The Collective Unconscious

This is how Nancy J. Napier, one of my favorite guides through the maze of child abuse spirituality, describes the Collective Unconscious, in her brilliant book: Getting Through the Day
"The existence of a collective unconscious was proposed by Carl Jung, the famed psychologist who originally was a student of Freud. According to Jung, within the collective unconscious are all the thoughts, feelings and accumulated experiences of humanity throughout time.
All of those who have healed, who have led full and vital lives, have contributed their consciousness to this collective. While we are compelled to be aware of our shared pain as human beings, we can also tap into our collective potential to heal and be whole. Every person who has come before you, and who has healed and moved beyond the confines of a hurtful childhood, has blazed a trail you can follow unconsciously. All the learnings and accomplishments of those who have healed already are available within your own unconscious and can guide you on your way. Also, it's important to realize that each time you make a choice to go deeper into your own healing you contribute something to the collective, as well. All who come after you draw unconsciously on your achievements.
An example of how the collective unconscious may be currently affecting those of us who were hurt as children is the recent emergence of people who are willing to publicize their victimization on television and in other media. At the same time, therapists have made available information that previously would have been found only in professional publications or at professional conferences. All of the public revelations and books demonstrate an important message: no matter what happened to you, or what strategies you used to get through those experiences, you are not alone.
It's as though a tide of awareness were sweeping through our collective unconscious. The increasing understanding of dissociative processes in childhood, supported by public revelations from people who have recovered memories in adulthood, has been tremendously freeing for people who suffered child abuse. It is helpful to be reminded of the fact there are people who have healed successfully. They demonstrate an important truth about what happens when there is abuse: the way you are today is the result of a reasonable response to an extraordinary and unreasonable situation, and there is a way to move out of an accommodation to trauma into new, more effective strategies.
Successfully facing a hurtful past isn't the only challenge where help from our shared, collective unconscious is useful. Those who have accomplished the journey of healing have faced the often frightening and uncomfortable experience of change.
They have answered for themselves the difficult question we all must confront when we choose to heal: What will I lose if I get better? What are the risks of becoming aware of my full self? What will change? Am I entitled to a different life? Will I know myself?
The thing to keep in mind as you ask yourself the many questions that must arise as you journey into healing is that you can draw on the wisdom others have found in their struggles with these important issues. Because of this collective wisdom, there is hope. Once any one person accomplishes something, it becomes possible for the rest of us."

Overachievment and Self Worth

I am an overachiever. When I don't achieve, I feel I don't exist. The grown up in me, who takes care of everything and makes everything go smoothly, I call the "Executive Me".
The Executive Me works overtime until being burned out and has no choice but let other parts of me manifest themselves -usually at the worst moment possible-.
The Executive Me has been created when my mother stopped caring for me, at the age of 2 or earlier. She was not equipped with a maternal instinct and my constant needs were bothering her. The Executive Me takes care of my survival tools and is very old and tired by now. The child in me usually shows up when I feel trapped or defenseless. I have a terrible conduct towards authority figures, especially if I sense they are less intelligent than myself.
I overachieve to validate myself. The Executive Me has done impressive things through the years: straight A student, learned 4 different languages fluently, lived in different countries on 2 continents, moved to the US and became a citizen, created a safe place for the child in me to manifest itself -a beautiful purple condo-, put myself through college while working and no debt! The Executive Me is impressive. While the Executive Me gets some rest, the rest of me moves so slowly, that I feel I don't exist or I'm dead. If I can't validate my existence through the things I do or create, I feel I don't deserve to be alive. My parents never cared about my achievements. They sabotaged me if they could. They taught me everyday of my life that I don't matter, that nothing of what I do will ever matter. I rebelled. I wanted to matter. I wanted to distance myself from them and show them that they don't matter. I had to learn to believe in myself. The bomb proof belief in myself stands in the Executive Me.
I wish I learned how to feel validated even outside of the Executive Me. It doesn't mean that the Executive Me should disappear. Only she should work less, allow the child in me to grow and catch up with the rest of me. I need to be able to trust my every part, if I want to evolve as a human being. If I trust myself enough to evolve, I would be able to help other do the same thing. I would be able to let others validate me, for a change. The Executive Me could provide the fuel for me to change the world.

Obsessive Compulsive Behavior

My favorite OCD trait is the "Rejection" game.
As I said repeatedly, my mother never loved me. She rejected me any chance she got. She was always busy with her vain ambitions. She pushed me aside any chance she got. She rejected any need of love and nurturing I ever had, calling it "bad behavior" and teaching me that "needy" people are not worth loving. This was a core belief that my mother instilled in me ever since I was a baby. "Never show feelings", "People with feelings are weak", "Feelings are disgusting" are some of her favorite sayings, that I adopted as my own.
She abandoned me with strangers. She allowed her pedophile, ex con, felon brother to babysit for me. She allowed my father to rape me at night, with the attitude: "better you than me". Than she would say nervously: "Every mother in the world loves her child", the conclusion to be drawn being: "Therefore, I, being your mother, love you". But her behavior towards me said otherwise. She was never there when I needed her. She always kept herself busy with some scheme that involved money, with the goal of filling whatever void there was in her soul.
She also complained a lot that I don't love her and I don't tell her my intimate secrets and that I don't trust her and that I'd rather trust strangers than her. -Strangers have always been kinder to me than her.- I never lied to her. She lied to me. I craved her attention, but she thought my behavior was bad and my ideas stupid. She criticized everything that I did as inappropriate or ridiculous. Than she would complain that I wouldn't share my intimate thoughts with her. See how this can be confusing for a child? She read my diary in hopes to discover dirty secrets. She was afraid that I was gonna tell the world the truth about our dysfunctional "family".
I try to make female friends and I overdo it. I buy expensive gifts, I try to impress them in a desperate attempt to show them how wonderful I am. I want them to be my mommy. Only most people find this behavior creepy. They soon are reluctant to be my friend, because they think I may have an ulterior motive to treat them so. So they REJECT me. They reinforce the idea that I am not worth loving. They do what my mother did, reinforcing the belief that I'm not worth being loved by any female. Actually, I know I do this to myself. I reinforce the rejection belief to show myself that mommy was right: feelings are bad. I know I don't need a mommy. I am a grown woman who can take care of herself, yet I try to make any girl that shows me signs of friendship, into a mommy, hoping to get unconditional love, support, appreciation. I keep doing this to myself, even though I know it's a destructive pattern.

To be married or not to be married

A girl like me has to choose wisely who she associates herself with. Relationships are not my best bet when it comes to survival. I don't have blue prints for affection and natural boundaries of any sort of social interaction. All I can do is work on myself and hope I make the best of what life throws at me. And this last part includes a lot of loneliness.
Then, a man walks into my life and makes me question all my previously instated coping skills. He is kind, supportive and loving. I know that because even when I fart, he chuckles and thinks it's cute.
He comes from a very loving family. He was sheltered all of his life and life with me looks much like a roller coaster from his perspective. He wants a family and marriage. As if this was not odd enough, I put him through every possible test for the past 3 and a half years of us being together. I even considered him to be clingy or have a dependence problem at a certain point. I also thought he may have started dating me to rebel against his proper family, to get attention: kind of "Look at me, I'm dating the broken girl, she has a past and the sex is great."
I don't care about his reasons for dating me. I know what I'm dating him for: intimacy. Learning to be intimate without sex and learning about society through him and with him. It's been a great ride. Even if it ends, I think I got my money's worth. Thing is: he may want to marry me. First reaction I had: the profound impulse to run away and hide and avoid the "forever" word. I met his parents and I know I'm not a favorite when it comes to family. I'm the bad girl, with emotional issues. I make it difficult for people to naturally like me outside sex.
If I will ever marry him, I will take it one day at a time. No forever. If he'll respect me on regular basis, I'll move on to confronting bigger obstacles. Until then, I won't sabotage myself and our relationship. I won't end it based on future intensely felt tensed life choices.
I owe it to myself, to let this relationship flow naturally, to the end or continuation of it. When I imagine the future I don't see all of it, I only see me. I don't see eventual skills I may achieve by then. I don't see escape doors and interesting growing opportunities that may arise with time and patience. I owe to myself to be patient with myself. I don't want to be like my mother and reject myself, not have time for my own problems, minimize my emotional world. I will take it one day at a time and honor each feeling as it comes. Even if it takes a lifetime. Time is all I have. I will spend the rest of my time nurturing myself. I won't nurture another person, unless it feels natural to do so. It's all about me till all is felt, all is lived, all is accomplished.
To marry or not to marry: I will, only if it feels right. I won't stop myself from living.

Brutal Convo with mom

Just finished a Skype conversation with my mother. She's the enabler in a 40 year codependent relationship with my alcoholic, pedophile father.
I told her in detail how her brother raped me for the first time when I was 5. He also tried to kill me by burying me in a ditch and putting stones on top of it, so that I couldn't come out of there. I also told her how about how my father raped me repeatedly since the age of 3.
Her response was that of a child. She denied my words, then she yelled and cried and asked me to stop telling her those things. She asked me to have pity. She said she couldn't handle any more of that. Like it was my fault. Like what I was telling her was the source of her pain, instead of the life she CHOSE to live with my father. She was begging me to stop as if I was truly hurting her. My words were hurting her. In the past, I would have believed that my words have some mysterious power that can hurt people and consequently, I must have had some mysterious power to hurt people. I gave up on that kind of thinking. No more magical powers. She chose me to be skape goat of her pain. She made me to be the bad guy, cause she can't face the effects of her life choices. She dumped her pain on me. How unfair is that? I carried her pain for all of these years. I missed out on life because of her.
She cried and told me to stop talking to her. She continued by telling me she wants to take her own life. She wants to kill herself rather than listen to my stories. My father walked in. I could hear him in the background talking shit about me: "She'll kill you one day." he was saying. He continued by insulting me. I didn't lose my nerve and called him a "pedophile" and a "drunk". She said that she doesn't want to talk about it, which is why she keeps herself busy. She also tried the routine of: "Why me, God? What have I done that is so terrible, to be punished this way?" She tried every strategy in the book: guilt me, ask the protection of the abuser until she eventually hung up on me. Before hanging up she made a deal: "Please don't tell me anything else for about a month." She wants time to process the new information I'd given her. I told her I haven't got time and that I think about the abuse every day. It impedes me from living my life. If she wants to be my friend, she'll have to listen to my stories. There's no way around it. Or she could choose to not talk at all and break all contact, which is also surprisingly fine with me.
She's never been a mother to me. I always have been a mother to her. I am also an only child. Even now, she tried to make me the bad guy, she tried to pin the guilt on me. She wants me to bail her out. She wants complete authority over me, so she can use me again against her master (my father). Now I know she never loved me. She never had it in her to love anyone. She never respected me. She never knew me and she was never interested to know me.
I asked: "What about my pain? When will it be my time to complain? When will I have the right to stand up and say something for myself? You never gave me a chance. It was always about you and your pain, moma. It was never about me. I was the sacrificial lamb. I know what you'll say: it's the Christian thing to do. You used Christ to put me down, to enslave me and abuse me. I'm sick of being Christ. I want truth. I want awareness. I want freedom from you. Let me go. I won't save you. I want to save myself."
I'm very emotional right now. She REJECTED me again. Every time I needed her, her response was a rejection. She never had time for my problems. My problems were always smaller than her own problems ( she was an older sister to me, not a mother). We first had to take care of her problems and never attend to mine. I was unimportant to her. That's why I can't have a friendship with a girl: cause the other person's problems are always more important than mine. I don't count. I make myself not to count. With Molly: she calls me any time she has a problem and I listen and hope that one day she'll recognize me as her best friend, but all I am is a door mat.
I AM AN ORPHAN WHO GREW UP RAISING HER PARENTS AS HER WEAK BROTHER AND SISTER, WHO ONLY GAVE ME PAIN AND SUFFERING IN RETURN FOR MY EFFORTS TO LOVE THEM AND PROTECT THEM. NO WONDER I DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANY KIDS.

letter to my unborn child

You have every right to be angry at me. Anger is a good, cleansing feeling. I'm too weak to face it. Strong feelings are like tsunami waves to me. I'll deal with them when I'm strong enough.
You wanted to be born. You wanted the end of eternity. You wanted life. I denied you that. I felt the weight of the guilt and tried to replace it with rational thoughts. I couldn't have you, knowing that my father could have abused you the same way he abused me. I couldn't have you, knowing that my mother would have tried to control you and maybe control me through you. I couldn't bare the abuse anymore. I couldn't give my family yet another upper hand. I wanted to be far away from them, on a different continent and free. Didn't really know what to do with the freedom once obtained. I sacrificed you for my freedom. I sacrificed unconditional love, bonding and support.
I was alone, no one to look out for me. I've been alone and lonely for too long. Maybe if I had had you, I would have abandoned you just like my mother abandoned me. Maybe I would have been a bad parent to you, just like I learned from my parents. I know that from where you are, you can't see these details. From where you're standing, nothing can excuse the denial of life. Life should be sacred and welcome. From your point of view, everything was worth sacrificing just so you'd have life. Be patient. Be wise. There is grandness in waiting.
I imagined the place you are coming from. It is timeless and without fear. Time is an awful thing. It moves against you. Change is frightening. But you can't tell, until you're actually alive. Before birth, your biggest ambition is to see the light of day.
Here, where I am, there is nothing but fear. I know all the reasons for I didn't have you. Now I want to forgive myself. I want silence and forgiveness. Will you forgive me, baby?

Oprah

An amazing show happened on Nov. 5th, 2010. Oprah gathered 200 men that have been sexually abused as children.
I cried my eyes out while listening to Tyler Perry recount how his father was beating him and he tried to dissociate and go to his safe place in his mind. He said his inner child died that day and never returned from the safe place. I can relate to that. My inner child is mute, deaf, angry and underground somewhere, buried. My inner child is a zombie or a lifeless ghost. I was left with the shame and guilt of what they have done to me. I want my child back. Please return to me!
My words cannot possibly be more descriptive than the show itself. So here's a link.

the pattern

I am a creature of habit. I love patterns. Never got an addiction because I actually already have my bad habits instilled in my DNA. When will my soul clear?
A depressive, fearful, rejection filled period is always ended with a bang, or a shocking event, to snap me out of my fear and back into survival mode, where I can defend myself with old tools. This time around I realize that my old tools are rusty and they don't work anymore, on the contrary, the more I try to use them the more they poison my life. I refuse to dissociate. I refuse to go back to amnesia. I refuse to forget about my inner child in order to cope with adult life.
May God help me be patient this time around! I don't want to put myself in danger anymore. This time I will learn new skills. I don't care how much it hurts, I don't care how long it takes. I won't go back to survival mode. I'll stick with the fear. I'll stick with the insecurity. I'll make the best of it. I'll be lonely for a while, but one day, the fog will dissipate and I'll be able to see clearly again. Maybe all I'm missing is a spiritual side. Maybe it's time to turn to God and make that leap of faith. Or maybe it's time for comedy. It is hilarious how detached I feel, how I don't have a core, how lost I am and noncommittal. I can't commit to anything, not even a damn addiction. I fight my urge to drink coffee desperate to control some aspect of my inner life. I talk crazy. I either enrage, or piss off people right off the bat. I'm either highly inappropriate, or bitterly sarcastic, which to me sounds simply hilarious. Too bad it's not funny to other people. People enjoy hating me, or simply making me invisible. I'm no charmer. I think I would be good material for a stalker, if only it wasn't that uncomfortable to sleep in the bushes.
This time around, I won't try to end my fear, my pain. I'll keep it and nurse it until it goes away. I'm not in danger anymore. I'll live with this awkward, hateble new me, until other people will accept me too. Thing is: I don't even care about being social anymore. It always ends with me either insulting someone, or creating some sort of freeze that could alienate even Mother Theresa.

No evil

IF I were to soothe the anguish of another person in trying times I would tell her:
Life throws things at you. Some of these things are ugly and some are down right horrifying. But they are nothing else than obstacles. There is no evil. There are only obstacles. The thing about obstacles is that once you pass them, you feel joy, or happiness. The bigger the obstacle, the bigger the joy.
When an obstacle looks impossible to surpass, you are too close to it. You need perspective, so step away from your obstacle. Do something else, preferably something you enjoy or you are good at. Then, return with fresh perspective and tools and tackle your obstacle again.
I had some awful obstacles growing up. My parents acted like my brother and sister and we were all orphans. They abused and tortured me and left me confused and half dead. As a result, I learned how to take care of myself at a very young age. I also forgot the misery they put me through. For a very long time. I couldn't remember any aspect of my childhood. I guess I was taking a step back from my obstacle. I did lots of other things during my complete amnesia. Then, when I was ready and had tools to cope, I remembered. Remembering was as tough as living those horrific events, I didn't want to get out of bed for about 4 years, I was a ghost with all life sucked out of her. Slowly, during the 4 dark years, I learned new things, new languages, new ways of handling my emotions. I could now tackle my obstacle and defend myself. I decided to stay away from those people. I needed to remember and resolve the problems, to move on with my life and grow into the person I want to be. I want to be proud of myself, of my accomplishments. I owe nothing to those parents, other than my life. I have many things to be proud of, and once I surpass this obstacle, so much joy and happiness will fill my heart. All of this happiness I worked hard for. The bigger the obstacle, the greater the joy of surpassing it.

letter to my mother

I hate my job, yet I continue doing it: I'm recreating a pattern. I relive the abuse in my mind to make myself vulnerable, to learn. This time I'm learning about myself. Everyday I drive to work I think about some memory, about talking to my mother or my father. It'll take time to think about all the damage they have done onto me. I'll have to stick with this work, until I'm done thinking about the abuse. The thinking has to be done so that I can move on. The day I'll quit, I will be reborn as a new, stronger me.
Today I thought about the following scenario: my retired mother is getting old and fears being alone and not taken care of. She tries to guilt me into moving to the old country and taking care of her. My response to her would be:
I have my own life to live. You had plenty of chances of being with me. You gave them all up. You never cared about me. You never knew I existed and those times you were aware of my existence, all you did was hate me. You lied to me too many times, while calling me a liar. You abused me and my trust and my love for you. I won't return to that. I choose to not believe you anymore. I choose to live my life instead of soothing your pain. You chose how to live your life. You wanted to be married to a monster. You loved him and protected him even when you knew it was wrong. I admire you for your strength. I won't judge you for your choices. I'm sure you have good reasons to have done the things you've done. I don't want to be part of it anymore. I'm not interested in saving you anymore. I know I promised to rescue you, it turns out you never wanted to be rescued. You don't even remember me. You keep saying you want the best for me, but how can you want that when you don't even know me? How would you know what the best is for a complete stranger? I am a stranger to you. You have no recollection of me as a child, of how fragile I was, of how you never had enough of a maternal instinct to defend me. Be lonely, cause that's what you picked for yourself. Live the consequences of your actions. I won't feel guilty for you anymore. I take my power back from you. I will love you cause you are my mother and you gave life to me, but I refuse to let you hurt me again. Be well!

Craving Love Essay

In my SIA group, somebody posted this essay:

Please don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature to me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give you the impression I'm secure and that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name, coolness my game, that water is calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me, please don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth, but my surface is a mask—my every varying and ever concealing mask. Beneath it dwells the real confusion, fear and aloneness. Beneath lies my smugness, my complacently, but I hide this—I don't want anyone to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That's why I frantically created a mask to hide behind— nonchalant sophisticated facades to help me pretend— to shield me from the glance that knows— but such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only salvation and I know it. That is if it's followed by acceptance. If it's followed by love, it's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self built prison walls and from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I cannot assure myself, that I'm really worth while, but I don't tell you this, I don't dare—I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me and you'll laugh and your laugh will kill me. I'm afraid that deep down, I'm nothing and that I'm just no good and that you'll see this and reject me.

So I play my game; my desperate pretending; with the facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering, but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front. I idle chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing and nothing of what's everything and what's crying within me.

So when I'm through going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying—what I'd like to be able to say, but for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.

I dislike hiding, honestly, I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the superficial phony game. I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me, you've got to hold out your hand, even when it's the last thing I seem to want or need.

You can help wipe away from my eyes—the blank stare of grieving dead. You can help call me into aliveness each time you're kind, gentle and encouraging. Each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.

If you choose to, please choose to. You can help break down the wall behind which I tremble. You can encourage me to remove my mask. You can help release me from my shadowed world of panic and uncertainty. From my lonely prison.

So do not pass me by— please don't pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A lone conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.

It's irrational, but despite what books say about man, I am irrational, I fight against the very things that I cry out for, but I am told love is stronger than strong walls. In this lies my hope, my only hope, please help beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands—for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every women you meet.

- Charles C. Finn

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.

Looking Back

Looking back at my childhood, I realize I got gypped. Childhood is the only moment in your life when ignorance is chief and is accepted as a source of absolute happiness. The child explores the universe with honest candor and without negative intentions (aka anger). I was forced to learn. My ignorance was taken advantage of. I didn't know anything about human sexuality, but I was forced to learn. Therefore, I associated learning with pain. I never had the pure bliss of ignorance and that's where I got gypped. As an adult, it's too late to claim my ignorance: I know too much about the world, I'm too afraid to explore, I'm too old to be brave. Knowledge is pain. Ignorance is bliss.
This state of things is far from being fare, but it's my lot in life. I wonder what should I do with this lot?
The hardest part of my childhood being taken away from me is that I never accepted my vulnerability. To this day I find it difficult and have to rationalize my need of giving love to others. To this day I follow the pattern of giving my heart unconditionally, before asking anything in return, before learning about the person I give my heart to. It's like I'm inviting people to abuse me: "I will love you now, if you'll love me later". In my own way, I'm mimicking the ignorance of a child, hoping that this time, the outcome would be a happy one and settle down the conflicts in my heart. I should be the adult. I should grow up and take the necessary precautions, and learn the necessary socially accepted behaviors when it comes to giving. It's time for me to accept I was wrong. It's time for me to accept I got gypped. It's time for me to accept I was the fool. It's time for me to accept the humiliation. It's time for me to cry for my dead childhood. It's time for me to move on.
I should learn that the love and respect from others doesn't ever come unconditionally, but I must work for it. Giving mine so they'll give me theirs can't work. I should find what I'm good at and do that. I should find my purpose in life and follow that thread until I won't need to beg for love and attention, but it shall be given to me.

Inner child

I kept reading about this inner child that needs to express its feelings about the abuse. The more I read, the more I realize my entire persona is being taken over by my inner child. I react like a child to most events around me. I'm fearful, socially awkward and I literally have an anxiety attack every time I'm in public. I don't know how to joke, my mind draws a blank even during the most basic conversations.
I spend a lot of time in the house, by myself. I work weekends and during the week I do chores around the house, because repetitive actions make me feel safe and allow me to reorganize my mind. I can't sit still, unless I lay on the sofa, playing some game on an ipod. I also play a lot of computer games, wasting time, rather than take care of my "to do" list. Then I feel guilty for having wasted that time and I pick a fight with my partner, to feel important, or to lecture him about something.
My inner child wants to play a lot and doesn't care much about my grown-up needs. My inner child wants to be on vacation forever, while the adult me is worried about not having a retirement plan, about not finding a better job than the shitty one I currently have. My inner child wants to eat chocolate and candy, while the adult me is worried about my cholesterol levels and the weight I've gained. My inner child refuses to work, search for a job or even think about handling rejection in a responsible way. The adult me knows that this situation can't last forever.
I'm trying to jump start my life. I'm trying to apply to grad school and feel already defeated because I'm facing some obstacles in obtaining recommendation letters. I worry about taxes I can't afford to pay and the mere idea of having to organize myself in order to apply for financial aid, makes me want to spin in circles and sing nursery rhymes, while my mind settles for a safe spot. I'm tempted to hate my inner child. I know I should be patient and nurse it back to health so that I can move on with my life in a safe way, but how long will it take? How long should I parent this child for? When will I be free to make some adult choices? I need to be active again. I have nightmares about not being successful enough and I can't bare the idea of being a loser. I've always been an overachiever. Am I missing out on life to sort out my childhood demons? I'm envious of my partner because he has a great job and makes enough money.
I drink coffee and my mind races through the maze of my daily routine. My inner child is bored and completely uninterested by all this grown-up talk.
I feel like the adult self should know better and pick up the inner child and move on to a better place where both the adult and the child can feel safe in a natural coexistence. But where is that place? What do I need to get there?

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?

Catching up with myself

I have been avoiding finding new memories about my abuse for a long time. I know I must heal before I move on with my life. I call it "catching up with myself". I need to go through all of it, until there's no bad left over feeling from that abuse.
I realized that if I wake up with an alarm clock, abruptly, I feel angry and direct my anger towards my father or uncle, in the shape of revenge fantasies. Sometimes I even take it on my mother, the silent partner. Waking up abruptly makes me angry. So I avoided waking up abruptly for a while. My sleep patterns are all over the place, as a result. Thank God I can afford that!
When memories come up to my conscious mind, they bring up all sorts of feelings, even good ones. I'm learning to accept them, to categorize them. I'm learning about myself. It turns out, I'm a fascinatingly complicated person. I can't even describe myself in one seating. There's so much about me, so many details, so much strength about certain aspects of my life, so much frailty about certain other aspects. I wonder what I would have been like if the abuse never happened to me. I wonder if there is a parallel universe, in which I am perfect. I wonder where my inner strength and dignity would have taken me, if I didn't have to use it all on defending myself, tragically being left without defense at the will of the elements, by the age of 29. Would I have been a mother? Would I have been a doctor, like I always dreamed, although the sight of blood makes me weak in the knees? I wonder what I could be if I heal. How can I better distribute my left over energies? How can I better take care of myself and forward my life at the same time? How can I integrate the abused child in my future self?

Crying in Dreams

I have very realistic dreams in regards to my family. I also cry in my sleep. I cry from the heart, with passion, my sadness fueling the tears. Breathing tightens and my crying is like the universal flood.
I dreamt my father, who was still fat and harassing me and I was immensely sad. I have a problem expressing sadness. I can only cry in quiet, alone moments, when I feel safe and away from everybody.-the mere fact that I need to feel safe in order to cry shows my inability to ask people for help-. For once I'd like to be encouraged to cry by someone I trust. Of course I could only trust an evolved human being, deeply connected to her own nature by instinct: a mother figure. The universal mother. The mother I never had.
I learned that difficulty in identifying one's emotions is called alexithymia. It has a name! Knowing that enough people have this problem, in order for science to come up with a name for it doesn't bring me any solace. There are 7 billion of us on this Earth. Numbers are bound to be great.
Will I ever feel protected? Will I ever feel important and safe outside of my own input? Will I ever feel safe enough to cry in front of someone and express my ocean of sadness left into my soul by my family's actions? Will this ocean of sadness, ever go dry? What should my healing process be motivated by? What's the ultimate goal, the ultimate image I must aspire to in order to feel healed? Is there a goal, or is this an ever growing ordeal, as long as life itself?

Dear Mother,

I wish you would have loved me. Not a lot, just a little bit. Make me feel wanted in your life and all.
I remember how you played with me as a baby. My whole world lit up at your smile. Then, I stopped being interesting for you. Was it because I looked too much like my father? Was it because I reminded you of him? Was that why you were beating me for no reason, with a belt, leaving welts into my skin? You took one look at me, you saw him, the abuser, the man who raped you repeatedly every night, out of every week, out of every month for 30 years of marriage, drunk and smelly (FYI: you could have left him!). Or was it because you were too busy to keep him interested, you figured you could abandon me.
Now you come to me and you ask for things. Mostly, you want me to be closer to you. Ironic request! For so many years you rejected me, after calling me names and a lier, when you were the one lying to yourself and the world. You always complained you didn't have access to my life. It's because you weren't interested. I was always honest with you, only you couldn't notice the honesty. You couldn't accept the honesty. You always thought I was hiding something, until I started believing that myself. Eventually, I realized all that I was hiding was the abuse. Father abused me at night. You abused me during the day. You never accepted me for who I was. You never gave me a chance. Why this sudden interest in me being closer to you? It's kind of shocking, after all these years when you couldn't care less.
The relationship I had with you translates into every relationship I ever had with female friends. Since you only taught me mistrust, that's the best I can do. I now need to move forward. Let me go! I need to have sane, routine, steady friendships. I can't keep begging for your love. I can't keep clinging on every female friend I got: "will you be my mommy?" I need to be functional, and for that, I accept the fact that you never loved me, you never will. I'm an orphan. I was not blessed with a mother and I'll do my best to have functional friendships with people, without trying to fulfill old needs. Those needs were not fulfilled at their time, now it's too late and I got new needs to think of. Sometimes you're lucky and get what you want. Sometimes you got to cut your losses to move on.
This is what I'm doing, mother: I'm cutting my losses. I'm cutting you out of my life. For good!

Father's figure

Many of the self help group people advise to believe in a Higher Power. Have faith. The Higher Power loves you. And it may be true.
It's just this blind act of having faith that I don't trust. I had faith before, in the greatness of the Higher Power. Look where it got me: my father abused me and told me I was a sinner.
Incidentally, my father believes in a Higher Power. He goes to church every Sunday, he fasts and he keeps every Christian holiday as if it were his last.
Now, forgive me if I don't care to worship the same Higher Power that he worships. I look like my father and I hate those biological traits that I share with him. All my life I wanted to be so different from him, to convince myself that him and I have nothing in common. I evolved as a species, I got smarter, I refuse to have anything in common with that man. Yet, every time I look in the mirror, I remember him. I am his daughter. I am trapped. In hell. With my father. And a long time ago, I desperately wanted him to love me and stop hurting me. Why is this Higher Power so cruel? Where do I find the strength to have that blind faith? I have fear, not faith. I have fear of my father. I have fear that other "worthy" men, may hurt me. I have fear that this Higher Power is as elusive as the love I never received from my father. I can't have faith. Too busy defending myself. Am I becoming like my father in that respect?
Because all of us are worthy in the eyes of the higher power. Even my father. Is there a chance that my soul will meet his again? I hope not. His soul sucks.

worth

She said: "It boils down to: you have a right to exist!"...
Then, she continued to enumerate ways in which I should love myself every day. She told me I should take care of myself, be attentive to my needs and concluded with: "You are worthy!"
Powerful words: I'm worthy!
The only problem with these words is that: I don't know what they mean. Worthy of what? On what scale of things? Am I worthier than a criminal or a normal person? Does my past entitles me to some life goods that I am not aware of? Or are we all equally worthy, just in different ways?
I give a lot of attention to myself, ever since I started working on my emotionally crippled soul. I fear that all the love I can give myself, will never replace the love I don't receive from others. What do I expect from others, anyway? What does it feel like to be loved/accepted? Does it feel like ice cream on a hot day, or does it feel as overwhelming as hate, only in the positive way? Ultimately, aren't we all looking for love, abused or normal people? Aren't we, the abused ones, competing for love with the normal people?
A lot of anger and hate came out of me lately and sometimes I fear I could never offer anything in return for love. I also fear that people could realize how mean I can be, with my snappy come backs ( that, I personally think, are hilarious). I don't know how to fit in my victim past with my day to day functional self. There are many gaps in my personality. One moment I can be invincible, and the next I could crumble into pieces, because most of life is new to me. I'm living everything for the first time. With emotions. Much like a baby, it feels like I was born yesterday. My fragile self mixes in with the survivor self, who knows how to pull through hard times and is too wise for its own good.