a new memory (maybe)

[sidptitala]

I feel like I'm full of feelings and bursting.

I kept that conversation with my mom to myself for a long time. And then I spoke about it, to multiple people- very numbly.

To my friend who is my landlord. To my girlfriend. And one other friend.

My rent is doubling. We talked about this, in the same conversation. She's changed her timeline again from selling next year to selling within 2 months. We've talked about me buying it but I don't think I can afford it so soon. I won't know for a month what price she wants to sell it for. She'll want to sell it within a month of pricing it. That's so much uncertainty and urgent stress for me. We talked about this after I told her that I learned my mom sacrificed me. Life is so overwhelming.

I finally asked for help at work (and got it, my manager is great). He gave me information about coaching models and said, experiment with those over the next 2 months. I'm going to treat it like research and keep a diary. He's given me license to experiment, so I am going to do that.

I feel really lonely and scared. Like I'm going to be alone and without people again.

Therapist last time told me she asked for another extension with me (the second time, without me asking for it). It honestly makes me feel so looked after and cared about. She as a therapist (and the service) care enough about me that they've decided not to discharge me even though my time should be up. Because I'm not better - and the decision about when to finish will be at least somewhat based on that. It's a real kindness towards me and it's thawing something in my heart. I know it's a good sign for trusting.

 

[sidptitala]

I feel so anxious, being here in my family's house. Anxious they will come back early. Anxious I'll have to see my dad and I won't know what to say. Worried my girlfriend won't want to see me or be able to and I'll have to come back here to sleep tonight. I can't believe I used to live with this deep anxiety all the time about not having anywhere safe to go, where I won't be kicked out or have to accept terrible behaviour on the threat of it.

So, I need to get out of the house fairly soon just to calm my nerves.

My dad just retired which means my window of being able to visit the house without seeing him has closed. From now on I'll probably have to visit my mom outside of the house and he will be constantly available to see me - his attempts to contact me could ramp up from this point on. The fact he worked meant he was distracted with that and I had more breathing room.

I got the key from the neighbours house. The outside of their house was so familiar to me in that flashbacky way. I don't think I've been to their house since I was a child. The neighbour was talking to me about how he missed his children who live in different countries and wished they were here- but that they met up in a country none of them live in and that was nice. This helps me understand why my mom is so desperate to have me go on a trip with just my parents and sister - it's so she can participate in conversations with the neighbours instead of saying 'my children are travelling without me- I hardly see them even though they live nearby'.

I read my dad's retirement cards. One from my sister where she said he deserved to retire after working so hard. And that she would visit soon. Another in my mom's handwriting from my sister and I (god). That bothered me. Both cards did.

 

[sidptitala]

My parents missed the boat home so didn't have to see my dad, phew. I instantly felt so relieved when this happened.

It's sobering to realise how scared of him I am. How I will do anything to avoid him.

 

[sidptitala]

My dad came home. I felt so much pain in my body just being near him - pounding, physical pain that could not be ignored. It left once I got away. I think maybe this pain is the one I also had around those other people who committed crimes. Sleeping in the same house as him felt impossible, last night. I had some kind of flashback which I'm scared of describing.

To being very young, very hurt and just knowing that no one is coming. Wanting my mom so badly but knowing she's nowhere to be found.

Before that yesterday, I went to the therapist after a few weeks break. I said I learned information about the context in which this happened to me. She said she was sure that he probably did not just hit her once, considering I remember another time from the one she mentioned. I said it probably sticks out more in my head because my mom was angry at me for telling the neighbours and said they don't fight, they argue (which I still think about everytime I decide to say argue or fight).

She said that everything in my family was swept under the rug - like 'pretend it didn't happen'. And that the problem with environments like that is that when things happen to the children in them that nothing stops the things from happening again.

She said my mom is and was in denial. And that shes in it because she loves me. That she's hurt because she doesn't understand what she's done wrong, why I am distant from her.

At another point she asked me what my mom was doing or what I remember if her from that year. I said from the year we are talking about I really don't remember except that she was away from me, it seemed like she was nowhere to be found and I never saw her. Just my dad was everywhere and I couldn't escape from him.

What I remember from previous years was my mom in the kitchen with the radio up high and the door closed. And knowing I'm not allowed in there. Being not allowed in the house.

She said that raises alarm bells for her on a gut level. Whether she could not bear to hear what was happening to me so was just pretending it wasn't. Or whether there was something seriously mentally wrong with her and she wasn't fit to care for children.

The flashback I had after feels most related to this, like it comes from that era. It happened when I tried stretching to relieve that body pain - which was so intense and blinding.

 

[sidptitala]

I feel so unable to talk to people today. My body pain has gone, I just feel like I need to lie in bed and not talk to anyone. I have work I need to do and can't.

 

[sidptitala]

Feelings, too many feelings.

Been thinking about how scared I am of falling from grace with my mom again. I did when her husband attacked me as an adult, even though I regained what I had lost from being abused as a child once I won that scholarship and left home a few years before the latest attack.

Her ignoring me and him abusing me happened at the same time. I can't ignore that.

I tried to communicate with her as a child - I tried to explain how sad I was all the time. I tried to do this without saying things I wasn't allowed to say - which is anything negative about my dad. I kept trying to talk about it and she kept reacting like there was a terrible disease in me she needed to ignore.

I wasn't allowed in the house in that era (but my sister was). I felt like everyone wanted to return me but that wasn't possible. He was hurting me because he hated me, and my mom let him because she hated me. If I disappeared there would be no hatred in the family.

 

[sidptitala]

I'm scared because I know I said last week that my mom told me she might leave him because he hit her. And that identifies his relationship to me. She didn't say anything about it, which I hope means she's decided to ignore it. Once she called me his daughter and then corrected herself to say 'his someone'.

I'm going to see my sister tomorrow, who I haven't seen in ages.

 

[sidptitala]

So many feelings.

I miss daily intimacy - going home to someone, cooking for them, sharing each day. I haven't missed that in a long time (maybe it's a signal of health, I don't know). More than anything I miss the sense of reciprocity - that's one major thing I realised this week. How important to me reciprocity is.

Ive really isolated myself in the last 3 years - since I started having mega flashbacks. This is because I need help but am afraid of the consequences of looking like I'm not OK. It's been a really important survival strategy to look fine. Never having cried on someone's shoulders about the real stuff (other than my first girlfriend, who left) makes recovering from trauma harder, I can see that. But it's also true there are real obstacles to that which i am not imagining (my life is too much! It's too much for me and also for others - i have been told this in response to trying to talk about it).

I tried to write out for my girlfriend the basic facts but I couldn't get far. I cried for hours from just setting the scene - just referencing how life was 'before' (which she already knows). I was crying on the side of the street and I hope no one saw me.

Been thinking about reciprocity because i went to an event with my work colleague i used to study with. She talked so so much about herself and her problems. She always does that and it makes me keep my distance from her, also because she is very privileged and the content of what she's talking about just doesn't seem like a big problem to me.

 

[sidptitala]

I'm trying to reconnect with people I've distanced myself from, and it's triggering the hell out of me.

My overwhelming former colleague- is less overwhelming now. I met her at what turned out to be a bible study (god)- we went for coffee afterwards.

She said I never say anything about what's going on with me. That when we're together she does most of the talking. That she wants me to talk to her.

I was more honest with her than I am with almost anyone else. I said in response to how I am I've been avoiding everyone and still not sleeping enough.

Aside from abuse, I think what I witnessed and experienced from occupation is a huge driver of ptsd for me still. Listening to people talk about places and dynamics in that bible study made me feel like I was in those real places. The reality of them was so real, I believed listening that we were in those places on some level, that the reality was in the room. Because in my life, it has been. I don't have to invent mental pictures for those things because I've been so recently there.

My overwhelming former colleague now works with families affected by war crimes (where we live, not where I worked before). She said it's much easier than listening to people talk about how they were abused all day, like we do at my job. She said she finds it easier to manage at the war crimes job because it's not as personally triggering, but she still knows what they need. She told me they are hiring and suggested I apply.

I don't think that would be easier for me - it might be harder because a lot of my recent traumatic experience comes from war. I still have to remind myself many times a day that an army isn't likely going to massacre my clients. I still compare and contrast my clients now from the ones who are still facing war crimes, to try to be less afraid of that happening again here and now. Every time I feel the hopelessness of a person facing so much in my work now - I say 'at least I know they won't get shot by the army this week. They'll have the freedom to come back. If they don't I'll still know they haven't been executed'. And it helps. It makes me so sad about the people I left behind in the other place, but with that insane fear- it really helps.

if you've seen an army massacre civilians once, you always know that can happen. It's hard to forget it about it, it's something that will always feel possible now. It was the first time I saw that army do anything, my first encounter with them.

Learning how to live and re-enter the world before being better - is a lot. I have to accept I have this problem and have to learn to live with it. That it's going to affect me. Every relationship. Every part of life.

Instead of talking about it I've withdrawn - from every relationship, from every part of life. Coming back in requires skills I have not had the space to develop and a trust I don't have.

• I have to learn that I can ask for help and not be harmed on a personal level (trusting)

at the same time as:

• I have to learn not to expect war crimes to happen in front of me again (trusting)

 

[sidptitala]

• I have to learn that I can ask for help and not be harmed on a personal level (trusting)

I think what I mean is not so much asking for help (I'm not sure if I actually need help, from the people in my life). But being able to have feelings about what I'm going through, in front of other people, without being abandoned, exploited or judged.

I want to feel equal to the people around me (more than feeling, I want to be equal). I want to be treated as an equal. That people who speak to me can listen.

I'm struggling so much with the fear of flashbacks when I try reconnecting with people. Part of that fear is the content of the flashback. The other part is my fear that other people will see me having emotions or not having a grasp on reality- and then I'll be abandoned so that they don't catch a disease of shame, or I'll be exploited.

 

[sidptitala]

Really feeling the heaviness of that situation with my mom. My issue with her is that she keeps just trying to brush past an occurance of obvious, predictable harm towards me as if it didn't happen. And trying to insist with her that it happened and it matters that it happened is heavy. But doing so is important.

Last time I saw him I felt so sick, it was blinding. My body is giving me obvious signals to stay away. I don't know how I ever ignored them.

I feel really lonely lately and my time feels empty. I think it's a good sign, that I'm not desperately trying to get away from people. I really want to come back in to the world and other people, but as a version of myself where I don't have to do so much work at hiding.

I want to have the energy and space to do the things I want to do. I want to recover from my childhood abuse so that I can be a helpful war crimes witness because I'm not so hijacked by flashbacks and I can sleep at night.

 

[sidptitala]

My tongue so raw from biting it. My hands raw from clapping. I'm ranting and ranting at my mom under my breath. Things about how her husband raped me. How hurt and devastated I was and still am. How nothing even now has ever made it stop.

I saw her. We ate. At the end I said I would see a counsellor with her. She said she didn't want to lose me, that it would be hard for both of us to do that. I said, it will be hard anyway, because this issue is not going to go away. It hurt so much to sit beside her, who does not understand that violence towards me is wrong. She said she accepted my perspective. And didn't want my dad to know she was going to do that.

I actually don't think I can afford to do that though. I am so tempted to just vent my anger at her anyway. I read part of a book about betrayal to try to distract myself. It said you don't want someone to say sorry. You want them to really hear you in detail about how hurt you are. And that's it- I want her to hear me in detail. I want her to feel my pain - both what happened and she didn't protect me. And I also want her to change her behaviour.

I think probably, ultimately I will tell her that he sexually abused me and that I will be very willing to lose her immediately if she does not leave him. I just don't think I can enter into a relationship repeatedly that shows me not even that is worth terminating a relationship over. If she just expects me to roll with it because he's nice to her. Put myself in danger because she wants a comfortable life.