Leslie's Illusions

Hiding in Plain Sight

2012-01-30T11:04:00.000-08:00

“We have art so we don’t die of the truth.” Nietzsche

I don't suppose that Neitzsche was talking about Art Therapy, but it certainly applies. Recently I have revived what I call my “Self-directed Art Therapy”. When I started, I was trying to use art as a coping skill (it has less calories than chocolate), and also I had heard that it is a way for our unconscious to speak to us. Anything that will help me heal faster. At least this is what I always think until some painful memory hits and I retreat…that’s what happened the last time I did art therapy.

After a break, I decided to try again. Sometimes I try to learn some actual art skills, other times I just doodle, occasionally something will “spark” an art project. For example, recently I was reading about someone doing art therapy with patients in a mental hospital. She gave them cereal boxes and magazines to cut up and redesign into a house that represented them. A house that represents “you”, I was immediately intrigued by this idea. What would I make? How would I design it?

I didn’t have the material, time (or desire really) to make my creation out of cereal boxes. I just wanted to draw it. Pencil drawings are my preferred way to express myself. I have also tried collage, oil pastels, colored pencils, crayons, paint…but pencil and paper suit me best, with the exception of the color red. Red often finds its way into my otherwise black and white creations. (Yes, it’s a bit disturbing.)

For the “house” project, I opened my sketch pad (really I should call it art diary, as it can be more personal than my journal). First I drew a house. Simple. Plain. The kind a kindergarten might draw. Then next to it, it’s twin. Same size, shape, design, everything. Then uncharacteristically, I put down the pencil and got a black crayon. I blackened that house so that the only discernable thing was the outline. Then I surveyed my work and smiled. If only the black were a little blacker, it would be perfect.

Then a picture of another house flashed on my mind. Much of my art therapy comes this way. An image from my self-conscious that attaches itself to me like a song that gets stuck in your head and plays itself relentlessly throughout the day, I knew if I didn’t draw this image, it would haunt me until I did.

I turned to a fresh page. This time I tried to draw a house with two stories, a porch and a gable and then the red crayon. When I showed my husband the picture, he thought the red surrounding the house was a moat. It wasn’t. (Don’t blame me, it’s my unconscious speaking).

The next time I went to therapy, I mentioned to my therapist that I had started drawing again. I thought he would be interested, not so much in the houses, but in the fact that I had returned to drawing.

I showed him the first one. He asked me some questions about it. I explained that the blackness is about the shame I feel, and how dead I can feel inside at times. Then I showed him the second picture. The one with the red “moat”.

“How do you feel when you look at this picture?” he asked.

“Sad.” The picture was disturbing to me in a way I couldn’t put words to.

“What do you see in this picture?”

I was confused by this question. Surely, he doesn’t think that is a moat? He should know better. He knows about that red often appears in my art. I looked at the picture again, “just a house.”

“Ok.” He said as if he were dropping the subject. “I was just wondering about the windows.”

The windows? They are just windows illustrating a first floor and second floor. I looked at the picture again. I saw it. The windows weren’t windows any more. They were eyes and a mouth, a face that looked angry and scary. I turned the sketch pad over so I didn’t have to look at it any more. “I didn’t mean to draw a face, they were just supposed to be windows.” I said.

He gave me a moment and then asked, “And what about the right side of the house?”

No! There is nothing else to see in this picture. It’s a house. Only a house. Slowly I turned the sketch book over and looked at the door, porch and gable. I noticed that the triangle of the gable was emphasized. Triangles often appear in my doodles and sketches, only after months of drawing them (with usually with one very acute sharp looking angle) did I realize the symbolism of a body part that could cause pain like a knife. But gables are triangles, it doesn’t-- then it I saw it. It wasn’t just the gable, but the porch around the door also. The image was suddenly, unmistakably a body part. I thrust the sketch pad away from me, placing it face down on the couch an arm’s length away. I wanted to throw the thing across the room or in the trash, but I didn’t.

After taking a few silent moments to compose myself, I said, “I guess it’s better than nightmares.”

When trauma occurs, the unconscious mind and body remember even if the person’s conscious mind chooses not to. However, the unconscious won’t keep “the secrets” forever. A day comes that the unconscious begins to tell the story: through flashbacks, nightmares, or even art. The story must be told. Pain needs a witness.

Winter's Nightmare

2012-01-20T17:24:00.001-08:00

Hello, hello! Something new today. I joined a writer's website, Absolute Write, and from there, a blog chain. The idea is that we all write a post on a topic, and then share!

The topic is "Winter's Nightmare", as my regular readers can imagine, only one thing came to my mind. Try as I might I couldn't shake it. So I decided to take one of my experiences in healing from child abuse and fictionalize it. So this is fiction, a first for me, but yes, it is based on my own experiences. I have to tell you, branching out into fiction was fun, but nerve-racking. I needed a few friends to read this and assure me that it was ok, before I could dare to post it on my blog. Special thanks to them! After my post, you will find a list talented writers and their Winter's Nightmares, be sure to stop in and visit them!

And here we go...

Winter's Nightmare

She was only a child, and yet she haunted my dreams as if she had had a lifetime to learn the art of it. Waking did little to mute the sounds of her crying. Still I did not want to help her. I wanted her to go away. You may think me cruel, but it was not cruelty that stopped me. It was fear; I was terrified of her.

I sought the assistance of an advisor. I wanted him to help me silence her. He encouraged me to rescue her. I listened reluctantly. He gently assured me that I could help her. I disagreed. He said helping her would help me as well. I didn’t care. When I felt alone, he suggested that she must feel the same. I could see her in my mind, sitting with her knees to her chest, her head down and her long dark hair falling over her face. The site of her filled me with such pain and fear that I instinctively recoiled. How could one so small and hurt, terrorize me so? My advisor was patient. He didn’t push. One day I agreed to try. Looking back, I still cannot say if it was his gentle urgings, or her nighttime hauntings that changed my mind.

Once the decision was made, he wasted no time in taking me to the entrance of the cave. I had visited there only in my dreams. The lifeless desert and sharp crags of rocks surrounding the cave mirrored what I felt inside. With no sheltering trees, a chill wind pulled at the edges of my cloak. Reflexively I pulled it tighter around me whether from the cold, fear or both, I cannot say. My advisor seemed not to feel the wind, he simply nodded to the entrance of the cave. I held my breath for a moment, then released it. My head ached, and I was nauseous, but I stepped inside. The darkness poured over me like a waterfall. Seeking reassurance, I turned back towards the entrance, and my advisor, but there was only blackness. Other options removed, I took a step, so small it can really not be called a step, deeper into the cave.

That was when I saw him. His green eyes shone in the darkness, but beyond that it was difficult to make out his face or the shape of his head. I thought he might be a dragon, and yet that might only be the lying whisper of the darkness itself. Darkness and I were well acquainted. I had heard his lies and believed them on many occasions. I felt myself being inexplicably drawn inwards, the direction I did not want to go, as if he was inhaling and I, with the air, was being pulled in.

“Come,” he breathed for truly it seemed more like a breath than a word. “Come closer.” His words wrapped themselves around me. I felt the pulling sensation magnified. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My body had turned to clay. My mouth seemed filled with sand.

He stared at me, his gaze unwavering. “She’s mine,” he hissed.

Ancestors forgive me, but I reached deep within and with all the strength I could find I shook my head, “She’s not real. She’s not real. I don’t have to rescue her because she’s not real.” My head was throbbing now. My thoughts churned. I thought I was losing my mind. I cried and tried to grasp on to one thread of reality before it was all snatched from me.

“LIzbell, come back,” It was my advisor’s voice. Each word, like a firefly, brought light into the cave. The grip of the words and the hot breath loosened, the green eyes started to recede. He hissed at me again, beckoning me to stay, calling me back. I struggled against him determined to follow the firefly words. I pushed forward, he pulled me back. I fought now with strength that I hadn’t known I had earlier. And slowly, slowly, I made my way out of the cave. The cold wind once again tore at my cloak. The sun was bright, and my headache was gone.

Advisor was there. I stood before him with my head bowed ashamed. “I failed.”

“No, you did well,” he said gentle as always. “This is a long journey, and you have just begun.”

Orion - Excerpts From Non-Exsistent Books
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Alynza Alynza

On Learning to Fly

2011-12-18T11:24:00.001-08:00

For most children, childhood is a magical time where anything is possible. From pirates, unicorns, and Santa Claus, to Mom not noticing the clothes and toys shoved under the bed, anything can happen. Dreams are reality waiting to happen and summer days are filled with jumping on the trampoline and running through sprinklers.

For these children, growing up means letting go of Santa and the Tooth Fairy, but still holding on to the hope that Mom won’t notice the mess under the bed. Dreams are whittled back into “goals”, but still doable. Summers morph into a break from school and hanging out looking for cute guys (or girls), while hanging with the guys, or giggling with girl-friends. Mostly, growing up is exciting and fun.

These things are not the norm for every child. For some instead of pirates and unicorns, their days are filled with terrible villians and nightmares. Their foes that are all the more terrible because they are real, and they bear the name “parents”. Their nights are filled with loneliness. Confusion and fear fills their days and reaches into the center of their soul.

For them, growing up means instead of hiding clothes under the bed, they push memories far into the recesses of the mind, for that is the only way to survive. Coming-of-age means learning to live The Lie of Normalcy, smiling on the outside, while awash with pain inside. I wish I didn’t know that pain; I wish no child did.

For children with magical childhoods growing into adulthood with all its hurts and bitter realities can be a jolt. This is the stuff coming-of-age stories are made of. However, for children whose lives were waking nightmares, growing up can be a release, like Tinkerbell’s fairy dust that allows one to fly.

Flying is not easy. There are some falls, some bumps, some harsh winds that force you back, but if they persist, they can soar. I can soar too.

For me, to soar means I must first feel the pain that I once repressed. Once I feel it and mourn it, then I am finally able let it go. As I am able work free of that old pain, I feel myself lifting off the ground. The more I am able to heal from the past, the more I can trust the love offered me in the present, love from my husband, my children, and my friends. This love brings magic into my life and bathes me in moon beams.

I cannot stay in the air forever though; landing is necessary. Eating and sleeping are required. Landing can be hazardous. Old memories resurface, pain ignites, but the new memories of flying are still alive as well. Like a clumsy bird that needs a running take off, I work through the pain and once again lift off.

While soaring, I can see others who are wounded. I stop and visit them. I can’t teach them to fly. No one can teach another person to fly. The fairy dust must come from within. However, I can sit with them, and listen to their stories. I can let them know that I care. If they ask I will share my story. I will tell them how I learned to fly. Someday, when they are ready, they will fly too. Like a flock of geese we will fly together, taking turns being in the lead, calling out encouragement to each other. Most importantly, we will not be not be alone, we will face our fears and we will soar!

Through breaking free of the pain and learning to fly, we create magic. The magic that we missed as children, but revel in now: our own magical healing place, our own Neverland.

Blog-o-share

2011-12-13T04:04:00.001-08:00

When I find a good thing, I just have to share. There are a couple blogs that I love that, fall into this "good thing" category. I admit (boast is more accurate) that these people are all friends of mine, but hey, whatever it takes to find the best blogs, right?

My friend Kristine is losing weight, and she is such an inspiration to me. If you like people that are real (you know what I mean), then you will love this blog:

Overweight But Losing
http://overweightbutlosing.blogspot.com/

If you are looking for a blog that is the literary equivilent of taking a nice hot bubble bath, i.e. you feel pampered and glad you took the time, then you must check out Cathy's blog:

Nibbling on Life
http://nibblingonlife.blogspot.com/

Sometimes you are in the mood for something funny. My friend, Josh, writes a blog that is funny and sometimes a little insane. He's a therapist, and I can't quite figure out if being a therapist pushed him over the edge or if he has always been this way. Read his blog and you will understand:

The Weed
http://www.joshweed.com/

And last but not least...or maybe I saved the best for last...wink, wink, is my daughter's blog. Today I helped her edit her most recent blog post, and well, proud mom moment aside, I think it's awesome. You can decide for yourself. The blog post is called:

A Homeless Man, A Ganster and Me
Nelo Writes
http://nelowrites.blogspot.com/

Enjoy! And if you have a favorite blog (even if it isn't a friend's blog), post it and I will be sure to visit!

Wheel of Dissociation

2011-12-06T10:27:00.001-08:00

Before you read this post...remember some computer glitch posted it before I was ready, and I was going to repost after editing, but guess what...the wheel of dissociation changed on me and I lost interest in the post entirely! Man that is frustrating!

Also...I just want to add, I talked to my Therapist about this issue. He says this is part of the trauma. Trauma causes you to lose "fluidity of thought". He says this is one of the reasons for therapy, to regain fluidity...that sounds hopeful!

For some time, I have been thinking that I need to discuss Dissociation with you again. I still like the Haunted Mind analogy, but I am afraid that in that post, I might have slightly misdirected you. The misdirection is that reading that post, you might think that in different rooms are all about emotion i.e. an angry room, a happy room etc. Or perhaps you understood exactly what I meant, and I'm just being paranoid...it happens (me being paranoid I mean!) Anyway...something happened last night that is still causing my thoughts to churn, and has spawned another analogy for Dissociative Disorders.

First, let me clarify or remind you (meaning simply I can't remember if I wrote about this before). Dissociation occurs on a spectrum. You have like heard how Autism is a spectrum disorder, and the same idea applies here. For Dissociation, on the less severe (or in this case: normal) side is daydreaming. Everyone daydreams and this is a form of dissociation. It is also perfectly normal. Where dissociation becomes a disorder is farther along the spectrum. If you follow the spectrum all the way to the most severe end you will find Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder.

SIDE BAR MOMENT: Maybe I should call this soap box moment, but I have to take a moment and say, there has been a lot of interest in the media lately about DID. From comedies to crime shows, they love to throw in a character with DID, and of course this person is always extreme...either a brunt of jokes in a comedy or a murder in the crime shows. Dear readers, don't believe everything you see on TV. We all know, though we don't think about it consciously, that writers and directors embellish things to make them more interesting. DID is real, but in real life it is a lot less "flamboant" than is portrayed in the movies. Now back to your regularly sceduled program post.

I have a Dissociative Disorder, in other words although you and I both dissociate (you daydream, right?) my dissociation is more developed, and can be a detriment in my daily life. Now where I fall on that spectrum...well, you read my blog, I'll just leave it to your imagination. Back to the Haunted Mansion...changing "rooms" or dissociated states, is not just about changing moods. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First I would like to tell you about last night and we'll work our way back to how dissociation applies.

November was National Novel Writing Month, and my local library was hosting a class on writing. The teacher was a New York Times Best Selling Author. I love writing, and though I usually stay in the nonfiction area, I thought this sounded like a great opportunity. I went and I was so inspired. The class was about developing characters that your readers will love and think about after they put down the book. I was on fire! I kept thinking, "I could do this! I have enought life experiences, and writing experience, and, and, and...." I was jazzed. I was mentally trying to figure out what my daily writing goal should be and what I might write about...

POP! Suddenly, like a balloon popping in my mind, a thought deflated me. Leslie, you know you won't be able to stick with this long enough to make it work. I slumped down in my chair as I deflated emotionally and physically. Because I knew it was true. I listened to the last of the lecture with a weak version of tog of war going on in my head. One part of me saying, "but, but, but...maybe it will be different this time." At the same time being pulled by, "you always say that..." Still as I went home, I couldn't stop the brainstorming in my mind about characters. I got out a paper and started writing...I couldn't help myself! I have an idea I think people would love. An idea people would read. A character people would cheer for, and cry with. All I need is to spend some serious time working it out. And THAT is the problem.

It is not the problem in the way you might think. When I say time, you likely think of your own very busy schedule and think, "yeah, I couldn't fit it in either." But that is not the kind of time I mean. I work overnight shift...I love the quiet! I work in a residential treatment facility so my main responsibility is to stay awake and check on the residents periodically to be sure the haven't run away or harmed themselves...what I do the rest of the time: read, knit, watch movies, play video games...my boss doesn't care. Or I could write. I have plenty of time to write. So what it the problem then? It's the dissociation, the wheel of fortune.

Previously, I explained my dissociation like rooms in a Haunted Mansion. Today I would like you to think of a huge wheel, like the TV show "Wheel of Fortune" or in vaious children's games, and sometimes at carnivals. It is mounted in the center so it will spin, there are pie shaped pieces with something written on them, and a little arrow that points to the "selection". My mind is like that wheel. The pie like sections have not only different interests like reading, writing, knitting, chess, spanish, sociology, ect, but each pie like section can have a different world view. Spin the wheel and see what Leslie will be most interested in today.

Sometimes it will happen in the middle of the day. I have this sensation that feels like waking up, though I might be walking when it happens and I think, "Why haven't I been practicing chess lately? I love chess. I'm going to go to the library as soon as I have a minute and check out a book". Then for a time (the time always varies and I have NO control over it) I will be completely obsessed with chess. Perhaps you've read the phrase, "God, Family, Country"...well on those days, those "pie pieces" or room in the Haunted Mind, it's "God, Family, Chess, and chess, and chess...". Then without even realizing I've done it, I lose interest and focus on chess and start thinking about blogging. "Geez, it's been a month since I last wrote on my blog? I'm going to lose readers," and a flood of ideas for blog posts will start coming to my mind. If you are a blogger you may be thinking right now, "Leslie, we all do that. I go through spurts on my blog too." My answer to you is, I know. That is because dissociation is something everyone does to some degree, but I am farther along that spectrum than you are. So last night I excited about writing, and I am focused on that this morning...I swear I have an idea that would work! But sadly I know that before too long, I will get distracted. The reason I use the wheel analogy is because these things my mind is one wheel, one house...and I move about within it. I am in a writing phase at the moment, but chess will be back, and then another day art. I find some comfort in that. The things I really love don't disappear, they just move to the back burner for awhile.

You might be thinking, "Leslie, we all do that, really." So let me take you one step further...as the wheel turns, or I go into different rooms in my mind (and remember I have no control over that), it is not only my moods or interests that change, it can be my whole world view. Please stop for a moment and think about that. Think about your own world view, what is important to you, the values that are close to your heart, your feelings about religion, about the other people...all those things that form your "world view". It is normal for people's world view to change over time, but with dissociation mine can change rapidly. For me one world view, or place on the wheel, can last a few months or a few minutes. If that sounds disorienting, trust me it is.

There is one place on that wheel that rarely seems to come "up", but I know it's still there because I do feel it from time to time. And that is the point here, I have not simply "grown and changed my world view" in the way you can and do. I slip in and out of different world views. For example, in the place I rarely visit anymore, I am very spiritual, optomistic, loving, at peace even in times of stress like finanical difficulties or health problems. Another place on the wheel I am less sure about religion, less optomistic if not a bit cynical, I'm not depressed, but I wouldn't say I am happy either. I feel frustration about many things and especially about relationships. Sometimes I find myself very logic, anlytical and detached. The world and the people in it may not be what I hope, but I don't concern myself with that. I'm more interested in learning something new. I think I will check out a book on algebra so I can re-learn that and help my teenagers with their math.

At this point, you may be starting to feel a little dizzy on my behalf. Yes, it is frustrating for me, and can make day to day life difficult. Fortunately whatever "space" I find myself in, I love my husband and children...but everything else is subject to change. I think this is the reason that people with dissociative disorders are often misdiagnosed as having bi-polar disorder...those rapidly changing places on the wheel can make a person appear very moody. I assume that is how people that know me well rationalize my behaviour...moody.

This brings us full circle...I want to write. Suddenly I want to write a novel so bad I can taste it. I know I can do it, and yet I know I can't. Someone stop this merry-go-round, I want to get off. I'll start writing that novel anyway. I'll write as much of it as I can until the wheel spins on me again, then? Well, then I guess it will wait for me...like an unwanted toy on the shelf, until I come back to it. If the spinning wheel of my mind doesn't get me to discouraged, I'll finish it. It might just take me about 10 years.

Just Three Words...

2011-12-06T10:05:00.009-08:00

A long time ago, I think even before I started school, children were taught to read with Dick and Jane books. Even if you aren't old enough to remember them you have likely heard of them. They went something like this:

See Dick run. See Jane run. See Spot. Spot runs with Dick and Jane.

I mention this because I am taking an on-line writing class about journaling and memoirs. For the class I had an assignment to write about a 10 yr period of my life, but each sentence could only have three words. Just three words. It's hard! Four would have made all the difference, but phew, three was tough. I was struggling with it until I got the idea to take some liberties with grammar. After all that is what the writing books say, "Experts sometimes break the rules, but they know what the rules are." That means it's ok to break the rules as long as I know I am doing it, right? Ok, maybe not.
Anyway, this is just silly, but I thought it would be fun to share. Can't let things get TOO serious around here!

Leslie's Life in Three Words

I move Winslow. See friend Charice. We work prison. We are officers. We talk inmates. We work hard. We date boys. We have fun. We get bored. Want more money. Want to date. Want more boys. Think, think, think. Move to Nevada? Nevada pay more. Think, think, think. Move to Alaska? Alaska pay more. Alaska have men. Lots of men. Think, no...move. Move to Alaska.

Live in Anchorage. I love Anchorage. We meet boys. We have adventures. We are tourists. We find jobs. We work half-way-house. Happy, happy, happy. Job offer Bethel. What to do? Good job. Good money. Boring, no men. Think, think, think. Think some more. Don't want move. But money good. Career move good. Think, think, think. Sigh and move.

Bethel is cold. Bethel is dark. Bethel is Hell. Don't like Bethel. Bethel is lonely. Job is good. Job pay well. I like job. I hate Bethel. Bethel hates me. Below 80 degrees. Winter is cold. Summer is mosquitoes. I hate Bethel. Met ONE guy. He very handsome. He was jerk. Probably still jerk. Yes, jerk always. Lonely, cold, miserable. I hate Bethel.

Met nice woman. She have son. He single. She say meet. I say ok. One problem. He live Oregon. We laugh. Snow, snow, snow. Cold, cold, cold. Dark, dark, dark. I hate Bethel. I need vacation. I fly Oregon. See my friend. She say meet. Meet my son. I say ok. Why not?

Meet son. He is handsome. He is nice. I like him. He like me? Maybe, probably yes. He say write. Write letters. I say ok. I return Bethel. I write letters. He write one. Maybe two. Bad boy. I move Oregon. We date. Much better.

We date. We kiss. We date. He is happy. I am happy. I ready marry. He thinks. And thinks. And thinks. I wait. Wait, wait, wait. Then he thinks. I wait. Then he proposes. I say maybe. Not. I say yes. I happy. He happy. His mom happy. We plan wedding. We marry April. Everyone happy.

Soon I pregnant. He thrilled. I thrilled. Pregancy long. Finally baby come. It's a boy. We are family! Everyone is happy.

________________
P.S. This does not actually cover a 10 yr period, I cheated on that too. BUT my teacher said I did "a great job", so maybe cheating isn't so bad after all? Shhh! Don't tell my kids.

Housekeeping moment....google reader, email subscriptions etc

2011-11-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

Darn computers! I was just working on a post...one that needs some editing yet, and suddenly a message popped up that said, "Automatic save is turned off because this post has been published."

ACK! What? I didn't publish that, it needs editing. But I looked at my blog and sure enough there it was. Curse, curse, mutter, mutter. So I did the best thing I could think of...I copied it and deleted!

Whew, problem solved, right? Wrong... I "follow" myself on google reader (because something like this happened before!). I wanted to know if deleting it on my blog would delete it on google reader also...apparently not. It's there.

So I apologize for offending your delicate sensibilities with my grammar and spelling errors...I am going to fix those and repost...sigh!

If you have an email subscription...I don't know if it emailed before I deleted or not...

NOW that we are on the subject though...if you don't already follow on google reader, or email or some other kind of reader, you might want to give it a try! I love google reader. Instead of manually clicking on each blog I want to follow to see if there are any new posts, I just 'subscribe' to them via google reader. Then with one click, all the current blog post from the many blogs I follow are there at my finger tips!

Email notification would be handy too.

Anyway, that is just a thought. As for me, I think in the future, I will do my rough drafts in microsoft office to prevent these "crisises" in the future.

Exercising the Dragon

2011-11-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wish I had kept my blog a bit more anonymous because at times there are things that I would like to say...anonymously. For example, I would like to share a current experience I am having with the Dragon in the Cellar. In other words, where anger from the past meets anger from the present. However there is the possibility that someone could be hurt by that, and I would never want to ease my pain by hurting someone else (accept perhaps my abuser...I won't spare his feelings in what I write.)

So I can only say...I am angry with _________. Because ________ did _________. Can you believe that? I know you would be furious too! My therapist asked me to write a letter (not necessarily to send it!), and express my feelings. So I wrote a letter and I said ____________ and _________ and _________. Then I wrote ______________. It was like creating a door and letting the dragon get some exercise.

The dragon, as you can imagine, is a bit stiff from being cramped up in the cellar for so long or to be more clear, I still struggle to accept my right to be angry about what happened (then and now.). You have heard how abused women will often say, "it wasn't his fault, I deserved it". Well, I don't say I deserved it, but I do make a lot of excuses for this person's behavior.

I think this is the most incomprehensible blog post I have ever written. So, you know the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words"....so since I don't have the right words, how about a picture?

I call this Rorschach as art.

Yes, I did paint this myself...in my son's kindergarten art class.

It reminds me of those ink blot tests that psychologists sometimes use, Rorschach tests. So I showed it to my therapist. He seemed to find it ver-r-r-ry interesting....

Call me Mrs. Dumpty

2011-11-02T11:55:00.001-07:00

I hate to admit this, but I am fragile. I suppose that is no surprise to you, but like I said, I hate to admit it and that admission begins with myself. By now, it shouldn't be a surprise to me either, but sometimes it is.

For the last month (two, three...sometimes I lose track of time) I have been doing a lot better. I mean the emotional roller coaster that is my life, had smoothed out quite a bit. I was pleased and during those times it is easy...I will submit even reasonable....to feel hopeful that I am healing and that the worst is behind me. Unfortunately, that is an illusion. At least for now, maybe someday it will be true, but for now it is not.

So I one day I was cruising all through the daily agenda, as we all do, when BAM, I hit a wall.

Perhaps later I will explain what the trigger was that caused my mental house of cards to come crashing down, but for now it is still too close and too painful to discuss publicly. One phone call, and suddenly I felt as if I were 4 years old again....alone, afraid, in pain, with no where to turn.

Remember I explained to you about my Haunted Mind. I think I need to revisit that and explain it better....but for now suffice it to say that I was in a room and I was four years old and so afraid. Then suddenly I was across the hall and I was an adult, calm and emotionless....call me Spock. Then suddenly back in the room where I was four again, and crying. I spent hours like this switching back and forth between these two rooms. Later, an angry room was added, an angry child.

I am in Spock mode now, or I wouldn't be writing this. Sometimes when I am in that 4 yr old child space, I do write, but only in my journal. I can't share that right now, but some day when I have some distance from it...perhaps. I have thought that some day when I am healed (if such a thing is possible) that I will write a book, it would have my blog posts, but interspersed chronologically would be select entries from my journal..."the rest of the story"... I think for you it would be like watching the movie, Gone with the Wind and then later reading the book. The story line wouldn't change, but a lot of details would be filled in.

Call me Mrs. Dumpty is my way of saying that today I feel like an egg. An egg when you hold it in your hand and squeeze it is unbreakable. Seriously, try it if you haven't before. Squeeze as hard as you can and it will withstand the pressure. Sometimes I am like that. I can withstand a lot of pressure. But take that same egg and hit it on a surface, and it will shatter. Sometimes I am like that. Sometimes I am fragile. I really hate that, but that is life with PTSD and Dissociation. I hope that I won't always be this way, but for now...

Call me Mrs. Dumpty.

Look Ma, No Hands!

2011-10-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

"Look Ma, no hands" is my way of saying, "I finally get it." A bit abstract perhaps, but so is healing from trauma. Let me explain.

As I have been working to heal from the trauma inflicted on me as a child, there has been considerable pain...(no kidding, right?). At first I wondered why it was necessary to remember and feel all this pain any way. I mean why not leave it all forgotten and stored in memory? I would have liked to do just that...but my body remembered. This "remembrance" manifested itself as anxiety and somatic pains. I can't prove it empirically, but I think it was the cause of my autoimmune problems as well. For these reasons, I decided that I had to feel these memories and grieve...my body demanded it.

Lately I started to become frustrated with myself because these memories still hurt. I thought that feeling this pain and processing it would work in much the same way as grieving a death of a loved one. You never stop loving the person who is gone, but in time the pain becomes more tolerable. Yet this trauma pain did not seem to be getting more tolerable. (I think I am getting stronger and better able to deal with it, but the pain has not lessened in intensity, actually it has gotten worse.)

Haven't I grieved enough? Why can't I move on already? I asked myself in frustration.

Being an amateur scientist, I had to conclude that if the results were not what I was expecting, then perhaps my theory/hypothesis was wrong. (That is harder to accept in real life than in the lab, as you probably know...) So I accepted that this would not be similar to the grieving process. However, I had no new theory or hypothesis to replace the discarded one. That is until I talked to my therapist.

My therapist understood exactly what I was trying to say. Fortunately, I was not the first to ask this question, so he had an answer. He said think about a time in the past that was painful (not related to the abuse). I did. Then he said, "Do you remember how painful that was?" I was confused by this, and told him so, "Of course, I do. BUT that is the point. I remember how it felt but I don't feel the pain any more. With the trauma memories, I feel the pain like it just happened today." He explained that experiences (both good and bad) are usually felt, experienced and then the memory is stored. Sometimes traumatic memories don't get processed and stored properly. Until the memories are felt and processed, they will continue to feel fresh and new. That is why we do the work we do in therapy.

I think I paraphrased that badly; I hope it was clear enough. Here's the crazy thing...I had read about that before! When he explained it, I had one of those 'aha' moments. I had learned this principle academically, but hadn't digested it emotionally.

SIDEBAR: If you want to know more...I read about this The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook by Glenn R. Schiraldi also there is a great article about how trauma effects memory here at the Sidran Institute: What are traumatic memories I found this quote particularly interesting...

"There are several factors that influence whether a traumatic experience is remembered or dissociated. The nature and frequency of the traumatic events and the age of the victim seem to be the most important. Single-event traumas (assault, rape, witnessing a murder, etc.) are more likely to be remembered, but repetitive traumas (repeated domestic violence or incest, political torture, prolonged front-line combat, etc.) often result in memory disturbance. The extremely stressful experiences caused by natural or accidental disasters (earthquakes, plane crashes, violent weather, etc.) are more likely to be remembered than traumatic events deliberately caused by humans (i.e. incest, torture, war crimes). People who are adults when they experience traumatic events are less likely to dissociate conscious memories of the events than children who experience trauma. Research shows that the younger the child is at a time of the trauma, the less likely the event will be remembered.

"Case studies show that traumatic events in which there is pressure toward secrecy are more likely to induce forgetting as a dissociative defense. For example, a woman who is brutally attacked by a stranger but who receives sympathy, family support, and many opportunities to tell her story, may suffer from PTSD, but is unlikely to develop amnesia for the event. However, a young girl who endures repeated incest with her father and has been sworn to secrecy will more likely have memory impairment for the abuse."

NOW I get it, and hopefully you do too. Look Ma, No Hands!

My Very Own Prince Charming

2011-10-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

Can I be honest? Ha! Can I be anything else? I suppose not. Here it is…

I worry about writing “too many depressing things” on my blog and so I stretch to find positive things to say, while at the same time not sugar-coating the pain in my life either. It is the mental equivalent of tight-rope walking, and I can’t say for sure if there is a net down there. Today I have something positive to share, a bright shining diamond if you will, but in order to appreciate it, I need to also share the contrast…if you will bear with me there is a happy ending here.

I have been struggling with feelings of abandonment. Remember the dream I told you about in “Emotional Sinkholes”? I feel like that dream…left alone in the dark, abandoned. These intense feelings of abandonment rise up at odd times, like a crack in the sidewalk to trip me up as a stroll along through life. They usually cause me to fall, and yes, cry. Tonight was one of those times; complete with cleansing tears, and some very serious wondering if this (abandonment) is how all relationships end. (It embarrasses me to be so emotional and irrational at times, but emotion is rarely rational…and I did promise to be honest).

Fortunately not all rationality had left me and I began to think about people in my life that have been faithful and constant. Their faces (some of yours) coming before me were a huge comfort. There was one in particular that seemed to melt away the icy cold pain. My husband.

How can I explain him? There is so much I could say, but I’ll try to keep it brief. He is the most patient, and yet the most tenacious person I know. Our families would say stubborn, but I always tell them (with a laugh) that when that stubbornness is helping them, they will see the value in it. Those words that I have said for years, have never felt truer than they do right now. As I was pondering (in my emotionally irrational state) if all relationships end in abandonment, I remembered my Prince Charming and his mind-boggling tenacity, his tender love, his patience…and I knew, I KNEW that no matter what happens he will be there for me. What a comfort!

Would you like to hear the story of how such a love began?

I was living in Bethel, Alaska. It was March, the coldest, darkest month of the year. At that time of the year in that part of Alaska, the sun is only out for a couple hours a day. I was working overnight shift (not by choice), and thus hadn’t seen the sun for a while. That and it was bitter cold. There had been a week of -80 degree wind chill. I had had it. So I decided to take a few days off and visit Portland, Oregon. (There was not enough time or money to go to Hawaii.)

I took a small plane from Bethel to Anchorage. (Did you know there are no roads between the two? You have to fly.) When I got to Anchorage, I was surprised to see a friend from Bethel. In the “what are you doing here?” conversation that followed I found out that she had been in Anchorage visiting her sister and was now, like me, on her way to Portland. She was going to visit family. We talked to the flight attendants and made arrangements to sit together on the flight. During the flight she said, “I hate for you to spend your time in Portland all alone. Why don’t I call my single son and see if he will be your tour guide?”

I said sure.

---If I might interject here---it is not that I didn’t know the huge failure rate of blind dates! But even though the men out-number the women in Alaska 7 to 1, only one of those single men was in Bethel. This was no time to be picky---

We had talked about this “single son” on many occasions. She said things like, “I have a son that would just love a girl like you that is willing to rough-it in Bethel.”

“Does it count if I hate it here?” I asked.

Another time she confided that she didn’t think he would ever get married because he had this long list of what he wanted in a future wife. Of course, I had to enquire what was on the list (curiosity more than politeness driving me). As she told me items from the list, I laughed and said, “that’s me” over and over. Please don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t ‘desperate’. I didn’t care for Bethel, but I was otherwise happy with my life. I was making good money and I had plans for the future.

He was equally aware of the “blind date taboos”, but agreed to meet me anyway. He came to my hotel riding a motorcycle (his only transportation at the time). Between that and his leather jacket, I felt sure he was some kind of “Fonzie wannabe”. . .and yes, I was a little concerned. (Looking back, I understand that having a motorcycle was a matter of being frugal and saving gas, and the leather jacket was safety equipment.)

The rest of the date was like magic. I don’t mean magic in a “love at first sight” kind of way. It was better actually. He felt like an old friend, someone I had known forever and could relax and be myself with. Really what more could you ask for on a first date?

Too soon it was time for me to return to Bethel. He suggested we exchange addresses, but then warned that he is a terrible letter writer. He is! Long-distance relationships are difficult, especially fledgling relationships like ours…so I did the only thing I could…I moved to Portland.

He teases me about this to this day; he loves to tell people how I “chased him”. But you, dear reader, understand that I was not happy in Bethel and looking to leave anyway. I loved Portland which is why I chose to take my time off there…so moving there was completely logical. You believe me don’t you?

Well…even if you think I was simply love struck and completely foolish (I swear that wasn’t it!), the results speak for themselves…more than 15 yrs later we are still living the dream of…

Happily Ever After

"total stranger to itself"

2011-09-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

For some time I have been pondering something I read in The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook by Glenn R. Schiraldi, PhD (a wonderful book). In the beginning of the book while explaining what PTSD is and how it affects people he states:

"Each of us holds basic assumptions that give order to our chaotic world and make stress bearable. A number of researchers have indicated that PTSD is due to the shattering of views of self, the world and other people."

Then he shares some examples:

Pre-trauma assumptions

The world is meaningful, fair, good, predictable, orderly, comprehensible, pleasurable, rewarding, kind and safe. It makes sense and follows accepted social laws.
People get what they deserve--if I'm cautious, I can prevent the disaster. Bad things won't happen to me.
People are good, trustworthy, comprehensible, worth-relating to.

Post-trauma assumption

It just doesn't make sense. The world is confusing. ("Why did this happen to me? What's the meaning of life?), I can't believe in a God who permits this. God hates me.
What I do just doesn't matter. I have no control.
I can't trust people anymore--they're bad, exploitive, hurtful, ect. I can't relate to others; I feel alienated and isolated. Nobody understands.

[end quote]

Although my trauma happened a long time ago, because of repressed memories the trauma feels very recent. Previously, I believed the pre-trauma assumptions. Now I definately relate to the post-trauma assumptions. What troubled me was this: is the author saying that I can some day return to the pre-trauma assumptions? That seems like a fairy-tale idea to me. Utterly un-realistic, and yet I don't want to totally discard that hopeful idea either.

I found a possible answer one night while watching Numb3rs (thanks Netflix.) One of the characters, Larry, was looking out the window at a chrysallis and observed, "The butterfly that emerges will in no way resemble the catepillar that it once was, it will be a total stranger to itself. All that it really knows is that someday it must fly and rejoin the dance of life." Numb3rs Season 4

". . .total stranger to itself." Yes! That makes sense. I think that PTSD is a form of chrysallis. Having been wounded, we, victims, wrap ourselves in a protective shell and take some time to make sense of the world again. It resonates with me that we would come out of the chrysallis changed. I wonder though do all catepillars become butterflies? Or some such thing? In the darkness of the chrysallis, it is hard to imagine that the me that eventually emerges will be something beautiful. Still, I am hopeful that with a lot of work and therapy, I will someday "rejoin the dance of life."

And just maybe...I will be a butterfly.

Embracing Hope: Healing from Sexual Abuse by Chieko Okasaki

2011-08-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, Sorry I have been away. I know you are all going through blog withdrawals (smirk), but it is hard to write in the dark. I have some candle light now in the Haunted Mansion, so I'm back.

Recently a dear friend sent me a link to a talk that she thought I might like. Like? I didn't like it; I LOVED it. If I had one resource that I could point people to and say, "This is what I would like you to know about my situation," this article is it. Not only that! It is also something I could (and will) share with fellow survivors and say, "this really gave me validation, support and some ideas to help me begin to trust the Lord and others again." Truly wonderful.

Not only is the content amazing, but it is written by a leader in my church (I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and so that gives it a "stamp of approval" when I am talking to fellow members of the church.

This talk is truly a light in the darkness to me. I don't feel right about posting it here...copyright laws, you know...but here is the link:

Embracing Hope: Healing from Sexual Abuse by Chieko Okasaki

In case, you have trouble with the download, since it is a PDF file. I also found this copy on the net.

http://www.the-exponent.com/2007/09/06/chieko-okazakis-healing-from-sexual-abuse/

If my glowing review was not enough to tempt you, here is one of my favorite quotes from the talk (though I must say that every page of my copy...12 pages...is highlighted!). Of course this quote mentions light....

"Another woman who had survived years of sexual abuse from her father spoke to me of the dreadful task of healing. I think of the Savior who shuddered because of the suffering, who suffered and bled at every pore, and drew back from the bitter cup, hoping that it was not necessary. He shrank away, but it was necessary. He says, “And I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.”

Children of men is a stock phrase in the scriptures that means all human beings or the human family, but in this context, I hope you will also hear it as a literal phrase, as the little children who have been betrayed and injured at the hands of men, especially who were entrusted with their care. Christ finished his preparations for these children. The time of their physical torment may be over, but the time of their spiritual torment is great. Christ also adds significantly, “Glory be to the father.” For him, accepting and fulfilling the atonement was a dreadful task, but because he did it, we too can lift the dreadful cup to our lips. The scriptures tell us, “He descended below all things in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all, and through all things the light of truth, which truth shineth, this is the light of Christ.” It may seem inconceivable that the light of Christ is eradiating and illuminating the horrifying images and memories associated with sexual abuse, but such is his promise. If this is your situation, cling to that promise. Cling to the light, and let it grow stronger."

Until next time, "Cling to the light" is good advice for all.

And the darkness settled in...

2011-07-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

There's been a power outtage (or something) in the Haunted Mind. There used to be some rooms with light...but I realized yesterday that I am in one of the rooms that used have light and happiness. Sadly it is dark now. Last week I was in another room that used to have light and it is dark too.

I'm one week into three weeks without therapy, and that is part of the problem. There are some other factors as well. The question is not so much how I got here, but how to get the lights back on. That I don't know. Pondering this yesterday, I realized why I love the moon and stars so much...they are small lights in the darkness. Not surprising, I also have a strong attachment to flashlights (one in my purse, one in the van, several in the house...).

The reason it is so hard when my therapist is gone is because it triggers feelings of abandonment. I usually go to therapy twice a week. Two hours where someone listens to me non-judgementally and validates my feelings, and asks wise questions that help me find light. In other words it is a place I feel "safe". (Safe is a difficult concept for me, but it is the best word I can think of at the moment.) When that 'safety zone' is gone, it brings some very old feelings of abandoment to the surface. Imagine what it most be like to be an abused child...your home is not safe. What a terrifying place the world must be for that child! As horrible as you imagine that might be, the reality is even worse. I know because sometimes I am emotionally detached and I THINK about what that must feel like....terrible. And other times, I don't have to think about it because I FEEL it.

Then despite all logic, I project that feeling of abandoment on to my current life and I feel so very alone.

And the darkness settles in...

Jury Duty...the rest of the story

2011-07-17T02:52:00.001-07:00

Ok, I will try to keep this short...no promises.

As you can imagine, the attorneys from each side of a case have different ideas about what kind of jurors they hope to have on a case. In narrowing down a jury pool...and just to give you an idea our pool started with 58, then they decided it had been narrowed too much and brought in 30 more...all that whittled down to 13 or 14...12 jurors and a couple alternates.

Attorneys can "challenge" a potential juror either for 'cause' or 'preemptory' reasons. (Just as a side note, I think dismiss or excuse would be a better word choice than challenge, but no one asked me....) To challenge for cause is used when a juror says, "no, I'm sure I couldn't be unbiased in this case." or "I can't do it because of my job..." Things like that. Pre-emptory means the attorneys don't have to give a reason. The defense or prosecutor simply doesn't want that juror.

I was excused...oops, I mean challenged, by the Defense for pre-emptory reasons. I can't say that I blame them...it was a 'child rape case'.

They asked all of us potential jurors if we or anyone we knew had been abused. (I should note here that they did give us an opportunity to speak to the attorneys and judge privately). I explained that I really did not know if I could be unbiased...I would certainly try...but because I am in therapy for this very thing, and have PTSD, I can't promise anything. Apparently since I said I would try to be unbiased, they couldn't challenge me for cause, though, I'm guessing the defense is wishing they could have challenged me earlier than because...

During the voir dire, the defense asked the jurors questions about their daughters, if the daughters had lied to them and so forth. The prosecuting attorney asked some of the jurors how they anticipated the defendant to act on the stand. They said nervous, etc. He then asked, "what if the defendant doesn't seem nervous?" One potential juror, young guy (no more than 22) said that would led him to wonder if she was lying. The prosecutor then asked if anyone disagreed with that. A couple of us raised our hands.

"Juror #25, you raised your hand pretty fast, what do you think?"

I did? Oops. Then I explained as briefly as possible about dissociation and how I, for example, could talk to them quite unemotionally about my own abuse that does NOT mean that I am lying or unemotional about it. Dissociation is defense mechanism. The attorney then turned back to the young man, and asked him if that changed his opinion. He said it did.

IF...as it appears to me...the case was basically her word against his, and the defense is planning to paint an unemotional witness as a liar....then I potentially helped the prosecution.

What a precarious thing the law is...for both parties...the victim and the accused. On the one hand...imagine that you are the victim. It can be your word against your assailant. What if you are dissociated and unemotional? What if you are the accused? What if you are innocent?

If I could summarize my jury experience, I would have to say, "There are no easy answers." That and if you get called to jury duty...bring something to read.

Jury Duty..."this won't hurt a bit"

2011-07-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

Jury Summons....the words strike dread into the hearts of many Americans. But when I saw them in my mail box, I was happy. I think that makes me some sort of "nerd". It is something I have always wanted to do...and yet I did have some concerns. I think I share these concerns with many other people, and I am happy to report that we were wrong.

To start, I had thought that the court system was rather Orwellian. Big Brother wants you for Jury Duty and you must comply regardless of how it impacts your life. My next concern was that I might end up on a case that would last "forever" (definition of forever 2 months or more). After all, I've read John Grishom! And I remember how long the O.J. Simpson trial lasted...more than forever!   If you have the same preconceptions and want to know how it really works, keep reading. If I have bored you already...then sorry, please check back soon for my next post.

I actually received the Jury Summons a few months ago, and it wasn't a good time for me. To my relief and surprise, the summons includes instructions to defer service...and to a date of your choosing! Wow, thanks Big Brother, that's pretty reasonable! So I thought about it and defered to July 6th.  I mailed it in, and received a reply in the mail. Deferal accepted.   So far so good!

On Wednesday, I nervously drove to the court house...another pleasant surprise...free parking. Yes, I am easily amused. I was able to pass through security without incident (phew! going through security always makes me nervous). Large signs made it easy to find the place to check in.

Next step, wait. Finally after about an hour of waiting, a judge came in and addressed us. He seemed very friendly (must not have been "the" Big Brother.) He thanked us for being willing to serve. I thought "willing" was probably a stretch, but it was kind of him, anyway. He commiserated that the jury pay of $10 a day is really paltry. In 1913 the pay was $3 a day and in 1950 they changed it to $10 and haven't changed it since. He explained that the reason for the waiting so far and the wait that awaited us...was this: in some cases the parties involved can chose if they prefer the case to be decided by a judge or a jury. For example cases involving a lot of legal business (corporate law etc) are often decided by judges, whereas cases that are based on facts (rather than legal mumbojumbo) are better for juries. So at the beginning of the day, the court may not know for certain if they will require a jury or not. Even when they know they do want a jury sometimes the attorneys have motions and things to take care of that require an undetermined amount of time. When they are ready, they want potential jurors ready to choose from. (Are you also getting the image of a lake stocked with fish?)

Then there was a short video that explained the basics of jury selection. Forgive me if you already know this from John Grisham, but I thought it was interesting. Both the prosecution and the defense have opinions about the kind of people they hope to have on the jury, so from a large pool, they ask questions. This process is called voir dire.

After the video we waited. Another hour or so passed and a group of 50 people was called to court for voir dire. I was not one of them, so I waited some more. We broke for lunch (a generous hour and a half) and then returned to wait some more. I am not kidding about the waiting! Finally, they announced that they would be calling up 58 potential jurors for the next voir dire. I was included in this group.

Remember that one of our concerns as potential jurors is getting "stuck on a forever case"? In this case the judge informed us that this case is expected to last 2 weeks and we were given the opportunity to express ourselves if this would be a hardship. Several people said it would be and were questioned by the judge. Some of the reasons given seemed like genuine hardships to me, being the main caregiver for a mentally disabled adult, for example. Some I had less sympathy for...family reunions, vacations, and airline tickets. Don't think me heartless...remember we all had the opportunity to defer service. So I simply wondered why the people in this category didn't defer their service. The point is that as far as I could tell everyone that said 2 weeks would be a hardship was released back in the the jury pond...pool...waiting area. They were released from that trial, but not released entirely. They had to go back to the waiting room and wait to be considered for the next case. All these people were completely released from jury duty the following day BEFORE lunch. Their jury service was a day and a half! (Note: Of the 108 people that reported with me on Wedneday, 14 of them will serve on a jury, the rest were not selected for a jury and "served" only a day and a half.) From this we can conclude that our fears of being forced into a never-ending-court-case seem to be unfounded. The judge seemed very reasonable, and so far I haven't encountered Big Brother or any of his minions.

The next step was to continue the voir dire. I'm not supposed to talk about the case...even now...and the jury hasn't been decided yet. So stay tuned for part two later.   I can say, that after a couple hours of this we were released to go home and asked to return in the morning of the following day to continue. I thought that since we were asked to arrive by 8:45 am that we would start at 9. Wouldn't that be your assumption as well? But I had already forgotten the first lesson of jury duty...wait, wait, and wait some more.

On Thursday morning we were informed that our pool of 58 had dwindled too much and so the judge asked for more jurors. While they went upstairs and repeated the steps, I and my companions had been through the previous day, we sat and waited...you can guess what comes next right? We waited some more. Seriously. After lunch we were called up to the court room again. Would it surprise you at this point to learn that we have not finished voir dire and I have to return on Monday?

So, for those of you, who got bored and are skimming (caught you!) here's what I learned. Judges and the court system in general are not Orwellian, they are actually pretty reasonable and willing to work with people. Second, eternal court-cases appear to be less common and prospective jurors in these cases are given ample warning and given a chance to be excused for hardship.

The most important lesson so far seems to be...bring something to do! They do provide wi-fi, so you could bring your lap top. They also have vending machines, a microwave and a refrigerator. Whether it is your laptop, a book, or suduku...bring something. You will need it!

Other than that Jury Duty as not as bad as people think...come prepared and "this won't hurt a bit."

Inspiration from Scarlett O'Hara

2011-07-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

I recently watched Gone with the Wind again. I love the scene where she returns to Tara during the war and finds things vastly changed. She goes out to the garden amid the destruction, is able to find one lone turnip. She takes it firmly in hand and says, "As God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

Love Scarlett or hate her (who could hate her really???)...these words, her tenacity and courage are inspiring. I find inspiration in her solemn vow. I find strength in giving myself a similar promise...I will survive this. And when I do, I will use the strength gained to help others. I will have to pass on lying, cheating, stealing and killing, of course, but you get the idea.

I will get through this. There are times that I do feel very fragile like a broken egg shell...but I am not an egg shell. I am heated steel. I am malleable right now because of extreme pressure, but I have an inner strength that will see me through this! Watch for it.

I won't be able to do it alone though...I need support...and I can't thank you, my friends, enough for the support you give me by reading my blog. It means a lot to me. Together...we will "never be hungry again."

Drawn and Quartered...

2011-07-01T10:38:00.003-07:00

My therapist is out of town and that means that I am not doing well. When he is gone it triggers a certain reaction, which I have come to recognize. However, recognition is not enough. You could think of it like this; if you broke your arm, you would recognize that the ensuing pain was due to the injury. However, knowing that doesn't make the pain go away. In much the same way, realizing why I have a hard time whenever I can't go to therapy, doesn't help minimize the pain. Though if I were feeling optomistic, I might theorize that it is a step in that direction.

The cause of the pain is still so acute and tender that I can't write about it yet (sorry if that makes this post a sort of teaser). While I am not ready to talk about the source of the pain, I do want to share something related. The other day when I was feeling this pain acutely, and having a sort of melt down.

SIDE BAR: At times like that I have wondered if I was having a 'nervous breakdown'. That does not seem to be a "real" malady...and just what is meant by patients how use that term I can't pin down and doctors and therapists don't use it at all...or as nearly as I can tell from my google search. And we all know that google is the be all and end all of research. But I digress.

It was a really, really bad morning. One of those "forget 'one day at a time', try "one hour at a time" moments. While I was struggling with this my children reminded me (more than once) that I had promised to take them to the Seattle Aquarium that day. I could not imagine how I could do that in the state I was in and yet if I didn't how could I explain. "Sorry, kids but your mother is having a melt down." Ummm, no.

At times like this I feel "drawn and quartered". You've heard that phrase, right? My understanding of this (which was incorrect) has always been that a rope is tied to each of a person's hands and feet the other ends of the ropes to horses, and then the horses are sent running all in different directions. It's gruesome, I know...sorry. The actual definition is even worse (too disturbing for me to share here.) The point is that is how I feel about going to therapy, being a mom, a wife and working full-time, etc. Sometimes it feels as if I am going to be torn apart.

Cutting one or all of the ropes is not an option...so what to do?

5th Anniversary Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse

2011-06-25T11:51:00.001-07:00

Presenting the 5th Year Anniversary of the Monthly Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse...I feel like we should have the sound of trumpets here!

Welcome! I have enjoyed "hosting" the carnival this month because it gave me a sneak peek to reading all the wonderful posts and since I chose the topic I felt like some of them were just for me (yep, I'm self-absorbed like that, LOL!) I also enjoyed some e-mail conversation with Tracie, who has taken over the overseeing of the Blog Carnival. Thanks to Tracie! And as it is the anniversary, a shout out to Marj, who started the Blog Carnival 5 yrs ago! Thanks Marj!!!

If you enjoy these entries as much as I have, you can read past carnivals, and keep tabs on future carvivals by visiting the homepage for the carnival.

Healing and Therapy

Astrid presented How Support Groups Can Promote Healing at Multitude of Musings

Tracie shared Parenting Without Shame at From Tracie

shen presents Forgiveness posted at Reunited Selves, saying, "Forgiveness is something I never thought was possible, and for a long time I wouldn't even consider it. I've come a long way..."

SwordDanceWarrior presents Goddess bless yoga ? self care for survivors with vaginal injury posted at May We Dance Upon Their Graves, saying, "This post is about some successful strategies I found for dealing with ongoing bouts of vaginal/vulva pain and itching resulting from childhood rape."

MarjakaThriver presents Survivors Can Thrive!: How Does One Retrieve Repressed Memories of Abuse? posted at Survivors Can Thrive!, saying, "Did you know? June 19th marked the five-year anniversary of this blog carnival! Happy Anniversary, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse! I am so grateful to Tracie for continuing the carnival and managing it forward into the future. And I am so grateful to all the bloggers who continue to participate, send in articles, read and leave comments supporting our awareness-rasing carnival. Thanks! This post was first published around the same time as the debut of our carnival in June of 2006. I'm so glad Leslie chose a healing theme for this month. This post of mine is about my decision to never let anyone abuse me again and about what prompted the beginning of my healing journey."

shen presents Family Meeting: Rocking Her to Sleep posted at Reunited Selves, saying, "This post is about accepting the most wounded part of me."

Ivory presents More than Six Days Seven Nights posted at Shades of Ivory.

Sarah123 presents Gifts From the Darkness posted at Writing.

Lynn C. Tolson presents Tolson 4 TEARS on Feelings posted at Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor's Story, saying, "Thank you for this forum for sharing!"

Kate presents A New Beginning posted at Kate1975's Blog.

Aftermath

shen presents *** Reunited Selves ***: Saturday Morning posted at Reunited Selves, saying, "The Rag Doll is the name of my most wounded inner child. She is the one who was there when the worst of the abuse occurred. She took it all and then hid along with her secret, in a dark corner of my mind. I'm just not beginning to get her out into the light."

Patricia Singleton presents After Effects Of Sexual Assault posted at Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker, saying, "Finally someone is doing research on the statistics of sexual assault and its effects upon its victims. Help me spread awareness that sexual assault of children and adults has to stop."

Poetry

Rick Belden presents resting posted at poetry, dreams, and the body, saying, "This late addition is a little poem on the self-care theme."

Tammy Taylor presents Here We Go: The Haunting posted at Here We Go.

shen presents *** Reunited Selves ***: A Turning Away posted at Reunited Selves.

Rick Belden presents face my ghosts posted at poetry, dreams, and the body.

Jenni presents My Corner of the Universe: From Tightropes to Wings posted at My Corner of the Universe.

Survivor Stories

Meggs Fitzwater presents The Whole Truth posted at Speaking Out, saying, ""I cannot WHOLLY heal until I'm done hiding the parts of the abuse that I don't want to see.""

Art Therapy

If you enjoyed this carnival, as I did, you might be interested in the Art Therapy Carnival that is hosted monthly at Paul's blog MindParts (disclaimer, Paul didn't submit his blog for the carnival, I'm just taking some liberties...I'm farily sure he won't mind. Right Paul?)

Pampering Yourself to Fitness

2011-06-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

So...my good friend Josh has a blog...totally insane and hillarious...and recently on his blog he asked for advice about weight loss. You can read all about it on here: You Just Became My Personal Trainer.

Being the good friend that I am (humble too), naturally I had to send him an e-mail and share the World's Best Weight Loss Advice. In fact, it is such good advice that I decided to share it here with you! Lucky you! (oh yes, I am in a good mood today!)

Josh,

Ok, ok, I know you were joking, and I know I am the last person that one would expect to be giving advice about losing weight...for the obvious reason that I need to lose weight myself. But seriously, seriously, I know the answer!!!

Actually the answer has three parts...are you ready for this wisdom? Ok, serious now..

#1 A person who has serious weight issues, we're not talking about those 5-20 lbs now, but serious issues...first must determine the emotional reasons that cause them to overeat. Self-control...phooey...Take yourself for example...you go to work regularly, you help at church, you help with the kids...you do plenty of things that exhibit self-control...only sometimes you eat more calories than you burn...why the breakdown in that area? Until you figure that out and resolve it this won't go away. There are many stories of women who have weight loss surgery and then afterward acquire some other addictive behavior like gambling...they lost the weight but they didn't deal with the emotional issues. (I don't even have to be a therapist to figure this stuff out, LOL!)

#2 Find a physical activity that you LOVE. Something that calls to you! For me that is racquetball and bike riding. I feel a little guilty making time to do these two things because I love them so much! If you have an activity that you love, it is so much easier to do. It needs to be something accessible of course...if you love swimming but don't have access to a pool then you need to get access or find a different activity.

#3 Eat food that remembers where it came from...in other words the less processed the better. An apple is good, but applesauce not as good and apple pie...uh oh! Think about Venezuela...what did you eat there? Let me guess...black beans and rice...tons of rice. Sometimes a little chicken. Those are all foods that remember where they came from!

I call this plan "pampering yourself to fitness", because really when you eat whole foods and do exercise you LOVE, it feels so good!

So why don't I do it then? Well, that brings us back to #1...I am dissociative. So while I sit here now and tell you what I think is THE best plan for weight loss and fitness (I'm absolutely serious)...tomorrow (or even later today after therapy...if it is hard) another part of me will say, "to Hell with that, give me some chocolate!" or sometimes I get in a funk and I just don't think to eat at all. My husband says everyone goes through this anorexia/binging/eating healthy cycle...but I say they don't do it to the same extreme that I (as a dissociative person) do.

Think of it like this...if I were a healthy weight and I said, "I don't like the way my body looks, I need to lose weight." You might laugh and think, "women are never happy with their bodies." However, if I were a normal weight but had a history of anorexia or bulimia and I said exactly the same thing, now there are alarm bells going off in your head. That is the difference between my anorexia/binging/eating healthy cycles and a "normal" person's.

So is there a prize for being the best personal trainer ever??? You know my address... LOL!

Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse

2011-06-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

It is my turn to Host the Monthly Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, yay me!

For my readers who may not be familiar...a blog carnival is simply a list of blogs that are related in some way. Usually people submit their blog entries to be included. The idea, naturally, is both to help readers find other blogs in an area that they have interest, and to help bloggers find readers. The May "issue" of the Carnival Against Child Abuse is here: Kate1975's Blog

I have been pleased to be a part of past blog carnivals and I am excited to have a turn to "Host" this month. So for those who would like to participate...the topic for June is Healing. What does healing mean to you? How do you measure healing? What people, coping skills etc have helped you most in your healing? I confess that being fairly new on the healing path (just over a year in therapy), I pose these questions because they are the questions of my heart and I would really like to hear how you have dealt with them. However, if you have another topic on your mind, that is welcome as well. All the usual catagories are open!
-Advocacy and Awareness-Aftermath-Healing and Therapy-In the News-Poetry-Survivor Stories-Art Therapy

Please send your submissions to: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_355.html

Deadline for submissions: June 22nd...that's only two weeks!
I will "publish" on June 24th.

See you then!!!

A Dragon in the Cellar

2011-05-28T11:37:00.001-07:00

Remember my Haunted Mind? Some of the rooms hold anger from the past. Anger is a very difficult emotion for me to allow myself to feel, and when I do feel it it is hard to figure out what to do with it. It is like having a Dragon in the Cellar. What to do with that thing? It's too big to come up the stairs. It breathes fire, so you can't go down there. You fear his fire breathing may burn down the house so you throw meat down the stairs in a effort to appease him...but still there is a dragon in the cellar.

My anger dragon disrupts my life in different ways. He is sleeping right now, but here is something I wrote one day when he was snarling and pacing...

Today I woke up in an angry room. I don't know why. Yesterday was such a nice day. My husband and I went to the Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. I found it inspiring. I came home happy. I was happy to return to my cute little house, my darling children and my fuzzy puppy. Ah, life was good.

This morning I woke up and how can I explain? Everything is different. The children are getting on my last nerve. It does not help that one of them is sick and whiny. I want to give him the TLC that I would want if I were sick. I try, but the whining makes me want to send him to his room...ALONE! Of course, feeling guilty about this (even though I didn't send him to domestic exile) makes me even grumpier. The house looks like a wreak. How did it get this way? Ahhh! I go into the kitchen, the dishes were not done last night. That is one of the kid's jobs...said kid is gone for the day...more annoyance. Of course, that is my fault too, I let him go after all. I am slipping, whatever happened to "firm, fair and consistent"? How can I be firm, fair and consistent when I do not even know myself from one day to the next?

I tell myself, a "normal" mom would use this energy created by the anger to clean the house instead of just moping about it. So I step into the kitchen. I tell myself, I can do the dishes myself, and deal with the teen-dishwasher in some other way...there are always chores to be done. But being in the kitchen makes me so uncomfortable. It feels like 5 fire alarms are going off in my head screaming at me, "danger! get out! danger! danger!" I look around, nothing to be afraid of, but the anxiety builds exponentially until I obey and leave the kitchen. Two of my worst nightmares had "kitchen scenes". I don't know what my subconscious is trying to tell me about the kitchen, but whatever it is I'm not sure I want to know. I will clean some other room, and bribe another teenager to do the kitchen for me. I go into another room. Better, but still the anxiety is building. I just want to get out of the house completely. I snap at the children and then apologize. I think I am going to implode.

Sometimes I really hate my life...no, not my life...me. I hate me. I hate what the smoke and ashes of the abuse have done to me and what was a good life. I wonder if I will ever heal. If I will ever be truly happy again. Then I remember that yesterday was such a lovely day. I can't feel those feelings now, but I remember that some part of me felt them. The hope that I could feel that way again seems like a life preserver...it is a ways away from me...but I start swimming for it.

Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow I will feel better. Maybe tomorrow I will wake up in a happy room. Maybe someday I will heal. Until then, I will stay away from the kitchen.

.....Still there is a dragon in the cellar. . .

Silence Promotes Violence

2011-05-27T11:50:00.001-07:00

Since I have been sharing my journey of healing from childhood sexual abuse, several people in my life have confided in me: either their own stories or their children's. I am stunned and saddened to be made aware of what a rampant problem this is. I admit I also feel frustrated that as serious as it is and as widespread...no one is talking about it.

Ponder this for a moment. If you have a facebook page, you know that nearly every time you log on you will see on someones status: 'repost this if you know someone who has cancer'. I asked a friend once, what is the point of me reposting it. (Yes, I was a little cranky that day, but fortunately my friend didn't take it personally.) She said, "awareness". Oh...because cancer is a big secret? Pink ribbons for breast cancer, red dresses for women's heart health and it goes on and on.

I don't mean to trivialize cancer or heart problems, certainly. The point I am getting at is 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer, 1 in 3 will be sexually abused. And yet where are the facebook posts and the ribbons for awareness of this problem?   According to Boy Scouts of America, "More than 3 million reports of child abuse are received each year, including half a million reports of child sexual abuse." Half a million a year! And those are the ones that are reported. How much would that number grow if every case was reported? I shudder to think...

There ARE some out there trying to raise awareness.   Recently I saw a car magnet with a ribbon that said, "Silence promotes violence."  The point being that we need to talk about it to help prevent it. So let's talk about prevention for a moment.

There are websites out there that tell you where convicted child molesters live when they are released from prison. While I do think that is valuable information, I suggest that it is the "unconvicted" abusers that we should be more concerned about. Most victims are abused or molested by someone they know and trust. So what can we, as parents, do to protect our children? Knowledge is one of our best tools.  Here are a couple books I have found helpful.

BSA Pamphlet for preventing child abuse: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/ypt/pdf/46-015.pdf (until you can get to the library...)

Out of Harm's Way by Sandy K.Wurtele PhD

A short book that you could read in an hour, but is packed with information. I learned a few new things from reading it.

Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story by Mary Ann Broberg

Once several years ago, I was with a couple of friends when one of them casually mentioned, "When I was kidnapped as a child, they found me in a basement." Ahh...excuse me, did I just hear you correctly? You were kidnapped?  My friend's mom wrote a book about their experience. Jan was kidnapped and sexually abused by a family friend. I mention this because the foreword of the book is written by a police officer that worked on the case and he said, Mrs. Broberg, was very brave in asking him to do this because what he was going to say was that my friend's did "everything wrong". There were warning signs, and red flags that the parents missed. Mrs. Broberg was willing to put her pride aside, admit her mistakes in order to help prevent us from making the very same mistakes.

So Sexy So Soon by Diane E. Levin PhD and Jean Kilbourne EdD

I haven't read this one yet, but one of my favorite blogs did a fabulous review on it. You can read the review (and other great reviews) here: Reading for Sanity I am interested in this book because I am very concerned about this trend. Not necessarily from the point of view of the authors, but in a world of half a million reports of childhood sexual abuse is it wise to allow our daughters to dress "sexy". Do we really want to attract the lustful eyes of pedophiles?

Finally, we need to talk to our kids about abuse.  I know, I know we don't want to scare the kids. I have that same fear. I was discussing that with a friend recently and she said, "It depends on how you present it. When you ask your child to wear a bike helmet, you don't tell them that it is to they won't hit their head and spread their brains over the sidewalk." Point taken.

My friends, lets start talking about this problem. Talk to one another, talk to your children. Through talking about it we can educate ourselves to prevent it. Through talking we can support survivors and their families. And through talking about it we can help victims to come forward...this is especially important for those that are being abused right now.

Let's do what we can to stop the abuse. Start talking...Silence promotes violence.

True Confessions

2011-05-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, I escaped the sinkhole that I was in when I wrote last, only to slip into another one...sigh.

Sometimes I think my life is divided into good days and bad days. On good days, I have pain, but also have hope that someday will be better. On bad days, I have pain and no hope. Guess what kind of day I am having today...

I can't write today...it's dark down here...but I have something I have been working on...when I had an actual good day (happiness without pain...that does happen, it is just hard to remember sometimes...)

I hope you will enjoy this. First confession...I got this idea from another blog!

I confess....

I have gone to Dairy Queen, right after working out at the gym (I know, I know)

I love Jane Eyre but I'm bored by Jane Austen.

I would give a stranger the shirt off my back, but I wouldn't give my last piece of chocolate to my own child...

I have a thing for rogues...I particularly love Captain Jack.

I hate the color orange. My Bishop has an orange tie and everytime I see him sitting in front of the congregation wearing it, I just want to have Dart Practice!

Sometimes I listen to my music louder than my teenagers do. They are very embarassed by this...they say it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't do it while driving a mini-van...

That's it...any confessions YOU want to share? I dare you...

Emotional Sinkholes

2011-05-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-01/sinkhole-in-guatemala-city-might-not-be-the-last/#

As a child I had a vivid nightmare that haunts me still. In the dream I had fallen into a pit (a sinkhole). My mother was standing at the top of the pit, with my siblings, one a toddler and the other a baby. She looked into the hole puzzled, not knowing what to do. She wanted to help, but didn't know how. And then she turned and walked away.

Before I entered this alternate universe of grief and pain, back when all my memories were tucked away in that vast expanse we call the unconscious. . .it would have been hard for me to understand how something that happened so long ago could cause someone so much pain now. I likely would have thought something like, "Gee, that is terrible that you were abused as a child, but that was a long time ago. Aren't you glad that is in the past? What do you mean it is bothering you now? Can't you just let it go?"

Ah, ignorance IS bliss. It is easier not to know.

However, as I have told you before, the unconscious will not be ignored forever. Forgive me, I know have said some of this before, but I feel a need to restate it.

Childhood is many things. One of the purposes of childhood is learning coping skills. A child falls skins a knee and is comforted by a loving parent. Eventually the child will fall skin his knee, comfort himself and resume playing. However, what happens when a child is confronted with a pain so deep that even an adult would have trouble processing it, and the child is NOT comforted?

It seems the only thing a child can do is put that away in a part of the mind and seal it off to be dealt with at some later time when coping skills and support systems are in place. I suppose it really is the best thing that can be done in such a situation. What happens then though when that child becomes an adult?

The pain, grief, terror, shame, anxiety...all those emotions that were sealed off have been perfectly preserved. When the unconscious is ready to divulge its secrets, unexpected triggers open up the doors of the Haunted Mind, and one finds herself in an Emotional Sinkhole.

People who have not experienced childhood trauma cannot understand the depth and breadth of the pain. I have experienced many painful things in my life: unrequited love, miscarriages (one at 12 weeks that haunts me still), loss of beloved family members (young and old), job lay offs, bankruptcy, foreclosure, life-threatening illness....I have experienced all of these. Yet when one of the doors of the Haunted Mind opens up and I feel the pain I felt as a child: the pain so fresh, so well preserved that it feels like the trauma happened today, no other pain even comes close. And no, I can't just "let it go". The trauma caused not just emotional damage, but mental damage as well. I really hate to call it Mental Illness, but I suppose if I were honest I would. I have PTSD, and a Dissociative Disorder....I can no more "let go" of those, than I could let go of cancer.

I am in an Emotional Sinkhole. It's cold and dark down here, and I can only hope that those who are standing on the edge will not turn and walk away.

Emotionally Flatlined

2011-04-26T02:15:00.001-07:00

The human mind has an amazing ability for self-preservation. At least that is how I am going to justify what I am about to explain to you. It sounds good. It sounds reasonable. Most importantly, it sounds sane.

When the emotional pressure (read: pain) becomes just too much, it is as if a an emotional circuit breaker flips...and suddenly no more pain. No happiness either...no feeling, just silence. Numbness...

...Emotionally flatlined...

One would think that after dealing with unimaginable pain, that this numbness would bring a welcome relief, and it does...for a short time.

But the unconscious mind will not be ignored. If the conscious mind refuses to acknowledge it, then the unconscious will "communicate" through the body. We call this...anxiety.

Shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea...this is the price to be paid for being emotionally flatlined.

When one can no longer tolerate the physical symptoms of anxiety and goes figuratively searching with flashlight in hand to find the circuit breaker box...

...the pain begins again...

Happy Easter, Happy Birthday!

2011-04-24T03:47:00.000-07:00

Easter is my favorite holiday. I don't decorate or make a special meal; I confess I am Domestically Challenged. We decorate eggs and the Easter Bunny visits...but mostly my Easter Celebration is internal. That celebration is significant though.

So knowing this you can better understand why several years ago when I was pregnant and my water broke on the eve of Easter, I was thrilled. A baby born on Easter would be a wonderful way to celebrate Easter and all it means to me spiritually. However, it was early and my body didn't want to "give up" the baby, so getting labor to start was a long process, labor was a slow, painful process...and right after midnight on Monday, my son was born. Not only was it no longer Easter, but it was....April Fool's Day. My son, who is old enough now to understand this finds it all very amusing...I still do not.

Amazingly, a few years later I found myself, once again, pregnant and being told "we need to get the baby out." It was Easter Day and I was thrilled! THIS time I would have my Easter Baby! Who would have thought I would get a second chance? But as mothers, midwives and doctors know, babies are unpredictable and once again my son was born shortly after midnight. At least it wasn't April Fool's this time.

So fast forward a few years to today...Easter 2011. Guess whose birthday it is today? Mine!!!!

Isn't that amazing? As you know Easter changes every year, and it doesn't usually "fall" this late in April. And of course, each year our birthday's fall on a different day of the week...so I think I can safely say my birthday and Easter have never been on the same day before.

I would have considered this an amazing gift anytime, but especially after the Hellish year I have had, the ups and downs I have had in my relationship with Christ (remember Stealing Guilt and more recently Palm Sunday...well it is simply incredible to me that THIS year of all years Easter would fall on my birthday. I am in awe.

I am so pleased in fact that I am feeling a little mischievious. . .

Easter is about birth and death. Which brings me to my next item on the agenda of today's post. A good friend of mine and I used to write our own epitaphs for fun. It was a macrabe way to relieve stress. Last night, I was reminded of that and wrote this:

"Here lies Leslie: Upon examination, doctors discovered that while she had been emotionally flatlined, and mentally derailed for sometime, what kept her heart beating was her family. But in the end her physical heart also tired, slowed and stopped...however, her love for her family continues to grow and scientists are baffled."

Death is inevitable, and sometimes even may feel preferable to life, but because of Christ, we can all hope for a new birth, a new beginning.

Happy Easter!

Things that make you go...hmmmm....

2011-04-23T03:58:00.000-07:00

Look at the odometer. Is it just me or does this cry out, "Go back in the house and go back to bed. Do not drive anywhere today."

Just sayin...

Palm Sunday...Triumphal Entry back into my heart...

2011-04-18T02:34:00.000-07:00

"Words were useless. At times, they might sound wonderful, but they let you down the moment you really needed them. You could never find the right words, never, and where would you look for them? The heart is as silent as a fish, however much the tongue tries to give it a voice." Cornelia Funk, Inkheart

Though I fancy myself a writer, at times I find words to be useless as well. At the most important times, and for the things closest to our heart words simply fail. For example, often times I tell my husband, "I love you," and while I know he hears the words, I am not altogether certain that he hears what all is in my heart. In spite of the inadequacy of words, I would like to try and share with you what happened to me today.

It's Palm Sunday...on this day Christ entered Jerusalem triumphantly with people laying palm leaves on the ground (this was before red carpets...). Then He went to the temple and cleansed it. He overturned tables! Stop for a moment and imagine what a scene that was. He was angry. We don't often picture him that way, but He had to have been very angry. I find His anger oddly comforting.

For some months I have struggled with the idea that Heavenly Father and Jesus knew what happened to me and yet did not stop it. Many of you reading this have children, can you imagine knowing that someone is hurting your child in such a way and yet allowing it to continue??? My adult mind understood that God cannot simply swoop down and stop the bad guys all the time. (Think about it, our population could diminish very quickly...but seriously, as an adult I do understand.) However, the parts of me that holds the pain and memories of a child...did NOT understand. Not at all.

A few weeks ago, I began to think about the scriptures that talk about God's vengeance on the wicked. Those scriptures that made me cringe before suddenly became very comforting. God did not intervene when the abuse happened, but that does not mean that He is not angry about what occurred. It does not mean that my abuser...or any abuser...will go unpunished. Mercy cannot rob Justice.

Thus began the healing in my heart, my God has not forsaken me. Then today during church I was pondering the words of a hymn, I Stand All Amazed...and I realized...Christ felt alone in the Garden of Gethsemane. He wrestled with pain while his friends slept. Then came the trial and the Crucifixion...Heavenly Father did not rescue Christ from the hands of the evil men. And Christ did not save Himself from them, though it was in His power to do so. When He was on the cross, He cried out, "My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?" He felt alone in His greatest time of need.

And through His pain, I could finally see that while I have felt alone and abandoned,

I was not. I am not.

And thus, Christ was welcomed back into my wounded heart.

Chess Klutz Gets Promoted

2011-04-17T02:37:00.001-07:00

Transformer Chess Pieces: photo courtesy of my 9 yr old son

In chess, the lowliest piece is The Pawn. However, even a pawn can be powerful if it can somehow make it's way across the board to the other side. If that happens: Pawn Promotion!!!

A pawn can be promoted to any piece that a player desires. Because the Queen is the most powerful piece, that is the most likely choice. It doesn't matter if you still have your Queen on the board. You can have 2, 3, 9...queens on the board at once. Such is the possibility of a lowly pawn.

Apparently, this is also true with "lowly Chess Klutzes" like myself. We can make advances and be promoted!

What am I talking about? Enough beating around the bush...it's gloating time!

I almost beat my husband at chess the other day. Boy, was he surprised!  I almost had him, but in chess as in life, I was too impulsive. One rash move and his Bishop came "zinging" out of nowhere and captured my Queen. Ah, such a loss. I was so close to check mate. (Note to self: don't be so impulsive and keep an eye on those Bishops!)

The point...and oh yes, there is a point...is how I went from being a "Chess Klutz" to an "almost beat my husband chess player"! (I'll get him next time!)

The secret to my promotion is chess lessons! Not just any chess lessons...because I have read chess books and tried to improve my game numerous times over the years.   Sometimes the key to learning something difficult is finding the right teacher. I found the right teacher in Elliot Neff.  His lessons move forward is such a simple, but logical fashion that has filled in some missing gaps for me...allowing me to improve my game immensely. And in a short time!

National Chess Master Elliott Neff has more than 18 years of experience in coaching and teaching chess.   His chess lessons are available on DVD, or through his "e-school" on his website: Chess4Life . If you happen to live in the area, there are private lessons available as well.

The lessons are geared towards children (but you are not too proud to let that stop you are you? I'm not!). For me the beauty of it, is that I can share these lessons with my children...as long as I stay a couple lessons ahead!

Which reminds me...my 9 yr old beat me the other day (yes...I was foiled by the Bishop again)...does that make me a poor chess player or a really great chess teacher?

Maybe I am still a Chess Klutz after all? Anyway, check out the chess lessons available at chess4life.com. And watch out for those sneaky Bishops!

Disclaimer: I have no connection with Elliot Neff or chess4life, I just like to share a good thing when I find one!

Rescuing and Being Rescued

2011-04-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

Warning to my readers who are survivors of abuse...this post may be triggering...be safe.

Therapy is hard work. This post might help explain why I continue and I hope that it will help others face their inner most fears and demons....so they can rescue and be rescued.

I don't dream; I have nightmares. Fortunately, most of the time I don't remember them, but when I do...

It will be easier for you to understand if I tell you about one of them. Bare in mind that it is the emotion of the dream that is the most intense, so hopefully this won't be nearly as intense for you as it was for me.

I had a dream that I was in house or apartment with an open floor plan...meaning from the living room you could see into the kitchen. The dream began with a woman (a roommate, I think) being raped in my kitchen. I could see it happening. Worse, she was screaming, and calling me (by name) for help. It is an image I will never forget. The screams were bloodcurdling...actresses screaming in movies and TV don't even come close .

The woman was raped twice in my kitchen. The first time, I saw and did nothing. I was paralyzed with fear. The second time, however, I somehow cornered the bad guy in the bathroom. I punched him repeatedly, but he did not respond at all. It was as if I were a fly landing on him. I felt intense rage...I don't remember ever feeling rage like that in my waking hours. I was determined that he would not just stand there and ignore me. So I hit him again. This time in the face. I punched him in the nose. I hit him so hard the cartilage of his nose was forced back into his brain and it killed him. (I don't think that is actually physically possible....) He fell to the floor in a huge puddle of blood.

I felt nothing. Not happy...I vanquished the foe; I had a right to be happy. But I was not happy. Not relieved. Nothing. I felt nothing. It was over and that was all.

This is not the only dream that I have had about a woman screaming. Through discussing these dreams with my therapist, I realized that the woman screaming in the dream is me.

I am the one screaming for rescue. I am the one that needs to do the rescuing. Both positions are terrifying.

In a sense it reminds me of childbirth...labor is hard, but the most painful part is the pushing phase. It hurts, and pushing hurts even more...and yet you have to increase the pain for a moment in order to make the pain stop.

I am so scared, but I can still hear her screaming. . .

and I have to try to help.

Counting the cost...

2011-04-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

Remember the last time you bought a new (or new to you) vehicle and then suddenly everywhere you looked you saw this same vehicle on the road? Same make, same model, same color. Obviously there weren't suddenly more, simply you were now more aware of them.

This is how I feel about "counting the cost" of my abuse. It is not something I do intentionally, it's just there. It's there in the triggers that blindside me...like scissors and red rugs. (You don't want me to explain that...) It also comes in more subtle ways, and sad: "I get it now" moments. I'm wrestling with that tonight.

One of the painful wounds from the past is about housecleaning. (Make no mistake I say wound instead of scar intentionally. A scar would mean it has healed, and this is an open wound.) I am not a very good housekeeper. My house is cleaner now that I have three teenagers to help with the work, but it is still a source of embarrassment for me and always has been. What I didn't really understand until this week...one of those blindsided moments...is WHY this is such a difficult area for me to master. And why any discussion of it is so painful for me. I won't go into the details (so you can stop shielding your eyes...its safe) but cleaning house is directly tied to my abuse. To me housekeeping is not about love, but something unthinkable. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

So as an adult this is a never ending source of pain for me. If the house is "too clean" that makes me uneasy. I get this intense desire to hide. If the house is "too messy", I freak out. Yelling and crying are usually involved. The very act of cleaning makes me very uncomfortable. Every nerve comes alive waiting for danger. I can only do it in short spurts. If someone offers to come over and help me clean...well, Heaven help that poor soul for they have just stepped on my emotional landmine. I assume the worst about their intentions and fall apart while they try to figure out what went wrong.

This difficulty is further compounded by the fact that I live in a religious culture (I am LDS) that puts tremendous value on work and service. Not having an immaculately clean home makes me feel separate and like a failure. Earlier this evening I was reading a blog from another LDS person who wrote about a friend who had experienced something terrible. What was the first response of the LDS friends? To go in and clean the suffering one's house "top to bottom". Just reading that, imaging receiving that kind of service myself brought me just short of a panic attack. I'm not kidding. I wish I could explain the anxiety and fear that swelled up inside of me. It has been a couple hours and I still feel a sense of unease...a fear that someone in a spirit of love might want to come over and clean my house. I can't breathe.

Just last week in therapy, I was telling my therapist how I feel so utterly uncomfortable and out of place at church...a place that was once a source of peace and solace. "I'm not like them." I had said with tears springing to my eyes. He got that compassionate look that he gets sometimes and said, "But Leslie, you are like them, you have the same values, the same beliefs." All I could do was shake my head no, and try to fight back the tears. Even in therapy, I hate to cry.

Unfortunately, the housekeeping is just part of the problem. Another thing that sets me apart from other LDS women (who are good, loving people) is that once they clean the house of someone who is suffering, the next thing they do is bring meals. I have been the recipient of many such delicious meals after delivering babies, or having health issues. Even I can't complain about being on the receiving end of that service. BUT...it is a service that is nearly impossible for me to give.

I don't cook. Again culturally, in my church, homemaking skills are emphasized. And so again, I find myself lacking. I used to cook...never very well, but I could do it. Now, however, as the memories I have so long kept tucked away in my mind are creeping towards my conscious mind, I find the kitchen very uncomfortable. I cannot be in the kitchen for any length of time. Two of my worst nightmares involved kitchens. Thank goodness my husband doesn't mind cooking. If I am asked to help out by taking a meal to someone, I turn to my husband...

And that is not all, no that is not all. (If I sound like Dr. Seuss, it's because I am a fan, and this post is too depressing...) LDS people are counseled not to watch R-rated movies. No one is going to come beat you with a stick if you do, but it is good counsel. The reason is simple; Gandhi said it best, "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with dirty feet." So, I sit with these lovely women at church who do not watch R-rated movies, knowing that my nightmares are R-rated and my memories are X-rated. How can I NOT feel different than them??? Sometimes I think I should carry a bell and cry out, "Unclean, unclean..."

The housekeeping and cooking are not new problems, only the awareness of why I have these issues is new. I used to compensate for these differences by teaching. I was given many opportunities in the church to teach and I loved it. I am a good teacher. But I can't teach right now because the storm cloud of memories pressing on my mind makes me feel different, apart...like a hypocrite. So now, I have lost that as well. I hope it is a temporary loss, but right now I don't know.

As the "casualties" from the abuse continue to mount, I find myself looking for some sort of silver lining. I can't help it, something good has to come from this! I am a Pollyanna, and though that term is often used in a negative sense, I wear it proudly. The best thing I can say about this situation is that I am learning a deep sense of compassion. Where others see struggles and think, "What can I do?"....I can boldly step forward, because I am well acquainted with pain. It doesn't scare me. I have learned that when someone is suffering and you don't know what to do or say...don't SAY anything. Just listen and validate. "Listen" and "validate" are my two favorite words. It means the world to me when someone simply listens (or reads my blog) and says, "Wow, Leslie, you are going through a hard time." Yes, I am. Thank you for understanding.

And thanks for listening and reading; it means more to me than you know.

Enchanted Walk

2011-04-02T06:53:00.002-07:00

Living in the Northwest, a simple walk on a local trail can feel like a fairy tale...

Every fairy tale needs a damsel in distress...enter Shelab...

She's really a baby...and I mean in age and temperment. She needs some socialization, as she is afraid of everyone and everything we see on the trail. "Shelab, c'mon that squirrel won't hurt you." Isn't she pretty, though?! In the magic of the woods, she becomes "Beauty".

Follow this stream to a castle where it is said there lives....a Beast.

On the way to the castle you must cross over this bridge...

I hear there are three Billy Goat brothers that help people over the bridge. I don't know why. It looks like a harmless bridge to me.

You might think these are logs, but don't dally to long in the forest or you might get tired and lie down....

Now I know this is not a "photography blog" and I am not a photographer...but admit it - you loved the pictures! Stay tuned, we'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming shortly!

Ok, ok, since you asked...one more...

If this isn't "Happily Ever After" then I don't know what is...

The feeling I have out on the trail reminds me of this quote:

"Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in a haystack of light. It was what I was born for - to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world - to instruct myself over and over in joy and acclamation..." Mary Oliver

Why I love my Therapist

2011-03-26T02:25:00.001-07:00

Therapy is serious business and it can be really hard work. But there is...a lighter side.

Why I love my Therapist...

Who else would listen to me "yammer on" for an hour at a time, week after week and not fall asleep?

Who else would nod and say, "So you are mad that the dog chewed up your favorite shoes." He really gets me!

I tell him things that I think are crazy (you would too if I told you!) but he assures me that I am not crazy. That is worth the cost of therapy right there! (Psst, tell me again that I am NOT crazy and I will tip you an extra $20.)

I tell him about nightmares that I am certain reveal me to be a pyschopath in embryo, and he doesn't suddenly declare his retirement and refer me to another therapist.

I talk, he listens. He doesn't judge. He is always there. He never seems to get tired of listening to me.

What would I do without him? I guess I could get a dog...come to think of it, that would be cheaper...but a dog couldn't say, "You are not crazy. What happened to you was crazy. Your response is normal."

Yeah, I love my Therapist.

Are We There Yet?

2011-03-20T02:27:00.001-07:00

Anyone who has been on a long trip with kids (or even as a kid) is familiar with this phrase. As adults we try to rationalize that the 'joy is in the journey' but children are more honest. They want to be at the destination and they want to be there right now. This is how I feel about therapy.

This month marks one year since I realized WHY I am in therapy. I have actually been going to therapy for about 14 months, but it has been a year since I realized what the real issue is. Since then I have been looking, in vain, for some sort of map and/or crystal ball to tell me what to expect and how long this journey will take. In the beginning I read several books...that's what I do. (Just call me Leslie, A.D. for autodidactic) I learned a lot which helps me intellectually process this journey, but didn't seem to speed it up any...which was, of course, my real goal.

I have been reflecting on this past year, pondering the Landmarks, if you will. After all, if I can't have a map and a crystal ball, perhaps I can create them for those who follow me. And perhaps by looking at the past year, I could make some predictions about the coming year? A girl can hope.

In a nutshell, I started therapy because I was having anxiety attacks. These were couched between other serious health issues which made diagnosing them tricky, but I had a great doctor that cared about me as a person, not just a number. I am so grateful to him. About two months into therapy, I had my first "flashback" and then I knew exactly what was the root of my anxiety. With that flashback, one memory that has always been with me, and a few other clues, I could piece together what happened. Shortly after this, I was "triggered" at my therapist's office and we realized that I have a Dissociative Disorder.

Without a map, I really had thought that by now I would have recovered more of my memories about what happened, and yet I haven't. I know this must come as a surprise to you as it does to me. After all, if I can't remember exactly what happened to me then why has the last year been so hard? And why can't I remember? Excellent questions.

The work I did in therapy this last year, and believe me "work" is precisely the correct verb, can be broken down into basically three parts. One, grieving. Much of the pain I have felt was not about what happened to me but what did not. About the love I did not receive as a child. Every child should be cherished and adored by loving parents and caregivers. I did not receive that from one of the key people in my life, and I had to allow myself the time to mourn that, just as one would mourn a death. Two, letting go of the guilt. Though it seems irrational to me still that I would blame myself for abuse that happened to me as a child, so it was. Now matter how much I told myself that was ridiculous, the subconscious mind is not easily converted to new ideas. Then when the weight of the guilt made me feel that I could go no further...it happened. My mind accepted the truth that it wasn't my fault. That was huge. Three, understanding how my Haunted Mind...my Dissociative Disorder affects me. There is tons more I could say about that, but I'll save it for another day.

So are we there yet? I have heard from people who are dealing with the same thing that I am that their memories started returning after about a year in therapy. Oh boy... That is not a journey I want to take. When I had the first flashback it was like reliving the experience, physically and emotionally. Horrible. Looks like unpaved road, full of pot holes and few gas stations ahead. . .

How much longer? Well, this may surprise you more than anything I have written so far, but I know several people who are dealing with Dissociation that have been in therapy for 10-20 yrs and while they assure me that it does get better, I know they still struggle. I have struggled with that. I have to accept that this journey is not a "summer vacation", it is my life. When I lamented about this to my wise doctor friend, he helped me realize that all is not lost. I can still make plans, set goals. Realistically I realize that I can't just "reset" to where I was before, and if I really ponder it, I suppose I wouldn't want to. With some limitations, I can decide where I would like to go, and ask my friends and family to help me get there.

A new destination. I like that. I'm not sure what it will be yet, but for now it is enough to know that I am still in the driver's seat, and while I still don't have a map, I do have terrific support for the journey.

As always, thanks for coming along with me.

The "S-Word": the 6-letter one

2011-02-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

My vocabulary of "no-no" words is ever growing lately. Remember I told you about my new "F" word, the one with 7-letters...forgive. Unless you want to irritate me, don't go there. Oprah has a great definition of forgiveness. A friend shared it with me and the first time I read it, I cried. Oprah says forgiveness is "letting go of the hope that the past could have been any different." There is a lot of wisdom in that. I cried because while I love the definition, I am so not ready to go there. Don't start...

My "S-word" with 6-letters is Safety.

I shudder when I hear it. Ok, maybe not shudder...cringe. Yes, cringe. I'm serious. A couple months ago in church someone said, "There is safety in the gospel." That struck a sensitive cord and sent me into a spiral that took me 2 hours to recover from or if you consider I am still working on it...2 months and counting. It wasn't just that comment, but the idea of safety in general. It is a concept I simpy cannot believe in. As a child I was not safe, one of the people that was supposed to take care of me was abusing me. My home was not safe. Though it pains me to say it, my inner child says, even God didn't save me. Thus, there is no such thing as safety.

One day I got caught in one of those rooms in my Haunted Mind. It was a room full of a child's anguish and fear of not being safe. I cried and cried. I rocked and I mumbled, "no safe places, no safe places". On some level I, as an adult, was observing all this and I thought I must be having a nervous breakdown. I worried that my husband would come home and find me in a fetal position muttering, "No safe places, no safe places." Fortunately that didn't happen. But now you know why I seriously cringe when I hear that word.

One day I mentioned to my 14 yr old son, Caleb, that I was struggling with the idea of being safe. (I don't know what possessed me to do that. I don't usually tell the children those sorts of details, but please believe there was some good reason for sharing, even though I can't remember what it was.)

He said, "You know, Mom, I don't believe in safe places either. Since I was a little kid I have been afraid of something bad happening. What if someone breaks into the house? What if there is an earthquake? So I don't believe in safe places, but I do believe in happy places. A Happy Place doesn't mean you are always safe, but it means that you have family and friends to support you when bad things do happen."

So there you go...thank you all, my friends, for being a part of my Happy Place.

THE Chess Klutz speaks on Chess

2011-02-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

I love chess. I hate chess. I am a chess fanatic.

Reading that you probably assume that I am also, therefore, good at chess. Wrong. I'm pretty terrible actually. (Don't tell my chess students!) I know this is a real dichotomy. I love chess and teach it, but I am not very good at it. How can that be?

The answer is more simple than you think. I love chess for a multide of reasons that I will explain more in depth shortly. I hate chess because it is like a diabolical butterfly. It taunts me. It hovers just out of my reach. I read about it. I study the rules, but I can't seem to keep my focus in a game long enough to keep me from making stupid mistakes. ("Ah, so the problem is YOU, Leslie, not the game," you say...shut up this is MY blog!) I can teach chess because I have mastered the rules and basics enough to help beginners. I give them their chess wings, so to speak, and then watch them quickly out grow me!

So why do I continue to torture myself with this game that eludes my clumsy attempts at mastering it? Why do I teach it to all my children and anyone else that I can persuade to learn? I do it because ~~at least for a short time I will have an opponent I can beat~~ studies show that the benefits of playing chess are amazing, especially for children (hopefully me, too!) There have been numerous studies done and the results have shown again and again that chess helps children improve in math, reading, and vocabulary. It develops logical thinking, imagination and creativity. Chess teaches independence, inspires self-motivation and rewards hard work. There is an excellent, readable article about it here: The Benefits of Playing Chess. Chess can benefit special needs kids as well. You can read more about that here: Chess and Special Needs Education.

Because my whole family plays chess, my almost 5 yr old has recently decided he wants to play. He is something of a computer nerd and has already tried computer chess. He was very upset that he kept losing. He doesn't realize most of us lose to the computer!

"But 5 yr old is too young to play chess!" you say. (where are your manners today? I was getting to that...) Each child is individual, so it depends on the child certainly, but yes many children can learn to play as young as 5 yrs old. I'm going to share the best resource for doing that.

Chess for Success by Maurice Ashley

I read his book a few years back and a still use the ideas I got from him regularly to teach young people to play chess. He has great ideas for simplified chess games to help learn the rules and begin to develop your chess skills such as: Pawns Asleep and another one my family nicknamed Dessert Chess (I can't remember what Maurice Ashley called it...Giveaway Chess...something like that.) Anyway, amazing book. I highly recommend it.

Now if someone could just recommend a good book for me so I can beat my teenage boys. . .

Guest Post: The Mist

2011-02-08T03:38:00.001-08:00

~~I am feeling chatty...er...bloggy...~~ I am feeling social. (phew, better.) So today I thought I would share something different. In the past I have shared a few things from my daughter, Vienna; her Unusual Christmas List, and her "fan fiction" "Woman Found in Pumpkin". But wait! Vienna and I are not the only writers in the family.

Today's tribute is to my oldest son, Ammon. I haven't shared his writing before because it is dark (read: dark as in violent like The Hunger Games, not dark as in evil.) I asked his writing teacher about this and she said it is" normal for this age and not a sign that he would some day need therapy like his mother." Ok, that's not really what she said. She did say that it is normal for teenagers to write in this dark genre. This is reprinted with permission, of course. Thanks Ammon!

THE MIST

by Ammon

“I don’t care if you don’t want to go, you don’t have a choice. You were chosen to come with us,” said the man in the dark blue trench coat, and captain’s hat that cast a shadow over his face all the way down to his long unkempt beard.

“But mister, I’m cold,” complained the little boy who was still in his rocket ship pajamas.

“We’re here” announced the captain. Then he swung his lantern three times and slowly the schooner appeared forming from the mist. When it was fully formed, dark mist started to emerge. It soon consumed the entire city with a mist that was darker then death itself.

When the suns first rays peeked over the mountains the mist simply vanished, leaving nothing but death and destruction in its wake. Where there was once a happy home there was now a pile of rubble, where there was once a busy street there was now only broken glass and twisted metal and where there were living breathing beings there were now only corpses, but the schooner was not amidst the wreckage, and the captain and the boy were not among the corpses.

"Pain needs a Witness"

2011-02-05T01:41:00.000-08:00

My last post was about Wonder and Awe...what I didn't think to mention...perhaps I just really didn't want to think about it at all, is how fleeting they are. Sigh...'Reader Beware', I am in a dark mood today. I once told my therapist that I have an bottomless well of pain. No matter how much I try to 'trust the process', cry, release the pain...there is always more. He said, "It's because you cry alone. Pain needs a witness."

If you are in the mood for witnessing...read on. If not. . .I don't blame you, I would put a huge distance between me and this stuff if I could too.

When I first started writing about abuse, I called the after effects "the ashes of abuse". I think now I should have included "smoke" in there somewhere. The pain from the abuse feels like smoke that floods into every room (read: every facet of your life), it lingers, it stinks. One of the things I worry about the most is how the smoke will affect my family. I'm not "Mommie Dearest" but I am no "June Cleaver" either. I am moody and distracted. And so I worry. My husband keeps reassuring me that he is only sorry that I am struggling, this mess is not a burden for him. "I love you and I always will," he told me today. He says the kids are fine, better than fine, "wonderful" he says. But still I worry.

I think that one of the things that is hardest for people who have not experienced trauma to understand is why it is still so difficult so many years later and why it takes so long to heal. There is not one answer for this but many. I will try to summarize it though. If I were in a car accident (which lasts a couple moments at the most) would you be surprised if my injuries were serious and it took months or even years to heal? I have a friend that still suffers from the effects of a car accident she was in 20 yrs ago. Why do we expect healing from other kinds of trauma to be any different?

Why do I struggle now with something that happened so many years ago? One day I asked my therapist why I have to be burdened with all this stuff twice...first as a child and now as an adult. He said, "Because YOU didn't experience it the first time." What he meant was that as a child, I couldn't cope with it so I 'dissociated' it. I put it away in my mind to deal with later...and now "later" is here. That is a very primitive explanation of it, but it will do. Basically, I am dealing with events from years ago, but I feel like they happened yesterday.

The other thing I want to touch on is how lonely this all is. If I had a physical challenge like cancer, for example, people would rally around me with support. I would have all kinds of offers for people to bring in meals, watch my kids, clean my house. Lot's of phone calls...etc. I know because I have been the recipient of all that goodness in the past when I was ill. My current difficulty is harder for people to understand. In the beginning I tried to explain it to people, but quickly learned not to do that (except here on the blog) because it makes people uncomfortable. If you tell people more than they are ready to hear and they will start avoiding you, or look at you like they feel sorry for you, but don't know what to say. I don't know which is worse. I don't want meals brought in. I don't need help with the kids or the house. What I really want is to feel understood...to not feel alone.

That last part is where you come in. When people tell me, "I read your blog", my first thought is "I hope I didn't write something stupid!" but the second is a huge sense of gratitude. Reading a blog is a voluntary thing, you come and you read because you want to. And THAT makes me feel supported and loved. It may feel like a small thing to you, but it means the world to me because it tells me that you care and that...I am not alone.

Thank you for reading and being a "witness".

Wonder and Awe

2011-02-02T20:10:00.001-08:00

This morning I discovered a new room in "the haunted mind". It was a child's room, a room of wonder and awe. For a short time everything was new and amazing. The droplets of water on the shower curtain mesmerized me. The water droplets are different sizes, did you ever notice that? As I wiped away the steam, it would slowly build up again. As I swiped it again, I could see three levels of "thickness" to it. The warm air from the blow dryer felt as wonderful and amazing as the breeze on a beach with white sand and green water like Aruba.

Perhaps this sounds a little strange, my Therapist was teasing me that it is like an "acid trip" without the drugs. But it lead to an interesting discussion about other kinds of wonder...like the wonder that we find in nature. Think for a moment of your favorite outdoor place and how it makes you feel. Or the wonder that you can feel from spiritual things...remember the last spiritual experience that filled you with awe. Some how the conversation veered to science and math and the wonder there. Have you ever felt awed by math, science or literature? I am afraid that many people miss that one, but it's there, really!

As we talked I wondered how I could have forgotten all these things that feel me with awe...each in a different way, but each powerful. I pondered it and decided that sometimes when hard things happen to us it can be like piling shovel fulls of dirt on top of the joy and wonder in our life. When enough dirt gets piled on the you can forget the joy was ever there. How tragic!

My therapist says perhaps I could throw the dirt somewhere else rather than covering up the joy. I don't know how that would work, but for now it feels like enough to remember that joy, wonder and awe that are there somewhere. More importantly to know they are in the Haunted Mind.

How about you my friends? Have you felt wonder and awe recently? If not, may I suggest that you get a shovel and dig it out? It's worth it, I promise!

Haunted Mind

2011-01-08T04:24:00.002-08:00

Completely unrelated to this post...I just have to share...I had to work on New Year's Eve.   When I got out of my van at work, I looked up and unexpectedly saw Cassiopeia. Elated, I looked and sure enough, there was Orion. I was surprised because living in the Pacific Northwest, my sky view is often limited by cloud cover. Being able to see Cassiopeia and Orion felt like the perfect way to start a new year!

Since I wrote Stealing Guilt, I have had a delicious reprieve from the pain of the last year, but I woke up in a bad space yesterday couldn't shake it. (think PMS x 10) I felt like I apologized to my children a dozen times for snapping at them, for unusual things. I knew they were unusual because of the surprised look on their faces. You've probably seen it.  It's that "what's the matter with you?" look (teenagers are particularly good at this). And then I would apologize again. One would think that after the first couple times I would stop, but it isn't that simple. I was mentally treading water furiously trying not to drown, and everything was an irritation to me. I don't know how else to explain. Some days are just really hard. A couple well-meaning people have told me in the past, "just don't dwell on the memories"...but that is not the problem. It may surprise you, but I have very few memories of what happened to me. I only remember enough to understand where all this pain is coming from.

So I have been pondering how I could explain what this is like to someone whose mind works quite differently.  I think like this: if you don't have Dissociation or PTSD then your mind is  like a giant conference room...you may have different areas set up for different activities (such as work, family, recreation). Still you can see it all at once if you want to, or focus on one particular area if you choose to do that.

Some people (like me) courtesy of Dissociation and PTSD have minds more like a Haunted Mansion..(cue eerie music). There are many rooms in the mansion. I never know what is behind the doors. There is at least one or two doors of happiness, but many of the doors have some emotional pain, fear or anger from the past (from trauma) that needs to be processed by my adult mind.

The doors do not have knobs, as least not on the outside. I never voluntarily open them.  But that does not mean they stay closed...not at all. Sometimes they open while I am sleeping and I wake up like I did yesterday sad and angry without really knowing why.  Sometimes there is an unexpected trigger that causes a door to open. It may open a crack, or be thrown open. Triggers can be like landmines, they catch you by surprise. Sometimes they open during therapy, which is the best time because then I can process it with someone, and my therapist is pretty good at bringing me back out and closing the door.

The other thing to understand about the rooms is that besides the pain, there are the four walls dividing you from the rest of your mind. When I am in one of these rooms struggling with the pain, it can be very difficult to remember that there are other rooms with happiness, or that there are any other rooms at all. This can cause memory lapses that sometimes affect people around me and can cause some embarrassing moments. For example, yesterday I was telling a friend that I was happy to see her, that with the school break it had been so long. She laughed (good naturedly) and said, "Leslie, you just saw me last week." I immediately felt very confused. Last week? When? What for? I had no memory of it, and no guesses. I just looked at her blankly. Then she reminded me that our children had played together the previous week. Ah, about 30 seconds of THAT memory came to me, and I laughed (to cover my embarrassment). You are likely thinking, "I forget things too, Leslie." I know everyone forgets things, but what I experience is beyond normal forgetfulness. If you know me in real life, just ask my family, they tease me about it all the time.

I think it is those walls...the separation...that is the hardest. To bare the pain, sometimes without the remembrance of happier times can be almost unbearable at times. To be fair, it works both ways, when I am in a room of happy feelings, I don't feel the pain. I remember what I have thought about the pain, what I have written about it, but I don't FEEL it. Not at all. It feels like I am thinking of a pain someone else experienced and described to me.  I wonder about it, much the same as I imagine you do. And when I am in a room of pain, I feel the same about happiness. I see other people experiencing it and I wonder what it must be like because I think, "if I ever experienced THAT, I sure don't remember."

One thing is certain, I have to look in all the rooms and deal with the feelings that are there. I MUST because holding it all back takes a toll on me physically and causes anxiety attacks. This is one of the reasons for therapy, to clean out all the rooms, and take down the walls. It's a long process. What I hope for in the meantime, is that when I am snippy, or depressed that you will remember and remind me that there have been and will be happier times.

The Gifts That We Give

2010-12-28T04:26:00.001-08:00

My dear friends (I consider anyone who reads my blog regularly to be a dear friend),

This last week, because of Christmas and something that came up in therapy, I have been thinking a lot about you and the tremendous gift you have given me this past year. You may not have even been aware that you were giving me a gift, but you were (and are). I will explain, but you know by now that brevity is not my strong suit, so please bare with me.

The other night I was watching Man of La Mancha, one of my favorite movies and I was reminded why I love it so (besides the music). One of the themes of the movie is very similar to a theme in one of my favorite books, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Yes, A Little Princess, is a children's book. To explain the similarity and what I adore about them, I would like to begin with A Little Princess.

This book is about a young girl named Sara Crewe. As the story begins her father takes her to a boarding school, which apparently was common for the time period. She is a very rich, pampered little girl, but still very sweet. During her time at the boarding school word arrives that her father has died leaving her an orphan (her mother had died sometime previous) and penniless. The boarding school, afraid of what the public might think if they put her out on the street, agrees to keep her on as a maid. All her beautiful clothes and belongings are taken away and she is left with one black dress that does not fit well. She continues to be a sweet, well-mannered child which is one of the things I love...her character. After some time has passed, she is dirty, her clothes are torn. One day as she is on the street running an errand for the boarding school a young boy sees her and decides that he wants to give some money to "the beggar girl". Afterwards the boy's sister chastizes him saying, "That girl may be poor, but she is not a beggar." Somehow in the interaction between Sara and the young boy, this other girl could see something in Sara. Was it the way she behaved, the way she held herself, something in her eyes? The book does not say, but the point is the girl could see beyond Sara's outward appearance, to the beautiful person within.

In Man of La Mancha, we have Don Quixote, who is delusional, but in the most adorable way. He embarks on a quest, and while on his journey encounters Aldonza. Aldonza is, how do I put this? Basically she is a bar maid/waitress and reluctant prostitute. I say reluctant, because I don't think she has much choice in the matter, she can take the money or not, but the rest is out of her control. Don Quixote sees her and immediately falls in love. He refuses to call her Aldonza, because it is a common name, apparently fitting of her current position in life. Instead he choses to rename her, Dulcinea, which he feels in a much more fitting name for a lady such as she. The world sees a prostitute, but Don Quixote sees something more, something beautiful inside of her.

Both stories portray characters (Sara and Aldonza) who going through tremendous difficulty, and the people who are able to see beyond that to the beauty within. THAT is what I feel you, my readers and friends, do for me. In this blog, I share some of my deep pain and difficulties, and yet you don't shy away from it. You are still here reading and supporting me through this journey. I like to think that like these stories that I love, you can see something in me besides this tremendous burden that I currently carry. And because I believe you can see it, it helps me to try and find it in myself.

I am reminded of another favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life. When difficult circumstances brought George Bailey to the lowest point of his life, he was given the gift to see what the world would have been like without him. He was able to see all the lives that he had touched, many without even realizing it. And the other lives that were touched because of the people that he helped. The ripples of his life and kindness to others were huge. Can you see the George Bailey in yourself? I imagine that you did not know that reading my blog would mean so much to me (but it really does), how many other lives have you touched without realizing it?

You continue to read my blog because beyond the pain you see something in me, that is your gift to me. I, in turn, see the "George Bailey" in you, and that is my gift to you. Merry Christmas!

Stealing Guilt

2010-12-09T14:27:00.001-08:00

It wasn't my fault!
It wasn't my fault!

One more time...

It wasn't my fault!

Oh, my friends, it feels so good to be able to write that and believe it. It has taken me almost a year. Remember this poem?

Some Day

"Tell me again,"
I say and they do,
"It's not your fault."

I picture them in my mind,
my husband,
my Bishop,
my therapist,
my friends

I see the words on their lips,
I hear their words with my ears.
"It's not your fault"

But my heart
. . .does not hear
The little child in me
. . .does not see. . .

Somewhere deep inside,
...I know
It was my fault,
and I need
to be Punished.

"Tell me again," I say. And they do...
Some day I will believe them.
Some day,
. . .but not today.

Someday has finally arrived and I know, the little child in me knows, "it wasn't my fault!" What a weight lifted off of me! What a release!

So what happened? Well, two nights ago, I had an appointment with one of my spiritual heroes. It was something I had wanted to do for a long time, but I had put it off for a couple reasons (both were as untrue as the abuse being my fault...but I couldn't see that at the time.) Finally, during a particularly low point, I called him and made an appointment to see him. Tuesday was the night.

We sat down together and he said, "Let's start with a prayer. Will you say it?" I was very sorry to say, "No," but the guilt I was carrying did not allow me to pray with other people. I said my personal prayers, though not as frequently as before, but I could not pray with others. He graciously offered to say the prayer. After the prayer, I explained to him as briefly as possible what is going on with me and why I didn't feel comfortable saying the prayer.

Then he began to teach me. We spoke for an hour, and I won't share all of it here...it would be too long and some of it is too personal. I want to share what he said that helped me release the guilt...at last.

He said, "Leslie, when you take something that does not belong to you it is thievery. The guilt that you feel does not belong to you. It belongs to the person who abused you. Give it back and stop stealing."

I almost laughed out loud...I thought that was such a funny and ridiculous way to say it. Guilt is not something that can be "stolen"...it is not concrete, not 3D, and not even anything anyone really wants. Then it hit me, it is also ridiculous for me to blame myself for the abuse that was clearly not my fault. Ok, Abuser, you can have your guilt back. I don't want it any more.

I don't know if it was actually those words about "stealing guilt", or because he is one of my spiritual heroes telling me that it was not my fault, or because I was ready...perhaps all of those things...but suddenly I was able to let it go. The next day I was thinking about his words and I started to cry...wonderful cleansing tears!

It wasn't my fault!
It wasn't my fault!
It wasn't my fault!

Each time I say it, I feel a little more healed.

An Unusual Christmas List

2010-12-02T11:36:00.001-08:00

One day I was tiding up and saw this paper lying on the table. It was signed my daughter.

Christmas is coming up and you know what I want. . .

Cheese from the moon
Cotton candy pillows
Pears from Mars
A Martian friend
The pot of gold from the end of a rainbow - just the pot made of gold, no gold!
An umbrella for a petite doll
1 pne needle from the tallest pine tree
A bucket of rain-water
A leaf from the Amazon

And you thought your shopping list was difficult...

Grieving skinny pants and lost selves...

2010-11-15T03:58:00.001-08:00

Skinny Pants...for my readers that do not battle weight issues, let me explain this concept. When people gain weight, they will often hold on to their previous clothing. They do this because letting go of the clothes means letting to of the dream of getting back to that weight. I used to be guilty of this myself...until I finally learned to tell myself, that when (it helps if I say when not if) I lose the weight, I will celebrate with NEW skinny clothes. That helps because who doesn't love buying clothes in a smaller size?!

It may be stretching things to make a point (sort of like when you lie on the bed and try to zip those pants...don't try to tell me you haven't done that!) but I think that holding onto the skinny pants is a form of grieving. Grieving your thinner, healthier self. It doesn't seem like such a stretch if you notice how quickly we throw out those "fat" clothes when we lose weight.

As I work on what I hope will be my Healing Journey, I am grieving for my "skinny self". Not skinny in a literal sense, but skinny in that I liked the old me a lot better than this new one. Well, that is not entirely fair...I'll explain.

The old me : BAT....before awareness of trauma self...(how do you like that acronym?) many times I have said to my Therapist, "Since I have been in therapy I have been (fill in something negative)...." And he says, "So therapy is doing that to you?" or something like that. I smile and say, "No, I mean since before the memories started coming back." I can never quite figure out if he is teasing me a little (my therapist does have a sense of humor) or if he really is just clarifying if I think being in therapy has caused these feelings. Anyway...

BAT...I was different. I tend to immortalize that part of my life in the same sense that we immortalize one who has died. You know what I mean, once someone dies we tend to forget all their faults and shortcomings and think and speak only good of them. That is likely appropriate. However, to immortalize my BAT self, is not entirely fair. I think of that me as being happier, more at peace, more spiritual, more...insert anything good here. And yet, in my new awareness of self I have to wonder, was the BAT me even real?

What I mean is, now that I am becoming aware of this tornado of feelings and nightmarish memories that I have lying below the surface of consciousness, I have to admit that BAT me was a "false front". Someone I created to deal with the world, and to hide the pain at all costs. Thus, I waver between idolizing the BAT me, and thinking that perhaps BAT me was some sort of "Stepford Wife". (If you haven't see the movie, you MUST...I can't do it justice here.) But if BAT me, was not real. . . then who am I really?

This question scares me.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so scary IF like an old pair of skinny jeans, I let BAT me go, and allow the healing process to unfold. Is it possible that healing will bring a new me that I will love...like shopping for new skinny clothes?

Perhaps...but I can't let go without a little more grieving time first.

People are stupid and NONE more so than I

2010-11-10T13:04:00.001-08:00

An e-mail that I sent to my sister today...with a few changes for clarity or anonymity:

Favorite Sister,

I just tried to call you, but no answer and your voice mail is full. I hope this e-mail addy is still good.

I just wanted to say hello and I love you. AND I am sorry that I have not "been there" for you these past couple months since Beloved Nephew's [fatal] car accident. I was just writing an email to a friend venting about I wish people would just take a moment and ask me how I am doing and a couple other related issues (I'm going through a difficult time, and have been since before the accident...but I don't want to talk about that now...let's talk about YOU.) After I had vented plenty about how stupid people are, I realized I AM STUPID. I haven't done those same things for YOU.

Little Sister, I am so sorry...sorry I believed all those lies people tell themselves when someone they love is hurting.

1. I don't know what to say
2. We're not THAT close, they have other people closer to them that will help.
3. I'm busy and my loved one is too.
4. Anything I say or do won't make that much of a difference.

There are probably more if I think about it. Anyway, I am sorry that I have not been more of a support to you. I am going to do better...whether you want me to or not, LOL!

I do love you. And I do love Beloved Nephew. Like most of the population, I am just stupid.

Leslie

With the caveat that I have erred in believing these myths myself, I would like to talk about them.

Myth
1. I don't know what to say.

Truth
You really don't have to say much...start with "how are you?" and let the person know you really want to know...then listen. Listening is SO valuable. If you feel like you have to say something, validation is great. Validation means "You have a right to be angry about...." or, "I would feel sad too..."

Myth
2. We're not THAT close, they have other people closer to them that will help.

Truth
When I have talked to people that are in pain, whatever the reason, they have one thing in common...they feel alone. I don't think there is such a thing as "too much love and concern".

Myth
3. I'm busy and my loved one is too.

Truth
I work full time and have 5 kids. My sister also works full-time...so finding a time to call and chat is difficult. BUT it only took me a few minutes to write that email. It only takes a minute to leave a voice mail (and if you call me, you will likely get my voice mail because I am busy, but it would touch me that you called and left a voice mail.)

Myth
4. Anything I say or do won't make that much of a difference.

Truth
I think this one is the biggest lie that we tell ourselves. I can't speak for my sister, but I know for me having someone say, "How are you?" when I feel they are sincere, means the world to me. If they say, "you have a right to be angry about what happened to you"...Balm of Gilead. "How are you?" and "I care about you", "thinking of you"...never underestimate how powerful these things are. They are powerful!

YOU are powerful...don't underestimate the power you have to help others.

Much Ado About Nothing or Lessons I Learned Over the Weekend

2010-11-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday: After the yearly church Halloween party, I was taking the kids home. Apparently, the extra load of candy was too much and we blew a tire. Wouldn’t you know, this was the one time I left the house without my cell phone. Fortunately, we were reasonably close to the house and one of my teenage sons was in the car. Run, boy, run.

Lesson #1 When you forget your cell phone, a teenage boy will do in a pinch.

Sunday: With the “donut” spare tire, I loaded up the family to go to church. This time we were carrying the Halloween candy internally, but still it was too much. The donut blew! Once again, I didn’t have my cell phone (I know, I know). Sent teenage son home to get “Dad” who was coming to church in another vehicle.

Lesson #2 Never trust a donut (tire or pastry), and always carry a teenager for emergencies.

Monday: Teenage son rolls old tire down the street to put in the van with bad donut. He lets it roll ahead of him and it lands in a huge puddle. Teenager wades in after it, muttering "hey you!". Mom laughs very hard.

Lesson #3 Teenagers can be great entertainment

Called AAA to get towed to the tire store. A delightful young man with an accent I didn’t recognize came to rescue me. I wanted to ask him what his native language was, but wasn’t sure if that would be rude. Maybe he gets asked that all the time and is tired of it. “Impulsive” is my middle name, though, so I ask, “Would you mind if I ask where you are from? I love your accent.” I really did! He rewarded me with a handsome smile, “Russia.” This led to a very delightful conversation, for both of us, about his home (8 hr train ride from Moscow!) and his family.

Lesson #4 You really can’t go wrong asking people to talk about themselves if your interest is genuine.

In summary…ban Halloween, ban candy, ban donut tires. Embrace teenage boys, and nice young men from Russia (especially if they are cute like my Russian tow truck driver was). Oh, and beware of crazy moms who might turn your life into a blog post.

Thanks for all your help this weekend, Son!

Forgiveness is NOT a Magic Bullet

2010-10-18T02:06:00.001-07:00

I hereby extend National Grouch Day to a week. No, how about a month? This is my not subtle way of warning you that I am still "in a mood".

The subject of forgiveness came up at church today...not just forgiveness, but specifically about people who have been abused forgiving their abusers. How is it that well-meaning people can say such utterly painful things? The crazy thing is that what was said was true to a point. I would submit that it is just not as simple as people make it seem and that is what drives me crazy. Did I raise my hand and explain this? No...because I was very angry and who is going to believe a raving lunatic? So I did the next best thing...I went to the bathroom and cried. At some point on any given Sunday these days you can find me in the bathroom crying. It's pitiful, I know.

Would you be willing to humor me as I try to explain why forgiveness, although a true principle, is not a magic bullet?

Yes? Ah, I knew I could count on you! I will begin by explaining that I actually do believe in forgiveness. My previous ramblings may have led you to believe otherwise, but I hope this post will clear everything up for you...and perhaps me.

In the Old Testament, there is a wonderful story about forgiveness. Truly it has become one of my favorite scripture stories. (Many thanks to James Ferrell in his book, The Peacegiver, who pointed it out to me.) The story is in 2 Kings somewhere....it seems that David...the killer of giants...had to go into hiding for a time because King Saul was jealous of him. During that time, David acquired a following, and they made their living by guarding sheep for a wealthy man called Naman. Apparently sheep theft by lawless highway men was a big problem during those times. Everything went as planned (meaning David and his men did their job well) until it came time for Naman to pay (a previously agreed upon price). Naman pretended not to know who the men were and called them thieves and highway man and refused to pay them.

When David heard this news, he was furious (understandably). He gathered his men and they prepared to march on Naman's house and kill every man in the household. Along the road, however, Naman's wife, Abigail met the men. She apologized, and asked David to forgive her. She brought with her everything that Naman had agreed to pay. David accepted Abigail's offering and turned away from killing Naman and his household.

In The Peacegiver, James Ferrel, points out that Abigail was a type of Christ, a foreshadowing. In the same way that she came to David, gave him everything that he had been promised and should have received and asked him to forgive her, our Savior Jesus Christ comes to us. Through the Atonement, He gives us everything that we should have received, or restores that which was lost by the one who sinned against us. Then because He has taken the sins of the world upon Himself, He asks us to forgive Him.

Notice, that Naman appears not to have repented, but David was given what he had been promised and asked to forgive Abigail. When we compare this to ourselves, we see that it is not necessary to wait for the people who have offended us to ask our forgiveness. The Lord took those sins upon Him, and now asks us to forgive Him. Forgiveness or punishment of Naman and in turn our offenders is between them and the Lord.

It is a beautiful story, isn't it. So why do I get so upset when people talk to me about forgiveness? Am I a hypocrite? I will try to answer the first question, and leave the second in your capable hands.

First, telling me to forgive assumes that I am angry with my abuser. It may surprise you to learn that I am not. Not yet anyway. Oh maybe a little, but not in the way I should be. Anger is a very difficult emotion for me to allow myself to feel and express. Anger, my own and other peoples scares me.

Besides, even after months of people telling me, and of me, telling myself, "It's not your fault"...deep inside, I still feel that it was. My inner child is utterly convinced that there must have been something inherently wrong with me in order to have been treated that way by someone who should have loved me. So, no I am not angry with him. I am angry with myself. So should I forgive myself then? But you said it was not my fault! If I forgive myself that means it was my fault and if that is true I am inherently flawed and unforgivable so it doesn't matter anyway. I know that is illogical, but the subconscious is not always logical.

I imagine that it is hard for you to comprehend that I am not angry with my abuser, but it's true. For example, just yesterday I was overcome with some long repressed emotion. I wept because he didn't love me. How I wanted him too! How I tried to please him! And yet it was never enough. I still feel the sting of that rejection.

The next issue I have with forgiving, at least for now, is that if you tell me to forgive now, before I have even had a chance to feel angry, that negates my right to be angry. Should I not be angry about what happened to me? Would you have me believe that I have no right to be angry about my stolen innocence? No right to be angry about the emotional, physical and spiritual repercussions I suffer because of the abuse? I am just beginning to allow myself to feel anger. Sometimes it flares up like a backdraft so suddenly and so intensely that it frightens me. I believe, however, feeling that anger is part of the healing process. Should I forgive now and miss this portion of the healing? Surely not. I need to feel this anger so that there will be something to forgive.

An overemphasis on forgiveness, implies to me more concern for my abuser than for myself. Yes, I know, forgiveness is for me...to relieve me of the heavy burden. Still just as blaming myself for the abuse is illogical (but none the less deeply ingrained in me,) so is the idea that "forgive your abuser" means you are more concerned about his welfare than my own.

Finally, when people talk about forgiveness, it feels to me that they think they are offering me a life preserver, a magic bullet...a quick fix. Here, Leslie, just take this forgiveness pill like a good girl and then we can all be happy again. I wish it were that simple. And because I feel anger (that confusing emotion) whenever someone mentions forgiveness, it reinforces a part of me that feels I am fundamentally flawed. "See, these nice church people want to help, and you just get mad at them...it is because you are bad."

There is a movie I love to watch called "The Testaments". It is about the Savior's life and so during parts of the movie you see Him going about healing people. I often weep when I watch that. I wish that He would come and heal me that way...in an instant. Though I know He could do that for me, I also know He won't. He still has the power to make the lame walk or to cure leprosy...or cancer...but more often He allows us to struggle through it...supporting us along the way...for reasons that surely must be clearer in Heaven than they are to us right now. And so...just as a person with cancer often passes through a dark and difficult time before healing comes (if it comes), I, too, must travel through a dark and difficult time on my journey to healing.

I do believe in forgiveness, and when I am ready I will forgive my abuser, and I will forgive God, and perhaps I will even forgive myself. But it's going to take some time, and in the meantime....

Don't rush me.

National Grouch Day

2010-10-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

"According to Sesame Street Magazine, October 15th is National Grouch Day -- a day for all Grouches to celebrate their way of life.

A Grouch's mission in life is to be as miserable and grouchy as possible, and pass that feeling on to everyone else. Only then will a Grouch feel in touch with his or her world and be happy. Yet, even though a Grouch may show happiness at anyone's misfortune (including his or her own), a Grouch would never admit to being happy. Such is the stability of a Grouch's life: so balanced, and yet so unbalanced."

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/National_Grouch_Day

My family will tell you that this is very timely...for me...and that I have been a grouch for a couple weeks now. but you're not going to believe THEM are you?

Seriously, if we set aside the fact that I have become a contender for the title Wicked Witch of the West...I'm doing just fine. Those of you that know me in real life probably think I'm kidding. I wish I was. It seems I need to process some anger from the past. My therapist is working with me on this....both to help me not permanently damage my most important relationships, but also to help me direct the anger to where it belongs. Which reminds me...I am going to disembowel the next person that tells me to forgive my abuser. You have been put on notice. (And you didn't believe that I am grumpy. . .) Both my Bishop and my Therapist know how I feel about the forgiveness topic, and are supportive...so don't make me get out my sword. Ok, I don't have a sword...don't make me find one on ebay and then find you.

Did I mention I am cranky?

Happy National Grouch Day to you!

North to Alaska

2010-09-05T15:25:00.002-07:00

I have a special treat for you today! One of my friends is having an adventure in Alaska...working way up North. I have permission to share my friend's adventure, with the caveat that I don't disclose any personal information. Deal!!! You will love this.

Hello, down there in the Lower 48.

I spent time in Anchorage and then met up with someone from one of the villages and began our drive to Prudhoe Bay: 7 hours to Fairbanks, 7 hours to Cold Foot (only place to gas up for $5.00 a gal) and 7 hours to Prudhoe or Dead Horse. A long drive and no place to sleep.

We crossed the Arctic circle, saw porcupine, moose, fox and lots of Ice Road Truckers passing us at high speeds and calling us 4 wheelers. (We had a CB and listened to them). It was raining and foggy the higher we got. Those steep hills up and down were great fun to drive and the dirt road was really packed with few and small pot holes, the dirt was better than the paved.

We flew from Dead Horse to our Village. As soon as the river freezes we'll have the ice road to drive instead of flying. It was really cold, 40 wind chill 35 when I got here and I wanted to turn around. But since then it's been 45/50 really nice and cool and the mosquitos are gone too.

All the houses are built about 4 to 5 feet in the air on poles above the perma frost, and most have standing water under them. There is a puddle for everyone to fall in if you're not careful. Since I have been up here there have been 4 deaths from drowning in the nearby villages. One man was water bogging on the tundra on his snow machine and there was a deep pond he didn't know about, Father of 7, so sad. They really push life jackets here, that are free.

So far so good except for the fact that my left leg has been swollen since our drive. I went to the clinic (no doctor) and they wanted to take me to Anchchorage for a blood clot. So I took myself to Fairbanks on Friday and spent all the money we saved by driving. No clot, kidneys are fine, just no circulation, having to take a pill for excess water. So It cost me about $1,500.00 for a $12 dollar bottle of pills. Aggravating!

Chocolate Hugs, and Ice Cream Kisses

2010-09-03T01:50:00.001-07:00

So I have been getting "the lecture" from my doctors about losing weight. I can't blame them. I recognize that they are right. It would be beneficial health wise. What I wish though is that I could explain to them why it is "not that easy". It's not that I lack the information of "how" to do it. Actually, I have what I think would be a very effective and healthy plan to lose weight. The trouble is following it. It is not that I lack will-power per se, but that I eat for comfort. Yes, I know, bad habit. Let's look at how this bad habit got started.

For a moment think about one of your children, or if you don’t have children a child you have cared for. Imagine a time that child was hurt or upset and you took her into your arms and soothed and comforted her. Soon she was comforted and resumed playing. What would she learn from this?

Now imagine that same scenario, only this time you don’t comfort the child but leave her to comfort herself. What would she do? How much longer would it take her to calm down? What would she learn from this?

Finally, imagine that same child abused, and not comforted…how does that child cope?

Coping mechanisms are learned in childhood. When a child is abused, there is not only the hurt of the abuse, but the lack of being comforted and learning to self-soothe. One of the signs that a child is possibly being abused is thumb-sucking past the "normal age". Makes sense right? It is a form of comfort. I used that one for way to long. to the detriment of my top teeth, and my parent's pocketbook when I got braces.

Adult survivors of childhood trauma have more "methods" at their disposal for "self-soothing"....eating, or eating disorders, alcohol, and/or drugs. For me "comfort eating" has been the most common. I seriously considered bulimia once, but decided it would be too difficult to hide because of my living arrangements at the time.

Recently though, with the intense emotions that are seeping out of places I carefully "hid" them in my mind, I sometimes have an intense desire to self-injure. Sorry, I know that is disturbing, it is for me too. I have wondered where in the world that came from. Just as I was writing this post a thought came to me. What if as a child, someone I desperately wanted to love me, who as a caretaker, should have loved me, only showed me attention and "affection" by hurting me...is it really any wonder that now when I seek comfort my mind turns to pain? Self-harm? Interesting. . .

Last week in therapy, my therapist told me that the part of me that says I need to be punished was originally created (by my own mind) to help me some how. I couldn't imagine how thoughts that I need to be punished and to punish myself with pain could be helpful at all. But I am beginning to see why my child mind would create such a thing. And perhaps now I know how to talk to that "part" of myself, about some healthier options.

Speaking of healthier options, I am learning better ways to deal with my intense emotions than eating and self-harm. Journaling, blogging ("gotta" throw that in, but it's true), drawing, talking to my Therapist, my husband and friends. Today I was really upset and instead of eating, I sent an e-mail to my old doctor. I mean previous not old...heh heh. He reads my blog, so to him...THANK YOU!

I always try to end on a positive note...so here it is for today. Every time you comfort a child...a hug, a kind word, a caring gesture like a hand on a shoulder...you are giving them a gift that is priceless. Keep doing the great things you do for the children in your life.

You are a hero to a child!

Searching for Orion

2010-08-26T14:59:00.034-07:00

Before I tell you about Orion, I want to share something related...tonight I was bringing my teenage sons home from Boy Scouts and I said, "Boys, look at the moon, isn't it fantastic? I am so in love with the moon."

Caleb, who is 14, replied, "Mom, long distance relationships never work out."

I have mentioned before that I love the Orion Constellation. When I see him, it's like a heavenly big brother or guardian angel or something. Lately every night when I go outside, I look up and see if Orion is "back" yet. (The stars have a slightly different rotation than we do, so while Orion never actually leaves, he maybe in our part of the world during the daylight hours.) I can almost always find the Big Dipper where ever it is and from there I look to where Orion should be. At least where I think he should be, but so far I haven't seen him. The crazy thing of this is that I could simply research whewill be "back". I have the perfect book for that The Stars by H. A. Rey (the Curious George guy) I don't want to "peek" though, that would be like opening a Christmas present early...it ends the suspense but it spoils the fun.

So while I wait for Orion, I can't help but think of applications to my life. For example, I believe that healing will happen, but I don't know when. I can't even "cheat" on that one...and believe me I would if I could! But like Orion, I believe that healing will come. I will keep searching for it...working towards it.

I have asked myself why I love the stars so much. I think it is because they look like little points of light in the darkness. That reminds me of some of the wonderful people in my life...they are my points of light in this dark time. There are also good moments, some tender mercies of the Lord that remind me that He has not abandoned me. Even more importantly these tender mercies tell me that even though part of me is angry with the Lord, He is not not angry with me.

So I will keep searching for Orion, and keep enjoying the other stars, people and tender mercies, until the dawn (healing) comes.

Flowers for Leslie

2010-08-24T04:30:00.001-07:00

Have you ever seen someone who is gravely ill, and you can tell that just by looking at them?

There are things I have wanted to share lately, but I am afraid that my writing will reveal more about me and my current state than I intend. I fear that you, dear friends, will read it and feel that I am "slipping". Sort of like Flowers for Algernon. In case you haven't read it (spoiler alert), in Flowers for Algernon, the main character is mentally handicapped. This fact is noteable through the journal he writes. In addition to his style of writing, it is also obvious in the interactions that he has with other people. Then, he takes a medication that makes him gradually become more intellient...both mentally and emotionally. His abilities keep increasing until he reaches a genius level. Sadly though, the medication stops working and slowly the reader sees him decline again until he is back where he started. Of course, by that time you have grown to love the character and are heartbroken as he begins to decline.

That is my fear about my blogging lately, that you will read and think, "oh no, Leslie..." I desperately want to reassure you that that is not true, that I am OK, and that I am actually getting stronger. To be fair and honest somedays it simply doesn't feel that way. It does feel like I am slipping...intellectually, emotionally, spiritually...

There is hope though. I read blogs of other people that have experienced what I am working through, and are farther along the path. They reassure me that there is hope, that this does get better. Someday, I hope to hold up that light of hope for someone else. For now, though, I hope that sharing my struggle will help others who are on this same path to know they are not alone.

Need a hand?

2010-08-03T14:26:00.002-07:00

How about something different? I've been doing some "art therapy". Nothing official, but I was inspired by something my therapist suggested so I got a book about how to draw, a sketchbook, and a pencil...ta da! Art therapy.

My husband thinks my art is hand-some, and maybe it will help me get a hand-le on my life again. (Sorry, he is very punny, can you believe I knew that before I married him?)

"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father prepare to die!"

I know you are all dying to know what my therapist said about these but he hasn't seen them yet. He's on vacation. So if you don't hear from me in a couple weeks, call my husband and see if I have been committed! Maybe like those famous Rorschach Ink Blots, he will "see" something in my art.

On the Lighter Side

2010-07-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

Time for something on the lighter side...I didn't write this, but I really like it. (Does that count?)

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. ~Robert Fulghum

Night Guests

2010-07-25T09:01:00.001-07:00

Have you ever pondered the guests who come to your house when all is dark and the world is asleep?

Invited Night Guests

The Sandman
Santa Claus
Tooth Fairy
Leprechauns
Easter Bunny
Shoemaker's Elves

Uninvited Party Crasher

Fear

Fear is a worse companion than Pain. Pain comes alone, but Fear always has some creepy companions...don't ask me who they are, I don't dare look that closely, do you? Pain sits with you and puts blinders on, then slowly tortures you, but Fear...ahh, Fear dances around. It teases you. It plays Hide and Seek, and Peek-a-Boo.

Tonight Fear paid me a visit. It was like when you are watching a movie and the suspenseful music starts and you know something bad is about to happen. The hair rises on the back of your neck, you feel your body tense and your mouth goes dry. If the fear gets too intense, you remind yourself that it is just a movie.

Unfortunately this movie was in my own mind, a memory close to resurfacing, I think. It is awful to feel like a child again when that child experienced trauma and no comfort. It is hard to trust that comfort will come this time.

"Trust," part of me whispers, "trust someone will be there."

"Yeah," another part answers..."like Santa Claus, or The Sandman."

Trust. . .I reach for it, but it is just outside my grasp. Fear is closer, smothering now.

I hope the dawn comes soon.

Layers of the Onion

2010-07-19T05:36:00.002-07:00

There are times, many of them in fact, when I think that you (my readers and friends) surely do not want to hear me talk about abuse and its after affects any more.  It must weary you as much as it does me at times, and yet since it is my life right now, it is hard for me to distance myself from it. I do have short mental vacations (oh, that sounds awful!). You know I mean short breaks from the pain, not breaks from sanity.

It happens though, that often when I have been feeling that way for awhile someone will send me an e-mail and tell me that they appreciate my blog. They might tell me that it has helped them or that it has helped them understand someone they love. Those e-mails are what keep me blogging. I am a Pollyanna at heart...and though that term is generally used in a negative tone, being Pollyanna is really not a bad thing. It simply means that in each situation I try to find something good. It means that even though I am going through a hard time right now, perhaps I can use this pain to help someone else. If so, then my pain has served a good purpose.

Someone once said, "Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep." Healing from abuse is the same, only I would say most of it involves weeping. It is not all bad though. There are interesting discoveries that you make about yourself along the way, and little glimpses of something better...something of a life beyond the pain. I would like to share with you a glimpse of both.  Here are some descriptions of "layers of the onion" from my journal.

One day in July I wrote:

Sometimes I am amazed at how much pain a person can have. Emotional pain - and still keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward. Or rather moving. I am not certain that I am moving forward. I am simply moving. and not really certain how I manage that.

I also wonder why it is that the times you need to reach out the most are the times you least trust yourself to do so. I have such an ache in my heart tonight. I want to cry out to all my friends, "I'm hurting. Please do something." I want someone to tell me this pain won't last forever. Tell me I can do this - ease my pain - ease my burden. But I don't dare reach out tonight. I'm certain I would regret it later - be embarrassed by the raw-ness of my own pain. How can I need someone so much and be so afraid to reach out at the same time?

One of the worst things about this pain is that most people don't understand. If I were mourning a death, people could understand and relate to that. But this? This is hard to explain even to myself.

Pain is blind. It does not see a future or a past. There is nothing beyond the moment and the blinding pain.

When will it end? How could it end? Even if I dared reach out to someone, what could they say that would help? Nothing. Maybe though it is not what they say or don't say that helps, simply that I wouldn't have to be alone with the pain anymore.

Pain does not make a very good companion. It is jealous not wanting to share you. Putting blinders on you so you think of nothing else.

Pain wants you only for itself and then it seeks to destroy you.

Pain is like a cat playing with a mouse. It does not share. It does not lose.
___________________________________________________

On another day after a good therapy session I wrote:

I share things with my therapist that I can't tell anyone else. He understands and tells me it is not crazy; its a normal reaction to abuse. He never seems a bit surprised as if he was expecting this - a normal part of the journey. As we talk and even laugh occasionally I feel something almost foreign. I feel safe.
        - Safe-
It amazes me how wonderful and even magical it feels. The only other time I remember feeling safe is sometimes with Richard (my husband), but even that only happens occasionally.
        -Safe-
I want safety to be grass, and I want to roll around in it, like a horse in a green pasture.
I want it to be a blanket I could wrap myself in.
   -a pool that I could dive into.

All this pondering, wondering about the glorious feeling of being safe - it makes me realize how much I am always on guard -hypervigilant- How exhausting!

The safe feeling is fading away now, but I'm glad I captured it while it was here. Like a snapshot so that I can remember later.

     Safe - what a lovely thing.

___________________________________________________________

I have many "layers of the onion" yet to go, but I dream of a day when feeling safe will happen more and the blinding pain will be less and less.

I wish for "safety" for you as well as you peel off the layers of your life's onion. May there be someone there when you weep that will help you feel safe.

Dreams and Kalidescopes

2010-07-14T23:27:00.001-07:00

We have all experienced days when at the end of the day we are starving, but we don't want to cook. Writers have those days too. We want to create something with words but we don't feel like writing. There are also those days when we cook something that our family doesn't want to eat. Tonight I am afraid that if I write what is on my mind and in my heart you wouldn't want to read it.

Pain is a jealous companion. It does not want to share you and once it has you, it seeks only to destroy you.

See what I mean? So like a tired cook raiding the fridge for left overs, I give you something I wrote a long time ago. It is for my book (if I ever finish it):

Everything I Needed to Know About Parenting, I Learned in Prison

Enjoy!

Dreams and Kalidescopes

Recreation time is the time the inmates have to come out of their cells and exercise, and hang out, talk to their friends etc. Officers are expected to mingle with the population during this time, and basically maintain a presense.

One day during rec I stopped to talk to a couple inmates and one of them, thinking that he was a quite a Romeo I suppose, said, "So, did you dream about me last night?"

"Yeah, I did actually." Suddenly I could feel a dozen pairs of eyes on me. I had not only his attention, but that of everyone standing within ear shot. Pleased with my audience, I continued.

"I had a dream that I was working on the Perimeter again."

The Perimeter is one of the jobs in prison where officers drive, in our case little Toyota trucks, slowly, no faster than 10 miles per hour around the perimeter of the prison. As they drive they inspect the fence for any flaws and the sandtraps for foot prints. They have a shotgun and a handgun to be used as needed.

"In my dream, I was driving along and I saw an inmate climbing down the outside of the fence. I shouted, 'Halt', three times, but the guy didn't stop. So I shot him.

"When I ran over to the body, it was YOU. I'm sorry about that, but you should have stopped when I asked you to."

Laughter exploded around us. "Man, she really dissed you!" his friends chided. That inmate and his friends never made leud remarks to me again.

As parents we have certain dreams for our children. Quite often those dreams are influenced by our own unfullfilled goals and dreams. Sometimes they are simply dreams about the kind of parent we want to be, and the way our children will behave.

My children all have seemed determined from the beginning to tell me to keep my dreams to myself! Well, not all my dreams, but enough of them. For example, I love to sing. One of my dreams was to sing lullabies to my babies. I had this picture in my mind of a mother singing and rocking her baby to sleep. I was mesmerized with the idea but when my first child was fussing and I started to sing, he cried harder! I tried different songs, but the only thing I accomplished was to infuriate him more. When I stopped he cried less. So I quit singing for a few months. Then I tried again. As soon as he was old enough, he would reach up and put his hand over my mouth if I started singing. I didn't think my singing was THAT bad! I surrendered and stopped trying to sing to him. Later when I had my second child, I tried again, with similar disappointing results. Sheesh. Even today it is a joke in our family. If I start singing my favorite Broadway tune, "I am I Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha" at the top of my lungs, the whole family gangs up on me trying in to make me stop. Spoil sports!!!

There were other dashed dreams as well. For example, my dream to teach them to speak Spanish, which I had the wonderful opportunity to learn and wanted to pass on is still unrealized.

Another disappointment came when I signed a couple of the older kids up for a program called Destination Imagination. I thought they would love and it would be a terrific experience for them. When they both informed me that they were "bored" and wanted to drop out, I was dismayed. Not only because I thought it was such a great opportunity, but it is a team effort and I didn't want them to let down their team. I didn't think boredom was a reasonable excuse to quit either. I did the best "Mom Guilt Trip" I could muster, I even sic'd their dad on them, but to no avail. In the end, they still wanted to quit, and realizing that if their heart wasn't in it, they would not be able to give their best effort to the team, I gave them permission to quit. Their team did fine without them winning their State competition and going to the National competition. I'm thrilled for the team, but still bummed that my kids didn't 'share the dream'.

I realize these are minor things, but having experienced them, I dread the day when they all start dating, and, heaven forbid!, get married. Will I be disappointed again when their choose a spouse who is different than I would have chosen? And what about school? I always wanted to go to college. I planned for college. I had the grades, but not the money. Naturally, I want my children to go to college, but will they? So many other dreams, waiting to be fulfilled or deflated.

I have to say though, even though some of my dreams for my children have been unrealized, they have also surprised and pleased me in so many other ways. As they grow and develop, their talents are becoming evident, certain personality traits are beginning to emerge. Sometimes it feels like parenting is a kalidescope. As you hold it to the light and twist it amazing patterns emerge. You can't control the patterns, but each one is beautiful and leaves you wanting more.

I like to think of my dreams for my children now, not so much in details as in "they will do this" or "they will do that", but that each child is a kalidescope of possiblities, and my part is to show them the light and love them then to enjoy the beautiful patterns as they emerge.

Ashes of Abuse: On the Bookshelf

2010-06-26T19:03:00.001-07:00

I have loved reading for as long as I can remember. I read for fun, of course, but I have also always read when I wanted to learn something. As a kid when I wanted to know about "the birds and the bees", I was too embarrassed to ask my parents we didn't talk about that sort of thing and I guessed my friends didn't really know much more about it than I did...I found a medical book and read about it...complete with illustrations! When I wanted to learn to knit...I got a book. When I started having serious health issues (all of them are much better right now), I turned to the Internet and read about it. So, naturally, with this new challenge in my life, I have a million questions so I turned to my old standby....reading. Of course, reading does not and should not replace therapy but while it is not the "main course" for my healing, it is a good "side dish".

The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild

When I first started therapy it was for anxiety. One day I was telling my therapist about the anxiety that I get at the dentist and that I had figured out that it was not the needles or the drill, but the CHAIR. I hate the chair. It makes me feel very vunerable, and that is an uncomfortable feeling. I told him I feel the same way about his couch. "My couch?" he asked confused. Well, yeah, in the movies people always lie down on their therapist's couch. That made him laugh and he promised he would never ask me to do that. Then he added, "Don't do it, but in your mind's eye imagine you are lying on the couch and pay attention to how your body feels." I did and instant anxiety...shortness of breath, dizziness etc. Wow! Anxiety on cue. I was amazed by that but my therapist wasn't. He simply said, "Your body knows why you are uncomfortable with the couch." I was astonished by this. How could my body know something my mind didn't. I pondered this a lot and later at home I asked myself how this could be.

Then one night in one of those moments between being awake and asleep a voice in my mind said, "if you really want to know, imagine yourself as a child lying on the couch." I did and OH! My first flashback! I won't give you the details. It was awful. It felt as if I was there with all the physical feelings and emotions (read: fear) of that moment. I wanted to know more about how "body memories" work so I started googling and came across this book.

Though it is scientific, I also found it to be quite readable for a "lay person" like myself. She explains body memories, PTSD, somatic pain and other related issues. Highly Recommended.

The Stranger in the Mirror by Marlene Steinberg

I'll never forget the day my therapist started asking me some questions that I could tell were intended to see if I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously called Multiple Personality Disorder.) This disorder is more common than I thought affecting approx. 10,000 people in the US. As I understand it, it is generally not as "sensational" as what Sybil experienced. After all the whole "system" works to hide the memories of the abuse from the person themself and the multiplicity from the public. More about this in another review.

Anyway, I didn't think that I had DID, and my therapist later told me that he doesn't think I have DID either, but I do "dissociate". Of course, I was then driven to learn everything I could about dissociation. That is how I found this book. It was an answer to prayer and answered my questions very well!

She explains clearly what dissociation is, the different ways it affects us and because we all dissociate to some degree, what is mild, moderate, or severe dissociation. It is scientific, but readable for us "lay people". Highly recommended!

Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis

When I first realized what my 'real' issue was, not anxiety but childhood sexual abuse, I had a million questions surrounding "what will healing be like and how long will this take?" This book has been a wonderful resource for giving me an idea what to expect, and comforting me that what I am feeling is normal. Though I am a huge fan of the library (my bookshelves are already overflowing with beloved books..it's nice to have the library 'store' books for me!), this is one I will need to purchase. It is not something you just sit down and read through but rather a book that you read in parts, and refer back to it as a resource in healing at different times and different stops on the journey. Highly recommended

A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder by Robert Oxnam

Though I do not have DID, I now find myself with a fascination with this topic. As I mentioned before, not all DID cases are as 'sensationalized' as the story of Sybil. When I saw this book about Robert Oxnam who was an international authority on China, I had to read it! After all, how does one become so highly educated and appear so "normal" with this disorder. I had to know. The book, a courageous offering on the part of Mr. Oxnam, was fascinating, enlightening and touching. At the end, I wanted to meet this amazing man and give him a hug! Hearing his story, and vicariously sharing in his healing, gave me hope that my symptoms of dissociation, which are not as severe, can be healed as well. Highly recommended, thank you for having the courage to share Mr. Oxnam!

I should have named this post "On the Bookshelf and the Favorites List" but that title would be too long!

I like blogs (obviously since I write one). So recently I got an idea to look for blogs written by others who are dealing with the challenges I am (both to hear their stories, and to find people who might be interested in what I am writing.) And wowzer, you can find most anything you want on the internet! I found the perfect thing...a blog carnival!

A blog carnival, in case you are not familiar with the term, is basically a blog post that listed a bunch of other blogs they think their readers might be interested in. This particular blog carnival is published by various volunteers, once a month. They have been doing it for four years. All you have to do to join the carnival is write them and ask to be included, so you will see that I have an entry there too. I found a few new "favorite" blogs there. Check it out!

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

What's on your healing bookshelf?

Update on Mt. St. Helens adventure

2010-06-26T17:15:00.002-07:00

For those of my readers who read my blog on Google Reader, or Facebook, I wanted to let you know that I updated the post to include a couple pictures! I think you have to go to the site to see them. :)

The Difference Between Mothers and Fathers

2010-06-25T05:25:00.002-07:00

Mothers and Fathers are different.

Ok, so, no I didn't expect you to be surprised by that statement, but call me naive, sometimes it still catches me by surprise. I'd like to share my most recent example of this.

My older boys were invited to hike Mt. St. Helen's with some friends (and yes with a responsible adult...I'm not totally insane, just partially so.) My older son had done it before with his Boy Scout troop, so having that experience under our belt, so to speak, I was a little less nervous this time around.

I have make a little side bar here and tell you about our family history with Mt. St. Helens. This will date me a bit, but so be it (though in my own defense I must say that my husband is older than I am. He keeps getting older each year, while I manage to stay young. I have no explanation for this.) So years ago, PM (pre-marraige) my hubby and his best buddy went hiking on Mt. St. Helens. At the time, scientists were concerned about some volcanic activity and were watching it closely, but people were still allowed to go up to a certain height. Visitors were NOT, however, allowed to go above "the red zone."

Now, when my husband and his buddy went up the mountain, they were not accompanied by an adult (because at 20 yr. they were adults, if you use the term loosely) and they were not detered by "the red zone". Up and up they climbed, painstakingly collecting the little bits of ash they could find on the tree leaves.

You know where I am going with this,don't you? It started getting late and they started pondering what to do. Should they camp and hike down in the morning, or head down now. The friend was in favor of staying overnight. Why not, since they were there? But fortunately, fate intervened. This was on a Saturday. "We can get up early in the morning and hike down and go to church," the friend said.

"No. I know us, we'll sleep in and miss church if we do that. We better go home tonight." My future husband said. So they hiked down and went home. You know the rest of the story. Sunday morning 57 people died when Mt. St. Helen's erupted. It was nearly 59. Hubby spent the next few days at his gas station job sweeping up garbage bags full of ash.

Now back to the present...My son's and I had a little misunderstanding about what time they would be home. I thought they would be home by 6 pm, or call...because, you know, I'm reasonable and sometimes it is hard to judge how long a hike will take. At 6:20 pm when I hadn't heard from them I started making some calls myself. After trying to call the boys, I called the father of one of the other boys. He explained that there was no way they could have been home by 6 pm because it takes 6 or so hours to climb up, a couple more hours down and it's a three hour drive home. He assured me that everything was fine. But then he added that he hadn't heard from them either. They were supposed to call when they got to the top. Great.

I took a deep breath, chalked it up to bad cell service and went about my day...not worrying. Well, ok, worrying, but not panicking. A little later when I talked to my husband, he also reassured me that things were fine. After all, "what could happen?" he asked. I was almost too astonished by this question to answer. They could fall off the mountain, of course! Or any number of other horrible things. We, mother's, are really good at "worst case scenarios". He just laughed at my paranoia, and I decided I was over-reacting. Surely everything was fine.

The group did return home safely, but what a story they had to tell. My two sons related it to my husband and I the following morning after their return. (My thoughts interjected into their narrative will be in italics.)

It seems that there was more snow on the mountain than they had anticipated and they were not adequately prepared. We're all heard this story before haven't we? On the 10 o'clock news! Nevertheless, they climbed to the top and were, as expected, very pleased with themselves.

The rest of the story is a little difficult for me to piece together. If you have ever talked to two animated teenagers at once, you will know what I mean. First there was an issue about one of them gettting so cold he could barely walk -mom alert flashes in my mind--warning! warning! frostbite? hypothermia? They said had to split up because the boy that could barely walk was going very slowly and one of my son's was also freezing and didn't want to end up the same. So he and a buddy went ahead. My other son, the Ice Prince, who is has this amazing gift of being nearly immune to feeling cold, stayed with the near hypothermic (my imagination? or fact? you decide) boy. They didn't mention where their adult counterpart was, I assume because adults are boring, you know.

When the group reunited, they worked together to warm him up. I wondered what this meant and asked if they had given him a "group hug". I thought I was being funny, but the Ice Prince said, "yeah, pretty much." My other son, WindTalker, a name he recieved as a toddler for trying to command the wind to stop. He is still bossy.. said he put the Popsicle boy's bare foot on his stomach, but (he laughed as he related the next part) because the foot was too big to rewarm all at once, he could only warm "half" it at a time, first the toes, later the heel.

At this point in the narrataion, I looked at my husband in disbelief and said, "What could happen? What could happen?" My voice rising a little in fear of what could have happened, and yet laughing because after all, everyone was home safe. My husband just gave me a sheepish grin.

Then the parties started out again. This next part I don't completely understand, but then who can understand the minds of teenage boys? They came to a slope and decided they wanted to descend the mountain a little more quickly. The Ice Prince decided he would like to slide down on his stomach.

WHAT? I stopped him to ask. "Did you think you were Frosty the Snowman or something?"

He said, "No more like a penguin." O..k....

So he got into position and started the slide. He quickly picked up more speed than he was comfortable with so he put his elbows down to slow the descent, but it didn't work. Then he tried his feet with the same non-effect. Next he put his hands out in front of him, that is until the thought came to him that perhaps at the speed he was going if he hit a tree he could break a wrist and pulled them back in.

Mom alert is flashing in my mind again. Your wrists? You are only worried about your wrists? What about your head, your ribs, your spine, your legs. I should interject here, I took an EMT class with a bunch of ski patrol people, years ago. On our breaks they would take turns sharing gruesome stories of things they had seen on the slopes. I had never been skiing before, and thanks to those stories, I never will. He did have a spectacular crash, but amazingly walked away unharmed.

At this point of the narration, I gave my husband the "raised eyebrows, wide-eyed, you see what could happen???" Look, and again he smiled sheepishly.

Popsicle Boy had gone down at the same time as my son and also crashed spectacularly. So when they looked back and saw that WindTalker and his companion were at the same point, they tried to warn them NOT to follow their example. Unfortunately, with the wind and distance, "No, don't go," became "go," pause, "go". So they did.

Except for Ice Prince, all boys slid down on their feet. Like skiing, without the skiiis??? Is this just my mom imagination, or would you agree that this is infinately more dangerous than regular skiing? No skiis + no poles = no control. Apparently WindTalker, and Popsicle Boy also had "rough landings", but walked away on harmed as well.

Again...I extended The Look.

The fourth boy, who needs a name, we'll call him Olympian, you'll see why in a second, also went down on his feet. At some point, he lost his balance and slid on his posterior. From this "seated" position, he flew over a hill that served as a sort of jump and miraculously landed on his feet! He was the only one of the four that was able to stop without crashing.

And...again...the Look which was answered by the Sheepish Grin.

The rest was fairly uneventful, as hikes go apparently. Ice Prince, and Popsicle Boy, have sunburns on their faces. "Why didn't you use the sunscreen I sent with you?" I felt compelled to distance myself from this insanity, but showing that I, SuperMom, had tried to prepare them.

"I did use the sunscreen." Huh? "I just forgot to put it on my face."

Oi ve! Son, you are never leaving the house again! I give my husband The Look again, and this time he just starts laughing. Do you know why he was laughing? I bet the dads reading this do. I'll explain it for everyone else.

He was laughing because none of this surprised him!!! Yep, you read that right. He didn't know the details, of course, but it did not surprise him that there was "an adventure". He did all kinds of crazy things like this when he was younger. And naturally, he assumes that because he did it and came through it fine, the boys will too.

And that, my friends, is the difference between mothers and fathers.

I just gave him The Look one more time and took my daughter to the store. I had to put some distance between me and the insanity.

This story would not be complete though, without this final twist. Are you wondering about the adult who accompanied the boys?

It was Popsicle Boy's Mom, who I am proud to say was one of the first two to reach the top. Although, given the difference I just explained between mother's and father's...why she went and how she survived this day is a mystery to me. But the point is, they all survived. She needs a name...we shall call her Crazy-Woman. I love ya, Crazy Woman! Thanks for taking my boys on a memorable adventure...I think.

Update...photos, used by permission! When I asked Crazy Woman if I could post a couple of these on my blog she said, "Sure we are proud of our near death experience." LOL!

Here is a before picture...from left to right: Crazy Woman, Popsicle Boy, The Olympian, WindTalker, and Ice Prince

Snapshots

2010-06-18T06:30:00.001-07:00

I have been journaling a lot in the last couple days.

---But Leslie, we haven't seen any new blog posts.

I know, but in my world blogging is what I do for other people, writing that I share. Journaling is personal. Those thoughts and feelings that I want to record but perhaps will never share. I have come to think of my journaling as snapshots of my mind and moods. Have you ever thought about journaling that way? Writing it down takes a moment, an hour, a day (you get to chose) of your life and preserves it for you.

Some moments simply call out for this type of preservation...important days in your life, your wedding, your children's births and so forth. Some moments beg to be recorded because though they are important to you in the moment, they will fade with time like those funny things your children say, or those funny things that come to your mind that you don't say... Some moments are just too painful to be shared with other people, but paper and pen can be good companions.

I have other mental snapshots, pictures, sensations, moods that I want to hold on to. I wonder if writing them down would help? For example, the simple joy of holding the hand of a small child. My youngest, Peter, is very strong-willed. If I dare think to simply take hold of his hand, he will resist me. However, if I ask, "Peter, may I hold your hand?" He almost always acquiesses. He just likes to be asked I suppose, but ah, those moments walking with his little hand in mine...priceless.

I would keep a mental snapshot of cotton, from the cottonwood trees floating through the air. How I love seeing that. One day, I had the windows down and as I stopped for a stop sign a piece of cotton floated in the passenger window and landed on my pant leg. I marveled at it for a moment, I could have sworn for that moment it was fairy magic or something just as lovely that brought it to me. Then I started driving again, and it floated away out the other window. Then I was certain it was carried on fairy dust.

I would save a snapshot of the sound of children's laughter. And another of the way the dawn breaks on a new day...not just the sunrise, but the dawn, the light that increases and overcomes the dark.

Then I would take these snapshots and send them to myself like postcards, on gloomy days to remind myself that like the dawn, light always follows the darkness.

For now, I'll content myself with writing about snapshots and see what that brings. What snapshots will you capture today?

Ashes of Abuse: The White Dress

2010-06-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, Ashes of Abuse: Guilt, I explained how children who are abused often blame themselves, and how as an adult survivor they can continue to feel guilty. Recently, I was venting to some fellow survivors, on a message board, about this guilt that I still feel and how it is affecting my life. It is changing me in ways that I do not like. For example, I used to enjoy speaking, teaching, and praying in church, but now I am very uncomfortable with all of those things because of the guilt I feel. My friend, Michelle, wrote a reply that really touched me. I can't say that this has fully convinced me that the abuse was not my fault, but this parable did reach me on a level that nothing else has so far. With her permission, I would like to share it with you. The name is mine, the rest is from her. Thanks again, Michelle.

The White Dress by Michelle

Somehow, dear, dear girl you are going to have to believe Christ when He says that He has suffered for all sins and that you can be redeemed from them.

Let's just say, for a second, that your daughter came home from a birthday party where she had worn a beautiful, new, expensive, white dress. The location of the party has a pond and while there she went down to look at the ducks and someone pushed her down and got mud all over her dress. She cried, she was distraught and no matter what she tried she couldn't get the mud off of her dress. She came home, she didn't want to come in to the house because the dress was so dirty and she didn't even do it! It was 100% NOT her fault but, she can't get over it. She goes over and over what happened and she just can't forgive herself for something she did not do but feels responsible for anyway.

What do you, as her Mother, who loves her more than life, do? Do you tell her she's right, she isn't worthy to come into the house and what was she thinking and you are going to make her pay time and again and never let her forget what she did? Even thought SHE didn't do anything wrong?

Or, do you insist that she is worthy to come into your home, do you tell her that she is loved, that she is forgiven because there is nothing really to forgive? Do you help her understand that because of your experience in stain removal that , although she couldn't get the stain out you can?You know about bleach and hot water and all the other things that will make her dress clean again.

Well, Leslie ,sweetheart, YOU are that little girl and you do NOT have to get the stains out by yourself. YOU didn't make them and Christ knows how to get them out. Heavenly Father wants you in His house as much as you want your daughter in yours. He loves you. You have to tell Him you don't know how to get the stains out and would he PLEASE help?

Don't be afraid my friend. Father can take the pictures out of your head and the deadness out of your heart. I'm here to tell you as someone who KNOWS.

Be patient. Breathe. Pray always.

Ashes of Abuse: Cat and Mouse

2010-06-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

Recently while pondering a new post on abuse, the image of a cat bringing his owner a dead mouse came to my mind. It was rather amusing to me at the time, but I have come to realize that there is a lot of truth to it. When I was young, I had a cat. Sometimes she would bring us “presents”. At least I think she thought they were presents. These “gifts” consisted of dead birds and more frequently dead mice. We were less than joyful to receive them. It’s not that we didn’t know that our cat killed mice. We knew there were mice, and we were glad she killed them. That is one of the advantages to owning a cat, after all. The thing is, we didn’t want to see the mice or even think about them being there. We just wanted the cat to take care of them, behind the scenes, you know.

I believe it is the same with abuse. We all know it happens, but we would rather not think about it. That is understandable, of course. It is a painful subject so why dwell upon it? The thing is when you are the person who was abused; you don’t want to think about it either. Some people are even able to repress the memory and not to think about it for a long time, years, even decades. Unfortunately, ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Eventually, there comes a time when your body and mind refuse to keep the secret any more. And so it begins.

How do you face an enemy that is inside of you? You can’t run from your own memories. You can try, and most people do try, but the memories are inside of you. There is no where you can go to get away from them. It is a lonely battle, because no one can face the inner dragon for you. It is a lonely battle because few people understand. If you were facing a medical demon, there would be much support. People would ask you how you are and ask what they can do to help. But how do you begin to explain this kind of a battle? And if you do, how do people respond? With confusion mostly, it seems. Some wonder why you aren’t “over it” since it happened a long time ago. Some want to help, but don’t know what to say or do. Some don’t believe you. Too often, because they are confused and don’t know what to say, they do nothing. They don’t ask how you are or offer service. They just leave you alone…to face the dragon. If you fall in the battle, how will they know? If you are victorious, who will cheer you? Who will appreciate the victory? When the abuse occurred, the child had to endure it alone. Now the adult must deal with the pain, alone.

So like a cat with an unusual gift, I keep bringing you: The Ashes of Abuse, because our friends and loved ones need to not be alone any more. But there is another reason that I write about abuse and it’s after effects. . .

Because

I am a survivor too…

Because I hurt,

. . .and if I fall in this battle, or if I win…

I want someone to know.

Time

2010-06-02T13:57:00.001-07:00

Time like sand
slips through my fingers

Until,

Death with an icy touch
knocks it from my hand.

Note to my wonderful readers, my health is fine, better than it has been in a long time, in fact. This poem was simply a result of my reflections on the many things I would like to accomplish in my lifetime and how little time there really is to do them.

My Wish For You: Laughter (reposted)

2010-06-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

Last week someone told me that my "wonderful sense of humor is like a parachute". I love that...a parachute can soften the landing, by slowing the fall... Everyone should have a parachute handy; life is hard work. This is from a year ago, I hope you like it. Leslie

My Wish For You: Laughter

Today I was listening to my favorite sound, that of my children laughing. They were laughing at their dad because he had done something goofy. Laughter is so important for children, for families.... for everyone, I thought. My husband and I have always said, as long as we have our sense of humor we will be OK.

Which made me wonder, what is it that is so appealing, so healing, so simply wonderful about laughter?

I started to analyze it.

You can't laugh with someone you are angry with. Try to picture that for a moment. Think of the last time you were angry with someone. If they had told you a joke, no matter how funny, you would not have laughed. So laughter signifies good feelings between people. After the apologies are said, laughter can help the mending begin, but it won't be there until some good feeling returns. That explains in part why there is so little of laughter in prison. Oh there is some laughter there, but it is usually the coarse type. An impostor, hopelessly trying to make up for the lack of the real thing. Shudder...anger is cold and dark. Laughter is not only happy it is warmth and love.

How about the last time you were sad, really sad. Could laughter reach you there? Sometimes at funerals people laugh. "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion," (Steel Magnolias). Even in the darkest of times, laughter has a way of reaching deep down and beginning the healing.

Great friendships can begin with laughter. If I can laugh with someone, I know that is a spark for a potential friendship. In fact, if someone makes me laugh, that is enough to make me want to be their friend.

Remember when you were a kid and you laughed so hard you peed your pants. C'mon admit it, you know you've done it! You're smiling now aren't you? Let's just hope the last time that happened to you was a long, long time ago.

Imagine the laughter that comes from being exhausted. You know what I am talking about. Those times you laughed until you cried about something that was not really that funny, just because you were tired. But oh how good that laughter felt. One of those times for me was when I was in the hospital, after having a baby. My sweet husband brought me flowers. Not cut flowers, but the kind you plant. I took one look at them...pretty but slightly wilted and burst out laughing. I laughed so hard I cried, and the nurse looked at me like she wondered if they had given me too much pain medication. I laughed because I know my husband so well, and I knew he had rescued those flowers from a dumpster somewhere. (Greenhouses can only sell perfect looking plants, and many less-than-perfect but nice plants get thrown away.) Of course, it only made me laugh harder when he feigned innocence to the bewildered nurse. "He brought me Dumpster Flowers" kept running through my mind and I laughed until I couldn't catch my breath. Even today, he pretends not to know what was so funny about that. And I, of course, still laugh. I don't even have to be tired.

Have you ever laughed even when it hurt? I'm not talking about those aching cheek muscles, though I love that one too. I had a c-section with one of my little blessings. My husband took me on my obligatory walk around the hospital floor, and kept making me laugh though I begged him not to. Ow, ow, ow, torture!

Laughter can chase away fear. It can't necessarily keep it away. I think of laughter in this sense more like a yippy lap dog, barking with all it's might than a german shepherd. But it can give you some respite from the fear. That reminds me of the time my husband started comparing my various health issues to what would be the equivalent in a car. At the end of it he concluded with mock sincerity that if I were a car, we would sell me to the junk yard and get something else. Wicked, wicked man! How I love him.

Sometimes we look to laughter simply for entertainment. The best movies, TV shows, books, and even music make us laugh. We must not forget blogs. My favorite blogs are those that intermingle funny posts with serious thought provoking ones.

As I think back over my life and all the tender memories, laughter is often there. It's not in the family photos, but it's there.. Sometimes it is the photographer, sometimes the frame. Yes, maybe that is it. Laughter is the frame that holds our lives together.

I wish you...laughter.

Ashes of Abuse: Betrayal of the Mind

2010-05-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

What is your greatest fear?

If you had been abused as a child perhaps one of your greatest fears would be to be out of control. After all, as a child you were out of control, and look what happened. Now as an adult you have the desire to never let that happen again. One day you realize that you actually control nothing; including, the one place that you had thought was yours alone: your mind. With that realization, a hellish abyss opens up in your mind.

Children who are abused will often dissociate in order to cope with the pain. You could think of dissociation as a sort of mental vacation. We all dissociate to some degree. For example, who hasn’t had the experience of being in a class and being called on by the teacher, only to realize to your chagrin that you have been daydreaming and have no idea what the answer is to the question that was asked. To be truthful, you don’t even know what the question was, simply that the teacher called your name and now everyone is staring at you expectantly. This is an example of dissociation. Children are able to dissociate better than adults can, and sometimes if the abuse is severe or chronic, dissociation maybe the only thing they can do.

Dissociation occurs on a wide spectrum of severity. It includes much more than daydreaming and for adults it is not a conscious choice. For them it is more like the equivalent of a nightmare or shall we say “day-mare”. To better understand what this is like, imagine yourself sitting in meeting at work and then something is said that triggers you and the slide begins. You can hear someone speaking, but you can’t understand the words. You are overwhelmed by long ignored emotions that rise up and engulf you the way flames rise up and surround a log in the fireplace. Pain, anger and fear battle for your attention. Suddenly you feel that you are on the verge of crying, not a silent tear slipping down your cheek, but sobbing. You begin to wonder if you can get out of the room quickly without making a scene. It does not occur to you that you could simply walk out as if you were going to the bathroom. You feel as if any movement on your part will call the attention of the entire room so you try to act normal. You lower your head and pretend to be taking notes.You concentrate very hard; as you try to keep the fire inside from consuming you, but the smoke and flames are spreading. You struggle to stay in the moment, important imformation is being covered. You try to focus on the voice of the person speaking. And then, at last, the flames begins to die back. Your mind begins to clear, other people’s words come back into focus. You are emotionally exhausted, but you are back. With a sense of dread you wonder if it is really gone, and like the smell of smoke; fear lingers.

This is one example of how dissociation could happen. Another term for this sort of experience is depersonalization. Different people experience depersonalization in different ways. Some report feeling as if they are outside of their body watching themselves. Looking in the mirror and not feeling that the image you see there is you, is also common. Sometimes dissociation takes the form of amnesia. People have experienced dissociative amnesia for important events such as weddings or holidays, or for long periods, even years of their lives.

Dissociation, depersonalization and PTSD are all forms of what I think of as ‘betrayal of the mind’. There is another one: flashbacks. Have you ever had a bad dream that lingered into your day? Throughout the day, you are occasionally reminded of the awful feelings of that dream and you feel them again as if you were still in the dream? Flashbacks are like that. You remember something, some unspeakable memory from the closet of horrors. At first you are surprised; it is like seeing someone you haven’t seen in years. You think, “I remember…”. Then with a sinking feeling, you remember. It is like the nightmare, you feel emotionally as if you were there again, as if the horrible thing happened earlier today. You try to forget about it, but throughout the day like a mental hiccup it returns to you, all the attached emotions wafting over you like smoke.

Then one day it occurs to you, that with all these things: dissociation, depersonalization, PTSD, nightmares, flashbacks…you are not in control at all. Calmly you try and explain this horror to a friend. As you speak, there are no tears. There is no anxiety. How could you speak so calmly? It is possible because of dissociation. Sometimes dissociation works like an emotional circuit breaker, when the circuit becomes overloaded with emotion, then it switches off. The pain subsides. Unfortunately, the pain has not really gone away, it is only deadened for a time, and with it all other emotions fear, anger, happiness, joy are deadened as well. All is still. You sit calmly; or go about the tasks of the day, the numbness a temporary blindfold as you walk the plank towards the hellish abyss. .

What to do:

If you are the person who was abused, I firmly believe there is hope. Healing is possible. Sadly though, you must move forward. The memories and emotions have to be worked through. They will continue to haunt you if you attempt to ignore them. Get professional help/therapy. If you had cancer, you would seek medical assistance, is this any less than emotional cancer? Also, lean on the support of people who love you. There are people that care about you. They don’t always say or do the right things because they don’t understand, but they love you and they try. Be patient with them and most of all be patient with yourself.

If you love someone who was abused, think of this journey like childbirth. You can give the laborer your love and support, but you can’t take the pain away. There are no epidurals for emotional pain. Your love, support, friendship will mean more than you know. Most of all your loved one needs to know you are there and that you care. Even a simple, “how are you?” can mean a lot, if it is a sincere question and not a casual greeting. I remember when I was in labor, every time I would come to a point where I was certain I could not finish. Every time my husband would encourage me, “yes, you can.” I didn’t believe him. Your friend may not believe you when you tell her (or him) they can get through this, but keep encouraging them. Healing is possible, but it takes time.

Through the eyes of a child

2010-05-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

Taking an idea from my current favorite blog StorytellERdoc, I'm reposting an old post in honor of Mother's Day. Enjoy!

Steven R. Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, wrote that one should "begin with the end in mind". He said, something to the effect of, think about your funeral and what you would like people to say about you and work to make that happen. The funeral idea is. . .is. . . well, do I really need to explain? It's too close to home, enough said.

I prefer to imagine my life through my children's eyes. What will they remember about their childhood, which I have a large role in shaping.

Lately as I return from my bike rides, my youngest, Peter, who is three, greets me at the door. "Hat! Hat!" He says reaching out to me with a smile. Then I take off my bike helmet and put it on his head. He loves hats so he is thrilled. I am thrilled because I love the idea that he might remember me, with a bit of pride, as some sort of an athlete, something I never before imagined for myself.

Yesterday we went Letterboxing, Peter and next to youngest, Brigham, who is seven, happily ran up and down the trail. I imagined the whole experience through their eyes. Not just the wonder of the forest, but the joy of family time.

Along the trail, there was a plaque with this quote, "I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. . .what business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods." Henry David Thoreau

Experiencing the woods with a child, keeps you in the woods in spirit.

One trail we followed had a lot of tree roots to step over. Peter was having a hard time managing that and fell several times. He is tough, independant child though, so he would just get up and go again. If he stops for cuddles, I look for blood. This is why I was so touched by an incident that happened later. Brigham got caught by a branch and hurt his leg. It was minor, but Brigham wasn't convinced yet that it was minor, so he was sitting on the trail pondering his "owie". Peter ran over to him, squatted down in that adorable way three-year-olds do and looked at the leg, and then gave Brigham a big hug. Awww, precious.

These things are magical to me, because my own childhood memories are complicated. Seeing my own children have such a happy and relatively carefree childhood is very healing for me.

Getting back to looking at my life through my children's eyes, there are times when I look through their eyes and cringe. I see myself tired and grumpy and I think, "oh, I hope THIS is not what they remember!" Of course, that kind of thinking reminds me to take a "mom time-out". There is a fine line between correction/discipline and cranky mom. I try not to cross that line too often. Sometimes I see myself very busy and realize I need to stop and take time for them. Yesterday was one of those days. We put the packing aside (we're moving, but just a couple miles from where we live now), and went "out to play".

Thoreau had it right, not just about the woods. Life can be stressful and hectic. Quite often, my life feels more like zipping down a freeway than a peaceful walk in the woods. But as Thoreau said I am alarmed when it happens that I have passed another week of my life without getting there in spirit because I was too caught up in the day to day details to see the big picture, or the things that matter. What business have I living day to day without appreciating the wonders that are here, the fantastic little people that share my life, my adoring husband, my God, and my job which is both trying and rewarding.

Seeing my life through my children's eyes, helps me be here everyday "in spirit".

Ashes of Abuse: Guilt

2010-04-19T04:58:00.001-07:00

You have heard that frequently children whose parents get divorced blame themselves. "If only I had gotten better grades," or "If I didn't argue so much with my brothers," they think. Children who are abused blame themselves as well. I think it is not only a misperception but also a coping mechanism. After all which is more difficult to accept? The idea the people who are supposed to love you and take care of you are hurting you in ways you can't begin to understand and you are powerless to stop it or to believe that somehow you caused it, and if you can just figure out what you did wrong it will stop?

As adults, if our parents divorced we can grasp that it was not our fault. We understand how relationships work. However, for adults who were abused as children, it can be difficult to let go of the guilt and shame.

Some Day

"Tell me again,"
I say and they do,
"It's not your fault."

I picture them in my mind,
my husband,
my Bishop,
my therapist,
my friends

I see the words on their lips,
I hear their words with my ears.
"It's not your fault"

But my heart
. . .does not hear
The little child in me
. . .does not see. . .

Somewhere deep inside,
...I know
       It was my fault,
and I need
    to be Punished.

"Tell me again," I say. And they do...
Some day I will believe them.

Some day,
. . .but not today.

Ashes of Abuse: PTSD

2010-04-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

Every time I hear Cindi Lauper's song, "Time After Time" on the radio, it is like a time machine, I am transported backwards in time. It is late at night, racing down the highway, windshield wipers swooshing back and forth, sirens blaring and Cindi Lauper on the radio. I was on one of my first ambulance runs and we were on our way to an accident at Hagen's Hill. Hagen's Hill is a portion of road Arizona near where I grew up. It was a treacherous curve, that had earned it's own name because so many accidents occurred there. When we arrived on the scene, another ambulance was there taking care of one of the occupants of the semi that had crashed there. The other occupant was lying on the road completely covered with a sleeping bag...forever sleep. As my eyes scanned over the scene taking it all in, a gust of wind ruffled the sleeping bag and for a moment I thought it seemed the dead body was going to rise. Unfortunately he didn't. Both of the men from the truck were young, early 20's. So tragic.

That memory is imprinted into that song; I can't separate them. There are other songs that are imprinted with memories but none as vivid, or unwanted as that one. I am sure many of you reading this have songs that are imprinted with memories. What is fascinating to me about imprinting is that we don't chose it. We can't pick a song and couple it with a memory. Wouldn't it be fun if we could? Our own personal and private music videos.

Imprinting can also occur in other ways. I have a poor sense of smell, so I haven't experienced this, but I'm told that for some people certain smells bring back memories. If we could control that...oh the aroma therapy!

I have a favorite imprinting story, something I read years ago on an e-mail loop. A mom was sharing that she and her daughter had listened to a book on tape together. They enjoyed the book so much that the mom decided to read the book later. When she read the book, she could "hear" the narrator's voice in her head. This made her curious and she asked her daughter, "When you read books that I have previously read to you, do you hear my voice in your head?"

The daughter smiled and said, "oh yes."

Survivors of abuse can experience a negative form of imprinting. Well, I call it imprinting, but it is actually called Post Tramatic Stress, or Post Tramatic Stress Disorder. PTSD has been brought to the public awareness, I believe, mostly by the experiences of soldiers. I know that was my first experience with it. One of my favorite high school teachers taught me history. We spent a whole week on Vietnam. He had been there and told us pretty vividly what it was like and the after affects. I was profoundly touched by his experience.

A war veteran who is sensitive to loud noises knows why. However survivors of abuse can sometimes be unaware of what the trigger was, or why it was a trigger. For example, an object, like a pair of scissors could be a trigger. If you were a survivor you might see an object and inexplicably find yourself feeling short of breath, your hands shaking, Your light, happy mood evaporating to a mist of depression. You are not aware of why you feel this way, but your body knows.

PTSD is caused by what is called body memory also called implicit memory. I am learning that there are basically two kinds of memories explicit and implicit. Explicit is the conscious part of our memory and it reaches full maturity at about three years of age. Implicit memory begins with birth. Robin Grille, a psychologist, explains it this way: "‘Implicit’ memory is available from birth or earlier, it is unconscious, and is encoded in emotional, sensory and visceral recall. In other words, what we don’t remember with our minds, we remember with our bodies, with our hearts and our ‘guts’ – with lasting implications for our thinking, feeling, and behaviour."

Fortunately, not all implicit memories are painful ones like PTSD. Grille stated, "Just as we might not remember learning to walk, yet our legs and feet seem to play their parts perfectly, some of our most pivotal lessons in human relations were learnt at a time that our bodies, but not our minds, can remember. The greatest gift in these discoveries is the knowledge that every loving moment we share with our children, from the very beginning, will stay with them for life."

Love is the best imprint of all.

References:
http://www.nospank.net/grille5.htm What Your Child Remembers -- New discoveries about early memory and how it affects us By Robin Grille Source: Sydney’s Child, Volume 14, No 4 (May, 2003)

The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment by Babette Rothschild

We interupt your regularly scheduled programming...

2010-03-31T18:46:00.002-07:00

I'm mentally marinating my next post...a part two of the Ashes of Abuse. But while I'm pondering, and before I present to you another sad and heavy topic (why did I just get a mental image of a cat placing a dead mouse at his master's feet?)...here is a guest post, something on the lighter side from one of my favorite bloggers, my 11 yr old daughter, Vienna. This is "fan fiction" she did for a writing class. Used with permission, of course.

Woman Found In Pumpkin

By Vienna

Peter P. PumpkinEater was arrested this morning for locking his wife, Ms. PumpkinEater in a pumpkin shell. Peter will be pleading his case in court this Wednesday.

The PumpkinEater’s neighbor, Mary was walking in their pumpkin patch searching for her lost lamb. When she heard the voice of Ms. PumpkinEater calling out “Peter, I’m hungry.” Mary rushed to the pumpkin and peered in to see Ms.PumpkinEater.

When we asked the PumpkinEater’s neighbor, the old woman who lives in a shoe, why she didn’t report Peter she told us “I thought they got divorced long ago.” Ms. PumpkinEater’s exact words were “Peter is a cold-hearted, ill-manered, selfish, JERK. He locked me in the pumpkin so he could have the pumpkins all to him self. All he fed me was canned peas. I never want to see that pumpkin eater again ever!”

Peter will be pleading his case in court this Wednesday, claiming he had no choice, he had to protect his pumpkins, keeping her away, for it was all he ate.

Well one thing is for sure Peter will be having a hard time in jail because they certainly don’t serve pumpkins in there.

The Ashes of Abuse

2010-03-23T11:21:00.002-07:00

As you know, I work with kids in foster care. This means that most of the kids I work with have been victims of abuse in some way, and thus I deal with the ashes, or the aftermath of abuse on a regular basis.  What may surprise you is that you likely deal with it as well.  According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network one in six women and one in 33 men will be sexually abused.  That is a huge number and this statistic does not include physical and emotional abuse, or neglect. Odds are high that someone you know has been abused.

Abuse is like a forest fire consuming life and leaving destruction in its wake. Where there once were trees, vegetation and animals, a forest fire leaves blackness and ashes. Survivors of abuse can carry many scars..the ashes of abuse. These ashes can take many forms, but the one I am thinking about today is self injury: cutting. Of all the ashes I have encountered, this was one of the hardest one for me to understand. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. Perhaps you feel the same. Recent events have given me some new insight in to this coping mechanism. I would like to share what I've learned, maybe it will help you better understand someone you love.

First, a disclaimer, I am not a "professional". These are my "lay man" thoughts. They are worth whatever value you choose to give them.

To understand self-injury first you need to think about how a child's mind works. They do not process information the same way that adults do. They tend to think in a very black and white manner and when things go wrong as in abuse or divorce they blame themselves. Often they are too young and too immature to understand the abuse, but somehow they "know" it is their fault. Sometimes when the abuse is severe or lasts over a long period of time the child's mind may block it out. Then later as an adult, the painful memories begin to surface. [Side bar: The topic of recovered memories is a controversial one. I believe that there are cases of "false memories", however, I also believe in recovered or repressed memories. These are the memories I will be addressing here.] Even processing the memories as an adult, the child's feelings of guilt, shame and black and white kind of thinking are strong.

So imagine yourself as a child (or an adult dealing with repressed memories) the pain and shame feel like lava flowing through your veins. You desperately want an outlet for the pain. Then the idea comes to you to cut yourself. I have heard of children as young as seven cutting themselves. I have no idea where they get the idea from, but for older children and adults, I imagine they hear of others doing it. First they are bewildered by it as you are, but then one day when the pain is very intense; the idea seems very appealing. It is like a craving. It is hard to imagine how intensely you could desire to try it, even though you have never done it before but the feeling is there. Whether it is the child's black and white frame of mind, or a white blindness caused by the emotional fire within, you do not think about where this could lead to. The future does not exsist at that moment, only the present and the pain...releasing the pain. You can visualize the knife, visualize the cut, the blood escaping. Ah, relief. Somehow, the bleeding is like a pressure valve, a release.  The physical pain? It is punishment.  You feel shame and guilt for the abuse and someone must be punished. You must be punished.  And so you cut and for a time, you feel better.

What you don't realize in that moment is that this release is so powerful that it is addictive. From the very first cut, the addiction begins. As in many addictions, after the indulgence you feel shame...ironically one of the very things you were trying to escape. You are ashamed, embarassed and you vow to never do it again, but already the pressure is starting to build again. Soon all the old pain and now the new shame will again fight to be released. Thus the cycle begins.

Like any addiction cutting can consume your life. You find you have to wear long sleeves even in hot weather to cover the scars. You begin to lie to people you love to hide what you are doing and one day you cut too deep and the bleeding won't stop.  You have to go to the emergency department.  You can't hide your addiction from the staff or your family and you feel their puzzlement and disdain...you shame grows and with it the need to cut...again.

If you know someone who cuts themself, remember that this is a visible part of a much larger problem. Simply addressing the cutting, or other self-injury will not solve problem. The most helpful thing you can do is reassure them of your love, your unconditional love and acceptance. Encourage them to seek counseling.

If you cut, it does not make you a bad person. You are not bad; you are hurting. What happened to you was not your fault, not now, not then. You may feel very alone, but there are people who care about you. Often they want to help, they just don't understand what you need. Seek counseling. And remember what happened was not your fault.

After a forest fire there is blackness and ash, but somewhere beneath the ash, there are seeds. Seeds created for "such a time as this." Seeds that do not germinate until after they are exposed to the intense heat of a fire. Now in the blackness they begin to grow. In time, these seeds become plants and slowly, so slowly the mountain turns green once again. With time, the area becomes beautiful and filled with both plant and animal life once again. This is how a forest heals.

People can heal too. . .with time.

Where nightmares begin...

2010-03-09T00:47:00.000-08:00

My husband is blessed with the most amazing dreams. Some of them are very creative story type dreams, some are funny, sometimes in his dreams he interviews famous people. One night he had an in depth conversation with Hippocrates about my health. He said he got some great insights too, only he couldn't remember them when he woke up. Darn.

I think the breath, depth and pure imagination of my husband's dreams say a lot about him. The dreams show what I already know...that he is very intelligent, creative, imaginative and a little crazy. That said, I have to wonder what my dreams say about me. I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do they are usually nightmares...things about people chasing me mostly. I used to have reoccuring dreams about calling 911, and not be able to get through, or having them tell me they were busy etc. I don't have many memories of my early childhood (I think my life started when I was 10), but one of the few memories of that time is of a nightmare that I had. I mentioned this before, remember I was in a large pit and my mother and siblings were at the top of the pit. They walked away and left me. I shudder to think what these dreams say about my pysche. Fortunately, I have this blog to vouch for my relative sanity. But then again...

The other day I had a bad dream that initiated my fight or flight response and I woke up panting...not fun. If you are like my husband, who I don't think has ever had a bad dream, let me explain. When you have a bad dream, it lingers in your thoughts for part of the day. I can usually clear the lingering bad feelings by telling someone about the dream, but I couldn't talk about this dream so it was lingering as I went to work that night.

At work, I got a phone call from one of the staff in another program that one of the teenage girls had been followed home by a man. The girl said his vehicle was parked on the street and gave a good description of it. Wouldn't you know that this one one of those times when we had no male staff on? So I and two other female staff went to check things out. We checked the street and sure enough there was the vehicle.

Now, I have to pause for a moment...a sidebar, if you will...and say that this stalker is not the brightest bulb. He was driving a van and pulling a boat. If you were going to stalk someone wouldn't you want to be a little more inconspicuous than that? Just saying...

We found the vehicle as the girl had described and it was empty. That was a little disturbing, but there are some bars close by perhaps he walked down to one of them. So we went to check the grounds. We were armed with a flashlight, a radio and a cell phone...ready for bear, ya know? Honestly, I didn't expect to see anything, we just wanted to be able to reassure that young lady that we had checked and no one was around. As we were walking, one of the staff said, "I heard something over there." The other staff pointed the flashlight in that direction, and that was when I saw him. It was like that moment in the movie Signs, when you first see an alien and quickly he disappears behind something. You have to rewind to assure yourself that you saw what you thought you saw. I saw a jacket with two white horizontal stripes, and the figure quickly moved behind a tree. "I see him," I whispered and instinctively we all started slowly stepping backwards enlarging the distance between ourselves and the stalker.

Side Bar #2: Stalker 101...white stipes are great for people who want to be visible so they don't get hit by cars at night, not so good when you are trying to be inconito. And yes, I am sure it was the stalker, our property is clearly marked "private property" no one should have been out there. Besides the van disappeared shortly after this.

Like a gunfighter from the Old West, I whipped out my cell phone and dialed 911. I put the phone to my ear and whispered to my companions, "I'm calling 911." But I didn't hear ringing. Ack! This is just like one my nightmares, I thought. Frantically, I looked at the phone. Oh, yeah, I have to hit the button that says, "call". (Yeah, I'm an idiot sometimes.) I did that and it started ringing. When the dispatcher answered, I told her my name and the name of my company (the police know us, they have been out to help us many times....heck I think they know me by first name too). As quickly as I could, I explained that one of our girls had been followed home and we had seen the man on our property. We wanted him gone immediately. Life is full of surreal moments and this next one was one of them for me. The operator said, "Have you approached him and asked him to leave?"

What?! Are you kidding?

As politely as I could, through clenched teeth, I said, "No! This is an older man who followed a teenage girl home. Clearly his intentions are not honorable, and we are just three women. So no we did not approach him that is what we need you for." Clear enough?

After the phone call we waited for the police to come screaming into the parking lot lights flashing and sirens blaring to seize the guy, shove him to the ground and cuff him. Ok, maybe something a bit less dramatic, but I did hope for a quick response and the security of having the police assist us. Two hours later...the police arrived.

Not quite the "book 'em Dano," I was hoping for. To be fair (because the police have been very helpful to us in the past), the officer (the lone officer, no lights or siren...sigh) apologized for not being able to come sooner. Being Saturday night, they were very busy he said

And now you see why I have nightmares...

Everyday Heroes

2010-03-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

I think I will start collecting stories about heroes. No special purpose in mind, I'm just inspired by people doing extraordinary things. But before I tell you about today's inspiration, first a personal story to put things in perspective.

Many years ago when I only had two children (I have fivve now), I was a a thrift store. Then it happened, one of the top five of every mother's worst fears, one of my children was missing. I called him. I looked for him, but I could not find him. With adrenaline pumping, I thought of Walmart and how they have "Code Adam"...which as I understand, when a child goes missing, and staff is notified, there is an announcement made over the intercom and no one leaves the store until the child is found. So hoping for the same kind of response at this store, I frantically looked around for an employee. I saw one, and quickly approached her and explained the situation. When I finished, she just stared at me blankly, and I realized that she was a hispanic woman, who apparently did not speak English, or least not well enough to understand the ramblings of a frantic mother. Frustrated and panicked, I walked away from her to find someone else to help me. It was then that I found my son. Then it hit me...I speak Spanish...fluently. I could have explained my situation to that employee in Spanish, but in my panic, I was not thinking clearly.

That is why I was so impressed with the story I am about to tell you about. There was a bus traveling from Mexico to California. At some point, it hit a truck, veered to the other side of the road, overcorrected and rolled. There were only 22 passengers on board, six of them were killed and over a dozen were injured. Amid all the chaos, from a stretcher, an 11 yr old boy, Oscar Rodriguez translated for the rescuers. Considering my own experience, I marvel at this young man's presence of mind. You can read the news story here.

I want to believe that most of us have the capability to step up and be a "hero" if the situation arose, but I hope if I am ever in that sort of a moment that speaking Spanish is not involved.

I have long been interested in heroes, I blogged about the topic once before here.

What Happened to Humpty Dumpty's Happily Ever After?

2010-02-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
You know the rest...
All the Kings horses and all the Kings men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

In a comment on my most recent post, a friend said, "Somethings broken remain broken." Sadly, she is right. Sometimes there are broken things and broken people and no answers.

In the news right now is a very broken story of a group of teenagers that beat up a another teenager, a girl, while three "security" people stood by and watched the girl on the ground being kicked in the head and did nothing. Oh, they called for help on the radio, but then they just stood there. That is beyond my comprehension, and utterly broken.

Some may say, "but if the security guards had tried to get involved they may have gotten beat up too." So. Is that an excuse to stand by and watch someone suffer? The security company trying to explain said that it is in their contract to "observe and report." Broken.

One night at work, my very petite female co-worker placed herself between two teenage boys because she thought they were going to fight. Nevermind that they were both bigger than she is. She was trying to protect one of them. You can guess who would have been the most pummeled if a fight had broken out. But did my friend worry about her own safety? No, she didn't. She thought only about the boys that were in her care. If my petite co-worker could have the courage to stand up to boys who were bigger than she was, could those security guards not have stood up to those teenagers? Couldn't they have at least shouted, threatened, cajoled? Broken.

Here is something else that is broken...happily ever after. We are all familiar with fairy tales and "happily ever after" endings. As you know, I work with foster kids. Happily ever after seems almost unreachable for them. As I mentioned a while ago (here), the future is grim for kids who age out of the foster care system. They graduate from high school and, therefore, college at a much lower rate than other kids. Many of them become homeless and one in four will be encarcerated within two years after they turn 18 and leave the system.

Coming out of prison is not a foundation for a "happily ever after" either, whatever reason one ended up there. As you might imagine, going into prison is a tremendous culture shock. It is a whole different world in there. Likewise coming out can be a big culture shock. When I worked in prison, I talked to an inmate who had been in for 20 yrs, and was due to be released soon. I said he must be excited, and he responded, "No, I'm scared." You can't blame him. First, there is the culture shock. He told me about a time years before when he had been allowed to go on a weekend furlough. He had never seen the scanners that we use in retail stores today, so when he went to the grocery store and the cashier "just moved the food without ringing it up", he assumed from prison culture that she was trying to cheat him somehow and started to lose his temper and yell at her. Fortunately, his sister stepped in and said, "I'll explain it to you outside..." That was just one of the problems he ran into during that weekend. He said at the end of the weekend, he was ready to go back to prison! No wonder the recividism rate is nearly 70%. When you stop to consider that at least some of those inmates were foster kids, you just have to wonder where is their "happily ever after"?

Other foster kids end up homeless. On my way to work, there is a homeless woman who stands on a corner. She is there every night, in any sort of weather. I used to wonder how people became homeless, but after meeting one of the teenage boys at my job who has schizophrenia, I understand. Even with meds, his thinking very disjointed and unrealistic. I worry that he will end up homeless.

Sometimes we see homeless people and think, "Doesn't he (or she) have a family? Where are they?" The foster kids that end up homeless don't, but some homeless people do have families. Families that desperately want to help them. I was discussing this with a friend who told me she has a relative who is homeless. She explained to me how her family has struggled to try and get their loved one off the street, to no avail.

Unfortunately, there is no happy ending to this blog post either. I don't know what the answers are, for all my ponderings, I simply find more questions and more broken Humpty's. One thing I do know...like those King's Men we have to keep trying. If we quit, we will be broken too, like those security guards standing in a pool of cowardice. So we grab some glue and some egg shells and we keep trying.

Because maybe, just maybe we can help create happy endings for some.

The Child Whisperers

2010-02-07T07:00:00.001-08:00

When I was a teenager, my puppy (about 8 months old) got hit by a car. Instinctively, I reached out to pet and comfort him and he bit me! In his pain and confusion, he was not able to respond appropriately. Now imagine a whole pack of injured pups (sharp teeth included) and you have the setting for my job.

The staff is here because they want to help, but too often the kids respond to that with vitriol. It is understandable. Imagine being a child: you are young and vunerable and you depend on the adults in your life to nuture and protect you. When those same people abuse you, how do you ever learn to trust authority figures again? What messages do you receive about how to treat the people you care about?

I have been thinking about what I have shared with you in the past about my job. It occured to me that since I have only told you about Planned Ignoring and physical restraints, I may have given you a very lopsided view of what I do. First, I do work with foster kids, but my job is not a good "sampling" of what foster children are like. The kids I work with are usually in the group home because they have behavior issues. Behaviors which make them unable to be placed in foster homes. Our job is to work with them (along with a licensed therapist) to help them develop the skills that will enable them to be placed in foster homes. So if you have been considering foster care, please don't let my stories from my job scare you away. Second, we do a lot more than planned ignoring and restraints.

When I first started this job, my previous experience had been with teenagers working in juvenile detention, so I thought I knew what to expect. That assumption was quickly smashed. In detention, the kids are "locked down". Locked doors, and very high fences mean that when we give the kids a consequence, it sticks. Working in a group home though, the doors only lock from the outside. The State says that we must allow the teenagers to run (I mean leave without permission, not go jogging). This means, in part, that whatever consequences I give a teenager boy, he can avoid them (at least temporarily) by running. Of course, they get consequences for running as well, but for some this just begins a viscious cycle. They act out, get consequences, run, get more consequences, run again. . . The younger children are "run stops", which means if they try to run we have to do everything in our power to stop them...even if that means restraining them in public. I heard about a time when that happened, and unfortunately the staff had to restrain the child near a busy street. People were driving by staring at this...you can imagine how it must have looked 3 adults holding a kid on the ground in a "T-hold". Some of them shouted, "I'm going to call the police!"

"Please do," was the staff response. The police are very familiar with our facility and what we do. They visit us frequently enough.

Unfortunately, we also have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy and so some interventions that may seem logical we are not able to use. For example, in the past when a teenager returned from a run (remember I mean leaving without permission) we would take their shoes to prevent them from leaving again. Then the government folks said we can't take their shoes because it is depriving them of proper clothing. Huh? We are trying to keep them safe! Another remedy that was tried in the past was to take all their clothing while they were gone. When they return they are given a shirt that says "Runaway, Call 911." Seems like a great plan doesn't it? But the powers that be said no that is invading their privacy. They have a right not to let people know they live in a group home. So you see, the methods that may be intuitive and even brilliant in another setting are not always options for us. We do the best we can with the tools we are allowed to use.

We do actually have several "treatment tools" that we try to use to help the kids before they become escalated and either try to run or become violent. I've told you previously about Planned Ignoring. Here are some others:

One is Proximity. Sometimes just being close by will prevent a problem or end one. When the kids are not in bed (where they should be on my shift), I will often go and stand next to them. . .proximity. Depending on their mood, this may elicit some rude remarks. These I ignore. Eventually, they tire of trying to get a reaction out of me, and go back to their own conversation. However, it is uncomfortable evidently to try to talk in front of staff. So the conversation dies and they go to bed. Not always, but often enough. Space is another one. Simply letting them have some time alone to calm down. Sometimes staff needs to "take space" as well. Prompting, Redirecting, Directing are all similar and what they appear to be.Then we come to acronym land. We use "I-ASSIST" when we are trying to help them not become escalated, and if that doesn't work we use "I-ESCAPE" to help them learn from the experience. We teach them skills to deal with stress like "DEARMAN", "PLEASE Mastery", "GIVE" and others.

Mostly we use relationships. It is very helpful if you have been able to develop a bit of a relationship with a child. They are more likely to listen if some level of trust has been established. Often this is the best tool we have. However, you can't depend on it. It is a difficult lesson for new staff to learn when a child they thought they had a relationship with turns on them, but remember the puppy analogy. Our kids come from backgrounds where they were hurt by the people that were supposed to love them and take care of them. Sometimes cruelty is all they seem to know.

Humor can be really helpful. If you can make someone laugh, how can they be angry with you? It really is one of my favorite tools to help calm things. Once we had 3-4 teenage boys awake and out of their rooms (remember overnight shift...they are supposed to be in bed). We had two staff, myself and my partner, a tough but very petite woman. So I looked at the boys ( all of them larger in stature than my partner) and said, "Okay, I'm going to give you a five count and then we are going to put hands on and take you to the De-escalation room." I said this because it was something I had heard staff say on another shift (when they actually had enought staff to do it) and because it was utterly ridiculous, it might bring a laugh. I started counting...but I couldn't finish without laughing. The boys looked at me like I had lost my mind. They laughed, and the tension in the air was eased a bit. As I recall, they still didn't go to bed though.

I have even resorted to what I call "Music Torture" on many occasions. Sometimes it works, mostly it makes them laugh and we are back to humor. Depending on my mood, I will either put something on the radio or start signing. I choose the twangy-ist country songs I can think of, like "...there's a tear in my beer cause I'm crying for you dear.." or sometimes I sing show tunes for them. "I am I Don Quixiote" is my favorite. Tonight I put on my new beloved Bluegrass Acappella...I love it, but I figured the teens would hate it. Crazy thing is, I think they liked it! I switched to a country station.

The tool that works one day with a child or teen may not work on another day, so we try to be flexible. Some of our kids do well and move on to Foster Homes...that is the goal. Some well, they don't do well and they get moved. Sometimes to other group homes, some with better security measures to prevent "running". We have had a few get moved to pyschiatric facilities.

Day after day, we keep trying to undo the damage that has been done to these youth. Child Whispering.

Now THAT'S Music: Mountain Blue

2010-01-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

Because I have two teenagers at home now, music is commonly a conversation topic. "Mom, listen to this song, you'll like this one," is a phrase I hear often. I guess I should be flattered that they care if I like their music, but no, let's be honest, they want me to like their music so we can listen to it in the car together. I have explained to them that we can't listen to their music in the car for one important reason...I can't tolerate their music for more than 3 seconds, 10 max! They feel the same about mine. Though how anyone could not love mushy Delilah love songs, I can't imagine.

I am not really a big "music person". I could probably count my CD's on one hand (on the other hand, I have hundreds of books!) And still, I am amazed at what a huge influence music is in our lives, even mine. Lately I have been rather pre-occupied (health issues...enough said) and I find that music is very soothing. When I need music therapy, I don't turn to Delilah though (sorry Delilah, you're still awesome!). I have different kinds of music that I lose myself in, but right now it is acappella. I love this group called Inside Out. One day I decided that I needed to expand my music library, with more acappella, of course! And what I found is the inspiration for this post.

Another kind of music I adore is Blue Grass. One of my fondest childhood memories is of being at the drive-in with my family and hearing "Rocky Top" on the speakers before the movie. Needless to say I adore the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" (my husband can always make me laugh by doing the Soggy Bottom Boys dance!) So I was more excited than dog with a dinosaur bone (sorry couldn't resist) when I found that there is a group that does Blue Grass, acappella style. I found a sample on line and it was instant love!

Just in case you happen to share my fabulous taste in music (or if I can convert you...) I would like to present...

Mountain Blue

You can click on their website to hear a sample...be careful there is no one around to see you dancing and singing in front of the computer! Fortunately, I only had a small audience when I did it. . .

I e-mailed them to get information about buying CD's, and here (by permission) is the reply from Todd, one of the group.

"We are unique in the fact that we are the only southern gospel, bluegrass, LDS, a cappella quartet we know of in the world! There are three ways you can order our CD's. (1) On iTunes we have two of our three albums, but there are four tracks missing from the "Roll Back the Stone" album, just so you know (there are 16 tracks total), and those links are on our website at www.MountainBlueHarmony.com (2) You can meet up with someone in our group (most likely me) and get all three Cd's for only $25 by check or cash, or (3) you can order them through pay pal on my website at www.ToddHorneMusic.com and I can ship them to you. If you have any other questions feel free to call or e-mail me back. Thanks for listening and for your interest in our music. We love it and have a lot of fun singing together! Happy 2010!"

Todd Horne
801.634.1834
todd@mountainblueharmony.com
http://www.mountainblueharmony.com/

If you share my love of acappella, Todd also recommends: Voice Male, Vocal Point, Noteworthy, and T Minus 5

Rocky Top, you'll always be home sweet home to me...good 'ole Rocky Top, Rocky Top Tenness... Ooops sorry, I..errr. got distracted...good 'ole Rocky Top...da da da da

Special Delivery: Answered Prayers

2010-01-18T01:19:00.000-08:00

"In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance. Let us open our eyes and see the heavy hearts, notice the loneliness and despair; let us feel the silent prayers of others around us, and let us be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to answer those prayers” (Dieter F. Uchtdorf “Happiness, Your Heritage,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2008, 119, 120).

I first heard this quote in December from my visiting teacher. (Visiting teaching is a program in my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, where the woman befriend and help one another through monthly visits and spiritual messages.) Along with the quote she shared a beautiful story about a woman that had been an answer to prayer for her. I don't have permission to share her story, it is one of those personal things you don't share publically. However, I read a wonderful representation of this quote in another blog. May I direct you to StorytellERDoc. While you are there, read a few other of his posts...have some tissue ready...his posts are guaranteed to make you laugh or cry.

Another example of someone whose life is an answer to other people's prayers is Morrie Schwartz. Like Gigi, I don't know him personally, but I read about him and was inspired through "Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom. [Am I the last person on the planet to read, "Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom? It has sold over 14 million copies and been translated into 41 languages.]

Because it is such a popular book, I won't take the time to give you full review here. I just want to say that I was so inspired by it. It touched me first because parts of it were an affirmation of things I already knew, but it was nice to hear it from someone else. Other parts of it were new, and some of it was just soul to soul touching wonderful.

I have to take a moment to talk about Mitch Albom. He is the writer I want to be when I grow up. His writing has a wonderful balance of being thought provoking and uplifting without being overly sweet or unrealistic. Admittedly, this is what I strive for in my own writing, though Mitch is better at it than I am. Besides Tuesdays With Morrie, I have also read his books For One More Day, and Five People You Meet In Heaven. I love and recommend them all. Have a Little Faith is next on my list, but first I have to read Tuesdays With Morrie again!

So there you have it. With Gigi and Morrie as my guides, my goal this year, this life is to be an answer to other people's prayers.

Not Tough Enough...more 7 yr old wisdom

2009-12-30T05:55:00.000-08:00

Recently, Brigham asked me why I take medication. I thought about the Coumadin, the pulmonary embolii (blood clots in the lungs), and Factor VIII (blood clotting disorder) and said, "Son, it's complicated." Can you blame me?

Well, Brigham did. Blamed me, I mean. He looked disgusted and said, "You know why grown ups say things are too complicated?"

Of course, I had to ask, "Why?" I am nothing if not curious.

"They say it's too complicated because they are not tough enough to answer the question that was asked."

Ouch! Not tough enough huh? He had me right where he wanted me, and yes I found a way to explain to him why I take the Coumadin, blood clots and all. After all was said and done, I was actually quite pleased with my explanation. Apparently he was pleased with it as well because he asked me to repeat the whole explanation again and again to his older siblings later.

A dear friend of mine used to have a plaque on her wall that said, "Parenting is not for wimps." So true. Being a parent stretches us in ways we could not possibly imagine when we are young and childless. Fortunately, just as I was able to find an answer to Brigham's question when I pushed myself a little more, as parents we find the inner reserves of strength when we are pushed to our imagined limits. So dear friends, when you feel like you are on the rack being stretched beyond your breaking point...know that you are not alone. Be tough. You are stronger than you know.

On Being in Charge of Yourself...a kid's philosophy of life

2009-12-22T14:05:00.001-08:00

After church last Sunday, my brood and I piled into the van. I noticed that my 13 yr old, Caleb, hadn't put on his seat belt so I said teasingly, "Son, I know that seat belts are 'cool', but neither is being dead."

My seven year old, Brigham, spoke up, "But Momma, then you get to go to Heaven." Uh oh, I've probably just scared him for life! Quickly I attempted to recover by telling him that yes Heaven is great but we don't want to go earlier than we are supposed to.

He pondered that and said, "Yeah, if you die young you can't get married, have kids, be in charge of yourself, or play video games."

Ok, the marraige and kids were givens, but "be in charge of yourself and play video games", where did that come from?

I've been thinking about that conversation. We can guess what "being in charge of yourself" means to a seven year old, but I couldn't help but wonder, will he be disappointed when he grows up? I mean do YOU feel in charge of yourself? Really? What would that look like for an adult? My first thought was to be free of fear. Or how about free of debt? Free from addiction? Can I ever feel in charge of myself while I am overweight???

Whew!!!

This is a lot to think about, perhaps I'll take a break and go play a video game. Maybe Brigham has the purpose of life right after all.

The Maze of Depression

2009-12-09T20:01:00.000-08:00

Not to long ago, I wrote about the Monster Under My Bed. I am happy to report that I have (for now) banished the monster. Banished? Befriended? Hmmm. Anyway, today I want to share a little about how I won that battle.

I guess I had been somewhat depressed since before I wrote that (ha, it is hard to admit it still), and this last week or so, the depression had gotten pretty bad. I kept telling myself that "happiness is a choice", and I really wanted to believe that it was. Yet, the depression felt like a maze and for a time I could not find my way out. I tried all the things that have worked in the past. The most helpful thing was, of course, prayer. I can't say enough about that, but that is a topic for another time. When we pray, God often helps us through other people and that is what I want to share today.

I am pleased to tell you that I found my way out of the maze. It wasn't easy. It is interesting how it happened. You know the cliche "misery loves company"? Well, it sounds terrible, but it is true. One of the things that helped was hearing other peoples struggles. Someone I know recently had a house fire. They were very close to losing not only their home but their lives. A short time before that, they had a scare, wherein one of their children almost died. Hearing her share the story with a group of moms I was with brought tears to my eyes even though I knew the little boy in question was alright. I felt full of compassion for what this family has been through, and at the same time, I felt strangely comforted. It was like I mentally put an arm around her and said, "Life sure is hard isn't it? I'm having a hard time too, but we'll both get through it." I feel a closeness to her just because she shared. Another day at a church party, a new friend shared a struggle her family had had. The topic came up very naturally in the conversation, but it made me feel a closeness to her as well. (Thanks Nicole and Anjanette) Some how in all this, I realized I needed to share too. It is unfortunate how reluctant we are to talk about depression, and yet talking is so helpful. Finally, I told my husband and a few friends that I was struggling. And slowly...with prayer, hearing other people's struggles and sharing my own, I found my way out of the maze.

Now back to enjoying Christmas! I hope Christmas is a joyous time for you, but if you find yourself lost in the maze, pray and share with a friend...I think it will help you both!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tradition...What shall we call Him?

2009-12-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

What shall we call Him? So often at Christmas time we hear the lament that people have forgotten the real meaning of Christmas. In an attempt to keep that message constantly before my children, and myself during this wonderfully busy time, I started a tradition of studying the names of the Savior. After all, when a couple is expecting a baby, they spend much time pondering a name, so what better way to celebrate our Savior's birth than to focus on His many names?

Good Samaritan

In my search to learn more about the names of Christ, I came across some wonderful surprises. Good Samaritan was one of them. BYU Professor, John Welch, enlightened me in a talk he gave about the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He begins, "This parable’s content is clearly practical and dramatic in its obvious meaning, but a time-honored Christian tradition also saw the parable as an impressive allegory of the Fall and Redemption of mankind.

“. . .The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord’s body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. … The manager of the [inn] is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior’s second coming.

"This allegorical reading was taught not only by ancient followers of Jesus, but it was virtually universal throughout early Christianity, being advocated by Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen, and in the fourth and fifth centuries by Chrysostom in Constantinople, Ambrose in Milan, and Augustine in North Africa. This interpretation is found most completely in two other medieval stained-glass windows, in the French cathedrals at Bourges and Sens."

Reading this article really opened the Parable of the Good Samaritan for me. I am strengthened when I picture myself as the traveler, hurt and broken, and the Lord, the Good Samaritan coming to bind up my wounds. It is easy to for me to imagine because He has bound up my wounds so many times before.

I highly recommend the entire article, “The Good Samaritan: Forgotten Symbols,” John W. Welch, Ensign, Feb 2007, 40–47 which you can find here.

And naturally finding these new truths in an old story, brings a question to my mind. . .what messages are hidden in the other parables, waiting for me when I am ready to receive them? There's a Christmas gift to "unwrap".

"It's a Wonderful Life"

2009-11-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

I know that some of you are not ready to talk about Christmas yet, but I can't help myself! I love Christmas and I like to start early to make it last as long as possible!

My favorite Christmas movie, my favorite all around movie actually, is the classic "It's a Wonderful Life". Who can resist this wonderful film about loveable George Bailey who wants to be a world traveler but is foiled in his plans time and again. After a particularly bad turn of events he even contemplates suicide. Enter Clarence, the bumbling angel, to show him what the world would be like if he had never been born. The number of lives he had touched is amazing. As you know, he pleads to go back when he sees what a large "hole" is left without him.

I can relate to George's frustration as time after time hardships prevent him from accomplishing his dreams. Please don't misunderstand me. I always wanted to be a wife and mother, and I am. I love that part of my life. My frustrations are in the things that keep me from being the kind of mother I want to be i.e. working and health issues. Another frustration is my bike riding. I have written about how much I love riding my bike, but right now that feels like a distant dream. Because of health issues (blood clots in my lungs), I have missed a few weeks on the bike. About a month ago I could ride 12 miles pretty comfortably, and last Saturday, I struggled to do four, ack. I feel like George when he took that wooden knob from the staircase and almost threw it. I want to gather up my problems and throw them at the walls that hem me in.

I believe most of us feel this way from time to time. Just last night a co-worker was expressing a similar frustration with her life. I wonder if that is what makes this movie such a well-loved classic. Could it be that many of us can relate to the frustration, and discouragement of lost dreams and wishes? Do we long to know that our lives have meaning and purpose even when they are not following our plans? Isn't it a wonderful thought that someone's life may have been touched because you were there?

Unfortuantely, no angel will come and show us the lives that we have made a difference in, but perhaps we could be a "Clarence" for someone else. We could write a letter, or make a phone call and let someone know that our life is better because they were there for us. I can't think of a better Christmas present.

Blue Footed Booby

2009-11-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

"Inside of me is a Blue Footed Booby"

Perhaps it was sleep deprivation, perhaps I'm just crazy, we'll never know for sure.

This morning my son, Ammon, told me he had done a quiz on Facebook with this result "inside of you is a Blue Footed Booby." I laughed so hard and threatened to make him a sweatshirt proclaiming this new discovery. And then, I did! He vows that he will not wear it. . .

With Christmas rapidly approaching, you may be searching for a present for the hard to shop for person. If so you might want to make a personalized sweatshirt too! I found a site that has no "minimum order". It is really easy to use, and best of all, reasonably priced! Check it out!

http://www.efollettgreek.com/creatyourown3.html

More Christmas shopping suggestions to come. I love Christmas. I love shopping. Life is good!

Check it out...Sumo Ride

2009-11-03T11:13:00.002-08:00

I can't NOT share this with you. Too funny! (Sorry the link doesn't work any more...it was linked to a news article showing a picture of several bicyclists riding their bikes in sumo wrestler suits.) Oh! Found a new link, I think this one will last longer. Sumo Ride

All I can say is great minds think alike.