trauma

I was wronged.

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

In November 2014, my nurse practitioner called an ambulance to her office to have me escorted to the hospital for suicidal ideation. No one in my family was told the real reason why I was going – I said I was having tests done and to please leave me alone. Despite my mother’s endless calls to the office to find out information, my nurse practitioner revealed nothing. It made my mother so angry that she actually became threatening. Fortunately, my nurse practitioner knew that my mother was my abuser and saw right through her bullshit and kept my privacy intact.

My experience in the hospital, however, was a different story. Before I even made it to the psychiatric floor, my mother already knew I was admitted to the hospital and to which exact psychiatric unit. She had already placed several calls before I even got there. I did not want my family to know where I was. I needed to feel safe more than ever, and that was taken away from me.

My mother continued to call the hospital dozens of times a day, despite my outright denial to speak to her. Some of the nurses provided her with information on my status. This was after I made it clear that I wanted my family to have no information about me. I was 28 years old and a fully capable adult. My emergency contact was someone who maintained no contact with my family, and I instructed the staff that any issues concerning my care should go through that person and no one else. The social workers and nurses were aware that my mother was my abuser – I was open about that during our initial meeting the day after I was admitted. Yet still, my mother was allowed to call and allowed to gather information about me. The hospital would not release me unless my parents picked me up. They literally sent me right back into the hands of my abusers.

The same issues (and then some) occurred in my subsequent hospitalizations. The second time I was hospitalized, I admitted myself. I took a cab to the emergency room after work without telling anyone where I was going. As I laid on a bed in the hallway of the ER, I saw my parents approaching the front desk. I started to panic and asked the watcher if I could hide, but obviously I couldn’t. Within minutes, I saw my mother approaching my bed from the other side of the hallway. I turned towards the wall and hid myself in the sheet, refusing to talk, and struggling to catch my breath from the panic attack I was having. My parents continued to talk and I continued to ignore them, banging my head against the wall to make them go away. After a few minutes, I felt the anger in my father’s voice when he told me “I don’t know why you are doing this to us” and then walked away.

During that whole time, I just wanted someone to make them go away. Why did they tell my parents where I was in the first place? Why did I have no right to privacy or confidentiality? I wanted the watcher or the nurse to see my panic, to sense my pain, but no one noticed. Once again, when I needed to feel safe, that was taken away from me.

As my second hospitalization ended, I was released at night and the nurse called a taxi so I could get home. Freedom. I contemplated going to a motel, but I still had so much fear inside and ended up going home. As I walked up the last landing before our apartment, I could hear my parents arguing. Apparently my mother found out that I left during one of her many calls. My parents were furious. I could hear my father screaming that there would be no more secrets in his house. There was so much irony in that statement, since my whole existence and our family’s existence was built on secrets. He just didn’t like it when HE didn’t know something.

I knew as I unlocked the door that night, that I would be walking into a shitstorm. I wish so badly I would have gone to a hotel instead. I wonder if I would have been able to escape the pain and the heartbreak that continued for months after until I finally moved away. I wonder if I could have avoided that third hospitalization had I just not gone home that night and ran away forever.

I feel like I was wronged. The hospital continually violated my privacy and put me at risk by allowing my abusers access to me and to my information. Why is there an automatic assumption that, because someone is family, that he or she is a safe person and should be given access to information? Something isn’t right here, and I can’t be the only one who this has happened to.

If I was a minor when I was hospitalized, my mother would have never been given access once I revealed her as my abuser. People don’t realize that child abuse continues into adulthood. They didn’t see the severity of my situation. They only made it worse by handing me right back over to them, again and again. I will admit, my social worker was concerned about sending me back to them – but her hands were tied. There is no help for adult victims of continued child abuse. We continue to be abused by our families as well as the system.

I’ve been failed. We’ve been failed. Something needs to change.

The ongoing battle: Why I deny my DID and why I know that I have it

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I’d like to think that, as I am now six months into my official dissociative identity disorder diagnosis, I wouldn’t still be struggling with accepting that I have DID. But the truth is that I still have doubts. Some mornings I wake up in complete denial. I try to rationalize my denial my pointing out the differences between myself and others with DID I’ve come across, even though I know full well that the dissociative spectrum is so diverse that no one’s DID is the same as another person’s. Yet I still try to convince myself that this all just a misunderstanding.

Reasons I use to tell myself I don’t have DID (note that I am not saying any of this is true for all people with DID – these are my irrational rationalizations):

Medication: I am not taking any psychotropic medications, and I haven’t since September. Every person I’ve ever come across with DID (and mental illness in general) takes at LEAST one psychotropic medication. I tell myself that since I am functioning without medication, I must not be ill at all.

Functioning: I function decently well. I’ve held jobs (and excelled at them), I’ve always been one of the highest achievers in my class (from elementary school through college), and I am able to live independently without assistance from anyone. I know many others with DID are not that fortunate. They are unable to hold jobs, unable to focus or stay present long enough to manage an education, and many are in supportive living.

No inner world: In my reading and through my participation in DID support groups, I’ve come across so many people speak of an inner world that they can actually picture inside of their minds – filled with different rooms and places for alters to go. I don’t have that. I find it difficult to imagine having that.

Trauma: This is difficult for to me admit, as I would tell a client to never compare his or her pain to another person’s. Yet I find myself regularly comparing my trauma to other people’s traumas, insisting that my experiences are minor in comparison to what other people have gone through. I tell myself I don’t have DID because what I went through just wasn’t that bad.

Lack of alter involvement: I realize in typing this out that it is one big oxymoron, because admitting that my alters exist actually supports my DID diagnosis. Many of my DID friends have actively participating alters: alters that use the computer and social media as themselves, alters that perform certain life tasks, etc. None of my alters use the computer (that I know of). None of them have their own accounts. As far as I’ve realized, I’m the one putting the work into daily tasks, not any of my alters.

Memory: Although I don’t remember everything, I do have memories of quite a few traumatic experiences I have endured. I tell myself that if I really had DID, I would have dissociated during these events and blocked them out from my memory. Why didn’t I dissociate all of the time?

Reasons I use to counteract my denial:

Medication: Funny how I use this both as a tool for denial and a tool for acceptance. The fact that psychotropic medications don’t affect me actually supports a dissociative diagnosis. DID cannot be treated with medication. The symptoms that may coincide, such as depression and anxiety, can be treated with medication, but DID itself must be treated through therapy. It explains why anti-depressants never helped me, and why even the strongest anti-psychotics never stopped the voices in my head.

Outsiders have met my insiders: When I told a good friend about my DID, there was no sense of shock or surprise. In fact, my friend had suspected something long before I even realized it. When I asked why he never said anything to me, he said it didn’t matter to him – it was just who I was. I even found out he had met one of my younger parts. My therapist has also met several of my parts, even before they were comfortable enough to come out to me.

Recognizing differences: Two weeks ago, I had a disagreement with a coworker. We were discussing an issue with boxes that needed to be shipped out, and I insisted that I didn’t pack and label the boxes. I couldn’t recognize my own handwriting. As I stood there vehemently denying that these boxes were mine, my coworker reminded me that I was the only one who knew how to do it, and no one else would have written those labels out. He was right. It could have only been me. But that was not my handwriting. Someone else had taken over for me, and it wasn’t the first time. Over the years, I have come across many notes that were not in my usual handwriting, but I knew that they must have been written by me. These differences are never subtle, either.

Ending up with things I don’t remember buying (or liking): I’ve been known to carry around a pink and white polka dot bookbag. My therapist commented on it once, and I mentioned how I hated the color pink. And then she asked me why I had a pink bag. Truthfully, I don’t even remember buying it. I don’t remember buying a lot of things I end up with.

The voices in my head: I can’t ignore it. Hearing voices is not normal. Yet I’ve heard them for years. Sometimes I can understand what they are saying, and sometimes I can’t. Medication doesn’t make them go away because they are parts of me. They are not auditory hallucinations. They are my alters.

Memories: There are entire chunks of my life missing from my memory. Sometimes I can’t remember what I did last week or what happened in therapy. These are clear indications of dissociation. When I am present, my memory is exceptional. There is no other reason for my memory to be that shitty, even with the drugs and alcohol I’ve taken in the past.

Trauma: This is another dual-purpose tool for both denial and acceptance. I know through my research and involvement with other survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse that the incidence of DID seems to be much higher with survivors of this type of abuse, so inevitably my risk is higher. I also endured physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse by both of my parents, increasing my risk factor for developing DID even more. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I had a traumatic childhood and early adulthood. Saying that my life was fine won’t change the fact that it really wasn’t.

As I sat in therapy last week and insisted that I never went through any trauma, my therapist reminded me that that just wasn’t the truth. She told me that if I continued to deny my experiences, I was also denying everything that my parts went through, all of the trauma they endured. It’s not just about me; it’s about them, too. I realized that I was doing the same thing to my parts that other people had done to me: denying the reality of my/our experiences.

Sure, I wish I didn’t have DID. No one wants DID and all of the shit it comes with. But for every reason I come up with to support my denial, there are even more reasons that support my diagnosis. I can try to maintain my dissonance, but that will never work in the long run. Maybe one day I won’t have to fight myself anymore on this issue. We’ve done enough fighting already.

Silenced in shame

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

I tend to be a very open person. I tell my therapist nearly everything on my mind and in my heart, good and bad, happy and sad. I’ve shared my thoughts and experiences with others by writing this blog.

But something came about last week that I could not talk or write about. The memories left me confused, angry, and ashamed. I hated myself. I hated the world. And I couldn’t tell anyone about it because I feared that would only make it worse.

When I went to my therapy session on Thursday, I tried to deflect talking about everything I was feeling by denying everything. And by everything, I mean everything. I told my therapist I had a good life, no trauma, and no problems. I didn’t want to deal with any of this shit anymore. But denying it doesn’t make it go away. I could’ve said I had a good life until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that I was seething on the inside.

I finally admitted to my therapist that I was full of anger, but I could not tell her why. It’s not that I didn’t know; it’s that I didn’t want to talk about it. She traced back the last few days trying to pinpoint when and where my feelings originated. I went over each minor detail of my life starting with Thursday morning and working backwards. Eventually I muttered “I checked Facebook.” That was when it all began.

I didn’t expect to feel anything when I checked Facebook that time. Then, I read a status that came up in my Facebook memories from six years ago about being admitted to the hospital. I instantly realized what happened in the days after I wrote that status. I felt as if I were right back in 2010, going through it all again.

My therapist asked me what happened and I burst into tears. All of emotions came pouring out and I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t even tell her all that happened. I told her that I cried for help and no one helped me. No one knew what had just gone on just minutes before the nurse came in my room. No one could translate my cries of desperation. No one could feel the pain I was in, the disgust and shame I was filled with. No one. I was completely helpless. I was entirely ashamed.

I remember laying in my hospital bed day after day just wanting to go. I couldn’t even eat. The numerous visits from nutritionists could not take away the sickness that was eating away at me from the inside. I was so disgusted with myself. I felt so unclean. I couldn’t shower for weeks, which only magnified how gross I felt. I wanted to scrub away the dirty. But no shower would have been enough. Nothing would have been enough.

It was at that point, after that incident, that I realized that nothing would ever stop my mother. She was sick; sicker than I had ever imagined. In my most helpless state, she took complete advantage of me, all the while putting on an Academy award-worthy performance of a concerned mother. No one knew how badly I needed to be protected from her. Instead, they inadvertently helped her terrorize me. I was completely alone. Despite the numerous flowers and gifts, and visits from coworkers and friends, I felt isolated and alone. Physically, my heart was trying to give out on me. Emotionally, my heart was already dead.

Despite my realization that my mother was (and still is) sick, I blame myself for what happened. I could have told her to stop. I could have gotten away. I could have told the nurses. But I didn’t do any of that. I let it happen. That’s all I could tell my therapist. I let it happen. As if I could have done anything to stop her. I had an oxygen mask, a heart monitor, and numerous IVs, but yet I expected myself to, in some way, fight back or resist; something I had never done before when I was in much better physical condition.

My therapist reassured me that there was no way I could have stopped her. I did what I could in that moment. It wasn’t my fault. But part of me was still angry. Part of me was still disgusted and ashamed. I left session that day wanting to destroy the world. All of that anger I was holding on to for so long was trying to get out.

But I couldn’t direct it at my mother. So I directed it at the branches I passed by on my walk home; the branches I ripped out from the bushes and broke into pieces, much in the same way I felt my heart had been ripped out and broken into pieces. I smoked, but not even 100 cigarettes wouldn’t calm me down. I drank, but no amount of alcohol would wash away my disgust.

It was only in today’s session, nearly a week after my memories and feelings resurfaced, that I was able to tell my therapist a piece of what happened to me that day. I still find myself overwhelmed with shame. I still fear that other people would not understand. I still fear that other people would think it was my fault. My therapist asked if there was anything she could do to lessen the shame. But I don’t know. As much as I know I need to talk about it, I can’t. Not even to the person I trust the most. I remained silenced in shame.

Pardon me while I rant

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

There’s been a story going around on social media about a woman who makes her son take her out on a dinner date and pay as a way of showing her son how to treat a woman.

The story bothers me for a few reasons. One, I don’t think it’s right to impose expectations of sexuality on a young child. She is telling her son he has to grow up and take women out on proper dates. What if he doesn’t want to date women? What if he is gay, or even asexual? She’s not giving him that option; only that he must date women and treat them this certain way.

I could go on. But what bothers me the most about this story (and others) is that focus is centered on teaching boys how to respect women. We don’t teach girls how to respect men. Instead, we teach them what to expect from a man, as if they deserve something greater just for being female. Respect is not gender-specific. We should be teaching children to respect other people, regardless of their gender.

Most people ignore the fact that just as many women perpetrate domestic violence against men as men do against women. Or they say that men are stronger, so their violence is obviously much worse than what a woman could do.

This sentiment makes me want to put my head through a wall. Yes, I’ll agree that in general, men have the capacity to be physically stronger because they can develop more muscle mass. It doesn’t mean they all are. And it doesn’t mean that women are weak little creatures that couldn’t hurt a soul. I can easily overpower most of the men I come into contact with on a regular basis, and I (unfortunately) have before.

I watched my mother beat my father. I watched her hit my brother. I, too, was a target of her violence more times than I could count. It doesn’t take much strength to stab someone, to set them on fire, to beat them with a hammer, or to shoot them with a gun. My mother used her hands, paddles, pans, or even rolled up magazines if she was desperate (though those were mostly for beating the cats and the occasional whack to the face). She wasn’t gentle. She caused damage. My mother is not a fit person by any means. She hadn’t exercised in all the years I knew her. But she hurt. Just as badly as any man would hurt. Angry people like her find strength wherever they can pull it from. She didn’t need a penis.

Outside of my family, I’ve come to know many male victims of female-perpetrated violence. Very few of them ever admit in public what happened to them. Why? Because of that sentiment I mentioned earlier. Men are strong. You can take it. It was a woman. It couldn’t have been that bad. Suck it up. You’re just a wuss. Meanwhile they suffer in silence, not only from the physical damage, but from the psychological damage initially caused by the female attacker and perpetuated by society’s gender-biased views.

This exact sentiment and attitude pours over into female-perpetrated sexual abuse. It was a woman? It couldn’t have been that bad! I bet you enjoyed it! She was probably gentle. Women don’t do that. You just misunderstood. It couldn’t have hurt. You should feel lucky. I could go on, but I don’t have to. If you don’t get it by now, you won’t get it at all.

I can only speak of my own hurt from my experiences opening up about the abuse from my mother. Some therapists ignored it entirely. Other therapists outright denied my experiences as abuse. “She’s your mom and she cares about you, you’re just misunderstanding everything.” Yep. That’s it. I just misunderstood. All mothers should bathe their children into double digits and have special nighttime sessions. My bad. If I said it was a man doing it, or my father, EVERYONE would say “that’s abuse!” before I’d even finish my sentence. But for some reason, when a woman is involved, people automatically jump to the gentle, nurturing view of women and deny the legitimacy of the abuse. It was aggravating, disheartening, and saddening to have my reality denied by other people for years. I can’t even begin to imagine how others, including men, feel when their experiences are denied.

Woman continue to get away with domestic violence and abuse because of the attitude that women are weaker, more gentle, and less violent. I am telling you now that women are just as fucked up as men are. Stop letting women get away with crimes that any man would be imprisoned for years for. Stop making victims feel ashamed for being victims of :gasp: a woman. It happens. Let’s acknowledge it. Let’s deal with it accordingly. Because if we continue to teach girls what to expect from others, they will continue to feel entitled to things they don’t necessarily deserve. And if we don’t teach boys AND girls respect, women will continue to think they can get away with whatever they want to because they are a woman.

Perhaps I should have been a man, because women are going to hate me for this and see me as anti-woman. I am not. I am for equality.

Is it over yet?

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

The stress of the holidays is starting to sink in, and I just want December to be over with already.

As I sat and waited for the bus earlier today, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to smoke a cigarette. I haven’t picked up a cigarette in months. I miss the way it calms my nerves. I don’t miss the damage it does to my already damaged lungs.

I had my therapy session today. I was on edge because I will be missing the next few sessions due to the holiday and scheduling conflicts. I have never gone without therapy for that long since I’ve moved here, and I’m scared.

I shared some of my more recent Christmas experiences with my therapist, what my mother did and how she reacted. My mother turned everything around and made herself the victim and me the offender. My therapist called it gaslighting – a term I have heard before. At the time, it was difficult for me to see her behavior for what it was. Now, I understand it more clearly. It still angers me.

I’ve been having trouble with intrusive memories and flashbacks during the last few days. I think I inadvertently triggered myself with last week’s focus on gifts. It was a memory I never had before. I don’t even want to bring it up for fear of going through it again. I told my therapist the details of the memory and I could feel myself slipping a little. Even though on an intellectual level, I know that gifts aren’t meant to be taken back and aren’t meant to be a tool to use someone, there is still someone inside that is scared that it is going to happen again. My therapist said I wouldn’t have to worry about that happening anymore.

At this time, I was still on shaky ground and I started to lose focus on what my therapist was saying. All I could hear were the cries of a child asking if mommy was coming back and I started to lose it. My therapist could tell I was struggling to stay present and asked if it would be better to talk about my organization. I couldn’t even answer her right away. All I could say was “I can’t deal with this right now” and try to bury my head in my sweatshirt.

My therapist asked me what was going on and I told her what was happening inside. She walked me through explaining that we were safe now and that I was trying to protect everyone. I tried so hard not to break down and cry. I have a such a difficult time when it comes to the littles. I’m not good at being a parent. I’m not good at soothing younger parts because the whole concept is foreign to me. After a few minutes of my therapist trying to calm us down, the crying stopped and I was able to focus again.

I’m not looking forward to the next week. None of my parts are on the same page. Christmas is traumatic for some of us. Some of us don’t understand why we’re not home. Some of us are excited and want to do Christmas-y things. I just want to bury my head in the sand until Christmas is over.

I wish other people would understand why I am so back-and-forth about Christmas. I really just want to stay in my room the whole day and sleep. I don’t have a family now, and I don’t want to pretend to be someone else’s family. I don’t want to have any more flashbacks. I don’t want to fear checking the mail and finding a Christmas card from my family.

Christmas isn’t joyful for me. It’s terrifying.

Gifts

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Gifts are complicated for me.

When I was younger, my mother would give me gifts and end up taking them away or destroying them soon after. I honestly believe that her intention each time was to leave me with nothing. It was like she was playing mind games with me. If I didn’t seem grateful enough, if I didn’t do something right, there went the “gift”. Bad girls don’t deserve nice things.

My mother continued that practice into my adulthood, except she would take away the gifts that other people would give me. It was always that I didn’t need it, or didn’t deserve it. Sometimes she even had the nerve to tell me I didn’t want the gift, and that’s why she took it. Everything was always about her.

One Christmas, my mother bought me clothes – sweatshirts, a jacket, shirts, pants – all in Men’s size 5XL. While I admit I was (and still am) overweight, I was nowhere near that size. I told her that none of the clothes were in my size, and she said “oh, just try them on. I’m sure they fit.” Yea, they’d fit two of me. When I told her I didn’t want them, she went on a tirade and started crying about how much I hated her.

Last Christmas was probably the most difficult for me. While the sexual abuse had stopped for months at this point, my mother continued to find subtle ways to remind me. She did it at first by showing me the shower picture. She continued it at Christmas by gifting me underwear, bras, and lingerie.

She wrapped them all just like they were any other Christmas gifts. I felt sick once I opened them and realized what they were. Even worse was that they were the correct size. My mother had no knowledge of my size, especially my bra size. She had gone through my drawers. I felt like my privacy was invaded, even though I knew privacy didn’t exist in our household. My mother knew no boundaries. I think she knew how it made me feel, how sick it made me. That’s why she did it. If she couldn’t abuse me anymore, she was just going to find other ways to get to me. And it worked.

Despite my shitty experiences with gifting, I really enjoyed picking out (or making) gifts for people, gifts with meaning and purpose. One Christmas, I bought gifts for all of my coworkers, even the ones I wasn’t very close to. Every gift had a reason behind it. I bought a 12-pack of diet coke for my manager who loved to drink it. I bought the human resource person two packages of Oreos because they were her favorite food. Small things, sure, but every gift was wrapped and adorned with decorative bows to make it special.

As I handed the customer service woman her gift, she started to cry. Confused, I started to apologize to her, thinking I had offended her in some way. She hugged me and thanked me through tears as she told me that no one had ever thought of her at Christmas before. She hadn’t even opened her gift yet and was already grateful. It was (and still is) a reminder for me that even small gestures can make a world of difference for another person.

My joy soon turned to frustration when I came home later that day and had to deal with my mother’s never-ending sense of entitlement.

“I hope you are as generous to your own family as you were to all these people at work. They don’t do anything for you. I give you everything. What do I get for it?”

I was quickly reminded of how obsessive my mother was about gifting. She believed that she should receive a gift for every occasion. I never wanted to give her a gift. I hated her. But if I didn’t, I’d get in trouble, even as an adult. I had to swallow my pride and get her something just to avoid further pain. And I couldn’t just get her something small. It had to be something good enough to meet her standards.

My mother made similar demands when it came to giving gifts to my brother. She was always on top of me in the weeks before my brother’s birthday, making sure that I bought him an adequate gift, telling me all of the things he wanted. If I told her I couldn’t afford any of those things, she’d tell me to find a way.

“If you didn’t buy so much for yourself, you would have enough for the people that matter.”

In her mind, gifts were associated with how much a person mattered. It made sense. It’s probably why she never demanded that I get my father any gifts; she treated him with disdain. It’s probably why she showered my brother with expensive gifts, gifts she couldn’t afford but bought anyway. Me? It was obvious I didn’t matter. Whenever my birthday came around, all I got were a bunch of excuses.

“Oh, I don’t have any money this week. I’ll get you something in a month or two.”

A month or two never happened. Despite her financial difficulties, she always found enough money to buy herself whatever she wanted. But when it came to me or my father, she was broke. There was no sense of celebration for my birthday. I was lucky for a few years and managed to find a birthday card thrown on my desk when I got home from work. No special message, just a cheap birthday card and a signature. There was no thoughtfulness. There was no love. It was merely an act to say she did something.

The last couple of years, I started to stand up for myself and refused to get gifts for people I cared nothing about. I dealt with the backlash. I dealt with my mother’s verbal assaults, all the horrible things she would say about me and the names she would call me. At times, it got physical. One time, she found out that I bought my best friend at work a Mother’s Day gift and she went on a rampage that ended with me in tears. I had to beg my friend not to tell my mother about anything I bought anymore.

Of course, my mother used that situation as a way to get people on her side, telling people that I bought this other woman a gift but wouldn’t even get anything for my own mother, how it breaks her heart and she just doesn’t understand why I hated her so. She was so manipulative, and people actually fell for it.

I am actually a little relieved that this is the first year that I won’t have to deal with any of the drama. I briefly thought about mailing my family a bill for my therapy (anonymously, of course). I’m not even sure that they are worth the effort of licking the envelope. Then there is a company that allows you to anonymously mail shit (literally) to anyone in the world. Some parts of me would thoroughly enjoy doing that, but I know it won’t serve a purpose in the end.

I did want to do something for my therapist. While I was browsing the local book store last week, I came across the same coloring book that I received a couple months back at a group therapy session.  I was in a bad place emotionally at that time and I made some apparently frightening color choices. It was a page with the word ‘HOPE’ in big letters, surrounded by flowers and a bird. I colored hope black, and scribbled over the rest. Both therapists noticed. Back then, I had no hope. It was dead.

I bought the coloring book. This time, there was no black. I colored in each flower with bright colors. I even colored the background sky blue, and colored hope white – the complete opposite of what I had colored just months before. I bought a basic frame and put my new art in it. After my therapy session today, I told my therapist I made her something. I preempted it with saying that it was kind of lame and that my coloring skills needed work. I handed it to her. I told her I have hope now. And that’s the truth.
It was the best gift I have ever given.

Change the world

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

It’s been emotional these last few days.

I think the reality of everything has finally started to sink in.

I realized that I have people here that really care about me. My team at work congratulated me when they found out the news of my grad school acceptance. My work buddy kept saying how proud of me he was and I had to tell him to shut up before I started crying. Fortunately, he doesn’t take my (at times) harsh responses personally.

My roommate took me out to dinner last night to celebrate. I tried some new foods and stepped out of my comfort zone a little. She started to say all these good things about me and I tried to get her to shut up. I need to work on accepting compliments more. I’m improving in some ways because I’m no longer countering every compliment with an excuse as to why it’s wrong, but I’m still uncomfortable receiving positive feedback in general.

I had my usual Thursday therapy session today. When I arrived, I set my bag down and the other therapist came out to see me. She asked if she could talk to me for a few minutes. I was scared and anxious but I followed her into her office and sat down. My therapist came in and sat down on a chair next to me, and the other therapist on the opposite side of me.

She reached for something on her desk and handed it to me. It was a bag filled with makeup. While that may seem random, I was stressing out last week because I realized that I didn’t own any makeup to wear for the interview (the few products I had were ruined months ago when a bottle of acetone leaked). Now I might actually wear makeup once in awhile.

Then she handed me a book: What Do You Do With an Idea. It’s a book that I read once before after a particularly difficult therapy session months ago. She told me that her and my therapist had written some things on the back page. I turned the book around and opened up to the last page to see what was written. One message stood out to me the most:

“With your brave and tender heart and your exceptional mind, I know that you will change the world. I believe in you.”

I’m going to change the world? This was written by the very woman who played such a huge role in changing my world, and in changing the lives of so many survivors. For her to think so highly of my ability to do anything is mind-blowing to me.

I started to cry. They both told me how proud of me they were, how amazed they were at how far I’ve come in the five months I’ve been away. I was trying to take it all in, but I was also so focused on trying to stop crying. I can’t even identify all of how I felt in that moment. I felt safe, appreciated, and cared for. I felt like I was really at home (and not in a physical building sense). We had a group hug, and at that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay.

I don’t think I can change the world. I wish I could. All I can do is try my best to effect change in others, and hopefully somewhere down the line the world will change for the better.

It wasn’t their fault

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

I used to hold a lot of anger against the people in my life that did not help me. Then I realized that was a lot of anger to hold onto, and a lot of people to be angry at.

There have been a lot of people throughout my childhood that failed to act when they should have, or they acted in a way that just made my situation worse.

My elementary school teacher severely underreacted concerning my sexual inappropriateness. I don’t have to tell you how that went over. Knowing what I know now, I don’t think my teacher’s response was appropriate.

Perhaps if someone had intervened, I could have been rescued. Then again, who would believe that a child was being sexually abused by her own mother? In the 90s, mother-daughter sexual abuse was just beginning to be studied. I was so programmed, I doubt I would have had the courage to tell the truth.

Then there were all of the teachers and guidance counselors who I begged not to talk to my parents, the ones I expressed fears of going home to, the ones who didn’t really know how to respond. No one ever got involved. No one questioned why I regularly peed my pants throughout elementary, middle, and high school.

The doctors and nurses never picked up on my panic whenever my mother was in the same room. They saw my unwillingness to be examined as just being shy rather than my feelings of fear and disgust. They never questioned why I seemed to have a UTI at every physical.

Family members either never realized what was going on, or chose to remain ignorant. My parents were very skilled at appearing somewhat normal, so I don’t blame people for not noticing, or not being 100% sure what was going on.

Was I that good at hiding the signs? I doubt it. Looking back on the times I remember, I think there were multiple instances in which something should have been reported. But nothing ever was. I continued to endure the pain and people continued to turn away. Maybe they were confused. Maybe they didn’t know it could happen. I don’t know.

But none of this matters now. I can’t change what happened to me. I can’t continue to hold on to the anger I have felt towards these people for so long. I hope they never feel like they were at fault; I hope they never feel guilty. It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t my fault. It was my mother’s fault, and it was my father’s fault.

I can only use my experiences to initiate change. No child should have to endure abuse. The signs should not be ignored as they were in my case. People should not be afraid to report their suspicions. Ignoring it does not make it go away.