My mom was here for 9 days and although I love her dearly, it was so hard. She’s been gone almost 2 weeks and I am still taking the big panic attack drugs. I can’t calm down. E touches me and I jump.
My brain isn’t a safe place to be. I cry at the drop of a hat. And I haven’t allowed myself to blog because I’m scared it will hurt her feelings.
But this is mine. And I have to be here. I have a flag.
Please don’t drop a hat.
Two and a half hours of a complete inventory of my traumas. A description of trauma highlights, it’s more fun if you imagine it in slow motion replays with John Madden doing the voice overs. Then the inventory of all of my coping mechanisms and self medication strategies as well as other random psych questions.
I tried to describe my PTSD to her and I described the dissociative state where people are talking and it’s like I’m underwater and I can’t hear them. I try to pierce through the water.
I think my open mindedness got me in a few places… She asked if I see and hear things other people don’t and I said, “how should I know?”
She said I was going to be monitored for a couple of really scary diagnosis. And I started to cry, a lot. She told me to let go of the stigma and to work with her. And I told her that those were the diagnosis I feared the most. Basically this is a nightmare coming true moment.
She said that she wasn’t diagnosing me, just monitoring me. At this point, I don’t want to go back. I want to kick her in the shins and run away and maybe knife her tires. But that’s not polite in the south.
I came home and cried for a very long time. I didn’t want to tell E about what she said. But I trusted us and did. So it was good. All of the behaviors that may look like the other diagnosis are also a part of PTSD.
But she is right. What’s more important? Recovery and proper treatment or ego? I’ll do treatment as long as I’m sure I’ve got the right diagnosis.
I am supposed to be getting ready for a doctor’s appointment right now. A new doctor in a new state in a totally new culture. I need to get my brain meds renewed.
Will they believe me? Will they think I’m a drug chaser? It took a long time to find this combination that works for me and I found a really trusting doctor.
So, I get to walk into an office and give the whole ….PTSD…cult…beaten with PVC pipes…blah blah blah… fucking crazy at times…night terrors.
I don’t need to be committed, I just need these meds and I am working on finding a new therapist. Don’t commit me. Give me the drugs. I mean I don’t need them, but if I don’t get them I’ll be crying for a week and unable to move.
Dependence and addiction are different, and there’s a fine line. I’m off to walk a tight rope of perception. Wish me luck.
Rage.
I have to say that I’ve done a lot of work to peel off the whys of abuse. I’ve walked many paths. I’ve marveled at so many people’s rage. I didn’t get it. Now I do. In the last month, starting in the middle of the road trip, I do.
Rage.
So many friends have had rage because they couldn’t protect me. I said it was fine. But from a different vantage, from this different angle, I see different pathways and how history that I thought I knew – form different pictures. I want to throw up.
Now I know more and can see patterns and history and a much larger picture is coming together. And this picture is not redeeming: I am learning how some families struggle with certain demons for generations.
The more I speak out, the more I can see back and am aware of what created the environment that makes a family susceptible to a cult. A family is taught shame and secrets. A family is taught that they are so flawed that there is no hope for them. I want to know where this dark mythology started in my blood.
I have deep compassion. But I have rage. Because these lies have scarred just about everybody I love. And now that I see the patterns, now that I am 3,000 miles away – I can see clearly.
Rage. It took a lot of therapy to find mine. And it was hard to name, but I drew a straight line to it in a cliche shower epiphany this morning. Now that I know it, I can’t unknow it. I’m straight up pissed off.
It’s not just why me and why my family. It’s why anyone. I want to start with me and mine. Only love and compassion will fight this. This is beyond morality and judgement, they doesn’t exist in this level. There is only love, non-judgement and compassion.
I have to dig deeper, ask questions, publicly gut myself and write about it. I have to be someone who sheds light and helps it stop.
I moved away. My therapist is 3,000 miles away and the demons are coming out to play. Dissociation is rampant and the harpies are swirling, I am trying not to feel like I’ve fallen two years into the past. I miss my therapist. She would ask a question that would piss me off and then the world would reknit together in a new blanket that would carry me again.
Working with her was such a great experience. I am struggling to find a therapist here who meets my criteria: works with expressive arts, PTSD specialist, eating disorder specialist. I am coming to terms with the sexual abuse I’ve dealt with: covert and overt so maybe that goes on the list. But so many of the therapists here advertise as Christian and that really triggers me, since I am recovering from spiritual abuse at the hands of a Christian cult.
Sometimes I’m really glad that I have the luxury of not being a mom right now. I mean, I’ve been pretty miserable to be around. If I had kids it seems like it would be worse, I know it’s had an effect on E. How would it effect kids?. Or would I just get over it faster because there was stuff to do, put on some kind of mom game face?
I think a lot of it has to do with exhaustion from aches and physical pain, it’s been wearing me down… Why does it hurt so bad? Because we’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for the last two weeks since we got here. Because our crap was hijacked by bastard pirates when we moved across the country. Did I not mention that?
That deserves it’s own blog post.
I’ve had an email in my inbox that I’m terrified to read. Turns out I’m not the only one who writes about the pain of the church. One of the other people wrote their story and emailed it to me. And I’m totally gonna read it. But I’m scared.
I guess, I feel that their pain will be more real if I read it. Maybe, it’s easier to think that it’s easier to contain if I’m the only one talking. Maybe it’s cause I’m a Leo.
A double click will keep my commitment. I feel like such a hypocrite, publishing tomes of my memories and not being able to read theirs. But when I was showering, I thought about something else. It’s bigger than me. I think that reading their story will make mine times two. And open an exponential door into a monstrous house of pain.
If I hurt this much and they hurt this much – and there were 40 families. That’s just too much. It’s too big. I feel like it’s opening the front cover of a really big book.
I also feel like this whole thing is a mystery. I hear so many stories about how the church ended, how it crumbled. But I don’t know 100% because I’m the one who walked away. I got disowned by my family and excommunicated, yes I engineered it. And yes that played a big part in exposing a lot of the BS going on. But I’ve learned there were so many other factors at play.
So, after walking away from rubble it’s scary to walk back in and excavate and see what really went down and what the damage was.
But, dang I feel like a hypocrite for not being able to read that email.
Recently, I had a phone conversation with somebody who is the best friend of one of the people from the church. (You found my blog online. Now you are in it… Hope you don’t mind…)
But she’s been friends with the woman from the church since before the church. And she knew all of these things that had happened. She knew people, names, had socialized with some of us. She knew my mom. I heard what it was like for her to be the best friend of someone in a cult.
How scary, it must have been for her. She walked a delicate balance because she didn’t want to drive her friend away. She was a delicate anchor.
It made me think of the person I met before I left the church who told me that what I was experiencing might be abuse. She was very gentle. She knew that if she came at me passionately that I was freak out and shut down and run away. I am forever grateful for her intuition that helped me find a way out of the church.
It was amazing to hear her talk about it. Validating in a lot of ways, because what happened was so weird. And sometimes it feels like a bizarre dream that took up the first half of my life and haunts the second half. She talked about the cult de sac where so many people from the church lived and how some realtor listed it as hot property because it always sold so fast. They didn’t know all of the demand was driven by a cult trying to buy into the same area, and that once the church was gone the demand dried up as the families dispersed.
She talked about one of the women in the church, who has a very special place in my heart. But she saw a completely opposite side of her. And of course she would. Because she doesn’t know that that woman was my very first dance teacher when I was five years old and she’s the one that gave me the keys to my soul’s freedom. She was also my brother’s first art teacher and although the Army crushed my brother’s arm, he’s still an amazing artist.
There was anger in her voice and that made sense too. The same anger that is in the voice of a lot of my friends. The anger of “WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO SOMEONE I LOVE”.
It was a good talk. It was a hard talk. I was proud of myself because when it got too triggery, I set a boundery and we moved on. That for me is progress. But, it really opened my eyes to the damage of the church. The friends and family that were cut off from loved ones because of this cult. Because of the spiritual abuse and the forced isolation.
I still have so much trouble reaching out to my blood family, because I see them as a them and not a me. I am trying so hard to change that in me. That and something called ambivalent attachment disorder, which is something you get when the people who are supposed to keep you safe do so only some of the time so it’s not reliable.
Setting: I’m 14. We are in the pastor’s office. He is in his big chair. I am on the couch. I was in trouble because it was found out that I hugged a boy that I was in a play with.
Pastor: So tell me what happened.
Teen Feisty: I saw C after rehearsal and he said, “give me a hug” and I did.
Pastor: That’s it?
Teen Feisty: yes.
Pastor: So, if any guy asks you for any sexual favor you give it to him?
Teen Feisty: What?
Pastor: He demanded a hug.
Teen Feisty: Well, he said it casually.
Pastor: And you gave it to him?
Teen Feisty: Well, yes.
Pastor: And that seems ok to you?
Teen Feisty: yes. We all hug all the time.
Pastor: He’s different, he’s worldly. When we hug it’s because of our love of each other and God.
Teen Feisty: Everyone there knows me and wouldn’t hurt me.
Pastor: A hug can be a sexual act. Think about it, Suzi. Your breasts were on his chest. Your breasts were on his chest. What did it feel like with your breasts on his chest? Did it feel good? Did you feel like a woman?
Teen Feisty: I didn’t think about it that way.
Pastor: What did it feel like?
Teen Feisty: Just a hug.
Pastor: You are getting big breasts, and every man that wants to hug you is going to want to feel them.
Teen Feisty: What?
Pastor: You are not to talk to him again.
Teen Feisty: We’re friends!
Pastor: Better to lose a friend now than to be found unworthy later.
The setting: I am 11 and I had a rash or something on my thigh. Our pastor wanted to look at it because he had medical training and it probably didn’t need a doctor’s visit. I am in the pastors big leather chair wearing a shirt and my underwear and a towel over my underwear.
Pastor: OK, let’s see the rash
(I show him and am careful to keep as much as possible covered because it’s at the top of my inner thigh. I am really scared.)
Pastor: Hmmmmm. It doesn’t look too bad. Is it itchy?
Little Feisty: yeah.
Pastor: WHAT?
Little Feisty: Yes. Sorry, Sir. Yes.
Pastor: It’s probably from your tights and dancing. Do you wash them?
Little Feisty: yes
Pastor: Are you clean down there?
Little Feisty: What?
Pastor: Show me how you wipe after you go to the bathroom.
Little Feisty: um….
Pastor: You can show me over the towel.
(I pantomime for him, and it feels awful)
Pastor: OK good, that shouldn’t cause a rash.
Little Feisty: ok
Pastor: You might need to dance without tights for a while and I’ll have your mom sit you in an oatmeal bath.
Little Feisty: ok
Pastor: We need to have a talk.
Little Feisty: About what?
Pastor: Well, you’re in the older school with the older kids.
Little Feisty: yes
Pastor: And you’re the youngest.
Little Feisty: yes (I was very self conscious about being in my underwear and a towel)
Pastor: Do you like any of the boys?
Little Feisty: What?
Pastor: Do you think any of them are handsome?
Little Feisty: (I was silent for a long time, because I had two crushes and I was not sure where this was headed, but I had to come clean once I was asked) yes
Pastor: who?
Little Feisty: J & B
Pastor: What does it feel like?
Little Feisty: What do you mean?
Pastor: What does it feel like when you are around them?
Little Feisty: I feel happy.
Pastor: What else?
Little Feisty: um…
Pastor: Do you feel it physically?
Little Feisty: I guess?
Pastor: where?
Little Feisty: um…. well (and I started to cry) I feel something in my vagina a little bit.
Pastor: What does it feel like?
Little Feisty: A little warm and tingly.
Pastor: And do you masturbate and think about them?
Little Feisty: NO
Pastor: you don’t?
Little Feisty: no
Pastor: You need to be very careful, you are growing up. And getting toward a dangerous age. Masturbation is a terrible sin.
Little Feisty: I don’t do it. I know it’s a sin and I never have.
Pastor: I’m going to go talk to your mom, put on your pants.
Little Feisty: ok
Then we went home.
“Really, Suzi? Wow.”
I’ve heard it a million times.
TMI!!!
I thought of this when I was blogging yesterday about what do you tell a client about PTSD. What do you have to tell a client or a boss about a trauma, a disorder or a mental illness? I don’t know. Mine makes me kinda flippy outty and tactless and times. There’s the crying. People kind of notice. There’s the good days where I’m not triggered. Or the OK days where I can bottle it down into a nice little coal in my gullet.
But gullet coals aside… Why the oversharing? Why the saying too much? It’s been hard on relationships because I’ll be out to dinner and the start a relationship with…”so the other day in bed…” Keeping it classy.
So, I was thinking about it, and talking (too much jk) about it. And then I went to therapy and danced and screamed about it, and it hit me. Not literally. But the cult maintained control over us by brainwashing us into over-confessing everything. We were trained to tell every thought and every feeling, or we would feel awful-nauseous. If we ever saw someone from the church and had a bad thought about them and didn’t tell them, it was a sin and we had to tell them before the next communion or it was like the sin was locked in forever.
By making us a self policing congregation it really cut down on enforcement. Which is actually good business automation practice if you think about it-but back to the cult…
So, I am in pain if I allow myself privacy. I feel like I am lying to you if I know something that I haven’t told you. It’s misery. And if you confess before something gets found out the punishment is somewhat lessened. There is a constant paranoia scan in my head that is looking for wrongs committed…
So, this over-confessing still makes sense. I’ve adapted it a little. In the past few years, Ive been more jokey about it so that I can still make sure that I’ve said everything but in a jokey way so that I don’t get looked at like I’m a martian all the time.
I’m practicing privacy now. Which is one of the reasons I’ve been so silent on the blog. I’ve been evaluating again: what do I want to say? Why do I want to say it? What do I want to get out of this?
And so I don’t know that I know what I want. But I know I have more to say. And this is my forum.