Ginger Gillenwater

BIO

My name is Ginger Gillenwater and I am a survivor of various forms of abuse. I was sexually abused by a relative between the ages of 5 and 10, which this is approximate because I'm not 100% sure when it started, but what I do know is that I was no older than 5 when it did. I did tell a grandparent when I was 7, but my grandma's efforts to do something about it were for naught because I was blamed by other family members. My dad also had a tendency to be a little violent with me and when I was a teenager my mom had to be pulled off of me on several occasions. She would emerge with a handful of my hair. She remarried after my parents divorced in 1987 to a man that was mainly verbally abusive. He shoved me into a door facing when I was 18 and I actually stood up for myself. However, I resorted to self-harm to cope, which was certainly not the right way to deal with my dysfunctional family and the toll that my past sexual abuse was taking on my life.

It is kind of like I repressed it for a few years and then all of the memories started coming back to me around the age of 12 and 13. I couldn’t handle it. That is what led me to use “alternative means” to deal, but I had a friend that let me talk. Had it not been for her, I would have had even more difficulty making it through my teenage years. Then when I was 18, I met Corie who let me know that it is okay to cry it out instead of holding it all in. That is the moment I began to grow.

I ended up spending most of my time at her house. I practically lived there. I ate there, I slept there, and I even did my college homework there. It would make my mom very angry, but I was healing. I decided that I wanted to help people, so I started writing a book. I had to hide it from my mom because she was always in my stuff. I would let Corie read it, but I eventually locked the computer disk into a box and would occasionally write things on other disks with boring titles on the label so no one would look.

Through the years I continued writing, I continued to grow, and I started to heal. The next thing I knew, I was counseling people online, and in 2006 found myself taking all of the stuff I had written throughout the years and compiling it into a book. I was volunteering in organizations for abuse survivors and started a small organization of my own called the Survivor Alliance.

In October 2007, my book ‘Surviving Jane’ was released and I now sit on the board for Healing Through Creativity in which I help make decisions in the organization and conduct survivor workshops at various events held throughout the year.

Healing for me is an ongoing process. I feel wonderful that I am using my experiences and using my voice, but that does not mean I am invincible to the effects of the abuse. Sometimes it feels like I have taken ten steps forward then twenty steps back, but I know that it isn’t true. It is all a part of the healing process. I am proud of the person I have become because I could have gone a variety of ways in my life that could have been harmful, but I chose a path in which I could help others. I gain a sort of satisfaction from it. I am an advocate dedicated to stopping abuse and giving offenders harsher sentences.

I also run my own internet marketing business out of my home that incorporates writing and internet marketing techniques. I will continue to write books, successfully run my business, and support a number of causes. I am also working on a new book and I write mini books for Youth Media Works that are geared toward children between the ages of 10 and 18. The books focus on issues that affect children such as abuse, divorce, drug use, teen pregnancy, and more. I feel honored that I am able to use my writing to reach out to both adults and children in a variety of ways and say to them, “I was once a victim, but now I am a survivor.

Gingers Contact Info:

Homepg:          www.freewebs.com/gingergillenwater/index.htm

Email:              gethang04@adelphia.net

Website:           The Survivor Alliance

                               

Business Sites:  www.grgfreelance.com
                        www.articlesetcetera.com

Q & A

1. What is your favorite coping skill?

Hands down my favorite coping skill is writing. I will write out my frustrations until it feels “diluted.” What I mean by this is that the pain I feel is less intense than when I started writing.

2. What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?

That it is okay to cry. I always felt that crying was a sign of weakness and that others would run away from me if they knew what I was feeling inside. When I was told, “it is okay to cry because you haven’t done enough of it,” I stopped holding things in.

3. What was the worst piece of healing advice you ever received?

The worst advice, which is something I tend to get once in a while is “the past is the past” or “you need to get over it, it was a long time ago.” This is where I get into heated debates because I try to explain that when a child is hurt, the foundation of that person’s life is damaged. When you’ve been abused, even if you don’t realize you’re doing it, some of your responses are different than someone who has not been abused.

4. What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?

Realizing that it was not my fault. After my own family told me “not to do it again,” I thought it was all my fault that the entire thing was happening. The second obstacle was not holding things inside. The third was to stop hurting myself.

5. Have you ever hit "rock bottom"? What kept you going?

I have hit rock bottom several times, but I am surrounded by very loving people. I am fortunate to not be alone. Where my own family never came through, I have a wonderful husband, wonderful in-laws, and two best friends who are always supporting me in everything.

6. What does forgiveness mean to you?

Forgiveness is something that is not easily earned in my book. I am one that forgives people for a lot of things, but I never forget what happened. I will continue to care for them, be concerned for them, and talk to them. I will understand that sometimes people make mistakes, but sometimes it depends on what the “mistake” was.

7. When did you know that everything was going to be okay -- that you were going to make it?

When I met Corie and then met my husband about a year and a half later. With those two, I knew that I would make it as long as they were with me.

8. Is there anything that you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?

It will be okay. Although things seem hopeless right now, take into consideration that we change just like the world around us changes. The feelings will be different and the possibilities are endless. Just know that what happened to you was not your fault, know that you are not alone, and know that there are great things in this world for you. Use your experiences to let others know that they are not alone and take satisfaction that you can use your abuse as a weapon against abuse in general.

9. If there was one piece of advice you would give, or one thing you would want the significant other, best friend, etc. of a survivor to keep in mind throughout the survivors healing process, what would that be?

Simply listen. All the abuse survivor wants is for someone to listen. You don’t even have to offer any kind of feedback because the abuse survivor doesn’t expect the non-abused to understand…just be there. Lines such as, “that was in the past” or “I understand” are not welcome responses, so just make yourself available and offer a shoulder if needed.

LITERATURE & POETRY

HealingThroughCreativity.org
Board Member - Presenter - Core Planning Group

Surviving Jane by Ginger Gillenwater

Misery

Let me breathe you in

And take away your pain.

Let me heal your wounds

So you can breathe again

Misery has this way

Of taunting the heart

It likes to tease with its tongue

and then tear you apart.

I've been there before,

That dark place inside.

Where there is nowhere to run

and nowhere to hide

I've bled my share

from my own hand.

I've tried to bury my past

but it will always stand

But let me tell you

that it does no good to run

because before you know it,

it will all be done.

Misery or not,

I will always be there

because there is a little left

inside of me to share

Oh Sweet Lord

Oh sweet Lord, speak to me with your sweet words of poetry
reminding me each day that you are holding me within your hands.
Touch my heart in such subtle ways that I feel my soul
has been washed over by a wordless feeling of spiritual ecstasy.

Oh sweet Lord, sing to my being once more with your perfect hymns
and may the music of your perfection wash the abyss of pain clean.
Fill that horrid chasm with such goodness that it spews its holiness
and drowns away all pain that eats away at the edges of the soul.

Oh sweet Lord, touch me just one more time with your truth
that places an unexplainable fire of purpose within my heart.
Teach me every single day that my pain is not my own battle,
but a battle that you are fighting with me and that we are winning.

Oh sweet Lord, shape me and mold me into who you want me to be
and teach me your ways in which I may fulfill your perfect plan.
I understand that atrocious things have happened to me throughout my life
and I ask that you guide me in sharing these atrocities to help others.

Who Am I?

I don't need to breathe the air of the dying
or drink the waters of the living.

Because…

Who am I to steal the last breath
or take the last drop from the deserving?

Feeling alien in a predetermined cycle,
as if I'm the obstacle to be overcome
and not the one achieving victory
over all that stands in my way.

Trying to uphold all that is good,
yet it seems I stand in the way
when trying to make things right.
I only help find all that is wrong.

I don't wish upon falling stars
or pick up pennies on heads

Because…

Who am I to steal another's wish
or take luck from the deserving?

Why is it?

Why is it our tears speak louder than words?
When our lips cannot speak, the eyes weep,
but those drops of sadness scream octaves
above any sound the heart can bellow out.

Why is it I can stand in a room of a thousand,
screaming the scream of a battered soul,
but only my tears are wiped from my face
rather than a hand placed upon my shoulder?

Why is it I placed my head upon my pillow
succumbing to the burden to forgive
so that I may sleep soundly at night
to only be restless as if I never forgave at all?

Why is it when I do things unselfishly
I am chastised for doing for others
rather than the selfish self-preservation,
but also chastised when doing for myself?

Why is it that lies are the easy way out,
but truth has to be so difficult
causing the lives of the just to be tumultuous
and the lives of the liars victorious?

Why is it that those who try to be fair
seem to fail in an industrious world,
but the cut-throats take short cuts
that prove to be deviously successful?

Why is it that those of us who do right
continue to do the right thing
even though we know that the right thing
is harder to do than doing the wrong thing?

Because doing the wrong thing may seem right
in a temporary, yet devious world,
but doing the wrong thing will not be right
in an eternal and indefinite afterlife.

LETTER

Dear Abuser,

I would say hello, but I’m not sure how to start this letter. The last time I spoke to you was when my grandmother died. Well, I know she is your grandmother too, but she tried to protect me from you. When my mom hugged you, knowing what you did to me those many years ago, my heart was torn into pieces. I couldn’t understand why she could be so nice to you when you defiled her daughter, taunted her when my father cheated on her, and terrorized us after the divorce. You may have people fooled, but I know what is inside of you. Have you hurt anyone else? I wonder because I have to deal with the mystery surrounding the fact that, had I told someone outside of the family, you would not be able to hurt anyone else. I pray that you haven’t and that you won’t.

Throughout the years I have done terrible things to myself because of you. I used to hurt myself because I felt like EVERYTHING was my fault. I was always getting the blame for things. I even got the blame for what you did to me. Adults blamed me. But you know what? I learned something. I learned that you were the one that was wrong. I learned that you knew what you were doing to me and thought you would never get caught. Even when you did you didn’t get into trouble and just abused me worse because you thought you were invincible. Well, let me tell you something. People know about you. People know that you are an abuser and they know that you are not the person you portray yourself to be.

But I have been able to use what you did to me to help others. You would not believe how many people there are in this world that are like you and they hurt children. Even if the child didn’t know what was happening to them at the time, they still ended up hurting in some way. Well, you do not run my life. You will not run my life. You will one day find yourself standing before the almighty on your judgment day. Think that you’ll get off scot free because of your community service? It isn’t in the deeds my friend.

So I will end by saying that I think your daughter is beautiful. You did well. I just hope that she has in no way had to endure what I did. I hope that you’ve been a loving father and a devoted husband and that I was the end of your reign of terror. But I must ask…who did it to you? Why did you do it to me? I guess those are things I’ll never know. But know that you did not destroy me. Know that you aren’t that powerful.

Sincerely,

Ginger

April

BIO

My name is April, and I am 25 years old.  At the age of 19, I became involved in a relationship that ultimately ended in violence.  While dating him at the age of 19, the main abuse focus was emotional manipulation on his part.  We went our separate ways, and I believed for it to be over.  In the summer of 2003, when I was 21 years old, he wound up in my life again for one night.  I was drugged and raped.  It goes without saying that these events in my life impacted everything to follow.  However, through ups and downs, I realized it was up to me to decide whether the impact would be positive or negative.  At the time of the attack, at age 21, I was living on my own and attending a four year university, double-majoring in Biology and Chemistry.  I dropped out, and moved to a new city.  Four years later, in July 2007, I received my A.A.S. degree as a Respiratory Care Practitioner, graduating from college ‘with distinction.’  For as long as I can remember, even before the attack occurred, all I wanted to do was graduate from college.  I accomplished that this year, and it feels wonderful.  I love what I do, I’m good at what I do, and I look forward to building my career in the many years to come.

By far, the most rewarding experience for me on this journey thus far has been meeting fellow survivors.  I can’t even count how many women and men I have come to know and count on.  If the experiences that we have endured must happen, I know I am grateful in knowing that I will not find myself alone.

April's Contact Info:
Email:  daysie_duke_00@yahoo.com


Q & A

1.  What is your favorite coping skill?
“Grounding techniques.”  They are simple, easy methods to keep in mind when you find yourself in a ‘hyperaroused’ (e.g. fight or flight) or ‘hypoaroused’ (e.g. disconnection, numbness) state of mind.  The most common trigger I come across is something that will remind me, and even send me into flashbacks, of the night the rape occurred.  Little things that I know, that would probably mean nothing to someone else, are things that can trigger me.  The first one that comes to mind is a certain ring tone on Nokia cell phones.  I remember his phone ringing and ringing that night, with his girlfriend calling and wondering where he was.  Grounding allows me to come back to the present, and control the ‘fight or flight’ response, or at least keep it to a minimum.  I can do anything from chew gum, utilize ‘labeling’ (concentrating on the things that surround me, taking an inventory, if you will, of my surroundings.  “I see that painting. I see the television. I see the stereo…etc.”)  It’s easy to remember, and no one is the wiser to what is going on, if I so choose it to be like that.


2.  What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?
The simplest advice has been the best for me; it has been something that I keep reminding myself of time and time again.  It was not my fault.  I did not deserve to be raped.  Like many other survivors, the first thing that I started beating myself up over was the fact that I was under the impression that I had asked for it.  That I had done something horrible and I was now being punished for it.  I think that initial support I received, from friends and family members who were the first to tell me that it was not my fault, was what set the healing wheels in motion.  One can’t begin to live as a survivor, to heal, until that rock has been overturned and reveals those positive vibes.

3.  What was the worst piece of healing advice you ever received?
Oddly enough, the worst advice was advice I gave to myself.  I thought I needed to recover and heal on some sort of timeline; I thought I had to ‘make myself OK’ by a certain point in life.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  After the assault happened, I threw myself back into ‘normal’ life and tried everything I could to live as if nothing had ever happened.  I dove head first into intimate relationships, all the time ignoring the warnings going off in my head – telling me that I was not ready yet.  Living in such denial only postponed the healing I so desperately needed; however, I try not to think of that episode as ‘regret.’ Instead, I think of it as a lesson – something to learn from.  The past cannot change, but we can always learn from it.

4.  What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?

1. The fact that my ex boyfriend was never punished for his crime.  The farthest the investigation went was his interrogation, and the surrender of a DNA sample from him.  However, due to a far less than stellar performance done on behalf of the hospital I was taken to, vital evidence was destroyed, along with my case.  It destroyed me – but not for good.  I know what happened.  Each time I speak out, someone else will know, too.
2. The overwhelming feeling of guilt.  Even though I heard “it’s not your fault” from the beginning, I still had to learn to believe it.
3. Allowing the memories to bleed into my present life.  I had to relearn how to trust again.  I had to relearn how to be happy.  I had to figure out for myself that I had to look forward to living life, instead of worry about the ‘what ifs.’
   

5.  Have you ever hit “rock bottom?” What keeps you going?
More than once.  More times than I can count.  The support from important people in my life is the vital fuel that keeps me moving forward.  When you’re in pain, keeping it to yourself will not remedy it.  One has to reach out and find the support.  It’s out there. Trust me, I’ve found it.

6.  What does forgiveness mean to you?
This is something that I actually have just been trying to figure out.  It finally occurred to me that when one is forgiven, it does NOT have to mean that the action is validated – that it was OK.  The hardest part of this journey is learning, realizing, and attempting, to forgive my ex.  In the beginning, I was adamant that it could not be done.  I was under the impression that if I ever forgave him, it was the same as saying “what you did was okay. I deserved it,” which was everything I was trying to overcome.  I can forgive myself, for the self-loathing, pain, and guilt.  I am working toward forgiving my ex boyfriend.  Carrying around this hatred for him does nothing to him, but still hurts me.  When I can let it go, I can only imagine the weight that will be lifted.

7.  When did you know that everything was going to be okay – that you were going to make it?
The first time I told my story.  In doing that, I simultaneously was reaching out and accepting the hands of support that were extended toward me.  In realizing that I was not alone, for the first time I knew that I would survive and that I really would be okay.  Finding the others out there that are like me is comparable to finding that oasis in the desert, right before you collapse.

8.  Is there anything that you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?
If you can remember just one piece of advice, let it be this: you are not alone, and you never will be.  There is always someone out there to listen, and to understand – no matter where you are.  It will never be an easy journey – but in surviving, you already have the strength to take that road.  No one can take it from you.

9.  If there was one piece of advice that you would give, or one thing you would want the significant other, best friend, etc. of a survivor to keep in mind throughout the survivor’s healing process, what would that be?
Don’t be there just to be there.  Don’t be a shoulder to cry on because you have nothing better to do.  When the survivor wants to speak, listening does not involve just your ears.  Most of all, if you are going to start this journey, you need to be there for the duration, and not just when it’s convenient.  We as survivors did not have the luxury of clearing our schedules for the abuse to occur.

LITERATURE

Writing:
September 2007:
I’ve come to liken my journey to that of breathing.  It hurt so much in the beginning – like I was holding my breath.  For days, weeks, months, everything began to tighten its hold on me and to suffocate me.  Then, it became my every day life.  I began to get accustomed to the breathlessness that took over, and succumb to the black-out sensation that was rapidly approaching.  In learning to survive and in beginning to fight, I took that first gasping gulp of air and felt immediate relief.  Slowly, my senses returned to me, and as time passed, the tiny straw I had begun to breathe through grew wider and wider – allowing more air in with each breath.  I breathed in hope, and exhaled the shadows that had been holding me back.

Excerpt from my story, from TBC website:
“…However, perhaps in some sort of ‘blessing in disguise’ (my mom’s words) I do not remember the actual rape.  I do not know how I was drugged, or when I was drugged.  No longer do I remember the pieces of my shattered life that took place before I was raped.  I guess that phase of my life is over, and I need to keep realizing that and learn how to function post-trauma. 
I lost a lot of things in one night, even if they didn’t actually disappear until later on.  I lost ‘things’ – clothes, property, stupid shit that I still mourn for some unknown reason.  I lost friends, and I lost a lover.  I lost a job, I lost an apartment.  I lost ideas – safety, security, confidence, trust.  I thought I had lost my identity, but I really only gained a title.  It was up to me, however, which title I wanted to go by: victim or survivor.  ‘Victim’ would not let me advance any further.  ‘Survivor’ would help me get back what I could, and release what I could not.
 There are things in my life now that I want to keep with me, and remember for the rest of my days.  In the years after I was raped, I have met fellow survivors, and each of them have had their own impact on my life – fingerprints, if you will.  From them, I have learned that no matter how low I get, how much I despise my life and everything that has happened to it – I’m not alone.  We’re all linked together in our survival.  I’ve seen four anniversaries so far – they will always come, year after year.  They are a constant, now.  They will never stop.  Each one that passes is one more that someone else can learn from.  Each one that passes is one more year that I survived.”

Journal Entry “A Conversation with Myself”

Things I will forgive myself for:
1. It was not my fault. I said no.
2. It doesn't matter if I only said no once. Once should be enough.
3. I didn't ask for it.
4. My failed relationship with (*) did not rest solely on me. We both failed each other
5. It's OK to hurt.
6. I followed the 'rules' as best as I could. I reported it, did not shower, change clothes, etc. There was nothing else I could do. The system failed me.
7. I do not have to return to the 'self' I was before it happened.
8. There is no timeline for recovery.
9. Wanting to start a new life does not mean giving up. It means adding on to. It means growth.
10. Survivor. Not victim.
11. It's hard to heal on your own. Asking for help does not imply weakness.
12. It's OK to be happy. Being happy does not mean I'm 'over it.' It does not belittle what happened.
13. I will seek counseling only when I'm ready. I can't force myself to do anything. That will only make things worse.

(*) = Name removed.



LETTER

“A Letter to July 19th”
--I initially wrote this in between the 3rd and 4th anniversaries of the night I was raped.  On the day of the 4th anniversary, I simply added on an entry to the end.

Dear July 19th,

As the years go by, I will never forget you. Everybody has one anniversary or another. Birthdays are anniversaries, of the day we are born. Some have wedding anniversaries. Some mark the anniversary of the death of a loved one. But you, for almost four years now, have been my anniversary. July 19th, you mark the day my former self ended. You mark the ghost of who I used to be. In a way, you mark her death. I lived for twenty-one years before you came in to scar me for the rest of my life.

7-19-2003: The day we first met. I woke up that morning feeling no more different than any other day. But by the end of the day…I knew that things would never be the same again. I was raped that night. I was raped on the night of July 19th, 2003. Goodbye, former self. Hello, Hell.

7-19-2004: I had no idea what to expect this day. You were ever present in my mind. You were ever present while I was awake, and you were there in my sleep as well. One year had passed, yet it felt like a lifetime. However, it was then that I realized that you would keep coming…year after year…and I had to find a way to learn to live with you in my life and still function among the living.

7-19-2005: Two years. Isn’t it funny the things you remember, and the things that you don’t? It was here that I realized the fact that I had lived a life for twenty-one years before I was raped and only two years after…and for the life of me, all I knew and all I remembered was the nightmare of the two years after. Twenty-one years of my life were gone, and I had to start all over again. My new self was only two years old…a baby. One who was beginning to learn not how to function as a victim, but how to function as a survivor.

7-19-2006: I’ve come a long way in three years. I’ve gone from living merely in the physical sense to living in the spiritual sense as well. I survived, and now it’s time to live as well. I can be alive and breathing, but that’s not really living. That’s no kind of life. July 19th, this year, I finally figured out that I don't have to be afraid of you. I can look forward to July 19th and not betray my new life. I’m no longer in mourning. Maybe that girl didn’t disappear those three years ago…maybe she just transformed.

I’ll always remember you, July 19th. I’ve progressed from obsession to acceptance. You will always exist, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot. You did not create the image I have of you now. That was a force beyond your control. I know that now. It was a force beyond my control as well. I don’t blame you anymore. I’m learning not to blame myself. Oh sure, I regress sometimes into that state of mind…but I’ve gained the tools I need to come out of it. I used to want to black you out of the calendar altogether, but then I realized that if I did that then I would be removing a piece of myself.

So, July 19th, year after year, I will be thinking of you less and less…but you will still be there. And I want you to be…I need you to be there. Because if you disappear now, then I’m not the person I’ve fought for all these years. I was raped on July 19th, 2003. But I survived.

7/19/2007:

Four years later.

Guess what. You came again. Big surprise. I actually thought about not getting out of bed at all today. I wanted to cancel everything, stay in bed, and cry my eyes out.

But what would that help? Would it erase the past? Nope. Would it change the fact that I am now a rape survivor? Nope. The only thing it would change would be the fact that I'd get nothing done today, and no one would give a shit as to why.

Today, I decided to stop obsessing about the past and about the things that I simply cannot change. It will NOT make it better. I do need to be concerned with what CAN change, and that would be the things that have yet to happen. I even emailed (*) tonight, to tell her exactly how she hurt me and what has been going on in relation to that. Can I control how she responds to it? No, but at least I will know that I did my part.

So, I got out of bed, I took a shower, and I went to clinical. I tried to make it just any other day. This will never be just any other day, but every year, I can make it easier.

(*) = Name removed.

Joanna M. Doane

BIO

I'll start by providing some background information into my past.  I grew up in an unstable home and was raised by a mother who was mentally ill and whom drank herself into a daily stupor (only making her mental problems worse).  She was unpredictable, miserable, and physically abusive to my siblings and to myself. The physical abuse continued until I was around 15.  I was also sexually abused by an uncle from age 8 until age 12.  In the end I developed a very skewed belief system from the lies that I believed growing up.

The older I got, the more that I spent every day hiding from things that caught up with me at night in the darkness of my bedroom.  Worrying mostly about my family, for years I cried myself to sleep.  The nightmares and flashbacks at times became unbearable.  I'd go for days on just a few hours of sleep, and what sleep I did manage to get was of minimal quality.  I never felt whole.  I possessed no sense of who I was or where I belonged.  Though I ended up guilt-ridden for any success I achieved, at the same time, none of it was ever good enough.  In my mind I was never good enough.

In the fall on 2003 I suffered a nervous breakdown.  Waking up in a mental hospital with no idea of how exactly I'd gotten there was one of the most terrifying experiences of my adult life.  By that point I'd been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and with non-epileptic seizures which were brought on by the intensity of the post traumatic stress.  I was eventually also diagnosed with a rare dissociative disorder.  All of this stemmed directly from the abuse and trauma I suffered growing up and my inability to learn to cope with it in a healthy manner.  The symptoms of both disorders only worsened and by that February of 2004 I had to quit my job or be fired.  I'd used up all allotted paid medical leave, vacation days, and personal days in the midst of my break down.  Over the next 16 months I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. When all was said and done, from the Fall of '03 until the summer of '05, I'd been hospitalized approximately 12 times.  My last hospitalization was over two years ago and lasted for 5 weeks.  I left quite determined never to go back.  

Finally then, slowly, I began to build myself back up.  I couldn't go back to the person I was before my breakdown but I learned to build upon the strengths which I'd always possessed.  Through the help of my current therapist, my caseworker, my local mental health center, my friends, and my family (consisting of my siblings and grandparents) I got stronger.  Today I'm back in school and earning my degree in social work.  This past summer I had the strength to leave behind my 6-year relationship with my fiance, whom I dearly love, due to his problems with drugs and alcohol.  That is something I never could have had the strength to even consider doing even 12 months ago.

Over the past 3 years I've built a website (Help4Trauma.org) for survivors of abuse and trauma who suffer from trauma-based disorders.  Initially I started building it out of my recognition that most people aren't financially able, as I was before I lost my job, to obtain help through a trauma-based program (I admitted myself into their trauma program at Two Rivers Hospital, located in Missouri, in the fall of '03).  After returning home from Missouri I started building my website as a way to share the techniques I'd learned back at Two Rivers hospital with others with dissociative disorders.  Since then I've continued to build upon the site, which now includes information for all survivors of trauma and abuse - not just those with dissociative disorders. 

A year ago I also started on an online project with a dear friend of mine, Kristin Evans.   We created The Survivor Archives project.  This project has also made a huge difference in my own healing.  The people I've come to know through the Archives have all been individually amazing and so completely inspiring, I can't begin to put it into words.  And so now here I am, writing my own Archive.  Thanks for listening and I hope that I can help someone along the way with my writing of this, and in putting it out there for other survivors.

Joanna's Contact Info
Website:            http://www.help4trauma.org
Home Pages:      http://yahoo.360/jdoane7550
                           http://www.myspace.com/joanna4help
Email Address:  jdoane7550@yahoo.com

 
 
Q & A

1.  What is your favorite coping skill?
Aside from writing and sarcasm, mine would be reaching out to others.  But, more specifically, I do a lot of comparing my own reality/situation to that of others who are less fortunate than myself.  Its been so easy to get lost in my own head and in my own problems.  Enclosing myself in my own little world came naturally when I was in pain.  But it also was not very helpful and indeed counter productive.  Part of what really brought me out of my own personal misery was talking every week with people such as myself.  This includes those I've met through Help4Trauma.org, The Survivor Archive's project, through various organizations that advocate for survivors, and through those I've met at my local mental health clinic (mainly in groups I still attend weekly).  Slowly, I soon realized just how lucky I am.  For example, many people I've met at my local mental health clinic have never been able to work or live alone.  Some need help in paying their bills because they can't function well enough to do so by themselves. 

Then theres me.  I'm lucky to be able to live so independently.  While I have two mental disorders that can be incredible crippling at times, I've learned for the most part to cope with it.  Never will I have to live with schizophrenia, wondering if I'm going to wake up tomorrow hearing voices or having psychotic delusions.  Although I've had paranoid thoughts before, which simply stemmed from my past experiences of always having to be on guard, they weren't delusions that were in no way based in reality.  Reaching out to these people, and becoming close with some of them, has also helped me to be able to have more compassion for my own mother, for her past decisions and behavior. 

These daily comparisons have helped me to feel relief, gratitude, and to be better able to put my past in perspective.  I've met some people who are rendered to the point of having to give up their own children, or having had them taken away.  They were too mentally unstable to take care of them through no fault of their own.  Mental illness is a disease of the mind.  It can be treated but not cured and it disrupts the lives of those afflicted to varying degrees. 

The reality is that some people aren't able to take care of their children any better than my own mom tried to take care of my siblings and myself.  This in NO WAY makes what she did okay.  But it does help give reasoning behind her behavior.  No one could sit down with me growing up and explain to me that my mother was sick and that she needed help.  If they would have I probably wouldn't have believed them them in the first place.  Instead, I listened to her diluted reasoning.


2.  What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?
The last thing that a past therapist of mine ever said to me, in our last session together, was something to the effect of "I will hold the love that belongs to you - to have toward yourself - in my heart, until you're ready and able to hold it in your own."  I haven't spoken to her in over two years but I know that she would be proud of me now, with how far I've come since that last session together. 

I've learned that, in a lot of ways, healing is the difference between how you SHOULD feel and believe in comparison to how you DO feel and believe, despite the truth.  Despite that no one deserves to be hurt in the way that we as humans hurt each other (especially in the way we treat our children),  still so many of us take full responsibility for the pain we've experienced.  In the minds of survivors it's as if it were our own assaults and words that came upon us through the very rapist, pedophiles, and emotional and physical batterers whom victimized us.  We don't initially understand that this would be the only way for it to have ever been our fault, or for it to have ever been under our control.  Feeling like you could have prevented these things is easier that coming to terms with feeling so helpless and vulnerable.  Even once we get past the self-blame it still takes more work to get beyond feeling so helpless and vulnerable.  And even longer still to reach a place of being able to feel love for yourself.


3.  What was the worst piece of healing advice you ever received?
My Dad told me once that I needed to "stop using the hospital as a crutch".  But he didn't know any better.  If he had ever been, or had ever known someone who had been committed, he wouldn't have made such a statement.  Being in a mental hospital is not like being in a regular one.  Your surrounded by people who are mentally at their worst.  Some of them don't know who they are or where they're at.  They're either suicidal, homicidal, or are in a state of psychosis so deep that they're a danger to themselves or others.  Its an incredibly sad, lonely, and alienating experience.  I never WANTED to go.  No one ever does.

He'd given me the "you need to get over it" speech about my childhood before.  This just took it to a some how more absurd level that I can now at least look back on, roll my eyes, and laugh about.


4.  What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?

1. Figuring out who I am was incredibly difficult, but figuring out that I was enough, as a human being, was even harder.  For the longest time I felt and believed what I needed to, in order to adapt and thus survive within my environment.  Due to this manner of developing my authentic self simply got very lost along the way.  I was always trying to be enough, or to do enough in order to change the circumstances I was born into.  I never realized that me - just me, with my OWN thoughts, beliefs, and feelings -- I'd ALWAYS been enough.  All along there had never really been a need for me to have changed anything about myself.  Finally I began to not just realize, but know in my heart, that nothing I could have ever been, or could have ever done would have changed, prevented, or stopped any of it.
2. Knowing that its okay for me to relax and let go was, and still can be, quite a challenge.  Learning that I had to let go of any responsibility for the people and things around me, for which I have no actual control over, has been quite a challenge.  To say that living in "survival mode" -- dreading whats behind every corner -- has worn me down is a vast understatement.  For example, growing up, I began at a young age to worry endlessly which soon became very physically destructive.  It was thought that I had an ulcer at the age of 15.  I started years later to have seizures from STRESS.   
   
   So learning to not live in the delusion that life is a game, or an opponent of sorts, that I have to stay one step ahead of in order to not be destroyed, relieves me of a tremendous burden.  Ironically the greatest thing that I ever learned was that I was doing it all wrong ... that there were other ways to perceive the world and the people around me.
   
   So, this second hardest obstacle to overcome - the main one that I still struggle with - is simply learning to relax.  Simply allowing myself to let go.  I'm still unfortunately one of those nervous people you may have met or currently know who are prone to having hands that shake endlessly, who chain smoke, and who perhaps are prone to flinch at loud or sudden noises.  My nervous system is just still very over reactive and it can be hard to control my physical reflexes. 
   
   Its a silly way to behave and I'm very self conscious about these behaviors when they pop up.  The best I can do is laugh at them.  But The first step is being able to actually notice when you're starting to think and behave irrationally.  Even if it is the only way I'd ever known to react or behave.  Until I learned do that it was impossible to stop it.
   
   
3. Learning to have faith and trust in anything or anyone around me has been paramount to my healing.  I used to feel that I couldn't depend on anyone for anything.  And yet the only worth I thought I had in this world lay in the ability for other people to depend on me.  We all need help sometimes.  In the end it took a mental breakdown for me to finally learn this.  When I lost my job and had to rely on other people for what seemed like everything it finally clicked that they COULD be relied on.  And better yet this relying on them wasn't going to be held against me.  I wasn't less of a person for it.  I wasn't weak.  At the time I would have argued these truths but finally I let go of my fear of trusting others.  I realized the world wasn't against me.  And I realized that others could love me for me, rather than just for what I could do for them.
   
   With this I finally allowed myself the feeling of connectedness to the people and events around me.  I'd always felt so much powerlessness and that the only way to survive in this world was to stay one step ahead of the game, always watching behind my back for the next crisis.  I began to listen to my intuition and came to realize that there were certain instincts that I needed to tune into and trust -- and that those instincts were what was meant to guide me in my life.  My wary and 'wired-for-the-next shoe that drops' lifestyle wasn't.  I found I wasn't bound by or limited to the perspectives of the people whom had past negative or skewed ideas about me.  They were actually wrong.  I could instead permit myself to be deeply-connected to those who'd helped me when I felt I didn't deserve their effort, or when I'd been so sure that it couldn't be trusted.         

5.  Have you ever hit "rock bottom"? What kept you going?
Well, I've already explained the "hitting rock bottom" part...so what kept me going?  My God (aka 'Higher Power').  The people who helped me along the way.  My friends and family who never doubted that I could get better.  The doctors and nurses who stopped and listened.  The therapists that gave me the direction I needed.  The people who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself.    


6.  What does forgiveness mean to you?
For me, forgiving someone who has abused me in the past is a way of saying, "What you did to me isn't okay.  I may never understand it, even though I've tried.  I understand that you're broken and incredibly sick, but all the blame is on you despite your sickness and brokenness.  But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life hating you for it.  I'm not going to spend the rest of my life enraged.  I'm not going to spend the rest of my life feeling sick whenever I hear your name or every time I think of you.  You're not worth the heart attack or the ulcer.  But I AM worth letting you go, along with all of this hate, rage, and sadness that you stir in me.  AND all of this without us even having to be in the same room, speaking to one another, Thank God!" Sorry...thats just the sarcasm I mentioned back in question 1 popping up.  You'll have that.
   

7.  When did you know that everything was going to be okay -- that you were going to make it?
There wasn't any specific moment.  It was more of a process really, brought on by two very specific changes in my belief system.  When I got out of the hospital for the last time something inside of me had changed direction over those past 5 weeks.  I'd been so angry at myself for such a long time.  It was never that I wanted to die to escape my pain or the pressures of my life.  It was that I felt I no longer deserved to live.  I felt like I contributed nothing to the world.  I felt like I was a complete waste of human life.  I was never good enough and nothing I ever did seemed to change that in my mind.  When I realized that those feelings stemmed from feeling utterly hated and from having never been good enough growing up, I really felt for the first time that I didn't deserve to be treated that way.  With that I realized that I did deserve the air I breathed after all.  And that changed everything.  It gave me a sort of clarity that I'd never before had.

It had always been so vital to my sense of self worth to have goals and dreams, and to do all I could to make them happen.  I re-enrolled in school in the Winter of 2006, and when I got through that first quarter it showed me that I was getting there.  My medication which had made me a walking zombie for the past 18 months was cut in half.  With that I found I could finally think clearly enough to read a book again, that I finally had the strength to clean the entire house if I wanted to, and that I could go an entire day without having to take a 3-hour nap.  More importantly I finally realized that my life and sense of worth had never depended on those things in the first place.  I figured out that I would never be the grade I got on a final exam, the appearance of my apartment, or how much I got done in a day.  I wasn't how well my family or friends happened to be doing.  I wasn't the goals I'd yet to made a reality.  Its impossible to know you're going to be okay until you're made to feel comfortable in your own skin.  Its impossible to feel comfortable in your own skin if you never make it an option.    


8.  Is there anything that you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?
Though its much easier said than done, please don't blame yourself.  This will take time.  Try to picture anyone but youself in the places where you've been hurt.  Whether you've been sexually, physically, or emotionally abused -- whether you've suffered a trauma of tremendous personal loss such as the death of a child.  Picture that exact same thing happening to someone else; your best friend, a sibling, a boss, a fellow employee, a neighbor.

What do you see?  What will you now tell them?  Can you tell them that they COULD have done something?  Can you look them in the eyes and really give them an "If only you had" speech?  Were they defenseless?  Were they at the wrong place at the wrong time?  Could they see the future and know how to stop what was coming? 

99.9% of the time you can't look that person in the eyes and tell them that they could have done something.  But, please understand, this person you're staring into the eyes of is merely symbolic of yourself.  This all has happened to you, not them.  So, then why now are you blaming yourself?  Its okay to have been helpless.  Its okay to have been powerless.  But its not okay to get lost back there and lose your today and all your tomorrows to something you never had control over in the first place.  

Please know that we are all survivors. Your past is a piece of you, but it shouldn't define you.  Its up to you to be pro-active in your healing.  Understand that theres no magical pill or one-hour therapy session in this world that is going to heal the pain of what you've been through.  They're simply there to guide you, and maybe to help stablize your brain chemistry if you need it.  The real work that is needed, can't be done by anyone else other than yourself. 

Never lose sight of the fact that survival is indeed a precious gift, so take full advantage of the journey.  You can take as much time as you need to fully realize all this.  Because its very hard and incredibly painful.  Some days are harder than others and at times you'll forget why you're even trying.    But there is help out there and its up to you to take full advantage of it.  I promise that, if you don't give up, someday you'll know that there isn't a single survivor, standing among us, who isn't completely worth saving.  Sometimes its just a matter of fighting for those starting out, by those of us who've been there.  Until those just beginning will start to see the truth, and will then be ready and capable of fighting for themselves.  That means that you, starting out, will get there.  As my incredibly wise therapist once told me, ""I will keep the love that belongs to you - to have toward yourself - in my heart, until you're ready and able to hold it in your own." 

 
9.  If there was one piece of advice you would give, or one thing you would want the significant other, best friend, etc. of a survivor to keep in mind through out the survivors healing process, what would that be?
 Take care of yourself first.  Otherwise it simply won't work.   You can't save your loved from the pain they're experiencing.  You can't save them from the scars they carry.  But if you love them and if you really show them that, it makes all the difference in the world.  Because thats whats needed the most.  To be there to help comfort them when they can't comfort themselves. 

Please refrain from judging them for where they've been, where they're at, or for however long it may take them to heal.  Try not to give up or lose faith in the process.   It will show you strengths within yourself that you may never have otherwise had any reason to tap into.   And, through it, all that you know about what it means to love someone will amplified.  And all that you know about loving yourself will be deepened.
 
 
 
 
 
POETRY
 
Forgiving the Winter
Written Spring of 2003

Inside the miracle -
The muscle of thought and emotion
there's a slightly transparent veil
that separates me from my shadows.
Within the reflection of a mirror
I've smashed time and time again
my shadows struggles lay forsaken
until the veils pushed open through their wind.
And the years crawl forward, inching towards me
from behind the safety of the veil.
They bring with them the torment of my shadows
and all the secrets that they tell

It never seemed meant to be -
that shedding my skin could be so painful.
It only left me naked, with nothing underneath,
In a winter that lasted 7 years.

1989, she's hiding under the bathroom sink.
In the back of the house, uncomfortably scrunched,
between the pipes and the corner,
She's counting the seconds and bargaining with God.

Gods in this room,
surrounding me,
but I can still feel the slightest draft.
I need the chill there to remind me
that the floor beneath me can still collapse.
The warmth could break all around me,
and I could wake up in the snow.

Gods in the room all around me,
but still my trepidation grows.
Because God was there for the viewing
God was there when she died
and he gave one hell of a eulogy.
What was left of me stood in the background and cried
for the summer that slipped further from me
with each wind that blew passed with an arctic sort of cold.
Until I found myself in a blizzard that mocked the fragility
of the season through which I ever felt whole.

Through the darkness, a bathroom door opens -
Cold hand hitting the light switch.
And I close my eyes and image
melting into the towels beneath my feet.

The cabinet door opens and I realize
I didn't melt as I'd imagined at all.
There's no more reason to hold my breath any longer.
All bargains have been apparently called off.
But, while there's still time, I toss her back
because safety exists only in this way.
Where staying in her boundaries means
keeping this desperation at bay.

I gave myself away to winter's birth
with each contraction, piece by piece.
I thought if I bargained I might keep winter from coming.
Now there's so little left of me.

And the dreary hallways of unkempt rooms
are haunted by my fears.
There's an existence I sustained behind closed doors
that only warps into different years.
And, from behind the frigid, silken clothe
they dance, and cower, and rage.
The only relief I seem to find
is when I whisper their names on page.
But Gods in my room with me again
where its warm for the first time in 7 years.
But I can still feel the slightest draft.
Winters still whispering in my ear.

In a frigid language she keeps trying to convey
That nothing could over power
the need for her in my world.
So that I might learn this art of survival
but she never made it to the funeral
where I misplaced all my past fun times,
where I can't remember exactly
all the things I once loved.
I dropped so many pieces of myself along the way.
Sometimes it seems too broken to make sense of.

The putrid scent of this betrayal
stole all the warmth that remained in my breath.
How can a child's eyes reflect this grave?
How can this conclusion be all that is left?

Am I still the little girl that survives the winter
by burying myself in the snow?
Am I still in the trench, under the bathroom sink?
Hiding in imagination so that I might cope
with these ritualistic acts...mechanical...
that smell of alcohol and broken promises of love.
Forced to breath while under water...
Tarred feathers that once belonged
to the body of a dove.

The dull movements never expressed a human emotion.
The shadows never contained a human soul.
Frozen...slowly thawed..re-frozen,
and transformed through different roles.


Ashes
By Joanna M. Doane

She combs her hair each morning
because she is afraid, and she
wakes up every morning at 3:00am
because it’s all that she’s ever known.

She stands and struggles to gather her thoughts,
staring blankly into her open mirror.
Just like everyone else in this world,
she wakes up, in actuality,
all alone.

In the end, it’s all there is to keep us moving...
strong for each but, somehow,
remaining differently, as that attachment
to anyone, yourself, or no one at all.

She begins to gently brush her hair,
staring still into her empty mirror.
And she wakes up feeling so tired,
always trying to pretend

that the petals have yet to fall,
and that she hasn’t lost
that connection yet.

Hoping she wakes up tomorrow,
finally, her suffering will have
come to an end.

    And, she says, “Don’t forget to scatter me on my soft roses.”


But, with her, I’ve stopped pretending I’m not all alone.
So many shameless years, drenched in stagnant alcohol,
always come back to remind me before I, mistakenly,
pick up the phone. 
 
 
Bedtime Stories
by Joanna M Doane

As children,
My twin brother and I
scrunched together.

Whimpered from the sting
of every nightmare,
I covered him up
next to me,

As old country hummed to us
Our bedtime stories,
through decade-old speakers,

With its vocals,
consumed by the potency,
of backyard moonshine -

Tales, lived out,
through the blurred affection
Of bar room strangers,

Stored in bloodshot eyes,
and kept alive in the spirit
of second round beliefs.

We slipped in and out,
Of the familiar scent
Of smoldering tobacco.

Twirling and building up, like fog
Exhaled through the mouths of stars,

All, gathered around the moon, playing poker,
and betting on who would be next to fall.

Whimpered from the sting
of every nightmare,
I covered him up
next to me,

I still inhaled in sync with him,
through the lonesome drone of 2 am,
Chasing down his slumber, and
trying to catch up with his dreams.


Restless
by Joanna M Doane

This mistaken refuge,
he's branched out again, with those
damp leaves scattering,
falling,
and revisiting
the open spaces
between
my ribs.

Because,
existing before him,
I always grow translucent.

All my warm breath escapes
into the awaiting depths of his long shadow.
My lungs begin their dance
of throbbing and shuddering
as I curl up beneath
him
just the same -

For my roots
to fall beneath me,
reaching for their familiar retreat,
back into his own mass of
hollow, ancient veins.

In this still comfort,
He and I, we prepare ourselves
for my rising up - surpassing
the depths of his reach,
crumbling this susceptibility into ruins.

But for now we softly close our eyes.

And from inside,
the rhythm of this restless promise
Effortlessly...gracefully
rocks us to sleep.

All words and poetry copyrighted by Joanna M. Doane
© 2005 - 2007

 
 
LETTER
 
This is a 3-part series of letters written to my mother, from the time I was 17 until recently.
 
Some names have been changed in the letters below to protect the privacy of my family.  My mother, in her first marraige, had three children -  my older brothers and older sister - Jeremy, Arthur and Tiffany.  Then she married my father and had my twin brother, Stephen, myself, and our little sister, Bethany.  When I refer to "the girls" in these letters I'm refering to my baby neices - Bethany's children.  I use their names - mostly pseudonyms - a lot through out these letters so I felt it neccessary to explain who they are.

LETTER I.
The first I wrote to her during my senior year of high school, just before I turned 18.  It reflects the sense of responsibility I felt over her emotional well being at the time.  I did send it to her and she said, "I don't know who you wrote that to but it wasn't to me."
April 4, 2000

Dear Mom,
I've wanted to talk to you about this stuff for a while now but the times I've been over to visit, I haven't been able to for whatever reasons.  I've always been able to say whats on my mind far better on paper than trying to say it out loud...so I figured writing you was the best way to go. 

First I'd like to say that, even though you say you're fine, I know that you're anything but fine.  I know that you're in a lot of pain and that you work as much as you do, drink as much as you do, and do the drugs that I know you do cause its your way of escaping it - or maybe not having to deal with it.  But, Mom everyone has pain...when you wake up its still there regardless of what you do during the day and night.  I know that you miss grandma (her mother died in Sept of '98) and how much it hurts every day that you're with out her.  I know that it didn't help that I moved out too (I moved in with my father in spring of '99 which allowed me to escape the stress of living with my Mom), and I'm sorry that it hurt you.  But I can't move back in with you for reasons I can't really go into right now -- cause I know you don't like it when I bring up the past.  I didn't like having Roy (my mom's now ex-husband) saying that I couldn't see Dad or Stephen and, "If I didn't like it I could just move out".  And, well, I didn't like it ... so ... Dad got his own place and I did move in with him.  But I guess thats just one of the main reasons I moved out at the time, but definitely not the only one.

But now I see how much weight you're losing and I'm so scared I'm going to lose you.  You miss Aunt Joanna (my Mom's murdered sister -- named me after her when I was born), and Grandpa (my Mom's father who died in 1992), and Grandma so much that, in a sense, you want to join them.  But Mom I need you to keep in mind of the pain you're in without them ... just think of how Stephen, Bethany, Tiffany, Jeremy, Arthur, and I would feel without you!  I love you ... we all do.

I'm here for you if you need me.  If you need anything just call and I'll be right over.  I don't want to lose you.  I want you to be there to see me graduate, to see me go to college, and you need to take care of Bethany.  I know that the two of you argue a lot and that maybe she doesn't always act like it but she needs you as much as I do ... if not more.  Theres a bond between mothers and their children thats hard to explain.

I know that you'll be gone someday just like everyone, but I don't want to see you leave me the way that it seems you are.  You've lost so much weight, its as if you're wasting away to nothing before my very eyes - and theres nothing I can do to stop it.  Saturday morning, out in the yard, I could barely look at you because, Jesus Christ Mom ... you look like a walking skeleton, you really do.

So Mom I need you to cut down on your hours -- no more of this 'three hours of sleep a night' crap and then working all day and night.  Go a couple weeks without drinking and without the speed that I know you're getting from (ommitted name of my mom's dealer at the time), from her son, and from whoever else!  And, for Christ's Sake, eat something!  Because the stuff you're doing IS killing you.

I don't mean to sound so mean....I'm just worried sick and scared to death.

I love you Mom.  I just want to see you truely happy for the first time in my life.  I've always felt that I've never been enough for you to be happy and to keep you from doing the things that you do.  Just please Mom, consider the things I've mentioned above.  If you can go a couple of weeks with out it thats your first step to getting better.  I'm not the only one who's worried -- we all are.  I talked to Dad just the other night and expressed to him how worried I am about you -- he's worried too.  So isn't Stephen, Bethany, Arthur, Tiffany, and everyone else I can think of who's taken notice of how much weight you've lost and continue to lose. 

We all love you very much and we all want to see you get better.  Please give me a call or write me back.

~ Joanna 

LETTER II.
The second letter I wrote to her during my last hospitilization in June of 2005, at the age of 23.  I was at my all time lowest and I think the letter reflects that.  I wrote it as a theraputic process to help me heal and get out of there.  I addressed it to her first and last name instead of "Mom", because I was so sickened by her behavior I didn't even want to call her "Mom" (I admit that sometimes I still don't).

June 24, 2005

Nickie Hilchers,

Right now I'm so appauled by what you did to me I can't even feel the hatred, and rage, and discust I have for you.  I'm just in utter disbelief.  For years you beat me in the middle of the night every week, not to mention the beatings that frequently came during the day.  You told me that I was worthless and nothing and treated me accordingly.  You made the first 16 years of my life a living nightmare of lies because of the sickness in yourself.  I'm beginning to wake up now.  I can see you as the demented freak that you are.  You're alone now.  Soon you'll have noone to turn to and probably no place to go.  You're dying slowly day by day.  I'd like to be able to say that you're already dead to me  but you haunt me everyday in my dreams and memories.  Everday is a struggle not to lose my mind in the places you left and put me in.  Because of you I never feel safe.  I'll continue to try and forgive you and move on.  But when they burn your body to ashes upon your death I'll feel nothing but relief.

(Later the next day...)

I was going to end it here but theres more I need to address.  I could go outside and relax right now, outside of my hospital room, for group therapy, but I'd rather be strong and face these demons you've bred in me.  When I think of you I can't get over how you wasted your life away making everyone around you completely miserable.  You never lived life and learned how to love.  You always played your games to get whatever petty thing you wanted.  You spent every morning cleaning and scrubbing the walls and floors and every last crevice.  Everything had to look perfect and spotless at all times despite the fact that you had 3 children.  We knew better than to leave something for you to find on the floor or if something was left out of place.  "Pick it up!  Pick it up!" was all we ever heard.

We had to stay quiet at all times although it was perfectly fine for you to blast your music and have loud card games with your drunken friends as we (Bethany, Stephen, and I) lay trying to sleep.  None of us will ever forget how you would storm into our room because you heard us whispering or because of some auditory hallucination you were reacting to, and beat the shit out of whoever you thought was the source of it.  In the end it was mainly Stephen and I.  We'll never forget how you had us wait in the livingroom for you to storm in and beat us over minor bullshit - our always discussing wanting to "be first...to get it over with".

You called us into the kitchen so that we could watch Roy beat the shit out of you every other weekend.  In between, every weekend with Dad, you begged us not to leave you there alone.  You couldn't stand to ever be alone but treated everyone who ever got close to you like shit.  You wanted our presense in that house but our company threw you into rages.  You kicked Stephen out of the house when we were only 11 because he wouldn't let you beat him anymore.  You made it look and seem like he was the one who was out of control.  You had us brainwashed into thinking it was all normal and that we meant everything to you when, in reality, we were just used for you to control and manipulate.  You never let us have our own opinions - it was always a mistake to disagree with you.  You always had to have the last word.

You wouldn't let us out of the yard until we were 10 and 8 years old because you feared someone would snatch us up and do things to us that you had already done.  You let two teenage perverts babysit us so that you and Roy could spend your precious nights together at the bar.  You always had to have someone to treat like they were garbage.  You used to beat Arthur everyday.  Then you moved on to Stephen and I and then you booted out Stephen.  Its a miracle I wasn't dead at 13 because I thought of suicide everyday because of the abuse you were putting me through.  Once I got out of there you started in on Bethany and it wasn't long before she started having these "mysterious" panic attacks.  After we all got out that left Roy and, despite that I can't stand him, I feel sorry for the following years he spent with you.

Now I'm in utter disbelief that you claim, "Noone in this family was ever abused".  Have you completely forgetten how you lost all parental rights to Tiffany and Jeremy, and that you didn't get Arthur back until he was seven?  You never left them alone for days when they were only 3, 2, and 3-months old?  Thats not abuse?  Then you have the nerve to kick Bethany out of the street, because you were having delusions that she was abusing her babies?  Are you jealous that you could never be a 1/16th of the mother she is today?  Now your brain is so fried from all the drugs, alcohol, and untreated mental illness that its amazing you're still functioning.  We, your children, have no idea how you're still alive!

But what makes me hate you more than anything else in this world is when I look at how the four of us you actually "raised" have turned out.  When we all turned 18 we were and have been responsible for making the decisions in our lives.  But, in my heart, I know that all we've each had to go by is what you've taught us and I despise you for that.  Your sickness is etched into our body and minds.  I will never in a million years forgive you for that.  But with me it dies you crazy fucking freak!  



LETTER III.
This last letter I've written recently.  It has helped to express the thoughts and ideas that have helped me move past all the rage and hatred into a place of acceptance and understanding. 

Nov 16, 2007
Dear Mom,

I love you and now all that I can do is keep my distance and hope that you find your peace.  I hope you'll make peace with the truth.  I've lost all contact with you over the past few years.  You probably want to talk to me, but I'm a lot safer not talking to you. 

I've accepted that you don't completely know how to love but I know that you've loved me the only way you know how.  Again this year I feel guilty for not calling you on your birthday.  Again, I know you haven't made any effort to contact me.  But in the end, everytime I begin to miss you, or the mom I wish you could be, you do something else.  You charge Bethany $50 to do laundry for her and the girls.  You charge Stephen $50 per trip, just to take him to get his check cashed at his bank.  You spend the money on beer and speed.  You physically attack Bethany for no apparent reason, right in front of the girls.  (Name ommitted) is almost four now ... old enough to understand that maybe something isn't right there.  I hear these things and they remind me. It refuels my anger regarding the whole situation. I take them usually as a reminder from God. 

Stephen asked some months ago if I ever thought our family might be cursed?  He sometimes wonders if maybe we are, which is understandable given our history through out past generations.  But as surely as I know that it is the wind that is flowing through the trees outside my window -- as their branches sway from side to side, I know it is your legacy thats been passed down to us.  And so its not quite a curse, but a cycle that can be broken.  That was the answer I gave Stephen - that IT could be broken.

But sometimes it hard to define exactly what this illusive IT is that you've handed down to us through your own example.  You, as a person, are so hard to describe, much less understand.  Even to me, after living under your roof for sixteen years, avoiding you for the next 6, and refusing to speak with you for the last 2, you remain mysterious. I can quickly see in my mind your long, curly hair that foreshadows your cat eyes -- eyes that still reflect a life full of mistakes you'll never apologize for and of still more lies you'll never acknowledge. Eyes that shine with love, acceptance, and understanding for brief spans of time before it caves in beneath the weight of your broken mind. Rough, calloused hands. Words that cut into the butter of my dependency on you. We (your six children) needed you. Part of each of us will never stop needing you. You've kept those pieces sewn into a blanket that you've wrapped around herself, letting the ends drag to the ground at your feet. You'll never let us receive that love completely back. You would if you knew how. You're not an evil person. You're not a monster. Just broken. Sometimes the only way you know how to comes in games of your own invention, meant to hold us over until the next feeding. 

We've done all we could to mean something to you, and we do. But actions speak louder than words. When you pick alcohol and drugs or your husband over your children, they aren’t “your whole world” as you've often said we were. You've wanted us to be. But your world is haunted and imprisoned by too many other things. Places where we just really can’t fit.

Its hard to put you into words so instead I use examples.  I remember one of the last times I saw you, you were sitting at the kitchen table.  As always, you were crying and putting the responsibility of you life's circumstances on someone else.

"He took my babies!" you cried.  "I tried to get them back but Dad said he'd have me committed again..."

Mom, you left them - your first three children - in a house, alone for days.  Tiffany was around 3 months old, Arthur was 2, and Jeremy was 3.  The only reason Tiffany survived is because Jeremy, at only 3 years old, somehow knew how to feed her.  You were off on some speed binge and you abandoned them there.  You father had you committed because you could have killed them and yourself.   Weighing at only 86 lbs., you were killing yourself.  He didn't know what else to do.  So he legally adopted Tiffany and Jeremy and you never got them back.  The only reason you got Arthur back was because his paternal grandmother was dying.

And then you had Stephen, Bethany and me.  And you kept us fed, clothed, and with a roof over our heads.  I watched you drink your life and our childhoods away.  And I swallowed down all the anger and grief that I could manage.  While, in comparison, your anger seemed endless.   And I did what I was told in that I never called the police on you.  I never hit you back.  I never went to a school counselor or any of my teachers for help.  Those that did know the situation - most in our extended family - felt helpless to save us, including Dad.  My own doctor told me to move out when I was 16 due to the stomach problems I'd developed from the stress of living with you.  And I didn't tell her what was really going on - Grandma did.  But I'm not that little girl anymore.  I'm not helpless.

I know your reaction before the words even escape through my fingertips. 

You start saying things like "I don't know what you're talking about.  No one in this family has ever been abused!" and "Everyone in this family has always drank, why is my drinking such a problem to you?" ...  and "I don't know who you think you're talking to, but its not to me!"

In the end you have to be able to look at yourself, even the hideously foul parts of yourself. You pretend that you don’t have them, but we all do. You have a choice which is the beauty of it all. Whats even better is that you don’t have to do life all on your own. There are people that spend entire careers helping people with all sorts of emotional, mental, and physical problems. Life isn’t meant to destroy you. And theres no one in this world who has experienced something that no one in the history of the world hasn’t already experienced. We all just can’t be the unique snowflakes we would like to think. But all snowflakes fall into a heap of their own waste and melt into the sun. Even after they melt they sink into the soil, and continue the cycle of life in doing so.  The point is for us not to give up, but you gave up a long time ago.

You've gotten lost. We all do that. You've snapped and once you lose your mind you can’t get it back if you never notice its missing.

I need you to know that I didn’t want or intend to make this all one big, long sob-story. Because my life isn’t. It never has been. So why would I allow it to seem that way now? I also don’t intend for any of these things to catch you entirely off guard. I’m trying to show you that there is a reason behind why people do what they do. Though there isn’t at times any reasonable excuse, there is still a reasoning behind it. You didn’t wake up one day and think to yourself, “well….I think I’ll go drink myself into oblivion today.” But neither did you ever think, “maybe I need to stop drinking myself into oblivion today.” It took years and years of denial and inaction.

Inaction.

Its not all of the mistakes you made that matters because you're human. I’m lucky I haven’t ended up as you have and we're (you're children) lucky as well. What makes all the difference in the world is all that you've never allowed yourself to face. You've never admitted to yourself that your actions were wrong. And because of this you have never been able to look at us - Dad, Jeremy, Arthur, Tiffany, me, Stephen, or Bethany, any of us — with the ability to tell us how sorry you are. If you had any idea, if you really knew, the hardest part would be forgiving yourself. But you have a conscious, and thats why I can forgive you. You've just lost sight of whats important and real.



Love Sent,
-- Joanna

One-Year Anniversary!

One-Year Anniversary
Tuesday, the 11th of September, marked the 1-year anniversary of our first posted Survivor Archive. Since that day of last year we've posted a total of 17 Archives, introducing some amazing individuals to like-minded survivors of abuse and trauma across the world-wide web.

Each featured survivor who choose to make their voices heard did so with a unified message:

"Remember to never give up and that you're never alone."

Through art, poetry, literature, and music each of them spoke out, standing as human examples of what it means to face life's struggles head on, refusing to be beaten by them.

For this month, and for each future yearly anniversary (for as long as I can keep this project going) I've chosen to go back through the past year.  You're invited to read through the past year's archives, in honor of those who've stood up and made themselves heard. Please leave your thoughts and comments. Each featured survivor worked hard in putting some very painful and difficult experiences into words to both help themselves and to reach out to others.

This Year's Featured Survivors:
Stephanie Boisvert
Katie Mac
Jennifer Breault
Melissa Mooney
Jennifer C.
Jennifer K.
Chong N. Kim
Yvonne Goss
Richard Propes
Amber Lisa
Kylee Jones
Phyllis Benton
Karen Marolli
Eshanya Walls
Eden R.
Stephanie Gagos
Christine Sandor

Important Update
It has become official that my dear friend, co-author of The Survivor Archives, Kristin Evans, can no longer commit to working on our monthly archives due to the numerous other obligations that have come up in her personal life. I still give her full credit for how much this project has grown in the past 12 months. With this development, the Archives project has been handed over solely to me. Due to my other obligations I will not be able to commit to posting the archives on a monthly basis at this time between school, writing my autobiography, etc.

There for it is my decision that The Survivor Archives will from now on be posted on a quarterly basis through out the year.

Posting is scheduled as follows for 2007 - 2008:

Winter 2007
December 22nd

Spring 2008
March 20th

Summer 2008
June 20th

Winter 2008
December 21st

There can be more than one survivor featured quarterly. This will simply make it more manageable for myself in being able to keep up with this project from now on. As always, if you have any questions please email me at trauma.survivors@gmail.com.


Thanks You & Hope Sent,

~ Joanna Doane
   Co-Founder


--
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." ~ Helen Keller


The Survivor Archives
URL: http://trauma-survivors.squarespace.com/welcome
Email: trauma.survivors@gmail.com

Personal Contact Info
Email: joanna4help@aim.com
Voicemail: (614) 386-2057

Christine Sandor

BIO

My Mission in this Life: "To assist others from Darkness to Light.” 

My Vow: To serve the God of my being with all my heart, all my life; to Co-create a worldof Peace, Love, and the knowledge that we are all One with the Divine; to live, to the best of my ability, that Divinity and to find the Blessing in everything and be in Gratitude.

My name is Christine Sandor.  Forty-seven years ago I was born in a relatively small New England town. I was the fourth daughter born to a couple who gave new meaning to the idea that parents should take a test before being allowed to care for children! I am a survivor and a little more, I am a voice. No longer silent, no longer a keeper of dark secrets, I stand now in the strength of my own new found power of the spoken and written word, ready to do my part in stopping the viscous cycle of abuse in our world.

From as early as I can recall, I was a target of one very sick woman’s obsession with control, manipulation, determination that I would be hers and hers alone, and that she would break me of any sexuality that existed within me. In her hatred of herself and her own femininity, she spent 11 years physically trying to remove any pride I might feel in being a woman

As I began to remember the sexual abuse my mother had perpetrated upon me, it became clear that a man who had lived across the street from me had also sexually abused me. I became, once again, stuck in the darkness of knowing I had been a sexual target. It was the final betrayal.

I had confronted my mother at one point in my healing and cut off contact with her. My separation from the family last four years, until the birth of my own daughter. At that point, my longing for family overtook me and I contacted my mother via mail. My older sisters demanded that I apologize to our mother before I return “home.” They demanded that I say things “never happened.” It was the one time I betrayed myself. I wrote her that I was “sorry I had said anything.” Not exactly an exemption from my accusations and in all honesty I was, at that point, quite sorry I had said a thing. It was enough. I was “allowed” back into the family.

My return lasted until shortly after the birth of my third baby. In those five years, I saw my mother’s manipulation, and her seeming inability to truly care about others. There came the final moment when it was simply no longer ok for me to be in her presence. I walked away once for and all from the toxicity of my family. It was for me the most important part of my healing process.

The flood gates of memories opened. At that same time I was led to a church that resonated with everything I had ever believed deep inside about the God of my being. The therapy coupled with my new found Spirituality was the foundation I needed to move forward with the healing process. As I worked through memories, I found myself taking a spiritual journey. I traveled to Peru with my Minister and a group of women from my church. I instinctively knew there was something there for me to do or understand. The trip ultimately provided the validation I needed that it was time to do the hardest piece of my healing work; Love myself. It was in a meditation at Machu Picchu that I asked God to show me the one Truth I needed to take into the depth of my being and bring back with me. As I closed me eyes, the silhouette of a mountain I had been looking at, shifted and began to change shape. Two words, in bright pink letters appeared in my minds eye: I AM. I knew in that moment, that I had to now come home to my body.

Upon my return from Peru I sought out someone who could lead me on the journey of deep process. I had left my body so many times that any trigger or event that felt threatening resulted in my immediate departure from my body and all feeling. I had abandoned myself through dissociation all my life; it was time to come home to my body. I found a person within my own Church community who was trained in Shalom process therapy. Together we began deep, intense work. It was the most difficult and most healing time of my life. As I took up the children inside, began to hold and nurture them, symbolically remove them from abusive situations: I discovered that I could love them and in turn, love myself. Though for years I had been a psychotherapist working with trauma survivors, I knew that I had to take a more active step. I wanted to reach out to others with my story of healing.

Through out my years of therapy, I wrote. I seemed to write even more as I processed the abuse with a Shalom practitioner. It was my way of taking the pain that lay deep inside and put it in a place outside of myself. A place that was safe where I could look at it if I needed too, or not. I wrote poems, I wrote my story. Somewhere deep inside I knew I had to make my story public. I knew little information existed, at that time, on Mother-Daughter sexual abuse. When I had realized that is what had happened to me, I had had searched frantically for information. What I found was minimal to say the least, often a line in a book that said “it’s rare.”

It became my intention to make my story public in the hopes of :

1.) Making it known that this type of abuse if very real and does happen.

2.) Let anyone else who has suffered this, or any type of trauma know they are not alone.

3.) Let others see that healing can and does happen.

4.) And provide a guide for those working with trauma survivors.

If I could help just one other person, I knew it would have been worth everything I had been through. I would turn my experience into a gift for others.

In March of 2006, My book, my story Warming the Stone Children was published! My above intentions went out with it along with a renewed desire to once and for all put a stop to child abuse. As we tell our stories we make a difference.  My book has been as healing for me as I hope it will be for others. The subsequent development of my web site www.christinesandor.com was created with the intention of both providing information and a safe place for others to leave messages if they desired. As people read my words and came to me, I was amazed at their responses. Nearly everyone thanked me, most expressed amazement at my courage (which honestly I had not seen the act of writing the book as courageous as much as I had seen it as something I simply had to do for other survivors). The most amazing response came from a gentleman at church who said, my book had changed him forever. He admitted to me that he was very critical and judgmental of heavy people, believing somehow that they were flawed, not in the right consciousness, or simply did not care to take care of themselves. My chapter on my body (which I still struggle with weight issues) had explained that I understood the connection to my excessive weight to all that had happened to me and my overall image of myself. He was in tears as he told me, “ I will never again judge someone who I believe to be carrying too much weight.” I knew in that moment, my story was making a difference in ways I had not even imagined. I have since heard from other survivors who have read the book and am blessed that they have felt they were able to share the positive effect the book has had on their healing.

As I continue my studies towards perhaps becoming a Minister one day. I know that my focus will be on the Pastoral care of others, incorporating what I know as a Psychotherapist who works with trauma survivors to the next level, and utilizing spirituality in that process. I will forever be an advocate for anyone on a healing journey.

~ Christine's Contact Information ~

Website:      www.christinesandor.com/

Homepage:  www.myspace.com/christinesandor

Email:          christine@christinesandor.com

Q & A

1. What is your favorite coping skill?

Prayer and Writing.

Prayer became my vehicle of reassurance. My faith kept me in a place of knowing that there was, even though it did not always feel that way, a blessing for me. I belonged to a Unity Church and had become a Chaplain there. Prayer became a focus of my life. I affirmed in prayer that I was God’s beloved child. I denied the power of my history over my life today and Affirmed that The One Divine Source was my parent, not any earthly being. I leaned on God as it were, and God held me up. I recall a day when my Minister was talking about challenges that we face in life. She said it was more than ok to say: “This too is good. This too is God. This too is for me, and I DEMAND TO KNOW THE BLESSING.” The first time I heard it, I wondered how their could possibly be a blessing in what I had experienced. Today it is in front of me in the form of my book and the knowledge that it will reach exactly who it needs to reach, and someone will be helped. It was in the meditative communion with my Higher Self, which my belief system recognizes as an expression of God or the Christ, that I was able to fall in love with my true self.

Additionally my own writing became an essential coping skill. For as long as I can recall, I wrote. In one way or another I processed, dreamed, put everything I needed to on paper. I mostly wrote poetry. It was interesting as I began my healing process, looking over poems I had written as teenager and young adult, who was yet to recall her abuse, all the signs were there in the words I had chosen. I was amazed to see my memories between the lines of what I had written so long ago. I wrote a lot after therapy sessions as a way to process further, to take the pain I felt and attempt to put it outside of myself, on a piece of paper - later on a computer screen! It became Warming the Stone Children. Seeing my words in print has felt like one of the biggest accomplishments.

2. What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?

Warm the stone children.

The day my process therapist told me that I said, “Ha?” She explained that the “little ones” within me were stone children, children who were “un-mothered.” She said, though I might not want to hear it, it was my job now to nurture them. She actually suggested finding a stone, or allowing one to find me, to put it into the microwave for a few minutes, warming it, and then to sit with it. It was remarkable how that grounded, nurtured and warmed me. Though I struggled with the initial act of “taking care of the little ones within”, I realized it was in that process the most incredible healing took place.

3. What was the worst piece of healing advice you ever received?

Get over it.

I think that may well be the most common one. It never ceases to amaze me how others can simply believe there is a time limit to the healing process: not just the healing process form abuse but from loss of any kind, even the death of a loved one. Perhaps it is the individuals own level of discomfort that spurs them on to say these things, I know that others often feel helpless around survivors who are still in the midst of healing. I also believe that it could be through their love and compassion for the survivor they are picking up on the helplessness we, as children, felt and sometimes still feel. Still, there needs to be a global understanding that healing from trauma is a PROCESS and it is often cyclical. Each survivor has their own time frame and it has nothing to do with what or how much they have experienced. It has to do only with what that survivor needs in order to move forward in healing. What everyone, even the survivor needs to accept is, it gets better, it doesn’t get gone.

4. What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?

1. Realizing that my memories were accurate, and that my mother had been one of my sexual abusers.
   I went through a very tough time of acceptance that any of what I had recalled had happened to me at all. I went through another level of disbelief that much of what had occurred had been at the hands of my own mother. I could not get beyond, for a very long time, that it was a “taboo on top of a taboo.“ I felt stuck in the “Why me?” of it all. And recall finally reaching a point of demanding that my therapist understand that it HAD happened and it had happened to ME. With the knowing I had had no real “mother” I recognized I desperately wanted one. I recall my process therapist telling me for the first time that I needed to care for the little ones inside. I think I almost felt more anger and rage at the realization that someone had to mother me and my only option was me. I had my own children to deal with, I didn’t want anymore kids, and certainly not the little ones inside of myself. I was angry that my own mother had never cared for them. I also realized I had to completely understand I had not been responsible for what the adults in my life had done to me.
   
   
2. Shame
   

   Like many survivors before and after me, I faced the challenged of one of the most damaging aspects of childhood sexual abuse: Shame. My hatred toward the child I had been was centered in the shame of her experiences. I blamed her as her own mother had blamed her and I felt the intense shame of having my abuser be my mother; another female. There was also the moment when during process work, my body responded in a way I had not anticipated. I recognized at once that the child I had been had felt hints of pleasure. I was out raged. The problem was I outraged at her. How could I possibly have felt anything remotely close to pleasure? The shame I already felt intensified. Even as my therapist told me my body had responded the way it was suppose to, even though I knew that at an adult level, I could not get beyond the anger at myself and the shame I felt for having responded at all. It took a long time to finally stop blaming my little one inside for simply being a human being. As I came to that knowing and understanding, the shame of my childhood began to be directed to the anger I needed to process about the abuse.
   
   

3. Learning to Love myself.
   Once I had begun to take care of the little me’s and stop blaming them for something they were in no way responsible for, I began to look at the big me. My body image, my own sexuality, my distorted beliefs about who I was, should be, had to be, and who I had been for the last 40+ years. My self hatred was so intense. It is still something I work on a daily basis. My “breakthrough” in this area came as a result of a Unity class I was taking. Our “Life of Prayer” teacher had us studying Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Emergence. We followed the exercises of connecting with our Higher Selves and Journaling during the process. In one meditation in particular, I finally made it to the place of connecting to my Higher Self. I envisioned the sanctuary that I had been guided to create in my mind’s eye and was amazed when the most beautiful being of light simply appeared to me. The Joy and Unconditional Love I felt took my breath away. I wanted to fall into the light and stay wrapped in its purity forever. I was slightly taken aback when the being announced that it was in fact, ME! Our conversation was pure and it told me that by loving it, I was loving myself! When I struggle now with negative feelings about myself, I can draw on my Higher Self to remind me of the Truth of who I am.
   

5. Have you ever hit "rock bottom"? What kept you going?

Oh yes, My children kept me going and my faith in God‘s pure goodness.

I actually believe I hit bottom more than once. The first time was when I became aware that what my mother had done to me had a name and that name was “sexual abuse.”

As I sat on rocks at a beach in the pouring rain, I no longer wanted to live. I truly believe it was the still small voice of God within me that told me to go home, rest, and know I was God’s beloved child, not hers. Later as the healing spiraled from times of being “ok” to a dark pit so deep I thought there was no way out, I looked to the God of my being for guidance and at my children. I knew that while my healing was ultimately for me - it was for them as well.

6. What does forgiveness mean to you?

Forgiveness = giving something else for.

The first time I thought about “forgiving” my mother or the neighbor who had abused me was during a class at Unity. The prosperity class basically followed the 12-step program. It is somewhere around step four or five that one is asked to look at forgiveness. I cried and cried as I asked the question: “How does one forgive the unforgivable?” As I learned more about Unity Principles and spent some time on this issue with my Minister, I came to a knew understanding. Forgiveness was not about “absolving” someone of the wrong that was committed against them, or of the perceived wrong committed against them. It was giving a new idea for what had happened. It is about seeing it differently. It is about beholding the Christ essence even within that person who has done wrong to you. Recognizing that just like you they are beloved children of God. My Minister walked me through a process of placing my mother’s image in front of my mind's eye and simply stating “the Christ essence within me, forgives the Christ essence within you - I loose you and I set you free.” It is an exercise I still refer to, as I am not sure to have completely released her, but I have a new understanding. I have a new way to look at all that transpired. And I do not have to “blame” anyone anymore, or hold on to that rage. Forgiveness to me is about giving yourself the freedom of holding on to some toxic act against you.

7. When did you know that everything was going to be okay -- that you were going to make it?

It was a process.

It in no way happened all at once. Little by little though, as I worked through the memories, allowed the feelings, allowed the anger and the rage, got mad, wrote, prayed, stayed centered on my goal of healing, wrote more, completed some intense weekend processing at Shalom retreats, wrote even more: did I come to a place where I could say: I AM OK. I am going to be fine. I survived not once, but twice! I survived it the first time at the hands of my abusers, and the second time as relived the abuse in body and flashback memory.

8. Is there anything that you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?

You are too precious and too loved to allow your abuser to take any more of your life away. Take it back.

The Journey may not always be easy, but it is so worth it. Your abuser tried to take your power; they can not have it! They tried to take your voice, They can not have it, it is yours. I believe your power and your voice are the same thing. You are a child of the Universe, you are vital to it's existence. Most of all, even when it feels as if there is no one who can possibly understand how you're feeling, believe that the Universe knows, and it will cradle you in it's arms of Light and Love. “You are God’s beloved child. Born for hope. Born for Love. You are God’s beloved child, precious in It’s eyes.” ( words to a song My Minister sang to me in Peru - I give them to you now)

9. If there was one piece of advice you would give, or one thing you would want the significant other, best friend, etc. of a survivor to keep in mind through out the survivors healing process, what would that be?

HEAR the survivor.

Don’t just listen, HEAR them. Hear what they have to say. Hear their silence. Hear what they need at every moment of their process. If they want to be held, or need distance; allow it. If they need to cry, rage, throw things, sit by themselves, have a party with friends; allow it. Witnessing their pain can be painful for you, have a support person of your own, but do not share your partner's story without their permission. Respect them, chances are very good respect was not a part of their history. Keep things safe. Keep them safe. Create a nest where they can be exactly what they need to be at any given moment, where they can feel completely at ease and safe. Most importantly, LOVE the survivor, Just Love them and remind them that they ARE loved.

POETRY

MAMA’S HANDS

Mama’s hands are the first to rock you

The first to stroke your brow.

Mama’s hands are the first to feed you

And the first to show you how.

But if Mama’s hands are the enemy

What happens to you now?

Mama’s hands should wipe the tears away

Not be the cause of why tears come.

Mama’s hands should hold tight to yours

Not burn them or make them numb.

Mama’s hands should always be gentle

And give tender loving care.

But if Mama’s hands are filled with rage

You just don’t breathe, you don’t dare.

Mama’s hands should nurse the wounds

Not cause you to scream in pain.

Mama’s hands should sooth and calm you,

But what if she’s insane?

So if I think of Mama’s hands

And what they’re really meant for,

I weep and wonder, where was the love?

In the hands that locked the doors.

No one must see, no one must know

Mama’s hands just made me sore.

Mama’s hands left their mark,

But its not one you can see.

Mama’s hands are meant for Love,

But what if Mama’s crazy?

Encounter

“You must go back, there is work to do

So much is in store… a head of you

Yes, it looks bad now, But oh the gift to know.

Return now, that you might grow.”

“But it’s not fair, I didn’t count on this

The terror and anguish.. How can there be a gift?

Do You see what’s happening? Can You witness this sight?

I find it hard to believe this is of the Light.”

“Not of the Light, My Beloved Child.

But necessary that you may reconcile.

That you may know your truth and stand again - whole

Return now, that you may grow.”

“I don’t want to go back. I want to stay in the Peace.

I have changed my mind. I want to be released

From whatever agreement, whatever contract I made

I didn’t know there would be such horror and pain.:

“Little one, I know.. This was not my plan.

Buy I AM with you. Do you understand?

And I will send Angles, in your life

Who will hold you and sing to you and make up for this time.”

“All right, I’ll be brave. I will go back to that bed.

They’re scared anyway. They think I am dead.

And maybe one day, I’ll remember, though I won’t want to know.

And I promise You then, Lord. …. I will grow.”

Land of I AM

I was rocked upon the waters

In the Womb of Pacchu Mama.

Re-birthed in caves of Crystal.

I heard the Memories within the stones

I heard them whisper the inner knowing -

I AM

I walked the path of a People

Who held the Wisdom of the Cosmos.

A stranger to the Native ways

To the customs, and beliefs.

But upon their ancient faces I saw the Truth

I AM

I drank the nectar of the earth

And washed in Sacred Waters -

Becoming One with the Land.

One with the people.

I sat in a Garden of Eden

And I remembered.

I AM

I reached out and hands were there

Ready to assist. Holding me.

I reached and took a hand - Reciprocity.

I stood upon the majestic Mountaintops

And declared

I AM

And the Mother took pity

And the Mother took my pain.

She ate all that had no Love -

In my memories, in my Life.

And there in the Womb of the Mother

I sprang forth to a new understanding.

I touched the sky and declared.

I AM.

For the Love of Me

And this Love is

As none I have ever known

Love has come and gone.

Love has touched me from time to time.

But never have I felt the intensity

Of the love she radiated.

It touched me at my very core,

A love so profound

I did not completely understand.

And in that instant

I loved her.

Her light burning brighter

As I held fast to her presence.

“Do not leave me.”

I pleaded.

“I have longed for you forever.”

The love magnified with my words

And entered every cell of me.

“ I will never leave.” She softly spoke.

“I am you. Don’t you see?

And by falling in love with me, Dear one,

You have finally

Fallen in Love

With yourself.”

LETTER

Dear T (Name withheld for confidentiality - this person is the woman who abused me.  I do not call her mother anymore and have not for a long time)

Quite honestly I did not think you would be the one that I would write to you at this opportunity. In fact, nearly every other option seemed much more appealing. I had never intended to write you, at all. I have not been convinced you deserve any words from me. However, in the process of preparing this piece, I had a dream. I have not had a dream about you in a very long time, not even when I was in the midst of some of my most painful healing work did you enter into the sanctity of my sleep. But this week, there you were.

I only really recall bits and pieces of the dream. I know at one point my cell phone rang in the dream, I answered and heard your voice. I quickly hung up the phone. You had tracked me down. God, how many years has it been? I walked away from a relationship with you five years ago at least, for the second and final time. And now you had tracked me down. What is it you want? Then those odd shifts and turns that dreams take began and suddenly, somehow, you were standing in front of me, talking to me. The only words I recall you speaking were “It is time now.” I jolted awake and sat up in bed. I was shaking. My first sense was that you are dead. My second, how would I ever know if you had died. It’s not as if my sister’s would ever try to let me know. A million more thoughts raced through my tired brain. Why did I care? What would it mean if you were dead? Shouldn’t I be happy about that? Why didn’t I feel that happiness about your death would be an option? Perhaps the dream had not been a good-bye visit from a spirit, perhaps it was some guilt I harbor for not reconciling with you again. But I don’t want to reconcile. I have no desire to be near you again. Traditionally being around you, or even on the phone with you has seemed to suck all my energy from my body. Yet there is that “should” to everything. After all if you were not already dead, you can not possibly have too many years left. And my head continued to reel. The thoughts kept my aching body awake and staring at the dim light of the computer a few feet from me. Despite the wee hour of the morning, I got up. I made coffee and signed on to the internet. I began a search of local home newspapers, going immediately to the obituaries. I held my breath as searched through the names. Yours was not there. I tried to check archives of the paper. Did I miss it? I googled your name, just to see; nothing. I could not tell if I was relieved, scared, sorry or pleased that I had not found your name on a list of those having passed from this life.

The dream propelled me into thinking about the years of healing work I have done, and continue to do. It was a reminder of the pain I have felt for years and of the rage I have worked through. It was a reminder of the forgiveness work I have attempted, and perhaps a push to realize, that work is not complete.

There was a time when I heard the word forgiveness and shuttered to think I should ever forgive you. "How does one forgive the unforgivable?", I asked. Then I came to a new understanding of what forgiveness might look like. It did not mean saying to you, “Hey, it’s ok, don’t worry about all those things you did to me. I absolve you.” It was about recognizing that what happened occurred for any number of reasons that perhaps we will not know and completely understand until the day we are both on the other side. Forgiveness needed to be about releasing you from my pain. It is not about doing this for you, it is about doing it for me. It is about not holding on any longer to any blame. It is about not being your victim any more.

It wasn’t that long ago that a dear friend, doing Reiki for me for some post surgical healing, said suddenly to me; “What would it be like if you were no longer your mother’s victim?” Today as I write this letter, I understand what she meant! It is about taking myself back completely. You can not have me any longer. You no longer have any power over me.

I don’t know why you did those things to me. At times I honestly don’t know if it were in your own consciousness. I have often said that as I look back as an adult, I would have labeled you as having a psychotic episode. I don’t know. I don’t know if you were hurt as a child and you were only caught in the cycle of repetition or if you honestly had so much hatred for yourself and/or me that you consciously chose to inflict pain on your own daughter. I don’t know if we had some sort of pre-life contract to have these experiences that we might each learn some invaluable lesson. I do know that I no longer blame the little one I see in those memories. She was not bad. She was not dirty. She did nothing to deserve what happened to her. I also know, despite everything, she has become a phenomenal woman.

You see, I chose life. I chose it more than once. At thirteen, I promised myself that when I turned 18, I would leave your house and never return there to live. The day I left for college, I did not look back. It was not always easy, but I kept that promise to myself. I committed to a healing process, that at times felt too difficult to complete. But I keep going. I have birthed three beautiful children and have stopped the abuse cycle. I have spent years studying trauma and became a psychotherapist to help others who have been traumatized. I have written and published my story so that others might know they are not alone, and that there is a light at the end of the dark and destructive tunnel of abuse. I have found the God you also tried to take away and have begun the process of becoming a Minister. I have done it all in the wake of pain, sadness and an overwhelming sense of betrayal. I have chosen life.

I don’t know where you are. I don’t have any desire to see you. I can stand here in this place and say, that I actually feel a sense of release around you. I do release you, and more importantly, I release myself from any guilt of my choices to keep my distance from you. .I can behold in you the Oneness that we share in God, I can behold that Light of God that I know lives in you as it lives in me and every other person, and from that place, I can say: “ I set you free.” And in doing so, I set myself free and take myself back, once and for all. And that is forgiveness.

2008 UPDATE

I have completed a second book, however it is slightly different. While it still deals with trauma it focuses on talking to children about death and dying before and after the traumatic loss of a loved on. The book is awaiting publication now!

A short story, completely different in nature is currently submitted for possibly publication in an on-line magazine. I am currently a free lance writer and continue in Social Work. My psychotherapy role is taking on a different form however as I focus more on spiritual counseling.

I am also preparing for possibly starting an internet radio show that will focus on spiritual healing from trauma!