A black hole.....

A black hole, that you are gradually disappearing into.  Sucked in by the sadness and loneliness and sense of despair, and feeling that there will never again be an escape.  The daily mask gets more and more tiring.  Energy runs out.  Life is hard work, and you wonder if it’ll ever be ok again. If you’ll ever feel like you have the energy to battle on.  Well-meaning people want you to flip the ‘on-off’ switch on your emotions at will, and you just don’t have the strength, so you have to pretend instead. Yet another energy drain, when you feel already so tired.  You wonder if there’s any point…any point in doing anything but hiding away where none of this is needed, and yet you feel incredibly alone…an incredibly cruel catch 22.  This is where I’m at right now, and I know I’ve been here before and come through, but it doesn’t feel like that’s a possibility right now, no matter how much I try and remember that.

Just when I think......

Just when I think I'm doing ok....when I think that life is on the up and I can begin to relax into the way things are, things change...and I don't like change! Once again I find myself feeling unsafe...the familar feelings of physical sickness and churning stomach return, and I am shocked by how awful it feels...I've almost forgotten what it is like to live like this. It is hard to explain to someone how it feels to find yourself feeling that your world has become, once again, an unsafe place...to explain the level of emotional distress that it causes. And so I feel cut off..separated from those around me. It is an incredibly lonely place, interspersed with episodes of 'normalness', as I try to push through it and still do things. It must look very strange from the outside. It feels very scary from the inside.....

So, this song is for me and for my fellow survivors....those who walk this journey with me...broken 'girls' and 'boys' alike - thank you for your messages of support.....

Worn......

Some days are harder to get myself through than others. Today was one of those days. Some days I have to drag myself through the day, only just holding on with my fingernails to the edge of the cliff. Some days, I feel tired, and worn out, before I even start the day. Today was one of those days. On days like today, the sense of loneliness is intense. Yes, I have God, but sometimes, when you're only just holding onto life itself, you need a 'Jesus with skin on'. And yet if you were to ask me what was wrong, if you were to be 'a Jesus with skin on' to me, I would have no words. I would tell you 'I'm ok...it's just a tough day...but I'm ok....'. Because sometimes there are no words. Sometimes you just need a shoulder to cry on.....a hug....a safe hug.....someone to sit with you a while in your pain. And then night draws in, and my sadness increases, as it does of a night, and I regret not reaching out, not saying 'I need help today......', but who would I say it to anyway? Everyones lives are so full, as they should be. And I feel I can't interrupt that with my pain. So I say 'just a tough day' at the most, or more likely nothing at all, and try to get through the day...try to battle on. And I will be ok....I will.....I have been here many times before....it is a path well trodden.....and I have to rememer that. Remember that there is a tomorrow, and it is often brighter. 

The minefield of boundaries

Boundaries and having the right to say when they're violated....this is something I find a real minefield.  Until not so long back, I fell into the category of those survivors who don't say, who feel they have no right to say when someone invaded my space, when something was triggering for me.  I am in the process of learning how to do this now, but it is a minefield...it doesn't come naturally, and it comes out as pure panic if the first request is ignored. I am currently reading a book recommended to me by Boz from G.R.A.C.E, written by Diane Mandt Langberg. She says:

'Boundaries are easily trounced when voice is silenced.  When survivors live in an environment in which the abuser takes what he or she should ask for and refuses to give what the victim requests, they feel violated. Survivors feel as if they never know when the boom will fall. Either they respond by assuming they have no right of refusal and that others have the right to take from them, or they become hypervigilant about boundaries and patrol their own like a sentry on duty, protecting and guarding themselves meticulously'. (from 'On the Threshold of Hope', by Diane Mandt Langberg, PH.D, AACC Tyndale Books)

Never knowing when the boom will fall.....patrolling your boundaries like a sentry on duty....these are things I can totally relate to. It is hard work. Tiring work. And it makes for difficult relationships. It is hard to be open and relaxed in a friendship when you are constantly hypervigilant. And hard for the other person to understand why you are, when they have perhaps never given you cause to be. This is the minefield we have to negotiate as survivors looking for freedom and healing.  It would be so much easier to stay locked away, alone, where the minefield never had to be negotiated.  But although less difficult, less traumatic at times, and less tiring, it is also much less rewarding.  There is much to be gained from venturing out and beginning to dare to tread the dangerous path towards healing and freedom. It brings great rewards - I have one friend who consistently brings sunshine on emotionally rainy days - but to get to that we've had to negotiate the minefield of my triggers as we got to know each other. It took patience on both our parts. But I wouldn't be without it now, or any of my other friends for that matter.  It is still a learning process for me. One that I hope will continue to bring me more healing and freedom as time goes on.

Finding the joy in amongst the pain.....

This week has been such a mixture of joy and pain.  And it would be so easy to get caught up in the struggle and pain of the week, and lose sight of the joy there's been, but I try (and don't always succeed) to see the joy there is in my life, no matter what pain there is.  And this week has been a good example of that.  I'm blessed with a good church family, good friends, and a beautiful area to live in.  Throughout this week I have been very grateful for those things. They have got me through.  I am continually amazed at how much my life is changing...how different things are to how they were.  Sometimes it's seemingly little things.  Like tonight, a lovely friend of mine brought round my Avon order, and I was struck by the contrast of the order I had placed (various colours of nail varnish) and my current hair (bright pink) to how I was not that many years back.  It's not so long ago I struggled to wear anything that wasn't big baggy mens clothes....and now I am ordering nail varnish and sporting bright pink hair.  And it struck me that this change had to come gradually, over time, because if I'd just woken up one morning and shoved a little black dress and high heels on (yeh, ok.....never going to happen...but you get my point..... ;) ) I'd have been totally uncomfortable with myself, and would have felt as if I didn't know who I was any more. And I guess that's how my journey has been as a survivor too.  Much though I'd often like to speed up the process (ok, nearly always) if God gave me what I'd asked for and changed me overnight I'd wake up feeling I didn't really know myself, and I'd be uncomfortable with who I was and how to deal with that.  So although it pains me to say it (!) God knows what He's doing. The journey is going at the speed He knows is right for me.  And I need to keep sight of how far I've come, rather than just focussing on how far is left to go.....

The Healing Has Begun

What a week! This has been one of those weeks where things are constantly triggering memories and feelings from the past. It's so hard to stay grounded during these times. So hard to remember when I am, never mind where I am...... To remember that I am here, in Wales, in 2013, and not in Cheshire in the 80's...... And yet, if I don't find a way to ground myself, to remind myself of when and where I am, then all my reactions seem out of sync to all those around me. And they are - they make no sense to those around - because those around are looking at them through the eyes of someone in 2013, whereas I'm back in the 80's, where it's unsafe, and where those reactions are actually perfectly logical and might actually help to keep me safe...... And it is this division in our understanding of the event that leaves us both so bewildered - me because you don't understand what seems so logical and obvious, and you because...well...it just seems so damn irrational!! And this lack of understanding serves only to further increase my fear and 'confirm' that I am, indeed, unsafe.  So I retreat, wounded, to the safety of my own space, wishing I 'made sense' enough to be with people.  I am grateful more than ever at these times for my faith - because it is at least one person I have to go to who 'gets' me, who I don't have to hide from, and who can cope with my ungroundedness.  It is there that I find the release from my pain that I need to get me through.  I can't imagine how awful it would be to not have that either.  Thankfully, I don't have to, and when I (eventually!) remember to turn to Him, I get reminded how far on in the journey I really am.....and that healing has begun.

The wounds of yesterday.....

Ugh. Think that just about sums up some of today. Not all of it, because some of it was :), but ugh just about covers the rest.  It's Sunday, so I had church this morning.  It's always been a battle to make myself go to church when I feel really bad, because it is church where so much of my childhood trauma took place.  So many bad memories.  So many reminders.  So many triggers.  And so little understanding.  But lately, I've found myself in a church where I'm experiencing a new feeling..... 'I'm having a dreadful week. I'm glad it's nearly Sunday....'.  Took me a bit by surprise when I first realised. But I soon settled into the feeling.  However settling leads to complacency......as I discovered this morning.  And complacency is never a good thing. This morning I had to deal with the reality that we are all human, and humans sometimes let us down. Even the ones that aren't so scary. Did I deal with this well? Well, yes and no. Yes, because I went on the church picnic, instead of running, something I would never have been able to push myself to do feeling the way I did before, safe in the knowledge that this was really just a one-off, not a pattern, and that this experience was still a very different church experience for me. And no, in that part of me still wants to run....the instinct is hard to get rid of. The wounds of yesterday may heal, but they leave behind scars....