Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Sallying Forth on September 08, 2005, 03:17:54 AM
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Re: Hurricane Katrina Apathy??? Thread:
Sallying Forth,
I think the response to your thread demonstrates a lack of apathy.... :|
MP
I wrote this thread to express my identification with the "thrown away" people in NOLA. I can easily identify with that.
Who are you saying demonstrates a lack of apathy? The response? I am confused.
... well I am simply not on the same wavelength as the responders to that thread (Hurricane Katrina Apathy???).
Below is where my heart and mind have been for the past week.
I can easily identify with that. I was thrown away - cast away from my family; sold to my perpetrators to be abused any way, shape or form they desired. Three different men used and abused me as they desired with no regard for my emotional, physical, spiritual and mental well being. I've been dealing with this for the past 7 days, 8 days now, on all levels.
Early this morning (Wednesday), after reading Trapped In The Mirror and writing more chapters in my book I got the bottomline - I always wanted to have a father who loved me. I had two fathers and neither one could show me love. Then during therapy I asked how I could get what I need. And my t said I must internalize a supportive and loving father figure or figures. He asked me if I ever knew any men like that when I was a child. My t indicated that it would be best if these men were part of my life during my younger years. I could think of four male teachers (one who was both a teacher and the principal of my school) who each had a positive and supportive impact on my life. All were part of my life in grade school.
However while discussing this with my therapist I realized I am not there yet. I can't internalize until I've dealt with whatever memories need to be worked through. I know this is true because I feel it in my heart - I literally got heart palpitations (like the day I knew my father wasn't my biological father). I am writing those chapters in my book which contain those horrid memories of abuse. I had a confirmation nightmare about a memory surfacing several days prior to writing about it.
I am writing about the memories as I have them. It is a very interesting and strange process. My main character is being supported by a man whom I now realize IS one of those father figures I had in grade school. I am even using the man's name in the book. I didn't realize this until today. So when I do the final corrections I'll have to change his name as well as my bioNfather's first name.
Also during the last 8 days I've accepted who my bioNfather is. I have a full name for him. I just wish I had a picture. I have the picture from my collage work. He will look similar to that. I'm still tracking down the picture. I'm probably going to have to search Who's Who. I have used this resource in the past to find my perpetrators.
To realize that there was absolutely no support in my family for my well being has been difficult to accept. I thought possibly my father was supportive. However I now accept that he was just as abusive and neglectful as my Nmother. And both of them thought of me as something to discard, to throw away, and to sell for actual money to my bioNfather and two other very powerful and connected men. I do have full memory of the actual moment the money exchanged hands and the agreement was drawn up. I remember the house where it happened. I can describe in detail every room in that house. :twisted: :evil:
I wish to God that I made this all up. I wish to God that none of this ever happened to me. I wish to God that my bioNfather wasn't my main perpetrator and torturer.
However it is all true.
Inside I feel like a wasteland - used and littered with someone else's contaminants. I can even identify with the toxic goo in NOLA. :(
And I know there will be many more days of wailing and peeling off the stinky layers of goo before I find the me I was meant to be. Right now it seems like an unsurmountable, huge mountain of toxic goo. I thought I was near the end and then found more toxic goo. :(
It's two steps forward and one step back into the toxic goo of contaminants.
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Sally, this is a very gutwrenching tale. I am so sorry this happened to you. Your way of describing it is explicit. Hopefully the painful parts now will lead to the light for you. I believe it will.
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Hello Sallying Forth,
I'm confused too. But here is what I was responding to:
I think what saddens me the most about the devastation is NO MENTION about the devastation from any list where I am a member. Everyone acts as if nothing has happened. Maybe people have their head stuck in the sand. Maybe it is apathy. I don't know.
This quote from you and the title of your thread is what I was responding to. I mean to say that the fact that posters showed up to respond your thread and communicated quite a lot about how we all felt, was a demonstration that we do care, which is the opposite of apathy.
In other words, I took your original post to mean, gee, doesn't anyone care? and everyone replied yes, we do care, very much. Then, when this is pointed out (the caring and response), the direction of the conversation changes to identifying with the victims. I missed this change of direction in the original thread. So good thing you started a new one.
If you were emphasizing your identification with the victims (most of us do on some level), I didn't read it in the original post. I sometimes have a problem of thinking about something so much and so deeply, I am not really sure how much I have spoken about it with others. I will sometimes assume that I spoke (or wrote) about something, and it turns out I hadn't. Is this what maybe happened here? If I missed what you meant, I'm sorry--I really didn't catch that. Hope this clears up what I was saying in my post quoted above.
Having experienced the pain of not belonging, being discarded or set aside is truly a lonely feeling. It's a big hurdle to know that not everyone will treat us this way, to change how we view the world. I wish you success in this.
Hugs, MP
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Dear SF,
I am further confused of why you posted your message on a message board. Are you journaling? Nowhere in your original message do you say you identify with the victims, but everywhere there are references to EXTERNAL response by OTHERS. When we, the recipients of this message, respond to acknowledge this content--thereby paying attention to you and the issue you raised, you say that's not what you meant, you tell us you are too busy dealing with your own feelings to read what we have to say, and tell us we have to deal with it. The "it" being the conversation you started.
This is like starting to talk to someone about A, saying you meant B, and walking away because we don't get it. Then you lock it down. I don't know if you meant to but you just completely discounted everything we all had to say. You want us to listen to you. We can do that. But you aren't listening to us.
I understand you are dealing with incredibly overwhelming feelings, issues etc. But please do not discount and dismiss our feelings.
MP
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(((((((((((((((((((Sally))))))))))))))))))))))
Whatever is going on for you I just want to say that my heart goes out to you for the fact that you are trying to deal with all this very painful stuff.
Spyralle
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If you were emphasizing your identification with the victims (most of us do on some level), I didn't read it in the original post. I sometimes have a problem of thinking about something so much and so deeply, I am not really sure how much I have spoken about it with others. I will sometimes assume that I spoke (or wrote) about something, and it turns out I hadn't. Is this what maybe happened here? If I missed what you meant, I'm sorry--I really didn't catch that. Hope this clears up what I was saying in my post quoted above.
Hugs, MP
Hi MP,
I did later on in the thread, the first page, say that what triggered me was how I could identify with the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Yet at that time I didn't realize how much I could identify with them.
Thanks for the hugs. Very much needed right now. :)
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I understand you are dealing with incredibly overwhelming feelings, issues etc. But please do not discount and dismiss our feelings.
MP
I never did.
I unlocked the thread.
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Hi, Sallying--
It is touching to think of you looking at the victims on their roofs, abandoned, and feeling like "that is me." I am so sorry. No wonder the disaster was so triggering for you.
Thanks for clarifying your response for us. I don't know what else to say except that we will try to come by in a boat for you; no one here wants to leave anyone stranded. Keep communicating! It seems you are going through a lot of changes right now, lots of turmoil. I send hugs, too. And the desire to listen and understand.
best,
Vunil
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Sorry to have done my part of hijacking your other thread SallyF and thankyou for unlocking it. I can relate to being discarded and I feel for you for this having triggered so much pain for you. On the other hand, I think it's a good thing too because that pain, those feelings of being discarded need to be realized and released and acknowledged. Maybe then that will help to relieve some of the discomfort of the past. So the good thing is that you are aware of those raw feelings and expressing some of that here. Good for you!
For the present, please know that no one here discards you.
((((((((((((((((((((SallyF))))))))))))))))
Sela
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Hi ((((Sallying))))
Thanks for unlocking the first Katrina thread. I have to say that I do identify with the NOLA victims of Hurricane Katrina. Had we lived in NOLA, we very well might have been among those that were left behind. That's not the only reason I post there, but the identification is certainly there.
I don't want to discard anyone anywhere and certainly not here on this life-affirming board.
You survived a childhood that sounds very much like ritual abuse. Your strength amazes me. Please keep posting and talking about it.
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Hi ((((Sallying))))
You survived a childhood that sounds very much like ritual abuse. Your strength amazes me. Please keep posting and talking about it.
Hi Amethyst,
It was ritual abuse and more.
I've been reluctant to share any details about what happened due to many reasons. I guess number one is how unbelievable the memories are. I had a very difficult time believing any of it could be true. So I can imagine what someone else might think.
Today on Dr. Phil, of all places, I heard a young man share some of his horror story about being in one foster home. What happened to him on a daily basis is eerily similar to what my bioNfather did to me. He was tied up in a garage and everyday the foster parents would throw cold water on him. I know most people could not fathom someone doing that to a helpless child. But I can because I have experienced that and more.
In my current memory (I am trying hard to write about in my book.) I was suspended upside down from the ceiling by one foot, restrained so that I could not fight my perpetrators, and then tortured by them. There were three men. I don't know how old I am but I do know that one of those men is my bioNfather who is a sadist. And I know who the other two men are. I have yet to see exactly what they are doing to me but know it must be bad to have had a warning dream of a memory about to surface.
I keep thinking - shouldn't I be done with this by now? I've been working on this for years and I'm 52 f***ing years old! Yet I never knew before that my own father was my perpetrator. When I accepted that fact this new layer of memories began to surface. I guess I should have foreseen this inevitable turn of events after my bday in July. Yet I was in serious denial - that river in Egypt. :wink:
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I've been reluctant to share any details about what happened due to many reasons. I guess number one is how unbelievable the memories are. I had a very difficult time believing any of it could be true. So I can imagine what someone else might think.
SF - im sorry you are having these horrible memories & dreams and issues. this probably wont help at all but i want you to know, that over a year i was on a list entirely for ritual abuse survivors... (im not, i was there for another reason). the stories i heard there........
i know you still may not want to share anything and it doesnt really help at all for me to say this, but i want you to know that whatever it is, i personally believe you, even if you dont want to talk about it .... i wish there was something more i could do to help out. (((((((((((sf)))))))))))
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I keep thinking - shouldn't I be done with this by now? I've been working on this for years and I'm 52 f***ing years old!
SF please be gentle to yourself. You heal when you heal, as someone told me, not when you think you ought to heal. Going more slowly is preferable to exploding and falling apart, isn't it? I think it's more manageable.
You have time to work this all out at a rate of speed you can handle. You don't have any deadlines or timetables to meet. What you went through was vast and many a weaker person would never have been able to get through it and start to heal. Your journey to hell was a long one, and your journey back cannot be rushed.
I hear you and I believe you.
If anyone would not believe you, I think it would have more to do with their own inability to grasp the extent of inhumanity that exists. Also their desire for it not to exist.
Plucky
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SF,
hugs.
Believe you 101%. Please be gentle with yourself. To me it is a miracle that you survived and are out there facing your pain.
A book that might help right now: Maiden King by Robert Bly and Marion Woodman.
Very, very few can truly understand or empathize with what you're feeling right now--for you've suffered depths of a very dark universe veiled from the rest of us--but most will give you the next best thing: a hug, a flower, a cup of hot tea, a smile.
Marta
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((((((((((((((((Sally)))))))))))))))))))))
You make me cry with your courage. I believe you and I believe in you. I wish I could say or do more to make it easier for you. the dark depravity that exists in some humans shocks me and fills me with sadness.
Keep on posting we are all here for you and will support you however we can...
Spyralle x
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Thank you spyralle, bliz, MP, vunil, sela, amethyst, d'smom, Plucky and Marta for your support and hugs. :) Feels good.
Thanks Plucky for the 'repeat' of what I know is true. I need the reminder. It is definitely better to not go insane or become psychotic while remembering what happened. When the abuse happened I had a couple incidents of temporary psychosis. So I do know what temporary psychosis is like and I don't want that to happen right now. I've written about those in my books.
My t reminded me that the length of time it takes is directly related to the extent of the abuse, how early it began, who perpetrated it and whether there were any support systems in the home. Because it was my own bioNfather I can see why it would take this long. First I had to acknowledge that he even existed. Next I had to accept that he was evil and a sadist. My t corrected me this time saying what happened was satanic - meaning these people sided with the devil and used evil to perpetrate their abuse. I do know that but need the reminder that these acts were evil and crazy and sick. And the added factor that the main perpetrator was my own father whom I never really knew in any other context - that is the most difficult to accept.
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Hi ((((Sallying))))
You survived a childhood that sounds very much like ritual abuse. Your strength amazes me. Please keep posting and talking about it.
Hi Amethyst,
It was ritual abuse and more.
I've been reluctant to share any details about what happened due to many reasons. I guess number one is how unbelievable the memories are. I had a very difficult time believing any of it could be true. So I can imagine what someone else might think.
Today on Dr. Phil, of all places, I heard a young man share some of his horror story about being in one foster home. What happened to him on a daily basis is eerily similar to what my bioNfather did to me. He was tied up in a garage and everyday the foster parents would throw cold water on him. I know most people could not fathom someone doing that to a helpless child. But I can because I have experienced that and more.
In my current memory (I am trying hard to write about in my book.) I was suspended upside down from the ceiling by one foot, restrained so that I could not fight my perpetrators, and then tortured by them. There were three men. I don't know how old I am but I do know that one of those men is my bioNfather who is a sadist. And I know who the other two men are. I have yet to see exactly what they are doing to me but know it must be bad to have had a warning dream of a memory about to surface.
I keep thinking - shouldn't I be done with this by now? I've been working on this for years and I'm 52 f***ing years old! Yet I never knew before that my own father was my perpetrator. When I accepted that fact this new layer of memories began to surface. I guess I should have foreseen this inevitable turn of events after my bday in July. Yet I was in serious denial - that river in Egypt. :wink:
Hi ((((Sallying))))
I understand about the unbelievableness of memory. Please believe the memories and know that I believe you. NOBODY makes this stuff up. Sadly, I don't think incest survivors and abuse survivors are ever totally DONE. I have been really working on this for over 18 years and I am close to 60. Fragments still come up. It's more likely to be that way if abuse happened if we were pre-verbal when the abuse started. Dissociation also causes fragmenting...and we had to do that to survive. It also takes a long time for self abuse to stop. I only have recently dealt with the fact that I was a self-mutilator. I started scratching and picking when I was very young. Then I did some cutting, but I was afraid of being caught so I went back to scratching. I used to pull out my eyelashes and eyebrows, too. It took a long time to stop that. I still want to scratch when I get very nervous, but I find something else to do with my hands, like knitting.
I was overwhelmed by flashbacks during my freshman year of college and I thought I was going nuts. I had no framework for what I was seeing and feeling, except for having read Freud the summer before college as a prerequiste to our Freshman Studies courses....and probably everyone knows that Freud stated that memories of incest were due to the daughter's Electra complex. I absolutely could not believe what I was remembering at first. Then to top it off, here was Freud saying that I was imagining this crap because I had a hidden desire to get it on with my father. I finally decided Freud was either lying or nuts (we now know he was lying out of fear of running afoul of the prosperous Viennese fathers and being thrown out of town, losing his practice and his reputation) because, for as long as I could remember, I found my father so repulsive that I even hated the way he smelled and I recoiled from his touch. So, without even any therapeutic support, I began to understand that I wasn't making it up. At the time, 1965, there was nowhere to go with that. I began having panic attacks, developed full blown agoraphobia, and eventually tried to kill myself. I had a complete nervous breakdown. I was patched up and taught to cope by a psychiatrist, but we never discussed sexual abuse because the good doctor was my parents' employee and I knew he would not believe me.
My father was my chief perpetrator. The abuse started before I was verbal, as an infant, and continued probably up to age 7. I was also molested by a much older boy when I was six and a neighbor attempted to molest me when I was 12. My father again tried to molest me when I was 15, at my high school, while he was drunk. He was trying to force me to leave with him in the car and I was damned if I was going to because I knew that he would rape and beat me, not to mention the potential for an accident. I had already been in one car accident when my parents both were drunk, when I was 8, and that had been enough. I threw my insect collection that I had done in biology (full of jars of glass and formaldehyde) at him. It broke at his feet and he was covered with glass, formaldehyde and bug parts. When my classmates and a teacher heard the crash and my screaming at him, they rescued me. I told my father that if he ever laid a finger on me again, I would kill him in his sleep. I meant it. Before I started college, that was my only memory, which was totally concious.
It's very interesting that you are having the memory of being hung upside down. I have heard of that before. Very interesting is not the right way to put it...my reaction was one of those OMG recognitions... :shock: Many years ago I took a course on body imaging, self defense, and grounding for incest survivors. All the work we did was based on the principals of Akido, and most of our time was spent learning how to ground ourselves, take our space, breathe and be assertive...all of which are a tall order for incest and ritual abuse survivors. Many of us, including me, had memories during the course. Two sisters that had been abused took the course together and remembered being hung upside down and tortured at their grandmother's house by several adults on something that reminded them of a jungle gym. They said the apparatus was not there most of the time, so it must have been brought in. They survived what I would call a form of ritual abuse.
Stay strong and believe in yourself, Sallying.. I know it can be so overwhelming at times. I can tell when I am getting new memories because I start to feel "small"....as if I am that little child again. I do lots of grounding and breathing to get through it.
It gets better every year. I really believe that the worst is at the beginning...breaking the denial.
Amethyst
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Hi Amethyst,
I had a nervous breakdown in college too, the year was 1978. That was also the year I began to journal my life. Although I had zero memories of anything from my supposedly wonderful, functional family. :wink: A teacher saw my problem, total inability to function in hands on situations, and recommended I see a school counselor. (Academically I was doing okay but still not doing great.) I did see the t and cried every time I tried to speak. That was three times a week for nearly one month before I actually spoke about my family. Then my counselor recommended that I observe my friends' families so that I could compare them to mine. What I discovered was my family all had monotone voices and flat affects. It was the first time I realized something was wrong with my family and that it was not functional and normal. My t told me that monotone and flat affect were outward signs of deeper problems. I stayed with that t until I got my degree 2 years later.
Then I went on with life in a fog. I functioned but at a very low level. I underachieved over and over again. Getting married and buying a home caused the memories to surface. It was 10 years later. However I ran into many disbelieving therapists who would not accept my memories. One woman Ntherapist tried to have me committed because she thought I was crazy for saying certain government entities could be involved with my abuse. It took 4 years to find a therapist who would listen and accept my truth. Now that t has several more clients who have remembered similar things to what I've described sans the sadistic and evil bioNfather.
My only denial now has been about my real father's involvement. First I had to accept that this man was my bioNfather before I could get out of denial.
My bioNfather was (is ??? don't know if he still alive) a true sadist. He was an expert at BDSM, especially bondage and domination, and extremely sadistic and evil. He trained other people in his techniques. What I am remembering is not what other survivors of ritual abuse are remembering. I've asked my fellow survivors and they don't have memories like these. I think that is what makes these memories feel so unbelieveable even to me. I can't compare them to other ritual abuse survivors. It was not[/not] some type of apparatus rather leather restraints which he designed for suspension. My bioNfather was into torture, mind control, brainwashing and coupled that with extreme BDSM.
My abuse began pre-verbal and ended around 14 years old. I don't have an exact time frame on that.
I too do the scratching but ONLY when I don't write. Pretty difficult to write and scratch at the same time when you're typing. ;) I had stopped my self-abuse 7 years ago and then started again when these new memories began. I attempted suicide at age 11. I had a memory about that and found the actual scar around my neck where I tried to cut it.
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I guess I should have foreseen this inevitable turn of events ...
Should? As in you had any way in hell of doing that? Not your fault.
I think that is what makes these memories feel so unbelieveable even to me.
I believe you.
(((((((((((((((SallyF)))))))))))))) (((((((((((Amethyst)))))))))))
I admire both of you for trying so hard to heal and thrive, regardless of all of the horrible abuse you've sustained. Including not being believed. That seems like a kick in the head ontop of it all.
Abuse upon abuse.
:( Sela
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((((Sallying Forth)))) you are so brave. I'm so sorry you went through all that torture and so glad you are hear now and telling the truth about it. >3 You are very inspiring by being so brave and truthful.