Poems from God
By: Anna Szabo
Tags: Poem, Poetry, Inspiration, Christian Living, Poems On Medium

The Legacy of Inescapable Shock

"The Legacy of Inescapable Shock" #PoemsFromGod I’m finally able to courageously and boldly face my past and process my chronic trauma by experiencing genuine grief and deep, profound, healing, human sadness.

But it used to be that, trapped in toxic positivity, maniacally happy all the time, I was hiding my dissociation, disconnectedness, and deadness. It was the legacy of inescapable shock from being seduced and molested by my mother as a child who was innocent and felt terrified, unprotected, and confused.

My mother began hating and abusing me, beating me to the point of turning purple or black, putting me on my knees for hours - all because sex with her I boldly refused. It can be difficult to distinguish a sexually exploitative mother-daughter relationship from a normal physical closeness that occurs between mothers and female kids.

That very confusion is what toward dissociation, rage, self-harming, lack of boundaries, and suicide eventually the seduced and abused daughter leads. My seductive mother was obsessed with sex, intrusive with my body, misleading and manipulative, trying to persuade me that what she did to me was normal.

Many times as a kid, I reached out to suicide prevention hotlines, trying to stay afloat and cope with my mother, for whom I sought a mental assessment - formal. I was told she’d have to admit herself to a doctor, only my mother believed that she was mentally stable and even told me that what she did to me was actually good.

Decades later, I’m continuing to forgive my mother for my own sake, even though her sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse I never even slightly understood. Ritual sexual abuse of me as a small child by my mother, who was sexually repressed, single, and living with her parents at home, began when I was five.

Looking back, I thank God for preserving that little innocent girl, who, despite her crazy mother’s cruel abuse, was able to survive and even genuinely thrive. I didn’t know what love was, nor did I experience maternal affection, but I was called names, threatened with suicide, encouraged to commit suicide, and hated.

I was also provoked to feel aggravated, poked, pinched, pushed, punched, and physically violently dominated, I never felt accepted, loved, affirmed, or celebrated. I never had assurance that those whom I loved loved me, those who were supposed to protect me, build me up, affirm me, encourage me... they abused me.

I felt abandoned, worthless, scared, and trapped because when I relied on those who were supposed to care for me, they refused me, by which they confused me. My mother denounced me as her daughter, wished me death, called me a trader and an enemy, and said there was nothing good about having me in her life.

She brought home two homeless girls to sleep in the same bed with her, then, brought home a homeless man and told me that she was from now on his wife. I have Complex PTSD, which means that often my emotional brain dominates my rational brain, hijacking my executive function - all because of chronic abuse.

The trauma made my brain hyper-alert to danger and thus reorganized and rewired my brain for fight and flight, often causing trauma through flashbacks to reproduce. My brain is different because of the free-floating fear and terror being always on in the background so I have a hard time relaxing and letting go of my anxiety.

It’s because my mother’s behavior was so chaotic and unpredictable when I was growing up - anything could set off my psychotic mother’s crazy personality. Coming home from school, playing with my toys quietly in my room, trying to learn new skills, or just simply being and breathing - everything about me was bad.

To survive, I dissociated and detached because I lacked the language to communicate what I endured and that I felt terrified, traumatized, tired, and sad. I tuned out and spent a lot of time not being there, I was blocking out a lot, I made myself mentally disappear, I lacked a continuous sense of self. I was confused.

I ran away from home a lot, starting at five years old because of all the despair and hurt, and because my identity as my cruel, evil, crazy mother’s daughter I refused. I never knew what my mother was going to do or how she was going to torture me, I could never trust her; as a teen, I begged her for therapy but she ridiculed me for it.

She assured me that I was insane, her faults on me she would transmit, her cruelty, incest, and violence she would not admit, and to therapy she did not commit. Ridicule, assault, harassment, violence, bullying, shaming, condemnation, humiliation, and rejection was what I experienced growing up every day.

It was happening behind closed doors in my own home so there was no one I could turn to and share what I was experiencing, which was why I was not acting okay. I endured years of pain, and of course I shut down, was hiding, felt scared, because I was alone in the entire universe, so, as a child, I “all of a sudden” withdrew.

Not my teachers, not my friends, not the police, no one at all of the real-life reasons for my “strange” behavior had ever genuinely inquired or had any clue. Extreme reactions are the symptoms of unbearable traumatic stress, and I was stressed severely in my home by siblings, aunts, grandparents, and my mom.

And no one ever taught me as a child how I could relax, and keep my little body, brain, and mind, instead of terrified and overly-aroused, peaceful and calm. School was my one and only island of safety and the only stable source of my ever-wavering identity, so I loved and appreciated learning and overall school.

After my two failed suicide attempts at 11 and 12, I established big dreams that were super-cool, so learning became for accomplishing my goals a primary tool. Yet, I had no idea how people could work together because of the chaotic environment of my unpredictable violent family and confusion-filled childhood.

So, teamwork and fitting in became extremely challenging for me in kindergarten, school, and, as I began to build a meaningful career, in adulthood. For years, dissociation was a way of making myself disappear, which involved me experiencing the feeling of separation from my body and my emotional state.

It became a very helpful trate allowing me to cope with my abusive alcoholic relatives and endure my cruel mother’s hate without killing myself to escape my fate. My mother had with me a husband-wife relationship, an enmeshed relationship where I was a servant and her needs where the only ones that ever mattered.

The painful memories of her cruel abuse, decades of lies, and manipulation were deeply buried inside my soul and in my mind they were fragmented and scattered. Researchers say that single parenting of daughters whose perpetrator is the mother results in extreme isolation, terror, confusion, and dissociation to survive.

All of the above are true and led to my Complex PTSD, so facing my trauma and integrating back into my wholeness I had to do in order to live fully alive and thrive. Survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse often report being met with disbelief or shock, and I kept those dark secrets hidden for too many painful years.

Today, I own my truth and share my story, I also grieve my pain and loss: whenever, wherever, and however they come, I accept my sorrow and my endless tears. My mother wished to dominate, control, and own me, while seeking my emotional support, resulting in our roles’ reversal: me being both her husband and her mother.

She suffocated me with her demands, seduction, violence, and her desire for my sexual attention, which I resented, and rebelled against her constant smother. The abuse I endured resulted from my mother’s distorted view of herself and me as her daughter: she wanted to act out her unfulfilled sexual fantasies with me.

I, on the other hand, wanted to be nurtured, held, talked with and read to, I was interested in the relationship if her daughter I could freely, safely, actually be. My mother found my lack of submission unbearable and displaced her anger and shame over her sexuality onto me, so our relationship deteriorated beyond repair.

Six years of healing and working through my trauma one step at a time were required in order to accepting this sad truth forever my longing heart prepare. For years I hoped my mother changed, and so I tried to reconcile to no avail, which only led to more explosive anger, bullying, and shaming I endured from her.

I finally realized that mental health, stability, and peace, as well as independence and liberation, over her approval or acceptance I prefer. Indeed, my mother’s friendship, love, acceptance, affirmation, and approval I was desperately longing for and always seeking hopelessly to no avail.

Today, my reason, faith, and wholeness, my spiritual awakening, relationship with God, ability to feel without fear, and understanding of my purpose all prevail. The legacy of chronic inescapable shock is speechless terror, unspeakable pain, unbearable hurt, unexplainable frozenness, and all-consuming paranoia.

Overwhelmed by pain from abuse, violence, and manipulation, I lived in a state of free-floating persistent agitation, and my intensity others was annoying. I’m not laid-back or easy-going, because my life has taught me how to be alert, protective, hyper-vigilant, high-maintenance, rigid, tense, and frantic.

I am the way I am for I had to raise myself in an environment of daily violence where no love was given yet love from me was expected to be inappropriately romantic. Dread, helplessness, anxiety, panic attacks, confusion, and despair resulted from growing up in a household with conscience-lacking adulterous alcoholics.

I was taught to use alcohol and sex to numb my pain and smile, which was what I did, while investing all my effort into successfully studying law and economics. My hyper aroused emotional brain today dominates my mental life because of my decades-long history of violent abuse and unbearable traumatic stress.

That’s why I’m overly-sensitive to sounds and bright cold lights: my brain’s fear center is hyper-vigilant, unable irrelevant information for filtering out to assess. Some minor daily stresses can cause my brain to get out of whack quickly, so I’m often jumpy and scared, or can start crying because I’m having a meltdown.

But crying now that I’m exploring and understanding my trauma is much better than my former life of destructive addictions from an emotional shutdown. I can be frantic because of decades of confusion, hyper vigilance, disembodiment, disassociation, anger, aggression, resentment, and oppression.

Hurrendeous violence, criticism and cynicism, bullying, mocking, rejection, ridicule, and manipulation were what I received instead of love and compassion. Facing my trauma without judgement and observing what happened, through introspection, allowed me to develop a compassionate self, becoming my friend.

A new world of possibilities has opened ever since I stopped escaping myself and can actually to my emotional needs attend, so with my story I became content. Dealing with my trauma enabled my spiritual horizons to expand, my feelings I can now accept and comprehend, beyond toxic positivity I was able to transcend,

To be happy all the time I don’t pretend, I forgave my mother but to reconcile with her I don’t intend, I don’t expose myself to being harassed, abused, or condemned. Traumatized people are terrified of letting themselves feel their emotions because feeling means losing control, and that is scary since no one can be trusted.

I’ve learned to face my trauma and give voice to my emotions. I experienced my humanity. I surrendered my control to God. With His help, I was able to get adjusted. I am facing my trauma today, being fully aware of my humanity, fragility, vulnerability, but also strength and resilience, which are all a part my whole.

This holistic awareness birthed my creativity, so today through poetry, painting, writing, podcast, video, and even TEDx talk I am able to express my soul. When I look back at my whole life, I ask: how could I live so long with those dark secrets locked in a mental closet? I could because I had to cope in order to survive.

Today, the locks tore open. I’m liberated. I own my truth. I’m sharing publicly without shame or guilt because I want all victims of insect one day to heal and finally thrive.

11/7/2020 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA