Odd Man Out, time to share

I think that when the bad stuff, the traumatic hurt stuff, was taking place, we never thought that info would see the light of day.

We didn't store it internally with the thought "oh, we will package this alter nice and neat so that she will easily be able to talk about this in the future."

No. We did not believe we had any future except to figure out how to deal with the next assault because there was always going to be a next assault as it was a daily and weekly thing. 

It seems like it should be acceptable, now that we have found a person (Therapist) who can emotionally handle hearing our truths. 

Yeah, I think we should talk and write about it because it would be tons healthier to have that stuff out rather than in.

I mean, inside means requiring a certain amount of energy to contain it. It's like each repressed memory requires a payment or a fee or a certain amount if energy to hold it in place. Plus, holding nasty stuff inside is like swallowing a leaky, toxic time bomb.

Nothing can stay hidden and buried forever or without great price. 

That's the stuff that makes us sick, memories and the emotions attached to them.

We never thought we'd ever find relief from the storehouse of sentries and walls and locks. It was just our job to "mind the store", make sure the locks stayed on.

But I think that is old stuff, old news.

I think we will feel tons better if we slower open the sealed, poorly stored crates of hideous memories.

One at a time and with care, start talking and writing.

I'm a new mindset to an age old problem

It isn't the past anymore.

No one outside is actively spending their days planning our next assault or trick.

My vote is to have Others of US consider the possibility, the very strange and outlandish possibility that we can readily talk about the bad hurt stuff and start feeling better physically and emotionally.

Odd Man Out

Therapy

Something big shifted in the past couple of months.

I think that we saw all the work and effort Therapist was putting into continuing to see us and trying to make us feel comfortable and safe, that we realized she isn't the enemy and is probably on our side. We decided to meet her halfway and start putting in more work and effort ourselves.

Last session, I told her, we want to do new and more difficult things, like talking about stuff that was too uncomfortable to say. (Geez, do you think Guardian, the censor and gatekeeper has transformed and is no longer needed at the gate? Yes)

So, in a sense, we agreed to work harder and become more vulnerable, and take the risk of talking.

We have been seeing Therapist over 5 1/2 years now.

Yeah, we are beautifully damaged

but in the process of healing 

When I Was a Child...it wasn't safe to speak

 Do you remember, as a child, the thrill of mastering a new skill? From walking to talking, to feeding yourself or getting dressed all by yourself? Your little chest would swell with pride in an accomplishment anew.

When I was 2 years old, I started saying words and partial sentences, feeling a sense of that newfound delight and "biggness" in that I could move my lips like my older brother now, and say words just like him.

I vividly, flashbackishly recall, sitting solid on the living room carpet, directly under the picture window, playing toys with my brother. I could sense my lips moving, a small smile on my face and words flowing from my lips to the air. Without warning, the ground shook and mother came stomping rapidly into the play area and slapped me square across the face.

"Don't you ever say that ever again!" she demanded as I sat in hot silence before my brain realized my face had been struck and that red hot, stinging sensation was a fresh sheet of pain. My small, Autistic grey matter was overwhelmed at this most unexpected assault from a previously innocent and unheard of  assailant.

I wailed, stunned with half of my face on fire. I did not know what it was that I said that caused such instantaneous and egregious wrath from a previously kind mother. I believe that this scenerio, me speaking and getting slapped, happened a few times before I put two and two together and realized I must have been saying words that provoked and vexed her so. 

I did not know which words would cause this reaction, so in a desperate attempt to stop her assaults, I realized the only way to avoid it was to stop speaking. If i did not talk, I did not get slapped. Simple.

As a toddler who had been engaged in being sexually abused since earliest memory, probably infancy, my daily life was majorly affected by my serial pedophile father who enjoyed sexually abusing his children on a daily basis. My early language probably was composed of words related to private parts and sexual acts. Hence, it would be rather natural for a mother to want to slap me into silence instead of entertaining the true reality that her husband was molesting her kids. Slam the victim into silence instead of protecting your kids, mother. 

Yeah, ass backward, for sure but that was my mother, herself, a victim of incest who married another victim of incest.

Do you really think that any of her mass of children was free from defiling touches, rubs and thrusts?

Anyway, my point is that I am becoming consciously aware that I, 56 years later, still carry the thought that if I speak I am taking the risk of being slapped across the face. Acts of harm and threat and malice sting and scar children well into their adult years. 

Being a parent, you are imprinting upon your child experiences and memories, thoughts wrong, indifferent, harmful or healthy. It is a position of complete control over your offspring's entire life. How few understand the gravity of such a job.

My parent's sins cover me and coat me three layers deep.

Starting to remember childhood incest and sexual abuse

Last night, in those twilight moments between wake and sleep, three snapshots, well two snapshots and one very short film, of flashbacks occurred. 

Disturbing material follows...

The first flashback, I was sitting on my bed, in my nightgown and it is morning. My sisters have already gone downstairs. It wasn't too common for dad to go upstairs, but there he was. He quietly informed me that we "were going to the park" that day, just he and I. I knew what he meant. It was another day of servicing men at a local public rest stop.

That wasn't the most troubling aspect of the memory. The main point of the memory was that my dad was physically, inappropriately touching me. I had never remembered that act this clearly.  I could see my dad. See and feel what he was doing.

I know, it is vile and disgusting but it happened. 

As he was doing that, another alter was at the doorway, serving as a lookout or hoping someone would return up the stairs.

See, anytime I was alone with my dad and he could get away with it, he had his hand in my pants. It's like my privates didn't even belong to me but to him. 

The second flashback was of my grandmother, dad's mother, doing the exact same thing, hand in my pants. 

I remember that she was still more of a stranger to me than a relative, as my parent's had lived hundreds of miles away my first five years with only infrequent family visiting.

Thus, it felt very odd to have this strange woman in personal places on my 5 or 6 year old body. I was trying to figure her out as I looked at her cold, smiling eyes behind the gold rimmed, cat eye glasses. Her suit, her dress from the late 60's looked like fabric that belonged on a couch. It was goldfish with brown stripes, heavy collar and of a thick, grainy material.

I cannot recall where this was, in what room or even what house. All I knew and can recall is this strange woman in front of me, physically assaulting my body.

The third flash is for another post, at a time when I can process it a bit more.

The three flicked one after another, so they are connected in some way. Maybe it happened to the same alter. Maybe this is the body recalling specific times that it was touched in that same place. I'm not sure.

This is my life. These are some of the bad things that happened. 

Today, I was able to verbalize these three to therapist albeit haltingly and with less info. Once I start talking about an incident, it's like a key in the lock of the overflowing closet and for hours, days and weeks after, I slowly sort through and add details to what was said. Information flows so it's important to write.

The third much longer flashback later.