Inner child work

A girl in my group mentioned how she thinks of her inner child as a child of her own. That helped me think of my big eyed runt of an inner child.
Her face is dirty and streams of tears are running to her chin. Her clothes are dusty from staying in a ditch, waiting for her death or absolution of some kind. She's angry and mute. Why does it have to end like this? She had no choice. She's too small. She couldn't defend herself. She must be stupid if she ended up in this ditch. She can't even climb out. Bad uncle put wood and rocks on top of the ditch, so she couldn't get out. She's hungry, but she doesn't want to think of hunger at a moment like this. She'd rather think about her mommy. How pretty mommy is! How mommy's house smells nice and everything is sparkling clean! How far away mommy is and how she abandoned her to uncle. Mommy will never know how she died. By the time she'll get the news of the child's death, they will have cleaned and put her into nice clothes and she'll probably be in a nice coffin. Mommy will never know how the runt died. Will mommy cry? Will mommy feel guilty for her death. Mommy never felt guilty. Mommy didn't care about daddy doing those things to her. Why would mommy care about her death? If anything, mommy will feel relieved that she has her life back, that she doesn't have to be responsible anymore. Mommy liked to party, to dress nicely, to entertain. Mommy didn't like to be a mommy. The child felt guilty for being born. Mommy even told her: "You're a curse!"
Maybe she should survive this just to spite mommy. Maybe she should gather the life left into her small, naked, shaking body and survive. The little red dress that fit her so well and that she loved because it twirled, was now full of dust, on the ground. The white underwear with Tuesday printed on it, was now full of blood. It was a summer day, but it was cold under ground.
Uncle opened the ditch and pulled her out. Uncle washed her shaking body. Grandma came home and she told on uncle. Grandma told her not to repeat those words, cause they're shameful. Uncle caught her later and twisted her ear, because she told on him. A regular evening followed. The universe continued its course, as if nothing ever happened. Mommy will never know. Just like mommy never knew about daddy. The child put her head on a giant pillow and cried silently before she went into a dark, coma like sleep.

Middle School Religion

I must have been about 13, in middle school, when this lady showed up in our classroom. She was in her thirties, pretty, slim, big blue eyes. She was to teach us religion. I don't know what exactly qualified her for that particular position, since I don't remember her to even be a teacher. Maybe she was known to be a devout Catholic or who knows?
Thing is, she went through the routine about God, Jesus and the Holy Crap. Someone asked her what made her be so infuriatingly sure about the existence of God. What prompted her to come to us and tell us these stories? Was she securing herself a place in Heaven, by teaching us the way, by converting our dirty souls to good morals and such?
Here's her answer, and I'm not making this up:
One day she was walking down the street. A man started following her. She didn't know this man, she sped up her pace. Eventually she lost him in the crowd. The next day, this man was following her again. This routine continued, until one day the man approached her and declared his non Christian feelings for her. Oddly enough, her reaction was not run-as-fast-as-you-can-while-screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs, which, given the circumstances, would have been the appropriate reaction. Instead, she prayed to Jesus the man would leave her alone. I guess she must have thought she qualified for sainthood or something. The saint of saying "No" to a stalker. She continued her story with more of that struggle between the stranger and herself. I don't remember once thinking of Jesus, or being more attracted to religion throughout her story. I do remember, however, wondering if this kind of story was appropriate for a 13 years old audience. I liked the gal unconditionally at that point. She literally prayed God not to let her cheat on her husband. She was punishing herself for adulterous thoughts. That time was the last time she showed for religion class. I like to believe she caught on with herself and understood the magnitude of her statements and was too ashamed to show her face again, like a good Catholic school girl.
Looking back: repressed sexuality will do more damage than an army of demons.

Father's mother

She was my paternal grandmother. I must have seen her 5 times in all of my life. She died when I was about 8 (around the time my father stopped abusing me). I remember she smelled bad. She didn't keep a clean house. There was a wooden door at the end of hallway. She opened it and walked inside a small pantry that smelled like mould. A small light bulb that illuminated with a slightly bluish color showed what else was to be found in the pantry: cheese, herbs, big canisters, barrels and lots of spider webs. She took a pitcher full of a vodka-like alcohol and brought it into the house for my father. I begged her not to give him to drink anymore. He was already drunk and he was very mean when he was drunk. She laughed at me. My father abused me that night and the next morning, in a bed not far from the room she was sleeping in, which made me wonder if she knew and didn't stop him, or if she simply didn't care.
Before she died, she fell out of a tree and broke her spine and she was paralyzed for a year or so. She thought I was the devil and didn't want to speak to me, because I had probably told her what her son was doing to me. In her village, legend said she was into witchcraft. My father called women he was afraid of "witches". His mother probably didn't defend him from the fury his own father unleashed on him as a child. His father was very abusive and another legend has it that he slept with his oldest daughter and impregnated her, which is why she had to marry when she was only 15. My father's father died when I was 12. My father was very fake and fearful around him, acting like a 5 year old.

Inward

When a child is born, rest must follow. The mother and the newborn must be cozy and comfortable and the world must become a stable place where the baby can grow and explore without danger.
I never had that. My father beat my mother during her pregnancy. She actually spent the last 2 months in the hospital, for fear of losing the baby (me). When she came home, father was convinced the baby was not his and beat her again. My mother gave me to my Grandma, at 6 months and I stayed there without almost seeing my parents for 3 years. Then, one day, they showed up and took me away from the safety I knew at Grandma's. They took me to the hell hole they called a home. My father started abusing me when I started kindergarden (around the age of 3). He was a demented sociopath, drunk most of the time, telling me how I was stupid because I let him take advantage of me, as if we were equals, as if I had a choice.
Now, I find my life to be a safe place. I'm not used to this. I'm waiting for something evil to happen out of nowhere. I'm anxious and socially awkward. Oddly enough, the depth of my being feels like a newborn: I don't know anything and everything around me is new and scary. Thing is, this time, I can enjoy it. This time I can feel cozy for a while, get bored with the stability, explore the world around me in a safe way. I need to learn what safety feels like, so that I can reproduce it later for my kids. There will be plenty of times for me to take chances and live adventurously, in the future. Now, I just want to curl onto myself and sleep in a corner of my soul, where it's cozy and no one can hurt me. I feel like an egg that hasn't hatched yet. I can take my time and come out only when I'm ready. Let's just hope I'm not only repeating a pattern.

Cip

I went to camp when I was abut 15 and memories were trying to come to my conscious mind, but I didn't have the tools to cope yet, the language to express the pain, the support I needed for such a trauma to resurface. As a result, I repressed all sexual desire from my hormone ridden teenage body, constraining myself and any sexual thought my mind would try to concoct.
I tried religion for a while, but I had a big problem with the suspension of reason. Blind faith never really worked for me, plus I could see through the cracks of church dogma and although I couldn't remember the abuse, I knew better than to blindly trust someone.
At camp, I met this boy, my age, named Cip. He had big green eyes. He was missing one front tooth. He lost it in a fight and he was wearing the gap as spoils of war. He was not ugly, although his friends continuously told him he looked that a monkey's behind. He literally crashed the camp, lodging with a friend who was attending that camp. He slept on the floor of that friend's cabin for 3 days. That sounded heroic and dangerous to me. I liked him immediately. We met on the dance floor, at the camp's disco, where I went with my girlfriends. I was dancing by myself, because my friends didn't want to dance. He saw me and started dancing with me. I spent the night on the beach with him and watched the sun rise from the sea. We didn't sleep together, we mainly talked and eventually we kissed. He was very sweet and sort of a mama's boy underneath this "tough guy" persona his friends saw. He had a hard on the entire night and told me jokingly that he'll die for lack of blood to his brain, but he didn't force himself onto me. He was funny and cool to hang out with.
He asked me to sleep a few hours with him on his friend's floor, in a sleeping bag. I accepted because i didn't know how to say no. I had no boundaries. We didn't have sex, we just slept, and that was nice for me.
Later in the year, he came to my home town with his 2 friends, to visit. They all slept in my room. My mother actually was cool for once and allowed them in, no questions asked and even fed them some food. That night he showed me his private parts and I pretended I never saw one before. It was a very playful thing, no guilt, just plain normal discovering each other. We haven't stayed in touch, but he recently found me on facebook. He's all grown up, yet still a very pleasant person to talk to. Still a nice guy I'll always remember dearly.

Shame

I was between 8 and 11 years old, when I reenacted some of the sexual abuse done onto me by both father and uncle.
I was on my summer vacation, at Grandma's and asked all the other little girls that we all pee in a circle, so that I could see their private parts and compare them to mine. I knew mine was broken and wondered if it was different than other little girl's parts. I also took my cousin to the lake and touched her down there to find out if she was different than me. She was. I could put fingers inside me, I couldn't put fingers inside her. I also showed my private parts to 2 little boys, hoping I could share my secret with them. They laughed at me. Their reaction got me very upset, cause father and uncle had told me, that's all boys want: to touch girls down there. It wasn't true. Both my father and uncle were liars.
One of the little boys saw how upset I was and held tight the other boy, for me to punch. I hit him with anger only to notice that hurting him wasn't satisfying at all. I really wanted to hurt father and uncle, not that little boy who simply didn't know any better than laugh at a little girl's private parts. That was a normal reaction at his age. Only I had trouble recognizing normal. Later that day, the boy's grandma came with him to our door and I had to apologize for the harm done mainly to his face. I felt ashamed when I saw the bruises.
I met that boy again when I was about 15 years old and I held his hand and we caressed each other, and kissed, but I think he was still afraid of me. I also met some of the little girls when they were teens and totally alienated from me.
I left that country behind in shame. I carried the shame of father and uncle on my shoulders, without having the chance of explaining to those little girls, that I wasn't trying to hurt them, I just wanted to know how different I was after the harm done to me. I never meant to hurt that little boy either, I merely wanted to know if all boys were like father and uncle.
Ultimately, I was ashamed of the fact that I let father and uncle take advantage of me. I was ashamed of the fact that I couldn't defend myself, that I had no power. I imagined that other kids must have been smarter and stronger than me because they didn't let their father and uncle take advantage of them. I thought I was a failure and I was ashamed of that.

The Jedi

The one thing I still cannot accept fully is that I was powerless when the abuse happened. "Powerless" is a word I don't like. It implies humiliation, humbling. I don't like to be humiliated.
I remember times in my life when I overcompensated by controlling a situation to the extent of destruction. Why can't I accept I was a toy, the abuse not being about me, but about my Father? He was playing out his monsters. It wasn't about me. Maybe, if he would have made an effort to know me, he could have liked me. But this kind of thinking got me in trouble numerous times. I tried to make him like me: I've been submissive to him, I rebelled. Nothing worked. He simply couldn't see me. All he could see was his own pain and in the process, he was teaching me that same isolation he was stuck in. He was transfering the monster to me. He taught me to hide, to lye, to build up walls against the world. I am not him. I am not like him. I am not like everybody else either. I am trapped in between two worlds that I cannot master the secrets of. I don't want to be on the dark side. I also don't want to be like everybody else.
Luke, the force is strong with you! Darth Vader is your father. (for those who don't know George Lucas, this is a Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back, reference). Ironically, just like Darth Vader asked Luke to join him on the Dark side, so my Father asked me to join him in his sin. I remember one time when I shoplifted (I was a teen) and I got caught. The mall security called my Father. He paid the stolen items. He never complained about that incident. He only hugged me. He recognized me as his daughter. For the first time ever, he connected with me and helped me. I followed up that minor rebellion act by becoming a stripper. He never complained about my bad habits. I was more and more doing what he taught me. He was recongnizing his legacy in me. I was destroying my life and the more I was destroying it, the more my Father accepted me. Until, one day, I realized I didn't need this kind of acceptance and love in my life. I survived without it as a child. Now, as a grown up, I could take the chance of becoming a good person. I could train to become a Jedi. But this possibility opened up a whole new endless universe of unknown rules, fear of the unknown. I was illequipped to face it. I did not have enough energy, cause I spent most of it hurting myself and hating the world, I did not have enough courage, cause I was at the end of my survival battle. I could not go back to the bad habits and reverse the epiphany. I could only go forward. Blindly. With no Yoda to guide my steps. With no training other than the truth in my heart, which was so small and disconnected from the rest of me, that I could barely hear its weak voice. No I had to show what I was made of. What was I made of, anyway? What's my basic structure? Am I hero material? Am I a Joe nobody? How should I act? There is no expression of myself until I know who myself is. Will I ever become a Jedi?

My turn to grieve

Father took me with him on a trip. He sat me in the front seat of his green car. He molested me with his hand. I was ashamed and worried that people might see inside the car. He didn't care. I was just an object for his pleasure.
I was at my grandma's in the country. I thought my parents abandoned me, forgot about me and I was trying to get used to the idea of what it would be like to live without parents. It wasn't so bad, only my uncle showed up and abused me in the cellar. He locked me in there for hours. I was afraid I was going to die. That's when I decided I was not going to be buried when I died, cause it was very said, dark and lonely and it smelled like damp dirt and mildew. It was a relief when my parents showed up and started fighting over me. I felt special. They were asking me: "Who do you love most?" And I thought about it and I found wise to say: "I love you both equally", cause I didn't like the confrontation. I actually thought they cared about this. It was only banter. My father wanted to show mother that I loved him more. He wanted to justify the abuse. He thought that I loved him more, because he was molesting me. I must have been about 5 years old that summer. They took me from Grandma's and we went to the beach. I was so happy and grateful. Only that my father told me I was supposed to pay for that happiness. The payment was supposed to be sex, of course. Mother was shopping. He took me to the man's bathroom with him. He made me perform oral sex on him and then he said he was feeling good, liberated. It didn't matter how I felt. I was only there to make him feel good. The truth is I was feeling sad, ashamed, with no hope. I was losing my dignity, which was the most important thing to me. I learned to never be happy again. I learned to never show when I was happy. I learned to never show any feeling ever again. I started singing a lot. I would sing anything I could hear on the radio, in order not to reveal that I might feel anxious, or sad, or fearful, or even happy. I was scared my father could guess my state of mind and make me pay for it. Only now I know it didn't depend on me. He was a psycopath.
Now, writing this blog, I feel that it's finally my turn to show my feelings. It's my turn to be sad. I'm safe enough. I can cry. No one has ever had patience for me and my feelings. At least now, I can show them to myself and grieve.

Authority and Respect

I treat authority one of two ways: complete submission, or hateful envy. There is no middle ground. It's either: "I succumb to you, oh powerful one; do what you wish with me!" or "You've got to be evil to be this successful, I hate you and I really want to be you!". Neither of these situations brings any solace to my already very conflicted soul.
My treating authority in these extreme perspectives comes from the abuse, of course.
My father started abusing me when I was 3 years old. He got me out of kindergarden early one day. He took me home and with a fake sweet voice that I had never heard before, asked me about my day and more specifically: what games did I play in class. I was so excited that, finally, this all mighty man was giving me some attention, that I involved every mental muscle I possessed at the time, to explain a game we played, called: Guess the taste. The game involved a blindfold, and guessing a few distinct foods: an apple, salt, sugar and bread. My father blindfolded me and made me taste something completely new and different, that I couldn't guess what it was, but it smelled bad. I started crying. I was scared. I sensed that the game my father was playing was a lot more dangerous than I had expected. My father told me I was dumb, cause I couldn't guess what he had put in my mouth. And I felt dumb: I felt dumb for not foreseeing that he was going to humiliate me. I felt dumb and upset at myself, for not standing up to him. That was the very first time I knew I couldn't trust my Father. That was the very first time my soul was overwhelmed by sadness.
My father was the supreme authority in our household. He made sure we knew this while he was drunk and violent. He taught me fear. He taught me doubt. I felt completely helpless. As an adult, I am duplicating that experience in the way I treat authority at work and elsewhere.
There were times when I got angry at my father. I rebelled. I hated him and wished him dead. That translates in the other way I perceive authority: hate and anger.
I wish I had the experience where I could learn to respect authority, without feeling threatened, without sexualizing the whole thing. I wish I was more secure, and grounded, have one center that I know is truthful and it's me at the same time. I wish I could have this center as a point of reference when I judge authority and evaluate it, without diminishing myself, or without snapping with anger.

Toxic mother

I hate my mother. Not only was she an enabler of my alcoholic, pedophile father, but also she is one of the meanest, angriest people I know. Her favorite thing to do is gossip. She has been abusive to her parents and she has been abusive to me in order to undo some of the damage my father was doing to her, as part of their highly codependent relationship.
Recently, my boyfriend of 3 years moved in with me. He brought along some of his belongings that I verbally attacked. I surprised myself by sounding exactly like my mother. I didn't like his belongings and bullied him into putting them in storage.
Thinking about how I yelled at him, I realized I was recreating an episode I lived with my mother about twenty years ago.
I was about 12 years old when my mother redecorated the house and promised me she would allow me to decorate my own room. It was a short lived joy. Not only she picked the color blue for the walls and bought exactly the furniture she liked without even asking me about it, but also she rearranged all of my belongings in the most idiotic way, according to colors and shapes, making it very difficult for me to be functional in that room. It was as if she was informing me that the room was part of her house, and I was only a temporary guest. The room was not mine, could no be mine, because she bought it and she bought everything inside it. I was to be grateful to her for the kindness she was showing by letting me live in that room. It didn't matter if I was uncomfortable at all times and in order to do my homework at a small desk, I had to jump over a bed which was really a couch that opened into a bed. It didn't matter that the couch-bed didn't really have a mattress and I would wake up with the couch's pattern stamped on my back. It didn't matter if, in order to reach the books I needed to read, I had to go fetch a ladder, because she wanted her china figurines eye level, on the lower shelves, where people who'd visit the house could see them. These were only a few of the signs of her lack of love towards me. Others were daily beatings with a belt, for nothing other than imagined wrongs I could have done and that mostly depended on her state of mind. Sometimes she would come from work angry and beat me for no reason at all, silently and with hate in her eyes. I asked her many times why didn't she love me. She would cry and call me ungrateful. She would make me feel bad because I asked such a thing and would say things like: "every mother in the world loves her child.", as if I were to accept that slogan as a self evident truth and should never question her again.
Even as an adult she would say to me: "You're arrogant, you're out of my control again. Enjoy while it lasts!" as if she would promise me to soon control me again. It was as if I would have to cancel my personality, myself and everything I knew, in order to succumb to her whims and guilt trips and manipulative words.
Eventually I realized I am smarter than her, younger and a lot braver, simply because I refuse to live the lie she sold to me for a family life.
About my boyfriend moving in: I'm sorry I yelled at him and forced him to put his things in storage. What I was really angry at, was my mother and his move in simply triggered that memory of her. It never ends.

The Gordian Knot

My uncle died of liver cancer, having been a drunk for most of his life. I got pregnant with the help of a man I hardly knew and had an abortion that left me emotionally crippled.
The news of my uncle's death, together with the shame and guilt of the abortion, brought up a number of dreams and flashbacks of the incest. I could finally remember, but I was not ready to process.
Of course, throughout my life I felt like an alien, an intruder to people's lives. I felt like a weirdo, so painfully different, yet I couldn't put my finger on what the difference between me and others really was. I was a girl, with two eyes, one nose, two arms, two legs. I had reasonable moral standards, only lying occasionally and to the purpose of self defense. I never purposely hurt anybody and yet I could never make friends. People seemed to take me either for a doormat, or an arrogant bitch. No one has ever found a redeeming quality about me, or something they could really care about. Consequently, I turned to sex, to fill the void and feel less lonely.
I could never explain these things about me, until I finally remembered. And oh, did I remember! Everything sprung upon me like a jack in the box, everywhere I would turn, every little action I would do, would trigger a new and more painful memory. At times I wished I could forget again. I wished it to stop. I remembered and relived the pain of the incest a thousand times over.