Lost Emotions

When I was young, most of my emotions were a dull throbbing pain inside of me. Most of what I felt was not even really the emotions that I thought they were. Mostly what I thought of  emotions was feelings of grief, rejection, terror, and sadness, in a surprising number of shades.

I didn’t know that until I was an adult and on my own, when slowly real emotions started seeping in and I had to figure out what they were and naming them and trying to find out what to do with them. I worked on healing for a long time. I had a wide range of emotions and they each could have different resonances and vibrations.

I started teaching my inners about emotions, as they emerged, worked on being in the world, and started feeling their feelings, their loss, and their sorrow. A lot of healing happened. We made a lot of progress.

I went to several different therapists. Some things worked, some things didn’t, some therapists were healing, some other therapists were godawful and wounded me. I always had my feelings.

I was trying to find a new therapist while having a lot of flashbacks. I had contacted several only to be told that I had to go to one year of DBT first. I explained that I was not in need of DBT and didn’t want it.

I couldn’t find a therapist who did trauma therapy for DID clients who had experienced ritual abuse. They kept insisting that they knew my functioning and skill level better than I did. No, they didn’t. They didn’t know anything about me. Finally I gave up and got into a DBT program, because I needed to have someone to see in therapy while going through my disability claim. I hated DBT.

Being coerced into doing DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) changed my emotions. It supressed all my emotion, no matter what I was working on. The two therapists I saw individually, at different times, were both awful. They interrupted me when I was talking. They changed the subject. They ignored what I was going through.

I told them that I was dissociative enough, I didn’t need more skills to dissociate from what I was going through. I even got that from supposed DID/trauma therapists. They were wrong.

I was a Christian and believed in keeping my spirituality out of my therapy and yet the creator of DBT stole aspects of Buddhism and especially Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and put them directly into DBT and then tried to say it wasn’t religion, because she was so stupid she didn’t know that Zen was Buddhism, even after studying it for years. It was my right to decide how much I wanted to share on my spiritual and/or religious life. I had a right not to have another religion forced upon me. I was against practicing another religion and my concerns were ignored and actively invalidated.

I believe in telling myself I am a good person. I need that to counteract the self-loathing and self-hated. I was told that neither good or bad were descriptors I should use. It took me years to believe, even in a small way, that I was good and deserved to be loved. I wasn’t going to give that up.

They actually tried to tell me that the skills the were teaching were not dissociative, but rather associative. They weren’t.

They actually tried to tell me that they didn’t judge me or their clients in the group, but instead accepted us all right where we were at in our lives. I wish I could say that was true. That never happened. I would think the concept of forced change negates the concept of acceptance and evaluating someone as being all right where they are in their life.

The therapists were on the side of other therapists in the clinic, rather than finding out what happened in any incident, before judging me. Yet judging the clients was something that they weren’t supposed to be doing. I prefer that a therapist is there for me, rather for someone else who isn’t a client. I never thought that would happen, but it does.

The last time I was in DBT it had managed to supress a lot of my emotions. Maybe they are really there, at times I see myself acting as though I am feeling love, or loyalty, or something else. Maybe they are there, I just don’t know where there is. I feel as though I’ve lost my emotions. But the truth is someone buried them and now I have to find them again.

The Aftermath of a Ritual Abuse Trigger Day

I had a bad trigger day this week. I had forgotten that it was approaching, but my body, my system knew. That’s the thing about ritual abuse, you never forget, even if you try to put it out of your mind, it is still there and keeps coming around.

It came creeping up on me days in advance. Everything made me cry this past week, so sentimental movies were out of the question. So I tried to catch up on tv shows I had lost track of. Even so the plot twists in a normal show were still leaving me in tears.

I had been crying more often in the past few weeks. That is a good sign. I have been feeling much safer in my new place and with safety comes the return to a deeper healing. That is nice, not crying per se, just that I am accessing deeper healing.

I was very withdrawn this past week, well for me. I was still doing a lot of stuff online. I went outside once in the past week and that was on the trigger day. I just needed to see the sun shining. It was lovely.

I used some of my self-care/comforting skills. That was nice. I have my computer working and that was great. At times I just sit and do something online with a page open to my blog and I check on it a lot. For me, that is amazingly comforting and reduces my anxiety.

I found some more Songs for Self(ves) to post. Usually I find ones that represents me singing the lyrics to the system, giving them my love and support. I found one that is about me singing to the system asking for their love and support. I think it is a real turning point for me, that I believe that I am worthy of their love and support.

Overall emotionally things have settled down. But the stress and the triggering and the anxiety of us going through an annual trigger date has contributed to my feeling sick. Not sure yet if it is the flu or a cold. I’m trying to fight it off. Trying to take good care of myself and get well, because I deserve it.

Links Page/Resources for Survivors

I just wanted to post my Links Page with resources links, to the blog, in case someone didn’t know what my links page was or what was on it. All the resources pages I have posted to the blog are listed there as a main resource page.  I am adding new resource pages often, so check back and see what I am doing. Here it is :

Please be safe when visiting any links and reading any of them. They may be triggering.

Notice: This blog is a healing blog by a survivor of child sexual abuse. This blog does not include specific details about child sexual abuse, fiction or non-fiction, nor do I post any links on my resource pages that do.

Healing from Child Sexual Abuse

Grounding/Coping Skills

Self-Soothe/Comfort Skills

For Partners and Supporters of Survivors

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Holiday Coping

Bloggers’ Resource Pages

Emotional Abuse

Covert Sexual Abuse

Infant Sexual Abuse

Child Neglect

Bullying

Mother Daughter Sexual Abuse

Male Survivors

Female Sexual Offenders

Sibling Sexual Abuse

Ritual Abuse

Clergy Abuse

Human Trafficking

Rape/Sexual Assault

Male Rape/Sexual Assault

Therapist Abuse

Domestic Violence

Emotions and Self-Esteem

Boundaries Skills

Online Conflicts

Body Image

Self-Injury/Self-Harm

Eating Disorders

Clutter Issues

Dental Issues for Survivors

Alternative Healing

Art Therapy and Creative Healing

Creative Healing Blogs and Postings

Art Therapy and Creative Healing Projects

Crafts for Comfort

Crafts

Crafts for Littles Projects

Fun Links for Littles

Ritual Abuse

All websites and articles may be triggering.

Survivor Resource Pages (Forty pages of resources, non-profit organizations, articles, and healing support for survivors of child sexual abuse, rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, and dealing with the aftermath of child sexual abuse.)

(Please note, I highly recommend that survivors do not join or participate in fee based online message board groups that are owned and run by therapists. The therapist charges a monthly fee. I have experiences and known others who have had experiences that were negative, painful, abusive and very unhealing. I would advise anyone to avoid them like the plague and to not pay for any message board interactions. Instead I would recommend that someone start a blog and connect with other bloggers. And/or interact on message boards that are free to participate in.)

What is Ritual Abuse?

Frequently Asked Questions

Information about Ritual Abuse

Ritual Abuse Frequently Asked Questions

General Information about Ritual Abuse

Healing Tools for Ritual Abuse Survivors

Safety Tips for Ritual Abuse Survivors

Healing Tips

Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force Los Angeles County Commission for Women

Some of My Resource Links Pages:

Grounding/Coping Skills

Self-Soothe/Comfort Skills

Emotions and Self-Esteem

Boundaries Skills

Healing from Child Sexual Abuse

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Body Image

Self-Injury/Self-Harm

Eating Disorders

Domestic Violence

Rape/Sexual Assault

Male Rape/Sexual Assault

Specific Resources on Ritual Abuse:

Website: Lynn’s Page

Child Abuse Wiki

Creative Corner

Creative Corner: Art

Creative Corner: Poetry

Organization: Survivorship

Survivorship Articles

Maximizing Personal Safety

Cues and Triggers

Bearing Witness With Poetry

Difficult Dates for Ritual Abuse Survivors

Organization: Ritual Abuse, Ritual Crime, and Healing

Story of Survivor of Multi-Generational Cult

Dealing with PTSD (for Ritual Abuse Survivors)

Eating Disorders and Ritual Abuse

Prejuidice Against Survivors

Overcoming Denial

How to Support a Survivor

Developing Intrasystem Cooperation

Maintaining External Safety

Retraumitizing (by Therapists)

Surviving Torture

Ritual Holidays

Dealing with Holidays

Christmas in the Cult

Easter in the Cult

Trauma Bonding: The Pull to the Perpetrator

Sexual Assault Involving Forced Animal Contact

Organization: End Ritual Abuse

Child Indicators of Ritual Abuse Trauma in Play and Art

Adult and Adolescent Indicators of Ritual Trauma

Spirituality, Evil, and Suffering

Data on Survivors of Ritual Abuse, Mind control, and Healing Methods

Some Indicators of Trauma-Based Mind Control Programming

Relationships Between Mind Control and Ritual Abuse

Common Forms of Misinformation and Tactics of Disinformation about Psychotherapy for Trauma Originating from Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

Organization: Persons Against Ritual Abuse-Torture

Defining and Sharing Information about Ritual Abuse-Torture

Ritual Abuse Hot-Line Training

Evaluating Therapists and Therapy

From Terror to Truth

Beyond Belief

Treating Ritual Abuse Survivors

Eassurvey’s Weblog

Organization: S.M.A.R.T. Ritual Abuse Pages

S.M.A.R.T.’s Newslette

 

Your Fears Erased

September is a bad month for me. Today was a bad day. A bad fear day. I was out and about today trying to get everything done on not enough sleep and too much stress. I was at my favorite library’s coffeeshop. I was sitting drinking some coffee and reading a book to gather myself together. Instead the topic of death comes up in the fiction book.

So I got real triggered and ended up in public on the verge and trying to fight off a panic attack. It doesn’t happen every time I think of death or death comes up, but when I do get triggered from it, it is a whopper. The fear runs deep inside. I never used to be like this.

I am afraid that there is no eternity. And when this fear comes over me I think this life isn’t enough. It just isn’t enough and there is nothing I can ever do to make it enough, to make up for the abuse I endured.

I think this specific fear is a ritual abuse induced fear and those are very powerful fears. They often masquerade as regular fears, but the triggers and the fear are very huge. I used to get this same reaction when the topic of reincarnation came up.

So I got home tonight and I was at The People Behind My Eyes blog and saw her recent post again, titled Your Fears Erased. I remembered how much I liked the post a few days ago; how much it soothed and moved me. Tonight it really resonated with me.

Looking at the photo makes me feel better. I want my fear erased today.

http://www.sundrip.com/journal/2009/09/20/your-fears-erased/

A Reiki Story

I know sometimes it is hard to see if alternative health methods work. Sometimes alternative health methods can take time for the results to appear. Sometimes it can be slow. Sometimes it can be dramatic. I wanted to tell a Reiki story about something that happened to me last year.

We need to go back a bit in time for me to explain. About six years ago I was in a therapy program called DBT, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.

Therapists and a clinic both refused to see me, even though at the time I was very functional and had never been in-patient, was not addictive in any unhealthy behaviors, was not suicidal and was not cutting or doing any other dangerous behaviors in my life. I was multiple and I was a ritual abuse survivor and so I could not find a competent, experienced therapist at the time who would take me as a client, unless I went to DBT first.

The therapist that I saw was supposedly competent in my abuse history. My insurance company referred me to her.  

She knew that I was a survivor of mother daughter sexual abuse and ritual abuse. She knew that I was multiple. She and my insurance company claimed that she had had many clients with those abuse histories and that she was a good therapist for me to see.

The therapist also ran the once a week DBT class. As a college student in my last semester of college at the time, I did not think that she was a good teacher. In college professors you pretty much see the good, the bad, and the ugly. She was the ugly.

She emotionally abused clients during class time. She would repeat things that they had said in a way that was not kind. She would often change her tone of voice when responding, to sound snide. If someone said something that happened to them, she would imply they weren’t telling the whole story, the whole truth. She did this to me one time in class, I was struck silent. I lived this kind of life as a defenseless child. I was not interested in voluntarily going through this as an adult. I felt stuck there.

She would not call me back in a timely manner. When I told her certain skills were not working for me, and instead were in fact triggering panic attacks, and that I needed other ideas or skills instead of those particular skills, she would tell me there were plenty, but she did not give me any, though I repeatedly requested them for weeks.

During session she was not kind to me. She would often look around the room rather than focus on me during sessions. She would lean back in her chair and act like she was taking a break. She would repeatedly point around her office to little catch phrases and repeat them ad nauseum like they were the cure to what ailed me.

However, every time that I saw her in individual sessions and I brought up, even in the most vaguest way and only in passing the reality of my abuse issues, she would change the subject, shut me down, and start repeating her stupid catch phrases over and over, none of which were helpful, accepting or healing in any way.

When I would bring up mother daughter sexual abuse, she would look like a deer in the headlights, leaking fear, she would immediately stop me. Yes, it was that obvious.

Finally someone who had been emotionally abusive to me showed up in the class. I told the therapist in detail about this person being hurtful and abusive to me.

There is a rule in DBT class that says that clients cannot have secret or private interactions or relationships with one another, as that was something that created an unhealthy dynamic. The therapist kept saying that I would have to attend class with her. Instead I stayed home. It took them three weeks to decide that they would follow the rule and she would have to be in another class. During that phone conversation the therapist yelled at me. I hung up, called their messaging service and left the message that I quit.

What happened from this experience is that I/we shut down emotionally. I could not cry anymore. Tears had always come easily for me and they were healing. I valued that part of my healing process.

After her I was so shut down. I thought that crying was a waste of time. Of the few times that I was able to cry, it was not healing in any way, shape, or, form, as it had been in the past. Slowly the issue got better. I could cry, but it was not very healing. I could cry but it was something that I scolded myself for doing, something that I thought was a complete and utter waste of my time.

I talked about all of this, with several therapists. I talked about this with others. I posted about this online to other survivors. It never got any better.

About a year ago, after a Reiki class, three Reiki Master/Teachers listened. I think that would have been healing just by itself. They listened to my story. They let me get it all out. They let me cry. They let me talk and say how I felt and what a block this was in my life. They accepted. They did not judge. They never told me what to think. They never told me what to do.

Instead what they did for forty-five minutes while I talked was sit with me, put hands on me and hands towards me and send me Reiki healing. I talked. I cried. And it was healing tears.

That night I went home and cried. The next day as well. Now I could cry again. It still took me a few months to get over the ridiculous notion that I was not worthy of tears, that it was stupid, and not helpful at all.

Since then I cry when I have to. I cry when I need to. And it is always healing. That is my Reiki story.