pains

I have to seriously wonder if emotional pain can cause lupus and fybromialgia....... it is certain that emotional pain excellorates physical pain, and physical pain makes depression worse. it can really be a nasty cycle, one thing growing off the other.

I wait for months to get a visit from my daughter and my grandson, but the visit always is too much physical exertion and I suffer so much pain by the time they go that it takes me days to recover. Anguish is a direct result of that.

Has anyone ever done a study to see how many adult survivors of childhood abuse turn out to have chronic pain conditions? From my experiences with other survivors, I have to say there must be a link. How can men keep getting away with doing so much permanant damage to us and also ruin our medical conditions? The cost is high, so high I don't know why they are even allowed to live. Not just because it effects the one survivor, but it also goes on to future generations and spreads agony through communities and so far there is no end in sight.

If bank robbers were allowed to just go on doing what they do, banks would be out of business and people would go back to the barter system in order to make any purchases. See, if money were taken directly from MEN, police would act imediately. Judges would slam down the gavel and guards would clang shut the barred doors.

Child molestors and rapists roam freely.

poems I wrote in early recognition of my abuse

Day 1
Entered crying
as the hurricane howled
eyes wide open
in the dead of night
leaves all colours
blowing in the streets
torrid forboding
with my first moments on earth
Hurricane Hazel and Midnight
my birth

*****************

Liar in the household
keeper of the keys
Holds us all in prison
keeps us on our knees
Lurks about in shadows
whispers filthy words
Menacing my nightmares
as all my waking fears

In he creeps as all are sleeping
horrid grasping gropes
Muffles my cries
fills my eyes
binds my wrists
strangles my hopes

"Hush, it was just another bad dream
you dirty girl"
Daylight comes
I haven't slept

*******************************

Warped Romance

We're going for a ride tonight
we're going in the car
hush the others mustn't hear
you see we're going far
to a place where it's warm all year
we can live at the beach
No, your mother cannot come,
we'll be happy there alone
Just you and me

Every day will be such fun
no one can stop us
no one will ever know
and one day I'll marry you
one day when you're all grown

*********************************

The boyfriend

are you a virgin?
my boyfriend asked, clear blue eyes
looking out from pale gold locks
I've never been a virgin
never been a child
I'm just 16, but I'm very old
He knew what I was saying
more than I could dare see
he took me to a finer place
I'll always wish to be
He touched my heart
and met my soul
and held me for a time
A time that could never last as long
as this need of mine

*******************************************************

I cannot tell if you like me
or if you wish I'd go away
it's so hard for me to
know these things
Tell me what you think of me
tell me I should stay
hold my hand
embrace me
chase my pain away
call me on the telephone
tell me that you care
invite me to be with you
show me that you care
in ways I
recognize


******************************************

terrible twos

Blonde curls
bright blue eyes
laughing, running in the grass
crisp pink dress
lace topped socks
pattent leather shoes
a happy heart
trusting soul
running on chubby two year old legs
looking to you for guidance
for nurture and for kindness

HOW could you bind and rape me?

*************************************

I have more poems written later on, will post them later.

it's not like the movies and tv

lately it seems the theme of many shows I've been watching is something dealing with a small child plagued by "monsters under the bed" or some other such fear. In these stories, Mom or Dad always comes to make everything better. In my childhood, Dad was the boogeyman. He even told me so. Once my mother heard him telling me that, and she admonished him "Morris, don't tell her that." so I whispered to her "He's not fibbing Mommy, he really is the boogeyman".
She brushed it off.
There was never any comfort. No hero. No Superman, Doctor Who or even Robin Hood to come fix the evil monster, we had to live with him every day and night.

After my son was born when I was 12, my mother became another boogieman, not the kind that sneaks up on you when you're asleep, but the kind that steals your son, your reality and your self. The kind of soul-ripping constant force of control over everything, in a 12 year old's world, where there is no escape.

Except for my books and tv, and there was little time for either once I was foisted into the roll of housekeeper.

I had a lot of migraines, and was never alone with my thoughts, if I went in my room to be alone, I was made to come out and "stop being a hermit".

It seems little wonder of how I started living some altered reality here and there, some of it showed up in my art, and some in my poetry, and there was a persona of "Benonia" who would just zone out and feel painful feelings and speak to nobody. By the time I was 15 or 16 and going to coffee houses I started writing little messages on bathroom walls... "Benonia was here" with the drawing of one sad eye.

There were always terrible dreams at night, a woman clothed in long black dress with a dark black veil covering her head, she would follow me around in my dreams, and I could never get close enough to find out who she was, as she would disappear before I got close enough.
In other dreams, my father was chasing me through woods with sizzors or a sharp knife, and I would trip on tree roots and get up and run some more.
I could levitate a few feet higher than he could reach, so I always got away. That dream was better than my real life.

High school provided me with some new form of relief, I started smoking pot and a few other drugs, and drinking more heavily, I was drinking when I was able as far back as 10 years old, but it was not often or much. High school I let myself do whatever I could imagine, damn the consequences.
I cut class a lot, and visited friends at different schools, and still kept coming home by my deadline of exactly 20 minutes after school let out, because I was not allowed a life, or friends. O.k., I was allowed 3 friends, but only if I got all of the house clean first, and returned home before the street lights came on, or I would be on restriction for months at a time.

My younger sisters and both of my brothers were allowed to do as they pleased, but I was permanantly punished. I ran away from home for 3 days when I was 15, and when I came back, mom was going to put me on restriction again, but I refused to let her. I told her I am coming and going as I please, just like everyone else around here. So I went out that night, and any other night I wanted to. I smoked cigars, not because I liked them, but because mom hated them, and made me take them outside.
Partial freedom was not the same as freedom to be true to myself. I had lost a big chunk of myself already, and did not get my memory back of my son's birth until 2009, 42 years later.

I can not get 42 years of motherhood back.

changes

it's pretty hard to have my favorite [recent] therapist and her intern both leave at the same time. They have been so great to work with, and I am struggling with their departure. There is additional stress in that the new therapist will be 2 weeks away from beginning anew. 2 weeks is always hard for me to go without group.

I'm also healing from a small surgery, had a lump removed from my arm. It is probably just a fatty tumor, but the lab results have not come back yet.
I am squeemish when it comes to changing the bandages, and it is a bit sore, but not too bad.

Another thing worrying me; no food in the house by some time tommorrow.....
and no money for at least a 6 days or so. Stress is not new in this area, but continuous.

I'm not up to much tonight, so this is a short blog entry.

depressed a lot lately

sometimes my memories really get me down, and sometimes it is a lot worse than that. I start thinking I really need something to look forward to, and nothing comes up.


I remember when I was 18 months old [less than 2 anyway, as it was summer] and we lived on Bonifant St in downtown silver spring maryland. Mom took me and my brother out in back of our apartment to the playground and left us there, with my 4 year old brother in charge, as she went back inside for a while. We were running and playing, and I tripped and fell and badly skinned my knee. my brother could not carry me, so we were calling out loudly for Mom. She finally appeared at a window and then came down and carried me back to our apartment. When she was cleaning my knee and putting tincture of merthiolate on it, her brother J.B. started leaving.
She had my younger brother in his crib, so she was basically having alone time with her brother while leaving 2 small children unattended outside!
I remember he was wearing his sailor whites.

I sure have some issues with my mother.

a dark void

the time lost due to denial and trauma are making me so very uneasy.
To have to face the fact that, verbal abuse and constant subjection to a huge lie by my mother and the way she micro-managed all of my time as a 12 year old, and older, really astounds me when I see how nearly totally my memory of the event of my son's birth was wiped out of my reality.
I say 'nearly totally', not because I was able to figure out what was bothering me at an early stage, but because the edges of memory were always there, and the puzzle always haunted me, day and night, decades.

I have to deal with the fact that, since my reputation as having a very accurate memory of most things from my past, people struggle to accept my blank spots as being valid now that I am finally able to put the pieces in place for the entire picture.
Imagine if you will, that you are seated at a table with a jigsaw puzzle to build, and as you work your way around the edges, your mind tries to figure out what the final image will be like, because the box had no photo to work from. You can identify clouds, bits of sky, tree tops, grass, water, etc., but until you get the entire middle in place, you have to guess if it is a neighborhood, or a zoo, or a park setting, or maybe a farm.
Now, imagine there is a huge hole in your own life like that. You remember the birthdays, the school days, the friends, the kids who bullied you, and you remember fear. Sometimes you remember being attacked, and every tiny detail of it blasts your mind like a Cinemax movie 3 stories high, with 3-D and stereo sound and smell........ the smells are the worst. You can't get rid of them with perfume or extra helpings of hot fudge sundaes.
Going for long drives in the country alone helps put things into focus, but you have to go home, raise the kids, do chores, deal with the simpering idiot-child husband........ and be ignored all over again.

Sometimes you drink too much. Sometimes you watch tv all day.
Sometimes you write a novel, but never finish it. Sometimes you rabidly and ferociously paint on canvas until your emotions spatter the living space. Sometimes you bake massive quantities of fresh breads and cookies and pies, so you won't burst apart in tears, and everyone thinks everything is fine.

Thinking back, you remember only seeing your face and hair and teeth in the mirror, and can't let yourself see what happened to your body.
You would choose your clothing by colors combinations, and always try to bring the focal point to your face, and, unlike other 12 year old girls, are forcing your every increasing girth into a girdle because your mother tells you you can't leave the house otherwise. When you were sitting at home in the living room, you were expected to ALWAYS clutch a big sofa pillow to your chest, like you need a security blanket or a teddy bear and there isn't one. Nobody knows your mother made you do that so your profile of large belly would be hidden.

I still hate to see my body in the mirror. I am dieting again. And exercising a bit. I want tent dresses and monotone dark outfits and jewelry that attracts attention upward, still, 44 years after the fact.

How hard would it have been for my mother to care how I felt?
She never gave me a moment to say. EVER.

depression

I am still suffering from the depression surge that occured when my doctor mistreated me. I'm not recovering as well as I had hoped.
it is really awful when a so-called caretaker/healthcare provider makes your life worse. usually, if I'm depressed, going online and playing games and sharing messages with friends helps a lot, but not tonight, I had to just quit.