The Light at the End of the Tunnel is NOT an Exit

Events occur that most wouldn't understand how that seemingly unrelated thing would have any effect on me.  It's complicated to explain and when pushed to do so, even though it's also said that I don't have to explain, I feel compelled to explain if it's someone that I think I might be able to trust in some smallish way.  So I explain, a little.  A testing of the waters. A testing of the light.  It could be another instance of setting myself up to be devoured by following the light of apparent friendship with the bait of a much-needed hug.  I just might have some trust issues, but not without cause. ;)



I get entranced by the "light at the end of the tunnel" and continue moving towards the light, all the while I'm actually moving deeper into darkness.  I discover I'm not in a tunnel but rather my whole existence is surrounded by darkness, punctuated by flashes of light whereby I barely escape alive, but certainly not unscathed.  The light moves where ever it needs to in order so that even when I move towards the light I descend farther into darkness.  I retreat from it and too late realize it now is between me and the true light.  No matter what I do nothing makes a difference for long.

For an all too brief period of time I moved out of the darkness I have been surrounded by for most of my life.  I believed I had escaped the darkness.  For a time I was free of it, but a vortex from the depths pulls me back.  I see a light above me but its not the light of freedom, its the light of that ever present trap moving closer to me as I sink deeper into the darkness I'm well accustomed to.  Between me and the true light of the freedom I have tasted is the light of the false hope of healing from PTSD and all that goes with it.  The darkness and coldness of a life numbed to emotions is safer.  And today all I want is to be safe and for this anguish to be over.

A Perfect Easter Sunday...except

Easter Sunday... It's supposed to be a day of hope remembering Christ's resurrection.  In some ways I am participating in Easter, but I feel more like an outside observer this time.  Not belonging, but this time of my own choosing.  I made sure everything ran smoothly this morning and the whole family made it to the sunrise service on time and even a little early and then on to the breakfast at church and then the worship service.  Dinner is in the oven the potatoes are cooking and the gravy is standing by ready to be made at the last minute.  The boys are all down and actually sleeping for naptime.  It's been a perfect day thus far.  After naps then everyone will get their Easter baskets and then we will have our Easter dinner.

Sounds great and it is except...  I dissociated through most of the service which made me rather fuzzy headed afterwards.  Someone asked me if I was sick because it seemed I was walking like I didn't feel well and seemed off.  I thought I was hiding it well.  Evidently not.  I am out of practice in hiding how I feel.  People are used to seeing me fully engaged and not in shut down mode.  She also kept asking and guessing what was wrong until I told her the short version of the story, which was the PTSD is back and I thought I was over it because everything was so different this time.  I also told her about the two local counselors who couldn't handle my "multiple traumas" and one of them has been counseling for 30 years and has PTSD with trauma as a specialty.  Somewhere in the conversation I said a few times, "I'm done."  She asked what I was done with.  I couldn't give her a good answer.  I didn't want to.  Church? was one of her guesses.  I wasn't sure how to answer that question since that is something I've been thinking about.  She and another lady who came back into the conversation a bit later both hugged me and said they would pray for me and some other comforting type statements.

Another conversation in the parking lot with someone else, more hugs and encouragement to not blame myself or carry guilt for considering or deciding to not adopt the boys.  The only people who know at this point in my face to face life are the pastors and elders at church, and at least one of their wives. 

So, it's a perfect Easter Sunday.  We have the pictures to prove it.  I wish I didn't have a different narrative running underneath it all.  The one that says, "This is the one and only Easter you'll have with these boys.  The last holiday.  They will leave with their Easter outfit, but maybe will never want to wear it again because of the association of the last happy holiday with us.  Everyone sees how well they are doing and the improvement in behavior.  No one will understand why I can't do the mom thing, why I can't pull it together, why I have an inability to parent them all, why all of a sudden I can't handle the improved version of these boys or what my problem really is.  God is sovereign but why so much pain?  Am I supposed to tough it out and somehow stop leaning on my older children for help?  The more times a day goes well and I survive it, the more I doubt myself."

Then again, with the almost constant dissociation during church, dizziness, blurry vision and the lingering headache and evidently odd way of walking around afterwards, can that be called a successful day?  I am surviving it, but that's it.  And this day is going so well compared to others!  I just want to sleep it off, but if I dare go to sleep I will easily be out for the next 4-5 hours which would ruin the day for everyone else.  So I inflict upon a few people another rambling blog post chronicling my journey through life. 

Bob Jones University Responds to G.R.A.C.E. and I Fall Apart

Today I'm a horrible mom.  I've stayed locked in my room for most of the day curled up under the blankets, shaking.  My older children, young adults really, have fixed meals and boo boos for the little ones.

All I've done is stay alive.  Barely.

It would be nice to point to just one thing that I can fix and then solve the problem.  I can't.  I don't know how to fix it.  If Bob Jones University had admitted their wrong doing and made real changes instead of saying they are right about how they counsel; would that have made a difference in my today?  I know that the CYA apology Pettit gave sure hasn't helped me today.  It is more like I've been at the edge of the cliff with a few steps to spare and I just got shoved and I'm flailing my arms on the edge wondering why I don't just go with it and fall.

Then I hear my little ones voices.  They bring me pictures they colored.  An older one comes to tell me a funny story.  I talk with friends who know and care.  And I keep on flailing my arms, trying not to fall.

New Experiences in Dissociation and Friendship

Some more on dissociation.  I haven't been having much of a problem with it for the last few months even though I've been in church and fully engaged in listening and participating in the services.  A few blips here and there at church, but nothing I wasn't able to hide due to how the service is structured.  I may sit down or get up a bit later than everyone else or blank out for most of a song but it has been manageable.

One thing I've never done, up until last Monday, is to purposefully fight the entire time to not dissociate without my fighting it off method to be loudly arguing and slamming doors.  I was at a friends house, a very good friend who didn't freak out that I was shaking with cold in front of a fire and had strange things going on with my eyes.  She got me a blanket and a shawl and kept talking to help keep me in the here instead of drifting off to safety.  I think I fought so much to stay "here" because I knew I was completely safe, and that's my guess as to why I didn't just drift off.  I actually had blurred vision and could barely see and my eyes felt stretchy and like I needed to shove them back into my eye sockets.  I don't know how long I shivered in front of her fire wrapped up in blankets listening to her talk and talking some myself too.  My speech was also messed up. 

That was another first time event; talking while in the warp speed mode of dissociation.  If you have watched much Star Trek then you will have likely seen the Enterprise going into warp speed.  Somewhere along the way I saw an episode where time was distorted and someone got stuck in an alternate time.  Just imagine the effect on yourself if part of you is at warp speed and the rest of you is at half impulse.  It's a major disconnect and communication between the two parts of you is greatly distorted.

I'm not positive that my default to dissociate under stress is something that will go away, but the longer I am in a place of safety and have close friends that I could see myself wrapped up in their living room fighting to stay in the moment, the less I actually do dissociate.  Of course the exceptions are when something new gets opened up that has been buried for most of my life.  It was such a topic that spiraled me almost back to how I was coping about a year and a half ago. 

Friends are of all different sorts.  I am blessed with growing, face to face, local friends that in some small ways know my story.  I also have some friends from my childhood that remember who the 6th grade teacher was.  They are still my friends and even though we don't see each other, we maintain some connection.  Thank God for facebook and phones!  Other friends are no longer local to me; I moved or they moved, yet I can call and we are instantly reconnected.  Strangest of all are the friendships which came through facebook and turned into something real.  These last couple of weeks have been like friendship growth on overload.  What is completely amazing to me is that these are friends who have been able to hear my story and more categories of it than anyone else; they even beat out my incredible pastor who in the last two years has brought me from an incoherent mess to a point of beginning to thrive.

I've been a good friend to many people, but I am in awe of these two ladies who are able to be good friends to me even though they know so much of my story.  It is an unexpected gift at a time when I really am in need of it.

How God is Becoming More Real to Me

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.

My Friend, Dean

We moved to a new house in January of my third grade year.  It was a brand new house on a brand new street.  I made new friends in the neighborhood and school was okay.  My teacher was pregnant and spent most of the day sitting at the back of the classroom with her head on the desk.  We got to play on the good playground for one recess but had to play on the blacktop parking lot for the other recess.

I met Dean in the neighborhood, he was a few years older than me.  He taught me how to jump my bike and land level with both tires on the dirt course kids made out of the piles of dirt around the poured basements on the street.  I got pretty good.  He even let me ride his dirt bike, the motorized kind.  I knew I was hot stuff and special because he didn't let anyone else ride his motor bike. He also taught me karate moves and how to defend myself and fight. (Yes, I know it doesn't sound like girl stuff, but I liked the guy's kind of fun.  Barbies and board games get old real quick.)  His garage door was always open(if his parents weren't home) and that was the neighborhood source for all things illegal.  He never let any of the other guys there give me the hard stuff they were offering.  I could hang out there and smoke, but he wouldn't let me try anything with needles.  Sometimes he would shoo me out of the basement side of the garage(raised ranch style house) and it wasn't until my teacher at school molested and raped me all through the school year that I realized what all was going on in the basement side of his garage.  He was a good guy and I was safe with him.  Some days he told me I needed to leave, usually this was when his friends wanted me to go in the basement and hang out with them.  Later I realized what he was keeping me safe from.  I wish I knew his last name and could find him and say thank you.  He was kinda like an onery, getting in trouble older brother. He was my friend, Dean.

Life Together with Christians in my New World

I haven't written a blog post in a while, although I've been writing a lot for my own sanity elsewhere.  I've started reading another book, just a short little one, but it is packed with a whole lot of things new to me in some ways.  It's really not new, but reflects the cry of my heart that I've done my best over the years to bind and gag and bury it deep so I can't hear it any longer.  The book I've begun to read is Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Enter the idea of Christian community and confession.  Why in the world would I read such a book?  I don't know, I suppose it has something to do with the things I've been wrestling with for the last few months.  In good ole IFB language these would be the things I would mention as "unspoken prayer requests" back in the independent fundamental baptist church I grew up in.  Thankfully I'm not in that world anymore, but I still don't quite know how to safely navigate in the world I find myself in today.  Life Together is given as an example of how we should live life together in our Christian community.  Therefore I find myself reading it to see just what that entails.

There is a great amount of tension between confession and daily community life that I see lived out before me.  How much of your story should be known?  What sort of things do you confess and to whom?  Who can handle the really big stuff, you know, the type of things that you do need help with in overcoming, the struggles that are too hard to carry on your own?  Not too many people fit that description.  And the incredible risks involved are enough to drive you back to isolation and denial.  That's a lonely and emotionally frozen way to live.  I want to be thawed out, but I'm afraid I may be "freezer burnt" and never be able to function as a normal person in the community I am now in.  The big things like major depression that cycles around to various degrees of suicidal thoughts all the way up to the point of deciding to attempt it or not is not something most people can deal with.

Of course the ones who are "trained" to deal with it are the ones who have no answers.  What kind of help is that?  Listening to the Godless drivel that comes out and yet is called help, is enough to drive me to really go through with it.  Talk about truly depressing!  Yet these are the people that I would be referred to in the throes of being suicidal because evidently pastors, who are thoroughly trained in the scriptures and theology, don't have the answers I am in desparate need of during the times I am suicidal. (Did you notice the sarcasm here?)

QUOTES from Life Together:

"The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer." p19

"The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians." p19

"The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God." p20

"He knows that God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all.  The Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God's claims and God's justification." p22

"God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man.  Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him.  He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.  He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation." p23

Still Paying the Price

It's been almost three years since I've posted on this blog.  I haven't forgotten anything, but I just couldn't write about things.  Trying to figure out how to make this blog do what I orignally intended for it to do is complicated.  I'm too much of a chicken to just put it all out there.  I've lost too many friends in too many places and quite a few of those losses were because of my past abuse.

We are once again in a new state, a new church and trying to see where we fit, or if we do fit.  As long as I manage to blend, I know we'll be okay.  But what about the dark times?  They always return and then I really don't want to be alone.  I want comfort, but that's the point where I am rejected or become someones project.  Is there a balance?  Does anyone besides me know how to be a friend to someone who is hurting without turning them into a project?

That sounds a bit arrogant, but I haven't seen people who have been able to be a friend to those who have been sexually abused without turning them into a project or outright rejecting them.  I don't want to be hurt like that again.  The abuse was a long time ago, but I'm still paying the price.  I'm the one with the memories that intrude at the wrong times.  (I'd like to know when the right time is and then maybe I can train my brain and body to save it for times I can handle it and am expecting it.)  I'm the one with the shaking and sweating hands.  I'm the one who works really hard to take hugs and pats from people at church, especially men, without panicing and having to hide in the bathroom.  I'm the one with the flashbacks.  I'm the one who thinks about what happened to me when sermons or songs touch on tragedy or God's love and care.  When forgiveness is discussed I am back in the hallway trying to know that I'm not really there again.  When someone keeps asking how can they pray for me I am terrified.  This is a person who is becoming a friend and all I can think of is how much it will hurt when they don't talk to me anymore and avoid me at church because I fully and truthfully told them how they can pray for me.  I want to say.  "Pray that the darkness doesn't get too dark, pray that I can stop being afraid, pray that I can be myself without losing friends or becoming a project, pray that the baptist tapes will be banished, pray that PTSD won't keep returning, pray that he will be caught and punished, pray for justice, pray for complete healing and hope that it is possible, pray that the memories won't come unbidden especially when I'm with my husband or in church, pray that the thoughts of suicide will never return, pray for me to be able to love God fully."
I don't say any of these things.  How can I?  The risk is too great.

Yes, I am still paying the price.

Being Findable Online and Fear of Rejection

I've been going to a Bible study for the last couple of years. I sorta stopped going much this past year. We were going through a book that I can't remember the name of and the next week we were going to be reading and then talking about a chapter that covered rape. I couldn't go that week or the next, and I've been sporadic in my attendance ever since.

Well the lady who hosts the study is the sister in law of a guy I slightly knew in high school and we ended up going to the same college and hung out a lot our freshman year. He is now a lawyer and he was always a real decent guy. I want to be a person easier to find online so that former students/victims of slimeball can get in touch with me and we can stop him. So I was thinking of a good email address and searchable info I could use but then I thought I should check it with a lawyer to make sure I wasn't shooting myself in the foot for later prosecution of him. AHA I thought, I know a lawyer, sorta. So I called my friend that hosts the Bible study and stumbled around to ask her to ask her husband to ask his brother my question. The joys of giving background info...not. Anyway I can now add another person on my list of people who know. I didn't tell her specifics, but enough so that it's easy to fill in the blanks. I did tell her I had an odd question. I'm getting better at this, maybe I can talk to Dr C halfway intelligently and not have to look at my talking point notes when/if he calls me back.

I did ask her to not advertise it. I'm not sure how she can ask my question without her husband knowing who she is talking about. I got her cell # from him tonight, and then she is going to go home and ask him this question. Oh well. It is what it is. -----I just called her and told her that I had called H and got her cell # from him and that he's not stupid, he can put 2 and 2 together and it's all right, so don't stress over me saying don't advertise it. She assured me that it won't go any further than them.

I think they had already been talking from what all she said to me, but I'm not sure.

Last July(2008) I had been told in some kind of confrontation thing, by people I thought were my friends, that I was all kinds of awful and they were quite specific. One of the things that I was accused of, was hiding behind past abuse as an excuse for not trusting and being open with these very new friends. They put us out of their lives and said that after I had gotten help and changed and fulfilled a list of requirements that the men would get back together and see if I was qualified to be allowed back in their lives.

You know, for someone who is terrified of rejection this was very severe. I didn't know it was possible to stay awake and cry the whole night long until the sun rises. I cried beyond tears. It hurt so bad that I never even wrote about it after the verdict was given.
I had tried so hard to trust and I had opened up to a certain point and where I was most vunerable is where they plunged in the dagger of rejection and unworthiness.

We have made some new friends since then. I have been quite aloof and kept most recent pains and intense past pain to myself. I don't think I come across as aloof, at least it is an acceptable level if they do think so. I am so afraid of losing our new friends that I am always amazed when I see acceptance and tolerance of differences and forgiveness, but yet I still haven't risked them knowing my personal past pain or ours as a family in what we went through with one of our children.

Numb Again

I'm not going to see Dr A again. At least I don't think so. I'm going to see someone else. I will try to call tomorrow. I'm tired of sinking back into where I was. I don't know how to get out of it. I can't seem to get it together. I am more organized now, but more of a mess on the inside. I feel numb again and can't snap out of it. I'm afraid that I will never make it to prosecution of JM. It's all I can do to stay busy and forget. When I slow down, I just get depressed or even more often just hollow. I'm not really here, but I don't know how to get here and live. I try to fake it and am "sick" to cover days when I just am too worn out to continue the charade.

I am going to Florida with a friend later this month. She is not a friend to be quiet with, we will be busy and noisy and talk a lot even about serious things, but not about the emptiness of being trapped behind walls; we will have fun and it will take the edge off, but the numbness of existence will return to me afterward.

I am so tired.

A couple of years ago I was on my way out of the numbness and was learning to lean on God. Not doing so good now. I'm all out of friends. Ones that I have left or call friends are either ones that I don't want to risk losing by being too transparent or are ones that I don't trust that much anyway. I have been so often rejected in the last 2 years that I am extremely terrified of letting anyone else that close again. I guess people just can't handle my daily type troubles let alone the hauntings of the past. I'm safer cocooned behind my walls wrapped in the numbness of isolation, but I know it's not right. For now I can do nothing else. God help me.

Acting the Turtle

Do you ever realize that you're probably wrong about something, but you just can't let go of it? I've a few things right now that are that way. It's always been easy to excuse because the other person is a lot more to blame than I am.

What I'm struggling with right now is that I'm keeping people at arms length or farther because somebody recently dropped me and backed off like I came down with leprosy. It's not that I'm so thin-skinned that I can't take it. It's more the timing of and that it seems to be the story of my life.

How do I look to Jesus and not people and yet still have biblical relationships and real fellowship? I understand that people will disappoint or outright hurt me in various ways. I want to minimize the damage by acting the turtle. I don't want to be a box turtle and keep everybody completely out and I don't want to be a snapping turtle and scare everyone off. I'm thinking I'd like to be some type of sea turtle or giant tortoise; approachable, but not everybody's dinner.

God's Hug

Things with my son have settled down for now. I wish I was grateful, but I'm not. I'm waiting for the next thing. What will hit me next? I've just got my balance back from reeling in the shock and agony of what the last six months has brought to my family. I now understand the phrase "anguish of soul". It is a pain so intense that you can't think where to turn. I never would have thought that pain that wasn't physical could hurt so bad.

Eventually I did turn to God. I also tried to turn to people in the church who were praying for us. That didn't work out. I wanted someone I could see and touch to be there with me through that time, even if it was just on the phone. For some reason I thought that at least they could listen and pray for me as I had to live it. I was living it, and they couldn't even handle hearing about it. So much for people coming alongside.

I did find someone who was there on the phone, for the times I needed a person who understood. She had a son like mine, she understood my pain, she let me talk and cry. She prayed for me and our family. I've never even seen her and we don't even live in the same state, but I've cried into the phone with her countless times in the last six months. She could handle it, because she's lived it.

I haven't talked to her for a while now. I need to call her again, just to talk. She was God's hug to me.