Hi both, thank you, the storm was horrendous. You wouldn't believe it today, it's so calm and sunny, but we had 90mph winds from the early hours of the morning until late in the evening, which was then followed by snow. Fortunately for us we are in a bit of a dip which I think protected us from the worse of it. We've not suffered damage beyond the garden taking a bit of a battering, we've not lost power (went off briefly a few times but only for a few minutes), phones are still working (and internet!). But all around us there are trees down, roads blocked, people without power or phones, they've set up mobile food vans in some areas to feed people who've no power, I've seen pictures of roofs off, windows blown in and all sorts. Very scary. I'm very glad it's over and hope not to experience it again.
I'm still just trying to work through all my issues. At times I feel like two people. There's a person I could be/would have been if the abuse hadn't happened. There's the person I am, whose had to develop an incredibly tough shell to keep the other one safe. I'm a bit nervous about 'talking' to different parts, I kind of worry it might become something I'm no longer conscious of and turn in to a proper 'mental health' situation, but at the same time it almost feels like the 'protected' person, whilst having a range of interests, skills and hobbies, doesn't have any ability to cope with real life situations, because she's never experienced them. Almost like those useless adults you get who rely completely on their parents because they've never been taught how to problem solve, look after themselves, build a bit of resilience and so on. The protected part doesn't feel safe enough to do anything; even drinking a glass of water creates a feeling of vulnerability that I don't get when I drink coffee, simply because the caffeine creates a bit of fizz which overrides any feelings. So I've been trying to work with that and I think it's helping, but I've never been so tired in my life. I've not even got out of bed today, I just don't have any energy. It feels like the internal work is taking everything up. Which hopefully is a good thing.
I start counselling with Rape Crisis next month so I've been trying to work things out on paper, to get things straight in my head so that I don't waste sessions just waffling on about things that aren't important. I've been writing a lot about my childhood and that's been hard. I've had to acknowledge how involved my mum was in the sexual abuse and I've found that very difficult. I've also been putting together a family tree, and seeing how many relatives we have, and how not one of them even thought to take my sister and I out every now and again, just to get us out of that situation, has been hard to absorb as well. I can see how it's difficult to feel worthwhile as an adult when everyone in your life through childhood either ignores you or berates you.
The positive is my sister and I have been talking more, and that's really helping our relationship. It's interesting that she tends to remember practical details, and I remember the more emotional stuff. I had some photos of our dad that she didn't have. I didn't realise; I'd always assumed my mum did us copies so we both had them but it seems she didn't even bother to do that, so I've copied them and sent them to her. We've talked about how nice it would be to find out we were adopted
I would really love to know that woman's genes don't exist inside me.
So yep, that's where we are. It's tough going, I'm not enjoying it to be truthful, I'm feeling very envious of people that just go to work, watch a bit of telly and go to bed. The fact it's winter doesn't help; the short days really do me in and although they're getting longer now, it's still a lot of dark to cope with. It is what it is. It does feel more like two steps forward, pause, step forward again, which is better than two forward and three back, which is what usually happens. I'm hoping the counselling is useful. It would be nice to finally get past this for good.
Just editing to add: I think the big problem I've got now is that my efforts to ensure my son's childhood was nothing like my own have been successful but - he's now facing the same adult life I've had, which is of isolation, lack of connection and low income. I put all my effort into keeping abusive people and traumatic experiences out of his life, but it didn't leave me enough left over to work on myself enough to build healthy relationships with people, and I've found hiding in my shell the only way to cope. So he has no-one but me, same as I have no-one but me. I need to change that. I think the 'protected' part of me kind of dies if being nice doesn't elicit the desired response - having not learnt how to take the knocks and be secure without getting a certain kind of feed back. So the survivor part of me is the one that goes out into the world, but she doesn't attract the kind of people I want, so I always end up a bit in the middle, knowing a lot of people but no-one really knowing me. I need to work on that but that feels kind of scary as well, it's never knowing where the tipping point might be, going over the edge and not being able to get back up. And not having any help to do it, either. So it becomes a kind of self fulfilling prophecy - there's no-one there to catch me if I fall, so I can't try, which means I'll never have anyone to catch me, and on it goes. Something else to work on. Anyway, I'm rambling. I've got up, I've had a bath, I'm going to tidy up and cook some dinner and then I'm going back to bed. Do feel less tired, actually, I'm hoping some decent sleep tonight and some reasonable weather tomorrow will help xx
