Looking Back at 2015 And Forward To 2016

Happy 2016. I hope you all had a great Christmas. Mine was the usual traveling to visit family in Louisiana for Christmas Eve and then to Texas on Christmas Day. We had joyful times and the stress of organizing and traveling. 

We had family visiting the weekend before Christmas, adding to the joy and the stress both, for me. I love having family visit, once they are here. I had a meltdown a few days before they got here and realized that my inner child was worried about being judged as a terrible housekeeper because my bedroom is still a mess from my papers and books which have gotten out of hand. I asked Daniel for a new bookshelf for Christmas. It is already up and mostly filled. 

My inner child still carries shame from my dad making her feel not good enough when the work she did was never good enough for him. My company doesn't care that my bedroom is a mess. I understand this intellectually. I know the shame is from my childhood where both of my parents expected me to do work that no one ever took the time to show me how to do. Almost everything I know how to do is self-taught. 

I also told Daniel that I was angry at Pamela for not being here to listen to me talk the feelings out so I wouldn't have a meltdown. She died in April 2015. The grief comes and goes. Sometimes it is sadness and tears. Other times, like the week before Christmas, I feel angry and cry. When I talked about the meltdown with Daniel, I could see that I was feeling shame from my inner child again. I am not sure how to heal this shame so that it stops coming up again. 

Looking back at the year of 2015 for this blog shows that I only wrote 19 blog articles which gave me a total of 459 articles since the first one on June 1, 2007. Some of the topics that I wrote about were grief and letting go; silent anger; grooming of parents and children; The Case of The Three-Year-Old Adulteress book; resistance to writing; healing and transformation; forgiveness; our 43rd wedding anniversary; doubt and self-awareness. 

Daniel asked me a few days ago whether I had a good year in 2015. 2015 was a hard year, not bad, just full of lessons, illnesses, and the death of my best friend. Frustration and tears were a part of my year. Frustration with my own health issues kept me searching for answers that my doctor wasn't able to give me. After about two years of almost constant headaches and blurry vision, both improved dramatically after I took antibiotics for blisters on my feet. I saw four doctors before one of them finally treated the blisters so that they went away. The first doctor that I saw gave me an antibiotic because he thought I might have a staph infection in the blisters. About two weeks later, I realized that the headaches were gone. The blurry vision didn't leave until I got a new prescription for my glasses. I have astigmatism so when my eyes get tired, things get blurry but not all of the time like they were for two years. I saw three different eye doctors and none of them asked about my last prescription which I did get changed two weeks after getting it filled, with no improvement. 

2015 was a year of more frequent trips to Louisiana because of Daniel's mom's declining health. For two months, we had Daniel's middle brother and his mother both in nursing homes. Daniel's mom got to go home at Thanksgiving. His brother was supposed to but got a bad eye infection the week of Thanksgiving. He went home for a trial week at Christmas. We need to call again to see how the two of them are doing. Daniel's oldest brother has had his hands full with both of them in different nursing homes. Daniel's mom hated the one his brother was in. She wasn't happy with any of the places she stayed because they weren't home. She wanted us down there every week and it just wasn't possible. We live three hours away and Daniel is self-employed so he isn't always able to just pick up and go when the jobs are coming in. Did I mention that 2015 was a long year. When we got home from Christmas, I had a cough that has finally started to get a little better. Today I am nauseous again and have an ear ache so I know that I have fluid behind my ear drums again. Being allergic to so many antibiotics makes it necessary for me to treat as many of my illnesses as I can with other remedies such as garlic, golden seal and herbs for allergies. They work but they take longer than antibiotics. Daniel hates the smell of garlic and I have to be careful that it doesn't send my blood pressure too low. 

I know that 2016 is going to be a great year because I choose to look at my life and the world through an attitude of gratitude this year. I intend to focus more on my writing of The Case of The Three-Year-Old Adulteress book in 2016. I let too many things slow me down in 2015. My health issues have made me more aware that our time on this Earth plane is limited. The death of my friend Pamela has also given me more awareness in that area. She was from May to December older than me. None of us know how much time we really have. I intend to use my time better this year and get my book written. 2016 is a nine year. Nine is the number of completion. Pamela taught me that. She knew a lot of numerology facts. I tend to forget most of what she taught me in that area. She loved numbers. They are not my thing. They just don't stay in my mind or memory long. What things do you want to complete this year?

I read a lot. I love books and knowledge. The internet just opens up more knowledge for me to find and love. One of the websites that I receive a newsletter from weekly is called mindbodygreen. A recent article that I really liked and am sharing here is "15 Lessons I Learned in 2015".  You will find the article are the following link:
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-23107/15-life-lessons-i-learned-in-2015.html

Also from mindbodygreen, I read an article called "The Mindset Shift That Can Make Every Moment Miraculous". The link to this article is at http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-23098/the-mindset-shift-that-can-make-every-moment-miraculous.html

I do believe in miracles. I see them everywhere because I look for them. Gratitude is an important part of my day. Have a glorious 2016.
Patricia

Incest Survivors Ready To Heal

Today is Day #14 and the last day of the Start Your Book Challenge on ChallengeBug. Our challenge leader was Christine Kloser who calls herself "The Transformation Catalyst." Her website is http://www.ChristineKloser.com . 

My blog post "Transformation Through Writing" came from Day #1's challenge. I will add the link to it at the end of this post in case you haven't read it already. I have enjoyed and learned from this 14 day challenge. I am still working on some of the challenges that I didn't want to rush through. I enjoy the researching as much as the writing part of some of the challenges. 

On Day #2, I was asked, Who is your ideal reader? Here is my answer.

The ideal reader for The Case of The Three-Year-Old Adulteress is an incest survivor who is beginning to acknowledge that she/he is a survivor. This survivor wants to finally let go of the denial that they thought would protect them from the pain of awareness and memories. She/He wants to heal but may not know where to start. Fears and maybe memories are starting to surface because she/he has cracked open that door in her/his mind. Once that door is open, she/he can't close it and pretend the door was never open. She/he stays stuck in the fear and the pain or she/he moves forward. My ideal reader is ready to move forward.

For ease of writing and because more girls are abused than boys, I am going to use "she" and "her" from here on out in my article. I am not excluding boys/men. One out of three girls are sexually abused and one out of six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. I am grateful that boys/men are finally joining the ranks of female survivors in speaking out and breaking the silence of incest/childhood sexual abuse. I know, personally, the challenges and fears they face to find and use their voices. 

My ideal reader has acknowledged that she is an incest survivor, at least in her own mind. She may or may not have told anyone else yet. She probably doesn't have any idea what step to take next. Fear, rage and hurt are battling for the top position in her mind. The survivor is feeling overwhelmed, if she even knows what she is feeling. Many times feelings aren't allowed. Feelings are denied, stuffed or hidden by addictions. She may be afraid of change and some part of her is resisting those first steps. Resistance has to be faced and overcome before healing happens. Sometimes, the survivor has to hurt enough before she is willing to move forward. My ideal reader is ready to move forward.

Once feelings start, grief isn't far behind. All survivors of incest have to grieve the loss of innocence and the loss of the childhood they didn't have. Most survivors have no idea what normal is. They have never seen healthy in their dysfunctional families. Incest is only allowed to happen in an atmosphere of dysfunction. Every family member plays their part in keeping the secrets of the dysfunctional family. 

The incest survivor is usually full of rage at her abusers but probably taking that rage out on herself and those closest to her. Depression becomes a constant companion. I have seen depression defined as anger turned inward. That definition feels right to me. Often what doctors call depression may be the deep, deep sadness of grief. Survivors have so many losses to work through and let go of. I don't believe just taking a pill solves those feelings of loss. As a survivor, she has to feel her way to healing.

What is my ideal reader seeking?

Release from the overwhelming sadness, fear and rage that is inside of her is one answer. She wants the hurt to stop. Feeling and growing are the only ways that I know of to do that healing. My book The Case of The Three-Year-Old Adulteress will take her through my own journey of healing from incest.

What transformations do I want for my ideal reader? 

I want my ideal reader to be able to experience freedom from pain, rage and sadness. I want her to be able to work her way through all of those feelings and then release them. Joy and peace are attainable goals. Learning to love herself is an important part of the healing journey. Letting go of addictions and codependency are necessary to healing. In reading my story, she will be given healing tools to use in her own journey. She will learn to express feelings in healthy ways. She will recognize the lies of her abusers and see how they may still be affecting her life today as an adult. She will find her sense of self-worth and not rely on others to get her self-worth from. She will love herself first so that she has more to give to others. She will learn that some people don't belong in her life. Some people don't want her to change or to move on. Those people will either change themselves or they will move on. 

My ideal reader is someone who is tired of hurting and ready to heal no matter how much it hurts to begin with. She is ready to step into survivor mode, ready to move forward with courage, hope and commitment. As a survivor, she is ready to strip away all denial and ready to be extremely honest with herself. She is open to change and willing to look at the source of resistance that she may feel. 

Trust is something that she will have to learn---trust of herself first and then trust of others. Not everyone deserves her trust. She must learn to trust herself and that inner voice that guides her when she is willing to listen. Part of trusting herself means learning how to shut up that mean, critical inner voice that came from her abusers. I will teach her how to use affirmations to turn that inner voice to positive and away from being negative all of the time. 

Making friends with her inner child is a very important step in healing. The inner child is the one who carries and remembers all of her pain. The inner child is the one who is so full of fear and is afraid of moving forward. All the inner child knows is the pain and fear of incest and the words of her abusers. She has to gain the trust of her inner child. Together they will grow and learn to love each other. The inner child isn't the enemy. The abusers are.

Strength and courage are both needed to take one healing step after another. The rewards of being a survivor are worth going through all of the challenges she will face along the way to healing. Healing isn't an instant cure. 

I am not a doctor or a therapist. I, too, am a survivor of incest. Today I am a thriver and I know that my readers can all accomplish what I have. I encourage you all to take that first healing step and share your story with some caring person that you trust. 
Patricia

Related Posts:

Transformation Through Writing @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2015/08/transformation-through-writing.html 

Stages Of Loss And Grief For Incest Survivors @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2014/05/stages-of-loss-and-grief-for-incest.html

Journey To Your Heart - Learning To Love Yourself After Abuse @  http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/08/journey-to-your-heart-learning-to-love.html


Denial, FEAR's Companion And BFF @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/03/denial-fears-companion-and-bff.html

Inner Child Work And Feeling Safe @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2014/03/inner-child-work-and-feeling-safe.html

The Secret---Affirmations Change Your Life @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/08/secret-affirmations-change-your-life.html

Grief And Letting Go, Feeling What Is

When I wrote my last post here in July 2014, I had no idea it would be so long before I sat down to write again. It has been a difficult year between then and now, May 2015. I have had health issues, nothing life threatening, just energy zapping and time consuming. Often I have thought of something to share with my readers but always got distracted before I could sit down and get the words written here. This was a year of researching health issues, having all kinds of testing done to discover the source of my headaches which still hasn't happened, reading about thyroid issues and educating my doctor.

We have taken more trips than usual to Louisiana and to Texas to visit with family---surgeries, nursing homes and grocery shopping. Family is important. We live 3 and 5 hours away so the trips are a big deal now. As we have gotten older, the trips are harder to make and take longer to recover from than when we were younger. It takes me a week to get over being tired from our trips.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there who are reading this. I am blessed by our two children and their spouses and our 4 grandchildren.

On April 28, one of my best friends died after having two heart attacks the evening before. Her Memorial Service was on Saturday, May 2. The spouse of another dear friend died on April 29 and his funeral was on Monday, May 4. Just yesterday, I found out that a friend that I knew only on Facebook also died. I knew he was having some health issues. Some days I cry. Others I don't. Wednesday, May 6 was my best friend's 64th birthday. This Mother's Day will be without her presence. I grieve for myself and for her husband, children and grandchildren.

I hate grief and it is a natural part of life and of healing from childhood abuse. I hate grief and I am allowing it to ebb and flow through my days right now. I have coping tools that work for me today. I write. I talk to friends. I ask my husband to hold me while I cry. I let the tears flow when they come. I am strong at times and not so strong at others. The first few days after my friend died, I kept thinking of reasons to call her and talk, then I would remember that I couldn't. Yesterday, it only happened once.

Never take another person for granted and think they will be there to talk to tomorrow. None of us is promised a tomorrow. At 8:00 p.m. on Monday evening, April 27, my friend and I talked and agreed we would talk the next day when she wasn't so tired. At 9:30 p.m., she had the first of two heart attacks. I visited her at the hospital twice the next day while she was on life support. I held her hand. I told her to hang on that none of us were ready to let her go yet. An hour later, I told her that none of us would ever be ready to let her go but she needed to do what her soul needed her to do. At 5:30 p.m., April 28, my friend drew her last breath. I will always remember that day because it was the date that our son was due to be born on many years ago. Birth and death are both important parts of life, so intertwined, both parts of all of our journeys. If you love someone, tell them so, often. Let your actions show that you care. Let your words be kind. Love and take care of yourself too.
Patricia

Stages Of Loss And Grief For Incest Survivors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patricia

Incest And Domestic Violence - Hanging On To That Glimmer Of Light In A World Of Darkness

I want to start this blog post out by sharing the words of one of my favorite spiritual writers - Dr. Wayne Dyer. These words came from his Facebook page. I find them so true for my healing journey.

"Holding in negative emotions such as grief and anger is exhausting. Naming them and releasing them regularly through writing, movement, tears, singing, or making sounds frees us up to live full, vibrant lives."

"Naming them and releasing them regularly through writing. . . " is one of the things that I do with my journals and with this blog. Writing and sharing my words, using my voice to give word to my grief, anger and hurt is how the majority of my healing has happened over the years.

I ran across an article on the internet this week that agrees with Dr. Dyer about the usefulness of writing down our feelings. The name of the article is "The Mental Health Benefits of Expressive Writing". The author of the article is Michael Craig Miller, M. D.  Here is the link to the article if you are interested in reading it.

http://www.intelihealth.com/print-article/the mental-health-benefits-of-expressive-writing?nid=79974&hd=Full

Another link I want to share with you is from the blog ECHOES WHISPER FROM THE SHADOWS written by a dear friend of mine. The article that I want you to read is called "CHASING AWAY THE DARKNESS".  The title of my article came from the words of this blog article. My friend is a survivor of domestic violence in her marriage. I am a survivor of domestic violence from my childhood home. The circumstances are different but the feelings of darkness that my friend describes are very well known to me and continued throughout my early years of marriage, not because I was being emotionally abused, I wasn't. For me, I was living in the denial of how my childhood of incest and emotional abuse was still affecting me in my day to day life. I held on to that denial so tightly because I wanted it to be true that I could be happy with my life. I didn't know that wouldn't happen until I worked through all my issues from the incest and felt all of those stuffed and denied feelings. I wanted the fairy tale ending of happy ever after. I carried the darkness of the incest deep inside of me and many times would feel overwhelmed but nobody else knew about the incest or how to help me, if I had asked. I was so busy being "happy" and trying to fix everyone else's problems because then you would love me and I could be happy.

I also know the "glimmer of light" that my friend talks about. I believe it is that touch of the Divine in each of us that gives us strength to keep going even when life seems impossible, that element that refuses to allow me to give up when I am almost too tired to keep going. I see that light. I always have from my early childhood when I suspect I was being abused, but don't have the memories as proof. As a child, I always had this tiny spark in me that would hang on to the little bit of sunshine that would come into the darkness and guide me forward. I could always find some small bit of joy even in the darkness. I think that is the part of me that has always seen the blessings in my adult life. I have always been able to see some good in my day. I have the strength to find some gift in the horror of my childhood. Here is the link to my friend's blog article.

http://echoesfromtheshadows.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/chasing-away-the-darkness.html

While you are there, check out her poetry under the title Living With Demons and her photography also. I love both of them. My friend is not an incest survivor. There was no abuse in her childhood. I just wanted to make that clear for anyone who was wondering. She is one of the people, who by sharing her story of domestic violence in her marriage, helped me to realize that there was much domestic violence, in the form of emotional abuse, in my childhood. She shares her story of domestic violence from the view of an adult. Mine comes from watching the arguments and verbal abuse that my dad did in his rages, sometimes while under the influence of alcohol, but just as often, not. This is another example of how someone just telling their story has helped another survivor to see the truths in her own life, truths that were still in hiding. Thank you, Debbie.
Patricia

Childhood Sexual Abuse Links

It has been awhile since I have shared very many links from other blogs with you. Here are some that have been helpful to me lately:

1.  Triggers; what are they and how do we work through them? @
      http://survivorsjustice.com/2014/02/26/triggers-what-are-they-and-how-do-we-work-through-them/

2.  What I Wish I Had Known @
     http://speak4change.com/blogging/what-i-wish-i-had-known/

3.  15 Things I Wish I'd Known About Grief @
     http://identityrenewed.com/2013/11/21/15-things-i-wish-id-known-about-grief/

4.  Grooming - How Do Sexual Abuse Predators Get Into Our Lives? @
     http://together-we-heal.org/2013/06/17/grooming-how-do-sexual-predators-get-into-our-lives/

5.  Intimate Partner Violence @
     http://www.butterflydreamsabuserecovery.com/intimate_partner_violence.html#.Uxu474WtyYF


6.  Adolescent Male Victims Of Sexual Abuse - The Psychological Effects @
     http://whatislove-2010.blogspot.com/2014/01/adolescent-male-victims-of-sexual-abuse.html

7.  Incest Survivors United Voices of America @
     http://www.isuvoa.com/

I know the Intimate Partner Violence article and the article about Grief aren't about Childhood Sexual Abuse as the name of the blog post says but they could be in the life of a survivor. As children being abused, you have much grieving to do in the healing process. Every time an issue comes up to be healed, you start the healing with facing the grief that comes up because of the losses in your childhood. Many of us who are sexually abused also grow up with Domestic Violence in our homes. Many grow up to live with intimate partner violence because of your poor sense of self-worth that says you don't deserve better treatment from your loved ones.
Patricia    

Sharing Our Stories And Healing From Incest - Does It Get Easier?

I am going to start this blog post with a quote from one of my favorite authors/guest speakers today in the world of healing resources.

"When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else."
                           ----Iyanla Vanzant

A special online friend of mine, Debra Estep, shared this quote with me a few days ago with the words:

"Patricia ... To you, the one who stands out there sharing bringing 'healing' to others"

Debra's words brought such joy to my heart, as well as tears to my eyes, when I read them. Debra has been one of my supporters almost from the very beginning of my blog. She and I were introduced to each other through our mutual friend Slade Roberson who inspired me to start a blog in the first place. I appreciate the support of these two friends who have watched me struggle and grow comfortable here with sharing my story and reaching out to other survivors. Their encouragement is always appreciated. I love you both, my friends.

Someone asked me recently, "Does it get easier?"

Sharing our stories gets easier as you do it. Healing in itself gets easier with work and with time. And that said, each time a new issue comes up for me, I still feel some of the old pain but not with the intensity of in the beginning. An issue doesn't take the months to get through that it once did. Today an issue is usually worked through in a short amount of time. The new issue may take hours or even a few days to a week depending upon how much time and effort I put into working through it. The feelings around the issue and the issue itself don't take up my entire life like it did when I was just starting to heal.

Healing isn't about taking short cuts. I don't know of any easy ways to get rid of the pain. You have to go through the feelings, many of which were stuffed inside and numbed by this addiction or that one. Healing is the most painful thing you will probably ever do but you will find sunshine and a good life on the other side. Be patient and kind with yourself. Stop resisting your own pain. Quit resisting your own healing. You don't have to beat yourself up for not moving as fast as those inner voices say you have to. You can quiet those voices. Like your abusers, they are lying to you.

As you go through your day, look for the little things that you can be grateful for - the little wonders that pass through your day, the moments of silence when you can feel the presence of God in your life, the awesomeness of nature and how it helps to center you in the middle of some of the chaos that working on healing creates. Find the gift of a new awareness that you gained today as you let go of the lies. You will always find the gift at the end of the lesson if you take the time to look for them. Did you find a new piece of yourself today to add to the puzzle that is you? You won't see it if you move forward with your eyes closed. Be open to whatever experience comes your way today. You may see yourself as broken and you can always be mended. Mended is always stronger than the original.

In my experience, you have to go through the feelings in order to heal and that hurts most of the time. You have to feel the grief for all of the losses of the abused child that you were. You have the strength to get through it, just one day at a time. My anger was the first feeling that I became aware of. As I looked closer at the anger and rage, I found that they were both often just cover-ups for more hurt. The sadness that has been such a part of my being since I was a little girl was because of all of the hurt and the grief that she carried inside. As I learned to feel and learned to love myself, I was able to work through and then let go of much of that hurt and grief. The sadness lifted and joy returned. I say returned because children are naturally full of joy when they are born. If you don't believe me, just watch a baby laugh. See if you can touch that joy inside of yourself. It may be hidden beneath the hurt and sadness of the abuse. The joy is still there waiting for you to reach in and pull it out. Find something in your day to make you laugh. Think of something that you really like to do and do it.

Taking breaks from healing are absolutely necessary. The work of healing is hard. You can feel really overwhelmed at times. You can lose sight of the good things in your life. Start a hobby that you really like doing. Your inner child will love the opportunity to play. She/He will reward you with the joy that will come bubbling up unexpectedly when what you are doing connects with that well of creativity inside of you.

Sometimes you need to just sit and watch a child play. Watch a movie that you know will make you laugh and sometimes a movie that will make you cry, if that is what your heart needs at the moment. Tears are healing too. Go out for coffee with a friend. Take your pet for a walk. Get out in nature.

Then once you feel better, go back to the hard, but rewarding, work of healing you. Because you took a break, you will be better able to handle tomorrow and whatever issues the day brings to you. You are worth it. Some day, you won't hurt as much. You will get through today. One day at a time. Instead of looking at how much work you have left, look back at how far you have come. Be proud of yourself. Reward yourself for the small accomplishments you make. Take a moment to enjoy the sunshine in your life. The world isn't only clouds but you know what? Some of the most beautiful days I have ever seen were just full of clouds. Look at how the sun plays and creates such beauty out of the clouds. Clouds are much more interesting than just a clear, blue sky. So is your life.
Patricia

Healing From Incest Vs. Being Stuck In The Past

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Birthdays And Valentine's Day

February 12 was the birthday of my mother and February 14 was the birthday of one of my abusers, in addition to being Valentine's Day. Most years those dates don't bring me any hurtful feelings to deal with. This year, on February 1, I was aware that both of those dates were coming up soon. The suspense was building all through the days up till then.

I have had dreams also. I wouldn't call them nightmares but I do remember the confusion and I remembered the details of each of them when I would wake up from them each morning of the week leading up to those two days. Without going into those details which are now fading from my memory, what I brought out of each of those dreams was a feeling of being lost and out of control of what was going on in the dreams. One of them even had my uncle in the dream sitting in a living room chair with a dead snake with an irridescent blue stripe down its back in front of him in a round hole in the floor as I was sitting on the floor beside his chair. I don't remember this uncle ever being in my dreams before. Sometimes my mother is in my dreams but she wasn't in this one. I know from a dream class that snake can represent sexuality and spirituality both, energy wise. I rarely see colors in my dream so I know that is important too but I don't know why unless blue is a healing color. I know that my uncle and my dad both damaged my sexuality with the rapes of incest which has lasting scars to this day. Also my trust in God was dented for awhile but that came back alive even stronger for me.

Dream books can only help so much with interpreting our dreams because symbols and their meaning belong to us individually. I would guess my uncle was in the dream and there were children in the dream with us because of the birthday date that was coming up. There was more to the dream but it doesn't pertain to this discussion of those two birthdays.

Only in the past year or two have I started to talk about my uncle as an abuser. I dealt with the abuse from my dad first because it was the most damaging and longer lasting. I guess I hoped by dealing with the abuse from my dad that the abuse from my uncle would be taken care of too. Most people assume that this uncle was a brother of my dad and he was not. He was one of my mother's brothers. All of the other brothers of my mother I loved but this one always scared me even at a young age. One of my earliest memories is of him walking me through the night from my grandmother's house to my parents' house one dark night. I was walking but not in school yet. I would guess from the image in my mind that I was around three or four years old. What I remember about that night was walking side by side and him getting upset with me because I wouldn't make up my mind if I wanted to go home or stay with my grandmother.

I loved my grandmother. She took me in at the age of two when I had whooping cough and the doctor said I couldn't stay at home because if my baby brother got it he would die. I believe that early time with my grandmother is why I never fit in that well with my family of origin and everyone always told me I was different. She gave me my sense of values.

Back to that night, I remember walking with my uncle down the dirt road and being in love with the beauty of the night. It was apparently Summer time because it was a warm, star filled night. The night time sky was awe inspiring, so unlike most three year olds, I was quiet and just enjoying the night. I felt safe in the night. Sometime not long after that I learned to fear the night. I am not sure exactly when my love of the night left me but it did.

With these two dates in February, this year, I felt some grief. I have felt the grief many times. I have learned to feel it, sit with it and then let it go. I used to live with the heaviness of grief as a background feeling that was always there, like the headaches that I have had most of my life. When I started healing and opened the doors to talking about incest and my issues, I could finally give the grief a name and acknowledge it for what it was. It stayed around for awhile until I worked through all of it. I cried at 12-Step meeting for a year once the feelings returned. Today, when an issues comes back up to be healed some more, I experience a day or two of grief and then it leaves. I feel it as the color gray and a heaviness that leaves my mind and body after about two days.

Back on February 5, I caught a brief glimpse of something else during the time that I was listening to a radio program hosted by my Advocate friend Patricia McKnight (Trish) on her Wednesday night program called Survivors World. This particular program was called "Survivors World - Its Teen Night w/ Justice K."  Justice is a teenaged friend of mine who is such a courageous young woman who shares her story of being sexually abused by one of her trusted teachers at the high school that she used to attend. He is now serving time in jail. Because of Justice's courage in turning him in, others are not being abused by him in his classroom. I will put the link to this radio program at the end of the page for anyone who wants to listen to this courageous 18-year-old tell her story.

At an early point during listening to Justice and Trish talking and also reading and responding to comments in the chat room of the program, for just an instant, something inside of me opened up in my mind's eye. All I could see was blackness with a feeling of a lot of hurt for what was done to me as a child. I felt hurt so intense that I had to shut it down. I had to leave the program because my headache just got so bad that I was feeling nauseous too. I went and took a pain pill and laid down for about three hours after that. I didn't actually go to sleep but I just had to be still and quiet. I don't know if this was old stuff coming back up or if it is possibly some of the memories that I don't have getting ready to present themselves. Just for a second, I also felt an anger and disgust for the people that hurt me and for those who didn't protect me. I felt deep sorry for the child that I was back then and also sorrow for the child that I would no longer become.  Except in one of my paintings on anger, I have not seen this blackness before. In my painting, the darkness is full of rage and hurt. The intensity of this blackness is not anything I have felt before. I will remain open to it coming back and letting me see and feel a little more. I hope this is making sense to you.

Before I close, I want to also share with you that I was one of the call-in-guests on Friday, February 14 on Valentine's Day to Butterfly Dreams Radio and Survivors World for Patricia McKnight's program called "Survivors World - Let's talk about LOVE." The link is also below under Related Links. I shared a little bit about what it has been like for my husband and me to live and love through the years of me healing from incest. I also had one ah-ha moment for myself during the show. I shared it with my husband after the program. It probably won't be obvious to you as you listen but it is more for me to process and think about and decide how I feel about it.
Patricia

Related Links:

Survivors World - Its Teen Night w/ Justice K. @
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2014/02/06/survivors-world--its-teen-night-w-justice-k

Survivors World - Let's talk about LOVE @
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2014/02/15/survivors-world--lets-talk-about-love

Helplines of the United States of America

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696

• Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433

• Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386
 

• Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743
 

• Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438
 

• Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673
 

• Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272
 

• Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000
 

• Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253
 

• Self Harm: 1-800-DONT CUT (1-800-366-8288)
 

•Pregnancy Hotline 1-800-4-OPTIONS (1-800-467-8466)
 

• Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Youth Support Line 800-850-8078
 

• National Association for Children of Alcoholics 1-888-55-4COAS (1-888-554-2627)
 

• National Child Abuse Hotline 1-800-422-4453
 

• National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233)
 

• National Drug Abuse Hotline 1-800-662-HELP (1-800-662-4357)
 

• National Youth Crisis Hotline 1-800-448-4663
 

• Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention 1-800-931-2237 (Hours:8am-noon daily, PT)
 

• Veterans: 1-877-VET2VET
 

• Adolescent Suicide Helpline: 1-800-621-4000
 

• Postpartum Depression: 1-800-PPD-MOMS

Thank you to my friend, Darleen Thompson from Facebook for sharing these helplines in the United States where most of my readers are. Please if you ever need help, don't hesitate to call the appropriate line listed above.

Patricia

Processing Fears Of Inner Child

So many of my incest issues have been healed and no longer influence my day-to-day life that I am always surprised when the inner child and the fears that she carries rise up again. As a survivor, (Maybe everyone does this, I don't know.) I have fears that I face and release quite often. The thoughts come and go. I acknowledge them and let them pass on without reacting to them. Those thoughts are no longer issues or triggers for me.

On long trips, like our Gettysburg, PA trip, my inner child sometimes gets the upper hand and acts out. As an incest survivor who grew up with a controlling, dictator, possibly narcissistic father, I have an irrational fear that is still pretty big sometimes of being out of control of my own life and decisions. This fear comes up on long driving trips where there is speed and lots of lanes of traffic, especially in big cities that I don't know or when it is dark and raining as it did several times on our trip.  For whatever reason, Daniel plays into my fears too. I talked with him yesterday and he didn't realize that I was reacting out of fear. I guess he just thought I was being bitchy and controlling. I don't want to focus on his part in our little drama. That doesn't help me to figure out me and my inner child. Focusing on someone else is just a way to keep from looking at my part in the drama, which accomplishes nothing in stopping the drama from happening again.

This processing may take me some time to get through because of the grief that gets added on to the other feelings that came up during the trip. I have to find a way to assure my inner child that she is safe, that I will always do what is in my power to protect her. She is not defenseless like I was with the incest and emotional abuse from my dad when she was little. I am an adult and can protect myself and her. I did let my husband know that his behavior lead me to feel that my feelings weren't important. I need to trust my husband's driving skills more too. I need to tell him when he scares me instead of holding it in and hoping it will go away. He is not a mind reader.

Grief always comes along after an issue like this because of the losses involved. Sometimes the grief comes for a day, sometimes for several days. Today I don't ignore the grief. I acknowledge it for the heavy, dark feeling that it is. I feel it until it goes away, until the next time. I grieved for much of my childhood with the adult responsibilities and the unchildlike behavior that was expected of me by the adults in my life. I called it sadness then and knew it was my constant companion at least from the age of 7. Today I know that sadness for the grief of a small child who had so many losses in her young life. This grief is another sign that something was seriously wrong in my childhood at an early age. The abuse didn't start when I was 11 years old. Something happened to that small child of three or younger that I simply do not have the memories of. Grieving is healing that is necessary to move on, to grow. Ignoring grief doesn't make it go away. More grief just gets added on top of that grief that you already carry. For the first time in my life, I recognize grief and even welcome it because I know it means I am healing and letting go of another layer of abuse instead of holding the grief inside to eat away at me.

Being at Gettysburg and visiting the actual battlefield after the reenactment was a humbling experience. I am grateful for the experience and for the processing that is going on right now. It is sometimes painful but the experience is also a necessary part of my healing. As I said in the chatroom of the radio program last night, "In payment for the present pain of healing, I have more moments of joy, laughter and peace in my life today." I talked a little about my processing on the radio program Butterfly Dreams-What is Freedom last night. Here is the link if you are interested in listening:

http://www.Blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamsabuserecovery/2013/07/09/butterfly-dreams-what-is-freedom

Last night's show was a special two-hour program. I am not on until the last 20 minutes or so. I missed most of the first hour of the show myself because of a new meditation group that my friend and I went to for the first time last night. I miss meditating with a group. Group meditations seem so much more powerful than just doing it by myself. I hope this group works for me even though it means I will come in late for each of the Monday evening Butterfly Dreams radio programs. In case you miss the live shows, each of the Butterfly Dreams shows are archived for later listening. I learn so much from Patricia McKnight's programs that start at 8:00 p.m. CST in the U. S. on Mondays, Wednesdays and with Debra Mize on Thursday evenings. I hope you will check out the programs.
Patricia

Are The Effects Of Incest A Life Sentence For A Survivor?

Sharing some more of my Tweets on Twitter from several weeks ago. Tell me what you think.

The sad fact of my life is that at age 60, my abusers are all dead but the effects of incest live on in me.

I have done many years of healing work and am in a good to great spot most of the time with my incest issues behind me.

Even with healing, sometimes an issue will pop up and catch me by surprise and I find more grieving to do.

More grieving, more healing, more anger and fear to feel and then let go of because of the incest in my childhood.

A Survivor's work is never done, at least in my experience. Joy and peace do exist and I enjoy them when they are here.

And I still have those moments of fear come up when something triggers a memory or a feeling from my inner child.

I live with hope and laughter in my life and I still am a work in progress.


Tomorrow is my dad's birthday. He died January 6, 2000. Because of the length of time that he sexually abused me, I count him as my main abuser and most of the issues that I have worked on came from the abuse done by him.

My dad was born in 1931 as the 3rd oldest of what would become a family with 12 kids. He quit school in 5th grade when he went to work in the fields with his dad to help feed their family. I don't know if he had been a good student or not. When I was older, I realized that he could barely read or write. He could write his name. As for his intelligence, I don't think he was very smart. He came from a family with alcoholism and codependency in it just as I did. My grandfather when I was older would start drinking on Friday evening as fast as he could cash his pay check and get to the store to buy beer. When I was growing up, we spent lots of weekends at their house. I was always afraid of my grandfather because he was loud, a big man and a mean drunk. He would drink all weekend. On Sundays, he would drive back to town to buy more beer even though it was against the law back then to sell alcohol on Sundays. You did not want to ride with my grandfather when he was drinking. I rode with him one time with my siblings.  I cannot understand how he was never in an accident or stopped by a policeman for drunk driving. He was all over the road. Whatever direction he looked, the car went. That was before you had seat beats in cars. He never drove over 40 miles per hour. Neither did my dad. This was also before you had interstate highways.

None of this is told to you as an excuse for my dad's behavior but to give you a little bit of background to his life and mine. I can feel sad for the child that he was and I can see where some of his patterns of behavior came from. I can see why he grew up into a frightened man who felt that he had to control everyone around him to feel safe. I did the same thing until I realized that control didn't make me safe or make me happy. For awhile, I copied what I saw as a child. You have to have awareness of behaviors before you can change them. My dad never saw that he needed to change anything. I have learned that control hides fear - lots of fear.

When you face your fear, you can give up the need to control. Letting go of fear makes room for you to start to heal.
Patricia

April Blog Link Love

Yes, I know that today is May 1. I have been busy this week. Then yesterday we had thunderstorms that started in the afternoon and kept coming until late in the evening. I always unplug my computer during the threat of thunderstorms. I have a friend who lost her computer when her house was hit by lightning a few years ago.

So my blog link list for April is late in being published. Here it is.

1. No longer a victim and much more than a survivor from the blog A Journey. The subtitle for this blog says, "Seek Knowledge find Wisdom live your Truth"

http://zebraspolkadotsandplaids.blogspot.com/2012/04/no-longer-victim-and-much-more-than.html

2. The Art Of Letting Go from the blog Rejuvenation Lounge

http://thehealthylivinglounge.com/2012/04/19/letting-go/

3. 5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CHILD SEXUAL OFFENDERS from the blog The Resurgence

http://theresurgence.com/2012/04/14/5-things-you-should-know-about-child-sexual-offenders

4. Beyond Survivor: Interview with Jan Frayne from the blog healthpsychologyconsultancy

http://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/beyond-survivor-interview-with-jan-frayne/

5. Are you being abused? What can you do to stop it? from the blog Appalachian Child (which is also the book by author Bea B. Todd)

http://beabtodd.authorsxpress.com/2012/04/02/are-you-being-abused-what-can-you-do-to-stop-it/

6. Snowball from the blog My Life as a Strife Survivor

http://strifesurvivor.blogspot.com/2012/04/snowball.html

7. The Seeds of Power from the blog As Ashes Scatter

http://asashesscatter.com/2012/03/22/the-seeds-of-power/

8. Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse April 2012 Edition found at the blog Child Abuse Survivor

http://www.childabusesurvivor.net/wordpress/2012/04/27/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-april-2012-edition/

9. The Mystery in History #ChildAbuse #Recovery from the blog The Wounded Warrior

http://whatislove-2010.blogspot.com/2012/04/mystery-in-history-childabuse-recovery.html

10.  A Profile of the Child Molester from the website DreamCatchers For Abused Children

http://dreamcatchersforabusedchildren.com/2012/04/profile-of-the-child-molester/

11. Grief Has A Mind of Its Own from the blog Soulseeds

http://www.soulseeds.com/grapevine/2011/08/grief-has-a-mind-of-its-own/

12. Statistics Confirm the High Rate of Incest and Victim's Secrecy from the blog Evil Sits at the Dinner Table

http://ordinaryevil.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/statistics-confirm-the-high-rate-of-incest-and-victims-secrecy/

Keep in mind that any or all of these blog articles can be triggering to a child abuse survivor. Read at your own risk.
Patricia

Grieving Is A Major Part of Healing From Abuse

To facilitate more healing on my part and sometimes just out of curiosity, I read a lot of blogs every week.  On Twitter, I found a blog article on grieving that is one of the best articles on explaining grief that I have read in a long time.  This article is entitled Grief Has A Mind of Its Own posted on soulseeds: SEED THE CHANGE blog.  The link for this article is here:

http://www.soulseeds.com/grapevine/2011/08/grief-has-a-mind-of-its-own/

This blog article was written by Ian Lawton who calls himself a "Spiritual teacher of inner wisdom, divine love, deeper consciousness, oneness, peace, and abundance."  Thank you Ian for sharing your thoughts on grieving.

Grief is such a big part of healing from childhood abuse.  Every time a loss of any kind happens in your life, you have to grieve the loss.  As a child of incest, I had a lot of grieving to do when I started healing. 

Another new friend that I have recently met through Twitter is Nancy Fox-Kilgore, M. S.   Nancy's blog is called Sibling Abuse & Bullies which you will find at the following link:

http://siblingbullies.com/blog/

Nancy's is a fairly new blog in the healing child abuse community.  I know that Nancy would love it if you would leave a comment on any of her blog articles. I hope that you will encourage her to continue writing and sharing her journey so that others can also start to heal by reading her words.  Nancy is an expert on Bullying and Sibling Abuse.  If you are ever looking for a guest speaker on either of these two topics, Nancy is the person to contact.  Nancy is a national speaker for the United States Department of Justice.  She speaks on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in rape and incest victims.  I wanted to introduce you to Nancy today rather than waiting for you to meet her in my next blog article.  My next blog article that will be posted here on Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker will be a Guest Interview with Nancy Fox-Kilgore.  Look for the post on either the coming Monday or Tuesday.  In the meantime, go to Nancy's blog Sibling Abuse & Bullies and become aquainted with Nancy and her mission to protect children from bullying and sibling abuse.  You will learn some things that you didn't know about the two forms of abuse.

Patricia

Grieving Is Normal For An Incest Survivor

The following definitions are taken from The Doubleday Dictionary For Home, School and Office, Sidney I. Landau, Editor in Chief; Ronald J. Bogus, Managing Editor; DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.;  Garden City, New York:  1975.

Depressed:  adj. 1.  Sad; dejected.  2.  Pressed down.  3.  Flattened from above; sunk below the surface.  4.  Reduced in amount, degree, value,etc.
Syn. 1. downcast, low, blue, downhearted, forlorn, desolate.

Grief:  n.  1.  Intense sorrow or mental suffering resulting from loss, affliction, regret, etc.  2.  A cause of such sorrow
Syn.  1.  affliction, agony, distress, sadness, tribulation, trouble, woe.

All of my life, from early childhood and on into adulthood, I have carried around a deep sadness in my heart.  When I started working on my incest issues in 12-Step programs and in counseling, I noticed that a lot of my friends were on antidepressants.  I wasn't sure if that was what I needed or not so I asked a friend who she got her pills from.  I made an appointment with her psychiatrist for the next week.

The psychiatrist asked me why I was visiting him that day.  I told him that I was an incest survivor and I noticed that all of my friends were on something for depression and I wanted to know if I was depressed.  We talked for awhile.  He asked questions and I talked. 

Thank God that I went to the doctor that I did that day.  He told me that I wasn't in a depression, that I was grieving what had happened to me as a child and that grief was a normal process for what I had experienced as a child growing up with incest and alcoholism in my family.  He sent me home and told me to keep doing the work that I was doing on myself.  That was about 15 years ago.  I am still doing the work on myself that needs to be done as it comes up.  I am back to a cycle of grieving.  Am I depressed?  No, I am grieving which is normal for what I have been through.
Patricia

Your Heart Is Tired---An Effect Of Incest And Grief

"Your heart is tired." he said with some surprise sounding in his voice.  This is the second time over the past year that my intuitive healer friend has told me that my heart is tired.

Both times, I agreed with him.  The past few weeks, I haven't been sleeping well.  My stomach and hiatal hernia have been acting up.  Spring time means my allergies are acting up.  I get earaches and sinus drainage with sore throats and headaches.  My energy levels have been very low.

My husband tells me if I would exercise I would feel better.  I tell him you have to have energy to exercise.  I just don't have the energy right now, haven't had it for several weeks.

My intuitive healer friend says nothing is wrong with my heart.  My heart is just tired.  I nod my head in agreement.  I feel the overpowering tiredness in my body.  His words make me want to cry.  I have known tiredness as a part of my life for so long a time.  Since I started my healing from incest, sometimes the tiredness lifts for short periods of time.  Then it comes back.

The rest of this post is a conversation with my heart:

Heart - Yes, I am tired.  What do you expect?  I have felt so much hurt, so much betrayal and disappointment throughout our lifetime.  Tiredness is one of the effects of the incest.  Tiredness and Sadness walk hand in hand in my world.  I have carried so much grief in this lifetime.  It is a wonder that I haven't stopped beating all together.  I have carried such a heavy load for most of our life.  Others have given up.  We haven't.  Guess we are both just too stubborn.

Heart - I could cry, cry, cry and there would be little difference in the size of the grief that I hold inside.  Grieving is the key to healing from the incest.  Yes, you have done anger work and you have done heavy grieving in the past.  The time for you to grieve has returned.  In that grieving, you will peel away another layer of abuse issues.

Patricia - Heart, how can I grieve without knowing what the issues are?  I don't know what happened to me before age three and again at age seven.

Heart - You don't have to know.  Just let the feelings flow.  Feel the grief.  Feel it.  Go through it and then let it go.  The important thing is to feel.  Don't use food to medicate and stuff the feelings.  Let go of any denial and fears.  I know that you want to throw up as we are writing this.  That feeling is okay too.  As your heart, I feel it right along with you.  Having this conversation between you and me is very helpful.  You aren't running away.  You are listening to what I am saying.  You know in your heart (me) that all I am saying is true.  Yes, you have a headache starting.  The headache comes from the part of you that would rather intellectualize things instead of feeling the pain and the grief.  I won't die and neither will you if you feel the grief.  I might die if you continue to ignore me and the grief.  Stress can do that to a person and a heart.  Denial causes stress.  If you need help, watch movies or read books or listen to stories that make you cry.  Crying gives you access to the grief.  Crying can release the grief from your heart and any other parts of your body that you might be holding it.  Many people carry grief in their belly too.

Patricia - Is that why I cried over a Facebook comment, a YouTube video and a comment on Twitter over the weekend?  Heart, you don't have to answer that question.  I know the answer is yes.  I know that is why three different people brought silent screams of child abuse to mind for me this past week.

Patricia - A Twitter friend - BraveKidsVoices - asked me to write about incest being the most common form of child abuse.  She sent me an article to read on the subject of incest.  I read part of the article about 3 days ago and haven't been able to read more.  The post adds to my sadness.  I had no idea of the prominence of incest across the world today and back into the pages of history.  It makes me sad that so many other children have felt the same feelings that I have for most of my life. (I will write the post that BraveKidsVoices asked me to write, just not right now.)

Heart - The actual incest experience itself that took place when you were a child took its toll on both of us.  Hiding the incest from the world and from yourself started the sadness and grief.  Then as a young adult, adding denial of the incest happening created so much more stress in our life.  I know that you have memories as a child of feeling that heavy clock of sadness and feeling completely surrounded by the sadness.  Young children shouldn't have to feel that much sadness.  You were made to feel responsible for your own abuse.  You feel sad because of that too.  All of that sadness over the years has grown and placed an awful toll on me.  Is it any wonder that I am so tired?  I have memories of you as a happy toddler before the sadness settled heavy onto both of us.  The weight has grown over the years.

Patricia - Heart, thank you for sharing all of this knowledge with me.  I have several friends that I can share this with that can help me to release the burden from both of us.  Now that I am aware of where the tiredness comes from, I can address it.  No, I can feel it.  In feeling the grief, I can release it and let joy come back into our lives.  It feels odd signing this Patricia like I have all the rest of my posts.
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

Using Cranio-Sacral Chiropractic Adjustments And Emotional Freedom Techiques To Release Body Memories of Incest

Back in April I ran across a blog called Empowering Wellness which is written by Fred Krazeise who is "a Nationally Certified Massage Therapist and Intrinsic Coach" who "combines wellness coaching and therapeutic body work to provide a source of healing for women suffering from physical or emotional pain or stress."  The words in quotation marks comes from Fred's "About Me" page on his blog.
http://empoweringwellnessnow.com/about-me/

The article that Fred wrote that caught my attention was called "Emotional Healing Tissue Memory and Bodywork - What Happens and Why It is a Good Thing."
http://empoweringwellnessnow.com/emotional-healing-tissue-memory-and-bodywork-%E2%80%93-what-happens-and-why-it-is-a-good-thing/

What I got from Fred's article is that abuse survivors have memories stored in the tissues of their bodies.  I have heard this idea before but have not met anyone who does this type of massage as Fred does.  Fred is like many of my healer friends and has incorporated several different healing methods into his own brand of healing.  I have done the same with Reiki and several other healing modalities that I have been exposed to over the years.  Thank you Fred for what you do.  You are a treasure and a blessing to those who know you and to those women that you work with.

I have a dear friend who is a massage therapist so I asked if she knew anybody in our area that did this type of massage.  She didn't.  What she did recommend was that I go to our chiropractor who does Cranio-Sacral adjustments and ask if what he does would work at releasing body memories.  Well, I did that last week.  He also suggested that I use the services of an associate in his office who does EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) for releasing energy that no longer serves the client.  I have experience with EFT.  I have their manual and have used EFT on myself and a friend in the past.  I have even taken two classes over the past few years on different ways to use EFT for healing.  Rather than me trying to explain how EFT works, you can find a lot of information about EFT at the website of its retired founder Gary Craig.
http://www.eftuniverse.com/

I had my first session with my chiropractor last Monday.  I figure it may take awhile before I see any results of the Cranio-Sacral adjustments.  On Monday, I had a regular adjustment to get everything back into alignment, especially my neck.  The chiropractor agreed that my headaches and nausea that I have been experiencing a lot of over the past month could be because my neck was so out of line.

I had my first session with EFT on Thursday of last week.  EFT works on the assumption that "The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system." (From "The Timeless Principles of EFT" from the above EFT website)

I really didn't know where to start with the EFT.  I told my therapist/counselor (Not sure what to call him.  I will have to ask next time that I see him.) that I have been working on incest issues for over 20 years and have healed quite a lot over the years.  I told him that I am wanting to find out if I have any body memories that need to be released.

I mentioned that every time that I do work on my issues that I have to acknowledge that a part of me resists doing the work.  A part of me is very resistant to change of any kind.  We did some tapping on releasing this resistance.  I believe that a lot of my headaches come from this resistance.  Those headaches may be an area for us to work on next time.

We then moved to him asking me where I felt anger.  I told him that I feel anger/rage in my solar plexus.  He asked what it looked like and I told him a big black ball of rage that I carry in my solar plexus.  Then we did some tapping on the different energy meridians in the body as I repeated whatever affirmations he told me to say.  You will need to go to the above EFT link and do some reading about how to do EFT if you want to understand how it works.  I know I am not doing a good job of explaining it but I don't remember a lot of what we said.  I know that the next step was to look to see what the remaining anger looked like and it was cleared out of my solar plexus.  It was gone.  I remember at some point being asked to let the anger/rage flow out of my body however it wanted and in whatever direction it wanted to flow.  I remember it flowed down my legs and out of my feet into the earth.  Then we replaced the anger/rage with healing light.  I remember that the light was yellow.  When I run healing light through my body, I have learned to be okay with whatever color it chooses to be.  Sometimes it is white.  Sometimes it is yellow.  Sometimes it is the pink light of love.

Next we went to the sadness that is in my heart.  I told him that sadness has been almost a life-time companion.  We did the tapping and the affirmations.  The sadness was resistant to completely leave.  Only about one-fourth of it left the first time.  We did some more tapping and affirmations and then one of the affirmations that he had me say was something along the lines of "I live my life fully."  When he said that I started to cry and my voice got shaky.  I told him that it has been many, many years since I have fully lived my life.  We did more tapping and affirmations along those lines until the tears and the shaky voice stopped.

What I know from reading about EFT in the past is that when you hit a major issue, the emotions, usually with tears will begin.  When we finished the tapping with this statement of affirmation, the tears were gone and so was the sadness and heaviness in my heart.  I felt joyful and lighter.


When we had the energy flowing from the solar plexus I was aware that it flowed downward into my legs and feet and into the earth.  When we started the energy flowing from my heart to be released, it came out of my heart straight in front of my body and then flowed upward like going toward the sky, toward the heavens.  When we ran healing light to fill the empty space left from releasing the black energy of sadness, the healing light flowed and filled my whole body.  I felt the joy of healing light flowing through me.  This is where we chose to end the session until two weeks from now.

I will be alternating the Cranio-Sacral adjustments one week and the next week will be the EFT sessions for awhile.  I scheduled them on Thursdays because Thursdays are when I also have my Grief Class.  That way I have the class that night to talk about anything that comes up that I may need extra time to talk about afterwords.

I know that I haven't been writing as many posts over the past month or so as I usually do.  I have had several of my readers who are also friends come back and leave messages and hugs as they check up on me.  I thank you all for that.  You are greatly appreciated.

Since I started the Inner Child Letters Series of posts and before that the post about the abuse by my uncle, I have been slower at processes some of the stuff that has come up for me.  I am taking care of myself by not pushing too hard and by just going with the flow.  I thank you all for your love and patience.  I am in a better place now than I was when I first started the Series.

One of my Inner Child Letters Series posts did not get mailed out by Blogger.com or if it did, it didn't get sent to me like all of the others do.  I don't know how many of you got that post so I am going to put the link to that post here.  It is a really important post in the series ending the letters to the three-year-old inner child.  The name of the post is, "Three Year Old Adultress Carries The Shame Of Incest - Inner Child Letter Series." This is the post that talks about the healing of the shame of incest for me.  The link for that post is as follows:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/06/three-year-old-adultress-carries-shame.html

Thank you Fred for giving me the information to start this part of my journey.  I honor you for the amazing work that you do with women.  I wish you were here in my part of the world.  I will do my best to take advantage of what God has put here for me to use.

I have asked two of my friends if they could see any differences in my aura since my EFT session last Thursday.  Both said yes.  One said my aura was not so dark as it was before.  The other said that there is blue above my crown chakra.  Blue is one of the healing colors.  She said the blue hasn't been there in a long time.  I see both of those as proof of the progress that I have already made with these two procedures.
Patricia
 

Survivors Can Thrive Hosts Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse: Four-Year Anniversary Edition

Marj aka Thriver is hosting the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse:  Four-Year Anniversary Edition on her blog Survivors Can Thrive! this month.  She posted it on June 19 at the following link:

http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-four.html 

Congratulations on the four-year anniversary Marj.  You always do such a great job of hosting and running the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse each month.  Thank you.  I appreciate the work that you do to keep this running.  I know it means a great deal to all of the survivors who read it and those who participate.  I don't know if I will ever get the technical skills to host one myself but I can support you and the Blog Carnival by posting articles to announce it each month to my readers.

Here is the Trigger Warning that Marj posted at the beginning of the post.
"Trigger Warning:  Understandably, the subject of child abuse can be disturbing.  Please exercise appropriate self-care when reading the following posts.  We all want to advocate and raise awareness, but remember to keep yourself safe!"  

If I counted correctly, there are 27 posts included in this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse.  I hope that you will join me in going to the above link and taking the time to read each of the posts.  Feel free to leave a comment and let each person know what you think and feel about their posts about child abuse. 

This month, because of all of the grieving that I have been going through with my Inner Child Letters Series, I have been going back and reading some of the posts that I wrote on grieving in the three years that I have been blogging.  The post that I submitted to the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is called "Acknowledging Your Grief And Releasing It."  You will find it listed with all of the others at the following link to Survivors Can Thrive! :

http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-four.html 

I have been blogging for three years as of June 1, 2010.  It seems like such a long time when really it isn't.  I thank you, my readers, for coming along and sharing my journey with me.  Now go read this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse:  Four-Year Anniversary Edition.  Welcome to the new bloggers who are posting for the first time.  I look forward to getting to know you through your writing.
Patricia