Hearing of September 27th, 2018

Yesterday there was a Senate hearing to determine the credibility of two people--Christine Ford, a female psychological researcher and college instructor and Brett Kavenaugh, a highly respected male federal judge who is aspiring to a lifetime position on our Supreme Court.  I watched the entire hearing, beginning to end.  I will admit, however, to moments of distraction during the long introduction by Kavenaugh.

 Which of the two did I find more credible?  Christine Ford.  Why?  For one thing, because she presented as an ordinary person who had survived a horrendous trauma.  Her memory, she admitted, had holes in it, she did not present a seamless account of her life and the event in question, and she had taken a lie detector test and had been determined to be telling the truth regarding her ordeal.  Kavenaugh, on the other hand, prefaced his part in the hearing by presenting himself as a person of high moral fiber, virtue, and work ethic, not given to drinking beer to the point of blacking out, and certainly not given to treating women with anything but highest respect.   

Yes, Judge Kavenaugh painted a picture of himself as a person of highest virtue, a devoted husband and father of girls, and a devout practitioner of his religious faith.  How could anyone not believe him?  He presented himself as an almost- flawless human being.  The problem for me, however, was that he went too far in his use of rhetorical devices.  He attempted to garner his audience's sympathy by relating something one of his little girls said during her prayer time, something like "Let's pray for 'the woman.'"  Did I get warm fuzzies from that??  No!  I recognized his appeal to my emotions as a ploy to get me on board his boat.  I preferred to swim!  So, no, Brett Kavenaugh did not come across to me as being more believable than Christine Ford.  Try as he might, Brett Kavenaugh could not sell me the Brooklyn Bridge.

What is it that stands out as being most haunting in yesterday's debaucle?  Christine Ford's reference to the laughter, the loud laughter of the boys who watched her suffer.  Why does her talk of laughter haunt me?  Because buried as deeply in my brain as in hers, I hear the laughter, too.  And the laughter I hear is the same laughter she heard, the laughter of a victimizer at his victim as she suffers.  I'll never, ever forget that sound!  Problem was that I was stuck--my tormenter was the person I was married to and lived with.  I couldn't escape, at least that's what I thought at the time.  Later, when I discovered he was victimizing our child, she and I both escaped.  Until then, however, I was stuck. 

Christine Ford said something about being afraid she would be accidentally killed as she was being tormented and abused.  I wasn't afraid of being killed because I didn't have time to fear death.  I was asleep until I wasn't asleep.  Then I screamed.  Each time I screamed, he laughed!  He thought it was hilarious to wake me by attmpting to rape me with our male dog.  He didn't succeed, but he enjoyed trying.  Each time he tried and I screamed, he laughed.  Why did I let that happen?  Yes, it was, of course, my fault--not his fault.  In those days, whatever bad happened was always my fault. That was a given. 

As in many cases of domestic abuse, my abuser isolated me.  I had just one close friend, and she was a female Episcopal priest.  I could talk to her with ease, for the most part.  But I simply could not bring myself to ask her if what my husband so clearly enjoyed doing to me was "ordinary."  Did most husbands do that to their wives?  Did most husbands use their dogs as a source of sexual pleasure?  Yes, there was that, too.  I just could not ask her about this.  It was too terrible.  Until I became desperate.  Then I finally asked her.

My friend was not really shocked by my question.  She said that during her internship in pastoral work, she had spent time working as a chaplain in one of the big prisons in our state.  Plenty of guys behind bars had "bestiality" written in their files.  She said she thought it was a felony.  No, she wasn't shocked at the topic.  She was, however, shocked that I was being victimized by my husband.  She said that if I had not told her, she never would have known anything like that was going on in my life.  She assured me that my husband's behavior was not typical or "ordinary."  I needed to get help, she said.  I was already seeing a therapist for depression, so I needed to tell her about my husband's behavior.  I did.  Telling my therapist and my friend helped me understand that perhaps my husband had a flaw or two in his psychological makeup--maybe I was less flawed than I had thought.  Was that possible?

Shortly after this experience, I found myself awakening to the possibility that not every bad thing that happened in our household was my fault.  As a dear friend of mine often said, "With awareness comes change."  So true.  I gained confidence and courage. Thus, when I caught my husband abusing our daughter, I reported him to the police and filed for divorce.  I've been on my own since 1981, about the time when Christine went through her trauma.  The experience has been behind me for all these years, but like Christine, I'll hear the laughter for the rest of my life.  It's there for a lifetime.  We'll never forget.

C-PTSD Doesn't Exist??? Cowboy Makes a Vow . . .

Cowboy, that ego state within me who flies into action when action is called for, has made a vow:  She is determined to spread the word that C-PTSD is real, that it does certainly exist, and that it can be, given the right circumstances, healed!  So--why would Cowboy feel the need to spread the word regarding C-PTSD? Of course, C-PTSD is real!  Those of us who have been diagnosed with the condition and those wonderful therapists who help people heal from C-PTSD all know that the condition/disorder exists!  Why the need to convince anyone?  Don't all mental health professionals accept the fact that C-PTSD exists??  The short answer to this last question is a resounding "No!"  And how do I know this? 

As my readers are aware, I relocated a year ago from Portland, Oregon, to a small town in Oregon's northern neighbor, the state of Washington.  Actually, I now live in Lewis County, Washington, in the town of Chehalis, to be exact.  If you look on a map, you will see that the area where I live is directly north of Portland, on I-5.  The trip to Portland by train takes about two hours, and the trip by car is about the same.  As you see, Lewis County is physically not very far from Portland, but the miles between the two places represent a huge disconnect when it comes to the attitude of professionals toward C-PTSD. 

When I lived in Portland, I had no problem finding a therapist who treated clients suffering from psychological trauma damage, and I had little trouble finding a therapist who gave me an accurate diagnosis of C-PTSD.  The "Psychology Today" list of Portland professionals treating PTSD and trauma-related conditions is almost thirty pages long.  In contrast, when I did a search today in the same data base but typed in "Lewis County, Washington" rather than Portland, Oregon, a list of nine therapists came up.  Of those nine therapists, four actually had their offices in Lewis County.  The others had offices in neighboring counties.  

Of the four therapists who were actually local therapists and who were listed as treating PTSD and trauma, all listed short-term behavioral therapy, DBT, and CBT among their modalities of preference.  None listed EMDR or Ego State Therapy.  And EMDR is a treatment accepted by the Veterans' Administration as being effective in treating PTSD!  Where several of the therapists in nearby Thurston county said they treated C-PTSD, none of the four therapists in Lewis County listed C-PTSD as a condition they treated.  Why??  The answer is very simple:  C-PTSD is not a disorder found in the DSM-V!  PTSD is in the book, but C-PTSD is not.  And if it's not listed in the DSM, the disorder doesn't exist--for all practical purposes.  Or, well, C-PTSD exists in Portland, but it doesn't exist in Lewis County, Washington.  Odd, isn't it, that the disorder can exist in one location but not in another?? 

I know Lewis County's population is small (75,081 souls) compared to that of Portland (2,314,854 metro area), Oregon, but aren't there any people in Lewis county who have C-PTSD and need therapy for it?  According to the listing, it would appear that there are no people who have this condition in Lewis County and there is no need for therapists who are trained to treat the disorder.  However, if we prowl around beneath the surface, the picture looks a bit different.

When I arrived in Chehalis last December, I began a casual survey of the therapists here.  First, I sent out flyers to every therapist listed in Chehalis and Centralia, the two major population centers in the county.  On the flyer I advertised myself as being willing to speak from experience on the topic of C-PTSD and the healing process, and I made sure to add that I would charge no fee for doing this.  Of the fifteen or so flyers I sent out, I received one response.  That came from the head of one of our major public mental health clinics.  She responded that the modality of choice at her clinic is short-term behavioral therapy, CBT.  She added that if she encounters a person with obvious trauma damage, then she refers that person to somebody outside her clinic, usually.  Public funding does not normally cover the long-term therapy that trauma work requires.  She added that she would keep my offer in mind for the future. 

Her response was the sole response I received.  I was disappointed, of course, to receive just the one response, but at least I then had some idea as to which way the wind blew. I concluded, probably accurately, that the government does not want to pay for long-term therapy, and from my own experience with C-PTSD I know that short-term behavioral therapy would not have helped me get to the roots of my trauma damage and heal.  Also, others who blog on their journey to heal C-PTSD normally have been engaged in the process for a long time, and they talk about the complexity of their process, the necessity of a trusting and long-term relationship with a competent therapist, and all the ups and downs of their process.  In other words, for these other bloggers, a short-term DBT or CBT approach would not really meet their needs anymore than it would have met my needs. 

Not a person to give up easily once I "get the bit in my mouth"--pardon the rural and equine reference!--I took my survey further and went through the phone list of therapists in Lewis County.  I decided to limit my inquiry to only those therapists who were able to answer my call in person--I'd had too many experiences with failed call-backs to trust that leaving a message would get results--and of the four therapists I talked to, three did not treat trauma patients at all.  One therapist told me that she did not have the time to treat trauma patients/people with C-PTSD, and she referred those people to a clinic in neighboring Thurston county, a county with a larger population and a higher average education level than Lewis County.  Well, at least she allowed for the possible existence of C-PTSD.  That was encouraging! 

Curious, I looked at the list of therapists in the Olympia area and discovered that there are several therapists who treat C-PTSD in Olympia.  Not only that, but there is actually a clinic that specializes in treating people with PTSD and C-PTSD.  So C-PTSD exists in Thurston County and is deemed treatable in Thurston County, but it does not exist in Lewis county?  Interesting!  Yes, very interesting, in fact!  From this discovery and from the informal information-gathering I have done, I can probably conclude with some accuracy that 1. in larger population areas where the income and educational levels are higher than in Lewis County, there is more likelihood that people with Complex PTSD can find appropriate help, and 2. there is a huge need for education among professionals and non-professionals here in Lewis county regarding the causes, symptoms, and healing of Complex PTSD.  I can also conclude that I'm damned lucky to have found the help I needed and to have healed to the point that I have healed BEFORE moving to Lewis County!!   Amen to that!! 

 Why do I believe that, despite the refusal of most professionals here to admit to the existence of C-PTSD, there are people here who are suffering the effects of the condition?  For one thing, if Judith L. Herman, M.D. ("Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolonged and Repeated Trauma."  Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1992) is to be believed--and I do believe her!--suffering prolonged child abuse and also being victimized for years in a domestic violence situation often leads to a person's developing Complex PTSD.  Common sense and the fact that no fewer than five agencies are listed when I searched for county agencies that help domestic violence victims tell me that there are plenty of residents here who possibly are long-term victims of abuse.  Child sexual abuse?  When I lived here in 1981, a professional who worked for the local Department of Social and Health Services told me that Lewis County, Washington, ranked seventh in the nation for the reported cases of incest.  Unreported cases??  No figure available.  Presently, this county and neighboring Cowlitz County, both what might be called "rural" counties, are hotbeds of drug abuse, particularly hotbeds of meth production and use.  And along with meth abuse come child neglect/abuse and domestic violence. 

With the above in mind, then, I wager that plenty of people here in Lewis County are wandering around suffering the symptoms of a disorder that is not recognized as legitimate by the bulk of the professionals in the county: "C-PTSD is not in the DSM-V;  it doesn't exist;  why would or should we treat it?"  Of course, there is the practical reason for not treating C-PTSD:  If it is not specifically listed as a disorder in the DSM, then there may be no reimbursement by insurances.  But folks in more urban areas are treated for C-PTSD, and their treatment is paid for by their insurance, including by Medicare.  All I can say with certainty is that I have been diagnosed as having C-PTSD, I received the long-term help I needed, and that help was paid for by Medicare and my Medicare supplement.  Other people I have known with the diagnosis of C-PTSD have had their therapy paid for by their private insurance.  But these people have not lived in rural areas! 

No, the general attitude here in Lewis County is that C-PTSD does not exist as a legitimate diagnosis and, therefore, nobody has the disorder.  When I asked the head of the largest public mental health facility here how she would have treated me had I presented with the symptoms of C-PTSD, she replied that I would have been medicated and given short-term behavioral therapy.  When I asked her if she would have given me a diagnosis of C-PTSD, she just stared at me and did not reply.  As I said earlier, I'm damned glad I did not relocate to this area until AFTER I had been treated for C-PTSD! 

So is there anything I can do to help bring about a change in the way people here in Lewis County regard--or disregard!--Complex PTSD?  As a nonprofessional but also as a person who has been diagnosed with Complex PTSD and who has been successfully treated for the disorder, all I can do is tell people about my own individual experience and hope that at least a few of my listeners and any local readers of my blog take me seriously enough to find out for themselves that C-PTSD does indeed exist.  Maybe these people will wonder, as I do, why they are stonewalled when they bring up the subject with local professionals.  This is a sad, sad situation, and I can only pray that eventually it will change.

There is one huge step that can be taken, however, that will do more than anything else to bring about change in the local attitude regarding the existence of C-PTSD:  Include C-PTSD/DESNOS in the DSM-VI!!  That would be the logical first step!  The second step would be to make education and training in effective methods for treating C-PTSD/DESNOS available to local therapists.  I'm almost seventy-six years old and may not be alive to see the day C-PTSD is included in the manual or to see any of the local therapists who do not believe the disorder exists accept that it does exist and receive training in its treatment, but if that day ever comes, I can guarantee that there will be clients right here in Lewis county to keep those therapists as busy as they want to be! 

As I stated at the beginning of this post, I plan to do as much as I can to educate people in this community regarding Complex PTSD.  I know, at the same time, that what I have to say will fall on a lot of deaf ears.  However, in the hope that maybe a few people will listen, become interested in the topic, and do some local investigating, making the effort to educate is worth my expenditure of energy.  This time next year I'll let you know what results from my efforts!  Have a wonderful holiday season and a great New Year! 


Note:  My 2012 post of this same topic should appear below this post.  Same general topic--different information.  Important reading for all you who have been diagnosed with C-PTSD!  And for anyone who knows a person with the diagnosis. 

On Being Grateful for A Community of Bloggers, Integrating, and A New Direction

Dear Readers,
I know I promised you a post on integrating personality parts, and I actually wrote such a post.  It did not make it to this blog, though, because as sometimes happens, I clicked somewhere I should not have clicked.  And I was being so careful!  The result of the errant click was that I lost the entire post, and I have no clue as to where it went!  However, I offer you the following thank you, the beginning of my post, the part that did not disappear into the black hole: 
 
A Heartfelt Thank You!  
 
My thanks to Cat’s Meow and her blog (http://livingwhilehealing.wordpress.com/) and also to Sidran.org (http://www.sidran.org/sub.cfm?contentID=73&sectionid=4 ) for inspiring me to write a post on integration of personality parts.  I’m so thankful to be part of the community of bloggers addressing the topics of PTSD, C-PTSD, and DID.  I’m also grateful to the people who blog about domestic violence and child abuse, and I truly appreciate those who blog about the causes of these social problems, especially positivagirl whose blog is called “Dating a Sociopath.”  The more information we share, the more we learn, and the more we learn, the more effectively we can help victims become survivors. 
 
Having expressed my gratitude, I will say that since I have relocated to this small town, I have felt so much better than I did when living in the big city.  By this, I mean I have more energy and feel less stressed.  I feel more "together" than I have felt for a long time, and that may be in part because since I have been here, I am experiencing the integration of my personality parts at a more rapid rate than in the past year or so.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have even experienced the return of my female sexuality, a part of myself that I did not believe would return.  I figured I'd go to the grave without welcoming that part of myself home, in fact.  Not so!

I remember when I was a little girl, about the age of eight or nine, I more or less booted my sexuality out of my psyche.  After all, why would I want to be a little girl when my being female had led to so much pain?  When I was about four, my parents had forced me to pose nude for their guests, and the neighbor woman had fondled me and had sexually assaulted me.  A few years after that, boys chased me into the bushes on the way home from school and shoved sticks up me.  All that pain because I was a girl!  Get rid of the "girl" in me, and nobody would hurt me, I reasoned. 

                                                                 

 

I was about the same age, eight or nine, when I decided that I was on one side and everyone else in the world was on the other side.  In my mind, I became a tough little asexual being determined to survive even if my survival meant struggling alone against everyone else in the world, a tiny blade of grass determined to break through the concrete all by myself--as Malvina Reynolds sang in the 1960s:

God bless the grass that grows through cement.
        It's green and it's tender and it's easily bent.
        But after a while it lifts up its head,
        For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
        And God bless the grass. 

 (Stanza Three of "God Bless the Grass."  Malvina Reynolds wrote this song in 1964 after the assassination of JFK.)


Here I am, then, age 75, and I'm finally "getting it together."   The old cliche "Better late than never!" works for me! 

So with the above in mind and feeling energetic, I attended Mass this morning.  For some reason, simply being in a church, no matter what variety of church it is, helps me contact the right side of my brain and allows me to have insights or ideas I might not otherwise have.  Today's church experience was no exception.  I entered the church empty-headed and exited the church with an idea:  I've decided to take my long essay which I titled "Fallout" and modify it so that it becomes a monologue script. Once I have done that and have refined the monologue so it feels comfortable when I perform it, then I plan to contact churches and appropriate organizations and offer to do performances in exchange for donations to the local agency that helps survivors of domestic violence.
 
I have all the ingredients for success in this venture:  the already-written personal narrative, the personal experience of abuse, the experience of standing or sitting in front of an audience, and the sense that God has blessed this idea.  And rather than ask myself why on earth I would want to do such a thing, I have asked myself why on earth I would NOT want to do such a thing.  No reason comes to mind.  Over the years, and with God's help, I've learned the technique of turning a half-empty glass into a half-full glass--a very important skill!

So now I see a new task in my future, that of raising funds for the local Human Response Network.  To that end, after the pressure of participating in the big fundraiser coming up in mid-March, I will begin serious revisions of "Fallout."  If you would like to read that essay, simply find the search engine in my Google blog, healingabusecausedcomplexptsd.blogspot.com, and type in "Fallout."  I divided the essay into four installments originally to make them easier to read on the blog, so if you find the essay, be sure to get all four parts. 

It's Sunday afternoon now, and I'm going to kick back and relax and wait for tonight's installment of "Downton Abbey"--one of my pleasures in life!  Got to relax and recharge before the next busy week begins!  Namaste . . . 

A New Ego State Enters the Arena: Who In the Heck is She??

One aspect of my life that keeps me going is the fact that I never know what I'm going to do next!  Or, rather, I never can be entirely certain if I have it together.  By that, I mean--Am I all here??

As you know if you have been following my blog, I am on the downward slope of treatment for Complex PTSD and for the accompanying DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder, once known as MPD), the fragmentation of my personality.  This happens to people who have been abused as small children, for scientists know now that the personalities of infants and small children are fragmented; their ego states have not yet come together to form the adult personality.  That "coming together" happens, generally, when a person is in his or her twenties, according to modern brain research.  For me, this information shines a new light on the expression, "I've got myself together" or "I've got my act together."  Before I began having the flashbacks and PTSD symptoms that led me to seek help, I thought I had my act together.  Now I know better, for I'm still healing, still bringing my ego states together.  For more on this, see http://www.esti.at/index.php/about-ego-state-therapy.  Also, if you want to know more about my personal experience with ego state therapy, please click on the topic in the list of topics on this site.

So here I am, now, living in Chehalis, Washington, after relocating from Portland, Oregon, in December.  If you have read my previous post, you know about that.  You know, too, why I'm here--I want to help the people in the this community who are trying to help the victims of abuse and domestic violence.  The agencies involved in this work here need all the support they can get--financially and in any other way!  The situation here regarding batterers and abusers and their victims has not changed much since I turned my husband in for child abuse in 1981.  I was shocked to learn that, but now I am more determined than ever to help where I can.  Now that I have said that, I can also say that returning to this area is helping me, too, as I heal and continue to unite my ego states.  Wild and wonderful things have been happening within me!

You may remember that I chose to work with my ego states in an imaginary equestrienne arena.  All my ego states live there and interact, and the arena is where the action has been--all 1,450 pages of it.  I chose to work with my ego states outside the therapy sessions and then read each installment to my therapist so she could witness progress.  In the process of doing this, I have alleviated my PTSD symptoms and have also quieted the battle that has gone on inside me since I was a child.  From the time I was a little girl, I felt that a war was taking place inside me.  I could feel it and hear it!  My ego states, as I know now, were fragmented, split off from one another, unable to communicate, and I seldom experienced inner peace.  Now, I do.  For the most part, my ego states are now closer to one another and working in harmony for my well-being.  I have worked long and hard over a thirty-year span--but especially in the past four years when I have had competent help--to bring about this state of inner peace and harmony. The struggle has been worth the effort--more worthwhile than words can tell!

So now I'm here in Chehalis, trying to help support the work done for victims of abuse.  And now a stranger has entered my arena, a new part has arrived upon the scene, a part that I thought was completely dead.  I'm talking about my sexuality!  Here I am, age 75, and I'm becoming aware of my sexuality!  How peculiar is that??

Yes, I was violently sexually abused multiple times as a child by various people, none of whom were my parents, and I told nobody when the events happened.  Thus, I received no help to process the assaults.  The memories and the trauma energy stayed in my right brain and were compounded, intensified during my twenty-year marriage to a man who, during the last few years of my marriage, took pleasure from performing sadistic acts upon me and laughing at my screams.  In the years before those last years, he simply used me to "do his thing."  I let myself be used because I didn't want to be the object of his temper if I said "no."  So my history of being a sexual human being is not a happy history.  "Sex" has been a negative word my entire life.  I never enjoyed participating in the sex act, and over the years, I have relegated that part of me to the garbage bin, the dustbin.  I've considered myself to be "asexual," a woman with a missing part, in other words. 

But just last week, I began to believe that the sexual part of me has begun to find her voice and, like the potted crocuses and iris I bought a few days ago, has begun to grow and show promise of bearing gorgeous blooms.  Maybe nobody outside myself will ever see or know those blooms, but I will, and that's what counts.  So what, I ask myself, has brought this on? 

As part of the fundraising effort to support the agency that works with victims of abuse, a community group is giving a performance of a play titled "The Vagina Monologues" written by Eve Ensler.  The purpose of this piece is to raise people's awareness of violence against women and children and to help women understand that their bodies are not any more "hush hush" than a man's body.  In other words, once a "secret" is busted, it's not a secret anymore.  People talk about it.  Women can say "no," just as a man can, and women can tell somebody if they are assaulted and victimized.  Being raped or molested does not throw the spotlight of shame onto the victim; it puts the spotlight where it should be--on the victimizer!  Well, those are my takes on the play.  Younger women may see this differently. 

After I spoke to a domestic violence support group last week, the Executive Director asked me if I would like to participate in this year's production of "The Vagina Monologues."  Astonished at myself, I said "Yes"!  I did that!  I said "Yes"!  I couldn't believe myself, but I agreed.  And here I am, an old lady who to this point could scarcely utter the word "vagina" let alone consider participating in a play about vaginas. 

When I arrived home after speaking, I booted up my computer and read the Wickipedia report on the play.  After reading that, I wasn't sure I really wanted to participate because it struck me that the monologues would be likely to trigger people if they had past bad experiences that they had not processed.  Then I read a few versions of the script.  And I thought about the whole matter.  I was born in 1939, and this is now 2014.  Young people in this generation do not perceive sexuality and sexual matters the way I do.  I decided to attend the first rehearsal for the play and see how the participants perceived the monologue contents.  I did that, and afterwards I felt comfortable with my decision.  I'll do it!  I have been assigned the "old lady" part, the one titled "The Flood."  I have not had the experiences described in this monologue, but I can relate to the woman whose story it is.  It's sad, very sad, and I can relate to "sad."  That's easy!  "Sad" has definitely been part of my life experience!

So now a new part is entering the arena of my ego states.  She is not well-defined yet, and she has not met my other ego states, but she will.  I sense that she will be greeted with open arms and relief, relief because she has found her way home.  Relief because she, like the vibrant green and red rhubarb plant that I found castoff and thriving on a pile of chicken manure long ago, has endured the neglect and has flourished.  Is flourishing!  Soon she will introduce herself to all the ego states at the arena.  More on this later!  In the meantime, here is an ancient Scottish prayer for peace within your heart .  .  .

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

Adapted from - ancient gaelic runes
(http://www.fife.50megs.com/scottish-blessings.htm)

A New Town and A New Calling

As you know, on December 28th I relocated from Portland, Oregon--a major U.S. city--to Chehalis, Washington, a very minor U.S. city.  By that, I mean I'm now living in rural America, where the sign on the nearby Laundromat says, "No horse blankets, please."  If I had not lived in this area previously, I might experience culture shock, but since I lived here in the 1970s and 1980s, I can remember the experience, and the memories cushion the shock. 

For the most part, I love being here.  I've led too sedentary a life for the past six or seven years, but that's mostly because I could not walk to the places where I needed to go and took public transportation, instead.  However, the fact that I've been recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes adds to my sense of having come to the right place to live.  I've been walking a mile a day--when it's not raining too hard.  I'm hoping to reduce my A1C score and avoid taking medication, but I'll see .  .  . 

So what does all this have to do with the purpose for my blog, to spread the word that people can heal their C-PTSD and PTSD and to give people hope for a life without the symptoms of PTSD?  As I'm discovering, this relocation is opening up a whole new part of my healing and is leading me into new experiences connected with the mission of my blog.  Thus, in the near future I will have more to write about and more posts to publish on my blog!  And that means that maybe you, my readers, will find more useful information and inspiration for healing.  This is what I hope will happen.  You will judge for yourselves, of course.

To begin this new part of my life, I spoke recently to the women in a domestic violence support group, telling my story.  Since much of the spousal abuse I endured and the sexual abuse of my daughter took place in this local area, my audience was immediately interested in what I had to say.  I, in turn, was interested in the changes within the local legal system regarding the crime for which I reported my husband in 1981.  I learned, for instance, that had I reported him for the same offence today, he would certainly have served time in prison.  In 1981, he got off with three years' probation and court costs of $60 for the damage he did to our daughter.  Now, that's quite a change!  During the past thirty years, there have been a few areas of progress here.  On the other hand, the services here for domestic violence victims and survivors are still woefully underfunded, and that's the area in which I hope to help bring about change.  I aim to do what I can here, anyway.

For starters, I have tentatively agreed to participate in the production of "The Vagina Monologues" in March, a fundraiser for the local domestic violence agency.  The first meeting regarding this production is at 2:00 P.M. today, in fact.  I am going to attend and make up my mind if this is something I can or want to do.  It's a tough call, for "The Vagina Monologues" is pretty intense stuff.  Some of it I can relate to, and some I cannot.  I'm not sure how I feel about being a part of it.  But I'm going to check it out and then make up my mind.  I certainly DO want to support the effort, but I'm just not sure I can do it this way.  More on this in my next post. 

Have you ever felt "called" to do a thing?  Well, I realized the other day that I felt called to come here and work at trying to bring about change in the way the system here deals with domestic violence and the victims of domestic violence.  When I left this area in about 1987 to go to graduate school, I thought I had left for good, never to look back.  But I know now that was a mere illusion.  I know now what I didn't know then, that I was supposed to return one day to try to make things better than they were when I left in 1987 and better than they are now.  Right now, the help for victims still has not evolved to the state where it needs to be in order to give victims the most chance to get their lives back and have hope for their futures.  I had that chance because I got out of here and searched for the help I needed and found it. 

My goal or calling is to play whatever part I can in making it possible for victims to have that chance and find the help right here in Chehalis, Washington.  More on this in future posts! 

Denial and the Danger of Butterflies: A Reposting of an Important Post

The following post is one I wrote two years ago.  I'm re-posting it now because I'm afraid it has been buried, and the topic of denial is so important--as is the topic of dissociation, denial, in the case of the "butterflies."   I also want to honor the contribution of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and her work in helping people become aware of the power of denial, especially as denial relates to abuse and to death.  Denial can be a friend and can temporarily spare us pain, but it can also be the cause of pain and lead to death.  I was lucky--my therapist had faith in me and cared about me. Our relationship helped me heal to the point where I could see the truth in my situation:  My children and I were being abused, and I had the power to stop the abuse. 

My former husband said to me several months after I reported him, "If you had not stopped the process, one of us would be dead."  Now that I have read "The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans and "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout, Ph.D., I know I would have been the dead person.  Scary!  If you are trapped in a domestic violence situation, I urge you to find help before it's too late.  Go to a women's shelter and let the authorities deal with your abuser.  Press charges, as I did.  That is your only chance to find freedom and get your life and the lives of your children back. 

In 1981, I attended a Life, Death, and Transition workshop held by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross at Corbett, Oregon. In one of her lectures, Dr. Kubler‑Ross talked about touring the German concentration camp sites shortly after World War II and her surprise at beholding gorgeous butterflies drawn on the walls of camp barracks. The prisoners, she said, drew those butterflies so they could deny the danger and the death inherent in their everyday reality.

As I listened to Dr. Kubler-Ross describe the butterflies, the concentration camp barracks, and the possible mental states of the prisoners, I felt a deja-vu sensation. What Kubler-Ross was saying about the prisoners and their butterflies resonated within me. I realized, then, that my daughter and I had been prisoners in our own concentration camp, and I remembered my own butterfly.

At the end of summer in 1978, my family and I returned to Centralia, Washington, after having lived for two years in Germany. We bought a house and proceeded to settle in. The following few years was a period of new beginnings. In 1980, our son went away to college, our daughter started sixth grade, my husband began a new position, and I began a job as an insurance clerk. And along with these beginnings came the beginning of stepped-up sexual violence in my marital relationship.

Now, some thirty years later, I can see the text-book dynamics of domestic violence at work—my isolation and lack of female friends in whom I could have confided, my fear of displeasing my husband and triggering his violent temper, and my inability to see that I was being abused. In 1980, I knew my life at home was not what I had hoped it would be when I married in 1961, but because I had no idea as to what behavior took place in the bedrooms of other women, I had no frame of reference, no way I could evaluate my own experience. Although I did not know it at the time, my mental state was much the same as that of the Jews described by Dr. Kubler-Ross: I denied the danger inherent in my situation, and I waited, expecting my situation to improve. To help me wait, I, like the Jews who drew on the walls of their barracks, painted an imaginary butterfly on my bedroom ceiling.

My butterfly was merely a piece of ragged wallpaper on the bedroom ceiling, but my imagination added details and glorious colors to that gray, torn bit of wallpaper until it became a beautiful Monarch. As I lay in bed, I would stare at the ceiling, willing my self to fly from my body and become one with that butterfly. As the months passed, I became more and more skilled at flying. I reached the point, in fact, where I flew to the ceiling whether I wanted to or not. My body could be making the bed, changing clothes, or doing whatever it was expected to do, but I was on the ceiling the whole time, velvet wings flapping, watching from above. One day, however, I caught myself in mid flight, understood where I was going, knew why I was going there, and realized that my flying had to cease.

How or why did I suddenly recognize the reality of my situation? I can only surmise that the fact I was in therapy had something to do with my sudden insight. A few months previous, I had begun seeing a therapist because I felt so fragmented that I had to talk myself through my daily routine in order to function effectively. Each step of the way, I had to tell myself aloud what I was doing or what I was supposed to do, including during my job as an insurance clerk. Luckily, other than my boss, who was out of the office much of the time, I was the only employee, and normally not many clients came in person to take care of their business. When somebody came in, I was able to greet the person, converse, and do what was expected. When I was alone, however, I was forced to resume my dialog in order to do filing or other paperwork. After living for about six months in this condition, I knew I needed help.

Thus, when I entered therapy, I believed that my increasing inability to think or reason effectively and clearly without talking myself through my day was a sign that my cognitive abilities were breaking down, but I did not connect this with the abuses I endured in my marriage. I worked hard in therapy, and my therapist was supportive and concerned. As time passed and I became more trusting of my therapist, I found myself beginning to think more clearly without having to talk myself through daily tasks. In addition, as thinking became easier, I became more and more aware of the chaos outside my head. In the bedroom, I flew to the ceiling less often, and I became less and less tolerant of my husband’s rages, of his violence in the bedroom, and of his verbal abuse. I began telling him when I didn’t like what he was doing to me.

In addition to becoming more aware that I was being abused, I also let my husband know that I would not tolerate certain of his practices with our daughter. For example, rather than cringing in fear when he stood our daughter in the corner after dinner, shouted multiplication problems at her, and then cursed at her when she failed to give the correct response, I let him know that his behavior was abusive and unacceptable and had to stop. Although he did not completely stop this behavior, the after-dinner sessions became less frequent. Perhaps in response to my newly-exhibited assertiveness, his behavior changed—at least, that was my thought. He threw fewer tantrums, spoke more respectfully, and generally became less violent. He even asked me to buy our daughter some pretty dresses, something he had never done before. I happily assumed that our relationship was improving and that my husband was trying hard to control his volatile temper.

The change in my husband’s behavior caught me off guard. I relaxed around him and became more trusting. At this point, life looked good. My husband’s behavior toward our daughter and me was improving, so I thought, and I allowed myself to hope that in time, we would become a stable and loving family. Like the Jews lured into the gas chambers by promises of hot showers and clean clothing, I was seduced into believing that my husband’s outwardly changed behavior was an accurate indicator of his intentions. Thus, the truth of our situation hit me like a sucker punch when I walked in on him one spring evening in 1981 and caught him in the act of using our daughter for his own sexual pleasure.

Shortly after discovering the abuse and when I had my first chance to talk to my daughter without my husband being present, I learned that after we returned from Germany, he had begun grooming her for the abuse and had begun the abuse in earnest right after her eleventh birthday. Each time I left the house to shop or to run errands and left her home with him, she became his prey. And because our daughter had spent the first three years of her life being bounced from one foster home to another, she was especially vulnerable and eager to please him. She had no desire to displease him and risk being sent back into the foster care system.

Because her father had told her that if I learned of the abuse, I would be jealous and wouldn’t love her, my daughter was reluctant at first to give me any but the most general information regarding what had transpired between her and her father. After I reported my husband, however, and she realized that he  would no longer be living in our home, she gave me details of incidents. As the details emerged and I became progressively more horrified at the abuse she endured, my anger intensified. How could my husband have performed those atrocities on an innocent child, a child who had spent the first three years of her life in the foster care system, a child who needed so intensely to feel our love as her adoptive parents? How could he have been so, so selfish? How could he have been the person I was married to for twenty years? My anger and those questions swirled around my mind as I tended to the practical matters involved in establishing a new household, one in which I was the head and the sole parent of my thirteen-year-old daughter.

Thirty years later, I still can’t answer those questions. My daughter is grown and married. According to her, her life now is okay. I admire her. She is a good person, kind and loving despite the abuse she suffered. I’ve been on my own since that day in 1981 when I reported my former husband to the police. And since then, I’ve had no need for butterflies on my ceiling or for flying to join them.

"Over-Sharing" and Self Harm: A Post Inspired by Another Blogger

 

This morning I read a post by another blogger, Anna Rose Meeds, who publishes Rose With Thorns on Word Press (http://annarosemeeds.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/opening-up-to-the-world/).  I follow her blog and recommend it to all of you.  Among the challenges in Anna Rose's life are Aspergers, PTSD, and eating disorders--pretty tough issues!  I am impressed by the courage she has shown in writing about her life and her challenges, for she tackles some topics that are familiar to many of us but which few of us discuss.  Two such topics that she covered in her latest post are "over-sharing" and self harm, cutting.  After I read her latest post, "Opening Up to the World," I was inspired to also write about these two topics because at one time I, too, struggled with these issues.  I'm a lot older than Anna Rose, and my challenges were and are somewhat different from hers, but I thought that maybe my story might be helpful to those of you who are struggling.  Her story was certainly helpful to me! 

My story begins back in the late 70s, after my family and I returned from living for two years in what at the time was West Berlin, Germany.  When I write about this now, I feel like such a fool.  I was so naïve! I did not know that my husband had been dating other women, one of them fairly seriously.  I didn't know this until later, until after I had become a single parent.  But the point is that a lot was going on in my family that should not have been going on, and at some level my mind picked up on it, but I was not consciously aware of it.  There was the cheating, but even worse, my husband exhibited sexual behaviors that I knew intuitively were not quite on track, and I had nobody to ask about this.  However, what bothered me more than anything was the lack of privacy he afforded our daughter, especially when she took her bath.  I let him know that at her age, 12, she needed privacy, but he paid no attention to me.  I also let him know that his walking around the house with nothing but his underwear on was not a good idea.  He let me know that I was old-fashioned and a prude and that he was not going to change.  After all, he was in charge of what went on in his home.  I felt powerless to do anything but try to make sure my daughter got her bath before he came home from work or while he was outside working on our farm. 

As time passed, my stress level rose, and I found myself frequently spacing out and numbing, but I didn't know why this was happening.  Then one night during an especially tense, painful interaction with my husband, I had a flashback that took me back to my experience of violent childhood sexual abuse when I was four, a memory that I had buried for almost four decades.  Again, I had nobody to talk to about this flashback, so, scary as it was, I kept it to myself.  I did tell my husband in hopes that he would have compassion for me and stop tormenting me in bed, but my revelation meant nothing to him, and he continued abusing me.  In fact, he became rougher with me.  Later, after we had separated, I asked him why he escalated the abuse during sex, and he replied that he wanted to see if there was anyone in my body.  I was dissociating during his abuse, and he could sense that I was not "there."  His solution?  Get rougher, for eventually I would be forced to let him know I was there.  His tactic didn't work, but if the situation had continued much longer, he might have killed me.  He told me that.

During this time, as the tension built, I fell apart inside, fragmented.  I didn't know what was happening to me;  I just knew that something was happening that caused me to "come apart at the seams."  That was the way it seemed to me.  I felt like Humpty Dumpty, as if I were broken into little bits and couldn't put myself back together.  And when people asked me, "How are you?", I told them.  As Anna Rose says, I "over-shared."  I gave them much more information about my inner life than anyone cared to know, I'm sure.  And then, later, when I had a quiet moment to think about what I had done, I realized that my over-sharing had made people uncomfortable, and I felt like a freak.  That was not ME!  The "me" I knew did not reveal my inner thoughts or my pain to others!  That sort of thing was a social no-no, and I knew that.  So why did I do it?  I didn't know.  Maybe I was going crazy.  Maybe not! 

Then one day before Easter in 1981 I walked in on my husband as he was fondling our daughter.  I reported him to the police and reported the incident to the therapist I was seeing for depression.  That was a turning point.  I became a single parent, continued in therapy,  went to graduate school, found a job I enjoyed, and made friends.  As time passed and I gained some control of my life, I also began gaining confidence in myself.  And then one day I realized that I had stopped over-sharing.  Just like that. 

Why did I over-share?  Well, since the period of time when I did that corresponded to the period of time when I was least confident and seemed the most fragmented, I can only imagine that the pressures from my environment and the lack of organization of my mind caused me to behave in ways that were not normal for me.  My inner turmoil was such that over-sharing gave me some release.  Over-sharing, however, also left me embarrassed and caused me to become reclusive so I would have less opportunity to talk to people at a time in my life when I truly needed friends and contacts.  Those days are over, now, and one lesson I learned during those horrible times is to have a bit of compassion for my imperfect self. 

Just as over-sharing may have given me some release from the pressures of my inner turmoil, cutting provided me short-term release from psychic pain.  I've since read material explaining how inflicting physical pain upon oneself can provide relief from psychic pain, and that was my experience back in April of 1981.  Luckily, about six months prior to reporting my husband, I had begun therapy.  My therapist diagnosed me as having a situational depression.  The problem was that we did not know what the "situation" was--it was as much of a mystery to me as it was to her.  I had a vague notion of being at fault for whatever was happening to my family, but I could not tell my therapist specifically what I had done. 
 
As for the abuse I suffered, I didn't tell my therapist because to me being abused was normal, and I thought it was normal for other women.  Why would something as normal as being the object of rough sex and being constantly reminded that I was stupid be important enough to tell my therapist?  However, when I found my husband abusing our daughter and reported him, I was able to identify the "situation."  And since I was already in therapy, I didn't have to waste time finding a therapist I liked.  That was a good thing, for my psychic pain was excruciating and unrelenting during the first few months after my husband left.  And somehow I discovered that I found relief from that horrible psychic pain when I took a paring knife and cut into the skin on my thighs and when I beat my head on the sharp corner of our bedroom door frame. 
 
As I remember it, after a few months, the cutting and the head-beating behaviors faded into the background.  My therapist and I became closer, and as I met people I enjoyed when I volunteered at the Salvation Army food bank, the pain subsided to the point where I didn't feel the need for relief.  Because I had felt so guilty, I didn't tell my therapist about the cutting until I no longer needed to do it .  I knew cutting was wrong, but at the time I did it, I needed to do it.  The guilt I felt intensified my sense of failure as a human being and made me all the  more miserable.  By the time the pain subsided to the point where I didn't need to cut myself, I felt strong enough to let my therapist know I had been doing it, and to my great relief, she didn't get angry with me or yell at me.  She put her arms around me and asked me to promise her I would tell her if I did it again.  I never did it again. 

As you know, I am seventy-four years old, older than most of you, and it's been over thirty years since I suffered to the point of needing to cut myself and needing to "over-share."  But those periods of my life, all the pain, the horrible incidents of abuse, will stay with me as memories until I die.  Now, thanks to my work in therapy and EMDR, when I remember the events, I don't feel the distress as I once did.  I have found some peace.  I wish the same for you! 

"Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has, and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.”  --St. John Chrysostom    

Suddenly, It’s Quiet, Continued

Part II

The following post, Part I and Part II, is my attempt to describe my internal experience of trauma when I was a child and later, when I was a woman living in a domestic violence situation.  As I mentioned in the introduction, this morning I realized that my inner battle appears to be over--the white flags are up.  Am I healing?  Yes, I believe so.  I am, as people say, "cautiously optimistic."  However, PTSD and C-PTSD can be healed, and after so many, many years of internal struggle, I believe I am at last experiencing the peace I have worked so hard to achieve.

As I wrote this first section, I felt a deep sadness for the little girl I was.  Nobody knew I had been sexually abused by the neighbor woman or abused by my parents, and nobody knew how hard I struggled to do what I was supposed to do at home and in school.  Nobody knew about the war inside me and the constant screaming and sobbing.  There simply was nobody I could tell.  And even if there had been, what could anyone have done?  During the 1940s, probably nothing!  I might have been sent to an asylum, in fact, diagnosed as being schizophrenic.

Thank God that we now know about C-PTSD and "parts"!  And thank God for the rugged spirit of my Scottish coal-miner ancestors.  They didn't give up, and neither did I!  

October, 1980

It’s a fall day in October, a day when the dead leaves lie on the ground, crisp, red, and golden.  The morning fog has lifted, and I can see the neighbor’s horses romping near the river, manes, golden and brown, lifting and falling rhythmically in time with the thud of hoofbeats in the sodden pasture.  Nature is at peace.  “But what is wrong with me??”  I ask myself this question, over and over.  I find no answer. 

So what is happening to me?  I hear music in my head.  Loud, classical music, familiar pieces I played in the school orchestra when I was a kid and played the bassoon.  I know the pieces inside and out, and I can hear the part of each instrument.  No, I don’t just hear a melody; in my head, I hear the whole piece, all the parts.  If you want me to hum the trumpet part, I can do that.  Any part. 

And then, suddenly, I hear another piece on top of the first piece, another piece of classical music, and this new piece is fighting with the first piece for domination of my head.  “God, why can’t I turn the music down?  Why can’t I separate the two pieces?  Why is this music so loud?”  And when my son comes home, I put my head next to his and ask him if he can hear the music.  He looks at me blankly.  He doesn’t understand.  I take his look as a “No!”  I’m the only one who can hear the music. 

I want to sleep.  If I can sleep, I won’t hear the music.  But I have things to do—dinner needs to be cooked, the house needs to be tidied, dishes need to be washed, clothes need to be put in the dryer—too much to do to sleep.  So I begin directing my behavior by talking through each step, whispering so nobody will hear me.  So nobody will know.  That works.  By telling myself what to do, I bypass the music.  My ears take in my words, my brain focuses on the spoken messages, and I can function.  What a relief!  Once again, I have found a way to carry on as if nothing is wrong.  Once again, I can get my work done. 

The next morning I get up, the music begins, and I eye my husband’s closet where he keeps the guns.  I hate guns!  They scare the hell out of me!  But maybe a gunshot would do what nothing else will do.  And then, as gently as a maple leaf drifting to earth in a fall breeze, a thought comes to mind:  “Perhaps that nice lady who I talk to sometimes when I take my daughter to therapy can help me.  Maybe she can tell me how to turn the music down.  It’s worth a try.” 

April 1981

That nice lady and I have been working together for seven months.  The music has faded, and now I hear  just the old battle sounds, the screaming and crashing and sobbing.  Sometimes I believe I hear my five-year-old self weeping. Even those sounds are muted, however.  I can think.  And my eyes are opening to sights in my household I have not seen before, sights that I do not like.  I am wondering if perhaps I am wrong in believing that every evil I behold is my fault.  Maybe evil exists outside of me.  Maybe evil is happening to me.  Maybe I am a receiver and not a doer of evil.  Maybe, maybe . . . 

*   *    *

On the Thursday before Holy Week in 1981, I caught my husband in the act of sexually abusing our daughter.  I turned him in and filed for divorce.  My therapist and I worked together until fall of 1983, when she retired.  By that time, the war in my head had faded, although not entirely.  I found a part-time teaching position in the local community college learning center.  I loved the work, and I went back to school and earned two graduate degrees.  I retired from community college teaching in 2004.  In the period between 1984 and 2010, I saw fourteen therapists.  None of them gave me a diagnosis of C-PTSD, but a couple of them recognized my PTSD symptoms and tried to help.  The one who was most skilled left the area before I was able to benefit from his help. 

Once again, in 2009, the war heated up, and I heard the screaming, the crashing of metal and the shattering of glass.  I sought help and found a therapist, but she  did not have the training to help me.  By the time I found my present therapist, in 2010, the war had grown more intense.  I asked my therapist why, at my age, after so many years of not experiencing abuse, I was once again experiencing the PTSD symptoms.  She said she didn’t know, but she knew that if I worked hard, I would heal.  And I am.  She was right.

Suddenly It’s Quiet: Do you suppose the war is over?

Jean, Age 9

Part I.

The following post, Part I and Part II, is my attempt to describe my internal experience of trauma when I was a child and later, when I was a woman living in a domestic violence situation.  As I mentioned in the introduction, this morning I realized that my inner battle appears to be over--the white flags are up.  Am I healing?  Yes, I believe so.  I am, as people say, "cautiously optimistic."  However, PTSD and C-PTSD can be healed, and after so many, many years of internal struggle, I believe I am at last experiencing the peace I have worked so hard to achieve.

As I wrote this first section, I felt a deep sadness for the little girl I was.  Nobody knew I had been sexually abused by the neighbor woman or abused by my parents, and nobody knew how hard I struggled to do what I was supposed to do at home and in school.  Nobody knew about the war inside me and the constant screaming and sobbing.  There simply was nobody I could tell.  And even if there had been, what could anyone have done?  During the 1940s, probably nothing!  I might have been sent to an asylum, in fact, diagnosed as being schizophrenic.

Thank God that we now know about C-PTSD and "parts"!  And thank God for the rugged spirit of my Scottish coal-miner ancestors.  They didn't give up, and neither did I!  

As I was drying my hair this morning, I suddenly became aware that my head was quiet.  The hairdryer was the only sound I heard.  When I turned it off, I thought of the song “The Sound of Silence”:  My head was silent.  Peaceful.  “Do you suppose the war is over?”  I asked myself that question, wanting to answer “Yes!” but afraid lest I be wrong.

When I was five, I thought the violent activity in my body was butterflies, huge butterflies batting their wings against my insides.  I tried to trick those butterflies by bounding out of bed as soon as I opened my eyes, thinking that I could somehow leave those pesky insects in my bed if I got up before they did.  At that age, the war was confined to my stomach.  By the time I was old enough to go to school, however, the battle had spread to my head, and I knew I was dealing with more than just butterflies:  There were people inside my head, and those people were fierce fighters! 

But how did those people get inside my head?  I didn’t know.  But I was certain there was a war going on inside my head because I could feel that war.  I felt the unrest and the anxiety, the battle for my consciousness.  I sensed the artillery fire and the explosions of land mines and grenades.  I could hear the screaming and the dying.  The moaning of those in pain.  But who were those people?  I didn’t know them, or so I thought.  And if I didn’t know them, why would they be fighting in my head?  I didn’t know—I just didn’t know.

I remember sitting at my desk in the elementary school classrooms.  In those days, the desks were nailed to the floor.  The desks, like the teachers, were immovable.  As I sat at my desk, I, too, was nailed to the floor.  And the battle raged within me.  I was tied up, gagged, and held hostage in my classroom as the battle raged within me.  The teacher closed the classroom door, my stomach lurched, and I knew there was no escape.  I didn’t always make it to the bathroom before I threw up. 

In the upper grades and junior high school, the academic material became more challenging.  I worked hard at forcing my mind to think when I needed to think.  I pushed myself until I thought I would, like Humpty Dumpty, shatter into tiny bits and not be able to put myself back together.  Thus, I managed to override the violent sounds in my head most of the time, but even when I was at the blackboard solving long division problems or complicated multiplication problems, I could hear the gunshots and the screams in the background.  By then, I was aware that there was more than one place in my head—a thinking part and the part where the battle raged, and I became an expert at forcing myself to access the thinking part so I could get my schoolwork done. 

By the time I reached high school, I was so good at thinking and dampening the sounds in my head, that the battle noises seldom bothered me.  Oh, if I deliberately tuned in to them, I could still hear the screams, the sobbing, the crashing of metal on metal, the shattering of glass, but normally the war remained beneath my awareness.  For the most part, my thoughts predominated, and I heard my thoughts and not the battle sounds.  This relatively peaceful condition prevailed until sometime in 1980, and when the battle noises in my head broke through in 1980, I knew I needed help! 

End of Part I

Part II Coming Soon

“Are You Happy?”

Jean, 2013

Yesterday, another blogger, some twenty years younger than I, asked me this question.  I wrote back and let her know that I needed some time to think through an answer but that I would get back to her soon.  And I did.  But the answer did not come readily or easily.

Fifty years ago, I was a young mother with a toddler, the sunshine of my life.  We were living in a shack, a tiny two-bedroom house with plywood for siding and walls that didn’t quite meet the ceiling in places.  My former husband and I were university students trying to earn our teaching certificates.  I brought in some income by cleaning for a wealthy woman who had cancer, and he worked the swing shift at a lumber mill.  Late afternoons and early evenings were my oasis in a desert of hard work and stress—all I was required to do was to enjoy my young son.  Just as an oasis in a desert of sand and burning sun makes the journey tolerable, that time spent with my son made my day bearable. 

During those early years as wife and mother, I knew—or thought I knew—that once we earned our teaching credentials and found work, our living circumstances would steadily change for the better.  I dreamed of a future that included living in a nice house in a small town where our son and any future children we might have could grow up and enjoy life and where, later, my husband and I would enjoy a retirement that included taking trips to exotic locations and simply growing old together, financially secure and happy in our relationship.  When my dreams came true, I would truly be happy—so I thought.  

My dream of future happiness seemed entirely reasonable at the time, and it appeared to have a good chance of becoming reality.  After all, I didn’t want anything outrageous like a yacht or a mansion—I just wanted lasting, loving relationships with my spouse and children, relationships that would withstand the ups and downs of life and be comforting in our old age.  What I did not know was that my dreams of the future were preventing me from seeing the reality of my present, that in the then-present, I was locked into a domestic violence situation and my children and I were suffering.  After each incident of abuse, I would say to myself, “But if I just try harder to keep the peace, things will get better.  Then we will be happy.”  

And then one day shortly before Easter in 1981, all my dreams of future happiness evaporated before my eyes, suddenly, like the poof of smoke that obscures the reality of a magician’s trick: I walked in on my former husband as he was in the act of abusing our daughter and saw and felt the terror on my daughter’s face.  Later, as I dialed the police station to report my husband’s behavior, I knew profound changes were coming, and they did come. 

I was totally unprepared, however, to see my dream of future happiness disappear before my eyes.  Never would I realize my dream of growing old with my spouse, taking trips, and “riding off into the sunset” together.  That was NOT going to happen!  I could no longer say to myself, “But if I just try harder to keep the peace, things will get better.  Then we will be happy.”  That dream was gone, gone, gone!  And I had no replacement for it.  Nope!  The present was all I had, and I was forced to deal with it.  If you have read my series of essays titled “Fallout,” you know that I did deal with the then-present, and you know the extent to which my dreams changed after I placed that call to the police.  You know my story.

As a retired psychologist friend says, “With awareness comes change,” and she is so right!  Through my own introspection and determined efforts in therapy, I have become aware of my past reality, much of it, at any rate.  I say this with reservations because it seems that when I think there are no more shadows waiting in the wings of my psyche, one will emerge and take center stage.  Now, at my present age of 74 and considering my present degree of inner awareness, the nature of my dreams has changed, and along with that change has come a change in my experience of happiness.

For one thing, at this stage of my life, both my dreams and my happiness are now, right now.  I divorced in 1983 (see “Fallout”) and have remained single.  I decided on that August day in 1983, after returning from the courthouse where I signed the final papers, that my priorities were to be 1. raising my daughter and 2. becoming my own best friend. Those two priorities have guided my life for the past thirty years.

When I left for graduate school in 1987, I felt that I had done all I could to prepare my daughter for her life as an adult—she was almost twenty and was living in her own apartment—and it was time for me to focus on my own life.  Between the years of 1987 and 2010, I earned graduate degrees and enjoyed a thirteen-year teaching career which I loved.  While going to school and teaching, I spent time in therapy and gained some understanding of my past.  Until I found my present therapist in 2010, however, and received a focused diagnosis and effective help, I seemed to make slow progress toward becoming my own best friend.  Since I have been freed from the demands of work and have been seeing my present therapist, though, I have made quantum leaps in getting to know myself and becoming my own best friend. 

So, finally, after all these years and all these words, am I happy?  Yes, I believe I am.  Somehow, my innate curiosity about life and the tendency to always seek out the good in my experience have survived the tumult of my childhood and twenty-year marriage, and those traits have helped me keep my head above water and have saved my life, my sanity, and my ability to experience happiness and contentment. 

Now I am happy in the moment, or if not in the moment, I am happy at the thought of the very near future.  Where once my happiness relied on thoughts of what might be in the far distant future, I now can find my enjoyment in anticipating a special movie arriving in my mailbox in the next few hours.  And then, as I watch the movie, I am content to be sitting in my recliner and simply watching the movie.  The thought of eating lunch with a friend makes me feel happy, and when the time comes, I find myself happy being with the person and enjoying our conversation.  I am happy when I post an article to my blog because just thinking that perhaps somebody will find my message useful in some way makes me happy. 

So after all this verbiage, my very short answer to my blogger friend’s “Are you happy?” is “Yes, I am.”  Call me a “thrifty keeper” or “Pollyanna”—I don’t need much to be happy.  I am happy because I have chosen to be happy.  That choice is available to everyone.  Becoming my own best friend has helped me identify that choice and embrace it.