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.

Moderators: Harmony, ajei

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VAC
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Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:16 am

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Jonesy and Ajei,

Thank you....I often think of the many times I have been on chat or read the posts of others and been incredibly stirred. In the early days of being on this site, many times there would be multiple people on chat.

Someone would say something and i would have to leave, because an image or impression had come back to me.

The saddest part of this whole thing is that my dad hated his own life, rather his own being, and consciously and subconsciously tried to destroy everyone that he loved. It was a constant thing.

It was ugly and deep and foreboding.

Mother was his caretaker and keeper and in many ways, his protector and enabler.

When I write about my folks, I am in no way trying to justify or deny the evil done: it makes me wonder about many things.

And I in no way am trying to force others to handle their circumstances as I have handled mine.

I am very close to someone who was deeply abused and neglected by their parents and step-mother: one has died, and the other two beg for them to visit, but it has been said so many times with evil mind games played, they can't bear to go back even though death is soon for those who remain. It is what they have to do to have peace.

I have stood with a number of people in the past at the grave of one who treated them horribly and there was no peace in life....sometimes things need to be said even then, and it brings healing when it is the right thing to do. The threat is gone...

I know my folks led desperate lives....

My dad had classic oppositional behavior. He was trying to prove something all his life. I can only surmise his childhood from what I know about him, but I was trashed by teachers who taught him throughout my elementary education, and it had nothing to do with his behavior...

....the family secrets.

It is an odd thing to have known in my heart my dad was abused as a child for years before I had recall. I can remember being around my dad and uncles and knowing something was not right in the way they talked to him.

Enough said, but thanks for your comments,

VAC

I guess one of my greatest hopes is that when my life is over, I am not filled with regret.
there
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Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 12:41 am

Re: still going on

Post by there »

((((VAC))))
Reading latest here. Glad I did. Hope you continue to heal from medical issues.
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 »

Hello,

Thanks to everyone here.....

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

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Hello,

Long absence...I have been in long recovery mode and starting to see some improvement. I have several dear friends fighting for their lives now.

I have been doing well enough. Have been traveling which is a challenge to current mobility issues.

I have let the genie out of the bottle with some of my family: has been a shocker for them. My folks were well loved and respected.

Here is the thing that I have though of recently that hounds me.

I am a survivor and things were done to me that forever changed me. The abuse was more mental than sexual actually, even though that was enough.
I regret the many things my dad opposed for no reason. I was offered swimming training with experts at a very early age in our capitol city, but no. I could have skipped highschool, but no. I wanted to study voice, but no.

With all of this, the regrets that most affect me are not what others did to me, but what I did to others.

I had a choice.
My abuse and scars and disappointments gave me no right to pour my pain out on others.

Those things said, I am at greater peace. My life has been changed, but I am still pressing on for better.

Amazingly I still remember things.

My best to you all.

VAC
Harmony
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Re: still going on

Post by Harmony »

Dear VAC,

Hope you don't mind me sharing some thoughts on your thread here.

Time does a number on our bodies. It is interesting to see old scars appear as funny wrinkles. I have a number for which I can not remember the injury. There are so many. It is so interesting the analogy of healing one's body vs healing one's mind.

I too have been incapacitated for months unable to walk normally after an extensive rebuild of foot and ankle. The need for surgery is the result years of hard activity on a birth defect. Again I didn't do anything to cause the pain. I am healthy a normal weight and stayed physically fit. Perfect analogy to my abuse. I did everything right but none the less... The result is a bad limp and loads of pain. I get lots of sympathy for the physical pain. There are scars. People can see it. No sympathy like this for the bigger pain of child abuse and neglect. If you can't see it then what? It doesn't exist? It isn't real? We should just get over it? Call it a mental illness when I would have been fine had I not been abused?

A life time of pain comes from parents who didn't step up. Now as grandmother I see what true good parenting looks like in my two daughters. So proud of the careful way they speak to the children. They make her strong, smart and confident. The love and kisses we all give them positively affirms who they are and each of their gifts. This is how it should be in life.

Sad to say I still work with T to learn the things my two year olds are getting as part of normal development. I often see my T as the parent I never had. I can now see what I missed. It is painful. The foot is painful. That pain is acknowledged by the world. The other not so much.

I am glad that you posted VAC and value your membership at isurvive.

with care,
Harmony
there
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Posts: 9795
Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 12:41 am

Re: still going on

Post by there »

VAC,
I hear you. I can feel strength in your words today. The greater peace and pressing on are a powerful combo. Thanks for checking in.

Harmony wrote
Call it a mental illness when I would have been fine had I not been abused?
Wow, Harmony!
That's pithy. Thanks for voicing it.
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 »

You guys are like medicine to me. V.
VAC
Member
Posts: 724
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:16 am

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Harmony,

I hope my post was not offensive to you...

I have been bound to limited motion and with my thoughts all the time....have remembered many things.

Scenes, tones, words, deeds: the façade and hypocrisy of our lives growing up.

The greatest captive, I thought, was mother. She should have run like hell. I told her so a number of times when I was young.

I was violent as a child, unpredictable, frightening, quiet, removed....other dimensions I escaped to actually.

I do resent a great many things.

Harmony, I am glad you are resilient...I think some of it is inherited, in you DNA.

Thanks for taking time to reply.

Thank you, There.

VAC
Harmony
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Re: still going on

Post by Harmony »

Dear VAC,

You are the kindest soul. Thank you for your concern. I was actually truly touched by the message you left. It felt straight from your heart and my own. Hope your red white and blue day was spent with loved ones. I find the littlest members of our family cheer me up better than anything. I am blessed with the most adorable granddaughters. Thank you for the comment of resilience. I forget what I am made of sometimes. Again you speak the truth.

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

Re: still going on

Post by VAC »

Hello to all,

The death of an old friend, others gravely ill and fighting.....

This is really like a plague.

I push to do those things that comprise my life, and find I am good for the short haul, thankful my wife is with me to help with driving.

I would like to sit down with all of you and have tea, perhaps even an English breakfast: to see each of you, to thank you for listening to me and giving me your lives here.

I am learning by degrees that happiness is settling of my soul upon the things that matter in life.

This last weekend I was utterly unable to drive home due to exhaustion: my wife drove. Such appreciation for this beautiful woman.

My children are entertaining and endearing: they aggravate me, but then I am their father. The apple don't fall from the tree.

My pain level is about 50 percent of what it was. I am walking without a cane for the first time in a bit and know when I have walked too much.

Again thanks for the friendship here,

V.
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