How is God real to me? It sounds like an odd question to ask, maybe *gasp* like something a seeker friendly church would have a little pamphlet on. I can't help any similarities there may be. I must remind myself that God cares and look for those ways He shows himself to be real, not just a far off God who doesn't hear. I can't reconcile my pleading prayers when I was being abused and His apparent deafness, to the teaching that God is present and hears our prayers and loves us. When I try to think through both things I get trapped in a loop of flashbacks. It's not a good place to be.
What I can do is to look for God's hands in my life today and then in the more recent past. If I go back too much farther; I run into problems, big ones like: does God love me, did he love me back then, what about protection, is God really good, how sovereign is he anyway, and God was present but did nothing. The way I can skip over those type of questions is for me to look at all the evil in the world being done to people of all ages and then remind myself that I'm nothing special to rate some divine protection. There are Christians being murdered and abused for their faith. I had it pretty easy in comparison. Somehow I'm not sure this is the way to handle it. It ends up with me viewing God as a distant and uncaring God who is big into consequences. So then I'm back to completely ignoring my own past, beyond the last few years, and disregarding today's present persecution of Christians unless I put it into a "suffering for Christ" category.
Today I look for God's caring in my life. I see it in the meals brought to us by families in our church; in the freshly mowed grass because all of our mowers are broken and my husband now works out of town; in the concern being shown to us as one of our children is suffering from head trauma; texts, phone calls, getting together to just talk; in so many kindnesses big and small; and the fact that I can't disappear from church or blend into the background because I have become a part of this body. All this and so much more are evidences to me that God cares. I see it through the tangible touch and actions of Christians who are God's arms around me in difficult times, in times of change and in the mundane of everyday life.
Another aspect of God that I see is that of Him working in me to change in a myriad of ways. Something is said repeatedly over a long period of time in many different ways and places until one day I hear it again but now it is accompanied by that uneasy feeling of guilt. It's a different sort of guilt than the one that goes along with being abused. It's one that causes you to realize this is talking about me and this is my sin. To avoid dealing with this sin guilt is not a good thing. Slowly my eyes and ears are being opened. I'm sure this is God at work showing me what needs to be confessed and repented of. Easier said than done, though.
God is becoming more real to me through His church, specifically and mainly the church I'm a member of. I'm thankful for mp3 players, blogs, facebook posts, email, texting, and twitter. All this tech provides more ways for me to hear again what God is trying to tell me. It doesn't sink in the first time around I hear it in a worship service or in counseling. God is patient with me and I've seen His gentleness towards me in the last two years. I can be in church now and rarely dissociate anymore, and the triggers are seldom a problem. A lot has changed in the last six months from what my church experiences were two years ago or one year ago. May God continue His work.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Can I Tell My Story, Uncensored? Should I?
What is the importance of telling your story? I mean really telling it, from beginning to end. The last time I attempted to do that was in the last couple of years and it was only the highlights, if you will, of a life time of smaller hurts and also of ongoing effects of childhood sexual abuse which still affect me today. The statement that counselor made to me was that any one of these events would be enough to cause PTSD in someone. For two or three, one hour sessions I briefly ran down the list without too much detail. From the confident woman I first met, this counselor changed before my eyes into someone who seemed to be afraid to hear the next thing that would come from my mouth. My trauma was causing her pain in some way. I didn't understand how she could feel my pain. All I knew was that she was having serious problems with hearing my bare bones story. I felt bad to be hurting her, so I didn't go back. My story remained untold.
Lately I've been googling, trying to find out if telling it in story form is a good thing, necessary or just a nice sounding way of wallowing in the past. When I think of NOT telling my story as a whole, instead of in disconnected pieces; then a whole host of statements made to me by my abuser start playing in a continuous loop, joined by all the other not-helpful things people("friends", counselors, pastors, police officers and lawyers and toss in one ignorant doctor) have said to me over the years. I often feel as disconnected as the way in which I've told my story to my pastor/counselor. In the beginning he told me I didn't have to tell him everything about the actual abuse, so I didn't. Along the way I disclosed small snapshots of what happened when I was abused. I tested him at every turn, waiting for the words, "I can't help you. You need to find another counselor." Instead he keeps on telling me that he's in it for the long haul. I believe him now.
In spite of a non linear telling of events and staying focused, more on the effects of the abuse in my life today than a upfront factual retelling of the abuse, my pastor/counselor has the basic gist of what happened. There is a bit of a problem with adequately addressing guilt and shame, since I've only barely brushed on those immensely shaming aspects of the abuse, in all the many hours of counseling over the last 18 months. I don't know how to go there, or if I should go there. It's pretty explicit because that's part of the story, and to sanitize what happened so its a little more palatable seems like its minimizing what really happened. I lived through it. No one sanitized it for me. No one dimmed the horror by skipping what I couldn't handle. Not one person has heard it all. In order to cushion the blows my words have become to my hearer, I always skip around as I speak of the sexual abuse in counseling. Past counselors have either been deeply affected to the point that they can't help me or have done other odd things that moved the focus from my abuser like: attempting to convince me it was a different person who abused me; or that my "real" problem was something besides the sexual abuse. To a point, it has been a necessary cushioning of it for me too, yet I'm also acutely aware of my edits and deliberate minimizing of the abuse in order to talk about it and not harm or scare off another counselor. There are times I don't say things because I'm sitting there contemplating whether or not bringing up certain aspects of events would be too explicit; and therefore would bring down some sort of rebuke for a gratuitous recounting of things about the abuse or its long term effects that didn't need to be said.
This fear of rejection runs in me so strongly that I can't think reasonably about the chances of such a rebuke occurring. Technically, rejection of me as a person, and not listening to the details of my story are not the same thing. In my mind I know this, but the part of me which fear controls can't make that distinction. Crawling under a rock and face hiding shame dominates my thinking and instinctive self protective behaviour. I would contaminate another person by going into the shame filled details. Why wouldn't anyone not look at me with disgust if they knew everything? It's not like I want to put out all the details, or even any of them, to everyone who knows me. I just want one person on earth to know everything and not turn away from me. That hasn't happened yet. No one yet knows everything. I don't blame them for not being able to handle hearing it, but still, I had to live it. Isn't there anyone who can listen to me say everything; from the sound of the stairs, the creaking open of the door, the smell of concrete, the taste of fear and helplessness, to the things I did to provoke him so he would just get it over with? Or is it just too much to put on someone else? When it's all put together it is horrendous and explicit in all the details of what he did to me and what I did, felt, saw, and thought at the time. Is is wrong for me to tell my story, uncensored?
Lately I've been googling, trying to find out if telling it in story form is a good thing, necessary or just a nice sounding way of wallowing in the past. When I think of NOT telling my story as a whole, instead of in disconnected pieces; then a whole host of statements made to me by my abuser start playing in a continuous loop, joined by all the other not-helpful things people("friends", counselors, pastors, police officers and lawyers and toss in one ignorant doctor) have said to me over the years. I often feel as disconnected as the way in which I've told my story to my pastor/counselor. In the beginning he told me I didn't have to tell him everything about the actual abuse, so I didn't. Along the way I disclosed small snapshots of what happened when I was abused. I tested him at every turn, waiting for the words, "I can't help you. You need to find another counselor." Instead he keeps on telling me that he's in it for the long haul. I believe him now.
In spite of a non linear telling of events and staying focused, more on the effects of the abuse in my life today than a upfront factual retelling of the abuse, my pastor/counselor has the basic gist of what happened. There is a bit of a problem with adequately addressing guilt and shame, since I've only barely brushed on those immensely shaming aspects of the abuse, in all the many hours of counseling over the last 18 months. I don't know how to go there, or if I should go there. It's pretty explicit because that's part of the story, and to sanitize what happened so its a little more palatable seems like its minimizing what really happened. I lived through it. No one sanitized it for me. No one dimmed the horror by skipping what I couldn't handle. Not one person has heard it all. In order to cushion the blows my words have become to my hearer, I always skip around as I speak of the sexual abuse in counseling. Past counselors have either been deeply affected to the point that they can't help me or have done other odd things that moved the focus from my abuser like: attempting to convince me it was a different person who abused me; or that my "real" problem was something besides the sexual abuse. To a point, it has been a necessary cushioning of it for me too, yet I'm also acutely aware of my edits and deliberate minimizing of the abuse in order to talk about it and not harm or scare off another counselor. There are times I don't say things because I'm sitting there contemplating whether or not bringing up certain aspects of events would be too explicit; and therefore would bring down some sort of rebuke for a gratuitous recounting of things about the abuse or its long term effects that didn't need to be said.
This fear of rejection runs in me so strongly that I can't think reasonably about the chances of such a rebuke occurring. Technically, rejection of me as a person, and not listening to the details of my story are not the same thing. In my mind I know this, but the part of me which fear controls can't make that distinction. Crawling under a rock and face hiding shame dominates my thinking and instinctive self protective behaviour. I would contaminate another person by going into the shame filled details. Why wouldn't anyone not look at me with disgust if they knew everything? It's not like I want to put out all the details, or even any of them, to everyone who knows me. I just want one person on earth to know everything and not turn away from me. That hasn't happened yet. No one yet knows everything. I don't blame them for not being able to handle hearing it, but still, I had to live it. Isn't there anyone who can listen to me say everything; from the sound of the stairs, the creaking open of the door, the smell of concrete, the taste of fear and helplessness, to the things I did to provoke him so he would just get it over with? Or is it just too much to put on someone else? When it's all put together it is horrendous and explicit in all the details of what he did to me and what I did, felt, saw, and thought at the time. Is is wrong for me to tell my story, uncensored?
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Writing In Order To Do Battle
I can't find the answer to this, but I've been wondering about it for the last several days. Wondering to the point of almost panicly worrying. Does PTSD come and go? For me that has been my experience, but I can't find anyone else saying the same thing. I've wondered about this for years now, ever since a doctor gave me a word for what was happening to me. I'm a bit funny with the way I describe things not realizing its something "real" and enough other people have had the same thing going on that they gave it a name. Just this past year I discovered the word dissociate and what it was, and lo and behold it's what I've been calling "zoning", "being gone somewhere" or "losing time". I have a great fear of re-entering the battle and once again ending up in those dark places where I lose my way. I stopped writing when I got to a comfortable place. God is held at arms length, but I can catch glimpses of Him in church on Sunday and through the overwhelming kindness of my church family. It's a safe place in my journey, but I'm being nudged along to go farther.
I haven't been writing, anywhere, and that concerns me a bit, in the sense that it should concern me, but it doesn't--not really. I write when I'm actively dealing with things and I haven't written in months. I've been asked to make a list of fears and concerns to work through in counselling.
I would say "challenged", but that just sounds too baptist to me. Of course to me it's not just a list, it's the contents of the boxes I've been dragging around all these years. In some ways its the monsters in my closets that have come so close to destroying me in the past. I use the word past in a way that includes not only my personal ancient past, but my recent past too. Just yesterday I read two bloggers who posted on the topic of writing either directly or indirectly. One of them sounds like he is fairly close to where I am in my own journey while the other one is in a place that often seems unattainable to me. Both of them are writers that speak to me in the deep places of my soul. http://redemptionpictures.com/2014/09/12/when-writing-is-an-act-of-hope/
http://messytheology.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/when-there-are-no-words/
Writing for me has always been cathartic. I started my first little diary in third grade. I still had it, up until almost four years ago when our house burned down. As an adult, reading that first diary I ever kept, brought back memories, good and bad. Almost all the good things in there involved going to my grandma's house, the food she made, the stories she told and helping her hang out laundry, pick apples and watch her work in her garden. When I was old enough to not pull plants instead of weeds, I was actually allowed to go in the garden. Other events I wrote about I remember writing carefully in case my diary was ever stolen and read. My careful writing at age 9 wasn't careful enough and I got in trouble for what I wrote. I didn't keep a diary again until 5th grade. I learned my lesson and wrote carefully and left out the most ugly parts. Yet years later reading my diary from elementary I again saw those events I so carefully edited in my writing, and the memories invoked were not edited.
The power of the written word is incredible. And those were just my own childish writings, yet they held the key to my memory, to my own story.
By 7th grade I was writing furiously and unedited, except for the terrible secret I carried that I couldn't write about even in my own journal. The raw anger flowed from my pen and filled spiral notebooks. Anger, hurt, and betrayal, along with the pettiness of junior high drama, were my themes. I wrote for me and only me. I wrote to keep my sanity and a place to siphon off the anger and rage that threatened to tear me apart. My anger grew as my understanding of what had happened to me grew. I never gave it a word until 2003. I couldn't name it. I was too afraid. The anger was too powerful and I barely kept it in check through my writing. By 9th grade I was learning to control the anger through other means and harness it. I made good use of it and the abuse at home finally stopped, for me. Still I wrote. My survival depended upon it.
I wrote all through high school and into college at Bob Jones University, where I again looked for help and thought I found it. I would have been better off to have kept writing and skipped the counselling. The times I stopped writing were the times I was being successful at locking down all my boxes and shutting off emotions. But of course anger was a main component of all the boxes and anger can only be contained for so long. Thus the cycle of writing while depressed, angry and trying to close back the boxes that another counseling attempt had opened began. I haven't written anywhere for a few months. It's been different this time though. At least one of my monsters has been destroyed and not all emotion has been cut off. I think I've been experiencing life the way that other people do, to a point. Real emotions have still been in play. I've cried and didn't shut it off with anger. I can't remember doing that before. It's been incredible to smile and cry and not have to do my usual routine in order to "be normal". I like it. The problem is that this is only a plateau and there is a long journey still ahead. I've been content here for long enough. It was a nice break from the battle, but it's time to re-engage. Once again, I write.
I haven't been writing, anywhere, and that concerns me a bit, in the sense that it should concern me, but it doesn't--not really. I write when I'm actively dealing with things and I haven't written in months. I've been asked to make a list of fears and concerns to work through in counselling.
I would say "challenged", but that just sounds too baptist to me. Of course to me it's not just a list, it's the contents of the boxes I've been dragging around all these years. In some ways its the monsters in my closets that have come so close to destroying me in the past. I use the word past in a way that includes not only my personal ancient past, but my recent past too. Just yesterday I read two bloggers who posted on the topic of writing either directly or indirectly. One of them sounds like he is fairly close to where I am in my own journey while the other one is in a place that often seems unattainable to me. Both of them are writers that speak to me in the deep places of my soul. http://redemptionpictures.com/2014/09/12/when-writing-is-an-act-of-hope/
http://messytheology.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/when-there-are-no-words/
Writing for me has always been cathartic. I started my first little diary in third grade. I still had it, up until almost four years ago when our house burned down. As an adult, reading that first diary I ever kept, brought back memories, good and bad. Almost all the good things in there involved going to my grandma's house, the food she made, the stories she told and helping her hang out laundry, pick apples and watch her work in her garden. When I was old enough to not pull plants instead of weeds, I was actually allowed to go in the garden. Other events I wrote about I remember writing carefully in case my diary was ever stolen and read. My careful writing at age 9 wasn't careful enough and I got in trouble for what I wrote. I didn't keep a diary again until 5th grade. I learned my lesson and wrote carefully and left out the most ugly parts. Yet years later reading my diary from elementary I again saw those events I so carefully edited in my writing, and the memories invoked were not edited.
The power of the written word is incredible. And those were just my own childish writings, yet they held the key to my memory, to my own story.
By 7th grade I was writing furiously and unedited, except for the terrible secret I carried that I couldn't write about even in my own journal. The raw anger flowed from my pen and filled spiral notebooks. Anger, hurt, and betrayal, along with the pettiness of junior high drama, were my themes. I wrote for me and only me. I wrote to keep my sanity and a place to siphon off the anger and rage that threatened to tear me apart. My anger grew as my understanding of what had happened to me grew. I never gave it a word until 2003. I couldn't name it. I was too afraid. The anger was too powerful and I barely kept it in check through my writing. By 9th grade I was learning to control the anger through other means and harness it. I made good use of it and the abuse at home finally stopped, for me. Still I wrote. My survival depended upon it.
I wrote all through high school and into college at Bob Jones University, where I again looked for help and thought I found it. I would have been better off to have kept writing and skipped the counselling. The times I stopped writing were the times I was being successful at locking down all my boxes and shutting off emotions. But of course anger was a main component of all the boxes and anger can only be contained for so long. Thus the cycle of writing while depressed, angry and trying to close back the boxes that another counseling attempt had opened began. I haven't written anywhere for a few months. It's been different this time though. At least one of my monsters has been destroyed and not all emotion has been cut off. I think I've been experiencing life the way that other people do, to a point. Real emotions have still been in play. I've cried and didn't shut it off with anger. I can't remember doing that before. It's been incredible to smile and cry and not have to do my usual routine in order to "be normal". I like it. The problem is that this is only a plateau and there is a long journey still ahead. I've been content here for long enough. It was a nice break from the battle, but it's time to re-engage. Once again, I write.
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