for counseling as well as doing individual work with two counselors over that ten year period.  I also had two 12-Step sponsors that gave me personal work to do on healing from incest. 

I did the work of recognizing the lies that my abusers told me. Darlene Ouimet, the owner of Emerging From Broken blog, does the best job of anyone that I know of exposing the lies that many survivors grew up hearing from their abusers.  I will give you a link to Emerging From Broken at the end of this article. 

For many survivors, those abusers were one or both of their parents.  Exposing the lies of your abusers is a very important part of your early recovery.  So is telling your story. Both are healing steps that need to be taken. 

Telling your story does not mean creating drama for yourselves or others.  Some suvivors create drama as a way of recreating what they are used to as children.  This is where exposing the lies of your abusers is so important.  When you see those beliefs as lies, you can begin to choose how you will react to your triggers, how you will react to the people that, on purpose or accidentally, set off those triggers in you. 

I believe that triggers happen to show you where you still need to work on yourselves and the issues behind the triggers.  Triggers don't happen to make you blow up all over someone else.  When you do that, then you become like your abusers and abuse someone else. That is what was done to you as children and it is what you continue to do to others until you learn that you don't have to continue those unhealthy patterns of behavior. 

A pattern happens when you repeat the same behavior over and over.  I have learned to look for patterns in my own behavior.  With awareness of patterns, I can then decide to make changes or stay the same.  If my behavior is hurting me or others, I decide to change.  That in itself is a process that takes time with lots of trial and error and apologies along the way until I change that pattern with a new, healthier pattern.

One example that comes from my own life has to do with anger and rage.  Rage is unheathy anger that grows and grows and gets blow all out of proportion usually because the first signs of anger were ignored, denied or stuffed deep inside.  Rage eventually comes out when the pressure is too great to hold it in any longer.  It comes out, usually on someone that totally doesn't deserve it.  I used to do this all the time.  Anger wasn't allowed in my house except for the rage that my dad carried around so my anger was denied and stuffed with food until the rage came rolling out like hot magma from an out of control volcano damaging everything in its path.

Rage was the first feeling that I learned to deal with because it was so volatile that I could easily see the damage that I was doing with it.  Doing this work isn't a matter of feeling shame for the fact that I couldn't control my rage.  Doing this work is a matter of feeling the feelings without allowing them to hurt myself or someone else. 

Rather than feeling shame when I get a new awareness, I forgive myself for not seeing the pattern sooner, then I set out to change the situation so that I don't continue to hurt myself or someone else.  It isn't enough to feel bad about my behavior.  If I am being hurt or someone else is, then I need to change that behavior.  If I say I am sorry but continue to do the same destructive pattern, then I am not really sorry.  Any behavior that I continue to do, I am getting something out of it or I would quit.  Feeling shame or guilt about a behavior is a sign that change needs to happen.  If I know that my reactions are out of proportion to the situation, it is my responsibility to do something to change my reaction.  If I am looking to create drama, I will find an excuse to do it. 

With healing comes responsibility for my own actions and reactions.  Another person does not trigger me.  My own issues are what trigger me, not what someone else said or did.  Those issues trigger me because I haven't healed that particular issue. It is not anyone else's responsibility to fix me, just as it is not my responsibility to fix anyone else.  The triggers will keep coming until I am healed in that area.  I am not saying that I am at fault or wrong or bad because I am still being triggered.  I am saying that it is my responsibility to heal me so that I am not triggered.  It is my responsibility to do my own work to heal.  If I am refusing to see the awareness that has come into my life because of my triggers then I am still playing victim.  I am still believing my abusers' lies that say that I am not capable of taking care of myself. Or I am still believing the lie that says I am too stupid and that I am worthless and have no value and can't make decisions for my own self. No matter what you said about me or to me, I alone am responsible for what I do with that information.  You do not make me angry.  I choose whether to get angry or not.  My actions are my responsibility.  How I respond to a person or a situation is my responsibility, not yours.  I can't blame you for what I am feeling.  I choose whether I stay stuck in the victim role or I move forward in the survivor role. 

Saying that I never meant to hurt someone doesn't mean a thing if I continue to hurt them.  Feelings are not inappropriate. It is what we do with them that can be inappropriate.  I have no way of knowing what another person is feeling unless they tell me.  What I may see as insensitivity or lack of empathy in another person may not be that at all.  I cannot know or guess what another person is feeling.  What that person may say has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them.  I cannot second guess other people unless I am intent on creating drama for myself.  If I want to create drama, drama will find me. When I say someone else is insensitive, I am projecting my own insensitivity onto that person.

I want to heal from incest.  I do not want to be defined by incest.  Incest happened to me but is not who I am.  I am a human being living and growing through my experiences.  Sharing my experiences does not make me better than you or perfect.  I am far from being perfect. I make mistakes. I still sometimes see someone else hurting and out of my feelings of compassion I want to make their way easier.  Sometimes I can help. Sometimes I cannot.  Sometimes I even manage to make situations worse.  Sometimes I play devil's advocate and try to look at the bigger picture.  I don't know where the term "devil's advocate" came from. I don't see it as bad.  I see it as the simple process of stepping back and looking at more than the immediate view or seeing a different view than everyone else is taking.  Being different is not a bad thing.

To use something that I heard earlier today on an interview between Michelle Rosenthal and Susan Kingsley-Smith on the Blog Talk Radio station called Heal My PTSD, you hold the power of your own healing.  You have to do the work if you want to heal.  My question for you is, "Do you want to heal?" or  "Do you want to stay stuck in victim mode and blame everybody else for your life?"  If you want to heal, at some point, you have to move beyond the blaming stage of healing.  In order to heal, at some point in your life, you have to take responsibility for your present and future.  Responsibility for the abuse of your childhood belongs with your abuser. Responsibility for what you do with your adult life belongs with you.
Patricia

Related Links:

Emerging From Broken blog
@ http://emergingfrombroken.com/

Heal My PTSD interview on "Why Don't Survivors Want To Do the Work to Heal PTSD?"
@ http://www.blogtalkradio.com/heal-my-ptsd/2010/02/26/why-dont-survivors-want-to-heal-ptsd

4th Anniversary For Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker

Today I am celebrating the 4th year anniversary of my blog.  I am inviting you, my readers, to celebrate by leaving comments to let me know if I and my blog have made any difference in your life.  Sometimes it is good to know the impact that we may have on others.

I am still on an emotional high from the radio program that I was on last night with Cyrus Webb as the moderation and owner of Conversations LIVE! Radio on BlogTalkRadio, Darlene Ouimet who is my friend and has her own blog Emerging From Broken, and Brad Rickerby friend and blogger of I am a Survivor.  If you missed out on our very  powerful talk last night, you can still listen at the following link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/conversationslive/2011/06/01/cyrus-webb-presents-you-are-not-alone

I talked with Cyrus this morning on my Facebook page and he said that this show has gotten the highest rating of any of his shows this year.  That is great news.  It means that more people are being educated about child sexual abuse and its effects upon survivors. 

The title of last night's radio program was "You Are Not Alone."  That could be the title of my purpose in using my blog to reach out to other survivors.  When I first admitted that I was an incest survivor in the late 1970's, I was pretty much alone.  The county library had only three books on the topic of incest or sexual abuse.  I devoured those three books and then there was nothing, no support of any kind that I could find so I continued on trying to ignore my incest issues and hoping they would go away on their own.  They didn't. 

It was in January of 1989, that I found help through 12-Step programs that I ernestly began my walk toward healing from incest.  It is a blessing that my dad was an alcoholic.  Without being an adult child of an alcholic, I might not would have ever started walking down my healing path.  It was another blessing that those 12-Step people became my friends and let me talk about incest in those groups.  Since then, I have seen groups that only want you to talk about how the alcoholism is affecting your life.  They don't want to hear about the incest and other abuses that happened in my dysfunctional family. 

In those early days, I could not separate what were the effects of the alcoholism and what were the effects of incest.  They were too intertwined to be separated.  I read somewhere that alcoholism is often present where incest happens. I never blamed the alcoholism for the incest because my dad was sober as much or more often than he was drunk when he sexually abused me.

I am very pleased to see the community of survivors and others who read my blog has continued to grow though the past 4 years.  Since I started using Twitter and Facebook sometime in the past year and a half, the number of readers of my blog have more than doubled.  I thank each of my readers for being a part of this growth and this community.  I am very glad that you are all a part of my blog community.  Thanks for being here.
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

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

Just A Mom

I am starting this post out with an email that I received today.  I don't know the source of the written words called "JUST A MOM?"  If I did, I would include you as the author, but I don't know who you are.  Thank you for your words of humor and truth.

JUST A MOM?

A woman, renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk's Office, was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation.
She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
"What I mean is," explained the recorder,
"Do you have a job or are you just a ....?"
"Of course I have a job," snapped the woman.
"I'm a Mom."
"We don't list 'Mom' as an occupation, 'Housewife' covers it," said the recorder emphatically.

I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall.  The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar."
"What is your occupation?" she probed.
What made me say it?  I do not know?  The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations."
The clerk paused, ball-point frozen in midair and looked up as though she had not heard right.
I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.  Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
"Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?"
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, "I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out).  I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) and already have four credits (all daughters).  Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it).  But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money."
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants - ages 13, 7, and 3.  Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby), in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.  I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy!  And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than "just another Mom."

Motherhood!
What a glorious career!  Especially when there's a title on the door.
Does this make grandmothers "Senior Research Associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations"
And great grandmothers "Executive Senior Research Associates?"  I think so.
I also think it makes Aunts "Associate Research Assistants."


I love the humor of the above words and titles.  Why does it take a title to give a mother the importance that she deserves.  Mothers play such an important role in the lives of their children and therefore the world.  I hope that I was this type of mother - one who researches and grows as her children grow.  In my own eyes, I often fell short as a mother.  Why?  I wasn't given the proper tools to be the kind of mother that I wanted to be to my children.  Who is?  Especially those of us who comes from homes with dysfunction and abuse.

I grew up wanting to be a better mother than my mother was to me.  Yes, my mother did the best that she could with the tools that she was given, and it wasn't good enough.  I did not want to repeat that pattern with my own children, especially the patterns of abuse and emotional abandonment.

I believe that mothers are the most important role model for their daughters because we are both women.  Mothers fill so many roles in the life of a child.  Mothers teach us about loving and caring for others.  They teach us kindness and how to nurture ourselves and others.  As little girls, mothers teach us how to be women just as daddies teach little boys how to be men.  So much of who I am comes from my mother.

To quote a comment that I left on my Facebook page today, "My mother/daughter relationship was confusing and difficult.  I always told myself that my mother loved me.  I now know that my mother couldn't love me because she didn't love herself.  She was so shut down emotionally.  The only emotion that got through from her to the world [and to me] was rage and she did that silently.  She didn't know what love was.  She wasn't taught to love.  Dysfunctional families cannot teach what they don't have - self love."

My inspiration for this post came from fellow blogger Darlene Ouimet.  On her blog Emerging From Broken, Darlene has been writing a series of articles about the relationship that she had with her mother.  The latest article is called "Mother Daughter Relationship Nightmares."  You will find this blog article are the following link:

http://emergingfrombroken.com/mother-daughter-relationship-nightmares/

I warn you that some of the comments for this article of Darlene's are brutally honest and may be tear triggering for some of you.  Everyone of the people - women and men - are being courageous in sharing their stories of pain and healing in their comments.  I thank you Darlene for being the one to bring this out into the open so that we can all break the silence of abuse and continue to heal.

Related posts:
Your Parents Did The Best They Could found at
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/09/your-parents-did-best-they-could.html
Patricia

Childhood Issues Can Create Dysfunctional Relationships For Adults

I am reading a book called Becoming Your Own Parent, The Solution for Adult Children of Alcoholic and Other Dysfunctional Families.  The author of this book is Dennis Wholey who also wrote the book The Courage to Change.  I read both of these great books back in the 1990's when I was first involved in recovery and 12-Step meetings.  If you haven't read them, I encourage you to check them out.  They are both a great resource for Adult Children from dysfunctional homes.

Today, I visited one of my favorite blogs Emerging From Broken written by Darlene Ouimet.  In choosing to tell her own story of recovery from abuse, Darlene is constantly told that she is also telling the story of others, both women and men, who read her blog.  She often tells bits and pieces of what could be my own story of incest.  For awhile Darlene has been writing about the lies that formed her belief system during her childhood.  She talks about the dysfunctional family that gave her this false belief system.  Darlene posted two blog articles this week talking about dysfunctional relationships.

Here are the links for Darlene's two blog articles:
Standing up to Dysfunctional Relationship:
http://emergingfrombroken.com/standing-up-to-dysfunctional-relationship/
Standing up to Dysfunctional Relationship Part 2:
http://emergingfrombroken.com/standing-up-to-dysfunctional-relationship-part-2/

Click on the above links and go read the blog articles.  Be sure to take the time to read each of the blog comments too.  They are well worth your time to read.  So many of us know what Darlene is talking about - the dysfunctional family system and its effects upon us in our adult relationships.  Many of us recreate those childhood relationships when we are adults.

Here I am going to paraphrase,combine, and add to my comments that I left on each of her blog articles.  Much of the information also comes from the book Becoming Your Own Parent that I mentioned above. 

Dennis Wholey quotes a number of expects in the field of recovery in his book in explaining the differences between a healthy family system and an unhealthy or dysfunctional family system. One of the experts that Mr. Wholey quotes is "Therapist, lecturer, and consultant Terence T. Gorski, M. A." (page 175)  On page 176, Mr. Gorski says about dysfunctional families that "The norm is struggle, chaos, confusion, and pain.  Relationships chew you up.  Sometimes a relationship gets really good for a short period of time, but doesn't last.  It returns to the norm of being a painful, horrible place to live."

Continuing on Page 176, Terence Gorski says, " In a dysfunctional home the child learns that relationships entail a difficult, painful struggle; they temporarily feel good, but will rapidly decay back into a difficult, stuggling, and painful situation.  The child learns that at five or seven or ten or fifteen years of age."

"Children from dysfunctional environments often end up in bad relationships because they believe on a fundamental level, 'I'm not worthy of being loved and the only way I can get somebody to love me is to trick them into believing I'm somebody that I'm not.' "

On page 177, Mr. Gorski says, "People who come out of a dysfunctional home unconsciously either re-create their family of origin or the polar opposite.  A person either blindly conforms with, or blindly rebels against, what he or she was unconsciously taught as a child.  In both cases there is no free individual choice."

Also, on page 177, Gorski says, " In making the decision to conform, the child decides that the family of origin is good and he or she therefore is bad.  To be good, the child must make the family right.  In making the decision to rebel, the child believes that the family is bad and he or she is too good to live like that.  To be good, the child must do the opposite, whether or not it is in his or her best interest."

Here is part of my comment to Darlene's first post, "Something that I have found true for me is that when I work on my own childhood issues, the relationship issues with my husband often take care of themselves.  I don't say that to mean don't work on your relationship issues.  Believe me when I say that you should work on any abusive or dysfunctional relationship issues that you have.  Many, if not all, of my relationship issues came from my childhood issues.  Relationship issues are often built upon the lies about love and respect that we were taught as children.  Mine sure were."

In my childhood, my dad played the role of dictator and rage-aholic.  My mom played a role of being passive-aggressive.  She was mild and meek, following my dad's lead.  She allowed him to make all of the decisions in our family life.  I saw my dad as strong and having all of the power in their relationship.  I saw my mother as weak and powerless.  I did not want to be weak and powerless like my mother so I chose the role of controller and that left the passive-aggressive role for my husband to fill.  I promised myself when I left home that I would never be controlled by another dictator like my dad.  In rebelling against my dad's control in my childhood, I stepped into that role in my marriage.  I thought if I could control everything and everybody that I would feel safe and not be so afraid.  It seemed to work for a little while.  My husband and I both played our roles well in the beginning.  Nothing about those early years of our marriage made me happy.  I can't speak for my husband and his feelings about those early years but I doubt that he liked it much when his brothers called him henpecked.  I doubt he liked it any better than I did when his grandmother asked early on which one of us was going to "wear the pants in the family."  I didn't see myself as a controller back then and I was very hurt by her comment at the time.  I was continuing the belief system unconsciously as Mr. Gorski talked about in the quote above.  By making myself the strong and powerful controller, I abused my husband as my dad did my mom with his controlling.  By choosing to marry a passive-aggressive person, I also chose to continue the cycle of abuse.  My controlling was right out there in front for everyone to see.  Passive-aggressive behavior is much more difficult to see and overcome because it is more hidden.  It can sometimes be more destructive because it isn't out in the open. 

I want to share with you here, just in case you didn't take the time to go and read the comment section of Darlene's second article, the comment that I wrote about dysfunctional families assigning roles:  "Dysfunctional family systems assign roles to each of its members.  The roles are not flexible and are not up for discussion.  The system is very rigid.

Someone is always the scapegoat.  The scapegoat is the one who is always wrong, always blamed for everything that goes wrong in the family.  The quickest way to become a scapegoat [as an adult] is to dare to be the one to want change, to be the one who demands that the truth be told instead of continuing to believe the lies and secrets of the family.

The dysfunctional family system will do everything possible to keep the family system in tact, even resorting to disowning the one who wants to change or the one who suddenly is willing to share the family 'secrets.'  Yes, it hurts to be that person and you are worth the end result that you get - freedom from abuse."

I remember being hurt once by a comment one of my uncles made about me being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.  It wasn't want he said.  It was the derisive tone of his voice that hurt.  I haven't been disowned by my family for breaking the silence of abuse.  I was the one who chose not to have contact with my dad for over ten years before he died because he was still an alcoholic and I wasn't convinced that he wouldn't do something to try to hurt either of my children.  Many Adult Children are disowned by their families when they decided to talk about the family secret of abuse and dysfunction.  Many of us are labeled as crazy, drama queens and troublemakers because we refuse to continue to play the roles assigned to us in our dysfunctional family of origin.  Many of us decide to stop playing those roles when we realize that the role is not who we are and we realize that in playing the role, we somehow lost ourselves.  Finding out who I am is what most of my journey of recovery has been all about.
Patricia

Dear Seven-Year-Old Patricia - Inner Child Letters Series

Happy 4th of July all my fellow Americans.  Hope you had a glorious weekend of picnics, swimming, fishing, and fireworks.  Here are two past posts that I wrote about my thoughts about independence:

True Independence Comes From In-dependence @ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/07/true-independence-comes-from-in.html

Independence, Not Just For A Day @ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/07/independence-not-just-for-day.html
Even though I wrote them two years ago, they still hold true for me today.

Next, I want you to go to the blog Emerging From Broken and read Darlene's post from July 3.  You will find it at the following link @ http://emergingfrombroken.com/low-self-esteem-shame-depression-and-the-first-step/
Be sure to read all of the comments too.  Some of them made me cry.  Thank you Darlene for expressing what it feels like to be a child who has been abused and what it feels like to be an adult who has survived that abuse.  It is often a hard road but we can become more than survivors and move into thriving.  The key is learning to love ourselves and letting go of and refusing to believe the lies that we were told as children.


Here is my next installment on the Inner Child Letters Series.  This is the letter to my inner seven year old:

Dear Seven-Year-Old Patricia,
I started to call you Patty but that didn't feel right.  You are maybe the first that was called yourself Patricia.  Like with three-year-old Patty, I don't know what happened to you.  I don't have any memories of abuse.  I have always known that something big happened to you, to us, that year.  I need to say "us" because I need to stop distancing myself from you and from whatever it is that I don't remember.  I am the child that these things happened to and I am the adult looking back trying to remember and, in failing to remember, still knowing that I have amends to make to you and apologies to make for not listening to you and not taking care of you all of these years of our life.  I do love you.  I will take care of you and protect you from all possible hurt as much as I have the ability to. 

I don't know what you are protecting my mind from knowing but I thank you for it.  I know that you did the best that you could as a seven-year-old child to protect yourself from whatever happened.  It hasn't been blocked completely because I have always been aware that something happened, I just don't know what it was.  I know that it was major or the memories wouldn't be blocked.  I can guess that it was possibly more sexual abuse, but it is only a guess.

What I do know from that year is that my maternal grandmother's house burned to the ground.  What I just got was that we were left with my uncle while my parents went to make sure that my grandmother was okay.  This is the uncle that raped me when I was eleven years old.  This was the uncle that took my brother, sister and I to work with him on his garbage route and got my brother and sister so drunk that they both got terribly sick and he thought it was funny.  I didn't drink because I have never liked the taste of beer.  This was sometime around the same time period within a year or so.  Part of me wanted to quit breathing as I typed this.  Another possibly clue but still no memories?

Before I was seven years old, my parents would let me spend a lot of time with my maternal grandmother.  I had a very strong connection to my Grandmother Howe because when I was two years old and got whooping cough, I was taken to stay with her and my Uncle Albert who lived with her at the time.  Until I started to school at age five, I would spend weeks or months at a time with them. After I started to school, I would spend a month or more with them during the summer months.  Then when I was seven, Dad refused to let me stay with them anymore.  That summer was the last time that I got to spend large amounts of time with them.  After that I got to visit with them only when my family went to visit on holidays.  I missed those happy times with them.  I never knew what changed and why I couldn't go to visit them anymore.

Around age seven is when I remember having headaches for the first time.  I remember spending large amounts of time outside by myself.  I remember a very religious aunt telling me that I was going to Hell because I was wearing shorts.  I remember not liking her or her daughter after that summer.

This is just bits and pieces of memories and nothing concrete to say that I was abused, just possibilities. 

Dear Seven-Year-Old Patricia, I hope that you will learn to trust me and will reveal your secrets to me one day.  I know that I can protect you and I will continue to love you no matter what secrets you hide.  Know that I am strong enough to take whatever you want to tell me now and in the future.  I will not allow anyone to ever hurt you again.  I will always listen to whatever you want to say to me.  I will always be here for you.
I love you,
Fifty-Eight-Year-Old Patricia

Lost Pieces And Abilities Cause By The Pain Of Incest

I am putting a Trigger Warning here because I don't want you to go on if you are already having a bad day with your own stuff if you are an incest survivor.  The following is a very important piece of my puzzle that has been missing since I was a little girl being raped first by my uncle and then for years by my dad.  I don't know how young I was when I made the decision to shut the visuals out of my mind.  Please proceed at your own risk.

I just had one of my biggest ah-ha moments of my entire journey through recovery from incest.  A big event that I had totally forgotten or just didn't get the significance of until now.  This came about because of a post that Darlene from the blog Emerging From Broken made on her Facebook page.  I am going to share part of that post here to set the scene for my ah-ha moment and then I will share my comment back to Darlene.  Here it is:

Emerging From Broken "She packed up her potential and all she had learned, grabbed a great pair of shoes and headed out to change a few things.". . . .

There was more to the quote from another person but this is the part of the quote is was the catalyst for my understanding.  Now here is the comment that I made to Darlene.

Darlene, rereading the above thought "She packed up her potential. . . " just gave me an ah-ha moment.  I am not a visual person.  I don't usually see images in my head.  I can imagine what the image looks like in my mind but the pictures don't form for me.  I just realized why.  I have always wondered why I don't get the visuals that everyone else does when I shut my eyes. It is because as a little girl, I shut my eyes to the abuse.  I literally closed my eyes so I couldn't see what was happening to me when I was being raped.  I not only shut my eyes but I went deep inside so that I couldn't "see" or feel it. I must have closed a door when I did that.  Someone told me to see a big movie screen in my mind with pictures flashing on it.  That doesn't work for me either.  I see nothing.  I can imagine in some far away place that it is there but I just don't see anything in my mind's eye.

Wow! is what I keep hearing over and over in my mind.  This is really big and is going to take me awhile to process.  Thank you.


Wow! When I recently said that I was starting a new chapter in my recovery, I had no idea (I still don't.) what that meant or what would be coming out when I opened the door to the abuse from my uncle.

When I was typing the above comment to Darlene and these thoughts were coming into my head almost faster than I could type, I could feel panic and a part of me quit breathing all together.  That part is still holding her breath.  It feels like a part of me died that first day of the abuse.  Before that I may have been a very visual person.  I have no way of knowing.  Tears are just out of reach, slipping in and out.  I know there is some crying and grieving to do with this new chapter and I am open to it.  I can't push the tears out of hiding and I will allow them their expression when that child feels safe and needs to let go and just howl out her pain.  As I am typing, I have to keep telling myself to breathe.  Some part of me is so afraid of this whole thing being exposed to ????  Exposed to the world? Exposed to me? Exposed to ????  I keep going blank.  That door isn't opening yet.  I know the little girl, the inner child has to feel safe for that to happen.  She gets frightened each time that we do something like this. 

Today I will stay as open as I can to these feelings that are trying to come out.  In order to do that, I have to let go of the tight, tight control that I held over my feelings as a child.  I could not feel these things as a child and survive.  It was just too much to feel.  The pain - both the physical and the emotional pain - was just too much for the little girl that I was to feel when it was happening.  I don't think that I formed different personalities as some survivors did.  I think that I just shut down certain parts of myself.  I let them die. 

This is still so hard.  I have the tools today to do this.  I will not go off and binge eat like I have done in the past.  I will face this head on.  I will call people.  I will email people and ask for support.  I will cry when needed which makes it very hard to type. I will not run from this.

I want to share this process here because, again, I hope that it will help some other survivor to open up and see maybe something similar in themselves.  I want to show you that this work can be done.  Also in sharing, it gives me the feeling that I am not alone in doing this myself.  Sharing my pain eases it for me.  It gives it and me value.  I will go back and put a Trigger Warning at the top of the page.  I don't want to set off anybody else with triggers.  If you are having a bad day, I don't want to add to it.

The tears are gone for now.  I think this is enough for now for you and for me.  I need to sit with this awhile and see what else comes.
Patricia

Dysfunctional Family Systems

There is an interesting conversation going over at Emerging From Broken.  You will find this article at the following link http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=796 .  Several of the comments at the end of the article are mine.  This article is going to be an edited version of one of my comments plus some others thoughts that I have had on the topic of Dysfunctional Family Systems.

There are quite a number of books written on the topic.  I visited Amazon.com earlier to see what was available and quit after page 17 of the list.  Two of the best, in my opinion are Healing The Child Within:  Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, written by Charles L. Whitfield and Healing the Shame That Binds You, written by John Bradshaw.  Two others that were life savers for me are both by the same author Melody Beattie Codependent No More and her second book called Beyond Codependency.  I highly recommend each of these four books.

This is just a small definition of what it means to grow up in a dysfunctional family system.  For more information, read any of the four books that I mentioned above. 

In dysfunctional families, the individual members don't talk about what is wrong or what's missing from the family system, things like communication and trust.  They don't usually love themselves.  Sometimes there is neglect of individual needs.  The child doesn't have a healthy adult to model how to take care of themselves so the child doesn't learn this.

In some dysfunctional family systems, there are secrets that everybody knows but nobody talks about.  In my family that secret was alcoholism.  In A.A. and Al-Anon, they call this having an elephant in your living room that nobody wants to see.  The elephant (alcoholism in my family) is there.  Everyone walks around it like it isn't there.  Nobody talks about it.  Another secret that some of my family members either knew about or suspected was incest.  Everybody knows not to talk to outsiders about what is really going on inside the family.  I learned in Al-Anon that we are each only as sick as our secrets.

Everybody is afraid of change.  The dysfunctional family system is very rigid and doesn't allow for change in any form.  Anybody that dares to want to change comes up against resistance from the other family members, sometimes resulting in being ostracized or cast out from the family.  Nobody welcomes change.  Often if you get into recovery as an adult, nobody in the family acknowledges that you have made changes in yourself, that you are different.  They continue to see you in the role that you were assigned as a child.  That can be very frustrating especially for survivors who have worked really hard to make these healthy changes.

Nobody feels supported by the other family members.  Feelings are not shared.  There are often unexpressed, unfelt emotions. Emotions are often ignored or stuffed rather than acknowledged, especially fear and anger. There is usually a lot of underlying stress.  Any time you have secrets.  There is stress.  There is sometimes loneliness even when the family is together in the same room because nobody feels connected to anybody else.

Each member is assigned a role to play in the family.  Some of these roles are family hero, scapegoat, family maintainer, peacemaker, the invisible child, the sick child, and others.  Some people play more than one role at a time.  I played hero, family maintainer, and peacemaker at different times. I was also my mother's emotional protector at least by the age of 3.  I have a very clear memory of this.

Everyone is fearful, often without knowing why.  Sometimes, as in my case, the fear is so deep that I didn't even realize until I was 19 years old that I lived in daily fear for my life and sanity.  I didn't recognize the fear because it was constantly, always there in the fabric of my life.  I don't remember a time that I wasn't fearful.

In my dysfunctional family, my dad was a dictator of what we did, what we thought, how we acted.  He dictated through his rage.  Not all dysfunctional families are this extreme.  Some are.  Some are not.  Some families are so disconnected from their feelings that nothing seems wrong on the surface.

These are just a few symptoms of living in a dysfunctional family system.  The family system is more important than any of its individual members.  Nobody is supposed to become a separate individual as they are expected to in a health family system.  There is no separation in a dysfunctional family system.  Everyone is so emeshed that there are no healthy boundaries.  I used walls to keep you out and to keep me protected.  This separation was such a big issue in my family that I waited until I was 19 to run away from home.  My dad was not going to let me leave if he had known in advance.  I told my mom that I was leaving.  My dad came after me two days later.  He threatened suicide if I didn't come back home to live.  He didn't commit suicide and I didn't go back home to stay.  I went home for the weekend to say goodbye to my sister and brother.  I left for good on Monday morning.  I knew in my heart that if I didn't run away that my dad would never have let me escape from under his rule.  Again, this is an extreme example of a dysfunctional family system.

These are just some of the symptoms of growing up in a dysfunctional family system.  There are many more.  Not all families have all of these symptoms.  Do you personally know any families that don't have some dysfunction?  I know some that are working on getting healthier.  Our society is full of families dealing with addictions and codependency.  Some families are healthier than others.

You may ask why am I willing to write a blog about incest, about my own dysfunctional family system.  Why am I making all of my families dirty laundry public?  Some might say that I am being judgmental of others when I talk about my own recovery and my very unhealthy childhood in a home with incest and alcohol.  I am not doing that.  I am sharing what my journey has been like for me. 

Many of us are choosing to go "public" with our issues and our recovery.  You might ask or even demand to know why I would do this to my family.  I am not doing this to anyone.  This is what was done to me and to many other abuse survivors.  Incest is just one of many abuses that are happening to the children of countries around the world.  This abuse will continue unless I and other survivors start to speak out.  Breaking the silence of abuse means that I sometimes get attacked because others don't like having all of this "family" stuff being aired in public.  You won't shut us up any longer.  The survivors of abuse are beginning to speak out on their own behalf and on the behalf of those who are still afraid to speak out. 

I thank Carla Dippel and Darlene Ouimet for speaking to others through their blog Emerging From Broken.  By thanking Carla and Darlene, I am not claiming that they have been abused.  That is for them to decide.  Not me.  I am thanking them for being an inspiration to me personally.  I always welcome comments from my readers.
Patricia

Belief Systems And Incest

Carla Dippel over at Emerging From Broken blog has written two articles about the belief systems that she inherited from her father.  Her first article she entitled "Illusive but Destructive:  Belief System Inheritance"    [ http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=722 ].  Carla's second article she named "Unintentional but Destructive:  Belief System Inheritance" [ http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=750 ]. 

In both of Carla's articles she talks about growing up with a father that she loved but also learning to not value herself because that is what her father modeled for her by not giving himself value.  Her father didn't set out intentionally to teach his daughter that she didn't have value as a person but he did teach this belief to his daughter was what he believed about himself.  That doesn't make him a bad dad or a bad person.  He was probably doing the best that he knew how.  It just wasn't sending the most beneficial belief system to his daughter.  As an adult, that devaluing of herself has created challenges  for Carla in her life.  She is addressing those challenges by looking at the belief system that her father passed on to her.  Until you have an awareness of what you believe about yourself and others, you can't make the needed changes.  I admire Carla's courage for doing this.  I thank Carla for doing this work out in the public on her blog so that others can benefit from her example.  I know it helped me to remember some of the belief systems that set me up to be abused.

In my last article, I shared a recent dream about my uncle.  In that article, I shared that my first remembered sexual abuse was at the hands of my uncle when I was 11 years old.  A major part of all of the healing that I have done around my incest issues has meant going back and looking at the beliefs surrounding each incident and feeling whatever feelings come up from remembering the incident. I really haven't done much of that with my uncle and this first time of being raped by a grown man.

I have had several conversations recently about survivors being attacked when they have broken their silences about the abuse that they have suffered through.  I tend to get angry when I see this happening to others or to myself  because for so many years we weren't allowed to speak or weren't listened to if we did try to speak out.  One of the biggest fears of a lot of survivors of abuse is that they will be blamed if the truth is known and that they won't be believed.  Those two beliefs kept me silent for almost 40 years.

The gun man in my dream [If you haven't read my previous post about this dream, you will find it at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-chapter-in-incest-recovery.html ] represents those fears of being rejected, blamed or not believed if I ever told about the incest with my uncle or my dad.  Children also have a fear of dying or being alone if they are taken from their parents.  The gun man would resort to shooting me because of those fears that I carried with me as a child and even as an adult.  I also had a very real fear of this uncle killing me if I ever spoke out against him.  My dad threatened suicide several times in my childhood.

In the dream, I wasn't in a house.  The dream took place in an apartment.  I see an apartment as having different levels.  The door didn't open up to outside.  The outside was always safe for me because I could be alone and I had space to run or hide if I wanted to.  The door opened up into a dark hallway.  This tells me that the healing for this issue is on another level.  I have never had a dream about this uncle before that I remember.  I have also never dreamed that I was in an apartment like this dream was.  So this level of healing will be different than the healing work of the past.  Because of those fears and the darkness, a part of me represented by the gun man is willing to kill to keep me from looking at this issue.  Some part of me is terrified of the truth and remembering.

I don't know how I feel about this dream and this issue yet.  I am calm and I am waiting to see what comes up.  I have asked for Divine Guidance in dealing with this issue and for what direction I am supposed to go with this.

What Carla's two articles reminded me of is that I was afraid of hurting my uncle's feelings if I didn't do as he asked, if I didn't do what he wanted.  I put his feelings above my own.  I allowed him to hurt me so that I wouldn't hurt him.  My parents taught me well about respecting adults and always obeying them and never speaking out.  I wasn't taught that I had value.  I was just a kid who was supposed to do what I was told by the adults.  Adults ruled my world.  Their safety and authority were more important than what I thought or felt or needed.  I was supposed to shut up and do what I was told so I did.

I can feel that I am not ready to give you the details of that time with my uncle just yet.  Today I honor the timing of the telling of my story.  I also honor the scared inner child who isn't quite brave enough yet for me to tell her story.  She and I both know the time is soon.  She is willing to take a step closer to the telling.  She is willing to trust the adult me to protect her when we do speak.  I thank you for your patience.  We are almost there.
Patricia and little Patty

A Dysfunctional Childhood

I just came from reading a blog that I have recently discovered called Emerging From Broken which you will find at the following link:  http://emergingfrombroken.com/ .  The blog is written by Carla Dippel and Darlene Ouimet.  I hope that you will go to their blog and read the articles that I am going to give you links to in this article.

I recently read an article that Darlene wrote called "The Twisted Accountability Tactic & How it Works http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=671.  Darlene posted this article on March 26.  Here is my comment [with some minor editing on my part] to Darlene's article.  My comment is about responsibility and self-forgiveness:

"I am not responsible for what happened to me as a child [incest].  As a young adult, I still didn't 'know better'.  Today I do.

Today I can take responsibility for my behavior and thoughts.  Today I have boundaries.  It was a difficult struggle to discover and set up those boundaries.  Today I can honor those boundaries and the inner children inside of me who are all depending upon me to keep them safe and loved.  I wasn't always able to do the safety or love.

Forgiving myself in 12-Step programs [Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics] was confusing because I thought that I was responsible for all of the abuse that ever happened to me.  I didn't need forgiveness for the incest happening to me.  I needed self-forgiveness for my adult reactions that continued to harm me and my inner children.  As a step of self-forgiveness, I worked really hard and long to learn what self-love meant.  I had to learn to love myself and how to keep my adult self and inner children safe as an adult.

I had to stop blaming myself for not being able to keep myself safe as a child.  I didn't have the tools to do it then.  I had to forgive myself for the blaming of myself that I did.  Forgiveness for the blaming was easy to do.  I acknowledged that I was never taught the tools to keep myself safe.  I was also taught the art of blaming at a very early age.  Neither of my parents knew how to take responsibility for their actions either so they couldn't teach me.  Blaming was taught to them as well so they passed it on to me. . ."


The second article from Emerging From Broken is called "Valued Because. . ." and was written by Carla Dippel.  Here is the link for this article:  http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=676 .  This article was posted on March 28.  Go and read Carla's article.  Carla's article brought up memories for me of when I would try so desperately to be a "perfect", "good little girl" for the adults in my life.  These two things put such stress on me that I was having headaches at least by the age of seven, if not before.  Here is my comment to Carla's article:

"Carla, well said.  I was the "perfect" "good little girl".  I was the quiet child that everyone said was "different" because I was so well behaved.  I was afraid not to be good.  I saw when and what my younger siblings got spankings for so I didn't do those things.  I did nothing to call attention to myself except that I attempted to excel in my grades at school.  I wasn't a straight A student but I got mostly A's and a few B's and usually 2 C's---one in math and one in science.

Instead of playing in church, I sat perfectly still beside my grandmother watching and wishing that I was the little girl in the pew in front of us who played and talked to her mother and finally laid down and fell asleep in her mother's arms when she was tired. [I have this memory from at least the age of three, maybe younger.] No matter how good I was, it never felt good enough.

As I grew up, I talked little and I had no opinion on anything because you might not like me if my opinion was different than yours.  I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing that I didn't have anything to say.  I was so afraid that you might not like me that I never explored who I might be.  I didn't know who I was.

Then I met and married this wonderful man when I was 20 years old and a college student.  He taught me to laugh and wanted to know what I thought.  He slowly pulled me out of my shell.  Whatever he saw in me, he liked and grew to love.  He gave me a safe place to let out the real, inner me that no one else seemed to see.  We have been married for 37 years.  Our love grows stronger each year. [Yes, I am going to share this article and what I just said about him with him. He can handle it.]  The worst times were those early years when I was struggling so to know myself and learning to love myself.  I hated who I thought I was for years.

Today I love myself and by some strange miracle, he does too.  I am the complicated one who put both of us through Hell for quite a few years.  I had to figure out what I didn't like before I could figure out what was okay and then discover what I did like.

Today I know myself pretty well, still not completely since changes happen every day but that is what keeps life interesting.  I send you blessings for your journey of today.  I wish for you the best that life has to offer. . ."

As of this weekend, I am now using my Facebook page to reach more people with my blog articles.  I also learned how to use Twitter so you will find me on Twitter as patriciasinglet if you are interested in following me.  Over the weekend, on Facebook and Twitter both, I have had some really interesting conversations with several friends about recovery.  I hope you will join me as I learn what I am doing.

I also gave my blog a new look.  I hope you like it.  I love the look.  I love bold colors and the red seems right for the topic of incest.  It isn't quiet or shy like I was as a child.  It suits my personality of today much better. I am sometimes bold and loud and not perfect by any means.  Let me know what you think about the new look.

Also, another new blog that I have discovered this weekend is called Stepping Stones which is written by Ellen Brown, a Certified Professional Coach.  I started out reading an interview that Ellen did with my friend Dan L. Hays.  You will find this interview at the following link: http://ellen-brown.com/blog/2009/11/23/an-interview-with-dan-l-hays-healing-from-abuse-a-journey-of-faith-hope-and-forgiveness .This interview is about Dan's book Freedom's Just Another Word. 

I just ordered this book to read and am expecting it any day now in the mail from Amazon.com.  I will be sure to do a review of the book and share it with you when I finish reading it.  After the severe storms across the U. S. this weekend, I hope that you are all having a glorious Spring day like I am.
 Patricia