Entries from December 1, 2007 - January 1, 2008
Joanna M. Doane
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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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