a new memory (maybe)

[sidptitala]

Waking up to despair and loneliness again (I hate it).

Having that conversation with my mom this week really affected me. I think maybe it's not a good idea to do so without support. I need to find people in the here and now that are going to be able to listen to me talk about my conversations with her. I don't have that and struggle to find it.

I know that I'm supposed to be talking about the here and now, day to day stuff in therapy and not the abuse stuff because it's too much. But life keeps throwing it at me, so I'm dealing with it but not talking about it. So if I keep having to deal with it, then maybe I should talk about it in therapy?

So many of my feelings are about trauma anyway. I'm not sure I can separate my feelings about lesser subjects from that. I'm just editing myself and going through a lot of stuff alone.

I've gone through so so so so so much, on my own.

 

[sidptitala]

I've learned a lot about safety in the past week or so. And it's made me panic.

And made me realise - my concerns about safety, of myself and others- are valid concerns. And I have not been taking enough safety measures - and I've been scared to even think about it because my proximity to him has been too close.

Since I was 24, I've prioritised survival over safety. And maybe that can change? But I have to sort out my survival related crises first, or else trying to act on the safety thing will just land me back even further.

The truth is - I went back into a home where I was not and would never be safe. The intensity of my fear makes a great deal of sense. I need to focus on doing whatever I need to do to make sure I never have to go back there and throw my safety out of the window again.

What even are some safety measures I can take?

Moving and not telling anyone who knows or sees him my address
Changing my name and not telling anyone who sees him
Not going to my family's house (or if I do, making sure I always know where he is and having a lot of people as a buffer between us)
Not looking at his face if he appears (that's when I dissociate)

I am not going to touch him ever again. He is not going to touch me. I decided that a few years ago and it's held.

I want sitting beside him last week to be our last conversation.

 

[sidptitala]

I also spoke about my safety concerns for the first time this week to another human.

And had the opportunity to talk about flashbacks relatively soon after they happened (within weeks instead of months/years). I'm not used to this. And it makes me realise what a heavy burden bearing this alone has been.

(I probably should write that here, but I don't want to think about it now). I know I should though.

 

[sidptitala]

Everything is moving too fast for me. Everyone is mad at me and thinks I've changed.

I feel so powerless and so trapped.

 

[sidptitala]

Everything is moving too fast for me. Everyone is mad at me and thinks I've changed.

I feel so powerless and so trapped.

This is still true. I'm struggling so much and in trouble everywhere.

But - realised I need space, understanding and compassion. Trying to give that to myself.

 

[sidptitala]

My life circumstances are so difficult. I've given up trying to put things into words because it's so exhausting to keep up with the volume of crisis in my life, and in everyone around me's life too.

I am so incredibly exhausted. I'm trying to pull off things that are impossible.

I think I need to try really really hard to focus on beauty, gratitude and strength until these challenges pass. Things have been impossible for so long.

When I ran away from my dad's violence in my early 20s, it launched over a decade of precarity that I'm struggling to end. The learning curve was so steep. When I learned to hide being homeless. To sit with the biggest textbook in the over night cafe, and take notes, so that no one would kick me out. I also loved what I read on those nights when I read to not appear homeless, and I'm trying to remember that. How hungry I was to see the life I had lived and was living, described somewhere. I saw it in memoirs of activists, I saw it in books written by feminists and marxists. I was reading to learn how to survive what I was living, when I was living reality I had never heard of.

What I read made my life richer. Not in money, in sensation. In love and struggle (which were so much the same).

I'm trying to remember this. That I can find something I can read that will make me believe I can survive again.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

Wow. I understand struggle. I started running away when I was 9 to escape the violence. When I went to law school I had no money. I lived on a small sailboat for years. I could not stand up in it. I had no car so I bicycled everywhere. I spent many hours reading law in cafes just for a change of scenery. I look back on it and I wonder how I ever made it. That experience shaped me in many ways. It is something you never forget.

 

[sidptitala]

When I went to law school I had no money. I lived on a small sailboat for years. I could not stand up in it. I had no car so I bicycled everywhere. I spent many hours reading law in cafes just for a change of scenery.

Yes this is it exactly, you understand what i mean.

I look back on it and I wonder how I ever made it. That experience shaped me in many ways. It is something you never forget.

Yes - so much this. I'm still in this type of situation and I genuinely don't know how the hell I've survived this long.

I'm not religious but I recently heard a gospel song that says exactly this - 'how i got over, how i got over, my soul looks back and wonders how i got over.'

Trying to believe one day i will look back on my life today that way.

 

[sidptitala]

I got rejected from a programme for sexual violence survivors because they said I am not ready for it and need more counselling. But I am getting discharged from counselling soon. Not because I don't need it but because of time/space constraints, the counsellor herself told me that I need to still come. I'm scared of getting lost in the cracks again.

I am trying to navigate applying homeless shelter bureaucracy and deal with PTSD at the same time - I'm struggling with how much I can say. Why can't I go to my relatives, why I'm so scared of sharing a bedroom with men on drugs (I mean, any woman would be, but that doesn't count for much).

I am struggling to find a system that can consider me worthy of help and protection.

I am spiralling a lot this week. At work doing nothing all day because we are losing our jobs and then trying to squeeze in all these phone calls. To doctors, to homeless shelters, to welfare agencies, to the tax collector, to the bank, to my landlord and most of all to helplines.

Soon no job, no housing. And no treatment for ptsd. I'm panicking.

And it's making flashbacks so much worse. I still have not ever spoken to a human being about what those are. I really really want to and I feel insane for wanting to.

Yesterday my therapist said I have a very serious housing problem and I need to concentrate on that. That i'm only thinking about abuse because i'm panicking and that i need to concentrate on housing. but i feel like i am going to die if i don't tell her about the flashbacks, how can i ever get him out of me? Its dawning on me that what might seem masochistic in me is this drive in me to have someone learn I worth protecting, I want to teach someone (anyone) this, so i can join the ranks of safe people. I also really need to learn any system could ever keep me safe as otherwise how i can i tell this to a homeless shelter when the only system that ever managed to get the tiniest piece of information from me put me at so much risk? all i said was yes.

I have 6 weeks left and there is this desperate need in me to be able to talk about abuse in that time.

I impulsively complained to the health service about their draconian mandatory reporting policy. i'm half proud and half freaking out. after i sent it i wondered why i didn't do it earlier and then i thought, damn i asked them for a guarantee i can talk about abuse safely now and forgot to mention that what i actually need to ask for is to say the context it happened to me in (ie that it was my dad, but i cant say that until there's a guarantee of confidentiality). so then i remembered why i haven't been able to do that. and i didn't ask the question that will help me say anything. but also i really, really can't.

I think I really need to sit down and have a conversation with a manager or someone and explain why it put me in so much danger. But I can only do that in very limited ways.

Then part of me wonders if maybe it's just better to tell my mom that he sexually abused me so that I don't care if they send him a letter about it. But he will retaliate against me. That's one serious risk I cannot run. There's too much other danger and lack of safety. Would a homeless shelter protect me from retaliation? Keep my location safe, not share it with him. i'm not sure. i'm scared.

 

[In the weeds]

It sounds like you are in a sticky situation. I'm so sorry you are going through this. Hoping it all works out soon.

 

[sidptitala]

It sounds like you are in a sticky situation. I'm so sorry you are going through this. Hoping it all works out soon.

Thank you I hope it works out too

 

[sidptitala]

I impulsively complained to the health service about their draconian mandatory reporting policy. i'm half proud and half freaking out. after i sent it i wondered why i didn't do it earlier and then i thought, damn i asked them for a guarantee i can talk about abuse safely now and forgot to mention that what i actually need to ask for is to say the context it happened to me in (ie that it was my dad, but i cant say that until there's a guarantee of confidentiality). so then i remembered why i haven't been able to do that. and i didn't ask the question that will help me say anything. but also i really, really can't.

I'm glad I did this. Even though I'm terrified.

It's right at the heart of the belief ' no one can think I am worth not putting at risk'. That 'no one cares what happens to me.'

I need to see there is a place I can discuss abuse safely, and confidentially. Not after he is dead and I am barely alive. Now, when I still need help getting away from him.

I refuse to accept the price the service has put on their help. The price is that I must report what happened to me before I've ever spoken about it to anyone, for the sake of nonexistent others. I have to be a good and selfless victim before I can experience safety. I don't accept this.

I have the right to try to talk about the flashbacks I have and try to understand it for myself, before I ever have to tell anyone. I don't ever have to tell anyone. If I ever tell anyone, this, it will be for my own personal sake. And I do feel like I've earned that right.

I have gone to great personal risks to keep others safe, over and over again. I have lived in environments where others were seriously threatened in order to make them safer, and I have done this repeatedly throughout my life. I am simply asking for one moment, in one period of time, where I can put my own safety first because I am not worth less than imaginary others.