It was a decade or so ago and I was in desperate need of help.
In search for tangible and lasting help that brought healing and not more pain I kept trying to find some one or some thing to help. It's all a blur, unless I slow down and think about it, the stream of people I looked to for comfort and ministration and found that their capacity to simply hear my story was so small. The few who could hear some parts of it and remain my friend and not turn me into a dreaded sympathy project were those who themselves were so wounded. We gathered together at all night restaurants and talked till dawn. Just friends talking, no projects allowed.
After a time, and so many hours drinking sweet tea, coffee and cappuccino and splitting hash browns at three in the morning, the gatherings eventually had more reasonable hours and we met at my house for popcorn, hot chocolate with butter schnapps, white zinfandel and talking and board games. We felt like normal people, with friends.
Our conversations were different than any other gathering of friends or church people I'd ever experienced. We spoke of cutting; head banging; sleeping the darkness away; the need to check on a friend who might be suicidal, again; and abuse, all kinds. We spoke of God and Bible verses that helped, but mostly we were the hands of Jesus to each other because everyone else hurt us more.
I'd like to say that I was strong and a source of comfort and was full of empathy for these dear ladies. In reality we were all barely functioning and from day to day what kept us together was the knowledge that we were all we had. We were all in different churches, and each of our churches were actively "helping" in our lives in some way. We needed each other.
Showing posts with label #depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #depression. Show all posts
Monday, February 23, 2015
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.
Monday, February 24, 2014
How Bob Jones University's Firing of GRACE Has Affected Me as a Survivor and Interviewee
Up until now I have never mentioned where I went to college or anything about that time in my life. That's an impossible task to cover adequately in one post, but I do want to in a brief way discuss my infamous alma mater, Bob Jones University. I grew up in a "Bob Jones" church, although in the early days it was more a Gothard church and I remember loading up in buses at church and riding downtown to the Basic Youth Conflicts meeting. Brother Roloff was a regular preacher at our church, but I digress. My college choices were Bob Jones University or Your on Your Own- Good Luck U. The whole concept of scholarships and the evil government student loans was abhorred. So off I went to Greenville, South Carolina and the Mecca of the Fundamentalist world, Bob Jones University. I wasn't unhappy about it. I had visited there a few times and knew how to dress like the college girls and not look like a high schooler. I was quite pleased when my clothing was looked over by a girl that used to be in my youth group, but was now that most envied of positions, a GA(graduate assistant). I thought I was hot stuff, with connections in the right places and coming from a well known and respected church and Christian school. MY pastor was asked to speak at Bob Jones and so on. I was such a self righteous, proud little brat, but I was never a Boje(that's BJ slang for tattletale). My freshman year was an odd mix. My APC(assistant prayer captain) was a 5th year senior who only had one semester left. She introduced me to the wild crowd and told them I was cool and wouldn't get a conscience. It's funny how she had me pegged. I was very good at keeping quiet and self preservation. I never did turn anyone in for anything my whole time at Bob Jones University, even when undergoing grilling by the Dean of Women (I always get Baker and Barker mixed up) or the Dean of Students, Mr. Berg.
One of my teachers my freshman year was similar in mannerisms and size as my teacher in elementary that molested and raped me during that whole school year. I didn't have the right words for what was happening to me. I genuinely liked Mr. Berg and went to him for help. I described what was happening and one of the things I was told, was to think on those things that are lovely and to meditate on Philipians 4:8. I tried so hard but things just got worse. I have words now for what was happening: triggers, flashbacks, PTSD and eventually dissociation. I was severely depressed and became suicidal. I thought I was going crazy. I went to the wrong classes for an extended period of time until the teacher pointed out that I wasn't actually IN that class. I would wander around and be vaguely aware that I was supposed to be somewhere. After sessions with Mr. Berg I would walk out of the administration building and "come to" in some out of the way back campus location.
I'm barely touching on my experience with counseling while at Bob Jones, but it was a part of every year of my time there. I interviewed with G.R.A.C.E. last year and have been paying a heavy toll for it. I finally got to a point of relative peace in the last few months. The flashbacks to the original abuse in elementary had become infrequent, I could sing in church again and talking with a Baptist didn't throw me into panic. I still couldn't read the Bible without being triggered, but I could listen to someone else read it, as long as it wasn't the King James version. It was nice to wake up without that instant feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I made it past a major depression and time of being suicidal. PTSD symptoms were basically gone for a while. I was still in counseling with my pastor, but it had lost the edge of desperation that began our counseling relationship soon after I filled out the original GRACE questionnaire and then went into full blown longlasting flashbacks. Believe me, that was an interesting call!
But now, BJU has fired GRACE and it's not looking like the report will ever see the light of day, if BJU can get away with it. I've seen various blogs and comments mention how this decision to fire GRACE re-traumatizes victims, but I haven't seen anyone specifically saying how it does. I'm going to tell you how it affects me, and I hope that others will tell in the comments, or elsewhere, how BJU's actions in firing GRACE is affecting them.
1. My hands are sweating like a faucet, and it makes the keyboard slippery to type on.
2. Betrayed
3. Headaches and eye twitches have returned
4. Nightmares are starting back up
5. I am being more easily triggered again
6. Flashbacks are returning
7. Anxiety (and DON'T tell me to be anxious for nothing!)
8. General nervousness
9. Difficulty staying in the present while singing in church (fighting to not dissociate too badly)
10. Nausea
11. Difficulty sleeping(I haven't slept well for a couple of weeks now and I was up the whole night this past Saturday.)
12. Loss of appetite (I could stand to lose a bunch of weight, so that's almost ok with me)
13. I know I'm depressed, although I can't say to what degree, but not currently suicidal.
14. I am physically tense all over to the point of pain
15. You really don't want to know about the connection all this has with my bowels ;)
16. Church is again full of triggers for me and has been increasing each week since GRACE was fired
17. I have been irritable and hard to live with(I'm working on it!)
18. Loss of hope(but then I got really ticked and that helps because I am doing what I can)
19. Crying and not able to control emotions well, so I use anger to keep the tears in check
20. Really and truly beginning to grasp the depth and beauty of the imprecatory Psalms and praying in a very specific way towards Bob Jones University---Lord, hear my prayer.
One of my teachers my freshman year was similar in mannerisms and size as my teacher in elementary that molested and raped me during that whole school year. I didn't have the right words for what was happening to me. I genuinely liked Mr. Berg and went to him for help. I described what was happening and one of the things I was told, was to think on those things that are lovely and to meditate on Philipians 4:8. I tried so hard but things just got worse. I have words now for what was happening: triggers, flashbacks, PTSD and eventually dissociation. I was severely depressed and became suicidal. I thought I was going crazy. I went to the wrong classes for an extended period of time until the teacher pointed out that I wasn't actually IN that class. I would wander around and be vaguely aware that I was supposed to be somewhere. After sessions with Mr. Berg I would walk out of the administration building and "come to" in some out of the way back campus location.
I'm barely touching on my experience with counseling while at Bob Jones, but it was a part of every year of my time there. I interviewed with G.R.A.C.E. last year and have been paying a heavy toll for it. I finally got to a point of relative peace in the last few months. The flashbacks to the original abuse in elementary had become infrequent, I could sing in church again and talking with a Baptist didn't throw me into panic. I still couldn't read the Bible without being triggered, but I could listen to someone else read it, as long as it wasn't the King James version. It was nice to wake up without that instant feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I made it past a major depression and time of being suicidal. PTSD symptoms were basically gone for a while. I was still in counseling with my pastor, but it had lost the edge of desperation that began our counseling relationship soon after I filled out the original GRACE questionnaire and then went into full blown longlasting flashbacks. Believe me, that was an interesting call!
But now, BJU has fired GRACE and it's not looking like the report will ever see the light of day, if BJU can get away with it. I've seen various blogs and comments mention how this decision to fire GRACE re-traumatizes victims, but I haven't seen anyone specifically saying how it does. I'm going to tell you how it affects me, and I hope that others will tell in the comments, or elsewhere, how BJU's actions in firing GRACE is affecting them.
1. My hands are sweating like a faucet, and it makes the keyboard slippery to type on.
2. Betrayed
3. Headaches and eye twitches have returned
4. Nightmares are starting back up
5. I am being more easily triggered again
6. Flashbacks are returning
7. Anxiety (and DON'T tell me to be anxious for nothing!)
8. General nervousness
9. Difficulty staying in the present while singing in church (fighting to not dissociate too badly)
10. Nausea
11. Difficulty sleeping(I haven't slept well for a couple of weeks now and I was up the whole night this past Saturday.)
12. Loss of appetite (I could stand to lose a bunch of weight, so that's almost ok with me)
13. I know I'm depressed, although I can't say to what degree, but not currently suicidal.
14. I am physically tense all over to the point of pain
15. You really don't want to know about the connection all this has with my bowels ;)
16. Church is again full of triggers for me and has been increasing each week since GRACE was fired
17. I have been irritable and hard to live with(I'm working on it!)
18. Loss of hope(but then I got really ticked and that helps because I am doing what I can)
19. Crying and not able to control emotions well, so I use anger to keep the tears in check
20. Really and truly beginning to grasp the depth and beauty of the imprecatory Psalms and praying in a very specific way towards Bob Jones University---Lord, hear my prayer.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
S is for Suicidal in September
Between October and now almost to the end of February I have had no postings. Well in September I had a several days run of extreme depression. I couldn't sleep for well over 60 hours. I was, to put it quite bluntly, extremely suicidal. I went as far as making a plan and taking steps to ensure I would be able to carry it out. Once everything was in place I was so happy and lighthearted, and just felt such relief as though a great burden had been lifted. I hadn't felt so good and free since high school, which was also the last time I actually tried to kill myself. I drove around town for a little while reveling in how relaxed and happy I felt. I wondered if this was how normal people felt sometimes. I didn't want to wait for a better time. NOW was feeling so wonderful, I was ready to be done with hurting; with curling up trying to hang on and riding the next wave of depression so deep that it hurt to just, be. I drove around thinking about things and feeling good and truly alive.
Eventually I thought about my children and especially what my little guy had just recently started saying to me when I came home, "I missed you, Mommy." He was so little, how could he voice that? I heard his little voice in my mind and I couldn't die, but I wanted to so badly. The pain was so intense for so long I couldn't bear to give up this relief and joy I felt. I found myself driving to someone I trusted and giving them a note and a bottle of sleeping pills for them to keep. I couldn't throw them out the window or drop them in the trash and once at their house I resisted their efforts to dispose of the pills. I think I needed to feel I still had an out. I'm not sure, it's strange to think it out loud like this. For me depression is like the ebb and flow of the tides. It always returns. Sometimes I get hit with a tsunami, same waves, but totally out of control.
Eventually I thought about my children and especially what my little guy had just recently started saying to me when I came home, "I missed you, Mommy." He was so little, how could he voice that? I heard his little voice in my mind and I couldn't die, but I wanted to so badly. The pain was so intense for so long I couldn't bear to give up this relief and joy I felt. I found myself driving to someone I trusted and giving them a note and a bottle of sleeping pills for them to keep. I couldn't throw them out the window or drop them in the trash and once at their house I resisted their efforts to dispose of the pills. I think I needed to feel I still had an out. I'm not sure, it's strange to think it out loud like this. For me depression is like the ebb and flow of the tides. It always returns. Sometimes I get hit with a tsunami, same waves, but totally out of control.
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