still going on

[VAC]

Maggie,

I had thought about many things today before I read your post.

I know I owe most of where I stand now to my faith and the support of good people who love me.

I am past the never-ending cycle of being disturbed by me and threatened by others with whom I felt I had nothing in common--have often wondered if the isolation and rejection of csa is a universal human emotion, just not brought to the forefront by abuse.

Thought some about vengeance today and am so thankful my folks are gone---at last I understand the guilt and fear they always displayed towards me, especially my dad. What torture it must have been for him......to see the broken boy become man. I know he feared and hated and loved me.

Mother would be 92--she would not be in control of her brilliant mind and years of bitterness. She would lash out say wounding things. She would be afraid. She would be very emotional.

Dad would be 88--I wondered today what I would be like towards him if he were alive. Elder abuse? Not in my nature I don't think, but it was merciful for him to be gone and not to have to face the sorrow and nightmare he left behind him. He is the most conflicted person I ever knew.....

They are a forbidden topic in my family, but I slip up and mention them without realizing it. I don't do it on purpose.

I have approached a line of demarcaction and wonder if I will be allowed to live the rest of my life some place I do not have a history. I am a stranger in a city I have always been. I suppose others see me as an eccentric or a kook--I really don't care anymore. I am not a part of the hustle. I do some things just because I can, a stubborn or mean streak.....perhaps just a defiance to live.

I am an old guy who lets his hair grow long and gets a kick out of "not fitting in". I talk to animals and people, and to myself when it suits me. My wife has to remind me not to be too out there sometimes. She really has never known what to do with me, but loves me anyway.

It gives me great satisfaction and encouragement to know something I wrote helped you.

Keep on......

[HealingHearts]

I love reading your posts. I am not an old-timer, at least not here, so I have only read this thread. Your writing is illuminating and has made me think more of my own parents. My father died 8 years ago but mother dearest is still going strong. You seem so peaceful with yourself and your place in life.
HealingHearts

[VAC]

Healing Heart,

I have been discarding layers of yuck for over three decades, although the memory of my own abuse did not surface until I was 49 and caring for my dad while he died. I tried to discard everything about them, but found I couldn't.

Recall came to me about 10 years ago. This site has been a great help.

I went through a season of writing on here a great deal. So much was going on that I really couldn't talk to anyone on the outside, and could not do therapy, as I had a child in therapy. isurvive was like dialysis of my mind and soul.

Sometimes it is murky, like swimming under water and needing air--you won't drown. Just keep plugging. Rest when you need to. One of the best things I can tell you is to refuse to let pain and sorrow determine who you are--don't let it be all you think about.

And don't be afraid to feel hurt and to trust---the world is full of people who are safe.

Sometimes having a broken heart means your heart is healing.....I would rather have love and peace over pain and brokeness, but would rather have pain and brokeness over numbness and apathy.

When I was young I took everything to the extreme--I went through a season of riding horses everyday and it was never "just a ride". I drove with abandon, went without sleep for days......of course it was just me running from me.

Many years before I had recall, I wrote a spontaneous verse one night:

There is a place inside of me, dark, eternal , deep
It is the part you cannot see, the bed where secrets sleep
It is the boy who helpless cried
It is the grave where I once died
It is the hell I must deny,
This place inside of me.

Having recall was a relief--at last I made sense to me and there was a method to my madness. I often think about experiencing recall so late in life, have talked to a couple of professionals about it.

I would have destroyed my parents and myself had I remembered younger.

In many ways I see that block as providential. I come from a military family and wanted to go to war as a young man--I was kept from that as well, and know now I would not have emerged able to be around people.

I have emerged from the paranoid need to self-dissect...I have more peace than I have ever known.

I believe with all my heart you will as well.

[VAC]

I am weary of people who make life unecessarily vulgar and depressing--call me an optimist, but If I have to walk through stink, at least I can smell something sweet in the process.

[Lydia]

VAC,

I wish I could express to you how much your words helped me. Your description:

Thought some about vengeance today and am so thankful my folks are gone---at last I understand the guilt and fear they always displayed towards me, especially my dad. What torture it must have been for him......to see the broken boy become man. I know he feared and hated and loved me.

Summed up exactly what I'm thinking about my brother (abused but not facing it). Your words helped me immensely.

And yes, I would love the world to feel much sweeter too.

Lydia

[HealingHearts]

(((Vac)))
I have been discarding layers for about 2 year. First current traumas related to cancer, then childhood memories which started in December 2011. These coupled with my mothers sick shenanigans are enraging even though I have been NC for 14 ago when she extorted the $70,000 and then filed charges against me for abuse because I went over to talk to her abusiveness suffered by me my whole life. She informed the state that I had caused "hurtful feelings" by what I said and hence the investigation. She is 74 and still very compelling and very dangerous.

Having recall is a relief but it is also really hard especially since my memories have surfaced while dear mother is still living. Her response to me was "Let's just have a pity party for you." Her abusiveness has destroyed any chance of a relationship. I can't have it destroy me too. The pain she has inflicted just cuts me to the core. What I experienced in childhood feels insignificant to how she has treated me the last three years. When I got cancer and could longer meet her emotional and financial needs I became useless to her. I wonder too if she filed charges against me because she wanted me to stop exploring my past. Was she afraid I would remember the neighbor boy rape and her reaction to that (she blamed me - I was about 6) or the pedophile in the closet that she let me play with but would ask, "did anything happen?" Was she afraid of what I would find? Probably not. She doesn't think she's ever done anything wrong.


You said, "I would have destroyed my parents and myself had I remembered younger."

I don't want to be destroyed. I don't want to question everything and everybody in my life, but the atrocities I experienced were never acknowledged and I was taught that I should appreciate the roof over my head...So I question everything. I self-dissect because I was never validated. I don't know how to do that. I never got it so I require feedback from the world. I don't know anyother means.

You said, "I have emerged from the paranoid need to self-dissect...I have more peace than I have ever known."

Thank you so much for sharing it gives me hope seeing what you have created.

"I believe with all my heart you will as well."

Thank You Vac. Your words mean more than you will ever know.

Profoundly Grateful -- HealingHearts!

[VAC]

Healing Hearts,

I don't mean this to sound cruel, but you are better off to never go near her if she is this sadistic and without conscience.

Don't let her fool you--her bite is her braggadocio: she is afraid of you.

She is ruthless as well.

I hope your physical recovery is going as well as your personal--stop feeling guilty because she does not love you or need you.

Thank you for your kind words. You are the normal one. See that.

[HealingHearts]

Vac,

You said so much in so few words. I need time to process this all. So much of what you said feels empowering. I have to sit with it and think because it is so contrary to how I was raised to think. It has my head spinning, that, and it is late!

Thank you Vac. You feel like an old friend. I am grateful.

HealingHearts

PS I am cancer free, very healthy and even run races sometimes!

You think she is afraid of me??? Huh...I never considered this...

[VAC]

I suspect whatever conscience she still has is like a worm on hot ashes in your presence--you have power you know not of. She is the pitiful one, not you.

My dad could not bear to be around me for more than a few minutes....

[VAC]

and what was so insane I was the one who cared for him at the end.

I remember telling him more than once that I was the only one there. He had given his heart and time to strangers who used him terribly. He would ask where they were in the last few days.

I suppose it was cruel of me.

I had planned to strike him after he died. I held his hand until he died and told him I loved him as long as he was conscious. After he died, I watched his face change. I washed his face and hands and combed his hair and sat for about an hour and watched him.

At that time, I had only had recall about three or four months. Much more was unknown to me, a later revelation some years after his death.

My regret in it all is fading and simple---I feel very sad for my parents. They were scarred and frustrated people who could not live life simply and easily. I do try to remember good things, especially about my dad.

He was a tortured and divided man.