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

Forgiveness Can Be So Complicated For Incest Survivors

Forgiveness can be so complicated for incest survivors. Some ask how do you forgive someone who hurt you so bad when they were the ones who should have been protecting you from harm? How can you forgive the sense of betrayal by the person who holds the biggest place in your heart when your abuser is your parent or a sibling? How can you forgive yourself when you grew up being told, by your abusers, that the incest was your fault. If you hadn't seduced them, they wouldn't have molested you. If you had been a good little girl or good little boy, you wouldn't have deserved to be sexually abused. How do you forgive yourself when you feel only hate for yourself? 

All of those are questions that I asked myself and every survivor that I know has also asked themselves those same questions. I have also heard survivors say, "Why should I forgive those monsters that took my innocence and destroyed my childhood? Why should I forgive such evil people?" I used to believe that forgiving my abusers meant that I was saying what they did to me was okay. That is never what forgiveness says. I know some survivors who say that they will never forgive their abusers. I can understand that stand even though I chose a different way. When you pressure a survivor to forgive before they are ready, you are adding more suffering to the abuse. Please don't do that. 

For myself, I have forgiven my abusers and myself. Even if you choose to not forgive your abusers, you should forgive yourself and your inner child. You were a child. You were not at fault or to blame for the abuse. Again, you were a child.  You may ask, "What do I need to forgive myself for?" I have written a whole article about that self-forgiveness that I will post at the end of this article. One thing to forgive yourself for is believing the lies of your abuser. You didn't know they were lying and giving your their shame. You didn't know it was theirs and not yours to carry. Forgive yourself for being a child who couldn't protect yourself. Your abusers had physical and emotional power over you because you were a child. Learning to love yourself and letting go of the self-hatred are a very important step to forgiving yourself. You were a child. If you could have done things differently, you would have. You were not in control of your life. Your abusers were.

Before I could forgive my abusers, I had to figure out what I felt and who I was. For years, I turned forgiveness over to God and asked Him to deal with it until I could. I didn't wake up one morning and decided to forgive. Forgiveness was a gradual process over years of healing. Only in looking back did I realize that forgiveness had happened. Forgiveness isn't a one time decision. Each time that a new layer of issues come up, I choose to forgive again. 

For me, the choice to not forgive just means I am still holding on to some anger that I need to feel and work through before I can let go. Once I can let go of the anger, which only happens after working through my feelings, then I can forgive again. Holding on to the anger doesn't have any effect on my abusers but it can hurt me by raising my blood pressure and creating illnesses in my body and mind. When that happens, my abusers win again. I am not into letting my abusers win. They had control when I was a child. As a survivor/thriver, I am the person in control of my life and the quality of my life. 
Patricia

Related Posts:

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

Forgiveness Is For You, Not The Other Person @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/forgiveness-is-for-you-not-other-person.html

What Does Forgiveness Mean To Me @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-does-forgiveness-mean-to-me.html

Forgiveness, Done In Layers @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/forgiveness-done-in-layers.html

Forgiveness, Lies And Trust @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2013/08/forgiveness-lies-and-trust.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

Healing Is About Love And Compassion @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2011/10/healing-is-about-love-and-compassion.html

You Deserve Your Own Love Guest Post @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2011/09/you-deserve-your-own-love-guest-post.html

John Bradshaw Books And Healing Your Inner Child

Part of learning to love myself included connecting with my inner child. I needed to forgive her for not being able to protect herself when she was just a child. Giving the shame back to my abusers and listening to other survivors tell me that the incest was not my - her fault - helped me to accept that truth. John Bradshaw was one of the authors that helped me to let go of the lies and to connect with my inner child as well. Two of John Bradshaw's books that help me with this were:
1. Healing the Shame That Binds You
2. Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child

Another of John Bradshaw's books that helped me to see how dysfunctional my family was is called Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way Of Creating Solid Self-Esteem.

I wrote this article because I wanted to share the John Bradshaw books that helped me but also because I wanted to share the following article with you on steps to healing your inner child. A friend on Facebook shared it with me this week.

6 Steps to Help Heal Your Inner Child @
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/09/23/6-steps-to-help-heal-your-inner-child

I hope this will turn on your curiosity and you will want to read more of Mr. Bradshaw's writing.
Patricia

Boundaries, Detachment And Self-Worth

"I can be emotionally separate and still be caring.

I will not take on the anger, fear or moodiness of those around me today.

In my dysfunctional family, no one encouraged me to be a separate individual. When my parents were angry or depressed, I was made to feel it was my fault. I was expected to rescue them emotionally. Well, taking on the rescuer role didn't work in childhood and it hasn't worked in my adult life either. Because the source of others' unhappiness is inside them, nothing I can do will lift it from them. My detachment doesn't mean I don't care about their pain; it means that I know I cannot save them from their own moods.

I will honor my individuality today by refusing to take on the negative emotions of those around me."

From the book Affirmations For The Inner Child, written by Rokelle Lerner, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, Florida: 1990, 2010, From the page February 28 - Boundaries.


I wanted to share this with you because it describes my childhood so well and one of my roles in my dysfunctional family. I was the protector of my mother's feelings from the age of three when I remember assigning myself that role.

Family caretaker for everyone was another of my roles. Some good things came out of my caretaker role. I am a responsible adult who cares about people in my family, friends and about society in general. One of the not so good things that came out of that role was that I became a people pleaser and lost myself in the deal. I was so busy taking care of everyone else that I often felt overly tired, overwhelmed and angry. I wasn't allowed to have a childhood. I was too busy taking care of my family and their needs.

I became bossy as the oldest child with two younger siblings who were my responsibility. If they got into trouble, it was my fault. I should have kept them out of trouble.When I learned about detachment, I was able to let go of what wasn't my responsibility. I didn't have all of the answers for my siblings.

I knew how to fix everything and everybody. That was the illusion I tried to convince myself and everyone else was true because I had to earn your love. If I did enough you would love me. And I had to do everything perfectly so that no one could criticize me like both of my parents did when I was struggling to be a child with too much responsibility.

I am a terrible housekeeper today, partly because my inner child is in open rebellion about all the housework that I did as a child with nobody teaching me how to do any of it. The only thing I can tell you my mother taught me how to do in all those childhood years was when I was 11 years old, she taught me how to make biscuits. From then on making biscuits became my job in the evenings during the week and two times a day on weekends and in the Summer months until I left home at age 19. Everything else I learned how to do by experimenting with trial and error. I was told to do a chore without anyone taking the time to show me how except what I learned to do in Home Economics in school in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades.

I also realized again this week, that I still feel some shame in this area when it comes to inviting people into my home. I just don't know how to change this. I know it shouldn't matter what other people think and still in this area I am afraid of being criticized. My housework was never good enough for my dad when I was a child. I would get called stupid and be told I was as slow as grandma or as slow as Christmas and generally made to not feel good enough. This may seem small to some people but it is still a big issue for me.

Along with shame over being a bad housekeeper, I feel fearful of having others in my home right now. I recently told my husband that may be because of the writing that I am doing right now - going deeper into more layers with my issues. I just don't want anyone here but me and Daniel. I guess with this writing, I feel exposed which doesn't make a lot of sense because I have been writing for this blog for over six years now. I need my space to be safe. With Daniel and I, I do feel safe.

I feel bad because an online friend is visiting my town this weekend. He is a guest speaker at one of the area churches. I haven't extended an invitation for him to stay with Daniel and I. I am going to see him at the church on Sunday. This will be the first time that we will meet face to face. He is someone that I have enjoyed knowing for almost the entire time I have been a blogger. I am not afraid of him. The fear is from deep inside of me. The shame is still there inside my inner child. I am not sure how to convince her to let go of it, if she can let go of it at this stage in my life. I am not giving up. Knowing me, I will probably give him a copy of this post to read since it explains my feelings pretty good. This is my issue, not his. I am not done working though it yet. I don't know if I ever will finish with this one. I won't give up on my inner child or on me. Thanks for reading and having patience with me.
Patricia

No Tears for my Father: a true story of incest Book Review

Viga Boland is an online friend that I met because we are both advocates for ourselves and for other survivors of incest. When I heard that Viga was writing her memoir, No Tears for my Father: a true story of incest, I told her I wanted to read it and would do a book review afterwards.

As Viga says on the back of her book " 'Victims' own voices are the best weapons against child sexual abuse.' " In some ways, Viga tells my story. In others, Viga's story is distinctly her own and no one else's, as is true for all survivor stories. No Tears for my Father comes with a Trigger Warning Advisory for the safety of those incest survivors who may experience flashbacks or emotional pain from reading the sometimes graphic scenes of Viga's memories.

Viga Boland was born in Australia in 1946. Like many children of the 1940's and 1950's, Viga was taught by her parents to do what the adults in her life told her to do. It didn't matter who the adult was, they were in control if you were a child. This one rule, above all others, made it easy for Viga to become a victim of childhood sexual abuse and incest.

Viga, throughout her book, compares her dad to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was the smiling, loving father and friend to a lonely little girl who was taught that she was ugly and stupid by the angry, often violent, and unpredictable Mr. Hyde.  Mr. Hyde was physically and emotionally abusive to Viga and to her mother.

When Viga Boland was 11 years old, her family moved to Canada, where the physical and emotional abuse continued and at the age of 12, Viga's dad started to also sexually abuse her. The secrets, the lies, the shame and the blame of incest that make a survivors life a living hell began too.  Secrets such as "Let's not tell mama. It would hurt her." "If not for you, I would be having an affair with some other woman and your mother would be hurt." (These aren't exactly Viga's words. They were lies I was told too.) The coercion, the threats and the fear that are part of the daily life of an incest survivor, all of that worked to keep Viga a prisoner in her parents home until the age of 23. 

To find out more of Viga Boland's story of incest, you will have to read her book. I would recommend the book No Tears for my Father, written by Viga Boland to all who are interested in the truth of what it means to be  a victim of childhood abuse, domestic violence and incest. 

You can visit Viga Boland at these websites which are listed at the beginning of her book:

http://www.vigaboland.com

http://www.notearsformyfather.com

http://vigaland.blogspot.com 

http://www.youtube.com/vigaland 

http://vigaland.com 

Patricia

 

Helping Survivors Of Abuse Want To Change

I am approached occasionally by survivors who say they want help in changing their lives. For those survivors, I offer words of encouragement and hope. I listen. Listening is often all that is needed. I have also learned not to give advice. Most people don't want advice. They want someone to listen to their story and to validate their feelings. That is good. You all have your own answers anyway.

I belong to several support groups online. I love these groups because they offer me love and encouragement. Occasionally, not often, I will get discouraged with someone who says they want help, who says they want to change and the reality is that they just want to wallow in self-pity and they want an audience to do it. Self-pity is good, in that it helps you get in touch with your feelings, but it is not good when you stay there and do nothing to move forward. The "oh poor me's" don't help you heal. They keep you stuck in the hurting. Some people enjoy that hurting because it brings them attention from others. Some people equate any attention at all with love, even negative attention. That is not love.

If you are in a bad relationship, look at why you are staying. Is it fear of being alone, fear of the unknown? Is the pain you are feeling worth you staying? If the answer is no, then it is time for change. If you aren't tired of hurting, continue as you are. I can't change anything for you. You must be willing to make the necessary changes yourself, or not, as you choose. I can't change anything for you and I won't waste your time or mine trying. Change can only come from you. I will love you enough to let you make your own decisions. If you stay, I won't be there to watch your pain but I will be here if you ever change your mind and decide that you have value and deserve better.

You have to want and work toward having a better life. It is okay to wallow in self-pity for a little while but if you want to be happy, you have to change your attitude and learn to love yourself. I know that is easier said than done. I also know you can do it. I have.

For me, for years, I was stubborn and was so afraid of the unknown and change of any kind. The more afraid I was, the more controlling I became. I wasn't willing to change until I hurt enough that I would do anything to change. I didn't have a bad relationship with my husband. I had a bad relationship with me. I hated myself because of the shame and self-blame of the incest. When I hurt enough, I was then ready for change. The point in sharing this with you is to show you that I am not telling you anything that I haven't done myself.

I worked really hard first with self-improvement books and then finally when the world opened up and more people started talking and writing about child sexual abuse, my real healing from incest started. The work to change wasn't easy. Years of hard work were involved. I went from hating and blaming myself for the incest to knowing it wasn't my fault and I could let go of the shame. I found myself paying attention to the people that said they liked me and loved me. I wondered why? I tried to see me as others saw me. I decided if they liked me maybe I could too. I found books to read about learning to love myself. Once I started to love myself by using affirmations and getting to know my inner children, I grew rapidly.

Today I know and love myself and I know that you can too. I want the best for you but what I want isn't important. You have to want it for yourself. You are worth love just as I am. If you are unhappy with your current situation or relationship, you are the only one that can do something about changing your life. I hope you will take a chance on you. I am here if you need me.

If you are wondering what books I read that made such a difference in my life, here is the link to those books:

Resources For An Incest Survivor And Adult Children Of Dysfunctional Families:

http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/04/resources-for-incest-survivor-and-adult.html
Patricia

Lucinda Bassett Truth Be Told Book Review

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
                 ---Nelson Mandela

My introduction to Lucinda Bassett came recently when she reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in being interviewed on her radio program. Of course, I said yes. I was talking to a new audience of listeners about being an adult child of an alcoholic and also about healing from incest. Here is the link to that interview if you missed it:

http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/12/revisiting-my-interview-on-la-talk-live.html

Lucinda Bassett's book Truth Be Told: A Memoir of Success, Suicide, and Survival will be available to buy on March 5, 2013. I was asked to write a book review. What I know from reading just the Prologue and Introduction of the book is that Lucinda is a courageous woman who cares very deeply about her family. When you lose a loved one to death of any kind, you hurt. When your loved one commits suicide, so many questions are left unanswered. So many words are left unsaid. I can only imagine the hurt that Lucinda and her children feel over the suicide of her husband and their father.

Lucinda talks about the cycle of  guilt-blame-anger-and-shame that she as a survivor of someone else's suicide feels every time she is reminded of her husband and the fact that he took his own life. The prologue to the book was written only three years after his death. Feelings are still fresh and very painful for Lucinda while her children are still in the denial stage of grief. Being young, her children just don't want to deal with the death of their dad. Anger is quick to flare.

In the Introduction of her book, Lucinda starts out by quoting Mother Teresa when she says,

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
     I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."

Sometimes I, too, have felt that way in wanting to wish away some of my troubles. Sometimes it just seems like too much for one person to bear. Lucinda is here today as a survivor, stronger because of the experience, knowing more about herself because of the pain and the healing. Through the growing and the healing, Lucinda is now able to reach out and to help other survivors through her books and her radio program. 


Lucinda doesn't call herself a Lightworker, but I do. She expresses that she feels she is "supposed to share what I have learned with others. Others who stand in fear, unable to function, destroyed by some unbearable trauma, believing there is no light at the end of the tunnel---no help, no hope, no happiness. So here I stand once again, humbled and open, sharing my life experience with you...for it is now an open book. If I can come out sane and grateful to be here, you can too." (Prologue, page 4). I can't think of a better description of what I and other survivors do when we share our Light to let others know there is a way out of the darkness of despair and pain.

Lucinda Bassett is a true survivor. I look forward to reading the rest of her book Truth Be Told: A Memoir of Success, Suicide, and Survival when it is published in March 2013. I hope you will join me in reading her book when it comes out.

You can follow Lucinda Bassett on Twitter at this link:   http://www.twitter.com/lbtruthbetold

Lucinda Bassett is on Facebook at the link:    http://www.facebook.com/lbtruthbetold

Lucinda Bassett is on YouTube at the following link:    http://www.youtube.com/lbtruthbetold

I hope that you all had a glorious Christmas season. Mine ended a little earlier than planned because of Winter Storm Euclid blowing through Arkansas on Christmas day leaving us with between four to seven and a half inches of snow in our yard. I walked around with a measuring stick to see how much snow we got. We also have a neighbor's tree laying across our fence in our back yard. We were blessed that we didn't lose our electricity as some of my friends who are on Day 4 with no power did. Most of the snow melted yesterday and today. Tonight's temperature is supposed to be back down to 18 degrees. I am glad that my husband and I got home around noon on Christmas day before the snow started.

Happy New Year to all. May 2013 be the best year ever for all of us.
Patricia

Silence Is The Friend Of Incest

This week I read an article that I want to share with you about silence. The article is posted at a blog called Beyond the Pear Tree. The blog title is "In the Name of Silence". Here is the link:

http://beyondthepeartree.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/in-the-name-of-silence/

I want to share my comment to this blog post. Here are the words that I wrote:

"There has been too much silence in the world already, a silence that allows children to be sexually and/or emotionally and physically abused, women and men to be abused by domestic violence, and allows needless wars to go on. No more silently condoning violences in any form. Bullying happens because no one stops it. Abuse is allowed to go on in the silence of individuals and societies. No more silence. No more secrets that harm."


Silence allows incest to happen within families for generations because no one is willing to call attention to the dysfunction within the family system.  Children are ashamed and afraid to speak out about what is happening to them. Children of incest carry the shame and are often afraid of being blamed for the actions of their abusers.

It is the responsibility of the adult to speak out if they suspect child abuse is happening. I know it takes courage to speak up. I didn't have the courage to face my own family and tell them about the incest that happened to me as a child until I was in my late 30's and early 40's. I know how hard it is.

Fear has to be faced and conquered, so does silence. Healing from incest does not happen until the silence is overcome. Become an advocate for your children and your neighbors' children. Don't let another child suffer in silence praying that an adult will ask if they are being hurt.

Here is a second article that I read just a day or two ago that shows how silence allows sex abuse to continue to happen for years because no adult spoke up to stop it. Not being from England, I don't know as much about the Jimmy Savile allegations about child sexual abuse. The article title is "A lot has changed since Jimmy Savile's time, but shame and stigma still allow sex abuse to thrive". The article is posted in what I assume is an online newspaper called The Independent with the section with the article being called Independent Voices. Here is the link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comments/a-lot-has-changed-since-jimmy-saviles-time-but-shame-and-stigma-still-allow-sex-abuse-to-thrive-8215067.html

Let me know your thoughts about these two articles.
Patricia


 

Healing From Incest Takes Time

Healing from childhood sexual abuse takes time and much effort on your part and you are worth both. The most important step is learning to love yourself. Most incest victims hate and blame themselves for their abuse. Know that the blame and shame belong to your abusers, not to the child you were then or to the adult you are now. Love both your inner child and the adult that you have become. You are both survivors. Many children don't survive. If you survived, you can heal.

Learn to trust yourself and a few close friends with your story of incest. Telling is more than okay. Your healing depends upon telling someone else the many secrets that you were forced to keep by your abusers. Don't tell just anyone. Tell someone that you trust. You may not trust anyone because of your abuse. In your childhood, you couldn't trust those who were closest to you, if like with me, they were your abusers. Trust is a very big issue and one that you need to do very carefully. Sadly, the world is full of people that you shouldn't trust with your story and your vulnerability. As an adult, there are abusers who will instintively pick up that you are vulnerable and will take advantage if you give them the chance. Believe your heart and your gut when you get signals to run away from these people. This is one reason why learning to trust yourself and your intuition are so important. Really listen to your body. I know how hard that is if you disconnected from your body as a child in order to survive the pain of incest. I also know from my own experience that you can learn to reconnect. Be patient and kind with yourself as you learn to do this. You are blessed to live in a time when many resources are available for your use.

Trust a few close friends with your story or, if it is easier, trust a roomful of strangers, like I did, in 12-Step programs. Those people weren't strangers for long. They totally accepted me and my story of incest.  Today I thank God that my dad was an alcoholic. I was able to find out how I was affected by the family disease of alcoholism and had taken on the characteristics of both of my parents but I also found a safe place to talk about the incest. I talked and talked and talked until I started to feel and the hurt started to leave. Talk as much as you can until the abuse is talked out of your body and mind. Some people will think you are stuck in the memories and will possibly wish you would just shut up. Don't shut up and don't trust those people.  Most people don't realize that you were silenced for so long that you can't let the hurt and anger go with just a few words and wishes. You have to work at and talk your way through the healing process. Writing helps too if you are a writer like me. You are worth whatever it takes to heal. Find a counselor or therapist that will listen and help you work through your pain. Don't settle for just any therapist. Not all are trained to help incest survivors. A therapist that doesn't know what they are doing can do more harm rather than helping you. Sometimes you just don't click with that person. Find a therapist that you can trust and feel safe sharing your story with.

Find others who can love you until you can love yourself. Surround yourself with people who will support you through the long journey to healing. Some won't stay for very long. Those who do will be your true friends. If you trust the wrong person with your story and get hurt by them. Let go of them and move on. Don't stay in an abusive relationship. You do not deserve to be revictimized by anyone. You couldn't do anything about the abuse you suffered as a child. As an adult, you can choose to say no to abuse of any kind and leave if the other person doesn't. Don't trust everyone with yourself or with your story. You deserve to be believed. If others can't treat you with respect and kindness, leave them behind. Move forward into your healing.

As I said before, trust your intuition which will tell you who is trustworthy and who isn't. Start with trusting yourself. Be kind and compassionate with yourself first. Start to listen to your inner voice that has your best interest at heart. Don't listen to any critical inner voices that you got from your parents or abusers. Learn to tune them out. Critical inner voices don't have your best interest at heart. Being critical of yourself is just carrying on the shame that your abusers passed on to you. Don't shame and blame yourself. Being responsible for your own actions is not the same as blaming and shaming. Feeling guilty for making a mistake is not the same as feeling shame because you were taught that you are the mistake. You are not a mistake, now or ever. That is the abuser speaking. Don't listen to that crap any more. You are worthy and lovable. Love yourself and heal. You are worth it.
Patricia

Resources For An Incest Survivor And Adult Children Of Dysfunctional Families

All of the books listed here are books that I have used in my own healing process over the years.  Some of the first ones listed are the very first books that I found and read back in the 1990's. I checked each of them on Amazon to see if they were still available for purchase and they are. I hope that you find them as useful as I did in my healing.  They are not listed in alphabetical order. The books are listed in the order that I remember using them myself over the years.

Affirmations for the Inner Child, by Rokelle Lerner, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 1990, 2010.

Believing In Myself: Self Esteem Daily Meditations, by Earnie Larsen, Simon & Schuster, Inc./Fireside, New York, NY, 1991.

Learning to Love Yourself: Finding Your Self-worth, by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 1987, 2010.

Compassion and Self Hate: An Alternate to Despair, by Theodore I. Rubin, Touchstone, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 1975, 1998. (Touchstone is part of Simon & Schuster)

Healing the Shame that Binds You (Recovery Classics), by John Bradshaw, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 1988.

Healing The Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, by Charles L. Whitfield, M. D., Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 1989, 2006.

Boundaries and Relationships: Knowing, Protecting and Enjoying the Self, by Charles Whitfield, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 1993, 2010.

Codependant No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself, by Melody Beattie, Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, 1986, 1992.

Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time, by Melody Beattie, Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, 1989.

The Language of Letting Go (Hazelden Meditation Series), by Melody Beattie, Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, June 1990.

Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives, by Pia Mellody, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1989.

Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence, by Pia Mellody, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1989.

I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, by Ellen Bass, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY, 1991.

The Courage To Heal: A Guide For Women Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse, 3rd Edition by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988; HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY, 2008.

The Courage To Heal Workbook: A Guide for Women and Men Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, by Laura Davis, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY, 1990.

A Gift to Myself: A Personal Workbook and Guide to "Healing the Child Within", by Charles L. Whitfield, Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, 1990.

Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women, by E. Sue Blume, Ballantine Books, a Division of Random House, Inc., New York, NY, 1990.

Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child, by Laura Davis, Harper Perennial, a Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY, 1991.

These are a few of the resources that I used in the beginning of my healing journey from incest and being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.  For me, the alcoholism and the incest were intertwined in my life. That is why you will find so many of these books are about codependence and working with the inner child. The inner child is the one who experienced the childhood abuse and allowed us to survive into adulthood. I will do a second list of resources soon. I hope that I haven't overwhelmed you with all of these but I had so many good resources at my fingertips in the 1990's that I didn't have in the early 1980's when I first told my husband and my sister that I was an incest survivor.  I didn't immediately start working on my incest issues or reading books about it until after I had done some work on healing from codependence and being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic because my marriage was at risk. The 12-Step programs of Adult Children of Alcoholics and Al-Anon helped me to heal enough to finally start working on my incest issues.  Let me know if you have any favorites that helped you that I don't have included here.
Patricia

#Ididnotreport Campaign On Twitter

On Twitter for the past week, there has been a campaign by rape and child abuse survivors that use the hashtag #Ididnotreport .  This campaign is to bring more awareness and to give survivors a voice, some for the first time. My tweets are about why I did not report incest to anyone when I was a child and even when I was a young adult.  Many do not understand the tremendous amount of fear that survivors of abuse, and especially rape live with every day. Nothing is simple for a survivor. Here are some of the comments that I have Tweeted using this hashtag:

#Ididnotreport because I was told to respect all adults and to always do what they told me to do. Tell your children that they can say no.

#Ididnotreport because I didn't know that I had the right to say no to my abusers who were all adults.

#Ididnotreport because I was groomed by my abusers to be silent.

#Ididnotreport because I was too ashamed of what happened to me. I believed it was my fault. Not today.

#Ididnotreport when I became an adult because I was still afraid of being blamed for the incest.

#Ididnotreport because I was a child and afraid of losing my family.

#Ididnotreport because I thought I was to blame for the incest. Today I know differently.

#Ididnotreport because nobody ever asked me if something was wrong. If just one person had asked, I would have told.

If you are on Twitter, I hope that you will join me in Tweeting your own statements using the hashtag of #Ididnotreport .
Patricia

Here is a link to a blogger who first told me about the above campaign through her own blog article:

http://fragmentz.org/2012/03/15/ididnotreport/

Memories, Disbelief And Self-Doubt

So many survivors have to deal with the disbelief of others when they recover new memories of abuse. I have plenty of memories of being sexually abused from the age of 11-17. I never lost those memories. I have always remembered.

When I recovered the memory of calling myself an adulteress at age 3, I wondered why I don't have the memories to support that one clue? Then I realized that a 3 year old may have trouble holding on to memories that they don't have the tools to deal with and still survive the horror of the abuse.

Survivors often share the doubts of others as to whether their memories are true. That self-doubt doesn't mean the abuse didn't happen. It just means that the abuse is sometimes easier to forget than to deal with the horror of remembering.  Our brain allows us to remember when it is safe to look at those memories.

This post is from an edited comment that I left on the post of an online friend on his blog article "The Wounded Warrior: Witness To My Shame." Here is the link for that blog post if you would like to read it:

http://whatislove-2010.blogspot.com/2012/01/witness-to-my-shame.html

Thank you Jan for sharing your story so that other survivors can read your story and be inspired to do their own healing.
Patricia

Healing Is About Love And Compassion

Just because I disagree with someone does not make them my enemy or me theirs, at least not in my mind.  Compassion gives me the ability to look beyond the disagreement to see what issues may be bringing up stuff for the other person. 

Self-compassion also gives me the ability to look and see if I have any issues being brought up by the disagreement. Through compassion, I can see the possible hurts on both sides.  I can choose to forgive myself and the other person and let go of my own hurts and anger, if I have any.  If I hold on to my anger and resentments, they only hurt me.  They don't hurt the other person.  Only their own hurts and resentments can do that to them.  Compassion allows me to send prayers and love to the other person, as I pray for and love myself. 

Healing is about love, first of myself and then of others.  If I try to love others from a place of hurt and anger, it doesn't work.  For me to love others, I have to come from a place of self-love.  Where love exists, hurt and anger can't stay.

Part of self-love is not hurting myself for any reason. I don't own this self-love 100% of the time.  I still sometimes put the needs of others above my own and I still, when really hurting from an issue, overeat.  Right now I am overeating or grazing as my doctor called it because the idea of writing my memoir is scaring my inner children terribly.  The idea of being that vulnerable and putting the secret of incest into book form is terrifying to them.  Because of that fear, I still haven't written the first word even though I have told several people that I would.

Another equally important part of self-love is not allowing others to purposefully hurt me.  Sometimes that means removing myself from that person's presence. 

With today's access to Facebook, Twitter and emails, sometimes removing myself from that person's presence means blocking them from access to me on the internet.  Many more people have access to me on the internet than those that I know personally in my own town.  Some disagreements can be easily settled and friendships remain in tact.  Others turn abusive and those are the ones that I won't stay in.  That doesn't mean that I am judging the other person.  There is a difference between judgment and discernment.  That doesn't mean that I think the other person is mean or crazy.  I just don't have to allow their issues to be transferred on to me and be used to abuse me with. 

Until I forgive a person, that person is still controlling me.  Forgiveness means working my way through any hurt and anger that I hold towards that person. Forgiveness does not mean putting myself back in contact with that person until they have forgiven me and settled their own issues. It does not mean accepting that person back into my life when they are still raging at injustices, imagined and real, that they believe that I have done to them.  Something else I have learned is, if my heart skips a beat every time that I run into this person online, I still have a connection to this person. I still have a fear of being hurt by this person.  I need to pay attention to this fear and work through it for my own well being.

If you are still raging and still blaming, you haven't reached the forgiveness stage.  Forgiveness doesn't blame.  Responsibility and blaming are not the same thing.  Blaming carries shame.  Responsibility does not.  Responsibility is a two way street.  I am responsible for my behavior and you are responsible for yours. Blaming can keep you stuck in anger and hurt.  Responsibility gives you the tools to work through your feelings and gives you the ability to take back your personal power from the abusers. Personal power gives you choices you might not have known that you had when you were stuck being a victim.
Patricia 

Related Posts:

Judgments - Discernments or Prejudice?
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/04/judgments-discernment-or-prejudice.html

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

Dialogues With Dignity: Progress Over Perfection
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2011/08/dialogues-with-dignity-progress-over.html

You Deserve Your Own Love Guest Post
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2011/09/you-deserve-your-own-love-guest-post.html

Dialogues With Dignity: Progress Over Perfection

Dialogues With Dignity is described as "A safe and dignified roundtable discussion among trusted friends" on its webpage which you will find posted below.

Progress Over Perfection was the topic of our discussion on Tuesday, August 23 when I was a guest on their show.  The discussion was between my friends Dan Hays, Ellen Brown, Stash Serafin and me, Patricia Singleton.  We discussed such things as letting go of perfectionism which can be shaming when we fail and beat ourselves up for failing. Expections and trying versus doing were among the topics discusses.  I hope that you will join me in listening to this interested conversation between four friends at the following link:

http://dialogueswithdignity.podbean.com/2011/08/23/progress-over-perfection/ 

Feel free to leave comments here and at the website. Hope you enjoy the show. I know that I did.

Healing From Abuse Means Doing The Work of Healing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Links:

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

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

In The Process Of Forgiving, Self-Forgiveness Comes After The Feelings

Forgiveness does not mean "getting over it" as some people will tell you to do.  There is no "getting over" no matter how much you try, no matter how much pain you are in, no matter how much you may wish you could "get over it."  In my experience, "getting over it" just doesn't work.

I tried many times and many ways to get over, under, and around the pain of incest.  I even tried denying my pain and feelings and wearing a smiling, happy face for several years.  None of it worked.  I even tried stuffing it down with food and denied myself access to my dad's family of origin for 10 years in an attempt to be happy and normal.  The reality was Hell instead.  I wasn't happy.  I wore a mask of sweetness with my friends and almost continual feelings of rage that kept escaping and affecting me and those I loved. 

In some ways, I recreated the home of my childhood.  I was the raging controller [my dad].  My husband was the passive-aggressive one [my mom].

I tried controlling and fixing everyone else's problems so I wouldn't have to feel my own pain or look at my own problems.  None of it worked and I still couldn't forgive.  I just hated myself more.  I ignored my physical and emotional needs.  I pretended they never existed, just like my parents did when I was a child.

I often tell others that I was blessed to have a dad and grandfather who were alcoholics because when I  was able to see myself as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, I was able to finally see who I was and what the family disease of alcoholism was doing to my life.  Add the incest on top of that and the mixture was even more dysfunctional and often intense.

Getting a sponsor in my 12-Step programs was my second blessing in recovery.  Thank you, Jack.  He made me start attending Al-Anon meetings not long after I started Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings.  I can honestly say that Adult Children meetings saved my life and my sanity and helped me find myself where I was finally able to do forgiveness further down the road.  The Al-Anon meetings were about healthy and unhealthy relationships and helped me save my marriage and start a new relationship of healing and forgiveness with myself and my family.

I had to heal me before I could even think about forgiveness.  I had to feel and work through my feelings of anger, rage, shame, hurt, betrayal, trust, abandonment and safety.  I had to first create a feeling of safety before I could begin to trust myself or anyone else.

My 12-Step sponsor had me make a list of people that I needed to make amends to.  Then he told me to put myself at the top of the list.  Then I had to make a list of things that I needed to forgive myself for first.


That list for self-forgiveness included:

Forgiving myself for believing the lies of my abusers.

Forgiving me, the adult, for ever believing that the child me was capable of protecting herself.  I wasn't given the tools to do that by my parents.  I was just a child.

Forgiving me, the adult, for blaming the child me for the incest.

Forgiving me, the adult, for staying silent about the incest for so long.

Forgiving me, the adult, for abandoning my own inner children when they really needed me the most.

Forgiving me, the adult, for adding on more abuse by listening and believing my inner critic voices for so long.

Forgiving me, the adult, for using food to keep my feelings buried inside for so long.

Forgiving  me, the adult, for being so afraid all the time instead of living my life to its fullest.

Forgiving me, the adult, for allowing my rage to control me and for using that rage to hurt others.

Forgiving me, the adult, for living in denial for so long.

Forgiving me, the adult, for being so controlling of people and circumstances and becoming my dad the dictator, in the early years of my marriage.

Forgiving me, the adult, for hiding behind a mask and not allowing the real me to shine my Light for others to see. 

Forgiving me, the adult, for carrying around the shame of my abusers and believing it was mine.

Forgiving me, the adult, for not seeing the abuse of bullying that my daughter went through in her teenage years of high school because I was so focused on my own needs at the time.

Forgiving me, the adult, for not being a better protector of my daughter when a teenage boy made sexual advances toward her when she was 10 years old.

Forgiving me, the adult, for passing so many of my fears on to my children so that my son suffers from panic attacks today.

Forgiving me, the adult, for not being more emotionally present for my children, when I was so focused on my early recovery that they probably felt that I wasn't there for them.  In many ways, I wasn't.

Forgiving me, the adult, for lashing out at my husband with my rage before I reached the stage of being able to control it and hurting the person, other than my children, that I love the most.


The child that I was doesn't need forgiving.  The abuse was never her fault.  She didn't deserve to be treated the way that she was by her abusers.  She was blameless and shameless for what was done by the adults in her life.
Patricia

Links to other posts on forgiveness:

Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker's post
"Forgiveness Is Not Forgetting The Child Abuse"
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/10/forgiveness-is-not-forgetting-child.html

Emerging From Broken's post
"Forgive the Abusers? A bit of a Rant"
@ http://emergingfrombroken.com/forgive-the-abusers-a-bit-of-a-rant/

Overcoming Sexual Abuse's post
"What About Forgiveness"
@ http://overcomingsexualabuse.com/2010/10/28/what-about-forgiveness/

Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker's post
"Revisiting Forgiveness"
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/06/revisiting-forgiveness.html

Three Year Old Adultress Carries The Shame Of Incest - Inner Child Letters Series

 As I have said before in this series, I don't have any memories of incest from my three year old inner child.  The mind and body protects itself sometimes by just shutting down and shutting out those memories that might affect its survival.  Since I don't have any memories of incest from the three year old, I have to assume that is what happened in this instance.  Because of an inner child session that I went through with two friends about six to eight years ago, I got in touch with my inner three year old and found that she felt  a tremendous amount of shame.  She felt so shameful that she didn't even feel that she deserved to have guardian angels around her.  She could not see any Light.  All she felt was shame and darkness.  Remember, this is a three year old that I am talking about.  No three year old should carry shame.  Here is my second letter to my self-acclaimed three year old adultress.

Dear three year old Little Patty,
I am so sorry that I didn't call you by your name in my first letter to you.  The adult me needed the space that not naming you provided for me to be able to write that letter.  Since I have processed all of your grief, the adult me can now call you by name, Little Patty. 

First of all, you can't possibly be an adultress at three years old. You were much too young to even know about sex and to know about adultry.  To be an adultress, you had to be having sex with someone while you were married.  You couldn't be married at three years old.  I have to assume for you to label yourself as an adultress, that someone was being sexual with you.  For you to carry the shame of abuse, someone was abusing you.  I know that is a hard thing for a three year old to carry which is probably part of why I have no memories of the abuse happening that young.

Know that I love you and am sorry for any pain that you have experienced in the past.  I want to go back to that day at Carol's house about six or eight years ago.  I felt your pain and your shame that day.  I felt your desperation, your self-hatred, your hurt and the darkness that you saw all around you.  Know that none of that was you.  I don't know what happened to you to cause that much pain.  Maybe one day we will both have that secret revealed to us.  It is okay if we don't.  If we ever get that information and memories back, it will mean that we are strong enough to deal with it and survive.  You survived the original pain and I am proud of you for being able to do that.  You are a very brave little girl.  If we don't ever retrieve those memories, I won't think any less of either of us.  We have both had more than our share of pain, humiliation, and shame directed toward us in this lifetime.  Shame belongs to your abuser, not to you.

I am here today to tell you that none of the shame that you felt back then was yours.  Shame comes from the abuser who knows that what he or she is doing is wrong.  Since they can't seem to live with themselves while carrying their guilt, they pass it on to those that they abuse and it becomes shame.  Shame tells us that something is wrong with us.  Shame tells us that we are the cause of our abuse.  Shame keeps us silent so that the abuse can continue.  Shame becomes who we think we are.  Shame tells us to be afraid and that others will blame us for our own abuse.  Shame keeps us in a cage of our abuser's making, afraid of others and of our abusers.  Shame makes us afraid to feel and to speak out.  Shame makes us afraid that you will see the shame in us and condemn us for it.

Little One, my beautiful Little Patty, shame is not who you are.  It never was.  That is just what the abusers wanted you to believe.  The abuse, in whatever form it took with you, was not your fault.  You did not deserve the abuse that you suffered.  You did not deserve to be neglected either.

That day at Carol's you were surrounded by guardian angels who only wanted to protect and comfort you.  You did not think that you deserved their love and comfort.  You did not want me any where near you either.  You were so full of hurt and rage that day.  None of that was you.  It all came from what was done to you.  You could not protect yourself as a three year old and I wasn't around for many more years to protect you, as I am today.  You had taken on the darkness from your abusers.  You were not the darkness of abuse.  It was never who you were.

You were and still are a beautiful child of God.  Before the abuse, you were full of love and laughter and joy.  Today, you can be that child, again, full of love and laughter and joy.  Know that I love you with all my heart and my soul.  I am doing everything that I can think of to make your life more joy filled.  You do not have to continue to carry the shame of our abusers.  It is not yours.  You can release it.  Let it be removed from your body.

Our angels will help you to let go of the pain, the fear, the shame that should have never been yours.  Let our angels wrap the shame in a blanket of white Light and carry it to the center of the Sun to be transformed into beautiful life giving rays of sunshine to nurture and feed our planet and all of the Universe.  Let that space inside of you be filled with Love.  Love is who you are.  Love is who you were always meant to be.  Feel the Love.  Be the Love.  That is who you are, beautiful Little Patty.

In my mind's eye, I see you Little Patty clapping your hands with a beautiful smile on your face and happiness in your eyes and your own being.  I feel you in my heart.  Thank you for finally letting go of all of that Hurt from our past.  Now you can become the beautiful child you were meant to be - happy and free, loving and loved.  I love you Little Patty.
Patricia


Link Love to other survivor blogs and articles:
"making friends with our fear"  @ sharing our spaces blog @ http://sharingourspaces.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-friends-with-our-fear.html

Victim, Survivor, Thriver blog @ http://www.squidoo.com/victim-survivor-thriver . This is a blog that I discovered this week that is full of stories and information for survivors of abuse.

This Tangled Web blog is also a recently discovered blog for survivors of abuse that I wanted to share with my readers @ http://www.thistangledweb.co.uk

Becoming Myself blog has many articles about working with her inner child @ http://pneumeier.blogspot.com

Oprah had a show from an interview that she did with 4 child molesters this week.  You will find an article from the show called "4 Things You Need to Know About Child Molestation" at the following link:  http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/4-Things-to-Know-About-Child-Molestation

The Movie "Precious" And Incest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out Of My Comfort Zone---Trust

I called my new Al-Anon sponsor for the first time. I walked in the door from shopping, picked up the phone and called her before I could come up with any excuses to not call her. I told her that I called her before I could chicken out again.

Trust is such a difficult issue for me even today. Right now it is even difficult to find the words to express my thoughts on the topic of trust.

In Al-Anon, I used to pre-think what I was going to say when it was my turn instead of listening to what others say on the chosen topic. Recently I called myself on this and as a result I often seem to stumble (at least to me) through what I want to say. I want honesty rather than perfection and approval. This is one way that I am stretching to trust myself and the group. I want what I share to come from my heart rather than from my store of knowledge. I don't want to continue to hide behind my knowledge.

I have to trust that when my sponsor asks me how I am that she really wants to know or she wouldn't ask. My automatic response was that I was doing fine. I know I am lying when I say the word "fine" anywhere in relation to my feelings. I learned in Al-Anon years ago that "fine" means (Pardon the language coming up.)

Fucked up
Insecure
Neurotic
Emotional

When I first heard that, I thought how true when I am in the middle of my emotional garbage. So when I tell you that I am doing fine, that is what I mean. When I am working on my incest issues, this is how I really feel when I can admit it to myself. That is the honesty that I want to have with myself and my sponsor---to be able to admit what I am really feeling.

As an incest survivor, for years I used the illusion of control in my life to feel safe. I have to trust my sponsor not to do or say anything that will hurt me. On an intellectual level, I can talk myself into sharing my issues with her. On a feeling level, sharing is more difficult. You would think that writing on this blog would make that easier but it doesn't. Sharing with you is different than sharing with my sponsor on a one-on-one level. Anyone with a therapist probably knows what I am trying to say.

My sponsor has me reading an Al-Anon book called Paths to Recovery - Al-Anon's Steps, Traditions, and Concepts. In working Step One - "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol---that our lives had become unmanageable." - I can easily say that I am powerless over alcohol. I can admit that my life has become unmanageable. Asking for help has been the difficult part for me. When I have to ask for help, that need brings out shame. Some part of me says that I need to be in control all the time, that I should be able to fix my own life, that I should be able to protect myself without help from anyone else. All of those thoughts come from shame and low self-worth. Some part of me equates powerlessness with being out of control.

Am I still talking about trust or has my ego steared me away from what I don't want to talk about. The bottom line is always how much do I trust myself. If I don't trust myself, how can I trust anyone else? I really want to be committed to doing this work rather than going to the kitchen and stuffing myself with food to get back into my comfort zone. I have been overeating this past week instead of facing my feelings head-on. That is something that I very much want to change. I will move forward through this one step at a time.

I hope that what I have written here makes sense. Right now I am too close to the feelings to know if all of the words are what I intend for them to be. Am I making sense to any of you?
Patricia

Out Of My Comfort Zone---A New Al-Anon Sponsor

I am way out of my comfort zone this week, for several reasons.

First, on Wednesday after the Al-Anon meeting, I asked a lady to be my sponsor. That makes me accountable to her for my behavior and growth. When I asked her was during a hug. I started crying---still don't know what that was about. I told her that I have been meaning to ask her to be my sponsor for awhile. My obstacles to asking her have been my fear of being rejected, fear of being blamed for the incest, and fear of not being worthy of her time. Having a sponsor in Al-Anon means seeing her in person for discussions about my recovery, or lack thereof, while using the 12 Steps of Al-Anon to create growth in my life and talking to her on the phone several days a week besides at Al-Anon meetings. I touched a spark of shame that I didn't know was still there. That spark was about not being worthy of taking up someone else's time. That is my biggest reason for not calling someone else on the phone when I need help. Well, this week, I went out on a limb and asked. It left me feeling vulnerable which is a feeling that I still haven't learn to be ok with. Feeling vulnerable means not feeling safe to me.

My first sponsor was a male friend from Adult Children of Alcoholics. I was told that women should have women sponsors and men should have men sponsors so that no 13th stepping goes on. (I think it is called 13th stepping. I am not sure.) It prevents possible sexual abuse happening between the man and woman. At the time that I picked my male sponsor, I was more afraid of being judged by a woman. Most of the women in my life when I was a child were extremely judgmental. That was my biggest fear from women. At the time, I couldn't face that possibility. He was my sponsor until his wife came along. Then she became my co-sponsor. After her death ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/07/most-influencial-person-3-recovery.html ), I was very angry at God and didn't want another sponsor that could leave and abandon me. After a few months, I asked another lady to be my sponsor. This was only for a short time before I stopped going to Al-Anon.

Asking another person to be my sponsor is a very big step for me because it means that I have to do the First Step and give up control to another person as well as to God. It means that I now have to work all 12 Steps over again with a new person in charge. It is very hard for me to give any control over to another person in my life.

My new sponsor asked me to be sure and share all of the good stuff in my life too if I am going to share all of the garbage that comes along. Knowing me as well as I do, you will be hearing more about this new part of my journey. I made the committment to call my new sponsor every week which I haven't done yet. We did meet at McDonald's earlier in the week for breakfast and our first discussion as sponsor/sponsee.
Patricia