Turning Off Emotion: it's what I'm good at

There is no grace, no redemption, no hope in this post.  If you are having a bad time of it right now then this isn't what you should be reading.



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Sadness

Regret

Hollow

emotion and tears well up...I flatten them down and refuse to feel

and then nothingness

 

 

Maybe there is a chance that things will change for the better someday, but I can't see it right now.  Truthfully, I don't want to see it either.  I'm out of hope and my pain meter is maxed out.  I just want a way for it all to stop.  I only know one way to stop it and to stay alive, nothing else has worked long term.

Everything I do is on my list. My secret “how to live life so no one knows you aren't really here” list. I haven't used that list for two years now. For two years, plus another four months if I count my inadvertent thawing, I have been waking up to my own emotions, feelings and pain. Lots of pain. I've dealt with it and had much needed help doing so. I spent several weeks feeling and a few being suicidal. I think I was in that dark place again for about five weeks . I thought it would be a long time, maybe 3-5 years before I would cycle back around to being that bad off again. I was wrong.

I got to the point I could be in church and the triggers and dissociation didn't necessarily happen every service and when they did it was manageable. It took the better part of two years to get to that place. Even then there were plenty of days where I didn't function well and was checked out and not able to do the mom thing.

NO. MORE.

I'm done.

I'm done working so hard to be okay and honestly thinking that this time it will work. This time, because the message is so different and I'm believed and and and... There is just no fixing me. Not a real fix, not real healing, no truly getting past the PTSD and dissociation and the failure of being a good mom, who is truly and always here for my kids. I can't give them these two years back or all the other years where I was trying to find help, but I can give them a well programmed mom who does the right things at the right times(with just a little bit of lag). This I can do. This is what I'm good at. I've done this my whole life except for those times when I longed for something more, something real and for the experience of having real emotions besides anger.

I've done the emotion thing now for the last year or so and it's just not worth it. I've experienced the good emotions in what I think are genuine feelings. It was amazing to feel, really feel happiness and to laugh spontaneously without thinking about it and cuing myself to laugh. As great as all that was I can't keep those good emotions without also keeping myself open to their opposites. The price is too high and I can't keep paying it.

Tears are turned off

feelings are being dampened

I'm starting to look ok again.

 

The true test will be when we tell the boys and we send them away.  Until then, I practice for the big day.  The day when I rip my heart to shreds and pretend it doesn't hurt.

Forgiveness Without Coercion: What does it look like?

If anyone would have told me 6 months ago that I would be in contact with a former counselor and forgiveness would be brought up, and the end result would be a good one; I never would have believed it.  For the first time in my life someone asked for my forgiveness and didn't try to avoid responsibility or turn it back on me and make it out to be my fault in any way.  I am still in shock.  I've never experienced anything like this in my life. (There has been one other person, but that happened outside of the IFB/BJU world and the whole process was much simpler.)

Forgive  It's one of those major trigger words that can easily lead to full blown flashbacks.  Except this time it didn't.  I'm not say it wasn't triggering and that I didn't have flashbacks, but because of the other persons response to me the flashbacks didn't become debilitating.  I did lose some time( the name I've used to describe dissociation for 20 years, before I knew there was a name for it) but overall it was just a beautiful demonstration of what the process of forgiveness and reconciliation can look like.  This may not sound like a positive experience, but it was and is.   It was hard work and took the better part of three days.  At the beginning of this renewed contact  I had no inkling where it would go.  At first I received a somewhat generic request for my forgiveness without the other person really comprehending what it was they were asking my forgiveness for.  Back and forth we went until I was concise and specific enough that the only option left would be to dodge it, turn it back on me, or accept responsibility.  Amazingly, the responsibility was accepted and forgiveness still asked for and then granted.  By the end, I actually wanted to forgive and I wasn't guilted into it.

Wow!  If this were to happen for everyone; what a different world we would be in.  Granted, this is only one person and not even my original abuser, but the effect this persons counsel had on me was far reaching and life threatening.  For this person to acknowledge the harm, is such a huge deal for me.  I never thought it possible.  Maybe, just maybe, others will follow suit for me and for others.  And maybe the hurt, and the fear, and the never ending guilt can begin to be assuaged, for all of us.  As to the teacher that abused me in elementary school, I doubt he would know genuine repentance if it ran over him, but that is a topic for another post.

Maybe someday I will be at a point where I can read the Bible without being severely triggered and spiraling into either dissociation or flashbacks.  For now I'm ok with enjoying the good things in life and being thankful to God for the beauty I see.  The GRACE investigation set off a chain of events in my life that is truly life changing.  I have to face the past or be crushed by it. It's a slow road to healing and agonizing at times, but I think I have hope that it is possible.

Mondays Irritating Question

Sundays question is, "How are you doing?" For most people I give some version of normal like: "Fine", "Doing all right.",  "Been busy" or list some activity we did or might think about doing.  Then along comes Monday and the question changes to, "So, how was your weekend?"  Really?  What is with the small talk?  I hate small talk.  I don't even like the phrase "small talk".  Why does the fact that I am trapped in a chiropractors office mean that I have any desire to have the same conversation starter that I don't want to start, started over and over.  This chiropractor has several therapies going on in series so I endured this question more than normal in a short span of time.  By the time I was at the massage therapists station I was so done dancing around the question of my weekend.

We somehow ended up having a real conversation.  I steered it by commenting on why my neck and shoulders were so tense and knotted up.  I simply said I've been really stressed for the last couple of weeks.  In turn she asked about why or what has been the stress.  We ended up with a genuine conversation about Bob Jones University and the GRACE investigation and also another Christian college she was much more familiar with.  I think she was a bit more free than she planned on being and seemed worried that I would be offended; and stressed that I did ask and it was only her opinion.  Hopefully I put her at ease on that point, but I doubt it.  I did enjoy a real conversation not based on polite small talk.  I didn't say much; it only took a decent comment on my part and she was off and running.  After the massage station I only had to endure one more person asking me about my weekend. :D

In case you were wondering, but certainly wouldn't dare to ask me now; my weekend was a mixed bag.  Friday was a major trigger type day.  I thought I could read a Psalm without ill effects.  NOPE, crash and burn.  Friday night was a big church get together at somebodies house.  That was good, but still triggering and I stayed more on the outer edges of things.  I love a good party and the wine was great and quite helpful.  Saturday we had a picnic and walked around downtown and enjoyed the day.  We hit all the little shops that we never stop in, and I found two Louis L'Amour books I haven't read yet.  Sunday at church was mildly difficult on my scale.  I was able to stay here even when triggered, and only had a few flashbacks.  In the afternoon I went out for dessert with a friend for my birthday, and I enjoyed it.  So that was my weekend.

Writing it out doesn't sound so bad, but when I was asked about my weekend  the only things I could remember were the intense triggers on Friday because I read a Psalm and the triggers and flashbacks on Sunday that stayed in the manageable range.  I only needed to use a handful of methods to keep me here and didn't have to use them the whole time.  I wish my first thoughts were of the nice picnic and the shops and going out with my friend.  I didn't think of any of those things the whole time I was at the chiropractors office being asked constantly about my weekend.  I don't know why

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

Themed Blogging Days

Thinking about ways of being more intentional with this blog and I'm going to try themed blogging days.  Something like:
Marvelous Monday, Mad Monday or Morbid Monday or maybe just to be a little more "normal" I'll do Monday Munchies.
Truthful Tuesday, Tuesday Triggers, Troubled Tuesday, or Torturous Tuesdays: a walk down memory lane
Wednesday Wonders, Wordless Wednesday(I like pictures and occasionally I take a good one)
Theology Thursday (I could probably write on this, pose questions, post about the crappy "answers" I've received over the years)
Fearful Friday or Fabulous Friday (That's really polar opposites, maybe I'll just skip Fridays)
Searching Saturdays (open ended theme that can work for a lot of things, even normal living life stuff)

My Lousy Balancing Act...

I've been trying out, in great seriousness and effort, another go round of counseling with a pastor and not just some pastor that I drive to go see that doesn't see me on Sunday or other times, but my pastor, the one who is charged with shepherding the sheep in his flock, of which I am one.  I'm not sure how well it's going.  Rather, I'm not so sure how well I am doing.  I don't know how to balance honesty, openness, anger and being nice.  I don't think I can be fully honest and nice at the same time.  I can be honest in a limited scope and be nice which is how you act with everyone else when you know they have neither the time, nor inclination to hear your deepest darkest.  And that's ok, that's life.  I sure don't want everyone I know to know all about me.  Hence the somewhat anonymous blog. hehe  But as far as maintaining civility and avoiding the appearance of anger while being fully honest and open, well I've never done that before.   Never is a strong word, but it might just fit this time.

I keep coming back to the difficulty I have in balancing emotions and behavior.  Being able to handle church, preaching, Bible reading, singing and physical touch without the necessity of retreating physically and/or emotionally in order to maintain a facade of normalcy is where I would like to be some day.  I'm tired of the facade.  When I let up and am fully, or nearly fully, open and honest then I am always the loser.  When I restrain myself and limit what I say or try to act like all is okay when I am falling apart on the inside; then I still lose because I think people notice and pull away.  I'm not sure if it's because they are bothered that I don't trust them enough to be real with them or if they are retreating to avoid any possibility of getting too close to my screwed up self.

I've been scarily honest in some emails with my pastor after counseling times, and didn't try to hide my anger.  Is that keeping it real or is it being a jerk?  Having to ask such a question reflects my lousy balancing skills.  Anyway, this has been a hell of a week.  DH and I had a medium sized fight last Sunday night, and of course he brought it up in counseling on Monday afternoon.  I wasn't nice.  I was sarcastic, rude, angry, hurt and scared, but didn't show I was hurt and scared, just used all the ugly ways of protecting myself from being known.  That was a dud of a counseling session,  I was actually asked to leave so the pastor could talk to just my DH.  It was just supposed to be for 10 minutes and then I thought I was coming back in, but that actually ended the session.

I've been in a funk, depressed, planning how to win the war with my husband, ended up being really sorry for some emails I sent and I've cried a lot this week. And to top it off,  tonight I was quite triggered by reading I John in preparation for the upcoming Sunday school series. And I didn't even read it, I listened to it on my iphone from a link for this weeks church news.  Like I said, this has been a rough week.  No let up.

Singing the Psalms

Reading the Bible is very triggering for me right now, even though I'm avoiding the King James Version.  So I listen to good music that are heavy in the Psalms.  It's a balm for my soul and if I sing along, at least in my head, it doesn't trigger me.

So almost all day I've been listening to My Cry Ascends: New Parish Psalms.
Two of my favorites are Lord Jesus Think on Me and From Depths of Woe.  I know they don't sound all that encouraging, but those songs, especially, are keeping me grounded in the here and now; and I desperately need that.

http://www.ligonier.org/store/my-cry-ascends-new-parish-psalms-cd/

The Anguished Cry

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you "Violence!"

and you will not save?

Why do you make me see iniquity,

and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralyzed,

and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

Habakkuk 1:1-4

I listened to a sermon on this the other day.  I think it was a good sermon.  I need to listen to it again and hopefully I can fully turn off the baptist tapes in the background of my mind so I can understand what is being taught. http://www.wordmp3.com/details.aspx?id=11631 

I only know what is before me in words, not the technical ways of understanding who the passage is for and what it's "really" saying.  I know that was the anguished cry of my soul as a child.   Those questions are still unanswered, but from a safe vantage point of time I am still asking them.  "O LORD, why?"

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.

Is self-medicating really that bad?

I don't have any problem with drinking and don't see it as a sin like I did when I was a baptist. Maybe the way I use it isn't right, but maybe it is. It doesn't make a merry heart or help my stomach but it does help.
Chocolate, sweet tea, wine coolers, vodka smoothies...they all do the same thing for me. I think the vodka smoothies is the healthiest because of all the fruit I use. Fewest amount of calories and sugar to take care of major times of stress.
I drink a very small amount in social situations, but can down 4-8oz of vodka in a smoothie or oj when I am in extreme stress. Is that wrong? why or why not?
The idea of using med's causes some serious stress reactions, but I can get the same effect the meds would have using vodka but without triggering.

Not doing good today

I'm not doing so good. The last counseling session put words to things that I don't like to think about. I'm just on the edge of needing to sit with a bucket. I've barely got out of bed today. I got up to have breakfast with my girls at 11:30. They made biscuits and heated up yesterday's gravy. It was good southern food.

I'm supposed to be making a big batch of pumpkin muffins for tomorrow night. A potential pastor is coming to town with his family to meet with us and another family to see about starting a church. I just want to go somewhere, like deep under the covers, and not come out until they are gone. I am feeling so sick.

I'm so tired from trying to be normal for everyone around me...
I usually pull it off or have a good excuse to explain why I seem a bit off. When I can't take it anymore, then I try counseling. It makes it worse, yet I die by little bits when I just push it down and shove it back into boxes. I can't keep doing what I've been doing, but this counseling is scraping off the top layer as it oozes out of my boxes and looks at it and the looking hurts.
It hurts so much that I don't dare feel anything or think about it as me. If I did then I think I would cry...and not stop. It would be the scary crying, the kind that doesn't even care who sees or hears when I'm crying, but beforehand is so scared of the idea of anyone seeing. I don't know what the word is for that kind of crying. I just know that I melt and can only hold onto one thought.

So this is what working through trauma is like. I learned a new word last Thursday or at least had it directed towards me. I have been edgy, jumpy and nauseated ever since. I also read Christa Brown's book, This Little Light,  http://christabrown.wordpress.com/my-book/  yesterday and I didn't have enough sense to put it down until I finished it. I knew it was triggering for me, but I couldn't stop reading it anyway. No one to blame but myself.

Forgiveness and Dry Heaves

Last Sunday's Sunday school was on Ken Sande's Peacemakers book. Toward the end the focus was on forgiveness. I fought down nausa as long as possible and then fled to the bathroom with, thankfully, dry heaves. All I saw was me standing in the hallway with my teacher telling him I forgave him, again, when I was told how bad I was sinning by refusing to forgive him, again. And then to prove to him that I really forgave him I had to go to the "place where the abuse took place" again. This repeated over and over and over and over and over...

For six weeks I held out and didn't forgive him and go to the "place where the abuse took place" and for six weeks I stood at the wall for the 45 minute recess. He would stand there and tell me that I knew what I had to do to get off the wall.

The things he said to me...

I was such a forgiving child; and now just hearing it taught at church gives me the dry heaves. It has no relation on whether or not I have forgiven him. It doesn't reflect a bitterness on my part. It is a completely undesired, uncontrolable, physical reaction to past trauma. I wish I knew how to shut the videos off without shutting myself off.

Trying to start up counseling again

I haven't written anything since April...anywhere, or at least I don't remember doing so. I had a good time in Florida, I think. Underneath all the smiles and laughter were other things. I'm not sure which is real. Can both be real at the same time?

I'm supposed to be blogging through Bold Love. I haven't touched it in months. It was too much for me. I guess a self help sort of book that I'm going to be brutally honest with myself as I read it is going to require someone outside of myself to get me to actually do it. Evidently I don't have much self-government when it comes to hard things, I keep running.

Off and on since April I have thought about counseling and some of the stuff I talked about with Dr. A. I stopped seeing her because of that stupid letter she wanted me to write. I couldn't filter out what was pyscho bull and what was valid. I just shoved everything back in boxes until my child was ok and we had basically recovered from the last major rejection of us as a family and me as a person by our then newest friends back in July 2008. That still hurts but it's scabbed over nicely. We have had two major rejections of us since we moved here. I don't handle rejection well. It brings up all kinds of gut reactions and I hate it.

The last few months I keep thinking about going to see Dr C. He's Christian, even if he is baptist. Hopefully he can help, he reminds me of a former counselor I really liked. As long as there is a project or problem to solve then I stay busy and I don't think about things. Right now we are trying to get accepted by a denomination and then get a pastor sent to us. It's really stirring up fear of rejection and I don't like it. And that's on top of things starting to ooze out of my boxes again.

I called tonight and left a voice message for Dr C. I called after hours on purpose. I couldn't talk for real today, but this was a good in between step. If he calls me back then I'll see if he will see me or not. He is not with the counseling group he was with. I can't find him listed anywhere but as a pastor at a SBC church. He may not do any counseling outside his church. I talked to him once already about a year or so ago. He probably won't remember me, but I still can't do the "let's find a counselor" thing. Starting from scratch and having to say things is torture. I can disconnect and be fairly dispassionate about it, yet at some point and at some level I know I'm talking about things I'd rather die than go through again. Shame kicks in and bout drowns me in it's suffocating weight. It's just a matter of when. It could be when I make eye contact, or when I walk out the door, or when I get into my car to leave or sometimes it really gets bad when I come back the next time and have to look at their face before I have the chance to settle in and not look at them; it doesn't really matter because it always comes and I have to remember to breathe and force myself to not care and yet still be able to talk. It's really hard.