I Am Happy to Report

That I am feeling better. This is so much better than a week ago, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, and even five weeks ago. I finished 10 days of the two antibiotics. Yah!

Since I was done with that I thought I might start taking the thyroid medication that I have been holding off for more than a month. It is for low performing thyroid issues. One day and I feel better in a lot of ways. I tried to get the old rotten doctor to listen to me four and five years ago. He denied that I had an issue, even though my test numbers were low, though still slightly above what was considered for a diagnosis of hypothyroidism.

I even tried a year ago with the replacement doctor at the new clinic, who refused to do anything but “watch it” and who also refused to order the test for h pylori without my knowledge until I had walked all the way back in the clinic building to the lab. She just wanted to fob me off onto the gastro specialist and kept suggesting that I start seeing another doctor in the clinic, since I guess she thought that my issues were not important enough to request an internist. Ha! Not going to happen. I need an internist.

The doctor from last year, after I left her a complaint message about not getting the test ordered by her, wrote me a letter saying that since I did not show damage from the test I had done more than 18 months ago, she did not see any need for the h pylori test, though I could come back and have it done, though of course with my health it is hard to travel back to the clinic, so I didn’t. I really regret that. But perhaps she would have still decided that I didn’t have a big enough problem for meds. She sucks, almost as much as the previous one.

Now I think that I have a great doctor, she is really helping me to heal, and really and seriously, that is all that I have wanted and asked for from a doctor, a correct diagnosis, treatment, and healing. And here is another great thing; since she is so great to me and such a great doctor, I am not triggered by the facts that she is female, older than me, and has some extra weight on her, all triggers from my mother and her sexually abusing and physically abusing me.

Still plenty of issues to contend with, but I feel better and hope that I will keep feeling better and better. Good and healing thoughts to you all.

Drunk is a Trigger

Drunk is a trigger for me. Has been probably all my life. It is almost all due to my father, the alcoholic and all his drunk alcoholic work buddies. I recently had a memory of one of them trying to sexually offend against me once when I was in elementary school, so that might be a big issue in that as well. Perhaps there is more there than I have been able to remember so far.

To me my father always seemed to be at work, asleep, or drunk all weekend, so there was few incidents of parenting and even less of kindness or expressions of love when I was a child.

He was often emotionally wounding and cruel to me. I never could figure that out as a child and I often wondered why he couldn’t manage to be kind and loving to me, except rarely. Perhaps more surprising was the fact that I knew how to be loving and kind and that I was always seeking it from others. I guess that says something about my heart and nothing about my parents’ hearts.

So my weekends were often one big drunk fest. My father would come home late on Friday, drunk, falling down, and screaming at people, sometimes just screaming at no one. It used to terrorize me. Saturday and Saturday night were often repeats of the same, except often with drunk friends over at the house, with Sunday being sport watching while drinking constantly.

I blame my father for a lot of the responsibility of protecting me. He married a sexual offender and and then he stayed drunk most of my childhood. My mother, being a child sexual offender, hardly cared about keeping me safe from other predators. If he hadn’t been an alcoholic, he might have been a better human being, though perhaps not. Perhaps he would have been even crueler and cared even less for me or about me. Perhaps his obliviousness and self-pity would have been even worse. Nothing guarantees that he would have chosen to be a better person and a better parent.

So I suppose you can all see why drunks would be a trigger for me. In my childhood the triggers often accompanied terror and feelings of abandonment, followed by bursting into tears that were uncontrollable, often I tried to do my crying alone. This would happen even when I was a teenager.

I’ve been very upset to find that living downtown the last couple of years means that a lot of drunks hang around, all times of the day or night, apparently, because I have been running into them a lot lately at all hours of the day or night. There are a lot of bars downtown and that seems to be a draw for drunks, but also a large number of drunk men seem to hang out downtown, some are obviously homeless and others homeless and alcoholics. Despite my avoiding them as much as possible, giving them dirty looks when they get too close or avoiding eye contact, they still seem to think it is okay to street harass me. They come up to me and start talking to me, asking for money, staring at me like they are eye humping me, or trying to insult me.

A few weeks ago I was downtown near the Target store at seven am Sunday morning. A white guy came up to me and tried to start talking to me, couldn’t walk straight or talk without slurring his words. This after my avoiding him and avoiding eye contact with him. He said, hello my dearie, hello my miss, hello my ma’am. I told him, fuck off. I had to say it four times and threaten to call the cops before he finally walked away.

So instead of walking away or avoiding me completely since I had more than adequately communicated my dislike and distain for him and his condition he stood there and wanted to know what it was about me and my ” past experiences” that would lead me to conduct myself in this manner. Rather than blaming himself and his drunk condition, and his conduct at 7 am on a Sunday and going up to a woman and talking to her like she is a vulnerable female who wants to be around a drunk he chooses to believe that her vulgar phrases are due to her and have nothing to do with him.

I told him, I’m not your dearie, I’m not your miss, I’m not your ma’am, fuck off! And then I still had to say fuck off two more times and threaten to call the cops until he walked away, pretending to be really concerned with what it was about my life that leads me to act this way.

My response to drunks who insist on inserting themselves into my life is anger, to be triggered, and a fuck off attitude. I hate men who have no boundaries and refuse to read body language. If a woman is refusing to engage with you from ten feet away and then from five feet away, she wants you to go away. If you smell and are dirty and drunk on the street, and can’t walk or talk straight, she does not want you in her life.

I realize that drunk and invasive men have a long tradition of getting away with a lot of shit downtown, but I am not that woman. It happened tonight a few hours ago. I was sitting downtown, having a snack, and minding my own business. A drunk guy was coming towards me, I looked in another direction while tracking him in my peripheral vision, he slowed and stared at me at ten feet away, he continued going slower at five feet, he got closer to me and started to talk, I ignored him and looked away, while listening to my headphones. He tried to get me to talk to him. I told him, I don’t want to talk to you, he stared at me and continued talking, I ignored him, and he moved away.

About twenty feet away he decided to come back to me to lecture me. I got out my pepper spray so that I had it handy in case I needed it. He continued to talk to me, gesturing that I pay attention, repeating over and over can you hear me, you need to listen to me. I refused to take off my headphones and told him to fuck off. I had to tell him several times.

I know that it wasn’t hugely about me, because I heard him a half block down yelling at another woman, probably demanding money, while she was sitting at an outdoor seating area of a restaurant/bar. She was screaming back at him loudly and repeatedly until he left her. When I finally left the area he was half way between me and the bar, staking out the sidewalk area and waiting to approach women.

I think that this is happening so much because women are not calling the police and these men are not facing any consequences. I don’t understand why more is not being done about this problem. I see them doing this to women day or night. I see women being nice and polite, I’ve done that as a self-defense technique myself for a long time in my life, but it is not something that I choose to do any longer. If I don’t feel safe I just get on my bike and ride away.

Of course there are police cars downtown all the time and usually more than a few other people around, no matter what day or night time it is. I still can’t figure out why someone wouldn’t leave when it is obvious the other person doesn’t want them to be around them, even if they are invasive, rude, and without boundaries. I know I would leave if someone told me to fuck off. I certainly wouldn’t wait around for someone to say it four times.

My Fathers 1

Being sexually abused by my mother really shattered my ability to trust, but I found that despite that I was able to slowly piece together a system of connectedness that allowed me to find love, acceptance, bonding, and healing elsewhere. I read about the shattering of attachment for mother-daughter sexual abuse survivors each time that I read about the subject of MDSA. I think that it must be very similar for other survivors of child sexual abuse.

I know that I have written here on the blog about my issues with bonding and attachment and especially in the ways that I have tried to find connectedness in my life and in my life and to establish more; to the world, to others, and to symbols that I find a great deal of meaning and healing from.

Some of the symbols that I find a great deal of meaning and healing from are fictional  characters that I feel connected to.

I’ve been working in the last few years to try to identify past connections that bring me meaning and healing and establishing more connections. Some connections just seemed to pass beyond my conscious awareness, even though at one time they had a lot of meaning and brought a lot of connection and healing into my life at some time.

Trying to re-discover those past connections has helped me to see myself as someone who desperately wanted and needed  connection and as someone who was incredibly brave to do so, despite how horrific my childhood existence was and how difficult it was to trust my emotions, especially love, when I was hated, scapegoated, and abused by my family of origin, who I tried to love.

I re-discovered my father Herb Hubbard when I started to re-watch the show The Mothers-in-Law. I loved him when I was a child. Herb was a husband, a father of a college daughter, and a businessman. The thing that I liked the most about him and still do, is his ability to manage his emotions, which neither of my parents did. Since my father was an active alcoholic, there was never a strong man in my life, never a good man in my life, never a calm man in my life, never a loving and good and safe man in my life. But Herb was that man in my life.

Herb was a good role model and human being to me despite the drama going on in the household, with his wife, with his neighbors who lacked boundaries and common respect, and with his college age son who decides to marry the neighbor’s daughter, Herb manages his life and positively impacts his family with love, determination, resilience, and gentleness. I like that last one the best; gentleness.

Here he is, my dad:

Herb Hubbard from the show The Mothers-in-Law

I love my dad.

Tomorrow is an Annual Trigger Day

I will be gentle with myself for the next few days.

Article: Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse: A Painful Topic

Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse: A Painful Topic

By Kali Munro, M.Ed., Psychotherapist, 2000

Sexual abuse perpetrated by mothers on their daughters is an uncomfortable subject for many people. It defies everything we believe, or want to believe, about women and mothers. Most people don’t want to believe that female perpetrators of sexual abuse exist, and certainly don’t want to believe that a mother could sexually abuse her own children. While mothers sexually abuse their sons as well, in this article I focus on the impact on daughters.

Sexist Views About Women and Mothers

Most of us are raised to view women as being very different than men – to view them almost as opposites. Some people can’t even imagine women doing the same things that men do, or being anything like men. Even when cultures view women to be strong, capable, and competent most continue to view women as inherently different than men because of their child-bearing abilities. Many character traits are presumed to be true about women because of their ability to bear children – women are believed to be more caring, sensitive, nurturing, and maternal than men. The reality that there are female perpetrators of sexual abuse, particularly mothers, is a fact that many people are not willing to believe.

These sexist views of mothers, of all women, run very deep in most cultures, and is linked with another assumption – that all women (and particularly mothers) are heterosexual.

Sexual abuse is not sex. Yet because of homophobia, same-sex sexual abuse is linked in most people’s minds with lesbian or gay sex. How often do we see in the newspapers exclaiming “lesbian sex abuser” but not “heterosexual sex abuser?” It is an ingrained presumption.

And so, if women who sexually abuse girls are perceived to be lesbian but mothers cannot be lesbian, plus mothers are all loving and caring, how could a mother possibly sexually abuse her daughter? It’s impossible. Or, so, “they say”.

Heterosexism and Homophobia

This presumption is important to examine for many reasons. That the perpetrator is perceived to be lesbian fuels many people’s denial. Mothers can’t be lesbian, the thinking goes, therefore the abuse couldn’t have happened. On the other hand, some people may be more likely to believe that the abuse happened, precisely because they perceive the perpetrator to be lesbian. It confirms their belief that lesbians are child molestors. When this occurs people are far more outraged than they are with father-daughter sexual abuse because a female perpetrator of incest has violated the social expectations of women and mothers. Sadly, this reaction also points to how little we expect of fathers.

How People View Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse

People tend to feel far more conflicted and confused about mother-daughter sexual abuse – or female perpetrators generally – than they are about father-daughter sexual abuse (or male perpetrators). People respond with outright denial: “A mother wouldn’t do that sort of thing.” Others minimize the abuse: “How bad could it be? The abuser was a woman; she was probably gentle.” And still others vilify female perpetrators, viewing them as worse than male perpetrators because they are women or mothers.

Some people try to explain away the behavior of female perpetrators by pointing to the history of sexual abuse that they have undergone. Having been sexual abused is one factor that can contribute to a mother abusing her own daughter (although there are plenty of survivors who do not sexually abuse children) – and it is possibly one of the more important factors that might lead female perpetrators to sexually abuse their children because they, unlike men, aren’t socially conditioned to be sexually aggressive, or to sexualize children. However, this argument should not be used to minimize the responsibility of female perpetrators nor the devastating effects of this form of abuse.

It is not uncommon when female perpetrators are discussed, the tone is often distinctly softer and more sympathetic than when male perpetrators are discussed. This misplaced sexist sympathy for female perpetrators minimizes the effects of the abuse that a survivor went through and denies a survivor’s reality of the trauma. In addition, when survivors are aware of this attitude, and many are, it can make it even harder for them to take their own abuse, and the effects of that abuse seriously.

Survivors of Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse

Imagine how a survivor of mother-daughter sexual abuse feels, when the general population who has not undergone this trauma feels this confused and conflicted about it. Survivors tend to be very confused and conflicted about the abuse and their mothers, especially when, as usually is the case, their mothers were their primary care givers. They may have a lot invested in not acknowledging that the abuse happened. For one, it is emotionally traumatic to acknowledge abuse of any kind. Two, they may hold the same beliefs that society holds about mothers – that they are all loving and nurturing, and thirdly, it is very hard to take in that the very person who carried you through pregnancy and gave birth to you has sexually abused you.

When survivors of mother-daughter incest are able to acknowledge the abuse they experienced, they often believe that there must be something terribly wrong or bad about them. “How could my own mother sexually abuse me?” This belief that they are bad comes from the myth that mothers are intrinsically caring and loving as well as the reality that it’s hard to take in that one’s own birth mother could harm you. If all mothers are wired to take care of their children and are supposed to be loving to their children, then there must be something really bad about the child whose mother abused them. It makes sense that a child would think this way, especially in a context loaded with societal myths about mothers. It’s easier for a child to believe that the abuse is her fault than to admit that the person who was supposed to love and protect her actually harmed her. Sadly, this way of thinking is carried into adulthood by many survivors, and it hurts them a great deal.

That Which Has No Name

It is very difficult for even survivors themselves to acknowledge that they were abused by their mothers. It can be a great struggle to label their experience as abuse. Survivors may not have words to describe what happened; they may not know what to call it. They may fear that the incest was lesbian sex; something “dirty” – not to be talked about or admitted. They may be afraid of being perceived as lesbian, or afraid that the abuse makes them lesbian. Survivors who are lesbian may fear that their sexuality was caused by the abuse.

It is also difficult for survivors to acknowledge their abuse because there are very few places that survivors can hear or read about mother-daughter incest, or even about female perpetrators. Sexual abuse and incest have become almost synonymous with male sexual abuse of females and father-daughter incest. It is within this vacuum that survivors of mother-daughter incest struggle to make sense of and understand their experience.

Homophobic Beliefs: One Effect of the Abuse

Many people confuse same-sex sexual abuse with lesbian sex, thinking that the perpetrator and even the victim is lesbian, or was made lesbian by the abuse. None of this is true. Yet these myths continue to exist, and they confuse and haunt many survivors who live in fear and shame that they really are lesbian when they aren’t, or that their lesbian sexuality was caused by the abuse.

Being abused by her mother does not make a survivor a lesbian. Even if the survivor’s body physiologically responded to the sexual stimulation, this has nothing to do with sexuality. It is the body’s natural physiological response to stimulation, and has nothing to do with the survivor’s own sexual desires, or even consent. Sexual abuse effects a survivor’s comfort level with and responses to being a sexual person, but it does not cause her sexuality.

Identifying with Mother Perpetrators

Even when survivors acknowledge that they were sexually abused by their mothers, they often strongly identify with their mothers. This identification with the perpetrator can make it more difficult for survivors to separate themselves, emotionally and otherwise, from their abuser.

Many daughters look to their mothers as a mirror for their future lives. Survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse often see their future as a woman and mother as dismal. Many adult survivors painfully worry that they will sexually abuse children, that they are unsafe around children, or that they are potential perpetrators – just like their mothers. This may lead survivors to feel that they are untrustworthy, thus many survivors are reluctant to have children of their own (although the choice to not have children can be a perfectly healthy choice on its own.)

Are They Victims or are they Abusers?

Daughters, and thus many survivors, often look to their mother’s experiences (in the home and with their fathers) as their future, and identify with their mother’s situation. If their mother is in an upsetting situation, survivors will often feel empathy for their mothers, and want to help them. This is heightened for survivors whose mothers turn to them for support.

If the perpetrator views herself as a victim of circumstances, or is a victim of her husband, the survivor often feels sorry for her and fears losing her. This dynamic makes it very hard for the daughter to see her mother as an abuser. Many of us tend to see people in extreme categories – either victim or abuser. For children, this either-or-thinking is the norm, but for survivors it often remains with them and becomes entrenched. The truth is that people can be both – victims in one context, and abusers in another.

“I Feel Like I Am My Mother”

The more a survivor identifies with her mother, the harder it is to separate her identity from her abuser – a crucial step in healing. Many survivors of mother-daughter incest report looking in the mirror and seeing their mothers, and hating themselves for it. When they see their own body naked (which they may avoid doing), many survivors see their mother’s body, and as a result feel deeply ashamed of and angry at their bodies. Some survivors respond to these feelings by not wanting to be women, or lesbian (as they may perceive their mother to be), or anything associated with women or lesbians.

The feelings of shame and self-hatred that survivors can have may lead to their feeling uncomfortable with and/or hatred toward women and lesbians; inadequate and bad about themselves; confused and ashamed about being women; uncomfortable with their sexuality; engaging in self-injurious behavior (particularly in the genital and breast area); developing an eating disorder; experiencing body shame; and having difficulties in relationships, particularly with other women.

It is crucial for survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse to create boundaries with their mothers (physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual); to re-claim their bodies as their own, and to truly know the differences between themselves and their mothers.

Longing for a Mother’s Love

Mother-daughter sexual abuse wounds survivors’ hearts and souls. Their mothers were often their only care-givers and the only source of much-needed care. When this care is mixed with sexual abuse, the effects are devastating. This mixture of nurturance (if there was any) and sexual abuse may have been all the parenting a survivor received. Often the father was absent or simply did not take an active role in parenting. This mixture of caring and sexual abuse leaves survivors with an unpleasant, and often sickening or repulsive feeling. On the one hand, the survivor desperately needed to be loved, held, kissed, and nurtured, but when that nurturance comes with such a high price, it is devastating to the child’s psyche. Even nurturance that is offered separate from the sexual abuse becomes hard to trust or to take in freely and openly. This leaves many survivors feeling a desperate need for love, and at the same time, highly conflicted about that need, and wary of those, particularly women who offer support. The grief connected to not receiving safe love from a mother or primary caregiver is profound.

Summary of the Effects of Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse

While survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse experience many of the same effects as other incest and sexual abuse survivors, they tend to have heightened difficulties with:

Naming Their Experience As Abuse.

This is particularly true in light of the myth that women do not sexually abuse children.

Identity.

Many survivors have difficulty knowing that they are separate from and different than their perpetrators.

Boundaries.

Many survivors have difficulty maintaining their boundaries, especially with other women. They may be overly flexible or overly rigid.

Self-Blame.

Many survivors blame themselves. This self-blame is heightened in a cultural context where mothers are mythologized as all loving and caring. It can’t be the mother’s fault, the thinking goes, so it must be theirs. They must be really bad if their own mother abused them.

Gender Identity.

Many survivors have trouble identifying as women, or do not like what they perceive women to be, because the abuser was a woman and because the abuse focused on their female body. They know they are women, but in their minds being a woman is associated with being a victim, and/or being sexualized, “less than”, weak, etc.

Gender Shame.

Many survivors feel great shame about being a woman because of their identification with the perpetrator and the abuse. They feel that they are guilty of something and that it has to do with being female.

Body Shame.

Survivors often feel great shame about their bodies, particularly their bodies’ womanliness, both because the perpetrator had a woman’s body and the abuse focused on their female body.

Homophobic Fears About One’s Actual or Perceived Sexuality.

Survivors are often very confused about the differences between sexual abuse and lesbian sexuality, and may believe the myth that abuse causes a survivor’s sexuality. This can lead to confusion about their own sexuality and how others perceive their sexuality.

Longing to Be Loved.

Survivors frequently have a profound need to be loved in the way that they were not as a child, and they may fear or be unable to accept it, particularly from other women.

Final Thoughts.

Abuse is never pleasant. However, mother-daughter sexual abuse seems to provoke particularly strong reactions in people, even those working in the area of trauma. Sometimes, when mother-daughter sexual abuse is acknowledged, people feel the need to say that it doesn’t happen as frequently as father-daughter sexual abuse, or that women aren’t as violent as men. Even if those things are true, it is not helpful information when listening to and understanding women who have been sexually abused by their mothers (or other women). If we want to create a safe environment for women to speak about their experiences, we need to talk and write about the fact that women and mothers do sexually abuse children. Only in that environment will survivors be truly free to tell their stories and heal themselves.

Copyright © KALI MUNRO. All rights reserved.

——————————–

Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse Resources

What Would You Say?

Recently on Tumblr I came across a post that was re-blogged several times that asked the question, what would you say to your abuser, and assume that they are capable of hearing and understanding you. I read this several times over several days and usually my response is the same as the one I have always had, I cannot assume that they can hear and understand or care for or about me or anything that I say or do. To my way of thinking, that negates the possibility of my trying to communicate anything to them.

The first time that I ever came across this idea in therapy was with a truly incompetent therapist who kept insisting over and over that I imagine my older brother, who sexually abused me, in the chair next to me in her tiny, claustrophobic office. I kept insisting over and over that I would not imagine him in the office, will not ever do so, and will leave the office if she continued to insist that I tell him anything of the damage he had done to me by sexually abusing me as a child and betraying me. I kept getting louder and louder and ruder and ruder, until I couldn’t stop myself from going into a panic attack.

Saying I was leaving unless she stopped was what made her stop. But really I knew before that that she wasn’t very good, but this instance of abuse really made me know I needed to find a therapist who was competent. Anyone who thinks that their opinion/education matters more than what the client is saying is an atrocious person/clinician. Anyone who pushes their client onto the edge of panic and then pushes them over and violates their stated boundaries when they are being clear is incompetent and abusive.

So imagining myself talking or writing to my abusers, about what they have done to me, has never been high on my list of healing choices, actually it’s not on my list at all, though I totally respect other survivors making that choice and I have total respect for other survivors. Peace and love babes to you all.

Well I think I came across the post quite a few times until an answer finally came to me in my mind on what I would actually do, if I were capable of believing they were capable of being a human being and if I were willing to share with them and this is it:

Me and all of them, alone in a huge empty room, lit up, with no furniture. We would all be sitting on the floor. They would be far away from me and unable to speak to me or come near me or touch me or hurt me.

I would scream for five minutes, or perhaps five days. Just scream. At the terror of a person that they were, at the terror that they had brought into my tiny, little life, at the terror that I carry inside of my body, my mind, my soul because of them, at the terror that they have made of my daily life.

Then I would cry for five minutes, or five days. And they would have to see it and they would have to witness it and they could not turn away, they could not stop hearing me, the pain, all the different kinds of pain they have caused me, and it would crawl inside of them and make their existence unbearable, unendurable.

Then I would communicate all the emotions that they put me through telepathically for five minutes or maybe five days. And there would be nowhere that they could run and hide to escape the torture they had put me through; emotionally, psychically, physically, socially, mentally, emotionally, sexually.

Then I would stand up and turn my back and my backside to them. By turning my back to them I am saying you mean nothing to me, I consider you no threat in my life, I am so safe from you that I can turn my back on you, I turn my back on you as a relative, as a human being, as a being, you are nothing to me, you never will be. Everything that I am inside and in the world is despite you and your impact on me, you gave me nothing of worth or value and that is how I see you.

As I would walk away they would see my backside and by showing them my backside I am saying the deepest insult that I can to them, I walk away from you, I won’t face you, you don’t deserve me, for eternity I walk away from you, for eternity I reject you, I reject everything you say, do, everything that you are.

And that is what I would do.

They don’t deserve my words.

Let’s Just Call It Casual

be aware:

physical abuse while a fetus and a pre-schooler

All of my life I have had issues with clothing being too tight and it causing me an increase in pain. I tend to wear very loose clothing and often casual wear, especially because they cost less and they are more comfortable and they are better for bike riding.

I know that I’ve written before about health issues that I was born with due to issues while in the womb. My mother had tried to end my life, often, by physically assaulting me while I was inside of her. Because of that the cord became wrapped around me and impeded my healthy growth and movements within the womb. I had issues with my arms and legs by the time I was born and doctors told my parents that they were unsure if I would ever be able to walk by myself. Within a few days the doctors were feeling much more positive. My hands and legs were moving freely and they were believing that my much improvement would continue.

I still have problems with my arms, and legs, neck and shoulders, and back. I believe that part of this is due to my earliest physical abuses by my female parent whilst I was still inside of her womb. I remember her physically abusing me for years after my birth. When I was five she physically assaulted me and caused the damage in my spine that causes most of my problems. But I think it is important to note that a woman who will physically try to abort her fetus by physically assaulting it is not a person who would balk at further abusing her child later in life.

My Advocate from the women’s shelter, two years ago, told me that I needed to stop wearing such raggy-baggy clothes. She’s not the first person to describe my clothing style as raggy-baggy. When you’re poor and only loose clothing are comfortable due to health issues, raggy-baggy may well be a good way of describing the essentials of comfort clothing.

My Advocate had insisted that I wear a really nice outfit when we went to my apartment appointment with the building manager. The clothes she gave me were way too tight and painful and even though I managed to wear them for a couple of hours, it was excruciating. I’m sure that there are tons of people who wear clothes that are snug, but I am unable to. The outfit sits in my closet. I really wouldn’t wear them again. I don’t own anything else as tight, that I have actually worn.

For Christmas Eve dinner, last year, I dressed up in a wonderful long black skirt, very loose, with a lovely green stretchy blouse and loose light red sweater. It was the first time that I have dressed up since the apartment application appointment.

Loose clothing has always helped me my whole life to have less pain and more comfort. It’s not a fashion statement. It is much more important than fashion. I would like to have more variety and more fun in my wardrobe, and indeed, I am trying to do so in my life and have been for a few years, especially to bring back more whimsy in my dress and accessories.

Helping my body to heal and to feel less pain is essential and an important part of my life and my healing path. It is one of the easiest healing things that I do for my body.

So right now I wear spring casual. In summer, of course, there is summer casual. In Autumn, there is always Autumn casual. And in winter you will find me, to the best of my ability, wearing winter casual. Let’s just call it casual.

Ghosts of Roommates Past Part 2

I moved to live with an online friend, in another state, which unsurprisingly went bad, because she proved to be a pathological liar and manipulator, lying about absolutely everything, and apparently thought she was going to get some money out of me. A concept which is hilarious to me, because she knew that I was on disability.

Bizarrely I came to believe based on evidence, that she thought I had thousands of dollars from my disability settlement squirreled away and that I was the sort of victim who would be easy to victimize, though I never implied that and I don’t think that I acted in a way that showed that I was an easy victim. They were all shocked and amazed to find that I was not an easy victim.My money was my money and none of her business. I was mind blown at the things her and her roommate, ex-girlfriend believed about me.

We had been online and phone friends over five years, though I soon came to realize only close for about a year, and that that is something I should have taken into account before making any kind of decision about her. I thought that I knew her, but I did not know that everything she ever told me was a lie.

The decrepit house that we lived in should have been condemned. They did not want to heat the house in the winter, and I had moved there in late September, something that they had not thought was an important thing to tell me, even though they knew that I was disabled and had fibromyalgia. So I had to hunker down in the bedroom or go downstairs where the computer access was to sit in the cold, being bitten by fleas.

Her ex-girlfriend accused me of being in love with my online friend and that was hilarious and outrageous. She was much younger than me, being in her early twenties, and very naive and mistaken about the world. She was unattractive to me physically, a victim, and what I thought of as a friend, no this was not someone that I would cross boundaries to take advantage of. Her ex, not surprisingly was a boundary jumper, being almost ten years older, starting out, posing, I believe, as a friend and ally.

I didn’t and still don’t believe that I would become sexual with someone that I was survivor friends with, so for me, that was an outrageous and horrific accusation. I’ve had others try to step over that line and found it horrific and immensely damaging to myself. I told her I love her, as a friend, nothing more. When I said it I realized that it was probably not true any longer, as I was assimilating all the lies that she had told me and realized that I was not a friend to her, but a potential victim to be exploited.

Another online friend told me that she would have been lucky to have me as a girlfriend, if I had wanted to do that, if I had loved her and that I had nothing to be ashamed of in the accusation. Yeah, she was right, my “friend” would have been bizarrely lucky to find me as a friend or potential date or potential girlfriend. But I was not interested in her like that. I don’t boundary jump with friends, I don’t groom future partners with friendship, unlike her previous girlfriend.

The ex told me that she was also a victim of mother-daughter sexual abuse. What she had not told me was that she was exploiting and abusing her lover, having actually physically abused her in the past, emotionally and verbally abusing her on demand, and physically assaulting other, including an assault that resulted in her having to go through anger management. It did not work.

But if either of them had told me any of the things that any normal person would have had issues with, I never would have moved there and I never would have had anything to do with them. But how many abusers tell you, hey I’m abuser, stay out of my life?

They had two dogs and three cats and the whole house was infested with fleas. I was being bitten horribly and I get a really bad reaction to bites. I really think that after seven weeks I was suffering from blood loss, I was attacked so much.

They would refuse to buy flea bombs. Finally I had to spend over $100 of my own money in trying to cope and deal with the infestation. I had to clean the filthy house, front porch, and constantly try to address issues over and over in order to get anything that I needed done. As a disabled woman I believed that a healthy bodied person should take out the trash,sweep the floor, wash and clean, etc. Yeah right.

The other roommate, the ex-girlfriend was lazy, worthless, rageful, argumentative, evil, vicious, unlearned, violent. I wasn’t even told that there relationship was on the rocks, that the one was developing a new relationship online and via phone and had done this two other times, lying, cheating, etc, and that she had been physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive to “my friend.” I did not know and trusted them. Boy was that a wrong thing to do.

Having to trust someone else, put up with all their shit and all their noise soon proved to me that I had to get away from having a roommate and to get my own precious living space. Unfortunately I could not afford my own place and trusted all the wrong people for several more years. I was there about seven weeks and went to live with a brother, the only person who offered to help me. None of my other siblings that I was in contact with at that time would assist me, not even with an offer to stay for a few weeks or even days.

I believe now that I should have just gotten a bus ticket to go back to my hometown and stay in a shelter. After living there for three days I knew that it was wrong of me to trust my brother. However I did not want to put myself in a position where I moved back to a town on a Friday afternoon with nowhere to stay and no one to help me, not one little bit.

I would not put myself into a position to be exploited and abused by someone like this ever again. Living alone is pleasure all the live long day by comparison. I’m glad that I have my own space now and would not give it up willingly for anything right now, except if I became very rich and could afford a bigger place of my own. I’m happy to live alone now.

2nd Advent Sunday

I’m pretty late in posting about my 2nd Advent Sunday. Sorry about that. I kept meaning to get to it. But having a sinus infection has seriously derailed the timeliness of my planned blog posts.

I was feeling better from my sinus infection, since I got my anti-biotic medication and Flonase three days beforehand. I’m glad to report that I am continuing to heal and feel much better, day by day.

On my second Advent Sunday I did much the same things as I had done on the first Sunday of Advent. I made a wonderful meal and had a great time. I had one of my artificial candles lit while I ate. I listened to some wonderful Christmas music. I watched a couple of Christmas themed shows and movies. I had my Christmas tree lights on and that brings me so much joy. That was all great.

An unfortunate thing happened, I cried. I wished that hadn’t happened, but sometimes when I am thinking about God I get all wrapped up in shame and humiliation and that is something that I have not overcome yet in my healing process. I still don’t think that I deserve God.

I still blame myself, in some way, and carry the shame of those who abused me. I decided to write about this because I think it is a common affliction for survivors of child sexual abuse, child abuse, bullying, emotional abuse, ritual abuse, the whole gamut of types of abuse.

For me, as a Christian, I have never been able to believe that God could feel the same way about me that I believe that they feel and think and love towards others. It is a huge part of Christianity to believe that God loves us all, each one of us, and that Jesus lived and died for us all, for all of our sins. For me, I think, it is particularly horrible, because ritual abuse is spiritual abuse. I’m only writing about this to highlight how this applies to me and, I believe, to survivors. I believe that many survivors think that they are the exception and that God doesn’t love them or want them, internalized deep inside of them.

I know theoretically that the shame and guilt that I feel are based on being abused by others, and that I was a child and was abused, and therefore not sins and not something that I should feel shame or guilt about. I know that I should not feel that I am the only person that God should feel that way about, because I  certainly don’t believe that God should feel badly towards survivors of child sexual abuse. But I still do. So I had a boatload of that come up last Sunday and that was not fun or good, but it is a part of my life and something that I am trying to heal from.

Bizarrely I alternate between feeling ashamed, guilty, and bad and having just a ton of rage at God. I think this is all a by-product of abuse and none of it is my responsibility, though I still feel it, believe it, and have to deal with it and try to heal from it all. I think it is good that I have finally been able to feel anger at God, after so many years of not being able to. I blame God for giving me to my mother, a sexual offender and child beater.

I realize that I wouldn’t exist without being born into my family of origin. For a very long time, most of my life, I have believed that it would be better not to have ever existed and have wished for that, to take back time and to have been wiped out of existence. I wished that I had never known my family. It has been the fondest wish of my life to be someone else than who I am, anyone else. A few years ago I stopped wishing that as well.

I was sorry when my online friends said to me that they valued me and that I had made a positive and healing impact on my life, because I still wished that I hadn’t existed.

For the last couple of years I am finally glad that I exist. I am glad that I am alive.

All that I/we have endured does not get wiped away and I believe that I would have been just as wonderful and kind of a person if I had not been abused. Actually I believe that I have been a more wonderful and kind person at times in my life and I see how certain abuses have negatively impacted me and altered me, especially with my abusive boyfriend. So I don’t think that abuse has shaped me or altered me in a way that can redeem having to endure it all. I don’t get that type of lesson from my life and I accept that others might get that from their life.

The first quote that I found on Advent to include in my Christmas quotes for this year was

Healing Quotes, Christmas 1

“Advent creates people, new people.”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

So I guess this is a great time of year and a great day to celebrate God in the manger, Jesus in the manger, Jesus growing up, loving us all, sacrificing his life for us all, and triumphing over death and evil. Advent and celebrating really is a good time to heal and when things come up, I am learning, it is a good time to think about them and to feel about them, even if you only wanted a little happy time and a little happy meal, Advent is a time for healing, to be changed, to be a new person in some way.

 .

It’s good for me to see it and good for me to remind myself that Jesus is in all the good things that happen to me, Jesus is in all the good things in the world, Jesus is in the friends who love me, and the kindnesses and goodness of others.

 .

I’ve seen lots of evil and abuse and the goodness doesn’t negate that or eliminate that or heal that. But I’m well on my healing path.

 .

A few years ago I realized that I was happy that I existed and that I did not want to wish my life away anymore. I realize now that the goodness in my life makes my life worth living. It makes me want to live. And it makes me glad that I exist. I’m glad that I exist. And I’m glad that yous exist, some beautiful beings with goodness in their hearts and in your actions. And I’m so glad and so thankful that our lives have intersected like this. So during Advent I celebrated that, all of you.

 .

Good and healing thoughts to you all.

A Thanksgiving Time Memory

A Thanksgiving Time Memory (one of the ugly ones)

mentions child sexual abuse

I had decided to write about this specific incident, but am having trouble because when I try to type out a sentence I can’t find the words, I don’t want to share it all in detail, which I don’t have to words for at all, but also I don’t know how to write about it in an abbreviated way either.

I was sexually abused for a long time by a male. He was the man who took me away from the ritual abuse cult I was being abused in. He could do that because he took over the group and was the leader there, for a time, until he disbanded the group. He saved my life, parented me, and loved me, so understandably our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and memories of him are complex. I knew him for twenty years, until his death. I’m writing about him only as an introduction, for context of why young men were in my life and why that made me more vulnerable to being abused by them.

A few times other men, who worked for him, sexually abused me or tried to sexually abuse me, as well, over the years. When I was eleven, and my primary male abuser was very sick, I was raped a series of times by two men together, in their early twenties. I contracted some kind of reaction on my outer privates that was very obvious and excruciatingly painful.

What made this worst of all, for me, was that I had to tell my mother, who had been my primary female sexual abuser, that I had to go to the doctor and why. My parents never asked me if something had happened to me. They discussed it alone and had decided that my adult sister would go with me to the doctor and stay in the room with me. My sister never asked me if someone had touched me or hurt me.

(Neither did the young doctor, when he showed up. He kept repeating instructions for the proper way to wipe yourself after toileting and insisting that I take very hot baths, as hot as you can stand, every evening, because apparently what obviously looks like a sexually transmitted issue is a refusal to wipe and keep her privates clean. Which incidentally baths can cause infections, so he actually told me all the wrong stuff. He inserted some cream and gave me a prescription for another cream, which worked.)

So here we had been sitting in this cold doctor’s office waiting, after me being told to remove all my clothes and sitting on the table with two thin and tiny paper cover ups, one for above and one for across my thighs. My sister sitting in a straight back chair. We waiting like that for about 45 minutes. It was late November and cold outside and in. I always recall it was November because of our interactions while we waited.

We talked for a while and she was asking about school and how that was. This was the school year where we had moved and there was a  lot of girl bullying. We talked about several things until I started telling her about a music lesson.

I was telling her about a new song that I had learned in school for Thanksgiving. It is called We Gather Together. And to keep my mind occupied and distracted she let me teach her the song. So there we were, for almost an hour, me cold and getting colder by the minute, her ignoring what we were there for and yet there for me, and us singing We Gather Together.