How do you recover from child abuse?

[Becoming]

Ooooouch. Sorry. As if you hadn't had enough trauma down there. . . .

Maybe you could consider it like a constellation of all the pain as you care for the cyst.

 

I was at my yoga-like class (working with my energy flow:) ) and thinking about BOt's post and wondering if others have had problems connecting with their bodies. I know I have. In fact, it was when I got into this class that a lot of this stuff kept coming up. I live in chronic pain from a severe whiplash, so as a way of dealing with the pain, I often deliberately don't think about my body. But as I did this yoga stuff, it's like my body started releasing its pain. It was actually more painful before it got better at times, but it's been weird. I'm on half the meds for arthritis I was on before now.

 

Healing energy to you BOt.

 

MzP: I was reading DevilDog's pre-Xmas post and ran across your dilemma with your ex. What happened in court?

[blind_otter]

Interesting, Becoming, because I first started this journey towards healing when I became interested in yoga. I also attended massage school for 6 months and we did energy work, and there's something called The Hakomi Method that I became interested in....

 

It's a method involving loving touch to specific areas, while the client discusses emotionally painful or troubling issues...usually depending on the type of issue, specific areas of the body tense up, the classic one being the abdomen, as it's all soft, vulnerable, and has the major organs.

 

So the practicioner, somewhat like Iyengar yoga, will find ways to support the person's body so they can relax and open up specific areas.

 

When I received this treatment, it was powerful and terrifying. I found myself weeping like a baby spontaneously, somewhat like when I was massaging my area.

 

I suppose in learning to surivive, you learn to sublimate a lot of emotional pain into your body tissues. That way, it's not PTSD that makes you hurt, it's that chronic neck pain, or TMJD, or the low back pain.

 

I wonder about this. In Iyengar yoga they often say that you become able to physically relax into your poses once you are emotionally/spiritually able to relax into that space.

[Mz. Pixie]

Oh my, yeah, I have trouble with my body!

 

I was injured in a accident when I was 20 and I have bone spurs in my neck from that. Frequently I will get muscle spasms in it so painful that I cannot hold a coffee cup. Literally last week I was walking across the parking lot at Waffle House and it hit me and I couldn't turn my neck for three days. There is nothing I can do except put heat on it and take pain meds.

 

I also have IBS and the severe cramping at times makes me want to pass out.

 

I have RLS as well which causes sleeping issues.

 

I'm a freaking mess physically in addition to the emotional issues.

[enki]

Blind Otter, if you would be interested, Bartholin's cysts can be treated by a very simple gynaecological procedure called "marsupialisation," which can be done under local or light general anaesthetic. The cyst is converted into a sort of pouch and never recurs. If you ask a gynaecologist, they could explain the procedure, but it is hardly any more complicated than removing a sebaceous cyst (those fatty cysts that can occur anywhere on the body.)

Hope this helps you get rid of this painful lump.

P.S. Your new avatar is positively charming! Have a nice day.

[blind_otter]

Blind Otter, if you would be interested, Bartholin's cysts can be treated by a very simple gynaecological procedure called "marsupialisation," which can be done under local or light general anaesthetic. The cyst is converted into a sort of pouch and never recurs. If you ask a gynaecologist, they could explain the procedure, but it is hardly any more complicated than removing a sebaceous cyst (those fatty cysts that can occur anywhere on the body.)

Hope this helps you get rid of this painful lump.

P.S. Your new avatar is positively charming! Have a nice day.

 

I had something similar to the marsupialization done to the right bratholin's gland maybe 18 months ago. It was hellish. They injected the area with novocaine, but it didn't "take", so I had to go through the procedure with nothing more than a nurse's hand to hold to deal with the pain.

 

As I recall, even though I haven't been to church in years, I said the rosary out loud because it was so painful. Our Father, 10 Hail Marys. I lost track and ended up saying the Hail Mary over and over again.

 

Instead of creating a pouch they went ahead and put a plastic catheter in the gland...a man made duct, so to speak. It still hurts sometimes.

[enki]

I'm most dreadfully sorry you were put through so much suffering, Otter. I am absolutely shocked that any Medical Practitioner would be so callous, and never mind the legal consequences.

 

The American College of Obstetricians and GYnaecologists has a website at http://www.acog.org with an interactive map which allows you to find a registered member anywhere in the US. Certainly one of them would carry out the appropriate procedure in a more skillful and efficient manner than last time, and with proper anaesthesia.

 

If you told them what happened last time, they would no doubt be as horrified as I am that you should suffer so much from what should be simple, painless and curative.

[blind_otter]

Thanks, enki. I was talking to my exBF about it last night. I told him about my difficulties and he came over with his guitar to "sing my vagina a song"

 

He played and sang "rain" (lennon/ mcCartney) - it was cute. He thinks that my nether regions need more loving attention from me and that this is an opportunity to "reclaim a personal relationship" with my vag! He is such a hippie. But I can't help but think he may be on to something.

 

I'm off to marsupialize next wednesday. The OB better give me a valium or something before they go down there. I think I may freak out.

[Becoming]

You're not going to the same one, are you, BOt?

 

And your ex sounds likes he's becoming an ex ex . . . ?

[Mz. Pixie]

Thanks, enki. I was talking to my exBF about it last night. I told him about my difficulties and he came over with his guitar to "sing my vagina a song"

 

He played and sang "rain" (lennon/ mcCartney) - it was cute. He thinks that my nether regions need more loving attention from me and that this is an opportunity to "reclaim a personal relationship" with my vag! He is such a hippie. But I can't help but think he may be on to something.

 

I'm off to marsupialize next wednesday. The OB better give me a valium or something before they go down there. I think I may freak out.

 

Yeah really! Singing your vag a song?? Sounds like not a little more attention from you he's talking about?? He may want to give you some of his personal attention as well!

 

I never had to have mine cut, I just did the hot soaks etc and it eventually went away, it took a LONG time though and it hurt!

 

Singing your vag a song reminded me of the vaginal monologues. Anyone see that?? Hilarious!

[blind_otter]

You're not going to the same one, are you, BOt?

 

And your ex sounds likes he's becoming an ex ex . . . ?

 

Well neither of us are dating anyone but the whole relationship was messed up because both of us were drinking. But he's a good friend. THe only person who offered to sing my vagina a song, anyways.

 

Nah I'm going to a different OB. The old one had a really bytchy staff, too. Here's to hoping this one has a different bedside manner.

 

I was proud of myself this morning. I had a flashback in the bathtub and I breathed through it. It was difficult. I get tired of crying randomly.

 

My boss at work had a "talk" with me this morning because I've come in late a few days, all mornings when I had "ISSUES" come up...

 

I told her I would try to come in on time, but usually I totally intend to...I just can't when I'm crying hysterically. I don't know whether to tell her or just try to deal with it.

[Becoming]

I always thought most male songs were actually songs to our vaginas asking them to let them come in.

 

About boss: good question. You probably should tell her you're suffering from depression and having trouble some mornings but that you're trying to overcome it so that it doesn't affect your work. . . . ? Is she generally understanding? Dunno the situation like you do.

[blind_otter]

It's a temp job. It's not going to last after tax season. I'll probably just deal with it. It's not that long.

[enki]

B_Otter, best of luck for next Wednesday. Do make sure your new gynae knows about your previous horrendous experience. It will make them take more care and be gentler.

 

If that doesn't do the trick, you could always ask them how their professional indemnity insurance is going. That should wake them up a bit. Perhaps not. We don't want them all sweaty and trembling while they're operating, do we!

 

Becoming, as to the function of these male songs, what do you make of J.S. Bach's "Air on a G-string?":rolleyes:

[Becoming]

Becoming, as to the function of these male songs, what do you make of J.S. Bach's "Air on a G-string?":rolleyes:

 

:lmao: Wasn't it Bach who signed each piece of music with SDG for Soli Deo gloria--all for the glory of God!

[enki]

Becoming, I only ever listen to the music. I am too sweet and innocent to read the words!

[enki]

P.S. Best of luck against the Seahawks today.

:bunny:

[Becoming]

Enki--most of Bach's words were written for the church! Don't know what was up with that G-string air, though. Or do we?

 

Thanks for the laugh. I needed one this a.m. Marriage counselling last night left me crumpled. I'm supposed to let my guard down, not always remain on high alert. Sounds good. Hypervigilance is a bytch to try to maintain.

 

So I'm all vulnerable, having cried and cried all the way to dinner until my eyes are so red I fear the hostess will mistake me for a rat and refuse to seat us. I manage to pull it together in order to eat in a public restaurant, and my dear caring husband proceeds to analyze my behavior with my colleagues at work that's self-defeating. He meant well, but geez. It was "Let's Fix Becoming" day. And Becoming didn't want fixed; she wanted care, sympathy.

 

We talked about my testing and peeking (see earlier post) in counseling and the need to announce the presence of my vulnerability so H knows to honor it. As soon as I know something's not feeling right, I need to make that known because the earlier we know something's wrong, the less damage we'll suffer--kinda like at the first smell of smoke, ya call the fire dept. instead of waiting until the house is in full flames. That's when we got into the hypervigilance stuff because I said that anxiety IS what's normal for me, so I don't recognize when I'm getting upset until the house is full conflagration. I said I needed my H then to sound the alarm for us, but MC and H said that he's still trusting all is well and doesn't know to sound the alarm. This is an absolutely foreign concept to me--trusting that all is well? Have they no clue as to what reality is? I'm thinking.

 

By golly, dear friends who've suffered abuse, did you know it was possible to actually trust that all is well? I don't feel this. I know this. But I don't feel it. Will I ever?

 

And then at dinner when I do pay attention to when I'm actually starting to get uncomfortable and announce it, H's like "Huh? What are you trying to tell me?" I was so fragile at that moment that I just had to back away from him. It feels like when I am open and vulnerable I get met with deer-in-headlights, which says to me that this man will never understand me, never get it. And doesn't want to work that hard to--that's what really hurts. It's like I'm supposed to do all the work to emotionally strip my soul bare naked while he stays completely clothed in a three-piece suit analyzing the performance.

 

We don't talk about H's lack of response to me when I am open and vulnerable in MC. We talk instead about my need to let my guard down so that I can subject myself to more nonresponsiveness.

 

Now the anger is kicking in, and I don't know if it's a good protectiveness or a bad one anymore. Underneath it all I feel betrayed, and this I know I do need to talk about.

 

This after I called H at work yesterday just to say I love you and I'm getting my happy back. s***. Here we go again.

 

At least I'll have something to talk about in personal therapy Mon., huh?

[enki]

trusting that all is well? Have they no clue as to what reality is? I'm thinking.

 

By golly, dear friends who've suffered abuse, did you know it was possible to actually trust that all is well? I don't feel this. I know this. But I don't feel it. Will I ever?

 

while he stays completely clothed in a three-piece suit analyzing the performance.

 

We don't talk about H's lack of response to me when I am open and vulnerable in MC. We talk instead about my need to let my guard down so that I can subject myself to more nonresponsiveness.

 

Now the anger is kicking in, and I don't know if it's a good protectiveness or a bad one anymore. Underneath it all I feel betrayed, and this I know I do need to talk about.

 

This after I called H at work yesterday just to say I love you and I'm getting my happy back. s***. Here we go again.

 

QUOTE]

 

Becoming, I still hope the Steelers beat the seahawks. I love your laughter!

Hopefully the quotes I have saved from your message are coherent. You are quite sophisticated enough to know that I can never "know how you are feeling," but I do know something quite like it, and I do empathise, possibly better than you yet realise.

 

This dreadful triangular thing happens a lot in marriage counselling. In this case "H" sits in objective judgement on "W" almost with the therapist's implicit cooperation. If you know about Myers-Briggs typology, you will know that H is acting as a thinker while W/You is being a Feeler. A simplified scenario is depicted in Gray's "Men are from Mars: Women from Venus."

 

Would you please trust me to give this further consideration overnight. (I have said my location is "South of Anchorage." It's actually 22 degrees West of Anchorage as well!) Where I am it's approaching 2 a.m.

 

Your post really deserves a great deal more attention and thought. Would you please let me think/feel/intuit about it for some beautifully peaceful Australian Dreamtime? I promise to give you everything I can when I reawaken, after

"The subtle velvet blackness of the soft Australian night

Waned in the grey awakening that heralded the light."

 

I owe you one, Becoming, for your inspiration. I will do my best to return your favour. Until the morning, saludo!

 

Oh, Yes. Just to help you smile. A female friend of mine recently sent her (Greek) husband a loving text message: "I want to bathe with you in the ocean."

His message came back: "I can't swim!":(

[enki]

Becoming, I do hope you are feeling better. Herewith three letters: one for your MC, one for your H, and one just for you. I’ve sent them as three separate posts, because they are rather verbose, and anyway, they are just that – separate. It certainly would not be a good idea to give the letters to MC or H; they’d probably freak out. But each letter may help you see your situation from a more therapeutic perspective.

 

Dear Marriage Counsellor,

 

You have fallen into two traps, and you should know better.

 

Trap One: You have sided with husband in a game of “There’s nothing wrong with me. This marriage would work fine if it didn’t include Becoming.” Well it damned well DOES include Becoming, not as a scapegoat for the marital problems, not as a ‘specimen’ to be dissected by you and H, but as an equal human being with hopes, needs, and feelings exactly like your own, and an ability to comfort others which you can only dream about.

 

Moreover, by falling for H’s con-act, you fail to pay adequate attention to H’s own pathology. If he’s so keen to focus attention on Becoming, what’s he trying to hide from you, and from himself? Does not your professional pride urge you to find ALL the disruptive influences in the marriage? Let’s face it: Becoming can at most be only half the problem. If you fail to discover and attend to H’s problems, you will never sort out this marriage.

 

And it’s no good letting him get away with the old stunt that “if Becoming could change, everything in the garden would be hunky-dory.” H has to change too. He’s in denial. You have to find out what’s wrong with him, and fix it.

 

Trap Two: You are insisting that Becoming lets her guard down, and that H “trusts that all is well.” How patently absurd! All is not well; otherwise they wouldn’t be consulting you.

 

People who survive child abuse have learned to live with danger, fear, terror, AND vulnerability. If you haven’t survived abuse, you cannot know what it feels like. Of course we’re guarded. If you spent the next twelve years in the company of two twelve-foot giants who would beat the cr*p out of you whenever they felt like it, you’d be a cot case. Becoming survived the equivalent as a small child, in part by being aware of impending danger. She won’t lose that skill. She shouldn’t lose it: it’s useful.

 

You mentioned her need to “announce the presence of [her] vulnerability so H knows to honour it.” He doesn’t honour it. He p*sses on it! He talks about it in front of her workmates.

 

For Christ’s sake, these aren’t two adolescents who have just met: they’ve been married for yonks. They’ve got three kids. Has this H guy got a learning defect? If not, he shouldn’t need a banner headline when his wife feels uncomfortable. He should be able to read her subtlest signs by now. If he can’t, you teach him. You are paid to.

[enki]

Dear H.,

 

You seem like a reasonable decent hard-working guy who wonders what in the Hell has gone wrong with his marriage.

 

Well you’re not going to find out until you look-at-your-self!

 

Underneath all that decency is a sadistic nasty bit, which is cruel and vindictive. If one of your workmates confided in you, would you betray that confidence by blurting it out in front of his colleagues? What motivates you to manipulate your sessions with the marriage counsellor into a farce where you and MC treat Becoming like a laboratory rat? Do you want to fix the marriage or simply evade your own insecurities? Are you scared of spiders, huh?

 

Becoming is mother to your children. She is NOT YOUR mother.

 

You are behaving as if you believe she should be, and when she doesn’t, you act as if she is deranged, you ignore her signals, and treat her like a sub-human. If that reminds you of a petulant adolescent boy, that’s good… because that’s how it is.

 

And the cure is the same: grow up!

 

A good marriage is an equal partnership between equal adults, not a mixture of little boy and mother confused with paternalistic man and incomprehensible female child.

 

If you can find the honesty to look within yourself, to recognise that you already have one mother, and that Becoming is not a mother surrogate, but much much more, you will be very pleasantly surprised at the power and creativity of this uniquely impressive woman.

 

You are actually an extremely lucky man. One day, if you have the courage and integrity, you will find out how lucky. I hope you do.

[enki]

Dear Becoming,

 

We live in a strange world, not because it really is strange, but because we try to see it through distorted spectacles.

 

A man is seen primarily in terms of his professional achievements. If he’s a good dad, that’s fair enough, but not essential. Unfortunately a woman is often only seen in a maternal or quasi-maternal role; even by her parents, even by her husband. When a woman shows her non-maternal side, she is met with deer-in-headlights blank stares from H, and silly truisms from MC. Neither of them have the epistemology, the method of knowing, that there is another way of being a woman.

 

At first, a woman met with this stunned mullet response feels insecure. How come they can’t see the real me? Then the anger kicks in. Why WON’T they see the real me? That’s not good or bad protectiveness. They have a vested interest in not looking at your non-maternal feminine side, because they might see a reflection of their own failings. (The female sign, the sign of Venus, is a stylised hand-mirror.)

 

We are all born with the innate sense that we can be seen and accepted for who we really are. If that doesn’t happen, we rightly feel cheated and betrayed. The problem is that if abusive parents damage our inborn assertiveness, we may ourselves lose sight of our own uniqueness, or own self. If we lose contact with that, we feel empty, powerless, fearful, depressed, halt and weak. The Self is still there though. It is the bit the parents could not destroy, because they didn’t know it existed. Something survived the assaults, the brutality, the mind games and the terror. That something is the Self.

 

But if we can’t see our “Self,” how can others see it?

 

It is a primal raw power in every woman’s psyche, which is just as great as the power of what is called God, and woe betide anyone, H or MC, who ignores it.

“She is wedded to convictions – in default of grosser ties;

Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! –

He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot wild,

Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.”

(The Female of the Species. Rudyard Kipling.)

 

But, like the helpless infant Jesus of Christian mythology, this “Goddess” power is first experienced simply as something small and vulnerable. Only after careful discovery do we find a feminine force with the wisdom of Athene, the passion of Aphrodite and the regal power of Hera, Queen of Heaven.

“In the radiant heavens, to give omens in abundance, I appear in perfection. With exultation in my supremacy do I, a Goddess walk supreme. Ishtar, Goddess of the evening am I, Ishtar, Goddess of the morning am I. Ishtar, who opens the portals of heaven, in my supremacy.” (Ancient Babylonian prayer.)

 

All is not well. It never is, but if we can survive the savage crucible of child abuse, we can survive anything.

 

And we are never alone!

[Becoming]

Enki--Wow. What a gift you are. What a gift of three letters.

 

You can rest assured that MC will get an earful next session and that H already has. I was so enranged yesterday I must have seemed possessed. It was Athena, and she was pissed without being tempered by wisdom at times. She is a fierce warrior who protects the Little One. But her anger/rage also hurt the Little One by keeping people from her.

 

The rage was counterbalanced by terrible tears, sobbing wails, as BOt described and pleas for someone to take care of me. Then H asks what he can do, and I get mad, thinking he wants me to be Mommy when he really does just want to help and doesn't know what to do. He sat through all of this, poor guy.

 

And no, he didn't say anything to my colleague. He watched my interaction and was trying to help me not self-destruct in what I talk about in a social setting with colleagues. He told me this after our MC session, and though he meant well, he simply has no timing or sensitivity.

 

Oh, trust me, next MC session will be a doosie because we have approached the heart of darkness. Next time, we're going in. Neither of us have done well with the other's vulnerability. And there is the problem. Instead of protecting the Christ child, we just kill him/her. I will protect his if I recognize his presence. He hasn't even recognized mine's presence. Frankly, he probably can't see past the seraphim posted at the door (big angry kick- butt angel who's protector of the divine).

 

And we have a great MC overall. And she made sure that we didn't dismantle the angry protector. We have to honor that part because without her, I wouldn't have survived. It's just that her anger/rage is not helpful. It keeps the Little One lonely by keeping people at bay.

 

H is the only one who bothered to hack through the thorns, climb the walls, fend off fiery darts to get inside. He is worthy. He's just got his own issues that of course include having had an overly emotional mother.

 

I think my uterus wandered up and took over my brain yesterday, which could account for all the seeing of red. (See tracking the wandering uterus thread under the water cooler for a riotous hoot).

 

Now I must climb out of this pity party pit and do something constructive or depression will win.

 

Thank you, enki, for all the time and wisdom and care you confer. How'd you get to be so wise?

[blind_otter]

Good for you. Sometimes if I get overwhelmed I just have to distract myself. Shoes seem to work well. Also massages. Well who wouldn't that work on, though, really...

[enki]

Otter, shoes and massages may work well at times, but would you not agree that Becoming has just discovered something even better?

 

Steelers win Super Bowl XL

 

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 in Detroit today to win Super Bowl XL and complete the most unlikely championship march in American football history.

 

Congratulations Becoming!

[enki]

How'd you get to be so wise?

 

Thank you Becoming for the kind remark, but in answer to your question, just like you (and our favourite Otter and Pixie) I realised pretty damn quick that a child wasn't going to survive rampaging parents by strength, so like you, I hoped brains would help until brawn developed.

 

It's good to know that despite his myopia, H is actually a KSA (Knight in Shining Armour) galloping about on his WC (White Charger.)

 

While we are on the subject of initials, are those tough guys in military uniforms from Fort Bragg Tx. actually American Marriage Counsellors? After their names, they always write USMC.