Remembering those lost babies

A blog called Remembering Their Names about the children that died in the mass school shooting. I don't ever want to forget who they were.

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Writing exercise #6

Contradicting Myself and Fighting The Rationalizations~

(the voice that battles me in my head between rational thinking and irrational thinking)

You know you wanted it.
I told him I didn’t want it. He didn’t listen.  None of them listened...

I went to him even when he didn't ask. I am at fault.
 I loved him and believed him when he said he wouldn’t do it again. I didn’t know it was abuse.

I'm just over-reacting and being emotional.
He raped me. For years. I have every right to react this way

 If he’d sexually assaulted you, I think you’d know for sure what happened, not suddenly “figure it out” years later.
If I hadn’t been sexually assaulted, I wouldn’t be wondering about whether or not I’d been sexually assaulted. The thought wouldn’t even cross my mind.


He didn’t mean to hurt me. He was trying to love me, maybe he just didn't know how.
That’s not love, that’s abuse. I am not/was not responsible for showing him how to love properly. I was a child.

He didn't always hit me. Or always threaten my life. Stop whining and complaining. There are women out there who have *really* been abused.
 He threatened my emotional life. He bruised my faith. He punched my feelings of worth and shoved around my sense of self. All of that is STILL abuse.

He didn't mean to hurt me. He loved me.
It doesn't matter if he meant to or not, the truth remains that he DID hurt me.  You do not rape and beat someone that you love.

I still care about him. How sick and messed up can I be?
He is family, and it's okay to still care about him. Abuse involving family members is very complicated and it's natural to have confused and conflicted feelings.

Most of the time I didn't say no or fight him, that's like telling him it was okay.
I was only a child and he was manipulating me. I was confused and didn't know how to say no to him.

I must have wanted it. If I hadn't led him on, he wouldn't have done anything. I was a tease even at 4.
No matter what I did, he should never have acted on it. Even if I tried to do a strip tease, He was not supposed to act on it with his daughter. The fact that he did it is wrong, and I never wanted it. I wasn't capable of wanting it. I was a child.

I didn't tell on him. How can I be mad now?
He told me not to tell on him, or it would be all my fault that the family was split up. He manipulated my emotions. And on top of that, he was my daddy.  You are supposed to obey your father and trust that he wouldn't lie to you or do bad things.

Other people have been through worse. It could have been worse. So it's not really a big deal.
It was bad enough. I am entitled to feel violated. Trauma is trauma - pain is not a competition. 

I can't remember everything that happened, so I must be making things up as I go.
I dissociated as a survival mechanism. Just because I can't remember, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Just because the details are fuzzy doesn't mean that it's not true.

I should be over this by now.
There is no time limit on healing.

I must just be doing this for the attention.
If I wanted attention I would be telling everyone. I can barely talk about this.

I made him angry
So what? It doesn't make what he did okay

I am just imagining it.
I remember what he felt like when he touched me or made me touch him. I can still feel the weight of his heavy body on my child sized one. I can still smell his breath. I can still feel the ropes that bound my wrist. I can’t be making those feelings up.

Writing Exercise: Name something that you are proud of today

Writing Exercise: Name something that you are proud of today 

 

Today when my sister found out that I reported my father to the police she texted me, demanding I talk to her. Today I am proud because the old me would have stepped outside at work and done this. But the new me told her that she doesn't get to tell me when I discuss this. This is my story and no one gets to tell me when I have to speak of it. I am proud of myself for not giving in and for sticking up for myself. I am stronger then I know sometimes.

Survivor Bill Of Rights: Writing Exercise~

Many survivors struggle with feelings of powerlessness in the aftermath of sexual abuse or sexual assault and find it very difficult to gain control of their lives and their healing as a result. Other survivors may feel guilt or shame for demanding their rights be acknowledged because they feel unworthy. This exercise is an opportunity for you to create your own personal Bill of Rights in a safe place, where you can work on asking for what you need from others and from yourself and can give yourself the respect you deserve. Created from Pandy's


I have the right to set healthy boundaries without judgement or persecution.
I have the right to treat my body in a loving way.
I have the right to live in peace and grow in my relationship with God
I have the right to say "no" to things that I do not want
I have the right to be around people who are positive and encouraging
I have the right to get rid of people in my life that bring me down
I have the right to move forward and live a life that I was destined to live
I have the right to be heard
I have the right to speak freely
I have the right to sing and dance and wear a tutu when ever I please
I have the right to love and be loved I have the right to protect myself
I have the right to feel good about the person I am
I  have the right to take time out for myself when I need to without feeling guilty.
I have the right to heal on my own time, not on a set schedule.
I have the right to want to cry.
I have the right to be angry.
I have the right to hate them forever for what they did to me.
I have the rights to the treatment of my own body.
I have a right to be who I am
I have a right to my personal space
I have the right to remember what happened
I have the right to be in control and make my own decisions
I have the right to feel safe
I have the right to do what I need to do to feel safe.
I have the right to want a female doctor and not be questioned about it.
I have the right to be afraid of something without anyone questioning my fears.
I have the right not to know exactly what my feelings are all the time
I have a right not to always accept other peoples ideas and opinions
I have a right to my OWN ideas and opinions
I have the right to share only what I wish about my abuse
I have the right be happy and live

Rape Defined

Rape is like being ice cold and burned to the hottest degree all at the same time. Its like being a glass vase dropped from the ledge of the tallest building, scattering to a million pieces. Rape to me is like screaming out as loud as you can while also falling completely mute in the same moment. Its as if I can feel my father, those men, all of them reach into my soul and rip out everything that held me together. They disconnected all of my connections. I became disconnected from life, love, and from existing. Rape connected me to new things. It taught me to live in fear. Rape taught me to blame myself. And to never to trust. To always question the motives of every man because, men always have expectations. Rape taught me that my value was worthy only in a bedroom, on my back.

Rape told me I was unworthy of love in the eyes of my god because of the dirtiness I feel. Rape took my tears and held them hostage, telling me that I wanted it, telling me I had no reason to weep. When I wished to speak of it, rape bound the skin on my lips. Sealing them like glue to keep the secrets intact. Rape taught me that I am a toy to be played with by men and that my duty on this earth is to supply their demand. And supply I did because rape taught me that it wasn't rape. Rape made me believe this happened in every household.

 Rape made me grow up, far to fast, and in much to painful of a way. Rape tried to get me to believe that my body was meant to be hurt, used and betrayed, that this is what It I was made for. Rape taught me to despise my skin and this body that my soul inhabits. So I sought to destroy it. Rape is responsible for so much and yet there is still more that can not be explained in words. Feelings without names, sensations with out cause, pain with out injury, the things the haunt me. Mere words can not explain the extent of damage of which rape has caused. The damage I wear as an oversized crown on my head. Hanging in front of my face and obstructing my vision. Causing me to trip and lose my balance as I walk this road through life.

Rape violently took away a parent, yet more then that it took away experiences I never got to have. A relationship that would never thrive. Daddy was responsible for all of this torment. Yet I loved him inspite of it. I searched high and low, near and far to find the love I was meant to have from him. But all I found was this twisted kind. Still I accepted it because, it was all I had.

Today the memory of rape still hurts like a punch in the chest, only now its a softer blow. Today I have glued back together my scattered pieces and yes maybe I am cracked and yes maybe some of the pieces will forever be missing but I have found enough to make me whole again. My screams are no longer muted. I found my voice. A voice I always had except today I found the courage to use it. Today I blame him and find my worth in this world through my own thoughts and  actions and not the actions of another. Today I am reconnected and finding my place in this world. Today this pain can no longer restrain my life like those ropes that bound my wrists. I can heal, I can grow.

My Prayer

God please help me. I come to you because I no longer feel deserving of your love. I am dirty and I know that you can not accept me. I am used up like trash and there is nothing left of myself to offer to you. The smell of all those men reeks on my flesh, hot showers do not remove the stench. I feel forever tainted and unworthy of your guidance and love. I am as a phony in your house. I should not have come to your place of worship. I feel like an outsider there not deserving of the information that so many others take for granted. I am sorry that I am unholy, that I am the sin of this earth. The filth of my hands should not grip your bibles. My mind is destroyed with the images that play in it, I can no longer absorb your truths. Please god forgive my unrighteousness.

AMEN



I wrote that recently and everyone can tell me a million times that I am not the one who is dirty. But I can't help how I feel. In time I hope to move past this. But with new memories resurfacing and showing me the bitter truth of how bad things truly got I can not go to god in this moment. I will keep my distance for awhile. I'm sure when I am ready he will be there waiting for me.

EMDR

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a proprietary^, psychotherapy in which the patient recalls a traumatic event while simultaneously undergoing bilateral stimulation that can consist of moving the eyes from side to side, vibrations or tapping movements on different sides of the body, or tones delivered through one ear, then the other, via headphones. The technique was developed by Francine Shapiro to resolve the development of trauma-related disorders caused by exposure to distressing, traumatising, or negative life events, such as rape or military combat. According to Shapiro's theory,when a traumatic or distressing experience occurs, it may overwhelm usual cognitive and neurological coping mechanisms. The memory and associated stimuli of the event are inadequately processed, and are dysfunctionally stored in an isolated memory network. The goal of EMDR therapy is to process these distressing memories, reducing their lingering influence and allowing clients to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms.
Although some clinicians may use EMDR for other problems, its research development was primarily for disorders stemming from distressing life experiences, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)^[8][9]. EMDR was found to be an efficacious treatment for PTSD.



^{Thursday I saw a new therapist to perform this on me. Mine isn't qualified to do it. So i was scared to have to work with a second new person and to have to retell her my story quickly. I've been seeing my other counselor since February so for 10 months she has slowly gotten to hear my story. Now there's this new person that wants to know about me but we don't get 10 months. It was very exhausting telling her all of these things. But i told her and then we started on the actual EMDR. She explained every-thing she was going to do then would do it and ask me what my experience was. At first I told her it wasn't working. It felt stupid. Her waving her hands in front of my face. How was that going to do anything? Then out of no where I broke down crying and the memory we were working on was one of the mildest. One about my mom. I felt like my brain was broken for two days. If that is my reaction to the mildest memory what will happen to me when we work on the worst memories? I hope this actually helps and doesn't just make things worse.}

Homework From Therapy

Things that have changed since I started therapy/support group.

* Less nightmares
* Less panic attacks
* Less flashbacks
* Less repressed memories coming out
* I stopped sleeping in the closet every night
* I can sleep more/easier at night
* I have cried in front of people
* I stopped eating my feelings
* No more trying to hurt myself
* I can look at myself in the mirror
* I started drawing again
* I can write about what happened in detail
* I can talk about what happened in detail
* I can talk about what happened in detail to a room full of people in support group
* I can identify some feelings now
* I am strong enough to do EMDR
* I was strong enough to go to the police and make a report
* I am not as afraid to talk to men
* I use coping skills(tho i need to work harder at this)
* I stand up for myself
* I can get mad about what happened