I chose the voices

I said no.
when they asked...
when they asked.

i live with my head in the clouds
while my body relives the past...
relives the past

i've been turned inside out
: been raped in my head
more times than in real life

as if real life weren't bad enough
weren't bad enough

or good enough.
how far can good enough take us?

how much was i loved?
how soon? and by whom?

was it enough?
it was...if I believe them.
they have voices too.

I choose the voices.
and they are beautiful

How do I know you are telling the truth?

I don't even know what to say about this subject. How can I provide context on something so confusing for me? Other than simply to educate those who need it on, trauma... 
I can't tell you what is real...What happened the way I remember it, and what may have been quite different. My abusers were skilled, all memory is fluid, I was very likely drugged, definitely brainwashed, and extremely dissociative from an early age. 

What I will stand 100% behind is the honesty of my experience and the integrity of my expression of it. It may not be verifiable, for so many reasons, not the least of which being my abusers took great care to make sure it would not be, but it is honest. So... believe me, or don't. 

For those who may be genuinely wondering whether things like this really do happen, or if you know me and wonder if it really could have happened to me... do your homework. Read up on the supplementary links I post, or do your own research on pre-verbal trauma, ritualistic abuse, adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse or any other relevant topic. And determine for yourself whether 

For what it's worth, I have spent more than enough of my own time and energy wondering whether I'm traumatized or psychotic. To quote my psychiatrist (yes, he's mine, I own him) "well, psychotic follows a pattern, which you don't fit at all, and trauma follows a pattern, which you do very much fit, so... no, you are not crazy. Some version of this, as hard as that is to accept, really did happen." 

More importantly than you believing me, is that me believing me is the most organizing thing that has ever happened to me. I'm healthier, happier, more functional, sleeping better, less confused (the list goes on) when I believe me. Out of necessity, I choose to believe me. So, yeah, I'm for real. But like I said, do what you will with that. 

all that stands between me...

the only thing that stands between

me and everything i want to be

is you,

and you and you and you and you

and everything you did to me.

you could have killed me to,

but you were to selfish for that.

death was too compassionate.

murders tend to get investigated

that was not your style.

and you could kill me now,

if i were to find out,

just what it was you did to me...

and if i wished to tell.

but this is my disability.

this story i can't sell,

if no one is disposed to believe.

not with all that distance between me,

and everything I want to be.

oh heart!

if only there could be

just one reality.

only one memory.

no more mystery.

only what I wish to be!

On not my best day... (or worst), and homework

I took Brown-eyes with me to the coffee shop, because I needed to get out of the house. I needed to write, and he needed to finish his homework.
It was fine for about 5 minutes ...

...and now I want to kill him. 

If you will draw your attention to the collective locations of hand, pencil and homework sheet

But that's kind of what getting Brown-eyes to do homework is like any time.
I got through three hours of it last weekend by putting everything else aside and reminding myself (like every 3 seconds) that this is what I wanted. This is what I wanted. this is what I wanted. this is what i wanted... And also, thinking about the kind of parent I wanted to be. One who yelled at my kids to "fucking focus for a second!"or one who says, "good job! next problem."
He's so fun and bright and silly and imaginative. Which also means he lives in his own little universe, with Luke Skywalker and Spinning Shark and most of all BB-8, in which he is a superhero, and a scientist, and nothing anyone else says is as loud as the voices he creates in there. All great things when he's not being asked to focus on something less interesting, like subtraction or picking up his toys.
And, I know. I know, this story is every parent of a creative 6 year old in the history of modern life.

The problem for me, is the constant buzz in my brain. The disquieting white noise of everything that came before this good life. It's not just irritating or frustrating to me. It's triggering. Why? I don't really know. When I think about it with my pre-frontal cortex, the part of my brain that controls logical thought, I do... to some limited extent.
Children have to be taught modulation. And I was not only lacking this modeling and help but also constantly pushed further and further beyond my ability to cope. So my 0-60 on calm to agitation to rage is... almost instantaneous. It's like a baby's. I'm learning not to throw grown ass tantrums in the form of threatening, manipulative, forceful speech, verbal listing of every one of the nearest target (usually Handsome)'s personal flaws , obsessing over mundane tasks that "apparently nobody is capable of handling other than me", picking unrelated fights (and sometimes breaking things or melting down too).  But that means tolerating the real problem. Body memory. Physical sensations. Feeling things I don't want to and never should have had to.

I'm trying. I've snapped a couple of times. Taken lots of deep breaths. Gotten Brown-eyes down for 20 jumping jacks after each line of math

 breathed in the smell of his shampoo and soaked up the silky feel of his hair during his all to frequent "Brown-eyes needs a hug" breaks. Because those things are grounding, for both of us. In a time, when we are both feeling a bit overwhelmed with the tasks at hand : homework and learning to tolerate body memory while staying in the present.

granted, it's on out of about 6, but... we celebrate the baby steps around here (like the fact that I haven't slapped my hand on the table in front of his distracted face, even once this study day)

And of course, engaging that damn cortex by writing all about the process. Feel free to tell me I'm doing a great job! I thrive on encouragement ;) yeah, wink, wink... but no, seriously.

You are my witness

You are my Witness

You saw me when I was being erased.

Before I knew I was losing,

when I might have still had a chance
at innocence.

They took it, 

of course,

and I went missing anyway. But,

thank you for watching me.

For, when I resurfaced,

a lost child,

churning with desperation for reasons, not yet clear to me;

obfuscated by some; 

invisible to many;

incomprehensible to most;

you
you recognized me - because you had eyes to see,

(and you remembered me)

for you had seen me when I was yet being erased.

And when my 13 year old self sent her cry for help out in a bottle

your shore was there to receive it,

though my mother refused the lifeline you sent: 

over my silent screams of protest.

and at 16, when my eyes came up for air, 

your gaze was already there -

to greet me;

resting with compassion on the fugitive self within,

who I dared not know I harbored, 

though her whispers echoed relentlessly about my soul:

Thank you for watching me.

You saw me when I was being systematically erased.

You were my witness.

After the escape, when my story began to unfold 

before my unbelieving eyes - 

you told me  

how to hold myself
together

40 minutes at a time; 

By day, by day, by day...    Thank you for watching me.

For having seen me when I was being erased.

You saw me stubbornly putting the pieces back together.

And when, to my surprise,

I began to thrive, 

you celebrated my successes

and my family;

never faltered over my brokenness

and guided me 

with a steady hand

 through the confusion 

of radioactive relationships with my oppressors - 

and those tainted by them,

until I was..............................finally!

all the way, free.

(mostly)

Thank you for watching me.

For being the one who had gone before.

For having seen me when I was being erased.

For loving me, because.

When I dared you not to, 

after pandora's box I recklessly thru open,

only to see the d         h of my scars

     e    t

      p

and my newly happy life come crashing down 

around me:
Thank you for watching me.

For being one of the EXTREMELY few, 

I dared risk testing:

acting out a testament to all those erased years;

my remembering.

Thank you for remaining.

for constance

for witness

for belief

& grace

                

                 compassion * wisdom * resonance * laughter ........... and Relief

I am so much unfettered suffering

I don't know, what  could possibly

                                    be worth it.

whatever    reason    the   r y t h m

 Y O U  HAVE  M A T T E R E D.

                      your existence  h a s  comforted        my soul.

My father's antidote

As it turns out. I was his a vessel. 

as an infant i sucked his dick, because that's what he gave me. 

not a pacifier. 

sometimes my finger. 

when he was horny, his penis. 

And i swallowed. 

try remembering that on for size. 

but I loved,
 too.
Still.

because it is human nature to love. 

yes to love. 

being, his soul was long on life support
he saw my love as a weakness to exploit. 

my weakness
to me exploit.

but the joke is on him 

because I'm still loved today.

and he is dead.
and unloved.

the cancer killed him dead when they pulled the plug on his soul. 

spite will turn on you like that. 

which is why i forgive.

and why I know love.
why I am loved.
yes loved. 

Yes!
Loved. 

for as they say,

... to love is to be loved...

to love is to be

human.

Plus, you never know

perhaps choking on his semen, 

was really just me choking on his soul

giving me a taste for soul; my perfect compass 

early immunity to the venom of lust and hate

the antidote.
to embrace my humanity:
no matter the cost
for as it turns out
it's what freed me, 
in the end

from my journal, before it started coming together

the rape dreams are getting more intense. and oddly specific. like tonight, being pinned under the weight of the body unable to fight or even scream in the end on account of not wanting to touch the body with my arms or legs.  and barely being able to breath for the force and size of the tongue in my mouth and the pressure up against my nose as i turned my head hoping for air. Biting the tongue crossed my mind but the need for air won out. and the fear. the intense fear. i wake with it in my body. and the need to throw up.

there are still problems with the logistics of the dream, though, like the comparable size of the body to mine. proportions. which make me think it's not a memory. and no feeling still, below the neck, other than a vague hate of my body. sexualization. thrumming.
and sculpting the dream in the dream. ie: where is the pain? there should be pain? I am hurting, i think. there is blood.

and i'm pretty sure i was a virgin when i got married. 

and i still keep waiting for other shoe to drop. the memory which makes it all make sense. the one to bring the pieces together. could my dad have been involved?

karen, why is this happening to me?

whatever the truth is i am in so much pain. i am afraid of the world. and my brain.

how many times can i wake my husband and say
"i dreamt I was raped"

which means.

help me

writing with toddlers (thank god, they grow)

How hard it is sometimes to live the life you have. to embrace the day you that is.
i can not hold my son any more today. his constant climbing on me, even as i seek escape in written words is the straw that is breaking this camels back today. He hasn't done anything  wrong.
"Son, you have to get off of me!" "now! Get down! you HAVE to do something else!"
"mommy's right here" he cries.
even as it tugs on my heart strings it makes me so angry I want to smash something into the wall.
now i have to wash all the clean socks.
"why don't you go get your milk" I suggest.
"I poured it into the basket."
sure enough. there is the empty cup on the floor.
"what basket? show me. where?"
"the blue basket. that one, there. oh, no!"
i reach into the sock basket, where he points. all clean, matched and wrapped together. all our socks. damp.
"thank you for showing me."

i can't deal with that tonight.

i check my pockets for my soul

it's a thin bit of ice between me and
freaking the fuck out
but i got out
i was wandering in the dark
opening doors
till one of them led out
side.
i took a tender step of relief
and another of trepidation

am i ready to be in the real world again?
i had set my things down to try the lock
thinking it would be stuck.
what should i bring with me now?
but my turning gaze returns only a closed door.
i didn't even hear it swing shut.
i never decided.
stand empty handed
no swords. no ghosts.
i am a warrior

did i lose myself again?
or did she slip out with me?
within me.

can i bear to carry her?
dare to burry her?
or just let her be. free
can i be. both broken and whole?
i check my pockets for my soul
i check my pockets for my soul.
am i  i am a a warrior. warrior ?

pre-verbal trauma

and i'm left searching for my soul.
in this mouses maze.
as my history unfolds
before a desperate gaze
of the trauma left untold;
the only memory, echoing pain
unexplained scars
which tell of survival
from ...something.

my self containment, for the story that isn't

because there is no story to tell.
i need a song to hold me up.
someone tell me how to wake to the next day.
how could i be worth so little?
do you know what 12 years is?
it's the blink of an eye.
and then some more...
chances.
taking chances with lives,
 that last forever.

and these words are supposed to help me. i'm supposed to lean on them. counselors gonna help me?
i mean don't get me wrong. i need ... sfk alks sf; 09[q8353 vO*U$#RJ *&%%$%$E
help.
i'm a shell
none of you have to contain me. you can say you care all you want. you can be concerned. you can offer an idea an hour. I contain me!
if it was video recorded. you probably couldn't even sit through it.
but my whole life is a container for it.

7 things

sometimes things don't turn out. sometimes they just don't go the way you felt, you hoped and planned.  sometimes you end up feeling lonely despite your best efforts to make friends and without a plan despite all your planning. sometimes you miss what you had when you can't go back and you find it hard to keep your hopes for the future from feeling futile... and ever distant. when i was so sad in high school i used to keep myself going by making a list every night of 7 things that I was grateful for.

So here are my seven things:

July 2011

Sunlight and shade from the blinds falling on the carpet

Lisa, who has befriended me.

Water so close by

Air conditioning

That I don't feel so sick when I'm not pregnant.

Beautiful Kristoffer who loves me even when feel like I have nothing for him.

Cici's garden (one inexplicable voice, responding like magic even though we will never know each other's real voices or lives, boundary-less compassion).

January 9, 2016

tea - hot tea, with lemon, for a sore throat

a camera that fits in my back pocket and also takes calls

Tousled - who will only fall asleep on me so many more times... and did, today

someone who gracefully answers all my texts, fields my existential questions, and is sorry when I cry 

Handsome, because the man is still saying "no", every time I tell him we should just get a divorce. 

Brown-eyes - who raised his hand in class for the first time in two years.

colorful socks that were never meant to match

haunted

I'm not ready to give up.
but i was 5 minutes ago.
I...
am haunted.
by my father
to whom i was
"a good for nothing lazy slut".
who used tactics unfit for war to mold his very own sex slave.
lucky bastard had me from birth
yeah.
as far as I can tell.
haunted.
by my brother
for whom i was a conduit
through which to understand his own
early
hypersexed
masculinity.
haunted.
by the convicted pedophile
ron ruskjer.
yeah, that's his real name. look him up.
i dare you to.
who bound me
and gagged me
and drugged me
and fucked me.
or something.
so far we've covered zero to five. (years of my life. the first)
yeah.
haunted.
by my mother.
so capable of denial
so infatuated with denial that she lead us all right down the highway to hell.
and sold us to the devil
for a little sympathy.
because empathy was too much work to ask for.
haunted...

more

what do you say to the man who broke your start in life?

what do you say to the women who love him?

what do you say to his children? his mother?

what do you say to his (other) victims?

with whom you share that awful, festering hole.

and who do you say it to?

what do you say when you think you are worth investing in,

but you can't hold it together?

what do you say when you remember how easily you can be (feel) 

reduced to the rubble of your past.

when you thought you had something to offer

and suddenly it feels false?

when you reach for your dignity

and find it has gone missing.

i am woman.

and i will stand

naked

when you have stripped the last shred of dignity from my body or my soul

and defend my innocence

in the glare of your reductive lust.

i am more than you would make of me

and you are less

less than the dust you haven't left me to cover my nakedness.

because i hear what you cannot hear

the whisper of those oppressed before me

by those before you

the whores, the witches, 

the prudes the prostitutes, 

the"companions"and child brides,

the slaves and the sluts

we say they were beaten.

They say they beat the odds

and bore me.

to bear for you the burden of your indignity.

for when you have done your worst to me

i can, 

if i chose, 

walk on