That Old Familiar Feeling

It has been over a year since my last post here on this blog and I must say it has been a year of ups and downs, as it is for most people. This last few weeks a very familiar feeling has been creeping up on me, thoughts of the horror of the abuse my siblings and myself suffered as children and teens, the feelings of inner sadness and a feeling of underlying anger come closer and closer to the surface as each week goes by. I have many triggers, and some of the most serious triggers for me are dates on the calendar. I do not like to call them "anniversaries" as that is a term that normally describes good times and not usually specific memories of abuse. Many of us survivors remember these times and during the course of a year, they can be very discomforting. Summer is a trigger for me as I grew up on the hot, dry semi-desert of New Mexico, and it was during the summer that much of the physical, emotional, verbal abuse was lashed out upon me, and it was during the summer of 1973 that the sexual abuse I suffered began and continued until late fall. It was summer when my dad physically injured me during a beating, and this injury to my hip has plagued me my whole life. Lately my hip has started working itself out of place, and this is also a trigger for me. Also, for one year now, my commute to work everyday takes me by the seniors lodge where my aging abuser dad lives. Someday's I don't think too much about it, and others I have mixed thoughts. Someday's I feel anger rising up within me as I think of him and remember what he did to my family members. Other times I feel a sadness that I will never have a decent loving relationship with a dad who was supposed to love me and take care of me. Many mixed emotions result as I pass by that location every day of the week. I would take a different route but this would cause my daily commute to increase to over 2 hours each way, so I decided to learn to live with it. I have several trigger dates on the calendar coming up soon and as they approach, I must have a plan in place to not allow myself to lose the accomplished work of working through my issues in order to heal. I will go back and re-read many of the books that I studied to help me through the first part of my healing journey, and I will meditate on a regular basis and stay in faith. I do not like to think about this one fact, and that is the knowledge that I will probably always have these issues of triggers to deal with, but now I know that there are many things I can do to help me get through them and grow with each trigger as they come along. This has placed the control and power in my arena, and this is a very positive move in my healing journey. Love and peace to you all. Never give up, no matter how tough the journey!

Continuing the Mission to End Child Abuse

It has been a few months since my last post, and I have been busy with many projects. I wrote and published my third book, "One Child Abuse Survivor 2 Another: The Journey in October 2011, and have since then been busy doing my usual routine of Blog Talk Radio shows, and speaking out where I can. I hope to be able to continue to reach as many poeple as possible, the public, and survivors of child abuse. We just do what we can with the time and resources we have. Writing my latest book was hard as it is about the child sexual abuse, incest, rape and sodomy I suffered at 8 years old. It was painful, but so necessary for my healing journey to spend this last year getting in touch with the horrific memories, working through the pain, the body memories, the nightmares and the tragic reality of what the sexual abuse did to my entire being, mind, body, and spirit. I come out of it in a better place then when I started, and I hope that other survivors of incest and csa, will hold on, look for that help and keep that hope alive!

Leaving unwanted behind...learning to love ourselves

Children around the world, since the beginning of time were made to feel unwanted, told they were not wanted, and shown they were not wanted by their parent's, caregivers, families, and sometimes society itself. Looking back at my own "unwantedness" is something I face everyday as a survivor of child abuse. Having been told by my mother that I was not wanted, I was born of rape, and that I should have died with the other three stillborn babies my mother lost prior to my birth, was reinforced throughout my life from the time I was born until just before she passed away. This was also reinforced by horrific physical abuse and beatings that she would dish out to me on a regular basis as I grew up under her anger and hatred, and the devastating verbal assaults were even more regular. This had a profound effect on me as a child and I began to feel as though she should have just killed me during one of those horrific beatings, or that I should just die as a youth as I was not wanted or loved and I could see no purpose to be here, no purpose to live, and I felt as if I were already dead, and that I was just a "walking shell" of a person. This was all before the age of ten years old, and at ten years old I began to tell my mother to "go ahead and kill me" as she was often saying that she should have killed me in the past tense, or that she should kill me in the present tense. Sometimes while beating me, she would tell me, "I'm going to kill you" and a string of unmentionable curse words would accompany the threat. She literally destroyed my sense of being, my spirit, my soul, my body, as she was attempting to destroy the thing she hated, her marital rape child. I was made to pay for being born, and paid dearly for it. I began to hate life, and hate myself, and as the years rolled on, I lost a sense of who I was as my "inner child" had been killed. It has taken me a long time to bring my inner child back to life, and to learn to nurture her, to tell her she IS wanted, she IS loved, she IS needed, and that she did not deserve to be treated that way as it was not "her" fault. It's been a long hard road, but I am making progress, and it is my wish that anyone who reads this blog entry will know that ultimately, we all deserve to be here, we are here for a reason, for a purpose, and that we all do matter and count. We must learn to love ourselves, and allow ourselves to live, to grow, to give love, to receive love and to learn to "want" ourselves in order to be able to walk free from being "unwanted". Never give up! Never ever give up!

Making Decisions and Living With the Consequences

The choices we make, as a result of being survivors of child abuse, will directly affect our lives in every way. I have been thinking about the recent choices I have made over the last few months, and the many choices I have made since beginning my healing journey 4 years ago. I am fully aware of the consequences that can and will happen as a result of those choices. It became clearer to me as I thought more and more about the lack of support I have from my immediately family members, and the fact that my two siblings and father are still just as co-dependent, dysfunctional, and abusive as they ever were. The thought of continuing any type of contact with them has been causing me grief and discomfort. The thought that they still believe that I should continue to play out the life script they wrote for me as a child upsets me. I made a clear choice to never allow anyone to abuse me again, and that definitely included my own immediately family as well as everyone else in my life. I feel that as a human being on this planet I deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, compassion, empathy, and kindness. My siblings and dad have never treated me that way and have continually hurt me with their words and actions and they refuse to see that their behaviour is abusive. They do not want to take a look at how they treat others, and feel it is their right to behave any way they choose. My question to myself over these many months and even the last four years is, "Do I have to continue to allow my sister, brother and dad to abuse me in any way?". The answer is NO! I made a clear choice to not allow anyone to treat me with disrespect or abuse me again. Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself is something I have always tried to do, and without hurting my sister, brother and dad, by cutting them out of my life, letting them go, moving on, and stopping all contact with them feels better to me then allowing them to remain a part of my life as they are in denial and "hate" the fact that I went public with our story of abuse, and "hate" that I am fighting to stop child abuse, and "hate" that I am on my healing journey. Any family member that would not support another family member on their healing journey, even if they did not understand the situation completely, is not going to be help, but rather a hindrance to my healing journey. It is cleary my siblings and dad's decision to make. Whether they ever decide that they need help, counselling, or therapy. I cannot make that decision for them. I believe that had we made the decision together to get family counselling, we would be able to have a good relationship, a healthy relationship. My brother, sister and dad have all said that they do not need counselling and think it is all garbage and unneccesary. As adult survivors we need to be very cautious and careful when making these types of decisions. We need to be fully aware of the consequences that will result from these types of decisions. I am 100% satisfied with my decision, due to the severity and length of the abuse I and my siblings suffered as children, due to the fact that my dad is mentally ill and mentally unstable and toxic, it is a decision I have to make in order to move forward in my healing journey. But with the decision comes the knowledge that I will always love my sister, brother and dad and wish it could have been different. Be very careful what you do when making these decisions. Be sure that you are making them for the right reasons and can live with the outcomes. We will live with the consequences for the rest of our lives. Whatever choices you make for yourself, just remember to never give up, never lose hope, and keep reaching out!

Speaking out against abuse

Sitting here this morning after finishing the Blog Talk Radio Show, I find myself thinking about last October 2009 when I went public with my story of the abuse I suffered as a child at the hands of my parents and a sibling and the dysfunction that destroyed our family. Not one of my remaining direct family members except my niece has had anything to say about the fact that I went public with the story, or that I am speaking out against abuse. They have all ignored the fact that I pointed my finger point blank at my abusers, my parents, as well as the fact that one of my siblings sexually abused me as a child of 8 years old. My remaining family members are all in denial even though we have spoken about the abuse we all suffered through the years. Now, because I have gone public, they seem to have forgotten that we had numerous chats about how my parents treated each other, how they abused us, and how my sister was also very abusive to her children and husband. Now, because they have to face it, and it's public information, they are hiding in the dark behind that closed door and not supporting me or even acknowledging that abuse is wrong, ALL abuse is wrong. My sister will not even say that child abuse is wrong. She cannot bring herself to even say the words even though she knows that I volunteer with Dreamcatchers For Abused Children, and knows about the book I wrote, "A Life of Death: The Redemption". My nephew sits and scratches his head as if to say "abuse? what is that?" even though his own mother, my other sister now passed away from cancer at the age of 60, was a highly abusive woman who controlled her whole family and abused her own children and husband. Hey, she grew up in the same home I did, she was abused herself. My only living brother "hates" what I am doing and has not spoken to me for 4 years and does not even know where I live. Many times, as we come forward to reach out and get help as survivors of child abuse, our dysfunctional families will not understand, or will conceal the truths that they keep forever hidden in their own hearts and minds. They expect us to do the same and when we decide to get help and learn to cope with the abuse we suffered, they do not always support us. My family is choosing to live in denial. I have chosen to expose the truth even at the risk of further alienating myself from my dysfunctional family members. I could no longer sit in silence, keeping all of the pain, agony, despair, and grief inside me. It was literally destroying me to stay silent. Knowing that by going public with my story, it could drive a wedge between me and my family, I felt it was necessary for me to speak up, and expose the truth. This may not be for everyone and I would suggest that you think this through very carefully and realize that there are consequences to every action. Whether a survivor decided to go public with their story or not, I would say just make sure you reach out and get some help. You did not deserve the abuse, no one does. If you are being abused, make sure you reach out and get some help! Save your life!

Never give up!

Thinking about the show topic from today's show, Dave Decker from Angeresources.com wrote about the "Myth's About Domestic Abuse" from his website http://www.angeresources.com and as I was reading aloud myth number 16 that "Many abused women actually like the conflict and the abuse
• i.e. they like the "pain" and chaos and they are "masochistic" I thought back to the many times I have heard that in my lifetime and even said it myself. I thought back to my mom's situation and how she could have left the abusive marriage she was in and divorced my dad and had every opportunity to get help, and she chose to stay. As a child I could never understand why she would allow herself to be abused by my dad and had heard my older siblings plead with her to get out of the marriage and start a new life for herself. We were of course hoping she would take us with her, but even suggested that she leave us in the home with my dad and that we just wanted her to be happy and would be okay if she just got herself out. As I grew older and the abuse continued on and on, day after day, month after month and year after year I became bitter about the abuse I was suffering at her hands and at my dad's hands and became soured in my ways of thinking and believed that she stayed because she "must have liked the chaos and abuse". As a teen-ager I even tried to convince her to leave my dad and told her that I would work and her and I could get an apartment together and I was even willing to overlook the abuse she had been inflicting upon me my whole life. I cared very much for my mom even though she cared very little about herself or her children and that included me. She would not accept my offer and chose to stay. I would often think about it as a young adult and thought to myself that she must have enjoyed the horror's of living with my dad and also believed that she enjoyed abusing me as I was born out of marital rape and she made it very clear that she did not love me or want me and should have killed me at birth. I continued to love her deep down inside my heart, and all the while my mind and my crushed spirit hated what my parents had done to each other and to us, their seven children. All of her children wanted her to be happy and healthy and did not want to see her abused and end up a bitter woman on her death bed, which is exactly the way it went. My mom did not enjoy being abused, she did not enjoy being raped, she did not enjoy being made to feel worthless and she did not deserve any of the abuse she was forced to endure by her own mother and then by her husband. If you are in this situation or have been, make sure you get help. Call a crisis line if you have to. Do whatever you can to hold on and get some help. Never ever give up! It's not an option! You do count, you do matter. You do not deserve to suffer or be abused. No one deserves to be abused. No one likes to be abused or enjoys being abused. Please reach out and never stop reaching out until you get the help you so deserve!!

One Child Abuse Survivor 2 another....

Welcome, this blog is ulitimately a place where people such as myself who have experienced child abuse of any kind can come together and share our stories, share our triumphs, share our pain, share our compassion toward one another and hopefully find some healing and hope along the way....anyone can post on this blog, although I will be moderating comments due to the sensitivity of the issue of child abuse, and the fact that I want everyone to feel comfortable here, and not have to be subjected to more abuse from anyone. Please feel free to share resources that you found helpful, other blog sites for survivors like us who are in search of more healing material and keep in mind that this is a PUBLIC blog and many people will hopefully be a part of it, and sharing it as well, so make sure that you are okay with your posts being on a public facing blog...and most of all, I hope that you will find some healing and some hope and just know that we must keep reaching out...for professional help, for support from other survivors, and for the possibility of having a good life, a healthy life, a life we deserve to have...a good life...