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HEALING TAKES TIME

My healing process did not begin until after I moved away from Mel.  I am not mentioning the healing I had to do from the other men, as that is all inclusive.  I did not begin to heal at all until I moved to Florida to be with my Dad.  

I still did not know I had been abused.  I moved back to the US from England on the 4th of July 1995.  That is Independence Day for me for my own personal reasons now.  It wasn't until  late November of that year did it dawn on me that I was abused. 

I was taking a HRS course for child day care.  We were on the unit that dealt with child abuse, how to recognize it, the different types, and what to do about it. 

I first realized that I had been emotionally abused.  It was a big shock to me.  I couldn't believe it!  That was a big step.  I was abused.  He had no right to treat my emotions like that.  That was the first step.

Then came the big blow.  He sexually abused me too.  After my first realization sunk in, I really began thinking and evaluating what he had done to me.  Finally I couldn't deny it anymore, he sexually abused me.  But even admitting this to myself, I still thought it was still somehow my fault.  After all, I let it go on didn't I?  I went to him willingly at times. 

I refused to go to any kind of counseling at first.  It took me almost a year to go to one.  I went through some very, very rough times. 

I couldn't sleep at night.  Not to mention Mel was coming to visit at Christmas, and I couldn't do anything about it.  I couldn't confront him, I didn't want anyone to know.  It was bad enough that I had told my dad.  I was very ashamed.  I swore him to secrecy.  I did not want my family to know.  I didn't even want to know. The whole time Mel was here I was a wreck, not to mention the days before he arrived.  I could not sleep, I could not really eat.  I cried through the night.  I ended up sleeping on the end of my dad's bed, curled in a ball.  It was the only place I felt safe.

I was very happy when he left.  Although I continued to talk to him on the phone.  It was still months away before I could break all contact.

I felt guilty for feeling the way I did, after all didn't he help raise me for 11 years of my life.  How could I suddenly not want any contact with him?  How could I betray him?  All these thoughts went through my mind.

Still I refused help.  I was determined to get through this on my own.  It didn't seem to matter to me that I couldn't sleep through the night, that I would cry myself to sleep.  It didn't matter that I was not 100% there.  I convinced myself, and others that I was.

I was having panic attacks, although I didn't identify them as such until much later.  I couldn't go out some days.  Hiding in the closet, crying myself to sleep was one of my lowest points.  

I went like this for months.  I didn't get help until I went to the University of Miami.  I finally admitted that I needed help.  It was a painful thing to admit that I needed help, it also meant that I had to tell more people.  Breaking the silence was the hardest thing to do.

I did go to therapy both individual and group. I think that was one of the toughest times in my life.  I hated group therapy.  I was not one for talking in groups, especially about the now most hated part of me.  I couldn't identify with the others in the group. There were only three of us, and the other two were at the point of concluding their time in therapy. Memories were stirred up and I couldn't talk about it, I couldn't release them. I would often come home crying and depressed.  Mary knowing how I would be, would call me after these sessions.  There were times I couldn't even pick up the phone.  Fortunately for me, Mary was persistent, and called until I picked up the phone or called her back.  She knew that it was not good for me to crawl back inside myself.

Eventually our small group broke up.  We were all at different stages in our healing, and I had the most to go.  I was not prepared to join another group as I found this one so unproductive for me. For me the sexual abuse was my biggest issue as it was for them. I was having a more difficult time dealing with the emotional abuse. Looking back, I was not at a stage for group therapy, at least not the one I was in. I wanted to tell the others to suck it up and deal, for what they went through seemed like a walk in the park comparatively. I knew my thinking was wrong, abuse in any form has an effect, but I couldn't help how I felt. 

I also stopped going to my personal therapist.  I just couldn't deal with it anymore, I seemed to be going nowhere dragging up all these emotions, all these memories. There were questions I just could not seem to ask.  My sessions didn't seem to be dealing with what I really needed. We focused on the relationship with my mother a lot. I couldn't understand it. I was here for what Mel had done to me. I didn't see the connection. I didn't want to see. I needed to heal from all angles, and I wasn't prepared to face the feeling of abandonment from my mother. I felt that therapy just was not for me. 

The one thing that therapy did for me was introduce a book that helped me more than anything else.  "The Courage to Heal" by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.  It answered the questions I was afraid to ask and the ones I didn't even know I had.  It helped me see the coping mechanisms that I used and that I did have abnormal behavior. It answered other questions, too. Especially the questions that always haunted me, the one I never ever wanted to admit to anyone.  Like it felt good didn't it? You enjoyed it at times right? So it couldn't be abuse right?  WRONG! Abuse is abuse no matter what. I learned that my body had the correct responses, and I could not be held accountable for it. This was my most important lesson!

I am not saying that my life is perfect now. I still have panic attacks on occasion.  I my mind still goes numb when I think about what happened too much.  I have little quirks about myself, that I really wish would go away, but still haunt me, reminding me what I went through. I still have self-esteem, self-confidence, and dependence issues that I still am working on. But all in all, I am a much stronger person. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. :)

I see healing like a spiral.  You seem to go over the same things over and over again.  But if you look at it close enough, it is from a slightly different perspective.  I kept a journal during the majority of my healing.  I still do to some extent.  This way I can see my progress, I can see that I now have more good days than bad.  (I tended only to write when I was at my worst)  I could also see that my bad days weren't as bad as they were before.  The journal also helped me keep track of the facts.  Over time I would remember some aspect of what happened and forget again.  Remembering again, meant having to heal from it again.  The journal helped me keep things straight.

More on my healing process to come...

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