Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Father’s Day Division

Published
by
JAGA
on June 15, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

I know this should be simple, but it isn’t.  I also know it is simple for those outside of me to have a clear opinion, and yet we just end up with a tug-o-war inside over what to do.

To call or not to call.  To send a card or not send a card.  Thankfully we don’t have the problem of “to visit or not to visit.”

This year it is complicated by the most recent memory which has really made an impact on our system for a myriad of reasons.  So there is more tug to ignore him and avoid him instead of doing the expected or “right” thing or “nice” thing or something like that.  I sense there is at least one insider who always reverts to “it will hurt his feelings” and will feel the impact of his assumed feelings and pushes for us to do whatever is necessary to not hurt his feelings.  I guess she sees the human qualities in him and his fragile self or something.  Another told Cec in therapy this past week that she hated him.  I’m not sure that I really have any feelings about him or toward him one way or the other; it seems I’m swayed whichever way those inside I hear or sense the most at whatever moment in time.

Not doing anything will just increase our anxiety as time passes and add tension within the family dynamics.  We went through the worst of that years ago and perhaps we wish to avoid it because it took a lot out of us at the time.  It is one of the reasons Julie-In-Pink was created– she was determined at whatever cost to make sure we followed through and continued on the healing path, irregardless of the family pressure and abuse we received for breaking the secrets, going to therapy, support groups, etc.

For a number of recent years, we’ve been sort of “hiding” and ‘getting by’ this day, his birthday, and other holidays by trying to purchase a card ‘from us,’ i.e., my brother and I.  This year my brother bought a card and it was one of those record your voice kinds and he took care of it and sent it off before we saw one another and so I wasn’t able to add my name to it.  I found another funny “us” card that was very basic and saw my brother today and he signed it with me and so we seem to have agreed to send the father a funny card that is extremely basic.  Yet every time we think about sending it, I hear someone inside basically ranting about sending him a fuck you card or imagining and planning a way to create cards specifically for people who come from abusive and dysfunctional homes but are still in a situation where (for whatever reasons) they choose to send a card.

Someone is also wanting me to explain that because I have this reputation or this kind of sweet spirit that is mushy and gushy in a number of ways, that a) people expect that of me and b) I often pick out those kind of cards… though not always.  So while it could be a solution to purchase a very simple and generic card or a funny card all the time, it still triggers the one inside (or someone like her) who identifies with his humanness and frailties and his feelings and she says he would notice the detached kind of card that is nearly blank with a Happy Father’s Day message to it, and hence, that would hurt his feelings, because he knows we aren’t “like that.”  That other people would get other kinds of cards and that this was a ‘bad card,’ to send him because it isn’t personalized or anything really.  Sigh.

So I’m sitting here with this dilemma and impending decision that needs to be made soon if I’m going to call tonight.  He’s 3 hours ahead of me and it is already a little after 8:00 P.M. here.  My brother called me just before we began writing this entry saying that he had talked to dad and that dad was asking about me.  Dad was wondering how I was doing and what my phone number was– he doesn’t have my new address or phone and my brother doesn’t have any of it memorized as he just uses the caller ID function and hasn’t plugged it into his phone and stuff.  I could tell I was sounding resistant to calling dad and my brother was trying to be really non-pushy about it and saying “if I wanted to,” etc.  He said he was sure dad was thinking of his kids today of all days.  I realized I wasn’t expending the energy on the phone to hide and cover my resistance and lack of excitement over calling dad and so I actually told my brother why.  I told him that I was divided over whether to call him because I had a recent memory.  I left it at that, but my brother knows what I’ve accused the father of doing.  Oddly I started to write “my father” and realized that was out of place because he is also my brother’s father, clearly.  We have this odd habit of doing that too regularly in writing or speaking– (saying my mother and my father)— when my brother is part of the context in some kind of way and I find that interesting and wonder what it means.  I wonder if it is a system thing because some inside don’t want the “our” aspect to be construed as meaning them when it is supposed to mean our brother and I/us, or if it is some really weird family dynamic thing where I have my parents and my brother has his parents.

So shit.  We fucking don’t know what to do.  It’s getting later and later.  Some want to not deal with it and think about calling tomorrow.  Some want to not call at all.  Some think we should call.  Some want to call and get it over with.  Others want to go to bed and hide under the covers and “think about it” and make a decision there…. and this is the comical part because that is a supposed type of thing that is supposed to happen but instead it will lead to sleep and then when we wake up it will be in the middle of the night and too late to call him then.  So then we’ll be right back at the dilemma problem again, though we might have a little bit more headway on a decision… but it would only be the decision of the moment that would change again at any time or in the future when faced with this situation once again.

Uggh.  This shit sucks.

Prelude To A Flashback

Published
by
JAGA
on June 12, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

She knew she had to tread carefully, for the anxiety and memories lay near the surface, and yet she pushed herself onward, to give the love and teasing she desired to embrace as a woman without a history of sexual abuse.  She longed to be that woman, with no fears and no ill feelings at the mere idea of anything sexual, and so she pushed herself to be that woman.  To do that, she focused on her love towards him, the enjoyment she had in just being near him, and she delighted in giving him the pleasure of oral sex.  She pushed away the old thoughts, the disgust that was of the past and not the present, and pursued a moment in time where she wasn’t a survivor of sexual abuse whose past haunts her everyday.  She hated herself for having those thoughts and feelings, that surging rush of throwing up, and children being triggered towards the front while trying to control the body from contorting itself in frightful and sheer terror convulsions and shakes to rid itself of the emotional pain, visual memories, physical tissue memories of the abuse.

She knew she was taking a chance, but she tried to be aware of when it became too much for the system, and yet be unaware of the abuse, as though she had no ties to it and it binding her to the past that she so desperately didn’t want to acknowledge as being hers and owning her.  She smiled and giggled at the control of pleasing and teasing him, and at the idea that she may have conquered this sex act after all, instead of it torturing her and forcing her to surrender.  She continued onward and continued to push away those thoughts, those intense feelings, those memories that kept creeping toward her.  She wasn’t going to let them take over and win.  It was 2008, not 1986, not 1978, nor 1988.  But she had gone too far this time.  This time she was succumbed by a new visual memory instead of just sheer emotions and young children tossed forward in a triggered state unaware emotionally of what year it was, their safety, the reality of today and an adult’s body, etc.  All they knew then and still know is that anything sexual is bad and that they are inherently bad, dirty, and disgusting.

The memory involving her father came and she knew she had to stop the oral sex.  To this day, it remains a blur as to how it all swelled forward in an overwhelming fashion–she who thought she had it under control, but didn’t.  Once again, the past controls her, owns her, tortures her with its indelicate right.  So she stopped, whilst trying to believe this new memory.  She held the feelings, the newness of the memory within her.  She knew it was safe to tell him, to seek comfort, and yet she felt it was bad to do so.  The timing of it was off.  For just the night before, he had his own flashback terrors, nightmares, and support needs.  It would be bad of her to freak out now with her own stuff, especially the night after his difficult time and also knowing he was still struggling with his own new flashback.  She knew that keeping this memory and struggle to herself was unhealthy and a relationship issue to analyze and discuss together, but she couldn’t push herself past it, and so she remained silent– something she knew she could do well.  She tried to not show any problem to him– only that she was “done” with oral sex on him even if he wasn’t finished.  She tried to show her love to him by laying close to him.  To this day, the time after the memory is a blur.  She doesn’t know what really happened in regards to lovemaking or if it stopped.  She only knows she stopped the oral sex.  The next thing she recalls is laying next to him dealing with the memory flashing over and over, and turning on her side to fall asleep, though she didn’t fall asleep.  It wasn’t unusual for her to be on her side because of her back issues and her natural sleep position anyway.  She just silently cowered within herself and her/their system began to process the new memory in the mostly shared memory space.

She desperately sought ways and ideas to disbelieve the memory.  After all, she knew that giving oral sex was a very triggering thing to do and she knew she had to take heed in being aware of her limits and the system’s limits.  Therefore, her mind could have simply “made up” without her knowledge a reason and a memory as a way to “make sense” of the trigger and having pushed past the limits.  She wanted to believe this and yet this memory was specific.  It was in her bedroom in Arizona and her bed was in a certain position (she rearranged her room there from time to time).  But then she tried to reason and rationalize that a lot of her memories with the father are from Arizona, so perhaps the brain just resorted to the room in Arizona and her bed in that position.  Yet, she had to acknowledge that Arlena (or so she thinks it is her) had written a few years back about her attempts to prevent the father from getting her, and the bed was in a different position in that room along with an entirely different comforter set.  The bed in this memory was located elsewhere with a different bedspread on it, although she fought hard to point out that the memory is very dark and only shadow outlines, though very clear outlines. Yet she had to acquiesce that the sexual abuse happened at the time in the middle of the night, and hence, darkness would shroud the memory.  Though she would like to argue that we always had a nightlight working all those years growing up.  Even still, she eventually had to realize that none of this negated the truth of the memory with the father.

Along came the need to expunge this memory from its gripping terror and constant reminder upon her soul.  The children inside were beside themselves, especially without any therapy, no therapist really to rely on.  They decided they would mention it at their support group and see where it took them.  The children ended up telling the memory in group, complete with emotions and switching commonly held and allowed only for one-on-one therapy with their therapist or when the body was alone.  They received necessary support from their fellow survivor friends, from their partner, Sean et al, and the Julie and the Julies who wished the memory to not be real or true, they slowly began to realize the depth of the emotions and how wrong it would be to deny those children within their truth, memory/ies, and feelings.

And alas, we are here at this point.  A point at which we seek to find (and know we own) a photo of our room at that time revealing the bed, the bedroom of Tucson, Arizona many years ago.  We are also at the point of telling the memory and sharing the thoughts of those inside that have thus far shared their thoughts and feelings.

Until later…

telling without telling

Published
by
JAGA
on June 4, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

we don’t mean to be bad. we been trying to not talk about the bad stuff so much. it just hurts and makes us sad and we can’t stop thinking and remembering that memory that got showed to Julie. i don’t think it got told or showed to everybody in here but i know some peoples finded out about it cuz things go through the grapevine. like Julie hears and learns stuff from L.J. that she wouldn’t have if she didn’t have a connection to L.J. and so and so knows this part or that piece and it just passes through. and I think now that memory is in our shared fact space and that makes it even more ickier and sadder too cuz we don’t want it in the fact place and the shared place. it’s not supposed to be there. it’s supposed to be hidden and secret and not seen and not told and not true and not fact and not real.

we got this memory that more than one of us is thinking and knowing about and really the brain is just making it flash over and over like a record player with a video on it instead of sound on it. cuz there is no sound in the memory that we got. not yet at least. we don’t usually have any shared sound for anything anyway. it gets lost or taken away someplace inside. and it feels like the brain is trying to make us do something with this stupid memory with the dad man and it is all terrible and yucky and horrible and we’re making a big deal over it and need to stop talking about it. but we are bad and can’t cuz we got to say something even if we’re still too scared to write it and some inside keeping us from writing it here. we almost falling asleep cuz they been trying to make us sleep and not tell and we be fighting them but we don’t wanna make them mad by telling now. and the bigs wrote a post about Noah and stuff that not posted yet cuz they wanted to think of a good title but i don’t think they are going to do that very good in thinking of one. i think they are going to have to give a dumb title like i’m going to give this post a dumb title.

and some inside keep screaming and saying no can write until we tell our love story and stuff and so we need to sit and write that but it gets all big and huge of a story cuz there is so much to tell and so then some say just write it in little bits with part 1, 2, 3 or something like that but then others say no, only can do that if we write it all at once or close to all at once and separate the posts so that people might read it instead of it being one huge long post versus 3 small medium posts. and well the talking and debating and opinions go on and on. that’s only some of them. and that’s how it be for so many things. and i’m tired.

and we can’t stop thinking and remembering and flashing on that memory and we try to keep pushing it away or distracting or blanking the mind or something but something else keeps tugging and making us go look at it and it is just so scary to look at and to feel anything about it. i think someone is trying to get us to feel and process it or whatever that stuff is called cuz they are trying to do something therapy or something on it with us and i can tell. just something i can feel and remember the same feeling before when we get a bad memory and it all upsetting and hard to believe and hard to remember and want to throw up and all those things that happen.

and the mother lady teld told Julie about the father man and stuff and she learned about bad mean and kinda evil stuff he do to the mom and it make it even more real to the ones inside who don’t like to believe the dad man did things to us and when we learned about that other stuff it ain’t that hard to stretch it that he would be a bad dad man who would hurt his daughter bad and icky ways. so the ones who have hard time believing bad stuff about the dad man are thinking maybe it is more true than they did before cuz of what the mother lady told and we know it is true cuz we just know she telling it pretty much or like it was. well the stuff she said anyway. there’s stuff unsaid about growing up with her and the family and stuff but stuff between her and the father man is true we think and not much missing. at least not for the stuff she said. the times she was telling us about.

so we got to go and sleep or something to get energy to do stuff and fight the ones who put us to sleep cuz i don’t know why they do it. to help i guess. and maybe we just make it up that there are ones inside who put us to sleep and it just something that automatically happens and it is easier to think we are fighting people inside doing it to us instead of some physical or other crazy unknown psychological reason that we can’t even fight. it still feels like we’re fighting something that gots peoples behind it. at least some of it. maybe not all of the reasons.

some us, some others, and some other others kinda sorta, hard to say who all here