Just a rant

I cannot believe I am here again.  It is stupid-o-clock and I am too afraid to go to sleep.  I have been having a particularly bad day and it has hit me hard.  How is it that I am now 50 years old and something that happened to me when I was a child is having such an impact on my life?

I can say one positive thing - I have not just folded in on myself this time.  Earlier tonight, when I was feeling completely bewildered, I reached out and it made a difference.  Just the act of reaching out to someone I love helped.  I didn't want to talk about how I was feeling or discuss my past.  I didn't want sympathy.  I've realised that all I actually wanted was human contact.  I hate it when people feel sorry for me, almost as much as I hate it when people refuse to acknowledge the effects of  Depression.  And I intentionally capitalise the word 'Depression' because it is at the forefront of my life right now.  And I reiterate -  I DO NOT WANT SYMPATHY!  I have no problem with talking about what happened and whilst it is helpful to me, it is also in a bid to draw out other victims who may not yet have acknowledged what happened to them.

What he did to me has taken so much away from me that I can never get back.  It has made me a different person to the one I would have been had he not done what he did.  And I am angry about that.  It really, really pisses me off.  And if I can at least reach one other victim and help them to speak up and get help, then I can hold that close to myself as something good that has come out of it all.

The anger and pain is eating away at me, slowly but surely, but I am strong and I will keep fighting it.  It helps that I have some amazing friends around me and three wonderful sons.  My sons are a large part of why I keep fighting actually.  There are so many times when I just do not want to go on anymore and the thoughts are all-consuming.  What stops me is the thought that maybe it would have a negative effect on my boys.  Yes, yes, I know that people tell me that I am worth something - I've been told that ad infinitum, but I don't think I truly believe it.  I have been told that we all have those two voices in our heads - the one that tells us the positive and the other that laughs and says 'do you really believe that?'  But the possibility that my boys would be hurt if I left them stays my hand.  

The crazy part is that tonight, when I really needed to just sit with someone and chat, or watch TV - just to physically have someone in the same room as me, I was too afraid to get in my car and drive to a friend - what if the urge became too powerful?  

And that brings me back to HIM!!  Does he have any idea what he has done?  Does he care?  Has he any concept of what I have to live with?  Does he ever feel guilty?  Why can he not just say sorry?  

But then even if he did say he was sorry, would that ever be enough?  I just don't know!

But I hate living like this and I just want it all to stop.  I want to be better.  I won't say normal, because there are those that flippantly say 'define normal'.  I want to be the way I perceive the other people around me to be.  To go about my life without these horrible thoughts banging away in my head.  I am so hurt and angry and I am sick of it now.  It's just not fair.  

Please don't feel sorry for me - it doesn't help me.  I'm sorry if this post sounds really childish.  This is just how I feel right now.  And I need to get it out.  

I don't know if anyone will read this post, as I am not going to share it like I usually do.  I would kind of like my friends and family to see it, because I don't want to go through this alone.  But it then comes back to the fear of them either feeling sorry for me and sympathising, the fear that they will think I am pathetic or the fear that they will not believe me.

Reasons or excuses?

All sorts of questions seem to be plaguing me at the moment.  The latest one is where do you draw the line when blaming current behaviours on past experiences?  What I mean is, how do you really know what is a character flaw and what is a result of what happened?

I find myself so often blaming my more negative traits on what I experienced as a child.  I behaved badly as a teenager because I was trying to block out what he did to me.  I hide behind a mask because I have low self-esteem, because he took that away from me and made me feel worthless.  I avoid friends and family when I’m low because I don’t want to drag them down, because I don’t feel worth their support, because he made me feel dirty.  I don’t face up to things because I have learned that it is safer to hide, because he taught me to hide and lie, because he did what he did to me and made me feel as though I was the one at fault.

The list just goes on and on and when I really think about it, I realise that every time I come across something within me that I do not like, I seem to find a way to blame it all on what he did to me.  And if I do enough research, I can find scholarly articles to back me up and medical papers to fit the bill.  But really, can I blame everything that is wrong in my life on something that happened so long ago?

A large part of me says ‘of course you can!’  He took an innocent child and did things to her that she had no way of understanding or comprehending.  That must have far reaching effects.  But there has got to be a limit surely? 

So how do I know the difference?  I just don’t know.  It is so frustrating and I realise now that I need to be so careful.  I can spend the rest of my life blaming everything on the abuse and maybe I am justified and correct.  But will that help me to improve and grow?  I am starting to think that maybe what I need to do is more than just try and focus on the positive.  Maybe I need to look at the negative stuff too and stop making excuses.  Even as I type this, there is an argument going on in my head.  After what I went through, I have an excuse!  But what if constantly using that excuse is holding me back?

So where the hell does that leave me?  I am just as confused as ever.  I know I need to take responsibility for my actions, decisions and behaviours, but it pisses me off that I must face this dilemma at all.  And can I survive if my excuses are taken away from me?  Will I be better or worse off?  The terrifying part is I won’t know until I decide one way or another.  And right now I really don’t feel brave enough.

Just be me?

Sometimes I get to wondering what would happen if I dropped all pretence, discarded all the masks and was just me.  Broken me.  Could people stand to be around me if they truly saw how I was feeling or even had an inkling of what I was thinking?

I know that thanks to the Hyperarousal, I often completely misinterpret what people say to me.  I hear the tone of voice, I can see the body language, but still I manage to completely twist things in my head.  Then I spend hours and even days, beating myself up, worrying about something that a part of me knows is purely imagined.

Let me try to explain Hyperarousal.  It is part of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).  It is possible to suffer from Hyperarousal without suffering PTSD, but the opposite is not true.  Symptoms are all because of the nervous system being in a constant state of activation.  The most obvious are the exaggerated startle reaction and irritability.  What isn’t so clear to see is the insomnia, reduced tolerance for pain, difficulty concentrating and constantly being ‘on guard’.  Then of course, depending on how well you know the sufferer, you may experience their irritability, panic and anxiety and the fatigue that makes it difficult for them to function.

All of this adds up to a waking nightmare.  Because of the enhanced awareness, everything that is said and done is over-analysed.  Picked over for hours on end, looking for the hidden meaning that will fit with the sufferers’ view of themselves. 

An example could be where someone says kindly, we are keeping an eye on you.  This statement most likely means that the person/people are aware that the sufferer is having a hard time and they are looking out for them.  To the person with Hyperarousal, that simple statement will be taken with a completely negative connotation.  Most likely a person with Hyperarousal would believe that people have noticed that they are not ‘normal’ and are ‘a burden to society’ and they are being monitored to find a way to get rid of them.

To the best of my knowledge there isn’t a cure.  All that can be done is for the victim to ensure that they take their medication as prescribed and to work on strategies to deal with their reactions.  There isn’t any way to stop jumping at shadows or to stop the panic.  But they can learn to deal with the fall out.  The best thing I ever learnt to do was to control my panic attacks without outside assistance.  Slowly I am also working on controlling the irritability, or at least warning people when I am on edge.  It’s all part of the journey and it doesn’t get easier.  But every little achievement means oh so much.

But I still wonder how people would react if I dropped all pretence, discarded all the masks and was just me……

Fair or not

After posting last night, I ended up going back to the beginning of my blog and reading through it.  Wow!  I did not expect the huge range of emotions as I went through my posts.  I felt pain, heartache, anger, embarrassment, shame, amazement, shock – the list just goes on and one.  One thing became very clear though.  I am very different to the person who started this blog.

Not all the changes are positive lately though.  I can see how strong and confident I felt whilst I was in Afghanistan and it is clear that I have gone backwards a bit since I came home.  It’s sad, but not totally unexpected.  With so much of my sense of self-worth depending on what I can do for others, it was inevitable that when I stopped working in a job that allowed me to serve some very deserving people that sense of my own value to humankind was going to be a lot lower.

But somehow, I am surviving and a lot of that is thanks to people around me.  Aghan let me feel useful, confident and fulfilled and I did bring some of that home with me.  Add that to the support I have received from friends (I wish I could say family too, but hey ho) and my involvement in activities that I love and I am still standing. 

But is that enough?  I don’t know whether I should just keep plodding along, doing my best to cope.  Every day is a challenge lately and although I have not reached that low point where I can’t go on, it is hard and I wonder whether it really is worth it.  Should I accept my life the way it is or should I try for more?  Is it even possible for me to ever get past this? 

Because yes, it is still a problem for me.  Every day, and I do mean every day, something comes along to disturb my equilibrium.  Sometimes it is a flashback, sometimes the anger surfaces.  Other times it is trying to deal with the way I react to things because of the PTSD and its associated issues.  There are times when I just want to curl up and cry and other times when I am bouncing off the walls, enjoying being happy, but knowing that it won’t last. 

And of course, that brings me back to something that I have debated for years – Regression Therapy.  If I sought help to recover the memories of what happened, would it destroy everything I have achieved or would it enable me to finally come to terms with it?  The most frustrating thing is that I won’t know unless I try.  Then if it goes wrong, there’s no turning back.  That’s what my mind zooms in on of course!  I don’t ever want to feel the way I did a few years ago.  I’m not sure I could survive it again.

No one can tell me what to do, no one can help me make the decision.  It is down to me and only me, which seems so unfair after everything.  Which is when the anger starts to bubble up again.  I must live with all this for the rest of my life, not knowing whether he even thinks about it for a second.  His absolute silence hurts almost as much as what he did to me in the first place.

Blogging again

Here I am again.  I am thinking about reviving my blog and posting regularly, but I know what I am like and so I have decided to just take it one post at a time.

I have realised that I need this blog.  Putting aside the selfless ‘I want it to help other people’, I have finally figured out that my blog helped me too.  It’s somewhere that I can let it all out and say the things that I could never actually say out loud.  I’m not afraid to say them as such.  It’s more about how people react.

It’s funny.  You’d think having people acting all sympathetic and offering their support would be nice.  And it is in a way.  But it is also difficult to accept.  On one level, I don’t feel that I deserve it.  Not that I don’t think I am worth it, though I suppose that is also another side of it.  But I just feel guilty that people are worrying about me when there are so many other things going on in the world that are a million times worse than anything I have ever experienced.  And I don’t want sympathy – it makes me feel as though I am broken.  The same goes for support.  That sounds like I cannot cope on my own.

What I do want, when I talk about what happened to me and how it has affected me, is understanding.  I want to share what it was and still is like so that people can have more of an idea of the impact that it has on someone’s life.  And not just the victim either.  Everyone around them has got to carry some part of the burden.  I hate to think of what I have put my boys through over the last ten years.  I can only imagine what my revelations did to my wider family, especially those closely related to him.  And I will always carry a level of guilt for that.  What happened to me was not my fault, but I do feel responsible for forcing them to share in the pain.

To some people who have never had the misfortune of knowing a victim of Child Sexual Abuse, it is probably quite a shock to realise how far reaching the effects are.  But it’s as I explained to someone today – I was nine years old when the abuse started and at that point, it was as though a part of me was frozen in time, never to grow up.  Inside me there is still that nine-year-old girl.  She hasn’t grown up and still sees the world through the same eyes, experiences all the same fears and perceives the world in the same way.  And she will always be there – there just isn’t any way to exorcise her or change her.  All I can do, is try to accept her as she is and find ways to deal with the things she cannot understand or cope with.

Scary, isn’t it?  But that is my life and that is part of why I need to start blogging again.  Maybe I can talk to her through these lines and help her through the terrors that are the adult world.  And maybe, yes, just maybe I can help someone – even if it is just myself.

Flashbacks

Amazing! Just when I think that my past is behind me, it rears its ugly head and bites me again! I'm angry, disappointed and scared. Will I ever be able to completely move beyond what he did to me?

I had a flashback this afternoon. I was listening to music with one of my boys and a song that I have always loved came on - John Denver's 'Take me home, country road'. Up until now, I've associated this song with the happy times when I first started dating my boys' father.  The two of us, relaxing and singing along together. 

Then, as I stood listening to the track, I suddenly flashed back to a day in 'Alex's' bedroom when he was playing the same song! The flashback only lasted a couple of seconds, but it was enough to completely throw me.  How could I still love this music? How could I have spent so long associating with happy times? How could I enjoy that same music so much? Now as I type this, I am actually getting even more confused. So much of the music that I love from my childhood, I listened to with 'Alex'. He introduced me to many of my favourite artists! It just doesn't make sense.

Is there something wrong with me? I'm questioning everything again. Surely the songs that he played whilst he abused me should trigger a negative reaction in me now? I don't get it...

And of course, because of past experience, I am too scared to let myself go to sleep. It has been years since I had one of those nightmares, but with the way I am feeling now and the memory so fresh... I just don't know. I really thought I was beyond this now and that I had completely taken back control of my life. I believed that he couldn't hurt me anymore and I am so angry that after I have come so far, he still can!

Panto Time!

Yes!  It's that time of year - Panto time!!  I know I am truly back from Afghanistan now that rehearsals for our Pantomime have started.  It's really strange that I've been home for eight months, but it is only now that it is really starting to sink in.  I've been busy with a play, then a musical with my AmDram group, I'm working full time and of course there's my Aerial Gymnastics - but it is the start of Panto rehearsals that has made it real.

First rehearsal last night was 'interesting'.  The casting went as I anticipated and I am pleased to say that I am in the dancing chorus.  I have never attempted to join in with the dancers before because of my weight, but thanks to Aerial I feel I've lost a sufficient amount to be able to deport myself gracefully!  Notwithstanding of course, any weight loss over the next few months.  I'm also in the singing chorus, but for me that is not so much of a challenge as it is a bit of fun. 

The dancing is the thing.  I have not danced properly in years as I've felt pretty self-conscious about my weight.  I am sure part of that was connected with my low self-esteem.  I know I have always been an accomplished dancer, but it is a little frightening returning to it after so many years.  But if I don't do it now, I don't think I ever will.  I'm most definitely not as slender as I was when I was younger, but I am hoping that with society's views having altered so much over the years, that won't be an issue.  In fact, it was probably only ever an issue in my eyes...

Not entirely sure what dancing we are going to be doing - the only one I'm sure of is a tap number!  That will most definitely stretch my abilities, as it is the discipline that has evolved the most, especially recently.  The style is so much looser now and definitely more relaxed, so I am going to have to fight the inclination to 'present', with a straight spine, stretched neck, shoulders pushed back, etc.  But isn't that really what my journey is all about?  Working with the hand I have been dealt and turning it into something positive?  Challenge accepted!!

33 Years Later: Looking to the future

33 Years Later: Looking to the future: Well, I know that I've said it before, but I definitely think it is time that I moved this blog along.  My life is definitely no longer ...

Looking to the future

Well, I know that I've said it before, but I definitely think it is time that I moved this blog along.  My life is definitely no longer about the fact that I survived Child Sexual Abuse.  Who I am will always be as a result of what I suffered, but I've moved so far from who I was when I started this blog that it seems ridiculous to keep the focus on that suffering.

Instead, I want to celebrate where I am now.  The objective of my blog initially was to reach out to others who had been abused and to provide information to those who might know other victims.  Because of that I have clung on to the theme of abuse within my blog, but it is becoming harder and harder to find anything to say!  And that is a good thing.

I got to thinking about whether I should shut down this blog and start another.  But then it struck me - the abuse is a huge part of who I am today and probably what has driven me to take on new and interesting challenges in my life.  So surely if I continue with this blog, but move it forward the central theme will still be relevant to other Survivors?  Of course it will!  If I can get through it, then maybe that will be a more positive message and an incentive for other's to use what they have been through to make their lives better, rather than allowing it to destroy them.

So, onwards and upwards.  As I've said previously, I have taken up Aerial Gymnastics and of course, now that I am back home, have immersed myself in my local Amateur Theatre Group.  These two activities are keeping me more than busy and added to my work and family, my life is full.  You can now expect less posts about my past and more about my present. 

I would love it if you join me on this continuing adventure and to any Survivors who happen to stumble across this blog remember - there is a future for you, you just have to reach out and take it!