Month: February 2014

THE AFTERMATH

After my horrific flashback yesterday, that hit me like an explosion; i think i am beginning to get myself together…(i think). I am exhausted today and feel like…..well, i feel like i have cut my arm (i self-harm) and the cut has almost stopped bleeding, with just a few trickles of blood left, running down my arm but today, i am trying to think of it, instead, as paint running down a wall after someone has painted it with somewhat inferior quality paint.

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In addition, i had something very traumatic, happen to me last week and i’ve only told one close friend a little, but i will share it with you when i feel able. At the moment, i am wearing my mask with the smile painted on for the world. It says, loud and clear, “I’M FINE”. 

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FLASHBACK!

Violently, my mind exploded! Suddenly! A massive Flashback! It was something said, one word, on the radio this morning. I can’t even bring myself to tell you what that one ‘innocent’ word was. It triggered me into silence and blanked out my day.

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Where have i been all day? Have i seen anyone? Have i spoken to anyone? Have i done anything? I cannot speak.I cannot hear. I cannot answer my own questions because my mind is still shattered from the ‘word’, this morning. How do i explain how i am feeling? I can’t. I found myself just now, sitting, terrified, in a corner, on the floor. Hiding from my mind. I’m sorry but i cannot speak anymore. I cannot write anymore.I am sorry x Silence.

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PTSD – THE ATTACK

Sometimes the days are so bad that they all become nightmares merged together so tightly that i feel totally overwhelmed and cannot find an exit.

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The last few days have been gruelling for me. I have to say that getting through them has been akin to wading through a sea of treacle. I am worn down, unable to find peace, rest or sleep.

 

I feel as if i have been attacked by my mind and the horrendous, debilitating flashbacks; by my memories, my thoughts and my life events, most of which have been horrendous reminders of the endless abuse i have suffered during the course of my life. Sometimes i wonder whether i attract abuse; whether i have a sign on my forehead, saying ‘I am just me.You may use me. You may abuse me’ . The feelings stay with me forever as do the images in my head, which are stuck on constant repeat.

 

I give myself a good talking to, “Pull yourself together”; “For goodness sake, get over it”. Those words that i have heard, said cruelly to me by people who shall remain nameless who have no compassion and are never going to understand what i’ve been through, not in a million years! Having PTSD is like being a hamster on it’s treadmill in a cage. There is no stopping and i am trapped within it. I am still being attacked by my abusers, even after all this time.

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KILLING ME SOFTLY

 These words are not clever or articulate. They are basic. They are feelings which hardly touch the edge. They are the crater at the top of a volcano which may erupt and spew it’s contents at any time. They are me.

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(My experience of abusive therapy)

Eight years gone; vanished from my life

Deaf ears to the pleading all around me

Every minute of my life consumed by you

You told me that you loved me

I couldn’t survive apart from you

Every time you left me, a part of me died

And I shrivelled further into my anorexia

And permanently scarred my body

“Love me, hug me, and kiss me please”

“I need to be in your arms”

“Never leave me”, I implored

“You are my favourite mum”

I needed you. You needed me

When you were absent for a while

My world fell in. I was lost without you

Like a body deprived of oxygen

I didn’t know then, that you were toxic

You loved me too much; so much that it hurt

Unspeakable, unbearable pain

Cut into my flesh; forever imperfect

We’d text, “With love and hugs”

I cried down the phone every day

You were so near yet so far

Without you, I was helpless

The day my father died; you left me

With words that pierced my heart

I hid in a corner and died that day

Wanting to evaporate into spirit

That could fetch you back

I tried to end my life

The hospital staff disliked me

Because it was my fault and I wasn’t ill

They couldn’t see that you were killing me softly

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WHO WAS I KIDDING!?

 

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When i totally changed the blog design of my page, it was because i wanted to reflect the ‘new, improved me’ who saw the world through newly positive eyes and was determined to leave my past echos behind me. Who was i kidding? Having BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). [which i will write a separate blog about, sometime], i ought to know that my moods and everything about me is totally unpredictable, literally from one minute to the next. The idea was that i would have a new, clean look. I had written my blog previously in a totally different style page. It was soft, no hard lines and pastel colours. It was gentle on the eye. There, i wrote mostly about my appalling child sexual abuse as is evident in my earlier posts.

 

I decided that i wanted a new, crisp, clean look to my page and that i would leave my past behind me and write about other day to day subjects. Leave my past behind? Who the hell was i kidding? Now i find myself,still tied up with my past traumas and i’m back down the rabbit hole again. I feel as if i am in the middle of the escalators of Central London’s Underground, trying to run up the ‘down’ escalator while half the world seem to be sailing easily up the ‘up’ escalator. Then, a few minutes later i want to ride all the way up the ‘up’ escalator! So much for the new reformed me! 

 

Now i look at my blog page and see the crisp, straight lines dividing the bold, purple column and the clean white page on which i tell my story. For some, obviously underlying reason, i decided to soften the page with a pale pink, softly patterned right-hand column. But somehow my script seems sharp and fresh and i don’t feel so sharp and fresh inside. Inside, is the original, soft, vulnerable me who i guess i was trying to run away from. I have failed miserably. So where do i go from here? Do i write my innermost feelings on this crisp, white page, or do i find yet another design to reflect my current mood? I’m not good at coping with ‘change’ at the best of times. Somehow this feels like a forced smile while inside i am crumbling away, my emotions being like the face on a tragic,opera mask that you’d see on a West End stage. WHO AM I? I go up and down as if i were trapped in Roald Dahl’s great glass elevator.

 

I feel i mess people about, let them down, make them afraid of such an unpredictable mess such as me. I have less than a handful of friends in the real world and is any wonder why. They never know ‘who’ i am going to be next, which personality i will be? Which mask will i be wearing today? 

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TRYING TO GET BLOOD OUT OF A STONE

For once, i am not adding an image to this post because i intend to keep it very brief and these few words are sufficient. I am struggling today, to write what i intended to post. I’m not sure why and am feeling very frustrated. I’m trying to write about the eight year relationship i had with a therapist who eventually, having caused me untold damage, got struck off! This was two years ago and i am seeing a new therapist and i really thought i had healed from this prior therapy experience but now i am struggling so much to write anything about this account. I don’t understand why. I phoned a close friend and told her and her advice was that maybe i was not yet ready to go there yet.

 

I have written many more posts that i would have thought would have been much harder to write about. And i find myself here, spouting rubbish and wondering whether to even publish it. What would be the point? It has no value or meaning – it’s just the way my feelings are at the moment. God, this is like trying to get blood out of a stone! I’m having to think and plan each word that i type and when i look back, i realise that yes, it is garbage and i should stop here. So why do i feel the need to go on? I am stuck; literally lost for words that usually flow so easily.

 

Can it really be that this eight year encounter has done more damage than my actual, original abuse? Surely that would not be possible….how could anything be worse that a whole childhood filled with emotional and constant sexual abuse? I don’t know the answer to that and am wondering whether any of you, out there could shed some light on my tighty, screwed-up emotions because i’m blowed if i know? I’m going to stop here before i bore the pants of any of my readers. 

 

Now, I’m trying to press the ‘Publish‘ button and i’m holding back with fear and trepidation running through my veins, and suddenly i notice that tears are streaming down my face. What IS the matter with me today? CRAP!!!

WHERE DOES FAITH STOP AND DISCRIMINATION BEGIN?

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(Firstly, i’m sorry if any of you think “Oh, she’s off on the Disability bandwagon again”! But, being disabled, having a certain amount of intelligence and maybe too much sensitivity, these things affect me and i daresay perhaps, others in the same position).

I have been a member of my church since 2007. I was baptized in 2008 which was a really important milestone in my life and strengthened my faith and closeness to God more than any other experience in my turbulent life has done. But i won’t bang on about religion. This is just my experience of being part of a God-loving, God-fearing community.

I love my faith and my church and look forward to attending every Sunday to take part in the worship. We have a great band too!  I love the services – they are lively and contemporary. The age range in our church varies from one week old to one hundred and two years. We are a large community consisting of cultures from all around the world. We support several smaller and third world faith charities and causes which is great. We are a town-centre church with a congregation of approximately three-hundred-and fifty, maybe more. There are a total of four Ministers, all with various responsibilities who are very friendly and welcoming. Then, there are the Deacons, all with various roles to play (some specialize in the education of our children; some, our Senior Citizens etc).

It has a very much ‘reaching out to the general public’ policy and this includes arranging activities for children and teenagers, an ‘art and craft’ group, open again to all. We have clubs for those with mental health problems to ensure they feel less isolated. There is a Child Contact Centre for ‘broken’ families, events for Seniors, a Budget Coaching Centre for those with financial difficulties. We even have Street Pastors who regularly go out on a Friday and Saturday night and offer a hot meal and comfort for the night to those who are homeless, are addicts and generally, the lonely who are so often excluded in society.

There is provision and space for my wheelchair for the Sunday service, at the front where i can see the words on the screen; i can hear the Minister’s sermon clearly and am close to the band so i can appreciate the music. SO I hear you saying, ‘What am i banging on about?!’, ‘What’s my gripe?’

Well, to get to the point, WHY, in a church like this, am i feeling there is discrimination going on, not with race, not with age, not with sexuality, not with mental health, not with general physical disability.  SO, WHY, OH, WHY is there discrimination going on against FOLK, SUCH AS MYSELF, IN WHEELCHAIRS??

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 Yes, you heard me right! And yes, i am angry and just maybe having a rant! Some people in the congregation, literally talk over my head, look straight past me without so much as a ‘hello’ as if i were invisible, gather in little groups to chat, from which i am totally excluded because i am not able to stand with them? I park myself, in my wheelchair, somewhere near the coffee hatch so i am not in the way but neither am i out of sight. And does anybody ask me if i’d like a drink, or a chat?…NO. I feel like a leper (or maybe i’m over-sensitive, or maybe i am indeed invisible!). I sit or mooch around as much as i can, with a big smile on my face, making eye-contact and willing to talk about any subject. I am open minded, sociable, chatty (given the chance) and intelligent as well as polite and i like to think, considerate.

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RIGHT!! I THINK I’VE MADE MY POINT AND YES, I FEEL BETTER NOW, THANK YOU!

 

 

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OVER YOU (MY INNER CHILD)

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Just when i thought i was over you, my little Ellie, you go and knock on the window to my heart, needing me to hear you. i really, genuinely thought you were all grown up now, and coping but here you are again. And i’m so sorry i haven’t been listening to you and i know you’re mad at me.

 

Hey, my mad little girl, i am hearing you now. I’m sorry i’ve been telling myself that i don’t need you anymore. You came back, just like that…..FLASHBACK!….You were four years old and i wasn’t even there for you. .I am paralyzed now; trapped in my past memories, such painful memories of what happened to you back then. Now i am hurting too but it is not your fault, little girl, please believe me. Please believe that i still love you and i always will. I know you are angry with me. I hear your pain. I see you, out there in the rain which falls as tears running down your little cheeks. I know you are scared and i understand why but i can’t quite reach you to hold you in my arms and hug the pain and the memories away although i so want to. Are you angry because i am afraid too? I understand if you are.

 

I know i couldn’t make him stop hurting you but i did try. I never gave up. But he was bigger and stronger than me with an evil and twisted mind. I fought for you but he’d always beat me down into silence when i really wanted to scream, and i know you wanted to scream too but were too afraid of the repercussions, of his threats.

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Why did i think it would be so easy to push you away when so obviously need me? And i let you down. I am so sorry, my love. What on this Earth made me think i was over you? i think i was frightened too and didn’t want to see all those times when you were hurt and treated so badly. You had no childhood to speak of, every second, every day, week, month, year, went by with you desperately wanting it all to stop. I wish i could turn the clock back and be brave and strong enough to fight him, to scream NO! NO MORE! But of course, i can’t do that in reality, no matter how hard i try. My efforts are futile and my shouts and screams would fall on deaf ears.

 

I am lost too, little one and i am so sorry i’m of little help but please believe me when i say that i love you, i’ve always loved you and i always will. HUGS, my hurting child, HUGS.

 

And just when i thought i was over you….

 

TEARING DOWN THE BARRIERS

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I am considered to be ‘disabled‘ (although i don’t like labels being applied to anyone). I qualify from the perspective of having both a physical disability and a mental health condition although i am fully aware that there are numerous other categories which belong under that banner. I am by no means the minority in today’s society. 

 

I have a rare condition whereby the nerves to my spinal cord are deteriorating which causes a multitude of physical symptoms.There is, as yet, no treatment or cure for this but they are hoping to do more research into stem cell transplants sometime in the future. As for my mental health condition, i have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) which i intend to write more about in a future blog. Discrimination still goes on and as i quoted in an earlier post, and some people that either haven’t met me aren’t aware of the facts, think that i have a green tail and purple ears! I would much rather be thought of as a ‘normal’ woman with a reasonable amount of intelligence and a wicked sense of humour!

 

I am an amateur writer although i have had two modest books published thus far thanks to my trusted laptop. Writing is my passion (amongst many topics). I have in the past, written poetry of a very simple kind such as the following three verses:

 

The prognosis for my disability is pessimistic

The outlook, quite possibly grim

I could weep tears and sink into the pit of depression

Which is always there and waiting to consume me

 

But I will stand firm, as well as I can on shaky legs

And I will not be defeated; I will not be disheartened

I have come too far on my journey to give up now

I owe it to myself to look to the sun and ignore the clouds

 

I will greet every day with a smile and try not to frown

I will not give in; I will not surrender my life

For the sake of yet another label that I do not desire

I am who I am and have learned so very much through surviving.

 

I do obviously get frustrated and cross at times, particularly if i am in a lot of pain physically or struggling mentally, or often in the face of ignorance such as a question being directed at my carer whilst looking over my head and asking the classic phrase “Does she take sugar?”! And yes, when it comes to discrimination such as a few members of my own family and friends who have metaphorically ‘dumped‘ me over the years; and lack of access etc in public areas.

 

I’ve only just, literally covered the bare bones of this subject from my point of view. I could go on but i will leave you with this image which i like because it completely sums my attitude, ‘except on bad days’! I’d be interested to hear your take on disability, good or bad.

 

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