From: an2344@anon.penet.fi ((GreatDivide))
Subject: Me too Sarah & wordy intro & kaleidescopes
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:32:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan19.203932.46533@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, sbecker@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes...
>Something is happening to me these days that I don't understand. I feel
>like there's a seismic disturbance at my core, a far-off rumbling that
>portends a future explosion or earthquake.
> 
>This feeling of something bubbling up to the surface has me running scared.
>I have fallen back into old patterns of avoidance, overeating/undereating,
>over sleeping, isolating myself, shoplifting, over-spendin/shopping, all
>in an attempt to escape these feelings that are boiling just beneath the
>surface of my conscious awareness.

Replace shoplifting with avoiding creditors and you've got me...

> 
>I am depressed <another escape mechanism>, anxiety-ridden, panicky, sad and
>fearful, feel trapped, ioslated, tired, suffocated, overwhelmed, and death
>keeps looking more and more like a restful alternative to living.

I'll second everything except death as an alternative, I don't feel that for me,
right now.  *Please* keep finding all those other alternatives...give your 
rest a chance to come in life...

>My conscious mind says:  "Let's find out what this is all about."
>My heart/emotions say:  "Run away! It's scary, it hurts!"
> 
>But *what* is scary, what hurts?  What am I running from.  Why am I so
>edgy and anxious, depressed and sad?

I've experienced everything from wretching to headaches to uncontrollable
sobbing without any explanation, and yet part of me runs from the mystery.

Does it help any to know someone is exactly where you are?  I ask, because I
think it might have helped me last night.

I'm new to posting here, well, except for a couple of intentionally
surreptitious, hardly noticeable, unnamed, sort-of contributions.  I've been lurking
for a few months and have found such a tremendous amount of help on each
of the issues I've been working.  Thank you all, all, all so much.  I don't feel like I can
offer anyone else anything, I don't know if I know how (I'm not saying I won't
try, just that I can't imagine being able to help), but I *do* need help. 
I need someone to write to at 3:00 a.m.  I need others going through the same
thing.  I'm scared, too.  I have been grappling with the multitude of issues
that come from emotional and physical abuse and, except for a couple of
completely undecipherable connections to colors, nothing on the sexual abuse I
feel sure happened, on some level.  Well, the *completely* undecipherable isn't
quite true anymore, and that might be part of the problem.

I don't know if what follows qualifies for a full SPOILER, but I'll throw in a
page break and warning, just for safety...

discussions of intense fear last night and some anger to mom follow

Although I've experienced a lot of embarrassingly intense terror as an adult,
I've experienced nothing like last night.  I was completely, totally, frozenly,
terrified.  I was working on a project until about 2:00 a.m., I heard a noise
and when my cat stared at the downstairs landing where the door to the garage
is and proceeded to go into very, very slow stalk mode, moving toward the door,
I was a goner.  Then he stood there and continued this constant, plaintive
meowwwww for  what seemed like forever.  I, finally, grabbed him and held him
while we both stood there frozen.  It seemed to take hours to get up the nerve to go check the
whole place out.  It took a looong time to come down and do some things
for myself about it and then think about what it might have been about.  I was too scared
to logon to here to read asar--the PC makes too much noise.  I was too
scared to go check it out for a long time.  After checking and reading from all
of my affirmation books (the collection continues to grow :)  ) and pulling out
and reading the part of CTH I couldn't imagine needing on crises and panic and
calling the numbers for Incest Survivors Anonymous and Survivors of Incest
Anonymous just to hear voices tell me faith in my healing and looking up the
crisis numbers in the area and not feeling like I was worthy of any of them for
just being scared because they're for people who have been raped or battered or 
are ready to commit suicide and I'm not any of those things and thinking how
there is nobody I feel comfortable waking up without it being worse, much worse
and turning onthe TV for sound and changing into pajamas and using the ski
machine to try to release some tension while I brewed "Sleepy Time" tea and
bringing my pillows downstairs and writing out everything I could think of
about it on paper and reading a pretty good kid's book I picked up last week to
help make my inner kid feel more secure ("The Way of the Peaceful Warrior"--
about fear and overcoming it) and realizing that every bone and muscle in my
body ached from the tension I had caused myself, I finally fell asleep for a
couple of hours.  Then we (me and my furry friend) went upstairs to bed in the morning
light to catch a couple more hours of winks and REMs.  I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS!  I
feel foolish, I still felt scared when I woke up, I feel achy all over, I feel
like I'll never, possibly be able to live up to everything I'm signed up for if
it's going to be like this, I feel like I'll lose it if I become any LESS
useful and productive than I've been while dealing with all the other stuff
because I seem to accomplish less, now than ever before in my life.  Right now
I should be working on that project and I'm doing this, instead, for fear of
tonight.  Yeah, I've
progressed some on taking care of me, but it's not getting me what I need most
to not feel stressed right now.  That old ability I had to dig in and handle
anything, no matter how large, when it came down to it.  The energy isn't
there.  The motivation isn't there.  The only motivation I have right now is
negative motivation that kicks in WAY too late.  Like I used to accomplish miracles at the very last moment
before and, now, way after the last moment I'm lucky if I can reach mediocrity. 
And part of me knows I want this so, so, so, so bad.  I want my life back--all
of it--including the parts I've never had before! 
Being my age (an elderly late 30s :)  *please* don't be offended, anyone in my
and plus age groups, I'm talking only about how I look at me sometimes,
especially when I'm trying to cope with something so well aged, by now--I don't
see the rest of you that way.  I can't; I see your progress) provides some helpful life experience, but saps
the energy and makes it damn hard to step back and be "worse" than I've ever
been before at everything and makes some of this no less hard.  Sheesh, what a
mess.


> 
>I kind of wonder whether this is what happens when a memory starts to surface.
>Has this kind of thing happened to anyone else?  How do you cope?  Do you
>get suicidal and avoid daily responsibilities too?  I feel so ashamed when
>I can't even take care of myself--pay bills, do laundry or answer phone calls.
> 
>I need help.  I'm frightened.  I'm crying.  I hate this.
> 
>Sarah

Sarah, if it's any consolation, you're not alone.  I'm wondering the same
things.  The identifiable things I came up with for being so terrified last
night all point to get closer to memories (Sis filling in some blanks,
questions to mom, etc.).  With one exception.  Trying to
avoid one more long story, I'll just say that my folks and I have been
"separated."  I've retained some communication with my mom (that means not my
stepfather--he's not the perp, just a hell of a lot more emotionally and
verbally abusive than I could begin to see, with my intense training in
"appropriate family
behavior"), although it's been difficult because she
persists in coming back to how I broke, up the family, etc., etc.  I did a
stupid thing and engaged in some "discussion" and "explaining" of my position,
yet again last night.  I called her on it the first time she tried to bypass my
feelings for small talk, but the second time she successfully steered me to
something she was more comfortable talking about and *then* began seemingly
innocent questions about my therapy (they were sure that it was my therapist
"talking" when I last went to visit them and dared express how *I* feel in a
family where only attacks directed my way are allowed).  However, I realized as she went on how
she was taking every angle of doubt possible and then she asked for my
therapist's last name (I've always referred to her by her first name, thinking
nothing of it).  I was really scared, but quelled my own feelings and
remembered thinking "am I more scared about this than I am allowing myself to
feel right now?"  I asked why.  After a couple of rounds of, no, I won't do
that, only I know her last name and I want it to stay that way, she said that
"maybe she could help."  And I thought, yeah, help, right.  You want to go in
there and find reasons why she's not to be trusted, why she's leading me in
"wierd" directions, like you've seen on TV.  Why she's wrong.  Why she's crazy. 
Why she's just trying to turn me against you so that she can make more money. 
Everything from your questions about how much to how long to all the stuff I
*STUPIDLY* answered.  THAT's what made me feel scared.  I'm glad I held out on
the name.  Why did I say so much else?  Why does that scare me soooooooo much? 
Why?  Like I said, I'm TOO OLD FOR THIS!  Damn, didn't do too good keeping that
short, did I?  I simply wanted to include that, as well as what feels like
memories surfacing as painfully slow as a Chinese torture (I love your
descriptions Sarah, they capture *my* feelings so well, right now) because I feel like it played a major part
in last night's terror, and I feel it's not over.  I need to somehow recreate
that
 safer space I worked so hard to build.  I need to talk to asar.  I need a local group.  I need more than
my therapist--other survivors I can call at night, can write to at night, can help
me, and that, as hard as it is for me to imagine, me to *TRY* to help.  If I could help someone else, I think I could do
much better at this, but I honestly don't believe that's possible.  I'm too
damn *needy* (bleach, spit, wretch) myself to be of any use to anyone else. 
I'm sooooo tired.  I'm not an all-nighter kind of gal anymore.  Please be there
with me, I have no right to ask that, but I'm too scared alone.  My god, how
can I ask that?  What if someone does help and I can't find a way to 
reciprocate, continue to participate?  I can't keep up with what I already
needed to do that isn't finshed, let alone the present.  Boy, does that sound
like a bunch of manipulative garbage to get people to tell me it's o.k.  I
understand you can bypass this message, quit reading it and that if you choose
to deal with me in some way I just want you to know I'm not feeling terribly
responsible and I don't trust me to respond in a way that would make me feel
that I am responsible, right now.  I hope that I will be able to feel better and do better about
this in the future.  What next?  What?  And all this
with*out* memories.  Yikes.

Sincere Epologies for the verbosity (thanks Richard, for so widening the
possibilities for Ethings and Epuns in my mind :) )  I guess there isn't much
here for you Sarah, I got carried away with me, again.  With my limited
experience with this, I can only say that with the light of day and some
distance from the panic (as I *hope* it is for you, sometimes) it is much
easier to see the feared whatevers aren't present today or in this room with
me.  May some experience with that help us to at least intelluctually
acknowledge that as a help in escaping future panics and support to other
efforts to keep on moving through this thing.

Somehow, it's a hell of a lot easier for me, as hard and self-hate producing as it is,
to go through the other stuff (emotional, verbal, etc.)--NOT in the sense of
overcoming it, but in the sense of experiencing it--I would guess, because I
didn't experience that kind of terror as a child again.  But, I came up with something that
helped remind me about pieces large and small fitting together that I felt
guilty taking credit for once my therapist said she had mentioned a
kaleidescope image to me and/or I might have read somewhere else, here, for all
I know--it seemed too good to be mine.  ANYWAYS (sheesh do I need to learn to
lower the word count), I think of a kaleidescope.  You know how sometimes you
barely turn it and many many pieces and patterns change all at once--it's as
if the entire structure shifts.  And then other times you turn it really hard
and, at first, it will look like nothing will move, and then just a couple of
shards will shift with just a couple around them, leaving the overall structure
intact.  Each time you look in the viewer and each time you turn it large or
small, something eventually happens.  I guess in those delayed moves I have to
imagine a little shard of colored glass standing on the edge of a precipice,
wondering whether it's going to hurt to fall and hanging on as long as it
could, and then finally bowing to the laws of physics.  Voila!  Something is
new.  For me, at least, that so fits the process of recovery with all this and,
somehow, helps with my impatience when I've landed on yet, another plateau and
helps me realize the value of nights like last night--*something* has moved, or
will, as a result, even if I can't see it or feel it yet.

Honest, I'm really going to stop now.  Anyone who makes it through this gets
the Good Recoverykeeping seal of approval, not that I remotely suggest there be
anything like that or anything, but I'm sure I'm fixating on my own need for
approval...

Ehugs, if warranted, wanted, accepted, and if they don't have cooties coming
from me, like I feel they must, somehow.

GreatDivide 

(I'll 'splain in a future post, if I live through this one :^Z  At
the least, I've been able to replace one kind of fear with another, by virtue
of this post!)

Now, off to finland with you, words...
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