Telling me I shouldn’t be feeling the way I am does not make it go away.

I hate what’s inside of me.  It’s defeating telling me that no matter how hard I try to get better, it is never going to go away.  That’s given me the message that there is no hope, that I’m wasting my efforts, because where’s the point if I’m going to have a battle with it every single day for the rest of my life.  I hate knowing that the only way I’m ever going to have freedom from it is when I’m dead.  I wish it could be a body part that could just be cut off like a tumor; I’d take a knife myself and cut it off, I’d do it this minute.

I’ve had to tell myself ‘no’ too many times today to thoughts of self-harm.  I don’t want thoughts that I shouldn’t have.  I don’t want the tears.  I don’t want today where all I’ve wanted to do all afternoon was to curl up into a ball, go to sleep, and not feel this pain anymore.

I’ve told myself today that this is only one moment in time; it will pass.  There are no smiles, no laugh, no desire to do anything other than wanting to make this stop inside of me.  Wishing I didn’t feel so alone in this battle.

Well, that’s ME, how I’m feeling, right now.

Actually that doesn’t show how I really felt in there but this comes pretty close.

I started watching the clock about halfway through the session and counting down how much longer I had in there before it would finally be over.

The subject of God came up; the struggle I have with trying to understand a loving God who knew about the molestation but chose, for whatever reason of His, to let it happen in the first place and then continue for as long as it did.

Let me add a note here before I get into what happened today.

I know that God loves me; sometimes I still struggle with that concept but I have started realizing that it is true.

I’ve been told by others that God was right there by my side as the molestation was taking place; that God cried over the things that were done to me.

I’ve been told that God knows why He allowed it to happen and that I may or may not ever learn why, at least on this side of heaven.

What I still struggle over are the concepts of God’s omnipotence combined with mankinds’ free will, with God’s love tossed in on top of it all.  In all honesty, I understand that combination about as good as I did pre-algebra; for those who don’t know, I spent 3 years taking pre-algebra and I never did really get it.

Today I got a reminder of what the difference is between “feel good” religion and biblical truths.

My counselor made the comment that she doesn’t agree with any religious beliefs that don’t promote healing.  She doesn’t believe that God is omniscient and she doesn’t agree with the belief that God is aware of evil that takes place here on earth.  She kept repeating the phrase, “God can’t behold evil.”  She said she doesn’t believe God knows about the things that happen here on earth because no loving God would knowingly allow those things and, since God is a God of love, therefore He can not be aware of it.

My opinion:

at best, her thinking on a loving God and mans’ free will is just as messed up as mine is at times; at worst, her belief system is even more messed up than mine is.  Neither one is comforting to me.

I brought up the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah along with Noah and the flood; that God is aware of the evil man sometimes does, that His awareness of that evil is why He destroyed some of His own creations.  I made the comment that God doesn’t tolerate evil; that that is why God created a hell and why He sent His Son to die for us.  If God wasn’t aware of evil here on earth, why would He of seen any need to send His Son to save us from our sins?  I asked her that one.  She never answered it.

She told me she prefers interdenominational to any one way of belief; that she’s been baptist at times, catholic at times, and a few other religions as well.  She said she enjoys going to churches where the services are “fun” and where she’s able to feel good about being there; that when she feels the need too she goes and tries new churches out until she finds one that she again feels good about being there.

She suggested that I might want to try out some of the other churches in my area until I found one I really liked.  I never once said I struggled with where I’m going to church at.  I have an excellent pastor who preaches the Bible.  Just because I struggle with some of the concepts that are in the Bible does not mean I shouldn’t hear them.  The Bible teaches about God’s love, about God’s characteristics, and about mankind’s’ free will whether I can understand all of them or not.

She suggested then that it is OK to believe only the parts of the Bible that are conducive to my healing (in her opinion) – like the idea that God is a loving God, but ignore the parts that (in her opinion) hinder my healing – like the fact that God knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it from happening even though He’s omnipotent.  I told her I was taught you can’t just believe the parts of the Bible that you want and pretend the rest of it doesn’t exist; that you either believe it or you don’t.  (Looking back at my last sentence, I realize that can be really hard at times because it has been for me, but that doesn’t stop it from being necessary.)   Just because I never really got pre-algebra doesn’t mean I can just decide that the concepts it teaches aren’t important or that pre-algebra doesn’t exist.

Another minute or so of silence passed and she asked me if I wanted to try working with the sand tray.   The sand tray is what it sounds like; it’s a rectangular-shaped wooden box filled with a couple inches of sand.  There are several shelves in her office overflowing with a million small toys that you can choose to represent whatever it is you’re trying to share; everyday-type people figures, fantasy-type people like Snow White, different types of animals, landscape pieces, houses, castles, jail-like cages, etc.  You don’t use them for what they are, in a sense, like you don’t use the dragon as a dragon, it might instead represent someone who frightens others, that kind of thing.

Here’s the full tray I put together:

Here are some close-ups I took of the above picture the counselor took:

The monkey represents the me that seems to never be able to be what others want.

The man with the dragon head and spear, the me that I’ve been told drives so many away.

A weeping willow because there are so many tears inside of me right now.

A dark and dreary house; something to keep a distance from.

Broken walls representing all the ways some people tell me that I’m basically messed up and remind me that I’m different, think different, react different; that I’m damaged, faulty inside and they don’t like it when it shows.

Hiding underneath that log is the lion from the Wizard of OZ movie; me ashamed of how I am, how I’m different, that I’m not acceptable unless I can somehow be normal like everyone else; wanting to hide so no one can see me anymore.

The Hulk represents the anger, hurt, frustration that feels locked up inside of me (because it’s not acceptable to let it show) because of being in counseling almost every single week for the last almost two years (in March) and, while the PTSD has improved some, I’ve been told by the counselors that not only will I always struggle with the PTSD for the rest of my life, but, by the way, there’s even more than that wrong with you, and Borderline Personality Disorder got introduced to my vocabulary.  Guess what, not only is that also considered something no one can get rid of no matter how hard they try, but I get told I’ll probably need counseling for the rest of my life.  What caused both of them?  The abuse that someone else did.  Thanks.

The baby in it’s mother’s womb; the safety, love, and nurturing, my want to be loved, of wanting to be wanted by people, to be accepted, to be like I was before I became damaged; untainted.

We talked about the Borderline stuff and my difficulty with social skills.  How it’s more acceptable for a child to still need to be learning those skills but because I’m an adult, I’m supposed to of already of learned those skills, instead of just now starting to learn them over the last so many years.  She made a comment that at the ages that children are learning social skills, I was being molested and beaten.  I wasn’t able to focus on the things I should of been learning about at those ages because I was too busy just trying to survive.  She was trying to help me in accepting the way I am for the experiences I was forced to go through.  It didn’t take away the feeling of a million fingers pointing at me and people turning away because I’m not how they think I should be.

I’ve never had a play therapist in my life, even though I’ve received counseling since I was 9-years-old.  The only time I’ve ever colored or interacted with toys in direct regards to the abuse was the day I had to testify about the things my half-brother did to me (also at 9-years-old, the testifying, the sexual abuse happened from ages 4 to 8).  For decades my counseling consisted of mostly sitting in a office talking and listening and being accused at times of disassociating on the therapist.  Katie was the only counselor who ever pulled out a PTSD workbook and determined that we were going to work through it no matter how stubborn I got on her at times, and yes there were times when she kicked my butt verbally for not touching my weekly homework assignments.  The one time Katie made an exception was after we started on the memory work and I’d just about completely shut down on her.

Memory work, dealing mostly on the memories of the sexual abuse, was one of the most painful parts and Katie decided by the effects it was having on me, that I wasn’t ready to really go there. My depression had dropped far lower than it had been before we started on the memories, I had started self-harming myself in different ways, I was fighting thoughts of ways to kill myself, I was disassociating almost the minute I sat down in her office, she could hardly get me to say anything at all during the sessions.  Instead she told me soon after she’d see me start to disassociate, I’d be all over her office, looking at everything, touching everything, constantly moving, seemingly not hearing a single word she said, not responding when she touched me.  My only memories of those few appointments were of walking into the office, sitting down, Katie starting to talk, hearing the words that “that’s it for today, it’s time to go,” and leaving her office.  I’d lost a solid hour of whatever had just happened.  At one point after a session was over, Katie told me how I’d been the whole session; if she had never told me, I would never of known I’d been that way, I simply had no memory from the minute I disassociated until I came back to her.  I could not handle the memory work and my mind’s way of protecting myself was to shut it out!

Katie decided after a couple appointments like that that we were done with attempting any more memory work and to get me back to a place where I didn’t disassociate the minute she started talking to me.  We spent the next two weeks doing the closest thing to play therapy that I’d had since I was nine; she pulled out some board games, explained the rules, and we started playing. The first game consisted of players taking turns picking a card that had a question that player had to ask of the other player; questions about favorite hobbies, fears, etc.  The second game was similar but dealt with emotions and healthy ways to respond to them.  For two weeks, there were no homework assignments, there was no discussion about the abuse, there was just fun and getting to know each other instead of mostly Katie getting to know me, and I got a chance to see Katie as more of a person than just a counselor, and that last fact alone made a world of difference.  Her putting me before the PTSD counseling also built up my trust in her and see that she truly cared about me as a person, not just caring about doing her job with me.

At Cathy’s office there’s a ton of choices, painting, games, puppets, a sand tray, shelves upon shelves of toys of all kinds.  She explained play therapy to me yesterday and I looked it up online some afterwards and learned while play therapy for adults is new versus play therapy for children, it’s not unheard of.  I also learned on the internet that sometimes play therapy helps bring things out in the open again that talk therapy hadn’t managed to accomplish.  I used the word childish and Cathy said she doesn’t like to use the word childish, she prefers the word child-like.  She made the comment that most times when a child has been put through the things I was put through, they were never really able to just be a child and she likes to try to give back a little bit of what someone else took away from them so long ago.

Her rules are different from any other counselor I’ve ever had.  I can do or say anything in her office that I want.  If there’s anything I don’t want to do, all I have to do is say so and we won’t do it.  I have never had a counselor tell me that was OK, always in the past whatever a counselor decided we were doing, that was what we were going to be doing for that session.  It was that way with my parents, with teachers, with doctors, with what feels like almost every person in my life who was in any kind of authoritative position.  Not that I never rebelled during or afterwards, I just never felt OK in saying no to someone.  She told me if I decided I didn’t want to talk any during a session, that that was OK too, that I could just play and not say anything.  I made the comment that you can’t make any progress if you refuse to talk, something I’ve been told by different people in regards to counseling.  She told me that yes, you can too; I guess it can come out in my actions and choices during the play therapy.  At the end of the session, she opened up a file cabinet drawer and explained that she always ends each session with letting the client pick out something they like from it.  It had everything from candy to small children’s toys to fun pencils to stress-relieving squeeze toys.  The last time I’d done that was at a dentist office sometime back in grade school.

I’m kinda looking forward to therapy for maybe the first time in almost three decades of it; that alone is probably progress!

The biggest symptom, and first one listed no matter where you go to search for information, is an extreme fear of abandonment.  I learned at my last counseling session that I’m getting ready to lose my counselor.  She’s a specialist in the field of PTSD and was offered a far better job working at the Charleston VA hospital and has chosen to accept it.  Her current VA patients can transfer over with her but, while I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD since I was 13, I’m not a VA patient, therefore I’m getting ready to lose her.  I’ve found a new counseling center that has a very specific program for sexual abuse victims, and that intake appointment is October 5th, but I’m losing a counselor I already have trust in and a good connection with and that is a great loss for me.

I lost three pets this week, all of whom I did everything within my power to save.  None of my efforts seemed to make a difference.  My heart felt like it shattered each and every time.  I lost Thomas on Thursday, Casper on Friday, and Pip yesterday morning.  I have cried way too many tears this week.

Yes, I have other pets.  I have 3 cats, 1 dog, and 2 other gerbils.  I desperately HATE being alone.  Being alone has a tendency of leading my mind to places it shouldn’t ever go but it goes anyways.

Last night I attended an elementary volleyball and then basketball game at a nearby school; I was struggling hard with the latest death and thought being around people and watching something I normally enjoy would help.  It did some, but then I got to come home to an empty house, and the BPD kicked into high force.  The all-to-recent losses led my mind into questioning peoples’ actions around me, towards me, their words, their looks.  I became fearful, angry, hurt, confused, and afraid I was going to start losing my friends like I lost my pets and am losing my counselor.  It took me hours to finally figure out what on earth was happening in my thinking and why.

It’s a little bit better than it was at almost 3am this morning when I finally started making the connections on what was happening, but it’s still being a bit of a struggle even now.

He got mad at her because she took too long at the grocery store and apparently her cell phone lost it’s signal while she was shopping.  In retaliation to her not answering him when he tried to call, he busted up the house phone and scattered the pieces to it across the back yard.  Then he took something and cut the phone lines in the house, I guess for good measure.

Sometime soon after that, the home health care nurse came out for her regular time with my family.  She learned what had happened and called the police out of her concern for the safety of my mom and nephews; she also shared with the police that he is an Alzheimer’s patient.  An officer came out to the house and spoke with my mom on the front porch for awhile; he didn’t enter the house, or speak with my father, though my mom made sure he new it was an officer that had come to the door.

A psychological evaluation was ordered for my father and was performed by the same group who also provides the home health care.  One of the questions my mom told me that he was asked was how did he handle his anger in the past.  She told me he lied to the woman, saying that he’d go off by himself until his anger had passed, that he was never violent in any way.

I’m sorry if this offends but my thoughts on his answer: like hell, he did!

This morning I’ve been battling focusing on what I think is probably my oldest memory of being fearful of my father.  I’m maybe 7 or 8-years-old.  He’s standing in front of the phone.  His face is mad and he’s clinching a hammer.  Suddenly the hammer starts coming down over and over again on the phone.  The phone is exploding and pieces are flying in every direction and I’m cowering against my mother as she has an arm around me.

The memory has been haunting me, torturing me since I woke up this morning and I am still trying to move forward and be in the moment of today.  I could use prayers on it, please.

“No.”

“These could be your last chances to mend things with your father.”

How do you mend things with a man who can no longer remember two days ago?

My conversations with the man have come a long way in just what they consist of these days:

“Hi, Dad.”  “Love you, Dad.”

Even these feel forced from a heart calloused by beatings.

Isn’t Father’s Day a day to celebrate fathers?  A day to let them know how much we appreciate them?

Appreciate the one who denied me as his while I was still being formed in my mother’s womb?

Appreciate the one who took vengeance on me for telling the truth that, in his eyes, cost him his precious son?

Appreciate the one who said to me it wasn’t worth the gas to bring me home?

Appreciate the one I cried myself to sleep over just a few mere hours ago, trying to cradle myself in my own arms just to “feel” the love of someone?

What is there to celebrate about Father’s Day?

She responds, “you could just sit out on the swing together.”  Sure, but what do you say, when just the words, “Love you, Dad” feel like they took everything  just to come out sounding warm?

It starts trying to convince me that he deserves better than me.  I hate having to battle against my own mind and struggling with the concept that it is OK for good things to happen to me.

Grrrrrr!