Survivor’s Aftereffects List #1

I have used this list many times. It is called The Survivor’s Aftereffects Checklist and is from the book Secret Survivors by Sue E. Blume.

There are 37 points on the list. Many survivors have told me that they are all 37 points. I think that there are usually a couple that I don’t have, but otherwise I still deal with most of the aftereffects listed.

Sometimes you have to take a good look around and survey the land to get a good idea of what you are dealing with. At the same time it is easy to be overwhelmed by all the evidence of how being sexually abused as a child has negatively impacted you and your life. 

1. Fear of being alone in the dark, of sleeping alone; night terrors, nightmares (especially of rape, pursuit, threat, entrapment, blood).

Yes. I don’t like being in the dark. I get a panic attack if the electricity goes out. I get all shaky and can’t manage to cope well. Even after I put on a candle or grab a light I will be triggered and up all night until the morning light.

I don’t like sleeping in the dark. I tried to sleep with a small light on, for a time, but that meant that I slept even less deep than before and since I sleep very lightly to begin with, I wasn’t getting much rest.

I don’t think that I have night terrors, as they have been described to me. I do have a long history of laying in the dark terrorized with fears of being raped  or attacked and not being able to fall asleep. I have been able to get to sleep much easier over a number of years by living in denial about this possibility. I pretend that I live in a world where women don’t get abused in their beds. It took me a long time to get there. At least I get some sleep. 

I have nightmares or very disgusting dreams, when I remember them. I purposely try not to remember them. I try not to dream. Sometimes they are about my mother and she is an evil old lady. I am someone else and everyone else is someone else in the dream, but in my mind I know it is a dream and I know who they are in my waking life and it disturbs me. I don’t feel like I get any rest from that kind of stuff.

I don’t mind sleeping alone, but I hate living alone. I have done that for a long long time, but I still hate it. If I have a roommate I feel so much safer. Even if they are not home.

Even though this issue seems huge I know that I have come a long way and that I am healing. I see the landscape, but I also see how far I have traveled.