Wrong Words

I drove away

2008-12-14T21:17:00.000-08:00

The first few days at my parents' house went well, perhaps the best of any visit I have had with them. Dad enjoyed the birthday dinner we had with him. My brother and nephew were able to be there also.

On Tuesday evening I was able to do some language research with my father. I recorded a number of words from his first language.

I helped clean things around the house. My brother and nephew did a lot of cleaning when they were there on the weekend, also.

The lady who had been coming to help Mom bathe had notified Dad that she was limited on time because she has so many children to take care of. So I followed up by calling some agencies that a local doctor had suggested might be able to provide help. One of them had an in-home care worker who did not currently have any clients. The lady and her supervisor were happy to come for an evaluation and interview time Wednesday morning. Before they came Dad started getting tense, saying that he didn't need help, even though everyone else knows he does and he often tells us by phone how difficult it is for him to take care of Mom. The appointment went OK. Dad agreed to help one day a week. He paid the required two weeks in advance.

Not too long after the ladies left Dad exploded in a rage. It caught me off guard. It was like his rages when I was younger. He swore saying all the resource people could "go to hell." I instantly decided that I did not want to listen to any more of his raging. I quickly, quietly packed up my things, told goodbye to both Mom and Dad and drove off. I cried for miles, wishing that Dad would not have raged again. I cried wishing that things were different. I was able to cry, something I could not do when Dad raged when I was younger and when he beat me. And this time I could set a boundary for myself and leave. It hurt to leave, but I did. And I knew, somehow, that I had done the right thing.

I called one of my cousins who knows my story and who has experienced spousal abuse for many years and told her what had happened, and cried with her. She was the first person to tell me I did the right thing. What a good thing to hear even though I felt so sad. My cousin asked me if I had planned to leave if my father had raged and I said no, but that I had had a number of dreams in which I had wrestled with what to do when my father was raging. Perhaps that wrestling, as a recovering adult, had helped me so that when the bad time came I was able to leave.

It took me more than four hours to drive the wintery roads to get to my brother's house. I got to talk to my wife by phone. She cried with me as I told her what had happened. She, also, was totally supportive and told me I had done the right thing.

I still feel sad, but I feel freer. My father may think I am mad at him. Anger is how people in our big family system tried to control each other. But I'm not mad at him. I feel so very sad for him. He is missing out on getting better help to deal with the difficulties of taking care of Mom and their house. I wish I could change him so that he would take the help, but I can't. I'll continue to try to get him help, but I'll continue to try to do it in a way that he feels he is in charge, making decisions. That seems to be very important to him, not losing control. He has already suffered some big losses, losing his driver's license, Mom not having the mind she used to have anymore, her losing continence, their house being dirty and smelly from urine (but he has lost much of his usual keen sense of smell so he doesn't think their house is in bad shape). When the point comes that they actually are in danger from having such a bad living situation, we'll have to intervene, even if he rages. Maybe doctors will have to give Dad something to calm him at that point.

Life is sometimes difficult. I don't feel great about how my trip ended up. But I still think I did the right thing driving away, quietly, but resolutely. And if that's right, I progressed a little more on this trip.

cold and trip feelings

2008-12-04T22:47:00.001-08:00

I've got a cold in my larynx. I'm starting to cough more. I'm thinking of calling the airlines tomorrow to see if I can postpone my flight to visit my parents this weekend and next week. Sunday will be Dad's 91st birthday. Dad doesn't like anyone coughing around him, or blowing their noses. There's so many things he doesn't like.

A couple of nights ago as my wife and I started eating supper I told her that I had just had a session of emotions that felt like the dread of anxiety I get before public speaking, which, if not treated with my little meds, turns into a panic attack. As I explained what I had felt I started crying, a hard cry, like I haven't cried in a long time. I told her I didn't want to visit my parents. I didn't want to have to walk around on pins and needles all the time trying not to upset Dad. Then in that transparent state I switched to childhood and told her it was too much of a burden to bear for a kid, getting treated so badly by Dad. My wife cried with me. I think it was good to cry, cathartic. I think maybe I'm getting the focus of my grief and anger on Dad, where it belongs, rather than on other people who I've dumped on sometimes.

I hate to write these things because I'm afraid some might not understand and will tell me I shouldn't be angry at my father or, after all these many years, shouldn't have a feeling of not wanting to visit them. I hate being condemned by others. I've lived with it all my life, getting blamed for so much by my father and then it was so difficult to accept criticism from others.

I do love Dad, so I have mixed feelings. I want to help him have a happy birthday. But I don't enjoy having to be so careful all the time not to upset him. I would like a freer life, the kind of life I have most of the time with my wife, children, and grandchildren. I like my new life.

flying

2008-11-19T12:19:00.000-08:00

I had another vivid dream about flying two nights ago. Not flying in an airplane, but me actually flying, or, more accurately, gliding. This time I even tried to do a backwards somersault, but couldn't quite get all the way over.

I have no idea what the dream meant, if anything, but it was fun, better than my dreams where I still wrestle with issues from the abuse.

panic attacks

2008-11-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I told my growth group that I have had panic attacks before public speaking. I added that they are connected to my father's not allowing me to make mistakes. He would beat me physically and/or verbally if I made a mistake. In the growth group no one condemned me. It looks like there are people in the world who don't condemn.

Sharon Wallace's blog

2008-09-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Today while nosing around on Facebook, I found a link to a powerful book by Sharon Wallace. She has a blog on amazon.com which promotes her book.

fathers that provoke their children

2008-05-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today I came across a blog post about The Top Ten Ways that Parents Provoke their Children to Wrath. I felt sad when I read it because so many of the points in the list were things my father did. I remember my father preaching at us that we needed to obey our parents because it says so in the Bible. I also remember, probably after I had learned to read, thinking that that same part of the Bible tells fathers not to provoke their children to wrath. I didn't know if my father had provoked me to wrath. I had to hide or stuff any wrath I might have had at that point. But I do remember thinking that it wasn't fair that my father preached to me about obedience. (I was very obedient and wanted to be, as well as I knew if I weren't I would be beaten.) But I also felt that it wasn't fair that my father didn't pay much attention to the rest of that part of the Bible, telling father how not to relate to their children so that it would produce bad feelings within them. I emailed my wife the link to that list and told her that I wish my father had done it differently. She emailed me back that she understood why I had said that. (We do live in the same house but we email each other things that we consider important or that the other person needs to know.)

Facebook

2008-03-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

I joined Facebook recently. There are a number of Facebook groups that focus on the needs of us abuse survivors.

If you are already a member of Facebook, I invite you to become a Facebook Friend. Try clicking here to get to my Facebook profile. Then click on a Facebook link to send me an invitation to be your Friend. You can look in the lower left margin of my Facebook profile to see some of the groups I have joined that are concerned about abuse issues.

If you are not a member of Facebook, you might enjoy becoming part of the Facebook community (there are many good things on Facebook besides a lot of things which are not good for us). Click here to sign up for Facebook.

There is strength in being part of a community of survivors.

No news is ...

2008-03-18T14:34:00.001-07:00

"No news is good news," they say. Has it really been since November that I have posted here? I did draft one post about forgiveness several weeks ago, but I never got around to completing it. Sometimes I've wondered if that means I still have farther to travel on the forgiveness road. It's really difficult for me to say. I think I have fully released my father from any further obligation to me, for him to somehow make amends for how he abused me. And yet I still find myself waiting fairly long before I call him by phone again to see how he and Mom are doing. I don't know what that's about, either. I guess sometimes we don't always understand how we are doing on our recovery journey.

I've been feeling pretty well for quite a few weeks. I've been pacing myself, not acting too addictively. I continue to deeply appreciate our friends in the growth group my wife and I attend. We are all needy there and each one is willing to try to help whoever is hurting. All are at various points on their own journeys of recovery. It's not a recovery group, per se, but in one way or another, each of us is in recovery. (Actually, I've been discovering that more people are in recovery or need to be that I had ever realized when I was younger.)

I have been spending quality time via IM chat with a dear friend who is going through a critical time in recovery. I'm learning it's OK not to know what to say sometimes. And also that it's OK not to say something when we don't have anything to say. I'm glad that sometimes just being there is a comfort to the other. I know it has been for me during some of my most difficult times.

I did much better than I have in the past this morning operating under stress. My wife forgot an alcohol swab to clean her skin to get an injection to help with the disease she is battling. She told me that as we were headed to a 9 a.m. appointment for me with a doctor. I didn't get upset with her this time. I even pulled off the street and popped into a grocery store to buy some alcohol swabs. I looked for some time but couldn't find them. So I grabbed a antiseptic wash that I thought might work. I paid for it. My wife used it and was appreciative. Then we ended up on the 7th floor of the doctors building, which was the right floor, but the wrong hospital. Tomorrow's appointment for my wife will be at the first place we went to today. The receptionists were nice at the first place and telephoned the right place to say I would arrive late. It all worked out fine and my blood pressure level was even down to normal by the time my intake nurse took my b.p. We made it. My doctor was 45 minutes late and apologized for being late. I told him, "It's all right. We were late too."

Growth is often slow, and sometimes comes in spurts. But it can keep happening. I want it to. My wife appreciates my efforts. And I now feel free to give myself a pat on the back sometimes, as I just did in this post. It feels good. I hope you are experiencing some things in your life that feel good for you, too.

Letters to My Abuser project

2007-11-25T22:56:00.000-08:00

Here's an important announcement for those of you who have been victims of sexual abuse:

I am a survivor/author working on a collection of letters from survivors to their abusers. I am making my last minute rounds on blogs, hoping to find letters I can use in the collection which will be published as a ebook and later as a printed book. If you think you might be interested in participating, please visit the project site for submission guidelines: www.letterstomyabusers.com.

Take care, keep healing and growing.

Lovingly,

Stephanie
www.myvoiceoftruth.com
www.letterstomyabusers.com

Charles Schultz

2007-10-30T10:28:00.001-07:00

Last night I watched a PBS program about Charles Schultz, the creator of the Peanuts cartoon strip. I was touched by the program. It told how Mr. Schultz often wondered if people loved him for who he was, not just for being rich and famous as a cartoonist. He seemed not to have gotten words of affirmation when he was young and needed them from others. It reminded me of myself. I went to bed in a contemplative mood after having watched the program.

Will I ever feel good?

2007-09-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Recovery can be difficult and long. Sometimes we may wonder, "Will I ever feel good?" A friend who is also in recovery just asked that question. Following is my answer based on what I've been experiencing since beginning therapy 18 years ago:

We Americans (and probably many other people, also) put a high priority on "feeling good." We try to get that feeling through all kinds of ways, nicer car, bigger house, changing spouses, changing jobs, taking drugs, etc. In some religious traditions the goal is not to feel good but to become more honest with oneself. In some religions the goal is even to suffer more, so that one can get closer to a better spiritual state. (I'm not so sure that we should look for suffering, but I do think that coping with suffering can be a special part of our spiritual journey.)

Suffering from abuse and neglect and abandonment is terrible. This kind of suffering should never happen, especially by those who are supposed to love and protect us. But it does happen. I think our goal in therapy is to become more open with ourselves about what happened, to face the reality, to feel the anger that we could not feel when it was happening, to grieve our loss, to try to learn to survive as an adult without what was lost. I'm not sure that our goal is to feel better. If it were, perhaps we should be taking tranquilizers, which is what many doctors used to prescribe and some still do. They can make us feel better. But they also numb out the bad feelings which will return when the tranquilizers wear off.

I don't know if we can ever stop grieving our losses. But I have heard that the pain lessens, that we can shift our focus to other things in life which are healthy for us and in service to others and to ourselves, giving ourselves time to love ourselves, to recharge, to relax, to be with people who are emotionally healthy. I think eventually when pain lessens we probably do feel some better, but I'm not sure that that is the goal. If it is, we may get impatient getting there and might not walk through all the steps needed so that our minds and bodies can learn new patterns of thinking, reacting, and behaving. I think it is a long slow process. And I'm not sure that the pain ever completely goes away. But I also think that the feeling of pain and loss is not the opposite of the kind of feeling we are searching for, even if we do not know exactly what we are searching for. I suspect that what we are really searching for is more like peace and joy, rather than feeling good.

Feeling good is a temporary emotion, often based on our circumstances, our life cycles, food we eat, how much sleep we get, etc. But there is, I think, an emotion something like feeling good (probably a combination of peace and joy, I'm guessing) which we can have at the same time as we feel some pain. I suspect that joy is something we experience more by choice and feeling good is something we experience more as our body's chemical reaction to our circumstances. That chemical reaction results in something our emotions interpret as feeling good.

I think I have begun to experience some of this more peaceful, relaxed feeling. I don't feel so driven as I used to be, an addictive drivenness which tried to cover up my pain and a fear of feeling bad as I could hear old tapes running through my brain, and feel bad about myself with the lies I learned when I was abused. I'm not on a high now. I've tried to have highs in the past, from work, from achievement, from meeting some goal. But I'm not on a low either. I'm more level. I think it's more of a normal feeling, a sense that I don't have to do something artificial to make myself feel better, to drive out the bad feelings. Am I still sad about what I lost in the past, about the loss of security, about feeling loved by my father and then, sometimes fairly soon, getting beaten and hollered at and ridiculed by him? Oh, yes. But it doesn't hold so much power over me as it used to. I have tried to face it, write about it, realize how it was negatively affecting my relationships with others and my attitude toward myself. And I am trying to move on.

I hope this is recovery. If better feelings come at times, that will be fine. But I realize that I already have plenty of opportunities even now for enjoying life, with the new, safer life I have, with my wife, good children, and their children, and some safe friends. It's better than it used to be. I can be content. I can continue trying to live in healthier ways, but I don't need to live saddled with so much guilt as I used to, not being perfect at recovery.

grunge

2007-09-01T22:01:00.000-07:00

My wife and I are back from two weeks away from home. The first week we spent with my parents. We helped them celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. I made them a nice photo album to celebrate their years together. They liked the album. They enjoyed the celebration we put on for them. I enjoyed seeing them happy.

But I also had many difficult times during that week. My father still speaks so negatively about people. He still criticizes my mother and controls her, part of his marriage-long abuse. Partway through the week I found myself sitting in their living room with my head down, my wife nearby. I looked at her with pain in my eyes, hoping she could understand how I was feeling. I felt grungy. I think I felt the most uncomfortable I ever have listening to Dad. I love him. But he has caused Mom and me, and in different ways my brothers, deep pain. It hurt listening to him being so negative, talking about others, criticizing people, not living joyfully. I think I felt it so deeply because I have been working at removing my own scar tissue for years now, scar tissue which grew to help protect me when I was younger and had no one else to protect me, scar tissue which kept me from having as good relationships with others as I craved. Now I feel more fully and sometimes it feels so good, like when I'm playing with our grandchildren, or when our children tell me, "Dad, I love you," at the end of a phone chat. And sometimes it feels bad, when there is something painful going on.

It was such a relief to leave. I told my wife partway through the week that I hoped I could make it to the end of our time with my parents. I did. I did well, actually. I drove them around. We took them to two restaurant meals. When we left I told them I loved them both.

But it still hurts. And it still feels good to get away from all that negativity, which is connected to the physical and verbal abuse which has been going on in that house for almost my entire lifetime. I think there may have been two or three years after I was born before it started.

Grungy is not a good feeling. Maybe I'm grieving the grunge.

Carnival Against Child Abuse

2007-07-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

The latest (July 27) Carnival Against Child Abuse edition is posted on the Wired For Noise blog. One of the themes of this carnival is that there is hope for recovery, even if it takes a long time. Good submissions.

our dog got it also

2007-07-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I had a flashback to my childhood. I remembered that my father used to beat our dog, also, besides beating Mom and me. My wife has reminded me that someone has said that if someone abuses animals there is a good chance they will move on to abusing people also. I don't know why my father beat us and our dog. I don't know why he had such a raging temper. Even more confusing: I don't know why he could be so tender and loving sometimes and then so out-of-control at other times. And it was even more confusing and frightening for me, as a little boy. I wish my father had accepted the offer of help that was available to him. He refused it. I feel sad about that. It's part of my grieving process. I wonder what kind of grieving my own children and wife have done over the years about my own deficiencies.

Life is not fair. People make bad choices and sometimes do bad things. I wish life were not that way. It tears me up when I observe someone else being abused or having a difficult time recovering from past abuse. I wish I could do more, but sometimes I can't.

Life is not fair.

But I won't give up trying to help things get better.

to forgive or not to forgive

2007-06-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Last night I had another vivid dream about my father. He must have raged again and abused me. That part wasn't in the dream. But he did come into the dream wanting me to forgive him for what he had done. He would come to me that way at night when I was a child, after he had beaten me during the day. He would ask for forgiveness. I always forgave him. I believed it was the right thing to do. Eventually, though, I understood that he would abuse again, even though he asked for forgiveness and said he would try not to do it again. I resigned myself to his not keeping his promise.

But in my dream last night I didn't forgive him. And I didn't not forgive him. I just struggled with whether or not to forgive him. There were others around in the dream and I told them "He will do it again." When I told my dream to my wife this morning, she said, "I heard you say something like that in your sleep."

The dream ended.

It was only a dream.

I have been forgiving my father all my life. It's a struggle. That's no dream.

play therapy

2007-05-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a fun family Memorial Day picnic supper at the park near our house. After we ate the children had a good time playing. Shawna (about 16 months old) came up to me. She can't really talk yet, except for a few words, but I could tell she wanted to be with me. That feels so good. She held her distance for quite a few months but then realized that my wife and I were OK.

Later she brought me a ball. I would throw it and she would go get it and bring it back. She hasn't yet learned how to throw a ball, I guess.

After awhile folks were eating some dessert. I was asked if I wanted a rich pecan cookie (something like a brownie). I did, but I was sitting on the ground 20 feet from the picnic table. So I asked if someone could give my cookie to Shawna and tell her, "Take this cookie to Grandpa." She understood. She brought it all the way to me, turned around, sat in my lap, and ate the cookie! Her mother, our daughter, brought me another one.

I also got to pitch the ball for the four boy cousins ages 3-7. I think they all got hits. I asked our son to be catcher and I pitched. Good fun!

Ah, the stuff good memories are made of. I never knew being a grandpa and getting to experience a safe childhood with my grandchildren would be so sweet. This must be a kind of play therapy. I felt peace, content, relaxed, and safe. It is therapeutic to experience childhood again, this time safely, as I relate to our grandchildren. I love them so much. I want to help keep them safe. I want to protect them from any kind of abuse.

When I shared the preceding with one of my good friends, he responded:

Thanks for the descriptions of your good Memorial day gathering. Yes, trust is a wonderful thing, and it warms our souls to experience it. The Lord is giving you back some of the years that the locust ate. How sweet it is, richer than pecan cookies, and warmer than the sun's rays on a spring day. Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

So true!

Boot Hill

2007-05-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

I told them not to climb the hill, really a bluff, high and steep, but an inviting challenge for my friends. I told them my father did not allow us to climb the bluff. He said it was too dangerous. We might fall. And we might get lost when we got to the top where the alders grew so thickly. I told them we would all get in trouble if they climbed the hill.

But they climbed it anyway. Their father was a different kind of man. He allowed for accidents and other things in life that went wrong. They didn't understand the really bad position they were putting me in by climbing the hill on our grounds.

And they did get stuck up there, at least one of them did. Or maybe he got lost. I can't remember that detail right now. But I must have had to walk back down the beach to our cabin to tell our fathers that one of them hadn't come back down the hill and we didn't know where he was.

And it happened as I had said. My father erupted. I started running from him, knowing that it would hurt when he erupted. One of my hip boots came off as I ran. He picked it up. He caught me. And he flailed at me with my own boot. It hurt.

It hurt. I was not to blame.

It was my Boot Hill.

Gray

2007-05-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Gray (composed 1993)

Darkness descends,
surrounds, smothers.
Prisoner longs for light.
Day dawns,
but uninvited ugly
night and light
mixed in mind
produces persistent pain
of groggy gray.

My meds have kept my depression pretty well in check lately. But there has been an underlying anxiety which has affected my sleep. Most days I don't wake up as refreshed as I need to be to work well and be safe when driving.

I'm not sure what is beneath the surface. I'm discussed it with a friend who asks good questions. Maybe some of it has to do with how long my wife has been struggling with a debilitating disease. Some of it feels like earlier years when life was not safe--and yet, my life is the safest now that it ever has been. I no longer have work tension. I experience joy, with my wife, and going for walks with her after supper, and visiting our children and grandchildren. It's a beautiful Spring where we live. But underneath it all, I'm still afraid of my father or dread seeing him on our next visit (for their 60th wedding anniversary). Maybe I'm in so much healthier an environment now and am healthier myself that the lifelong anxiety keeps hanging around, like a fog. I'm able to function. And I'm not binging as I so often have on frenetic activity, especially work.

It's not easy to recover. Does it really take a lifetime?

managing depression

2007-05-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

In my last post I wrote about the insight I got from others, including some therapists, that we can "honor" depression. Comments to that post as well as further thinking on my own helped me realize that there has to be balance in all of this. There are different kinds of depressions, some life-threatening. Some depression can be managed with medication. Others can be helped with therapy, healthy self-talk, and positive changes in one's life style, attitudes, and diet. Some of the greatest authors and poets were severely depressed. Some of us can write fairly profound material during depression. Others can hardly get out of bed, let alone think about writing anything.

I manage my depression with medication which I have taken for 15 years. If I decrease my medication or try to go off it cold-turkey, the depression worsens. I am not able to think clearly. Thoughts of worthlessness get so bad that it is painful for me and I am hardly able to function. I am able to do very little work. I simply feel terrible and feel like I am a worthless person.

I have also been helped by good sessions with therapists and by reading books about depression. All my life I have tried to keep the "bad" feelings away by doing things which crowd them out. I am an adrenaline junkie, in the words of one of my friends. I binge on work and hobby projects that keep the "happy" feelings going for a good amount of time. But then when my body tires and I must stop my binging, the bad feelings return even worse than if I had not been binging. Adrenaline crashes are unpleasant.

So I have been trying to live on a more even keel, avoiding the ups of adrenaline highs and depression avoidance. I am pacing myself better in my work. The anger management work I did with my therapist last fall continues to help me.

I am learning to take more pleasure in the ordinary things of life, discovering that what may seem ordinary really is often extra-ordinary if I relax and spend some time with it, such as enjoying a flower, or a piece of music, or playing with my grandchildren.

Is my depression all gone because of my consistency in taking my medication and living with new behavior pattens and attitudes? No. But it is manageable. It doesn't overpower me as it would have in the past. Life is almost normal for me, or at least as normal as it can be when we can longterm underlying depression. And I can enjoy much of life, I can smile and have fun. others.

Your experience may be different. My hope for each of us who suffer from depression is that we can find some joys in life which can balance out the uncomfortable or overwhelming feelings that come from depression.

honoring depression

2007-04-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I led a growth group session. We had a good time talking together, as we always do. Several of us shared deeply personal stories. I shared. I mentioned that depression began for me many years ago when I was in therapy for child abuse.

There are a couple of therapists in the growth group as well as others who are wise. Several responded to my mention of depression, telling me to honor the depression. They said depression is a time for grieving, in my case, grieving the abuse I experienced as a child and grieving the fact that I never had a father with whom I could feel safe. With him there was always the risk of being beaten or ridiculed or both.

I had never before heard that depression was something to honor. I had been told and had read that depression is "anger turned inward." I recognize that anger is an appropriate emotion to have toward at my father for abusing me (as well as my mother). (Of course, that anger has to be handled carefully, not destructively, and not transferred to others who had nothing to do with my father's abuse.) I assumed that my depression over the years was anger turned inward since this is what the experts had said about depression.

But I appreciate the new insight my growth group friends gave me last night, that depression is something to honor. I know it is appropriate to continue to grieve that I did not have the kind of father every child deserves. Having been through child abuse, then therapy for it, I am better equipped to be that kind of a father and grandfather.

feeling the hug

2007-04-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today, as part of my normal work, I was checking translation to another language of part of the Bible. It was Mark 9:36, which reads this way in the Good News Translation:

Then he took a child and had him stand in front of them. He put his arms around him and said to them

As I read those words I was struck by the fact that Jesus put his arms around a child. The thought popped into my mind: "that could have been me there as a little child." For perhaps the first time in my life I started to realize at an emotional level that Jesus would have hugged me, too, if I had been there. It's been difficult for me to connect with God emotionally. I want to, but it is difficult, I assume because I was abused by my father. It is difficult for me to believe that others can really love me and especially that God can. Part of me wanted to just keep moving on in my work to check the next part of the translation. But another part of me kept urging me to linger on that image of Jesus hugging me. So I did for a bit. Maybe another time I can linger longer.

This evening I told my wife that I had had a special experience while working today. I began telling her about what I just wrote here. When I started explaining about Jesus hugging me, I choked up. Some tears came. It felt real, like I was getting in touch with something that I've been missing all my life.

Maybe some of you can understand something of this breakthrough for me today. I still have much farther to go to emotionally understand and accept that God loves me and would hug me, just as my wife, children, grandchildren, and some special friends do. I know it with my head, but I need to know it in a way that affects me emotionally, so that I don't feel so much rejection and self-condemnation.

Calm

2007-03-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

I have often found times of calm to be uncomfortable, unsettling. So I have spent much of my life in frenetic activity, including work, to keep calm away. Why? Because when there is quiet and calm, I hear old messages from my father condemning me:

You don't measure up.
You made a mistake.
Someone might not like you because you weren't perfect.
People will remember that you messed up.
There is something wrong with you.

Lately I have been trying to experience the calm, to tolerate it, and, even, to accept and enjoy it. It's not easy, but it's getting a little better. The alternative is worse than the calm. Some people thrive on calm. I'd like to get to that place in life, someday. I know I don't have to be perfect while trying.

Damaged

2007-02-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

Rindy posted Damaged a few days ago. I just finished watching and listening to the powerful video she includes in her post. It's about a woman who was damaged by an abuser as a young girl, but it could be about any of us who have been damaged by someone else. I highly recommend that you, too, go experience Rindy's post on her Experience the Journey blog, which I have just added to my blogroll.

freedom in the fellowship of stutterers

2007-01-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I spotted a link to a blog post titled Remembering The Stutterer. I followed the link to a blog hosted by someone who stutters and blogged about it. I was deeply interested because I, too, have been a stutterer. It felt freeing to read the blog post and comments on it by other stutterers. I added mine to theirs. There is something very special about being in the company of others who have a similar disability as you do, and are honest and transparent about it. It's freeing, and healing. I wish that more of us who have abusive backgrounds or disabilities of various kinds would be more open so that others can experience freedom and progress from being with those who understand what we go through. As I have talked with others, I've come to believe that a high percentage of people, perhaps most people, have disabilities or impediments of one kind of another. Some are hidden, others are seen, but all are real. I want to be open enough about my issues, where appropriate, so that others can feel comfortable to talk about their issues and, hopefully, experience greater freedom and joy in life.

Do we really put women and children first?

2006-12-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

Rev. Dr. Sharon Ellis Davis has written a powerful reflection on how much we need to become more aware of violence to women and children. She says:

The culture we live in has a rhetoric of women and children first. However, I began to seriously reflect on the persistent violence against women and children--rape, incest, emotional and physical abuse, unfair economic wages, and lack of health care for single, female-headed families. I was forced to ask the question, "Are we truly living in a culture that values women and children? Are our morals and values producing legislation, attitudes, and people who care enough about women and children to ensure they have equal treatment and protection under the law?" In other words, "Does our culture have a walk that equals our talk?"

Later she adds:

So, as I continue to reflect on our culture and its "women and children first" culture, I submit that we cannot begin to put women and children first until we become sensitized to women and children--their needs, special circumstances, and their value. I submit that we cannot put "women and children first" until we open our eyes and see women and children, recognizing them as valued contributors to the survival of our society. Like the male pastoral leader in my workshop who was able to admit his lack of awareness of violence against women, we have to get off automatic and open our eyes and see. Only then will our walk equal our talk. Then women and children will not simply be first in rhetoric, but truly included with the humanity of all people.

I agree.

the nightmare in the daytime

2006-12-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

This morning I received an email message from a public health nurse who is trying to get medical and other needed help for my elderly parents. In the message she said she was required to report abuse, which my father still gives my mother, to the state authorities. I was stunned and yet realized she was right. And I felt like the nightmares I have been having was now taking place in the daytime. I was being presented an opportunity to help my mother get some relief from abuse. And yet I struggled, because I don't want to hurt either of my parents. They are old. They don't have very many more years to live. They love each other. Dad truly loves Mom, while also getting angry at her and expressing it now through verbal abuse, unlike when I was younger when it was also physical abuse.

I began crying, then sobbing, big sobs, for a long time. It felt like a lifetime of others not knowing finally coming out into the light. Of course, I've been sharing some on this blog, but that doesn't help my mother. Finally, someone who can help is stepping in to help.

It is scary. I don't want others in my big extended family to blame me for turning in my own father and upsetting the "family system." I don't want family members angry at me. I don't want my father angry at me. I don't want him to commit suicide from shame.

It is easier just to keep silent. That's one of the rules for dysfunctional, abusive family situation. But I had to tell the truth. I didn't realize it might result in an investigation from Adult Protective Services for abuse and possible elderly neglect. But if Mom can be helped, and maybe Dad, too, if somehow he can cooperate and understand what he is doing wrong, it is the right thing to do.

I hope there are people out there reading this who understand what I'm saying and can empathize. I need to be understood today.

the nightmare again

2006-12-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

Last night I had the nightmare again. Same basic plot, same struggle. First, some background: I just returned home from spending nearly a week with my elderly parents. I helped Dad celebrate his birthday. He is not far from 90. It was important that I spend that time with my parents. My mother's dementia is worsening but she still recognizes people and she can still think fairly clearly on many topics. Her memory is heavily affected. My father takes care of my mother in their own home. He continues to verbally abuse her. He understands that she has memory problems, but he still bawls her out for forgetting things. It was painful for me to listen. Several times I reminded Dad that Mom couldn't remember things because, well, she couldn't remember things. He said he understood, but continued to bawl her out. We did make some progress. I took my parents to a bank where they signed and had notarized forms for power of attorney and living wills. I've been trying to get them to do this for several years.

OK, in my nightmare last night I struggled with whether or not to call 911 to get help for my mother as Dad was abusing her. It might seem to some that there is such a simple answer but there isn't. If I call 911 and the authorities get involved they could remove Mom from their home. Dad could easily feel so shamed that he would commit suicide. Mom doesn't want to leave Dad. She and Dad both want to continue staying in their own home as long as they can (even though those who observe them recognize that they are not getting as good care as they need, but Dad is very stubborn about accepting such care).

Apparently I tried to speak out, calling for help or something, in my dream. I asked my wife about it this morning and she said she I had made some kinds of disturbed sounds.

onehandclapping on violence against women

2006-11-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

Julie at onehandclapping blog has written passionately about violence against women in her post, "International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women."

a beaten wife's story

2006-11-23T21:24:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine wants others to hear her story. It is not safe for her to include her name. Here is her story:

I was brought up in a fundamentalist denomination by traditional parents who respected each other. I attended university, received a master's degree in history and became a high school teacher. I did not work when our children were young but now I work full time, have time for the children and take care of the family finances, banking and taxes. I am the kind of person who can help you with your taxes or computer problems. I can deal with technical problems but I was not equipped to take care of myself.

In my upbringing I was influenced to believe that a woman should have an education but she must also get married and once married she should never divorce. This was not acceptable in the Christian community.

I became engaged to a young Christian man who wanted to become a missionary. This seemed to be the right direction for me also and I felt we had a lot in common. We married when we were both finished college.

My husband made it clear that he wanted me to obey him from the first. There were many reasons why I thought at the time that this was acceptable, after all it was in the marriage vows. Our goals seemed so unified that I thought this would never be a problem. It seems hard to believe now.

After our marriage we moved away from my family to another city where we both found good jobs. For several reasons we never did work as missionaries. However, we were always committed church members and I taught Sunday School and ran children's clubs.

Soon after our marriage it became clear that I was expected to obey anything and everything, commands clearly expressed and those poorly expressed, and those that had never been expressed.

For 25 years I was hit - battered, bruised and humiliated on a weekly basis, held against my will, berated and sworn at. I have been called every filthy name in the book. But I was only once bruised on the face. After that it was on the upper arms and legs. I was knocked over, kicked and shoved in front of the children, and kept in a room against my will while I was made to listen to hours of lectures on my insubordination, and threatened with worse violence.

We managed to have two children and for many years I stayed at home with the children. I used to pray that my husband would be away on business when it was time for the children's birthday parties so he could not ruin them.

He made life miserable for us all but he never did hit the children. If he found them doing something wrong I would immediately say that I had allowed them to do it, or I had even told them to do it. I stood there and deflected his violence for years. I would make him angry at me so he would hit me and leave the children alone. Of course, the children have been witness to some very violent scenes. He would also routinely lecture them for hours. I could not stop this.

When I finally started considering divorce, I was afraid that he would get joint custody. I could not bear the thought of the children being with him and my not being there so I decided to stay with my husband until they grew up. A few years ago, through police intervention, the physical violence was brought to an end.

However, the threats and psychological abuse, the desire to subordinate me continued. My husband fed off every mention in the church of the submission of women. He routinely pointed out that I was not submissive. I was not, but I was faithful and carried out the responsibilities of my job and family the best I could.

However, I was intensely loyal and for 30 years, from the time of our engagement up until a few months ago, I never told one person about the abuse. I made excuses and covered up. I was unwavering in my loyalty and fidelity. I finally realized that when the children leave home, which is very soon, I will be left in the house alone
with a person I am afraid to be alone with.

I recognize that violence is a pathology and not the result of wrong teaching. However, the teaching of submission and loyalty was impressed on me every day to keep the blame in my court and keep me silent. I was told by my husband that if I told anyone about something that was private between us, he meant the abuse, that was the same as infidelity and I would be punished for it.

I have just started taking the first steps toward getting out now. Now I have to deal with the fact that in law I am equally responsible for our financial situation and debts. I am equally responsible for what has happened to our children. I am responsible for dealing with my own pension issues. I have equal responsibliblity for making decisions about our house and belongings, and the children's future. I can't tell the lawyer that my husband is the 'head'. She can't pass that on to the court. I can't plead diminished responsibility on the basis of Bible texts.

I believe that no one should ever preach submission or let the word cross their lips unless they have lived 24/7 in subordination to another imperfect human being. Men speak glibly of women accepting limits, do they have any idea?

I write this to let people know of the secret and unpublicized nature of this problem in the Christian community. I asked the pastor's wife for a book on spousal abuse 'to pass on the a friend' and she said she didn't know of one off hand. No one who knows me in our church has any idea that this is who I am. But Christians need to know that the teaching of submission was a part of what has kept me in bondage to a serious pathology - violence.

If you have any words of encouragement for this dear woman, you can post them here as comments and she will be able to read them.

a la commode

2006-11-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my wife noticed a widening wet spot on the ceiling of our downstairs bathroom. We immediately suspected that our upstairs toilet was leaking. And I immediately felt angry at the subcontractor who removed and reinstalled that toilet when we had new flooring installed upstairs last spring. I had asked him to be sure to make a good seal because our main contractor had had a problem with a leak from that toilet in the past and it had been difficult for him to get it stopped.

The flooring company was closed when I learned of the problem. So I had to wait until today to call them about the problem. In the past I would likely have gotten quite stressed out over this issue. There is a good chance I might have raised my voice in anger and maybe even threatened legal action. But I did better today. I still expressed my disappointment with the work of the subcontractor. But I was more civil. I'm learning that that usually works better when talking about problems that need to be resolved.

The flooring company sent their inspector to our house right away. And they have contracted with a plumber to do a proper job sealing the toilet.

It feels good to continue making progress.

the first time I was called a bastard

2006-10-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

I was quite young
Dad took me with him
in his heavy red boat
He handed me the oars and told me
how to position them to row well

OAR ELSE!

"Row!" he told me
I tried hard
But the oars were too big for me
So was the boat

Being too small didn't count for anything

Dad grabbed an oar
and flailed
away at me
as I cowered in the stern
as far away from him as I could get

But he failed
to make me bigger and stronger
that day

He railed
at me

For the first time
he called me a bastard

I was a bastard
because I was too small
to row his big boat
with its big oars.

my bicycle

2006-10-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

My nice new bicycle was stolen this last Sunday. I had ridden it to the grocery store two blocks away to get some medicine. I chained it up at the bike rack outside the store. I was in the store for about 30 minutes. When I came out it was gone. It took awhile for the reality of it to sink in. Then I went inside the store to report the theft. The store personnel were very helpful and sympathetic. Yesterday I called our city crime report center to tell them of the theft.

How do I feel? I feel sad. I feel some grief and loss, even though a bicycle is only an inanimate object. My wife and I spent a fair amount of money on our new bicycles so that we could ride together and get needed exercise.

I think I am reacting to the theft in a better way than I would have in the past. I'm not obsessed about it. I'm not thinking about it all the time. I'm not imagining ways that I could get revenge on the thief if I could ever find him (or her). I recognize that my loss is the same that occurs to many others who get their bicycles or, worse, cars stolen in our city. I don't feel any different. In the past I might have felt like what happened to me just confirmed that I was a victim, destined to continue to be victimized. But vicitimization is not my destiny. I am believing the truth more and more, and that is progress in my recovery journey.

John Mark Karr, Duane Morrison, Charles Carl Roberts, Mark Foley, and me

2006-10-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

This last week has had difficult U.S. national news. Duane Morrison sexually assaulted girls at a high school in Colorado and then shot one of them to death before killing himself. Charles Carl Roberts shocked the nation when he entered an Amish schoolroom, tied up several girls, shot several to death and then himself. Mark Foley resigned immediately from the U.S. House of Representatives when it became public knowledge that he had been emailing underage pages in Congress with sexually explicit messages. And we still don't know what will happen to John Mark Karr, who claimed to have killed JonBenet Ramsay, but didn't, but remains in jail on child pornography charges. And then there is me.

What do each of these men have in common? They each experienced something so difficult and tramautic when they were young that it left a lifelong scar. Unresolved trauma and pain from child abuse almost always finds a way out of our being, sometimes crippling us with fear, as it has for me, or pointing us toward abusing others as oneself has been abused.

God spoke to this issue (Exodus 20) in one of the Ten Commandments, when he said:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me

Because I grew up in a family where there were generations of anger and dysfunction, I sometimes thought about this concept of generations affected by ancestors' sins. I have come to the point where I do not want to believe that this was an inevitable curse upon future generations. Rather, I think there is a psychological principle, that unless you break out of generational dysfunction and get help so you can recover, you will keep passing on the dysfunction. And it can often come out in various ways, including depression, lack of self-worth, addictions, violence, and abuse.

I was abusive to my wife and children but did not know it. I thought I being a good father and husband when I would lecture my family about "being careful," "trying not to have a car accident," etc. My lectures would go on and on. Our children would tell me, "Dad, you've already said that."

I thought I was free from the cycle of abuse which I had received at the hands of my father, but I really wasn't. I was almost proud of the fact that I never hit any of my family in anger. (I never hit them when not angry either!) But my family lived in fear of my lectures. They did not feel safe, free to make mistakes which really are a normal part of life.

We all feel shocked when a man such as Charles Carl Roberts enters a one-room Amish school and kills innocent girls. But he had a secret simmering inside himself for twenty years. He was living with guilt and inner turmoil. He "took care" of his problem violently.

There are many walking time bombs out there. It's not just suicide bombers in the Middle East. There are many in the U.S. and Canada and elsewhere around the world with secrets simmering inside them.

Our schools, churches, synogogues, mosques, and other institutions need to be more proactive to help hurting children before they hurt others. Can this be done without violaint people's civil rights and privacy? I would hope so. We owe it to each other to help each other. But we can't help unless people tell us their secrets. And people don't want to tell their secrets because they are ashamed or because, as in my case, I didn't think it was relevant to the rest of my life which was pretty good. But I was wrong.

When the next shooting occurs, or the next violation of little girls or boys, it is almost inevitable that a little searching will turn up that the offender was himself or herself violated and had not yet dealt with it so that he or she could begin the painful road of recovery.

Oh, before I end this, I want to make it clear that I do not believe that everyone who has been abused or experienced some unresolved trauma will become a murderer. But I do think that unresolved pain usually finds some way to affect us negatively until we address it and begin recovery. I did not become violent from the abuse I experienced, but I lived with fear, sometimes paralyzing fear. I was prickly, self-protective. After therapy started I sank into a terrible depression, perhaps one which had been with me for years but which I had covered up with busyness, work, and achievement. Unresolved pain often leads to difficulties in relationships, including marriage.

When will we begin to make it safer for people who have been abused to get help?

I hope it won't take three or four, or seven generations, before someone intervenes.

Domestic abuse Violence: The Facts Behind the Myths

2006-10-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

Domestic abuse Violence: The Facts Behind the Myths

This floats my boat!

2006-10-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

Our son called me today and asked what I would be doing at 4 pm. I forget what I told him, probably something about getting some more work done. He said he had an idea for me to go canoeing with him and his son. Well now, that sounded much better than work! We had a good time. It was Memory Making. And therapeutic for me, getting to do something with my
family and there were no abusive words. I even was able to sit in the back of the canoe and paddle it so it could be steered. I assumed because our son is so athletic (he far outshines me) and because he's done a fair amount of canoeing that he would have mastered the steering motions, but he hadn't. I didn't gloat but it made me feel good that there are still some things I can teach my son. We took supper in a sack with us and ate it along the bank of the river where we beached the canoe for awhile.

This was one of those special gifts that God drops into my life every once in awhile. It meant a lot to me. Our son *wanted* to do this with me!! Maybe I'm OK after all. My head sometimes tells me I am. I decided with my therapist that I am. But it is still difficult to drop the old feeling, from the child abuse, that I'm not OK. I'm trying to be patient as I disconnect from that old lie. Old lies die hard!

It's time for bed,
my canoeing muscles are sore

better trip

2006-09-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

I just got home from a week of work in another state. As I was flying home I realized that I hadn't gotten angry at anyone on this trip. I especially didn't get angry at anyone working for the airlines and that might be a new record for me. Airline problems have triggered my anger a lot in the past. Of course it helped this time that there weren't any problems that I can think of. I did get my suitcase zipper repaired before this trip. On my last plane trip the zipper puller got ripped off my suitcase by the luggage equipment at an airport. I got pulled out of shape by that. But I was able to take the suitcase to a local repair man without feeling anymore anger about what happened.

A pat on the back for me!

And a pat on the back for you if you've made some progress lately also!

compassionate blogger

2006-09-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading this post today by a compassionate blogger.

end of therapy, for now

2006-09-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago my therapist and I agreed that I end therapy for now. I made good progress with her. I could not think of more things to talk about. There will always be issues that need further work, but for now, anyway, I think I'm on track and working with these fairly well as they come up. I'm feeling fairly normal these days. Work is going well. I'm pacing myself better at work and giving myself more rest.

My therapist and I agreed that I would call her again for another appointment should the need arise. And it might. Sometimes things come up that are difficult for me to handle by myself and I need to talk them over with someone. My therapist listened well and gave good suggestions.

Caves

2006-08-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

My wife and I got to hear two sermons this morning. The first was given by our son, his first in a church where he has recently been hired as an assistant minister. The second sermon was at the church we regularly attend. It was about when a man named Lazarus back to life, after having been in his tomb for four days (John 11, in the Bible). The preacher invited each of us to come out of our tombs, to come back from the dead, and experience a new kind of life. His words reminded me of a poem I wrote a number of years ago, titled "Caves". The poem tells about the horror I experienced when my father would put me in the family laundry barrel and hold the lid on tightly. I'm still on my journey of coming out of my cave and coming back to life. As part of my journey I recently walked into my parents' laundry room and spent some time looking at their laundry barrel. I took some pictures of it. I've included one with this post. The laundry barrel doesn't frighten me as it used to. But other things, similar to that barrel, still have some power over me. I'm working at walking out of those tombs also.

Here is the poem:

Caves

When I was a child
I was put in a cave
the door was held shut.
I panicked, in a daze.

I could not get free
though the doorkeeper was near.
I begged to get out,
but it fell on deaf ears.

The stifling darkness
stabbed me with fright.
I needed fresh air,
I was desperate for light.

My Hero also was put in a cave
just as he’d said,
his cave filled with darkness
of death—he was dead.

And there in my cave
it was deathly too.
I really didn’t know
if I’d make it through.

My Hero came back alive,
He walked across his cave’s floor.
His father was loving
and opened the door.

I pled for release
from where I’d been shoved.
My door, too, finally opened
but not out of love.

One cave was opened by a father
who loved his son, with pride,
mine by another,
with his own darkness inside

himself—locking me in the cave
still baffles me
but I’m learning to live
in the light since I’m freed.

Whenever I enter a cave
this is something I’ve found,
that caves ultimately open
although darkness surrounds.

My Hero and I both greeted the light,
the contrast with our caves was stark.
Outside there was freedom, freedom at last,
and welcome release from the dark!

I still fear dark caves,
I'm scared of tight doors.
But I know that my Hero
has been there before.

Thank you, my Hero,
for leading the way
from darkness to light
so I can live in the day
as well as the night.

(from my poetry booklet, available as a free download, starting on page 8)

born again

2006-08-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest therapies for me in my ongoing recovery is relating to our children and grandchildren. I feel like I'm getting a second chance at experiencing the kind of life each child should as I help contribute to the lives of our children and grandchildren. I love getting down on the floor and playing with our grandchildren. It means so much to me for them to feel safe, loved, and affirmed, what I needed to feel as a child.

It's as if, well, I've been born again.

butterfly

2006-07-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

a butterfly landed on my shoulder
it seems so many years ago
it would sit there with
quivering wings
then fly away
but come back another day
and quiver again.
one day it flew away
and never came back.
years
years
how long can butterflies live?
how long can quivering,
delicate ones live?
I didn't know.
today the butterfly flew back
and landed once again.
this time its wings didn't
quiver.
they drooped
moist with dew
or was it tears?
but somehow
the butterfly still
flies
how long can butterflies
live?
perhaps they live
as long as they can
fly.
keep flying,
butterfly,
please keep
flying.

Tic talk poem

2006-07-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Tick talk
goes the clock.
Tics talk
in my brain.
Clock ticks
pace the time.
Brain tics
cloud the mind.

Tic talk

2006-07-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've been in a slump this week. Last week I mentioned to my therapist that all my life I've experienced something like mental tics. These are intrusive thoughts which have often led to physical or mental "tics", distracting patterns which are uncomfortable. I remember going through cycles of these tics when I was a child. The tic would cause me to walk in an odd way or do something else that was odd. I would keep doing this until someone, often my parents, observed my action and commented on it. Of course I was embarrassed and I would make an effort to stop that particular tic. After awhile I would substitute some other tic. My therapist agreed with my suggestion that this might be a kind of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) behavior. Since last week's therapy session I've been focusing more on these tics. They consume a lot of mental, emotional, and psychic energy. My therapist told me OCD is hereditary and that makes sense, since my father has had longterm OCD behaviors, such as counting aloud to five as he checks five times whether or not he has locked the door to the house. I used to make fun of his behavior. Last week I choked up as I told my therapist about it and had compassion for my father.

I need to talk to my therapist about this topic again in our session tomorrow. My physical and emotional energy has been down as I have been bringing to the surface this OCD stuff which I have tried to keep hidden from others all my life.

Angry at all the wrong people

2006-07-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

This week's session with my therapist turned out to be rather surprising for me by the time we finished. Our session began with my telling how I had made a choice not to believe the lie that I am defective (see my previous post). We talked about that for quite awhile. Then, once again I brought up the issue that I so easily get angry at people. I express my anger by lecturing people, often ad nauseum. The latest episide was a week ago when I lectured a motel clerk because the price for our motel room was higher than I thought it should be. (I used to lecture our children also. I don't know if I did so with anger but I do remember that my lectures were lengthy. Sometimes they would tell me, "Dad, you've already said that. We heard it the first time.")

After we talked for awhile about all this, my therapist said, "It sounds to me like you haven't forgiven your father." What?! I've been forgiving him all my life. I've been in the process of forgiving him. I have consciously released him from any further "debt" to me. He doesn't have to do anything to make up for how he abused me. I told my therapist what I felt and said I didn't want to argue with her. She said it was OK to argue with her. Wow, again! What kind of people are these that can tolerate someone arguing with them?!

I said I recognized that there was a connection between how angry I get with others and how my father abused me. I said it's like I'm determined, "I will never, ever allow myself to be abused by someone else." And so I try to fix the world, especially my world, and control things so I won't be caught off guard or inconvenienced. I told my therapist I rather liked trying to be in control and lecturing. I am a moralist. I try to right the wrongs of the world. I have often tried to give driving lessons to others on the road who are not driving as I think they should (I've cut back on that in the past few years).

I told my therapist that I recognized that my lecturing people angrily was wrong. I have been angry at the wrong people, angry at people who themselves usually haven't harmed me in the least. I told my therapist I wanted to change (and, of course, a part of me wants to stick with what is familiar and continue trying to control my world). She suggested that when I get angry and feel like lecturing someone I just don't say anything. Wow again! I pointed out that that would be difficult. I said that I feel like how I lecture people is like an addiction. She just nodded knowingly. (She really is quite good.)

I don't watch the clock during our sessions. I think my therapist probably has a clock somewhere behind me that she can see. But the point came where I glanced at my watch and noticed it was nearly time for us to stop talking. We have some silent times, which are good because they allow the emotions to get involved some with what we are discussing. I started feeling emotions close to the surface. The idea of giving up displaying anger to all the wrong people was getting to me. I was starting to feel some loss. I didn't know whether I should take a bit more time, but I decided to tell my therapist that I was feeling sad. She said, "Yes, you do look sad." She asked me to describe the sadness. I told her it felt sad to give up using angry lecturing. It felt sad to give up something I was so used to. It felt sad to give up my way of striking back at the world, to try never again to be abused. The feelings got stronger and stronger. I think if the session could have gone on longer I might have sobbed out my grief. But it was time to stop. The tears came as I walked out of the medical building toward my car in the parking lot.

I have never walked on this road before, grieving about giving up a behavior pattern that has done me no good. I'm still processing the grief. It may take some time yet. I want to gain sobriety in this area of my life. I recognize that there is a good chance that I will fail again in the future and get angry at the wrong people and lecture them. I told my therapist that. But I also told her what I would tell my friends who gained sobriety but have fallen, "OK, you've fallen. But you've proven that you can be sober. Now get up and keep going."

I haven't posted about our most recent session until now, partly because I have been busy with other matters, but partly also because this issue is really, really difficult for me. I now know that if I am to make progress in those areas where I know progress needs to be made, I must change in how I angrily lecture others. I must stop my longtime behavior. I'm scared of failing. I'm sad about giving up what I'm used to. What will fill the void left if that big ball of anger isn't around to keep me company? For now I have told my therapist I want to try to gain my sobriety in this area. I have talked to my wife telling her the same thing. This is my third day of sobriety since Thursday's therapy session.

Disbelieving the "defective" lie

2006-06-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts ago I wrote about how I have felt that I am defective. I have felt that others can tell it by looking at me or listening to me. I talked about this issue with my therapist. She suggested that I come up with some idea for confronting that feeling, which is, I recognize, a lie. If you read my earlier post, you may remember that I thought of having a funeral, with family members invited, and perhaps a few others. We would bury the sign on which I had written the word "defective." With our various schedules, it's not easy to get our family members together, however. And it would be really heavy stuff for everyone; some might not be ready to be part of something so heavy. And as I thought about it, I realized I didn't want to want however long it took to organize such a funeral. I wanted to address the lie sooner. So I tried the cognitive approach, an approach which hasn't always worked very well for me in the past, since the "information" I get from my emotions seems so "real" to me. But this time I made a conscious decision to disbelieve the lie. If the feeling of defectiveness returned I would tell myself that I had already decided that I was not defective and that was how we were going to operate from now on. I can't say that a huge amount has changed for me, but I do think that this cognitive decision, a kind of cognitive restructuring has helped.

I have my therapy session this afternoon. I'll talk about what I've just posted here.

How much success have others of you had changing behavior or, in time, emotions, through cognitive restructuring?

Pacing and progress

2006-06-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

Today I set a record for daily work productivity in my job. But unlike other times when I've worked so hard, this time I don't have rundown emotions from overwork. I think maybe I'm learning to pace myself better when I work. This has been a lifelong struggle. I started out working hard as a child and never stopped. Workaholism has been one of my main addictions.

Also, I think I'm making emotional progress in the past month since I started sessions with my new therapist. There's nothing dramatic changed, no dancing in the streets, no lights flashing on and off, no Hallelujah Chorus! But I'm a little more relaxed. I think maybe I'm making a little more progress resisting the old lie that I am defective. When that feeling visits me I try to tell myself that I've already decided that it's not true. I've never understood cognitive restructuring therapy very well, and emotions are such a core part of my being that it's difficult for me to believe that much good can come from "thinking" myself into better attitudes. But I *think* (!?) that a little progress is happening. I suspect that only those of you reading this who have yourselves struggled trying to disbelieve some lie about yourself can really get much out of my stumbling words here.

My wife and I will be on a business trip next week, so I won't have a therapy session. But being on the trip will be therapeutic for me. I'll be with people with whom I have special relationships and where there is mutual appreciation. That's an important thing to me. I got very little affirmation when I was growing up, at least not from my father from whom I desperately needed it. But I'm grieving the loss and moving forward. Not to move forward now would to stagnate and I don't want that. I've tasted a little bit of freedom and I want more.

I know there will be setbacks and times when it will feeling like I have reverted to old negative ways of thinking about myself. But I want to keep progressing. I need to. If you're reading this and thinking supportive thoughts for me, thank you very much.

Child Abuse Recovery Journal: Three New Poems

2006-06-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

Child Abuse Recovery Journal: Three New Poems

defective

2006-06-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

My therapy session today was good again, difficult but good. Today I talked about how I feel defective. Of course, at some cognitive level I know that I'm not, at least not in the sense that I feel. It's a lie that I believed from how my father treated me. So my therapist had me do some inner-child work today (I had never done any before). She had me envision one of the episodes where my father abused me and come up with things that someone (my adult self or someone else) could have said to little me cowering from his raging father. She suggested I could speak as an angel if I wanted so I did. I was able to think of quite a few things to say to little me in that situation (we were in my father's boat), such as:

You did your best.
I'll be your friend and play with you when you get a break.
Your father is wrong to consider you defective because you couldn't row the boat as he wanted.
Some day you will be bigger and stronger and will be able to row a boat better.
There is nothing wrong with you, even though your father is saying there is.

My therapist is very affirming. She said I did good work there.

And she wanted me to do something about the lie I have believed that I am defective. Wow, that was tough. My mind went blank. I told her I wanted to get rid of the lie, to stop believing and feeling it, but had no idea how to do it. She suggested that I use my imagination on that one--she said I had just proved with the inner-child work that I could enter into imagination and do good work. It's going to be difficult. It's difficult for some of us to assassinate emotional lies we've lived with for so long. But as I drove home I got an idea that might help. I might invite our children and their spouses to attend a funeral. I've got the literal label which I printed out today and put on my bike riding safety vest (I put it on for "show and tell" with my therapist). The label has the word "defective" on it. I might tear it up and invite others in the family to help me do that. Maybe we will also cremate it then put it in a box and bury it in our back yard. I might even ask our Sunday School teacher (he is great as is his wife) to bring his ministerial order of service book and help with the graveside ceremony. I know it's not going to work just to do some ritual. It's got to trigger me at some deep emotional level. My therapist and I have been getting to that level. I'm pleased that it could happen immediately. Well, I'm paying for it this time and I'm older, more ready for the needed changes.

My therapist was the most active in our session she has been in any of our sessions. We had one long quiet time today. I don't think it bothered either of us.

She is so good at empathetic truth-telling.

I can't keep believing the lies. They are too much baggage to keep carrying around. I just can't stop and turn a switch and suddenly stop believing these lifelong patterned beliefs. This is hard work!

Reading the letter to my therapist

2006-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

My therapist was eager to hear my letter to my father. She listened carefully. She had a box of Kleenex next to her and used the Kleenex as we worked through the letter. That meant a lot to me. Those who have been abused need to find out that there are people in the world who care, people who feel sad or angry at how we have been treated.

It was an intense session reading my letter. I had been able to write the letter without a whole lot of emotion on my part, perhaps because due to some unforseen interruptions in my schedule, I had to write the letter during the evening before my therapy session and I felt rushed. Rushing does not allow for adequate emotional processing of information.

But the therapy session was not rushed. And it was a safe atmosphere. I started out reading without a whole lot of emotion, but then the sadness and grief kicked in at certain points, especially when I spoke of how Dad had abused Mom so much and even our family dog. That helped free me to feel more of the emotions I needed to about how Dad had treated me. Yes, I cried at each of those points. I sobbed at some point where I had written something about how deeply the abuse had impacted me.

It was an intense, honest time. It was good to be able to read the letter to someone who is a professional, well experienced in helping adults who were abused as children. My therapist asked me at the end if I felt drained. My answer was "yes."

When I got home I suggested to my wife that we go out to eat at one of our favorite buffets. I felt the need to do something good for myself after sharing so much pain that afternoon. We need to find ways of affirming ourselves that we are doing the right thing in dealing with the pain of our past.

Oh, my therapist and some others have asked me if I will send the letter to my father. The answer is "no." I cannot do so because there is a real possibility that my father would commit suicide after reading such a letter. It could even be a double homicide, where he takes Mom out first and then himself. I think that he would feel so much shame after reading the letter that he might do as one of his friends did after it came to light that he had been sexually abusing his grandchildren, and the legal system had to deal with him on that. For Dad and Mom's friend that was too much. So he shot himself to death to avoid as his solution for dealing with his shame. My father has previously threatened to me that he would kill himself with his guns, when he has been in one of his rages. I don't want my father to kill himself. A few years ago I took his guns away because a situation had come up where he was angry and having difficulty dealing with the threat of the law forcing them to make some changes that they did not want to make at their old age.

my letter to my father

2006-06-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a letter I have written to my father. I will share it with my therapist today. It will not be sent to my father. The letter was written to help me get in touch with the feelings appropriate to have toward one's abuser. Names of people and places have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Dear Dad,

Less than two years ago I had a shocking experience. It bothered me a lot. I was in Denver for a week looking for a house for Marie and me to buy. Our realtor took me to several houses. I liked one that was on a hill south of the city. It had a nice view.

Cindy and our grandson Isaac were out here in Denver during that week also. They came along with us to see this house. Isaac is an independent little guy and he was exploring the house on his own. Since Isaac and his family lived in St. Louis at that time, I was eager to spend some time with him. I also wanted to take pictures of him to show Marie when I returned home to Nebraska. So when I saw Isaac take off, I trailed him around the house, taking pictures of him. I guess he didn't remember me from our visit to St. Louis several months before. In the last picture I took of him I was the only other person in the room. I didn't realize he was afraid. He must have been trying to get away from me. Finally he got into this closet but couldn't get any farther away from me. I was stunned by the look of terror in his eyes. I knew I would never hurt him. I love him. I'm his grandfather. But he didn't understand that. He just reacted to what he thought was danger. He was afraid. I left the room immediately. I felt terrible. I didn't want Isaac to be afraid of me. My mind raced back more than 50 years to when I was Isaac's age. I saw myself, instead of Isaac, with fear in my eyes. Fear of you. I've never been able to tell you before how afraid I have been of you. I've never been able to tell you how much you have hurt me. I've never been able to tell you how wrong I feel you treated me and how I'm still trying to get fixed up today from what you did to me. It's not good for me to keep all that fear and pain inside. I need to tell you, even though I don't know how to do it, and I don't know if I can tell it with as much feeling as the wrong you did to me deserves.

I'm sure I wasn't always afraid of you. In the first pictures I've seen of you and me I don't see any fear in my eyes. I look happy in these pictures. I like to think that's a look of pride on your face as you're holding me in those early pictures.

But something changed fairly soon, Dad. It was you. You set an atmosphere of fear in our house. I think every child should respect their father, but, Dad, you did wrong things to cause us to be afraid of you. I was so young when you beat me up with that 50 pound sack of potatoes after Ralph broke the window accidentally when we were playing with records, letting them sail threw the air. Somehow I knew that as soon as you came home and spotted the broken window, I was going to get in trouble. I still remember you banging on me with that heavy sack. Why did you do it? It was just an accident. And I took responsibility for it, even though Ralph is the one who actually threw the record that broke the window. No one deserves to be beat up like that. No one deserves to begin a life of fear at such a young age.

And this one totally mystifies me. The laundry barrel. You've still got it, 50 years later. A couple of years ago I decided I needed to face some of your weapons of terror. So I went into your laundry room on one of my visits with you and Mom, and took a picture of it. There was the barrel, just the way it looked to you as you looked inside it. You used to put me inside it.

I hadn't done anything wrong. I know that for sure.

Then you would put the lid on it and hold it down tight.

Why, Dad? Why? Remember how I would beg you to let me out. I pleaded with you. But you wouldn't let me out. I was terrified. Dad, do you know how it feels to be terrified? It feels awful. It was totally black in the barrel. I didn't know if you would ever let me out. I felt hopeless. It was panicky. I'm still claustrophic today and I'm sure my sessions in the laundry barrel helped contribute to that.

If I ever saw someone doing that to one of their children today, I would report them to the authorities. I wish someone would have reported you. But there was no one to report to. And would they have believed us?

You know, I still get feelings of panic today. I've sometimes blacked out, fainted. Sometimes my world turns black, I'm so afraid. I remember that that happened when I got to go out on the basketball court and play for a few minutes in a game. I was so afraid.

Dad, were you trying to make me into a man, a brave man? If so, I don't think that was a good way to do it. It sure didn't have a good effect on me? Did you get some kind of morbid satisfaction from torturing me in the barrel? Can you remember that I would finally say "I love you, Daddy"? Is that what you wanted? Is that what you were trying to get me to say? If so, Dad, I sure didn't feel any love. That would be a terrible way to try to get your son to love you. I didn't hate you, Dad. But I did learn to be very afraid of you. I felt really confused and off-balance much of my life. You would take care of me whenever I was sick or had some other need. But you couldn't take care of my need for safety, something I needed most. I never knew when you were going to do something bad to me.

I remember how you would beat Mom. At least once you banged her around so much that her glasses got broken. I remember that. It's like a nightmare in my mind. I couldn’t do anything about it. I was too small. And if I had tried to protect Mom, you probably would have hurt me too. I remember how confident and poised she was when we were young. But you not only broke her glasses, Dad, you broke her.

Now that's something I feel angry at you about. There's no way you should have treated Mom like a thing. You broke her, Dad. It's not right to do that to a person. She is a valuable person, but you took so much of her life away from her. She turned into a mouse. Now she can't even remember the bad things you did to her. I'm glad she can't, but we're right to still feel angry about how you treat our mother.

You even beat up our dog, Duke. Dad, you were a monster when you lost your temper! Poor Duke! I can remember him yelping him in pain as you would bang on him the Isaace way you banged on me. Duke yelped. But I never did. When you would bang on me, I just tried with all my strength to protect myself, especially my head. You would bang on my head, my ears. It hurt, but I never cried. I can't remember why I didn't cry. Maybe it was because you had said, "Don't cry, or I really give you something to cry about!" So my cries stayed inside, if I even thought about crying.

Yes, Dad, you were a monster when you raged and beat us up and made us so afraid. Your face would get so dark and mean. You looked evil. And it was evil what you did to us. It was unloving, selfish of you. You controlled everything in our family. The feelings of the rest of us didn't count. Just your own feelings counted. Sometimes you acted so childish, so manipulative, so demanding, using your temper or the threat of it to control us.

You have many wonderful qualities, Dad. You are so generous. You are talented. I remember with great fondness going to bed and hearing you play the accordion or guitar. Everyone knows how well you play the guitar. Everyone knows how much feeling you put into it. You could entertain people so well with your music. I liked that. But sometimes I also thought about you, "You hypocrite! You look so nice right now. You are so charming. If others only knew how you treated your own family!" Dad, I'm angry at how you treated us. I'm angry that you beat on us and put us down so much. I never felt safe around you. I knew you were always watching. You were alert for every little mistake. You didn't miss a thing. And you always bawled us out for making mistakes, or stumbling, or not being strong enough to do something you felt we should be able to do. I'm angry about that because I now have those kinds of feelings about myself. I often don't feel very good about myself. I put myself down when I make mistakes. I'm not sure I'm a valuable person.

I can't ever remember you telling me that I did anything well. My brother-in-law says he remembers that at the end of one summer when he and I had gotten a lot of fish you told me that that was pretty good.

Do you remember how you used to tell me that I was "cold"? You would try to hug me, especially like when I would leave home to return to college. I would let you hug me, but you could tell I was holding back. Dad, my body was trying to tell you something that I couldn't tell you in words? Those Isaace arms that were trying to show me that you loved me and were going to miss me were the Isaace arms that beat me up. I couldn't trust your arms. I couldn't trust you.

One of my most difficult moments happened one days during the big tides and the clam diggers were driving down onto the beach to get clams. You always tried to put obstacles in our truck grooves in the sand near our cabins to keep the clam diggers from messing up our "road." One day I put up obstacles for them also. Mike D. said to me, "Al, you're just like your Dad!" Oh, that stung. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I have not wanted to be like you, Dad. Oh, yes, I want to continue on your gift of saving our village and family history. I want to keep telling the funny stories you told. I want to be generous like you are. But there's no way I want to beat people up, with my hands, boards, oars, or words as you have done, especially to your family. But I have carried on anger, Dad, just as you have. I've lashed out at people when I have felt they have wronged me. I thought I was better than you because I never hit anyone. There's more than one way to hit people. Words hurt too. That old saying just isn't true, "Sticks and stones will hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me." I'm working on changing, Dad, but it's not easy.

I wish you had worked harder at it. You would go through your temper cycles. It was so predictable. You always had remorse a few hours after you raged and hurt us. You would always come ask me for forgiveness. And I would forgive you. After awhile I gave up on you, though. I knew you wouldn't stop. Even though you said you were trying to change, even though you told me you prayed asking God to help you not lose your temper, you didn't change.

Do you remember how I tried to get help for you when I was in the sixth grade? We were headed to California to visit Mom's parents. Remember how we used to listen to that radio program where Dr. Narramore would talk about how people can change. He would invite people to get counseling help. He had a counseling center near where Grandma and Grandpa lived. I wrote to him, secretly. I was scared. I described to Dr. Narramore how you acted toward your family. I asked him if he thought that counseling could help you. He wrote me back. I got the letter. He said that he believed counseling would help you and that they would be glad for you to work with them. I did that to help you, Dad. Remember how I told you about about Dr. Narramore's letter? I encouraged you to get counseling help. I assured you that no one from our village would need to know that you were getting couseling help. But you refused. You said, "I can do it on my own."

But you couldn't. Somewhere along the line I guess I gave up on you. As I got older I looked forward to getting out of the house, even though I was shy and afraid of other people. I remember one day not long before I flew from Anchorage to St. Louis for college that we were working at the net racks. You were badgering me as you often did. I don't remember what it was about. But I didn't like it. Somehow I just blurted out, "Well, you won't have me around much longer to treat like that." I didn't keep my feelings in, as I usually did—it wasn't safe to share my feelings. I don't know if it was even safe to have feelings. I was looking forward to freedom.

I experienced more freedom the first summer that David worked me in my fishing boat. I was so proud of him. He worked hard and didn't complain. And he enjoyed working with me. See how happy he looks in this picture.

I wanted to have a new kind of life where my life had been so miserable as I was growing up. I wanted him to be able to fish with his father where he could be safe, both physically, but even more importantly, emotionally. And you know what? I experienced greater safety through giving it to my own son. Later, I wrote about it in my poem "Safety's Smile":

I'd had enough safety. I wanted free.
I broke water and struggled to the surface
gasping for the air of baby security.

A toddlerhood later that protection expired
and I was pulled to the water again.
Our boat kept us safe from the sea.

But it was a strange refuge,
drenched with derision and dread.
I tired of being so wet,
so, opting for water again
I escaped into the liquid chill.
There's three minutes to numbness and fifteen to death.
I died, and found safety, drifting numb for a boyhood.

A manhood later my own son arrived
and spotted me floating.
He boated beside me, smiled safety,
and said, "Come aboard, Dad!"
He reached for me and I took his hand,
emerged from the chill,
and smiled freedom and safety at last.

Dad, that's what I needed from you all my life, safety. And affirmation. How I needed to know that you thought I was OK. But you never let me know that. I still don't know if I'm OK. When I think about it logically, my head tells me that I am. But I often don't feel that I'm OK. I really don't want to make it sound like I'm better than you. I'm sure there are ways that you are a better man than me. But one thing I've really tried to do is affirm each of our children. I have complimented them on jobs well done. But I have also complimented them on being the kind of person that they are.

Oh, how I needed to hear both things from you. Do you remember how I recently asked you, as I was leaving your house after visiting with you and Mom, if there was anything you were proud of me about? I remember it well. You seemed to be caught off guard by that question. You hesitated a bit and then you said, "What you stand for." I kind of knew what you were referring to and it helped me. But I think I asked you if you could explain it a little. I could tell that you had some tender feelings then as you said that you were proud that I have done the kind of work I have and that I have maintained my belief system. What you said was meaningful to me. Thanks.

I wish I could have told you a lot sooner how you have hurt me. But I couldn't. It wasn't safe. It just wasn't the kind of thing done in our family. It never crossed my mind. And if I had told you, you would have taken it as me rejecting you as a person. You would have said something like what you've said about Cathy, my sister-in-law, when she has told you that she doesn't like the way you treat Mom. "She doesn't like me."

Do you remember the summer that David flew up to Vancouver by himself to fish with the family up there? It was one of his most difficult summers. Our children knew how you had treated Mom and me. They loved you, but they didn't like your behavior. David wrote us about one bad experience he had with you. He as working with you fixing fishing equipment. Some other workers had done something you didn't approve of and you said to David, "I should hit them on the head with this hammer." David was brave enough to tell you calmly, "Grandpa, that's not a good thing to say." You said something like "Huh?" So he make it clearer, "Grandpa, it's not a good thing to hit anyone on the head with a hammer." And you then thought you were putting David in his place by responding, "Be quiet. You need to respect your elders." It was difficult for me to read what David had written. But how I admired his courage. I knew he was angry for the way you had treated me. He could have let all his anger out on you, telling you that he knew how you had abused me, and that it had made things difficult for me and our family. But he held his tongue. His summer basically ended then. He had had enough.

Dad, David was right to be angry at you for what you did to me. Marie, my wife, David's mother, is right to be angry at you for what you did to me. It's difficult for me to feel that Isaace anger, but I know it's right of me to do so. At least I know it with my head. And when I get angry at others, I sometimes remember that I'm getting mad at them when you are really the person I should be angry at.

You and I like a picture of us four generations, you, your mother, me, and David. I was so proud to be able to show Grandma and you my son, David. I'm glad that he got to meet both of you. I hope that David' son, Isaac, can meet you someday, but I hope that Isaac will never again have the look of terror in his eyes that he did when I took that picture of him. Isaac looks so much like his dad. And David looks so much like me. But I wouldn't completely trust you to treat any of my children or grandchildren with safety and respect. I was afraid when Marie worked with you in your boat when we were first married. I assumed that you would bawl her out, perhaps frequently. I wasn't sure but what you might even hit her. And *that* would have made me very angry. I would have told you so. No one deserves to be abused as you have abused people, especially your own family. You deserve the anger that we feel for how you have abused people. And I'm a person, although I have often felt that I am not a person—something I need to talk to my counselor about. So you deserve my anger, even though it is still hard for me to feel it toward you for how you treated me.

I often dream about you, at least since my first years of being in therapy. I struggle in my dreams now. At least I struggle. I'm learning in my dreams to stick up for myself and not let you abuse me. I feel guilt and confusion in my dreams when I have to report you to the police. I don't want you to have to suffer for what you do to others. But I don't like suffering for what you did to me, either.

Love,
Al

Kathy's Colloquy: "Life's Scars"

2006-06-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

"Life's Scars" is a lovely poem that has grown out of the soil of sadness. I think you will enjoy reading it also.

Pre-counseling

2006-06-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Jungle Pop has blogged about discussions he and his wife have had as they prepare for some marital counseling this summer. I have added a comment to his post, which you may want to read.

a letter to Dad

2006-06-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

I had my second session with my therapist this Tuesday. As she did in our first session she said that some people find it helpful to write a letter to a parent who has disappointed or abused us and tell them how we feel about what they did. I have told my therapist that I find it much more difficult to feel anger toward my father for his abuse of me than I do for his abuse of Mom. Cognitively, I know I did not deserve any of the beatings or verbal or emotional abuse, but I find it difficult to feel angry about it. Instead, I have taken what should have been anger (although it couldn't be, for me, when I was young) and turned it inward. It turned into fear, lack of proper self-esteem, perfectionism, trying to find my value as a person through work. Yes, whoever said that "depression is anger turned inward" was probably right.

I hoping (or maybe "willing" is the better word) that now that I am a man (and a middle-aged man, at that), I can put away the coping mechanisms of my childhood (which have extended into adulthood), and can experience genuine anger toward my father. It's partly difficult to do because I love him. It's partly difficult to do because my church taught so strongly that we are to obey and honor our parents. I was never taught about godly anger. I'm not sure I could have understood it at such a young age when the abuse started. I still find it difficult to understand.

But I can't keep transferring my anger to others who wrong me, as I do, when I haven't adequately focused my anger on my father. I have been forgiving my father all my life, but I'm not sure that forgiveness can be complete until I fully feel proper anger for what he did to me.

I would welcome any comments from others of you who have struggled with this issue.

Oh, my therapist says we don't send such a letter to our parent. It's only for our own good. I might post my letter to my father here. Stay tuned.

Child abuse or child discipline

2006-05-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

The Bene Diction blog has just posted on child abuse intended to be child discipline and administered within the context of a deeply religious environment. I encourage you to read that blog post.

a gift

2006-05-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

My wife and I are away from home right now. She needed to visit a medical specialist in a large city for her annual checkup. While there we got to renew our friendship with a buddy of mine from college days and his family. We stayed with them for two evenings. One of their sons was with them for supper our last evening. Somehow--I don't remember now--he mentioned something about some poetry he had written. My ears perked up and I expressed interest in it. I asked if I might read some of his poetry sometime. He's a quiet young man, working through some issues in his life. He left the table and soon returned with a collection of his poetry which he was happy for us to look at. I got two booklets of poetry I had self-published from our guest bedroom and brought them to the table. After awhile the young man asked if we could each read one of our poems. Great idea! He read a touching poem. I affirmed him, a man, at being able to express tender emotions through poetry, something our American culture does not always affirm. His girlfriend sat next to him and I asked him if he had ever written poetry to her. He said he had written her some, as well as long letters. I looked at her face and she was glowing.

I read two of my poems from my book Writing the Wrongs, "Safety's Smile," and "Piggyback." I was caught by surprise when my voice cracked and I nearly started crying when I got to the point in Safety's Smile where I had written about the role our son has had in my own recovery journey. Of course, it was fine for me emotions to show, but, again, our culture does not easily affirm that for men. I'm sure it helped the young man to realize that he is OK to feel the emotions that he does and to be able to express them verbally. I hope he marries the lovely young lady who sat beside him and whose face glowed as she thought about the ways that her boyfriend had shared his soul with her through tender words.

Later in the evening, after the couple left, the young man's parents told us that I had given their son a gift by taking an interest in his poetry. It was special to me to hear that. It was a gift to me to have him share his poetry with us. Had it not been for our common interest in expressing our feelings through our poetry, I probably would not have gotten to know the depth of his person.

There are many different ways that we can touch the soul of another. There are different ways that our own souls are touched and by which we experience healing. May we take the opportunities that come our way to show interest in the things that are so meaningful to others but which they may not have made very public. Sometimes when we do so we give a gift and get a gift in return.

how therapy went

2006-05-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

I had some anxiety before my first session with my new therapist yesterday. But I relaxed as the session began. My therapist seems competent and compassionate. She has experience working with adult survivors of child abuse. A friend had tipped me off that we would probably work on a family chart, so I did a genogram before the session. Sure enuf, the therapist asked if she could work up a family chart on me. I said, "Sure, and I've even got one started if you'd like to use it as a start." She did. The hour went by too quickly. My wife and I fly off on a week long trip today. When we return I'll have my next session.

It's been more than a dozen years since I last had therapy. I think these sessions will be more productive that my first ones. I have grown a lot since those first ones. Now I understand better what is going on. In my first sessions I didn't understand what was going on and my therapist didn't want to let me know what was going on. I think he might have been trained in a therapeutic model where the therapist says very little and expects the counselee to come up with things to talk about. I think he did his best, but he said he had never worked with an adult survivor of abuse. However, unlike today, at that time I had no choice in where I got therapy or who was my assigned therapist. It was all required by my employer. Lots of shock. Not pleasant.

Therapy, again

2006-05-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will start therapy with a new therapist. It has been about 15 years since I last had therapy. That took place at least once a week for three years. I did not sleep well last night. I went to bed last night feeling anxious about starting with a new therapist. If any of you have comments for helping me reassure my brain that it's going to be OK, I'd welcome them. Thanks.

Perhaps I can post on some of the major topics we discuss in therapy. I know that here are some I feel a need to address:

anger management
defensiveness
the lie from the abuse: "You're no good!"
panic attacks
anxiety
fear
strong startle reflex

Prodigal Aspersions

2006-05-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

Real Live Preacher has just blogged about Cynthia, their church's poet laureate. Cynthia has now begun to share her thought-provoking poetry on her new blog named Prodigal Aspersions. Cynthia addresses some of life's difficult issues. She clearly is a good poet. Some of her poetry addresses issues which we deal with here on Wrong Words. I have added Prodigal Aspersions to my blogroll. You may want to do the same for your blog.

Depression is gray

2006-05-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

For the first few days of last week I had the largest elevation in depression in a long time, probably several years, even though I'm maintaining an appropriate level of a good anti-depressant that I've taken for years. It startled me to have some of the old feelings of grunginess and hopelessness return from the old days of really bad depression. There were some events in my life that could have contributed to the increased depression (I have very little, if any, depression most of the time anymore). I had just completed a major phase of a work project and there was a normal letdown from that, with part of me wishing there was more exciting (for me!) discovery to do in that research project. Then my wife left to attend a week of meetings in South America. I knew I would be lonely without her. Midday through the week the depression lifted, which was a relief.

In any case, here's a poem I wrote a number of years ago about how depression has felt for me:

Gray

Darkness descends,
surrounds, smothers.
Prisoner longs for light.
Day dawns,
but uninvited ugly
night and light
mixed in mind
produces persistent pain
of groggy gray.

Child abuse in the name of God

2006-05-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

The most recent post on the Bene Diction blog is about disciplining children so harshly in the name of God that the discipline becomes abuse, sometimes fatal.

I remember my own abusive father, a faithful member of a conservative church, reciting to me this Bible verse:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. (Ephesians 6:1)

I also remember that there were times, when it was safe enough, that I encouraged my father to think about the Bible teaching to him, just three verses later:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

Children need to have healthy boundaries set for them by their parents. When they cross those boundaries they need to be disciplined in healthy ways. In this process children must not be abused!

I encourage you to read the post from the Bene Diction blog as well as links within that post.

Child Abuse Prevention Month

2006-04-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

APRIL IS CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH!

The observance of Child Abuse Prevention Month is a Presidential declaration that is celebrated every year in April. It focuses on the importance of providing children with a safe and nurturing environment in which they can grow to their full potential as responsible adults and members of society.

Child Abuse Prevention Month aims to encourage everyone to play an active role in identifying and preventing all forms of child abuse. Child abuse takes many forms and is not always immediately recognized or addressed. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (42 U.S.C.A. 510g) defines child abuse and neglect, at a minimum, as "any recent act or failure on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm."

Caregivers, adults, and members of society in general have a moral obligation to protect all children from abusive experiences. Communities and schools can raise awareness through parent education programs and public education campaigns. In an emergency, call your local police department to ensure the immediate safety of an abused child.

If you have concerns that a child is being abused or neglected, contact the Child Help USA National Child Abuse Hotline at (800) 422-4453.

Lifted hands

2006-04-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched an ABC Prime Time two-hour special. It included video footage of a teenage girl who jerked her hands up to her head when her stepmother hollered at her. I've jerked my hands up to my head many times like that. I assumed that the girl in the program had good reason to do so also. Here is a poem that was born from watching that girl reflexively protect herself just as I have done, and still sometimes do:

Lifted hands

Some people praise
the Lord with hands lifted high.
But I quickly raise
my hands to protect my head.
Oh, Lord, you turned
the water into wine
to help a marriage feast.
Please turn the lifting
of my hands to protect
me from the beast,
to reaching up
to you for help
so my raised
hands can praise.

poetry reading canceled

2006-04-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

I was contacted recently about the possibility of reading some of my recovery poetry during a church sermon on forgiveness. I was willing to do the reading although I explained that children and young people in the church should probably not be exposed to some of my poetry. I suggested that I read only one poem, "Unstuck," at the service. The ministers discussed the matter and decided not to have me read this time. I do prefer a reading environment more like that of a coffee house, with the lights turned low, and where I can read under my pen name of Al Johnson. I need to protect my family and not give public presentations under my real name.

I have always found it a therapeutic, although stressful, situation to read my recovery poetry. It is scarey, because we do not know how people will receive it. I realize that it is other people's problem if they minimize the impact of abuse we have received and which we describe in poetry or other ways. But it still never feels good to have something so person be rejected. It's still part of my needed growth, but when others minimize my experience or say that I should write about more positive things, I feel personal rejection. Most of the time, however, people are understanding and even sympathetic when they hear me read my recovery poetry. And that kind of reception is very helpful as part of my longterm program of recovery.

dreams

2006-04-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

I've had several vivid dreams about my father (my abuser) recently. In one of them, a long, extended dream, I kept running away, trying to find a safe place to sleep. Dad kept tracking me down, no matter how far I ran or where I tried to hide.

Dad used to wake me up from my sleep. I would beg him not to. He said he did it to find out if I was still breathing.

My wife tells me that having dreams like this is one way for our minds to deal with things that they might not be able to deal with consciously. I think she's right.

The flower

2006-04-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

One day as I was walking
I came upon a house
with many lovely flowers.
I stopped to admire
the gardener's work.
And then I spotted one flower
upon the ground.
It lay near my feet.
I bent down and noticed
that its stem had been cut,
the flower just abandoned.
I wondered who would have done
such a senseless thing.
I picked it up
and saw its petals
had begun to droop.
Some drops of morning dew
slid tearlike to the earth.
Two fell upon my hand.
I slowly turned the flower
and saw that all its parts were there.
I did not know how long ago
it had been cut
but its scent was still alive.
I thought that I could
take it home
and put it in a dish.
Perhaps some water would
restore the petals
to their proper state.
But then I realized that the gardener
should be the one to nurse it,
he or she knew best.
And so I walked up to the door
and rang the bell.
The door was opened soon
and I told how I had found
that flower as I was passing by.
The gardener held it close.
I knew it would
be cared for even better
than I could.
I walked back home,
the sight and smell
of that one flower
still lingering on my mind

Need

2006-03-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

You kneed me
and kneaded me
when I needed you.
What now?

Some explanation may help understand this short piece better. Dad would jam my head between his knees (my poetic license with the verb "knee" which, by definition, refers to hitting someone with your knee). Then he would pummel my head with his fists, avoiding my face, but especially hitting my ears. It was painful. I never cried. Children need safety, including wise discipline, not "discipline" carried out in a rage.

Don't

2006-03-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the things which were prohibited by my father. Perhaps someday I can turn some of this into a poem. Right now the muse is not with me. But I want to get prohibitions out into the open. They need to be denied. Perhaps some of you who visit this blog had similar illogical and irrational prohibitions in your family system.

Don't sneeze.
Don't cough.
Don't chew raw vegetables so that they make sounds when bitten or chewed.
Don't make mistakes.
Don't show any weakness.
Don't get sick.
Don't think for yourself.
Don't show affection.
Don't show sadness.
Don't laugh unless laughing at Dad's jokes.
Don't express your own opinions.

Blow

2006-03-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

The wind blows,
Making big waves,
Pounding
upon the shore.

Fist blows,
Pounding,
Make heart caves,
Emptiness.

Wind blows
pass,
Move on
And die.

Fist blows
Crash.
Will they ever die?
Sigh!

Wrong Words

2006-03-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

My father has many good qualities. He is generous, hard working, funny, intelligent, and tender. But he has a dark side which he allows to get out of control in fits of temper. During these times he has beat family members. His language can become vile, using words he would never use when he is not in a rage. I remember some of those bad words he would call me when he was having one of his fits. They were Wrong Words, words that no parent should ever call their child. Yesterday I changed the name of this blog to Wrong Words from Recovery Poetry. I intend double meaning in Wrong Words, first that abusive words are wrong, and secondly, that the words of this blog are about what is wrong. I hope that you, the visitor, finds the new blog title attractive and catching. I would welcome comments on it.

And now here is a poem I wrote about abusive words, some of which I was called:

Sticks or Verbal Bricks

Sticks and stones
May break my bones,
But words will never
Hurt me.

NOT!

Sticks and stones
Can break my bones
And leave
Long lasting bruises.

But cruel words
Are heard
and mentally recorded
The tape can play forever.

stupid
ugly
bastard
bitch
clumsy
weird
ignorant
witch

good-for-nothing
shorty
skinny
fatso
go-to-hell

Cruel words
Echo down the chamber
Of our lives
Remainder.

We might more wisely choose our words
If we knew cruel ones wreck like rape.
It's lifelong work in either case
To repair the soul's damaged tape.

Copyright © 1993 by Al Johnson

Defensiveness

2006-03-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

A number of years ago when I was in counseling for child abuse a breakthrough came in my counseling one day when my wife brought home a handout from a class she was attending. The handout mentioned defensiveness. I had understood that concept in the abstract but I had not realized that defensiveness characterized so much of my interaction with other people. That day it dawned on me.

It is difficult to make progress on our healing journey until we recognize where our needs are. I'm glad that my wife had that piece of paper that day that helped me. I understand where my defensiveness comes from. My father did not allow us to make mistakes. If I accidentally broke something or did something else that my father thought was a sign of weakness or something else he disapproved us, he would often beat me. I tried hard to get out of those beatings, but I could never escape them. But I learned to try to defend myself verbally, to try not to get a beating. I transferred that same defensive reaction to others who pointed out something I had done which could have been done better. Now that I understood what I was doing, I could begin to change my behavior. It was difficult but I could begin to trust that not everyone was going to beat me or verbally abuse me or reject me for doing something imperfectly.

There have been other steppingstones along the way that have represented progress in my journey. I wish I could write poetry about each one. But poetry doesn't come to me just any old time. For me poetry largely comes at a moment of inspiration, perhaps a time when some phrase strikes me as something that represents some of my experience. Then I can work with the idea, adding meat to the bones that got the poetic skeleton going. Skeleton is an apt metaphor here, isn't it? Most of us have skeletons of one kind or another in our backgrounds. It helps to deal with them, to open up our closet doors and face the skeletons so they have less power over us.

If you ever feel like you can identify with something I say on this blog, feel free to comment on it by clicking on a Comment link.

Giving away my poetry book

2006-03-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

Do you know of anyone who could benefit from reading the recovery poems in my book? Would you like to have some extra copies of the book to give away to others?

If so, I would be happy to ship you copies of the book at my cost plus shipping. If you order between $25-100, the publisher will waive the shipping charge.

Feel free to email me if you would like copies of my book at cost. Send email to me at recovery_poetry@@@juno.com. Of course delete the extra two @ symbols before emailing me. We just have to try as many tricks as possible to keep the email spammers away.

Have a nice day!

Al

Go play, little boy!

2006-03-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

One fellow survivor responded to my recovery poetry by emailing me this poem:

Come here, little boy.
Come out of the darkness,
if only for a moment.

I have a secret to say;
You must hear.

They are fools who believe
they can kill you,
just fools
who strut round
with small sticks in their hands.

They are fools who believe
that their voices can kill
and their small feeble hands
can take life from the living--
they fool just themselves.

Now I've told you.
Go play.
Go elsewhere and play in the grass and the wind.
For fools remain fools;
And the grass will be grass
Though the winds beat upon it forever--
Go play.

Copyright (c) 2006 by Anonymous Survivor

Go play! How wise! We who were abused need to learn to play. We need to recover our lost childhood. Listen to the last lines of the poem again:

And the grass will be grass
Though the winds beat upon it forever--
Go play.

Wow! Thank you, friend, for sharing your poem.

Grandfather God

2006-03-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

My wife and I had one of those "Ahah!" moments during church this last Sunday. I can't remember what triggered the thought, probably something said by the Bible teacher or minister. In any case, the possibility of thinking of God as a loving grandfather came up. Immediately my heart felt a warmth about using that metaphor. You see, my earthly father abused me. I transferred much of my fear of my father toward God my heavenly father. Of course my brain logically knew the truth, but we don't live just by logic. We often live and relate to others according to emotional patterns we learned through experiences.

Now, for those of you who may be concerned about theology, I'm not at all suggesting that God is a grandfather. God is transcendental, beyond our human abilities to understand him perfectly. So he tries to help us out by picturing himself to us using a variety of metaphors, including father, mother hen protecting her chickens, etc. These metaphors are all verbal clues to help us understand a little better what God is like.

I have no negative feelings when I think of a grandfather. I delight in being a grandfather to our grandchildren. I love them and they love me, both ways are unconditional love. I love to play with them and make them happy. That's the way God is.

Although I have been working at correcting the negative feelings I have transferred from abuse from my father to the defective idea that my heavenly father is strict, keeping track of all my mistakes, conditionally loves me, ready to punish me, those negative ideas are still there sometimes. Maybe it will help if I temporarily retrain my emotions and brain by thinking of God as a loving grandfather. When the unconditional love in such a picture becomes anchored into my psyche enough, I can work at transfering those warm feelings toward grandfather to the idea of God as father.

What do you think?

E-text of my poetry book

2006-03-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

There is now a less expensive e-text edition of my recovery poetry book available for download. There is even an option for those who cannot afford the $.20 for that download. I'm happy to share the e-text for free if it can benefit someone else.

Leah's Life: More Links

2006-03-12T22:42:00.000-08:00

Leah's Life: More Links

Depression and poetry

2006-03-11T20:09:00.000-08:00

Some of the world's best-known authors, poets, and musicians experienced severe depression. Beethoven experienced depression. So did Martin Luther and the U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln. Sadly, a number of authors, poets, and musicians have committed suicide during depression. My psychiatrist has reminded me that 15% of people with depression commit suicide, and I have read that same statistic elsewhere.

I have also read that's writing, such as journaling or composing poetry, can be a good thing to do during depression. When we are depressed, we are often vulnerable and open to expressing our feelings. Of course, we can also be so overwhelmed by depression that we are not able to think clearly at all, let alone write.

The worst of my depression is largely gone, thanks to the help of my meds and trying to nurture healthier attitudes about myself and life. I journaled quite a bit during the worst of my depression. Those were very difficult days, but I got a lot of poison out of my soul and onto paper. It doesn't need to be read by anyone else. Some days I could compose some poetry about my feelings. Some of that can be shared with others.

I'd like to encourage others who are experiencing some depression to write. As I was told, just write. If you have writer's block or feel that the depression is keeping you from thinking very clearly, write anyway. I did that and it was interesting what came out of my pen--I suppose now it might come out of my computer keyboard. There was a lot of honesty, a lot of exposing feelings that I had not allowed myself in the past to be aware of.

Some of our most creative times can come when we are depressed. I wouldn't wish depression on anyone. I sure don't want to return to those dark days myself. But I do encourage anyone to write, if they can, when they are depressed. Sometimes something good can come out of it, both in terms of content that is produced and what the process can do positively for us and our depression.

God's Tears

2006-03-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

Blow

2006-03-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

The wind blows,
Making big waves,
Pounding
upon the shore.

Fist blows,
Pounding,
Make heart caves,
Emptiness.

Wind blows
pass,
Move on
And die.

Fist blows
Crash.
Will they ever die?
Sigh!

Copyright © 1993 by Al Johnson,
from my poetry book, Writing the Wrongs

Depression and Spiritual Healing

2006-03-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

A year ago there was a post at ... in the outer blog on Depression and Spiritual Healing. I consider the suggestions good. However, I would caution readers of that post to be very, very careful about going off your meds. That blogger felt he needed to for financial reasons. I know about that since my antidepressant is quite expensive. But it's keeping me alive, quite literally. Always consult your psychiatrist or other prescribing doctor if you are thinking of reducing the dosage of your antidepressant or going off it entirely. Too many people try to manage their antidepressant by themselves. But that can be dangerous.

Window Pain

2006-02-27T14:07:00.000-08:00

Window Pain

When the death wish taps upon my window
I recall the tapping forty years ago
When small, I looked up to the starry sky
And wished, no, not that I could die,
but, rather, even more forlorn,
that I would never have been born.
It's hard to argue with the window pain,
But I'll resist: it taps more loss than gain.

Writing the Wrongs / Righting the Wrongs poetry book

Introduction

2006-02-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

I experienced severe child abuse. My mother experienced severe spousal abuse. I am in a lifetime journey of recovery from the abuse.

I have found it helpful to write poetry about my pain as well as my recovery steps.

You are welcome to read my poetry at my Recovery Poetry Spa or in my poetry book available on amazon.com or my Lulu Press website.