I hear some inside screaming at me to shut up and are angry with what I’ve written thus far and are telling me how I have it all wrong and to shut the fuck up.  I’m fighting to stay here.  To keep going forward with writing…. something, anything, but to stop staying silent.

The father’s visit seems to be bringing up a lot of inner turmoil and the whole constant therapy issues are just playing out big time inside.  Someone inside while I was writing that was commenting very sarcastically, “You Think?” Most of it is about whether it is true that he abused me/us.  The constant battle inside between he hurt us and what if you’re/we’re wrong and it can’t be true and on and on it goes.  There’s so much more, but it is farther away now and I don’t want to venture there.  I’d rather just let it be forgotten until the next time I have to be sucked into it or delve into it.

I feel stupid and bad to struggle to believe the others inside that he abused them.  I know I should believe them.  And I know their pain is real.  I do believe that.  I just have such a hard time sometimes believing the father did all these things to “me.”  And oddly I can go back and forth on this issue and feel or say strongly he did in one moment and then say the complete opposite in another moment.  It seems to depend on who is nearby or something and is influencing my beliefs.  So often I feel like I don’t have an opinion and I don’t know anything.  That I’m just this vessel with very little or no beliefs and opinions and I just sway to and fro depending upon who inside is near at any given moment or whatever outside conditions lead me into believing for one reason or another.  I can hear numerous sides to a situation and be swayed in any direction.  Except for certain things and really I think it is those things that go deep to the soul or core or at least cover a vast majority inside.  Then those are times where there is a definite firm belief or feeling or whatever that comes from within and exudes outward.  I feel my strongest and most powerful in those moments.  Not powerful in a bad sense… just so unbelievably strong and capable and empowered.  Ahh, yes, that word is more accurate.  I’ve come to learn how amazing our system can be and how awesome it is when our system unites on something and works together towards something.  They are very rare moments in time and brief, but wow, to have experienced it and to realize that’s what is causing that experience, well that was incredible to me.  I can’t really and truly remember the feelings and the experience, but I do recall the knowledge and know the gist of it, and aspire to have that unity somehow.  When I contrast that experience to how we live daily, I then realize that we really and truly are not united and not working together really other than survival.  I’m also unsure what sparks that massive unity or how to get that kind of united level and working together thing.  When I try to think about it, I can only figure out that it correlates to having been pushed beyond our maximum limit and survival and sanity and something I can’t describe becomes paramount to us and so we unite on a cause.  Uggh, I feel stupid as I write this, as though I sound like I know what I’m talking about when I really don’t feel that way or believe I do.  It’s sort of like I kind of know something, at least a little bit about it, but I can’t remember it really and I don’t really know it like I know other things and so I start talking and writing out of my ass thinking it might be somewhat accurate, but I worry and fear it might not be.  To not be wholly accurate on something and in describing, explaining, whatever about something is like this horrid thing to us.  Accuracy, truth, thoroughness, completeness, detailed, analyzed, etc., is so so so important to us.  And without it or if we fail something along the lines, i.e., miss any tiny thing, then the anxiety and belief of failure and badness is so very strong.

We’ve gotten way off track.  We’ve been talking about writing something here about the father, but we haven’t done that here.  We were thinking of writing something that outlined the things we know for sure he did, beyond any doubt or denial, and then write an outline list of the things others inside have said and the flashbacks we’ve/I’ve had and sort of list them all and maybe somehow it will help the reality sink in or something.  It seems like it might help, but I don’t know.  I guess it is a starting point.

Oh G-d, I wish I wasn’t such a fucking baby about my father coming.  He can’t hurt me.  He’s a wimp and an idiot.  He’s just my father.  So why the hell for all the fear and anxiety? I wish I could turn it off.  I mean I could, but wow, they aren’t letting me totally turn it off.  And it is only right that I know what’s going on inside and know how others inside are feeling, etc.

I just keep hearing how I’m making a big deal over nothing.  That I’m a baby.  That I’m being melodramatic.  How I just need to stop thinking and talking about it because it’s no big deal and I’m a baby and to just get over it.  It’s done.  It’s over.  There’s nothing to talk about.  It’s no big deal.  Don’t be melodramatic.  Stop exaggerating your feelings.  Don’t worry people.  Don’t bother people.  Don’t hurt people.  Don’t tell.  Don’t let anyone know.  Don’t feel.  It’s no big deal.  Nothing happened.  It’s not true.

Julie/s

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 (and all), 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…

*** (in very small writing and a small voice) i’m very terrified of being wrong.  i don’t want to accuse him of doing something he didn’t do.

*** This particular memory or visual picture(s) is the only thing that equates to what some inside view as “real sexual abuse” and not just “inappropriate behavior.”

Basically many inside discount and minimize the other stuff that we recall and know for sure happened–we do not doubt those things at all.  Although if I was real with myself, I would recall that when these memories (the ones now referred to as not real sexual abuse) surfaced about my father, they were very distressing and I/we had a very hard time believing them.  If I allow myself to go back in time and try to remember what it was like to just have those memories surface, and the unrealness about any of it, and difficulty believing it, etc., etc., then really what is happening now isn’t all that different.  Those memories that we had flashbacks of years and years ago (that we now just give little attention to as though it wasn’t that big of a deal– fucked up, yes, but not distressing to the degree it used to be and to the degree that other flashbacks or memories other kids inside have about other stuff is for them).  Anyways, those memories sparked huge PTSD stuff in me/us and it just about broke me in trying to come to grips with it and believe it and realize what my father did to “me.”  And now I give such little credence to it.  I forget that those flashbacks weren’t readily accepted as truth either, just as we’re dealing with this now with this new flashback.  Everytime I write “we’re dealing with this” and use the plural form, someone inside pipes up and gets annoyed and ??whatever the word is that I’m looking for?? and basically lets me know that it is me and plural doesn’t completely apply here.  That the usage of plural signifies the majority of us and that isn’t the case as they know it and knew it and didn’t have the issues that I had.  And frankly then I want to get snippy back and say that it wasn’t really “me” back then as it was Jillie and Julie-In-Pink, but I don’t know where Jillie is now and Julie-In-Pink (J.I.P.) is merged with me (although I think she split again, but I think she is merged back with me… not sure totally).  Anyway, so technically if J.I.P. is merged with me, I suppose that still makes it ‘me’ in a sense and applies more directly to me, even if it doesn’t feel like it was me back then first experiencing all of this.  At the same time, on some level, I know it was me, whilst on another level, I don’t feel as though I was part of that time.  That I wasn’t the main fronter at that time.  For that matter, I’m not sure if I was even around at that time.  I think I may have been created later, but not wholly positive.  I feel stupid for not knowing for sure my origins, but I’m just not sure that I’ve been around all along.  Sure– I take on the “Julie” identity and that is my name, but that could easily have been incorporated into my being and creation as an adult.  I guess really I don’t identify that much with having been around as a child and I don’t identify with it as my childhood or having a childhood.  Yes, intellectually I do and intellectually on an emotional level when it seems like I’m supposed to, but not really, and even that (intellectually on an emotional level) it really just isn’t there at all.  Okay, I side-tracked here.  I have to go look and see where my original thought was that I was trying to write about and tell.  Uggh, so hard to tell and describe the flashback stuff.

*** There’s been very little of any flashbacks of actual sexual abuse acts involving my father.  Years ago, I had 2 separate flashes of what I believe were moments just before an actual sex act happened and I’ve always struggled with believing what I just “knew” happened afterwards in a very broad manner.  I guess I’ve always pushed back hard against the visual stuff that ever crept forward in connection with those 2 particular flashes.  Aside from definite sexually inappropriate behavior (but no touching) involved, and aside from the seriously inappropriate and disgusting kiss he did to me in broad daylight in broad view of any neighbors when I was between 11-13 years old, there just hasn’t been any flashbacks involving actual sexual acts.  There was one very general flashback that a poem was written about from it, but I’ve really never considered it a memory as it is just so very far away from me, unreal, and just different than the other flashes.  So this particular flash is significant in that it involves sexual abuse in the form of a sex act by him.  And it is specific in a way.  It isn’t as far away as the poem memory is, but it isn’t as clear as the other flashbacks of sexually inappropriate behavior are.

There’s been a fair amount of other things that have led me to believe he sexually abused me.  Just saying that makes me want to put quotes around the “me” part because it wasn’t me, because I just wasn’t around during the time he was abusing us, me, whatever.  Fuck.  Insiders have had their own distress and referred to things, said things, etc., but at the same time, not a lot has been actually said in any detail about the father.  There’s been a lot of focus from the time that we lived in California and the neighbor boy/s and cult (if applicable to us).  I know my father abused me during that time too, but there’s been virtually no memory identified (that I’m aware of) with that state with him.  It’s been the states before and after that one.  I sure as hell know that he didn’t just stop mid stream.

So I guess we will try part three in trying to actually say it aloud in words.  I don’t know, maybe we won’t be able to do it.

Julies and others around