still going on

This is a place for old members to come and share how their healing journeys have progressed.
Its also a place for those members to reconnect and share their experiences.

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wolfspirit
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Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 8:56 pm

Re: still going on

Post by wolfspirit »

VAC,
Thank you for the encouragement and understanding.
I take comfort in knowing that other people who have been broken in some way have become whole again.
I know I am blessed to have what I have in my life, and I try to keep my attention on that when I am not triggered and in the dark places. So frustrating that the place of pain is still so strong.

I realized this morning that I have been subconsciously trying to control the healing process, probably because I had no control over the abuse. The longing is about control, isn't it.
Like you said, we want to know but we want to lay it down. I want to go through the healing process just to put it behind me. Not to actually heal.

sending grateful thoughts,

wolfspirit
Wounds are where the light enters you.
Rumi
Harmony
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Re: still going on

Post by Harmony »

Dear VAC,

So glad you are still an active posting member here. You offer a wonderful perspective of longterm healing from CSA. It is a job that is never fully "done". I am "done" now with my own work in T but I am still growing and applying all that I learned. If you want to know what is left to heal just ask my own Dear Husband. lol. Anyways back to you. Sending you peace and renewal come spring.

with care,
Harmony
VAC
Member
Posts: 724
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:16 am

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Hello,

Early thoughts today....my mind is a library. I have to decide what I check out to read and ponder.

Sometimes being active is a good thing; sometimes being quiet is necessary. Being harassed and tormented by thoughts I do not want to think and images I do not want to see is not good or necessary.

I need to otherwise occupy myself and turn my thoughts towards other things.

This is a process.

Just yesterday, my wife and I, waiting for an appointment, drove through the ancient cemetery to my family plot. It is as nice as any there: my sticklerness for order and symmetry and beauty: every stone matches, although some separated by almost 60 years.

We sat and talked....they are all dead. We did our best to treat them well. My wife sat with me through much of the death of my dad, and at the time she did not know what I knew, and I did not know what I would know.

She sat in the corner and cringed, and watched me hold him down while he screamed, screaming daring death to take him. At one point he told me a man was standing at the door bidding him to come but "by God I am not dead yet", so he screamed for 6 days. I had heard him scream like that before.

We talked a few minutes yesterday where their bodies all lay.

My mom and dad together, divided in life, bound by love or whatever it was, united in death. I almost had another stone placed on their graves between the stones in red granite, uniting the headstones with that sentiment, but I did not want strangers to gawk at them and take pictures.

My oldest brother died at 7....he suffered in his short life. I remember him well. I was 2 when he left us.
My baby brother dead at 45: a tragic figure who suffered traumatic brain injury at 15 and lived with the mind of a 14 or 15 year old the rest of his life. Handsome, no limits, easily taken advantage of, kind, generous, impossible, on medication for seizures the rest of his life. He told me years ago he knew he would be dead before he was 46 and he knew he could not help himself and acted bad, but not to worry about him.

My grandparents, old, mellowed, very kind.

My aunt and uncle who had no children: they were my safe place to hide.

They are all gone.

My wife's folks are invalids now.....she is "banished" from the family. Amazing. I watched her rise up in anger a couple of years ago, after a sham invitation to visit her dad. I was with her. It was a set up to humiliate her. He knew when we were coming. Had not seen him in years. He would not come to the door but left it open. We opened the door. There was a big sign on the wall telling all who entered how awful my wife was and no daughter to him.

People are really crazy as Hell. She is the only normal one in the family.

She had me take her to a professional associate of one of her relatives and she gave him a message to let her dad know that she did not care if he was in a wheelchair or not, if they ever messed with her again, she would have him in court before a judge and all would be public knowledge.

I was very glad she got this angry. She needed to be separated in her heart and not to feel guilty any more.

So we went to the family grave site yesterday......any body think I got triggered?

Hence my treatise on controlling what I think about. Good music, books, meditation on what is good and beautiful and kind in this life. This is why I was almost an aquatic creature in my youth. The ocean, or any body of water that had the size to have motion. The sun.

The hypnotic repetitive motion of swimming for long distances, of being buffeted by the waves, of the heat of the sun and the sound of the waves.

I very nearly left all to follow the sun; in winter I became a faded shadow of summer. What I realize now was "winter depression". I lived for the beach.

So guess what....I think later today we are going to visit my wife's family cemetery...nothing morbid, just laying some things to rest, and knowing the rest of them will soon be there and it will be over. They cry in front of strangers how much they love my wife and do all in their power to destroy her if they get the chance. Perhaps they will change before they die.

My dad did the same; a great actor.

Life isn't complicated; people are.
Fleur
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Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:23 am

Re: still going on

Post by Fleur »

Hello VAC


If all right by you, am holding you and your wife ever so tenderly in prayer

May the coming to terms and laying things in order be soon completed


Much caring
Onward to a safe community for all people in which to thrive ~ gentle hugs [if okay] ~ Fleur
wolfspirit
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Re: still going on

Post by wolfspirit »

VAC,
Thank you for your post. I was right there with you in the cemetery, imagining the two of you and your lives together as you stand strong after so much mistreatment, tragedy, and pain.
I am trying to stand like you are, but I often fall.

Wishing for peace as your wife lives her process of letting go.

gentle hugs,

ws
Wounds are where the light enters you.
Rumi
VAC
Member
Posts: 724
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:16 am

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Wolfspirit,

Sorry for not answering in so long. My strength is not my own. I have given up many times, but somehow can't. There is so much that I dearly love about living and being alive.

That may sound strange.

I am thoroughly disgusted by the incest and abuse in my life, and deeply wounded, but the chasm is not as deep as it used to be....how I loved my parents! I have tried to truly hate my dad. He even mocked me and cursed me with his words the last year of his life when I was forced to spend so much time with him, more than in my whole life.

I think the thing I have learned that is the most important to me, is that I can love without expecting anything in return...it is vital to me. This quality was something I observed in a number of my relatives as a child for many years.

Wolfspirit, you have spoken kindly to me here, which I treasure.

I know this sounds impossible and strange, but my dad plotted to punish me for the rest of my life after he was dead. He had professionally designed a will from Hell. I begged him to change it; it would have held me in bondage to his insanity...he laughed in my face. I told him what he did would ruin my children. At that time I did not know what else he had done...he told me he did not care.

I finally looked at him and said, "Old man, I am going to waste your money to break your will, and I will do it". It was total waste and took seven years, but I did it because I had to. It was not rebellion against him or hatred, but something that refused the wrongness of it all. I am at peace.

I have no foundation really in live, except my Faith. That does not bother me in anyway, except the love of God is the only thing that has ever made sense in this life.

The wickedness in my own heart troubles me more than anything I faced in the lives of my abusers. I have never been an abuser, but what I want no man can give me. It is coming/will come. I curse the weakness and confusion and cowardice that sometimes plagues me, but most don't know that about me and never will. Thinking on the things that were done to me and the choices I made afterward trouble me, but I can't go back and change anything.

I can live now and I do.

Don't forsake the blessing of your youth...do your best to live it . Don't be afraid to love. Make good friends: I have several. Avoid what takes you down....

I have been an active man my whole live until I was 49. These last 15 years have been hard on my head and self image. Hard physical labor was my hobby and reflected my days growing up on a farm.

Peace and Hope and Stablity and Strength to live to you....

VAC

I also had the blessing some truly wonderful people in my life when I was young who loved me.
Last edited by VAC on Tue Mar 13, 2018 3:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
VAC
Member
Posts: 724
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:16 am

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Fleur,

Thank you, you are a dear and gentle spirit.

VAC
wolfspirit
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Posts: 1704
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 8:56 pm

Re: still going on

Post by wolfspirit »

VAC,
I wish I was as insightful as you are. I am in my mid-forties, and can hardly imagine living another twenty years.
I thought I would be dead in my thirties. Actually looked forward to it.
What I hate the most about life is that I can not know or prepare for the future.
I don't know what will happen to my children as they grow up.
I don't know when my mother will die.
I don't know when I will finally live a day without a memory or flashback.

I am trying to regain Faith. I know that it has a lot to do with trust in the future.
My childhood abuse was at the hands of my father, a Baptist minister.
He started out whipping me at a very young age for the smallest infraction.
He then slowly added in sexual assault during the whippings.
Until finally, when my body had reached the physical state he needed, he took everything.
In his church office.
Under the cross and the picture of Jesus holding children.
I have processed over 50 memories of his abuse so far.

This man was God to me. That's the way he planned it.
He had faith, love, joy, all of the spiritual words he spoke of at his pulpit year after year. Hiding the truth of who he was and how he was hurting me in places that would never heal. Teaching me that I would never be good enough for Love.

I have no idea how you dealt with taking care of the person who hurt you so deeply. Accepting the pain for so long.
You must truly know Love.

I too have been blessed to have had a few people in my twenties who showed me love and caring. They saved me.

I am inspired by the stories and lives of the survivors here. I try and read them often.
Someday, in the future that I am terrified of, I may write my own story of healing and stability.
I don't want to give up, yet. I can't pass that pain on to my children.

Thank you for checking in despite the weakness you feel. It matters to me.
I hope I haven't offended you by speaking of the trauma in my past. If so, I apologize.
I admire your strong faith and dedication to love.

ws
Wounds are where the light enters you.
Rumi
there
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Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 12:41 am

Re: still going on

Post by there »

VAC,
Feels good to read posts here. Am glad and grateful to know you, even in this limited way.

One thing you said Will stick with me. It's something I needed to read. You said, "Life isn't complicated. People are."
Wow! Thank you so much for that, VAC.
All women are beautiful. Period.
I deserve better than survival.
VAC
Member
Posts: 724
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:16 am

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Wolfspirit,

I deeply apologize to you for writing anything that hurt or triggered you....I wrote a long response last night, but it got erased when I tried to post.

A T asked me once if my dad was a "church man"....I told him no, that he hated everything remotely related to any religion except for whatever darkness he was into that he never talked about

You are a strong man who will get through this...I am convinced.

I am sorrowful this was your childhood.

Tears....

Don't know if this helps you or not, but I sometimes find myself drifting and remembering details of things, not all abuse, but insight into things I needed to know, some to discard, some to say "never again"...

Again, please accept my apology.

VAC
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