Just when I think my incest issues are under control they floor me again. It was 1992 when I began my journey of remembering what my father had done to me as a child. I was 39 and I guess in a safe enough space that the memories began. It was so devastating that I checked myself into a hospital on December 27, 1992. I've never looked back to that day with any regrets.
I guess the thing about incest that bothers me the most are the deep, seemingly endless, mental scars it inflicts on a childs life. Incest scars don't go away, at least not for me. Most people have boundary issues and barge uninvited into another's space. Mine are the opposite. I have a hard time letting anyone in so my walls are up more than they are down.
I've had tremendous growth since I started my journey. After telling the truth my family did not speak to me for 9 years. And the truth shall set you free.....Damn, that was more free than I wanted to be! Regardless, I was able to spend 4 wonderful years with my mom and dad before they passed. I actually forgave my father and was able to hold his hand and help him cross to the other side. I realized his childhood was as damaged as mine so I was able to see him in a different light. That is not to say that upon forgiving him I did not have occassional feelings of anger. As he lay dying I had my moments where I wanted to put a pillow over his face. He never acknowledged what he had done to me. My mother did although I didn't need validation from anyone as to whether I had told the truth.
The journey never ends and just when I think I am OK, it's time to go back to work on myself one more time......More stories will be written, more groups will be attended and into my life will come more wonderful people all with the common thread of a childhood full of hurt but an adulthood knowing there is hope...Keep coming back, it works!!
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I have no clear cut memories of sexual abuse. They are dreams and images that have come to me since I was about 11-13 years old. Beginning therapy in 1984, every therapist I went to at some point would say something like, "Now, who (or when) were you molested?" And I would say, " I was never molested. " Then they would invariably say, "You have a textbook profile of someone who was sexually abused." I am bothered that I can't say who did what when. I am uncomfortable with accusing anyone. Yet I have carried the emotional scars and sexual dysfunction since I can remember. I am PISSED OFF that I feel like a sexual Quasimoto with no frame of reference to what is normal. I try to seek serenity by asking God to put my mind at peace and let me know in clear cut memories what happened. But I think He gives me just what I can handle and with it, enough patience to know that time takes time.
I had my memories come back... Totally inaccurate but simply a broad verbal acknowledgement that something deep stirred within me when I was 39. Being molested at an early age doesn't equate to a memory, more a feeling and a glimpse here and there that my soul knew it's truth. I had body memories and fleeting dreams. My body remembered more than my mind but I was OK with that as it validated all the years I had abused myself and those around me. My mind split into I don't know how many secret caves all those years ago. Doctors like to call it MPD or multiple personality disorder. On the contrary it has never been a disorder but rather an order in my mind that enabled me to endure the abuse and still live. My mind was so brilliant that it put itself in order for me to survive. I will never access all of those dark caves in the recesses of my mind. All I know is I survived and everyday that I wake up and everyday that I continue to survive I have won the battle. Let the grotesque, elaborate memories stay where my brilliant brain put them, in darkness while my journey takes me to "lite". Never a completely "lite" load but one I know and the Universe knows I can carry.
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