Tag Archive for ‘Sexual Abuse Issues’

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Forging Ahead In Memory Work

June 18, 2009 at 1:42 pm. Written by (and/or talking about) Julies, others (lc), Us and US (all uc). Tags: , . 4 Comments

We need to write about stuff. We keep thinking about it and we know a few things we should be writing about and know that we need to do so and yet the exhaustion and overwhelming sleep urges keep us away. I think we’re only able to write this much because we are simply not saying anything really at all.

Someone/s inside started telling about a memory in a story format and 3rd person format and information was revealed that way when we laid down one night and started searching within and thinking about a particular memory we’ve had for a long time now and trying to find the truth about what really happened amongst tiny pieces of stuff. Basically we were trying to find out if we were a willing participant in a memory involving what we believed to be abuse and whether we wanted these things or was agreeable or something. Like to what degree are we responsible for this and do we really have the right to feel and think and believe it is abuse because maybe it wasn’t and we just had a reaction to it and need to believe it was abuse because it is safer to believe it was abusive than face the reality that we were some fucked up little kid at 7 and 8 years old that was willing and instigating and wanting intercourse and anal sex and oral sex and everything else adult oriented sex wise with some other kid a little bit older than us. Except in doing the 3rd person and someone inside recounting a narrative of what this part or that part saw and observed and was thinking and feeling, etc., we’ve learned (thus far) that we weren’t willing but we were definitely reacting in a trained manner of giving him what he wanted because “that’s what you do.”  (sarcastically) Why thank you father for all those previous years of training.  Why thank you to the others who were and had been abusing us, if ya know, we’re not making up that SRA and other crap. (end sarcasm) So we are coming to the realization that even though (thus far) we don’t recall specifically saying, “no” in this particular memory, the thoughts, feelings, worries, anxiety, and other things we recall thus far do indicate that we didn’t really want to do these things, err…sex acts.  Yet we also knew that he wanted these things and there was some sort of inner knowledge or belief or something that we didn’t think we could say no or that it would do us any good, or there were other reasons we felt we had to do this stuff, although we tried in other ways to get it to not happen. We were actually more focused on other things and the mother and our fears, anxiety, and so forth of some other stuff than over what we had to do with him. We’re not really being specific here. All of this is still hard to fucking write, which is so frustrating to some of us, because some of us want it to be no big deal, but it is a big deal.

So the sadness we’ve been feeling is deeper than before. Perhaps it isn’t so much sadness as it is grieving or perhaps grief stricken sadness.

So okay, we’ve said this much.  We’re hoping we’ll be able to at least write a narrative or 3rd person viewpoint of sharing the memory and then after that, to write it more from the first point of view from others inside.  We’re doing all that we can to steadily keep working on these memories that we’ve had for many years but never gave them the attention they needed and deserved, and certainly minimized them greatly… until now that is.  Well, not minimizing them like we’ve done in the past.  We’re seeing now more than ever before that these “basic” and “bits of memories we’ve had for many years and thought since we’ve known about them for so long they don’t really matter that much and aren’t that critical to work on in therapy,” really do need our attention and there is tons of healing and issues surrounding them.  OMG, we totally realize the depth of issues and shame and things and deeply regret not having dealt with them on this level ever before this and barely dealt with them period the past 16-17 years of therapy, but we are dealing with them now.  We’re finally ready.  The negative repercussions of never having dealt with them and not being ready and not giving them the attention that these memories and this hurt and pain has deserved all these years is just really hard to take.  A lot of regret and a lot of negative feelings and thoughts to self/ves for having waited this damn long to finally look at this stuff and realize it needs a shit load of healing and that this is where we need to start with in regards to doing memory work.

So well anyway, this stuff sucks and is damn hard to do and to keep looking at and working through.  We’ve never kept our attention and focus on any one healing subject matter for so long like we’ve had lately over this.  It is never far from our mind or heart and even when we’re dealing with something else that comes up in therapy or life, we still keep returning back to this subject matter and that is a first for us.  We’ve always had such competing agendas in therapy and yes, that stuff is still happening in therapy and thus we keep jumping from topic to topic to issue to issue to blah blah blah in therapy and in life and what we’re focusing on, but the difference is that there is one overall riding issue that continues to remain in the near background or right upfront and that is the memories and issues surrounding the neighbor boy that abused us.  We haven’t even gotten into the stuff regarding his older brother.  There is one memory by one insider who has a sadistic memory of his older brother abusing him (insider) with the neighbor boy watching and there.  Uggh.  Not sure what, if any, other memories lie with the older brother of the neighbor boy.

We’ve got to get the courage to say first names.  Fuck it.  Why protect them? Why be afraid of this? Why does it matter so much? Why not just say the names?

So anyway, yah, whoopee, in some ways our system is agreeing (for the most part) and working hard to cooperate and to keep focused (more or less) on the memories and issues surrounding the neighbor boy.  We are trying really hard to work through these things and have healing over it so that we can let it go and move past it and for it to not have its horrific grip on us and for the shame, the utter and deep shame and badness that stems from his abuse and what we did, for it to be healed and for it to not have its tragic hold on us and on our life.

I heard inside someone say, “The End.”  Not sure what that is about but anyway, we’ve got to go.  We’ve said way way wayyyyy tooo much.

Us, US, Julies, others

Therapy Update

June 9, 2009 at 10:51 pm. Written by (and/or talking about) Julies. Tags: , , , . 1 Comment

We continue to work on stuff related to the neighbor boy and the issues surrounding the abuse. We’ve had times in therapy where we took a break from the topic and talked about issues pertaining to the mother and our family history and family dynamics, etc., and whatever else seemed pertinent at the moment. For the most part though, we still are pushing ourselves and making a concerted effort to stay focused on the subject matter of this neighbor boy and the ramifications it has had on our life and amongst others inside.

It is really hard to face this stuff. We have been making strides in saying his name more in therapy and in group, but it is still too much to actually write his name down for anyone to see. We HATE his name with a huge passion. His name is triggering and thankfully very uncommon, but nevertheless, for years his name or the word that sounds like his name (just a different spelling) has always reminded us of him on some level, and that word is very common. It does seem that the more we push ourselves to say his name the less power his name has over us. Funny how that works. Ha. It’s so obvious of a thing to do and yet in the past and to some extent still today, it is so hard to do and the difficulty buries the obvious solution to it.

We were talking about one of the bigger issues on a larger scope of things and yet so central to so much of it for us at this time, and somehow in talking with Kathy it seems that we may be slowly coming to some sort of ‘peace’ or rather resolution to this issue. It’s still far too sensitive of an issue to write here just yet. We’re just not that brave yet about it. I told Kathy that I couldn’t tell if it was because the real feelings and stuff were so dissociated right now or if perhaps there was an actual hint of peace on this headed our way. It is too hard yet to decipher clearly because when talking to her today, there was no real emotion nearby and it was so matter of fact. We imagined that if anyone was listening and observing us that they would think we were making it up since we were speaking about the subject matter as if it was no big deal. But it is a huge deal. Just we were and really in many ways, we’re so far away from the emotions right now. I think we just have to be. I can sense the deep sadness inside, but I also can sense the utter desperation to stay back from it because to get too close to it means being swallowed up by it and coming face to face with the past realities and truths and horrors.

Therapy with Kathy is going incredibly well. It is so amazingly easy to talk to her and tell her things and there is little or no ramifications (that I know of) for sharing so much with her. She is a very accepting and non-judgmental person and just a great therapist for us.

Anyway, we’ve been dealing with a lot of day to day stuff lately and trying to keep a handle on those things while also working as hard as we can in therapy. There’s still so many changes that we’re trying to adjust to…changes within us, with what we’re doing, outside us in our life, etc.

We’re exhausted and going to try and fall asleep tonight at a decent hour. We’ll see how that goes…

Julies

Therapy Nutshell

May 23, 2009 at 10:19 pm. Written by (and/or talking about) Julie/s. Tags: , , , , . 0 Comments

We are exhausted. We had therapy today, initially an unplanned appointment. We really made use of the appt. though and made some more progress on talking about the neighbor boy memories. We still can’t quite say or write his name aloud, but we’re getting closer to doing so. We are trying harder to push ourselves to say his name in therapy and with Sean and group. I figure one day we’ll end up going back and at least tagging these entries with his first name.

It is shocking to me and sad and grief giving as to how many years we’ve been in therapy (17 years this August) and we’re just now really and truly talking about the memories of abuse by him and really making a concerted effort to stay relatively focused on this topic and the memories and feelings and thoughts that swallow us up in such misery. Hell, in many ways, I’m just now giving myself permission to realize how serious the abuse by him was and how much of an impact it has had on us. On one level I kind of knew, but we have consistently minimized it or avoided it like crazy to not really feel things about it or acknowledge the traumatic level it has had on us. Since we’ve known about these memories or rather basically pieces of various memories, we’ve really downplayed it as something to work on because we’ve known about it for so long now and we’ve mentioned a few of them to therapists in really generic terms before, but we’ve never really dealt with any of it on any real level. We are now. And it is so hard.

Someone is mad and saying I’m exaggerating about all of it, but I’m not. I don’t feel anything right now about it, but I know there are kids inside with immense pain about all of this. They were there in therapy today. I don’t remember much, but I remember they cried and crying comes easy to the ones who showed up in therapy.

This Wednesday is the last day we see Cec and so we will be saying our final goodbyes to her and we are still completely unprepared, but hopefully we will sit down and write a letter to her or at least set up an outline for ourselves to make sure we tell her the things we need to tell her, etc.

Therapy with Kathy is going very well. We are moving along with her relatively quickly and are very focused on trying to make the most of the time we have with her each time we see her. We are also working on trying to stay focused on our therapy issues and the things therapy brings up for us and trying to problem solve stuff like that in the background while dealing with the shit that comes up from facing memories and our past.

It sounds like we’re working our ass off. I’m not entirely sure about that. It helped that Kathy said we worked very hard today and I think she’s made inferences that we’ve been working hard with her. It also really seems like we did some releasing of some toxic stuff inside and some deeper processing and release of emotions and things like that…. the kind of stuff those inside…especially those from the us and usz groups… are always needing and crying and desperately craving the time and chance for…. and today a few of them were brave enough to come forward in therapy and do some of that work.

I’m surprised we wrote this much as the exhaustion is pretty strong right now. We haven’t really had a chance to take our usual nap after therapy or any real downtime until now. We just needed to say something, even if it isn’t really saying much of anything and is so general… at least we are making ourselves write something. I honestly thought we’d only write one or two sentences, but once we got past that first hurdle, we ended up writing this much.

Really need to go for now.

Julie/s