Nighttime

Nighttime. A time to say goodbye to the day. An ending with a promise of a new  beginning of a tomorrow. A clean slate to begin again. A chance to make things new. To get through it with mistakes. To love and be loved.
Nighttime, when the day light slowly slips away and leaves you in total darkness. Not unlike our lives, the life slipping away from us with every tick of the clock. For some they face the unknown darkness, and for others it is the promise of a different kind of day. A day when you really won’t make mistakes and you will be loved in an unimaginable way. A way we are loved now, but don’t always feel it.

Nighttime, when the shadows come out and the fear with them. Sometimes it is a game of “This Is Your Life” and you relive things you would rather forget. Yet every night the same re-run plays. It is because of the OCD. Obsessive thoughts brought about by extreme anxiety, which gets triggered by my C-PTSD, which was caused by abuse that many times I would call torture.

The night and the shadows scare me. The re-runs terrify me. They haunt me constantly and I want to find the off switch. Perhaps it will take until the day I stand before my Saviour for him to reach in and switch it off. I don’t know. I do know that I have taken every course, therapy, self-help, prayer, and then some to get rid of it. Exercise, medications, and diet but yet it remains. I have been informed many times that it will likely not go away. I will improve but not get better. The PTSD will remain and as I get into the emotional parts of my injuries it will become harder. What could possibly be harder? Those words scare the bones out of my flesh and leave me a bowl of jelly on the floor. Harder? I don’t know if I have any more “harder” in me.

Nighttime. Quiet. Peaceful. A time of rest. I lie in bed, still; and thoughts race around like a tornado in my brain. For hours I try to still them, but they come faster than I can pack them away. Like Lucy trying to pack chocolates on a conveyor belt. They come too fast and overwhelm me. Tears flow, my heart feels like it will either pop out of my chest or stop beating. I want a hug and to be held but I don’t want to upset and concern my husband who has his own heart trouble. This is not his battle, it is mine. He gets enough of the collateral damage of my life.

When I become exhausted, usually as the light starts to come up I start to drop off. That very moment when you cross that conscious state from being awake to sleep, everything in my body jumps. My arms, legs, and heart and I wake up with the fear that I am about to die or am dying. I have to bite my tongue not to scream. My MNM used to send me to bed and tell me to think of a good reason why she shouldn’t kill me in the morning since I was of no use to anyone. Give her a reason why I should live. I would lie in bed and think and all I could think of was all the bad things she told me and I knew that tomorrow I would die. That is what I believed. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know any good in me that I could tell her. I would cry and eventually fall asleep. Then I would suddenly and shockingly be yanked out bed by my hair with her screaming at me that I obviously didn’t want to live. I would cry and beg her “Yes I do mommy, Yes, I want to live, please don’t hurt me, please mommy don’t hurt me!” She would shout at me and slap me and yell at me “Liar! You are such a liar! If you really wanted to live you would be thinking of a reason. Instead you are sleeping. You obviously don’t care. If YOU don’t care, why should I?” This conversation, if you can call it that; would go on for what seemed forever, with her slapping me, pulling my hair, and asking these crazy double bind questions that would get me in trouble no matter what I answered.

“If you wanted you live you wouldn’t be sleeping.”

    - yes, I want to live

“Then why are you sleeping. It must be that you don’t care or you don’t give a s*** about me?

    I care, I just fell asleep.

“So you care, then you don’t give a s*** about me! You should be proud of yourself. How can you say that to your mother!”   

    I do care. I love you.

“If you cared about me, if you loved me, you would listen to what I ask you. I asked you to stay awake and think of a reason why you should live and you couldn’t even do that. Why should I care about your life if you don’t? Huh? Tell me!”

    Mom, I just got tired and fell asleep. I don’t know why. I tried really hard.

Well, you obviously didn’t try hard enough. If you don’t care, I don’t care. You don’t care s*** about me since you couldn’t do one simple thing I asked you, so why should I care about you. Get back into bed and you know what will happen in the morning. And shut the f*** up or I’ll do it now. The choice is yours. What do you want? Now or in the morning.





The double bind questions kept coming. I didn't know what was real, or unreal. Day after day. Unrelenting. Fear. Confusion. Totally Controlled. Gail Meyer wrote a great article on double-binds.

These are the memories that come in my sleep. Sometimes I do fall asleep, deeply; and will wake up screaming, and in absolute terror. I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t called the police. My honey grabs and holds me and then I wake up and know where I am. I’m good. I can fall right back to sleep exhausted, but the house is in an uproar. These emotions are the ones I need to look at and they scare the spit out of me.

Last therapy I learned an interesting thing, and a very frightening one. It is the next door on the road. The emotional one. When I talk about my past I dissociate. I try very hard to be in the present but I go up to the right corner of the room. The left brain apparently controls cognitive thought, so by looking to the right I can access that memory vocally. The therapist mentioned that I always look to the left, but asked where “I” was. She said that my thought were there (where I looked) but where was I? I know that sounds all very freaky and strange but it eventually made sense. I stopped and thought about it, because I always thought that was where I was. Slowly the realization came that I was in the other corner. Laurel asked me if I could look at her and my heart stopped and my tears came. I had no voice. I put my hand up to block my vision from that corner of the room and turned my head completely away.

Later I tried to turn that way, but my hand stayed to block my vision and I shook, and swallowed and blinked back the tears that came faster than I could stop them. For the rest of that session I kept my left hand up blocking my vision from the left side of the room.

My therapist told me that the left brain contains the emotions, and the emotional me, with all the buried emotions was in the corner on the left. The thought of looking at her terrifies me. I have tried a number of times and I am awash in tears, fear, panic, and things I know I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to go there. I don’t know if I can do it. It was so hard to live it that I don’t know if I can or are willing to relive it. I am really struggling with this part, but I do know I will go forward. Only because God is on my side.

If God brings you to it, he Will bring you through it.
Happy moments, praise God.
Difficult moments, seek God.
Quiet moments worship God.
Painful moments, trust God.
Every moment, thank God.

And tomorrow will be another day in God’s kingdom. Either my temporary home or my permanent home. Either way, I am a winner.

Forgiving the Unforgivable

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is such a big word. Not just in the number of letters, but the conscious and purposeful decision to do something for someone else that you think they don't deserve. To forgive someone who has done something that you believe with your entire being is unforgivable is an almost insurmountable task.

I have heard it said many times that some things are not forgivable. They just aren't. Well, that may be true for some folks but for me it was not an option. I had to forgive the unforgivable for my own sanity. To be free of the woman who haunted my every breath, my very being. She made me want to die, and to attempt suicide. She barricaded us in rooms and threatened to kill us with knives, with rifles. She tied us to chairs and built fires on the floor. She beat us until we bled, and locked us in cellars. Unforgivable. I wanted her to pay and I wanted to be free. The only way I knew to be free was to set her free. To do the unforgivable and forgive.

I started to pray to God and ask him to help me to forgive her. I would feel physically ill and immediately tell God that I didn't mean a word I had said to him. That I didn't want what I had asked. That I wanted her to suffer and to pay for what she did. And then I would ask Him to make me willing to forgive her. I would clench me teeth and spit the words out. I would throw up. I would shout that I was telling him lies and would never forgive her, but always end with "Help me even though I don't mean it and don't want you to."

For years I prayed like this. It seemed like God wasn't taking me seriously, but how could he? How serious was my prayer? For me, it was serious. Deadly serious. I knew that God could forgive everything and that included me, who could not forgive. I read that we would be forgiven according to the measure that we forgave. Well now, that was interesting. I wanted to be completely forgiven of all I had ever done wrong, so I had to forgive just as he forgave.

I wrote poems, meditated, prayed, pleaded, bargained, and had tantrums. Somewhere along the way I began to soften. I didn't feel sick anymore. I could say that I meant it and I believed it. I would still get angry that I couldn't just forget about her. To lock her away where no body would be touched by the evil in her again, but I didn't really want that. I wanted to have peace in my life and to be happy, and I wanted the same for her. I really wanted that. Eventually I thought I had come to the place where I could honestly say that I forgave her. Most of the anger had gone and I didn't have that horrible bitterness and rage filled moments when I wanted to hurt her or worse. I had made tremendous progress.

One day, while in my car and listening to Praise Radio they were talking about forgiveness. The person being interviewed was asked how you knew that you had forgiven someone.  He replied that you would know when you no longer had the desire to talk about them in order to bring them shame. WOW! That was some food for thought. I still talked about my mom. I wore the stories like badges of honor. I still had some work to do. Back on my knees.

More years go by and my life hit some very bad bumps. I became estranged from my children. They were angry about my writing and the attention I had got. They felt I was just as bad as my mom and didn't deserve friends. They really have no idea, and they had no desire to hear my story. There life was not good. There father and I were alcoholics, and I had my undiagnosed anxiety, OCD, and C-PTSD. Not a good environment to raise children. I yelled a lot because of the anxiety. I quit drinking in 1989 and spent the next 20+ years doing everything I could to make it up. Everything. I apologized, wrote letters, spoke publicly, let them rage at me, whatever it took, I would take it, because they had deserved better. Until 2010 when I wrote my first story of my life and then my world went upside down.

It was at this lowest point of my life mourning and grieving the relationship of my children that I had given my life. I would have done anything to take the hurt away from them and make it better, but nothing I did was enough. They kept taking more and more. My psychiatrist said that sometimes children who grow up in less than perfect homes and one parent or the other sees the error of their ways and tries to make it up, well; it does something to the children. He said sometimes they become like loan sharks. They don't ever want the debt paid because they like living off the interest. Hmmm... He said close the bank.

From his words I see that I had started a pattern. Whatever they said or did that was hurtful, I let it be; because I thought I deserved it. Over 20 years it became a way of life. A very unhealthy way of life. I had to let them go. I wasn't willing to pay that price any longer. It still hurts very much.

So while in this place of deep hurt and deep pain, of feeling the loss of my babies, my children I heard God. Through my sobs of pain I heard God say to me that my mother was His child and he was crying for her, just as I was crying for mine. I felt his tears mingle with mine on my cheek and I cried for my mom. I cried because I really loved her. I cried and prayed that she would come home to her father, just as I wanted my children to come to their mother. I loved her like I loved my babies. I was free. Really free. Through my guilt and my deep pain God taught me love and real forgiveness. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Yes, all things are forgivable. You have to work at it. Even when you don't believe it and don't want it, because God makes all things possible.

You see, I was a slave to hatred, but now I have been freed to walk in love and forgiveness.

"You have been called to live in freedom. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." (Galatians 5:13-14,16)

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15)

It's All in Your Head

Words that hurt. Words that wound. Words that cut deeper than my own self-inflicted wounds. Words that are supposed to help me get rid of my mental illness. I have been diagnosed with C-PTSD, OCD (Obsessive Thoughts and counting), Anxiety, and Panic Disorder. These are all classed as mental illnesses. These words and words like:

"Snap out of it."
"Get over it."
"It's all in your head."
"Don't think about it."
"Forget about that stuff."

Words said, I hope; by well-meaning people to make you feel better. Instead, they shred my heart and tear my mind to pieces. It invalidates me. It says that what I feel is trivial and is either not real, or doesn't matter.

Most so-called "normal" people don't understand mental illness. It has something to do with the brain, but that does not mean it is imagined or not real. It is something that happens when chemicals or neurons are misfiring in your brain and your life which was smooth, now starts to run rough. Life a car with a spark plug that misfires. It runs shaky and vibrates. You step on the gas to make it go and it coughs and dies, sputters and chokes. Yep, that's my life at times. Not firing on all cylinders. Does that mean I'm crazy, or that it's not real? This is wear the stigma comes in. A missing spark plug, or no gas is a very real thing. It is not imaginary or made up. It exists, it's a problem with mind, not the imagination. I don't imagine that I have a car. I HAVE a car and it doesn't work proper. It needs to be fixed by a mechanic because I don't how.

See, I think the masses think mental illness is something that people make up because they are, well; crazy. No! mental illness is something that happened because we live in a world that is crazy. It can happen, and does happen to many people. It comes on after wars, violence, abuse, and trauma. It comes on because chemicals become imbalanced. It comes on because neurons misfire in the brain, the wiring has gone awry. You don't image it, pretend it, or want to be the way it is. You can't make it go away. It is just as real as a broken leg, a tooth ache, or a pain in the butt! I am not weak, selfish, seeking attention, or malingering. I am so tired of the stigma attached to having a mental disorder.

Can you imagine the following conversation?

Girl: Mom! I've fallen in love with the most wonderful guy!
Mom: Oh, get over it, it's all in your head. You're not really in love.
Girl: Oh no. Mom, he makes me feel so special, you have no idea.
Mom: Oh, forget about that stuff. You're special with or without him.
Girl: Oh mom, he asked me to marry him. I'm the luckiest girl in world. I feel I'm on cloud nine.
Mom: Snap out of it, it's all in your head. There is NO cloud nine.

Do we tell people who are in love to "Snap out of it"?  Do we tell people who are crying because they just got the news that they have a terminal illness that their grief is "All in your head!"? Do we tell someone who is dying of heart disease to "Not think about it?"  Do we tell people who are happy to "Forget about it."

No, we don't. Some emotions are acceptable, some are acceptable if they come with a visible reason. The rest are unacceptable by many of societal standards.

"You've been sad long enough, move on."
"That happened a long time ago, get over it."
"You should be glad they're gone."
"Calm down."
"Stop crying!"

I am told to deny my existence, my being, my life. People ask me to remember only the good. They mean well, but they had no understanding of a life filled with bad. Yes, I am 43 years away from what was done, but the wiring was put in place the day I popped out of the birth canal. There was never a safe place. A child that is loved and nurtured learns that when it is hurt or frightened, that someone comes to help and makes them better. They learn when they are in pain, that someone takes care of them. The learn when they are happy, others are happy. They learn the world is safe. The primal fear center in their brain start to make connections that say "You are okay, your are safe".

In my brain, when I was sick, I was punished and made sicker. If I was sad I had the sadness knocked out of me. If I was happy I had it knocked out of me. If my MNM was sick, or tired, or upset she took it out on me. My very existence depended on me being afraid on guard all the time. My brain never developed the connections that said the world is safe. Consciously I know that, but where my primal cortex is, the most primitive part of the brain, where everything develops and comes from; does not. My lack of nurturing did not let the connections develop.

I'm sure that many have heard or read of infants that were not held or touched after they were born. They grow up with an attachment disorder because the brain did not develop the wiring for being touched, comforted, held. Every human being deserve that very basic need of being held in their mothers arms. These infants fail to thrive and many die. Those that survive have significant problems. Tell that adult in that position to just "Snap out of it." Scientific American does a great job on describing it.

Once that wiring is in place that is the way it works. I want to turn on the kitchen light but when I flick the switch the television in the family room goes on. I want to stop being anxious, and if I try, then I obsess. If I try not to obsess I get anxious. If I try to do neither I panic. If I try to control my panic I slash my arms. I know what I want but I am unable to get there because the pathway does not exist. The switch to turn off the fear center does not exist. Adrenaline and cortisol are out of whack. No human being has the power by their own will to control the amount of hormones or chemicals that flow in their body. Insulin is an example. Too much or too little you have diabetes. Too much or too little of another you have Addison's Disease. The list is long. Can you imagine telling a diabetic that it is all in their head? No you can't. That would be crazy. Just as crazy as telling me that it is all in my head when adrenaline flows unchecked out of my adrenal glands.

Each time those words are spoken, it invalidates my life, my experience, and my well-being. It triggers emotional flashbacks and takes me back to my youth."It's all in your head, you're not sick, you are trying to get attention." Then I'd have to clean my own vomit, still cook, and clean. After being beaten and humiliated having to kiss my MNM on the lips and have to tell her I love her. And sound like I meant it. "Don't think about it, don't think about it." After being beaten being told not to cry or you'll get some more. "Snap out of it! I barely touched you. Wait until I really give you something to cry about." Cut marks and welts on my legs, buttocks, shoulders, that were put there by a 3 inch wide piece of conveyor belt. Please, as a favour to all of us who suffer with some sort of mental illness, please don't say those words to us. If you don't know what to say, just give us a hug. Hold our hand. Just don't ask us to deny our life. We want to get over this, more than you you want us to.

Most people don't know of my journey. They wouldn't get it. How do I know that? I was out for an evening with my mother-in-law with a friend of hers. They were talking about the boys on a hockey team that had undergone years of sexual abuse by their coach and had decided as adults to finally speak their truth. This woman friend of my mother-in-law said, "For god's sake, it went on for years without them saying anything. They must have enjoyed it then."  I felt the air sucked out of my lungs. People just don't get it. They don't know the tricks that keep you silent. The fear, the shame. And now here is a woman that blames the child. They must have liked it! Really? Even if they begged for it, they are a child and an adult should know better! Outrageous. She is a reason many won't tell of their sexual abuse. You get victimized again. She re-victimized me without knowing it. I was sexually abused for years. By many people. I must have been a real tramp. Gosh, I must have even carried a sign advertising the fact I was easy. Shame on me? NO! Shame on you who think that. Shame on a world that judges and treats people unfairly. Shame on a world that makes a group of people feel less than they should. Shame on a world for making me feel bad because I was mistreated. Shame on a world that makes me cry. Shame on a world that makes me feel like I have to apologize for being alive. Shame on a world that makes me feel bad for asking for help. It's always about shame. That is one of the way abusers control people.

I am so glad that I not any less than anyone else in the eyes and heart of my God. His opinion is the only one that matters.

Romans 14:10: You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat.

In the end, He will treat us all the same. There is no difference between you and I in the eyes of my creator.

I Don't Like the Dark

Evil grows in the dark
Where the sun it never shines
Evil grows in cracks and holes
And lives in people's minds
-Poppy Family

I don’t like the dark. I don’t think I am afraid of the dark, I just don’t like the dark. Bad things happen in the dark. My mother’s mind is dark. It is shrowded and covered in the mystery that is her, and nothing will penetrate that darkness. Not even love that conquer even the hardest hearts. She keeps who she is closely guarded and will not let anyone in to see who she is besides evil. She tells this person this much, and that person that much, and much of the much is lies. Dark is evil.

My MNM did bad things in the dark. When I was about 6 years old we moved into a house that had a cellar. A dark, damp, decaying, that smelled like decay and damp earth. I think it would smell like that if you were buried alive. There were big spiders under the stairs and in the corners. There were some wet spots where water dripped and they held salamanders. One little light with a pull chain barely lit this dark place.

Somehow or other, in my MNM’s brain, she decided this was a good way to punish me. To place me in the cellar and drop the trap door on my head and fingers as I tried to claw my way out. I could scream as loud as I could, until I had no more voice; and no one would hear me. I would cry until I had no more tears and no more voice. I even fell asleep sometimes. I don’t know how long I spent down there. Then one day I realized I could turn on the light. I would hear the footsteps across the floor and know when she was coming and turn it off again.  What a small relief! At least I could see where the spiders and salamanders were and keep my eyes on them. It was no less frightening.

One day I was tricked. I guess perhaps I hadn’t been screaming or crying enough so she tiptoed to the cellar door and pulled it open and caught me red-handed. That day the light bulb was removed. I hated the cellar, I hated the dark, I hated the person who put me there, I hated myself for being unlovable, and I hated God for making me. Yet I prayed to him to make me loveable and to make me good.

On this same property we had some outbuildings. One was a coal shed where the coal for our stove was delivered. If you have never experienced coal, well; it is very dusty and it is very black. Dark. The dust is everywhere and the smallest breeze stirs it up. One of my MNM’s gleeful punishments was to place me in the coal shed and tell me to stand there. It was always in the summer and I only remember it being done when I had my white socks and black patent shoes on. Prairie summers can be oppressive and in a coal shed with one closed window, it was sweltering. I would be told to stand there and not get dirty, that if there was any coal on my socks I would be in so much trouble. I would stand there for what felt to be an eternity. I don’t know sometimes if it was 5 minutes or five hours. Little kids fidget. Gosh, adults even fidget if they are hot and have to stand in place. But I couldn’t even shift my feet because of the dust that would come up. Black, dark, dust. I hate coal and the blackness, and the dark.

Bedtimes. Again the dark. I slept in a bed with two brothers. I’d be sent to bed and be told not to make a sound and go to sleep. She’s always hear something. Sometimes she really did, but many times she imagined it. Those times were really hard for my punishment wasn’t justified. I really disliked bedtimes for a number of reasons. This one was plain crazy. I’d have to sleep on the chair. If I didn’t want to sleep in bed I’d have to sleep on the chair. That was the reasoning. You see, if I wanted to sleep in bed, I would have gone to sleep and not talked, therefore I didn’t want to sleep in bed. I would get so cold on the chair as the coal in the stove would burn down. I would itch. Sometimes I fell asleep and then sometimes I fell off when I fell asleep. I’d cry and only get yelled at. “Maybe next time when I say go to sleep you’ll listen. You have yourself to thank for this!” I don’t know how many times my head cracked the floor and it really hurt. I learned not to cry because then she tied me into the chair with a large tea towel. That was horrible because I could move around, or fidget to well, or scratch places that itched. The nights were so very long, and dark. I really don’t like the dark.

So much more happened in the dark and many things happened that we were told to keep in the dark. Don’t talk, don’t tell, don’t remember, don’t bring me shame, don’t embarrass me, don’t make me beat you…..just don’t. Don’ t live, don’t think, don’t care, don’t feel, don’t love, don’t hate….why don’t you just stop existing.

I know that it wasn’t me now, and yet that doesn’t make the damage to my mind and my body go away. I understand, I get it; but it doesn’t make me better. I am angry and I want to cry and cry and cry. I spin in circles and don’t know which way to go or what to do. I want to hurt my MNM and I want to help her. I want her to suffer and I want to save her. I am double minded and tortured. I want to rage, but at who? My MNM doesn’t even get that she has done anything wrong and will make me the crazy person. God? What does he have to do with this except to hold me close to his heart. My life is my gold that God will use to help others. If I let him. Of course I am. Something good must come out of this because I do not want my entire life to be nothing but sadness.

My MNM wants to keep her secrets and she wants me to keep her secrets and others don’t want me to tell my story, but God is compelling me tell it. I heard him very clearly one day tell me that I had buried my gold and I must dig it up and use it. My life is my gold and God and I, with his help; will use it for good.

Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.