Well, I'll try to recreate the post I lost yesterday, although I think it will be shorter. (A good thing.)
I've been having a hard few days. It started on Sunday when I learned the committee at church has decided on an interim pastor and is making a recommendation to the board. It marks a new phase in our church life and for me it raises a few issues. I've always wanted to talk to whoever they got, once they got here, and now that the opportunity seems close, it's raising all sorts of issues and pain. Can I trust another pastor? Do I even care? Do I even care about any pastor?Do pastors even matter to me or affect my life any more? I don't even care about when we get another permanent one. He/she will have no meaning to me. Just reliving the thing and wondering if he'll understand and truly help me and believe me will be hard.
Also, it feels like everyone at church is moving on -- and they are, and of course only 4-5 people know about any of this -- and I'm left holding this enormous piece of baggage to deal with. I'm alone with it. They will all be moving forward and I will be where I will be. I'll be feeling this great loss and they'll be much more positive. Even the people who know, especially my good friend the music director, will naturally forget the incident and move on. That's just how it goes. I'm afraid that he will begin to think that I should be getting over it (I guess I'm projecting, aren't I?) when in fact, my therapist said I was where he'd expect me to be with all this, it hasn't been very long.
I am afraid, also, that in moving on with the church's life, they will forget about this man and his other transgressions, and just let them get lost in the flow of things. There is so much additional stuff to keep him accountable for, and I think it will just get lost.
That's hardly the big part. I'm just now starting to comprehend and feel -- I think -- what this man did to me. It is outrageous. I have been feeling everything -- hurt, enormous anger, yadadadada. I've also been having flashbacks of various times when he would look at me with these crazy eyes; I never knew what they were or meant, but it always frightened me. Terrified me sometimes. I never knew whether it was sexual intent, a general threatening attempt, or really, I just didn't know. Sometimes it seemed like he was trying to look like he was enthralled to see me but missed the look. Now that I know more about Nism, I wonder if he was trying to mimick an emotion but missed. I suppose at different times it could have been any of those. Anyway, I've been having flashbacks and fear associated with them.
In turn, this has set of deep feelings about his use of power and control. I see more and more how he was using his power and trying to control me, and it makes me shake.
So I took this to group (therapy) Monday night, and as always, they were just great and very helpful. At the moment I am the only woman in group, the rest are guys, and they're really good guys. They are so helpful! And they're all smart and articulate, too. (To say nothing of my therapist...) We got into it, one of them seriously challenged me with some really good insight (he always does) ... which prompted my therapist to say a few things about my experience with my FOO. And that set off a bomb. It was so painful and so powerful that I made an appointment to see him the next day. I just couldn't function while walking around with it.
When my T reframed what my group-mate was saying, he explained how I idealize people out of times, and it doesn't serve me well. It's how I often get into these jams. I'm looking to replace the parents I never had.
The discussion hit a nerve; I told them I had never ever idealized or even adored or looked up to my parents when I was little, ever. I never did. By the time I was driving home, I felt like I'd been hit by a ton of bricks and was in enormous pain. In 20 years of therapy I'd never felt anything this painful. It was the loss of something I should have had. A big loss.
And of course, it all gets tied in with the N pastor, so it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I could barely concentrate yesterday. (Although I was much better after my therapy session.)
It's all very hard and very painful and very overwhelming, but I know this is a good thing. I know that idealization thing is a rock-bottom, core issue, and that mourning my parents and what they didn't give me is very important. Vital.
A big part of this, too, is that in trying to understand my own contribution to this mess, Monday night I ended up feeling like I'd contributed to my own psychological rape; and I did, although I can't be blamed for it. I couldn't have seen it coming. I couldn't have predicted who this man really was, or have seen it. He was that good and my therapist really understands that.
He asked if I could afford to start individual therapy again (I haven't been for 5 years because of my employment situation) but I can't. However, it felt so good to hear him ask, and to hear that he thinks I need it (because I agree). And the very wonderful way he brought it up. What a great guy.
But that doesn't make it easy. I was supposed to go to my dad's house for a few days and help my sister (and her husband, although he never does any work) clean out the attic. I'm not going. I'm just too fragile. I might, MIGHT be able to take her, but there's no way I can be around him; he's just an a____ and a bully. (Not to her. They seem to have a good relationship, actually.) Everything is about him.
I'm taking the two days for me, to take care of things at home. Also, I have some plumbing issues so this gives me a good out for not going. (Although they probably won't believe me.)
But heck. It's their time-table. I don't have to meet it. I don't have to do a da)) thing about that house, really. So I don't feel I have to go.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that although it's been very hard for the past many months, all of a sudden this week it went into overdrive. I was actually supposed to be off work today, but I came in because I felt it would be soothing, and it was (believe it or not). I feel much better today, but probably when I go out the door and get in my car it will all come back again. I felt enormous rage at this guy (the N pastor) for my entire hour's commute this morning. I'll probably feel it on the way home.
I feel depressed as I write this, but I know that's the anger that I'm not letting out while I'm at work. Also, because of the loss I feel from my parents.
Well, gotta go! Thanks for listening.
LC
PS -- this is not nearly as good as what I lost yesterday. That was much more powerful. Oh well. But I've copied it!
