Headaches, Blocks To Writing And Not Giving Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Male Abuse Awareness Is Growing

This past week on Butterfly Dreams Talk Radio host Patricia McKnight had a week of Male Abuse Awareness guest speakers. You can find those radio programs at the following links:

Male Abuse Awareness w/Philip Paris - 'MEN CRY ALONE'
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/11/26/male-abuse-awareness-wphilip-paris-men-cry-alone


Male Abuse Awareness w/ David Pittman & Blair Corbett
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/11/28/male-abuse-awareness-w-david-pittman-blair-corbett


Male Abuse Awareness w/ Professor Dean H. McVay, Attorney
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/11/30/male-abuse-awareness-w-professor-dean-h-mcvay-attorney


Male Abuse Awareness Talking Research
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/12/03/male-abuse-awareness-talking-research


Male Abuse Awareness Domestic Violence Victims - 'Shame' the movie
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/12/04/male-abuse-awareness-domestic-violence-victims--shame-the-movie


Male Abuse Awareness Musicians Making A Difference
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/12/05/male-abuse-awareness-musicians-making-a-difference


Male Abuse Awareness Features Bill Murray, Main Event
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/12/06/male-abuse-awareness-features-bill-murray-main-event


Male Abuse Awareness Week Event - Closing it out
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2013/12/07/male-abuse-awareness-week-event--closing-it-out

I am pleased to see so many men starting to speak out about their own childhood abuses. Women started speaking out some time ago. Now that men are joining us, the true picture of just how bad childhood abuse really is becomes clearer and less easy for society and families to continue to ignore.  I am honored to call some of these male survivors my friend. The internet is where we all met. You don't have to listen to all of these programs at once. Take your time and listen to them. The programs are archived for listening at your convenience. But please do listen to them and share them with your friends. We all do this to educate others and to offer support to all survivors.

I have one more link that I want to share with you before I close. It is a tribute to a great man and world leader who died this week - Nelson Mandela 1918-2013 R.I.P. This wonderful tribute is written by another male survivor friend of mine who calls his blog "The Wounded Warrior".  Here is the link to the blog article:

http://whatislove-2010.blogspot.com/2013/12/nelson-mandela-1918-2013-rip.html

Hope you all are having a glorious weekend. See you again soon.
Patricia

Dear Mama - Abandonment

Dear Mama,

The first time you abandoned me, I was only two years old and very sick. I now know that the doctor told you the my baby brother would die if he got the whooping cough from me. You probably thought your mother's was the safest place to leave me while you looked after the baby. He was more important than me to you. He always seemed to be your favorite. I don't remember, but at two years old, I must have cried for my mama and you weren't there. I was too young to understand. I grew to love my grandmother, maybe more than I loved you. She never left me when I needed her. 

You used to get upset, when as an adult, you heard me say that in many ways Grandma Howe became my mother. Even after I started to school, I was allowed to go spend the Summer with Grandma until I turned seven years old. After that I wasn't allowed to visit her except for holidays when the whole family of origin went to visit her. I missed her. So, a second time, abandonment became a part of my life because of Daddy's decision and yours to let him make it. My feelings never were important to either you or Daddy.

You never protected me from harm, as far as I can tell. When I was three years old, I made the decision to become your protector. I knew you didn't feel anything like those around you did. I decided to protect you so you wouldn't be hurt by others. 

No child should ever be put in the position of protecting their parents. I did that for both you and Daddy by keeping secrets. There was much that I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you. It wasn't important that I was being hurt as long as I protected you. You were important. I was not. That is how you taught me abandonment again. You were emotionally unavailable for my entire childhood. That is a form of abandonment. 

Another form of abandonment in my life started when I chose you and your feelings over mine. I abandoned myself. In order to protect you, I had to abandon myself and put your feelings above my own hurts and feelings. You were important to my survival. With Daddy abusing me, I turned to you for love and care and you didn't do your part in protecting me. I couldn't tell you about the incest and protect your feelings too. I couldn't take the chance that you would blame me or shot Daddy and go to jail. Because of all of these fears, I kept silent.

Fear of abandonment is why for eight years, I didn't tell Daniel about the incest. I was afraid he would blame me, as I blamed myself and I feared he would leave. Fear of abandonment was my very first issue to address in healing from incest. So I guess it is appropriate to revisit abandonment with issues with  you too, Mama.

How does all of this writing make me feel? I am not sure what all of the feelings are right now. I can tell you that most of them are felt in my stomach and solar plexus as flutterings working their way to get out. I also cried earlier, not while writing this, but while reading someone else's story on Facebook. I carry tension in my stomach and across my shoulders and in my neck muscles. I started writing this series because of the headache that I have had for the past few months. With the help of a friend, I figured out that unresolved mother issues could be the source of my headaches. So the series of blog articles that I have labeled "Dear Mama" will be my attempt to work my way thru those issues starting from my earliest memories which is where this article starts at age two until no more issues come up for me.

You may ask why I have taken so long to write about my mother issues. Mother issues are tied into my self image. My mother was my role model of what it is like to be a woman myself. So looking at mother issues is looking deep inside myself at who I am too, as a woman. How much did who my mother was affect who I have become? Did she affect who I am at all? Hopefully along the way with this series, I will be able to answer those questions for myself.

Patricia

 

 Related Article:

FEAR, The Monster @

http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/03/fear-monster.html 

Guest Speaker For "Stop Child Abuse Now" SCAN

Where has the day gone? Just stopped in to let you know that I am a guest speaker for the radio program "Stop Child Abuse Now", SCAN, as it is called. The program is on Blog Talk Radio and hosted by Bill Murray.  The show will start at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 6:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time and 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time in the U. S. I hope you will join us tonight Wednesday, November 20, 2013. I hope you will join us tonight but if that is not possible the following link will work from the archives of the program. Here is the link for the program:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bill-murray/2013/11/21/stop-child-abuse-now-scan--708


At the end of my biography for the show, Bill says that I published two books, Silent No More and Growing Stronger, Growing Free. I didn't publish the books but I am very proud to be one of many contributors to the writing of the books. Both books are a "collection of works by 'Reaching survivors of sexual abuse' R.S.O.S.A. Founded by Kate Smith." You may purchase copies of these books at the following website:

http://www.thistangledweb.co.uk/online-shop/books/

See you tonight. Until then have a glorious day.
Patricia

Resentment Doesn't Harm Anyone But You

Good afternoon. What a beautiful day it is outside. The sun is shining and the Autumn winds are blowing. Sometime about the wind has always made me feel joy and so alive. As a child, I loved to run in the wind. Of course, as a child, I loved to run any time I could. Walking was just too slow to get me where I wanted to go. I hope that you all are having a wonderful day of healing and growing. 

 

Over the past few days, I have looked inward to my inner self to deal with some of my own issues. Small ones but they still needed to be looked at so that I don't become resentful. Resentment doesn't harm anyone but me. The other person doesn't even know that is how I feel. Most of us don't share our feelings with those that we carry resentment toward. I am no different than you. 

 

In order not to hold on to the resentment, I need to look at where it is coming from and how can I let go of it. I do that by looking at the feelings that cause my resentment to come out. This time my resentment came about because of someone else's sense of superiority brought up my feelings of not being good enough and of not being listened to or not having my opinion being valued by the other person. 

 

I felt like I wasn't good enough and that my different opinion was not being valued twice this week so I needed to look at my own issues rather than getting angry at the other person and creating drama and getting drawn into an argument. I can't help that the other person believes he/she is superior to everyone else. That is his/her problem, not mine. I can only deal with the feelings that come up in me. I have come to know for myself that a person with a superiority complex also has a frightened little child inside but I can only deal with my own frightened inner child, not theirs. 

 

When I realized that my feelings came from the years of living with my emotionally abusive rageaholic dictator dad, I could let go of the resentment that had been building in me over the past few days. My value doesn't come from another person, especially someone else who believes he/she is superior to everyone else. I don't need to hold on to the resentment or even be angry with the other person. 

 

I can forgive myself for feeling less than good enough. I can know that my value is not dependent upon another person hearing my opinion or not. My self-worth comes from loving myself. I give me value, not another person. I hope my words help someone else who may be struggling with feelings of less than good enough today. You are always good enough. Anyone who brings up those feelings of less than in you isn't your friend. They don't deserve you or your time. 

 

You can all do your own work of healing when these kinds of issues come up for you. I am no different than you. We all hurt and we all can heal. Don't let another person's behavior send you into a tail spin of low self-worth. That is the objective of a person with a superiority complex. Don't play their mind games. You will never win and the sad thing is they think they do win but they don't. Superiority or inferiority complexes both keep you in the pain rather than helping you to heal. Resentment isn't your friend either. Let go of it. You deserve joy and peace.

Happy healing. Enjoy your day.

Patricia

A Dad Issue From My Past Still Affecting Me Today

As the holidays are fast approaching, I have noticed several things from my past coming to the surface. My mom has been in two of my dreams recently. Rarely does either of my parents show up in my dreams. Two nights in a row is a sign of something but I am not sure what, other than the anniversary of her death is coming up on November 20. Maybe this will be a year that I do some more grieving. Maybe there is something that she is trying to teach me but I don't know what it is yet. I will wait to see if I get anything more from her or my dreams.

Everywhere I turn for the past few weeks, some survivor is talking about the silent screams of their abuse. I am familiar with those silent screams held inside of you as a child being physically, sexually abused by an adult. You hold the screams in because of the fear that once they start, you may not be able to stop them. You hold them in because, if your abuser can't deal with your tears, he certainly can't deal with your screams of pain and horror over being raped by a grown man when you are just a small child. You hear the screams in your head but no one else does but another survivor who has them too. I know those silent screams are still there inside of me but have no idea what to do with them other than acknowledge their existence like I am doing now.

Over the past few days, I have been part of two conversations in different groups. In both conversations, I expressed a difference of opinion to the other person's opinion. Both times, my opinion was rejected, which is their right. What is not their right or anyone else's is to say that I am still in victim mode or creating drama just because I voiced a different opinion. I got angry. In talking it out with some friends, I realized that the source of my anger was an old issue from my dad and his controlling behavior. As a child, until I left home at 19, I was not allowed to have a difference of opinion with my dad.

Expressing my opinion is important to me as an adult. I work hard to not do it in an aggressive, abusive way like my dad did with his laws that he stated in my childhood. Everything my dad said was to be accepted as law in our house. He was the dictator. I am not a child to be ruled by anyone today. I am an adult and I do often have an opinion. I respect the opinions of others and I hope they will respect mine.

I can't change or fix another person. I can try to understand them and their view point. I don't mind that others have a view point different than mine. Those differences are what make the world an interesting place to me. When another person starts name calling or treating me like I am inferior to them, then I feel as I did as a child who was not respected, not listened to and not allowed to have an opinion. Don't call me a victim or say that I am creating drama just because I express an opinion different than yours. I have learned not to strike out at a person in anger. I will regret what I say each time. I have learned that if I am angry, it is my issue, usually from the past, that I need to work on.  Usually I work on an issue by writing about it, as I am doing now. The other person's issues are not my business.

Another person's air of superiority can only affect me if I am feeling inferior. I have come to know that a superiority complex means the person is feeling inferior inside and afraid of others seeing it. I know because I used to do this with a sarcastic tongue. What we often see in others is because it is also a part of us. I have been there, done that, when I was younger so I know the fears behind the superiority and the sarcasm. Both keep others from getting too close so they can't hurt you. Today if I use sarcasm it is only in fun and never to hurt someone else.

We all have our own issues to deal with sometimes on a daily basis. Just know that your issues are yours. If someone else triggers you, it isn't their responsibility to fix it or you. It is yours. If you are angry or scared or sad because of something that was said or because of a situation you are in, look to yourself, usually your past, to find the answers. If you concentrate on the other person and what they said or what they did, you won't heal you. You will just add more woundedness to what you already have. My computer says that "woundedness" isn't a word. Well, it should be. Neither is "thriver" and again, it should be. As survivors, we are changing the world, one person at a time. We are inventing a new vocabulary to help us do it. Hope you are loving this late Sunday afternoon, my friends.
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.