The General

Every army needs a General. Someone to lead, to call the shots, to draft the plan, and to execute. My army of supporters is no different. The General of my army is my older brother.

I debated for many months on when and how to share my story of abuse with my brother. I desperately longed to have his support but was unsure the effect this would have on our relationship. Would he believe me? Would he question the details (some of which I do not have)? Would I be able to communicate the story and my pain in a way he can understand? Would he freak out? Would he immediately jump into action (for which I'm not ready)? Would he be able to understand my sorrow or would it be too difficult for him? Would he be able to help me through this or am I better off keeping my secrets?

I visited with my brother numerous times in various places between the months of April and June, but it never seemed to be the right time. Ultimately I decided to tell him one night in late July during a family visit when everyone else had gone to bed. We sat on the back porch of my new lake house and it was right. I was ready. The monologue flowed. I was able to recount the story with clarity and, astonishingly, without tears. He listened. He empathized. He expressed his sorrow for the pain I have endured. It was precisely the support I needed.

These days my brother and I are closer than I ever thought possible. We talk more openly and honestly than we have in the 38 years I've known him. We have always been close, but never like this. Never this raw, this vulnerable, or this authentic. And in this deep abiding love I have found a great source of healing. When I spoke about the healing nature of sharing your story in my post Super Better, it was my brother who inspired this line of thought. This has been such a powerful part of my healing journey, I want to express those same thoughts here.

Sharing my story has been most healing for me and here is why: deep down I felt unlovable, unacceptable, and fundamentally flawed because of what happened to me. That's why I kept it a secret; if people knew the terrible truth then they would surely be disgusted and leave me! Ironically, when I gave my loved ones a chance to really know me, when I let them into my pain and see that they love me anyway, it deconstructed my prison of shame. When they stand by my side, when they listen to my pain without running away, then and only then I know that my deepest fears are not and never were real. By sharing my secret with my brother and experiencing the fullness of his support, I have never felt so loved and lovable. And when I see that I am lovable by him and others, I am able to love myself. This is the essence of healing.

For all the beauty and joy that has come with sharing the story with my brother, it has also come with great pain. He is now shouldering some of the weight of my sorrow, and this relief for me comes at a price to him. He did not sleep at all that first night. Later he told me he had nightmares for weeks about all the things that happened to me, and he has guilt over not being there to protect me. I have seen him many times the past few months and he has changed. We have had many conversations about our shared sorrow, for all we can really do in this situation is to keep talking. 

Even though it pains him, I am not sorry I told him. I needed his love and support in a way that I can scarcely communicate; there simply aren't enough words. I see a side of him now that I did not know was there, a caring and soft side that he hides from the rest of the world. He calls me just to say hello. He goes out of his way to spend time with me regularly even though we live 3 hours apart. He tells me he loves me at every opportunity, which melts my heart. He touches and hugs me more than ever, a reassuring affection that I direly need. He sends me text messages that simply say "Love you" which makes me cry every time. I am so grateful for his expression of love and care. It has unlocked a need inside of me that I wasn't aware that I had.

There was a practical reason for sharing the story with my brother. Our maternal grandparents are both experiencing failing health. For months I have had recurring nightmares about the possibility of having to face my assailant amidst the inevitable grievous family events, whether hospital or funeral related. I have considered simply not attending these events, but I love my grandfather very much and want to be present. I decided that this would categorize as yet another thing stolen from me if I were unable to grieve his passing out of fear. I needed a family member in the know, someone to serve as a buffer and protector so that I can participate in family events should I so choose. I decided that it needs to be my choice.

This is how and when my brother became The General. I've been paralyzed and confused about how to progress with my healing as it relates to family matters. I am overwhelmed with fear in trying to figure out how to be around them without telling, but if I do tell then who and when to tell, what to say, who to involve, who to protect... all of these thoughts become a swirling mess inside my head and I fall into a state of total disillusionment. It's simply too much for me to process, and most often this line of thinking ends with a meltdown.

The General lays out options. He discusses tactical plans, courses of action, and probable outcomes. Ultimately he leaves all of the decision making up to me and, amazingly, has made it clear that we are on no timeline but my own. It was The General's idea for me to create Healthy Boundaries with our mother. He supported my conversation with her so much that he swept into her house right after I left to reinforce the points I had made. That was meaningful to me because I didn't have to do it alone. In fact most of the plans laid out by The General start with "We could..." I am no longer alone, and this is incredibly comforting.

Sometimes when we are suffering the most powerful thing anyone can do is just to sit with us. Sometimes there are no plans to be made, only tears to be shed. My brother has been there for this part, too. Some days he distracts me with video games, movies, and football. These times are precious to me. Other times there are courses of action to consider and options to be weighed, and this is when The General appears. Lately I have felt at a crossroads in evaluating such options; on one side there is justice, the other forgiveness. Spiritual truth tells me that ultimately forgiveness is the path towards healing. The General leans toward plans that involve reckoning; he thinks confronting the abuser in some way is necessary for my freedom. I don't know how I feel about this yet, and so it is not time for any decision. I will know when the time is right.

This past weekend I attended a film festival where I viewed a documentary called Beyond Right and Wrong. The film explores personal narratives of unthinkable loss, paralyzing grief and the struggle for justice, forgiveness, repair, and reconciliation. I saw stories of Israeli-Palenstinian conflict (for which my heart aches after visiting Israel this time last year), Rwandan genocide, and IRA terrorism. I saw deep peace in the eyes of those who had forgiven and listened to accounts of how they found that place. It is not the same path for everyone. I no longer see justice and forgiveness as mutually exclusive, for some of their stories included a required element of both. There may be some balance in the middle of this crossroad as yet undefined by me or The General. 

And so again, we shall keep talking.

Super Better

I have good days and bad days, and there are two kinds of each. Good days are when I don't cry. The better days are when I don't cry because I actually feel good. These are the days when I am in touch with everything that is good and right and beautiful in the world. The days when I am grateful to be alive and for the wonderful life that I have with loving friends and family.

The lesser good days are when I'm simply pretending not to feel bad. I suppress it because I have to. These are the days I have to work or am obligated to some social function that prevents me from being able to reach the sadness. Sometimes I pretend because I am not strong enough to let the pain in. I feel good only because I won't let myself feel bad. I am numb to the sadness and grief that is bubbling just beneath the surface. I know it is there; I can see it and smell it, but I can't feel it. I simply cannot reach the pain even if I want to.

The super bad days are when I am in touch with the Black Oil. It makes me doubt and hate myself. Everything is so dark; I cannot see the light no matter how hard I try. I want to end the pain no matter what it takes. On those days, I am full of hopeless despair. It is on those days that I want to die. This past year I have had a lot of super bad days; days when I could not pretend but still had to function in the world. Days full of Black Oil when I felt like dying or like I could collapse at any moment under the pressure of normal life. Those were the worst.

The lesser bad days are when I am able to be in touch with my pain without it overwhelming me. I can process, I can cry, I can experience the grief and sadness. Sometimes I can let it out in small quantities, one cup at a time. Other times it comes spewing out at volcano-esque velocity. But the sadness is not Black Oil; it is not shame and self-hatred. It is simply the truth of my experience. It is the sadness locked away inside of me for decades, a veritable vat of grief that wants to be acknowledged, that must come out eventually in order for me to be healthy and well.

My ratio of good to bad days has gradually changed in my favor over this past year. One might conclude that my goal is to only have good days, but that is not so. I want to be Super Better. Super Better, for me, means that I no longer have to pretend and I don't want to die. When I have good days, I want them to be real. No more pretending. And when I have bad days, I want those to be real too. I need to be in touch with and able to express my grief and sadness when they come, and come they will - whether it is because of my sordid past or because of current life circumstances (whatever they may be) that naturally elicit pain. For life is pain; Joy and Sorrow are simply two sides of the same coin. I'm not trying to block out all pain as that would be akin to living a muted existence. I could do that at any time with medication, but have chosen not to. I want to be real, to live an authentic life full of truth. Sometimes truth is beautiful, and sometimes it is pain. I want both. I need both to truly live.

Perhaps I need a new lexicon. The bad days where I am in touch with my pain should not be called bad days; in fact I think I'll start calling them days of true sadness. The good days when I'm pretending aren't really good either; I will start referring to them as pretend days. What I really want is to live an authentic life, which consists of days of true sadness and days where I feel truthfully good.

This notion of becoming Super Better is not my own. Super Better is an online game created by Jane McGonigal where you can design a personalized journey towards health and wellness. Her journey involved recovering from a traumatic brain injury, but thousands around the world have joined in to create their own version. Playing Super Better helps you to build up resilience which supports you in  "staying curious, optimistic and motivated even in the face of the toughest challenges." The game encourages you to identify allies, power-ups, bad guys, future boosts and quests while tracking your achievements to reach your epic win. An epic win is something that can only be achieved by tackling a tough challenge, an accomplishment that feels so awesome you will do whatever it takes to get there.

I am a gamer, and so defining my epic win and identifying all the things that make it more or less achievable appeals to me. The objective of my Super Better is "To Live an Authentic Life." This means eliminating pretend days and days when I feel like dying, living only days of truth (be it painful or joyful). The process of outlining this game for my journey has actually been quite helpful in making sense of and giving language to my healing process. This can be especially useful when communicating with my support army. In fact that is the first recommended step in Super Better: to create allies.

All survivors need a support army; if you don't already have one then start building it. Who are your closest friends? Who can you trust? Who is in your inner circle? Who is the closest family member you can count on? Not everyone needs to know everything, and practicing discernment when sharing your story (at least at first) is wise. Admittedly, it is terrifying to think about divulging your abuse secret. But I have read in sundry sources that real healing begins only when the secret is shared. Brene Brown says shame needs three things to survive: secrecy, silence, and judgment. Until you start talking about your story, it will continue to be enshrouded by and fester in shame.

I found this to be particularly true for my own journey. In fact, sharing my story has been the most healing part and here is why: deep down I felt unlovable, unacceptable, and fundamentally flawed because of what happened to me. That's why I kept it a secret; if people knew the terrible truth then they would surely be disgusted and leave me! Ironically, when you give your loved ones a chance to really know you, when you let them into your pain and see that they love you anyway, it deconstructs the prison of shame. When they stand by your side (and they will), when they listen to your pain without running away (and they won't), then and only then you will know what your deepest fears aren't real and never were. By sharing my secret with those I trust and experiencing the fullness of their support, I have never felt so loved and lovable. And when I see that I am lovable by others, I am able to love myself. This is the essence of healing.

The second part of Super Better is identifying your power-ups. These are things you can do that make you feel better or stronger. My power-ups are:

• Talk to someone in my army; let them know I am struggling and allow them to give me support
• Cuddle with my dog in bed while watching Netflix
• Eat healthy, plant-based, nutritious food
• Practice yoga and meditation 
• Stay connected with friends and family by sending messages, emails, or cards
• Go to lunch with a friend
• Go for a run, or if I don't have enough energy...
• Go for a walk
• Listen to uplifting music
• Get a massage
• Create space in my schedule for several hours or a weekend alone in quiet introspection, which allows me to...
• Watch birds at my backyard feeders
• Read a book about holistic or self-healing
• Read a book about a person who inspires me
• Relax in my hammock, doing absolutely nothing
• Take my dog hiking
• Clean my house
• Write in my journal
• Paint, draw, or color
• Ride my bike
• Complete a small house project
• Listen to TED talks or On Being

I also have a list of super power-ups. These things are so effective that they truly have the power to change my outlook even on dark days. I have much less control over these events but when they happen I am super grateful and their role in my healing is not lost on me. They include:

• Getting a text message from my brother that says "Love you." He is my biggest supporter (I write more on his critical role in a later post called The General), and the one whose love has been the most healing.
• Listening to an audio book on healing
• Listening to Pema Chodron on meditation and letting go of samsara
• Connecting deeply with a friend or family member
• Witnessing something rare in nature such as a breathtaking sunset, a rainbow, holding a baby bird, or having a butterfly land on me

The next part of Super Better is to identify the bad guys. These are things that make it harder to feel strong or get closer to your epic win. My bad guys are:

• Prudence - my somewhat alterego who takes over when things need to get done and I don't have capacity to feel the pain. She organizes the pretend days, which move me further away from authenticity.
• Assbags - this is a general category of people (like my horrible neighbors mentioned in The Spiral) who are uncaring and make my life difficult. The world is full of these people, and you never know when or where they will show up.
• Unhealthy boundaries - these creep up in many aspects of my life including working too much, poor time management, overcommitting, and some personal relationships such as my mother. 
• Self-neglect - most often the product of unhealthy boundaries, stretching myself to or just past my limits without equal time to rest, relax, and repair is a surefire way to elicit a meltdown. My epic meltdowns are in exact opposite of my becoming Super Better.

Future Boosts are specific things you look forward to in the coming days, weeks, or months. The essence of this Super Better tactic is that hope and anticipation have a healthy effect on the mind and body. Some of my Future Boosts include planning for:

• Time with my family
• International travel
• A weekend retreat

The point of all this is to understand and anticipate when interaction with my bad guys is unavoidable, and to make sure I have enough power-ups and future boosts in place to make it manageable. Playing Super Better helps you build up 4 types of resilience - emotional, physical, mental, and social - in order to get closer to your epic win. One specific key is to strive for the magic ratio of 3 positive experiences for every 1 negative. Awareness and identification of what is positive and what is negative for you is the necessary first step.

I'm just now getting into Super Better so I have little to report regarding the online achievement tracker. It's taken me this long to get my arms wrapped around what works and doesn't work for me on the path toward my healing. They say that the journey is more important than the destination. Likewise, the process of outlining the parameters of my Super Better game has made me more understanding, aware, accepting, and proactive in moving myself along the path toward healing.

For more information listen to Jane's Super Better TED talk. To get involved and proactive in your healing journey, start your own Super Better today!

The Prophecy

Today is my birthday. Today I am better; I am a surviver. But one year ago I nearly took my own life.

The month leading up to my 37th birthday was the hardest I've ever experienced. The aftermath of my Breakthrough Crisis was a frightful and perilous time. I had never faced true depression before, but for those months I looked it dead in the eyes - operative word being dead. I felt dead: dead to the life I had known, dead to any coherent sense of myself, dead to hope, dead to the world. In fact I spent the month of September 2012 getting my affairs in order. I wrote a living will and planned a trip to Israel, half expecting and half desiring to become a victim of imminent prewar bombing. Truth be told, I longed to die.

The inside of my hands are lined with wrinkles the likes of which I have never seen on someone my own age. Everyone close to me who has looked at my hands says the same thing; we often joke and lovingly refer to them as my "grandma hands." So in my mid twenties when I visited a professional psychic she took one look at my palms and said, "you must be joking." She proceeded to mention enough relevant details about my current and heretofore life that made me feel comfortable with and confident in her skills. She foretold many things that have come to pass in the last 10 years. I know this because I made a brief list of her insights shortly after our visit and have referenced this list on many occasions since. She ended our conversation by telling me that I have an old soul. 

The psychic told me one thing that has stuck in the forefront on my mind for all these years. She relayed that I would witness a miracle by the time I am 37 and that I would write a book about it. I have oft wondered what that miracle would be. A sign from God? A healing? A baby? A walk on water? Some way I might change the world? I avidly awaited this miracle and the chance to share it. 37 came and went. I felt I had failed somehow, and that the hope of my miracle was dead, just like everything else in my life. It morphed from a source of inspiration to a plague of devastating disappointment.

Do you know what happens inside a cocoon? I mean what really happens? The caterpillar basically disintegrates; he melts into primordial goo. Total cellular destruction all except a few extraordinary pieces of embryonic tissue called imaginal cells that enable the transformation to take place. These imaginal cells lay dormant in the caterpillar for all its life until the special moment of transformation. Once they sense the state of goo around them these cells devour the nutrition from the melted caterpillar and begin forming the new structural body of the butterfly. All of the goo is consumed, and the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis fully intact. It takes complete and total destruction of the caterpillar to create the beautiful butterflies we so enjoy and love.

The butterfly has become a symbol for my healing process. Today I feel differently about my experience, about the prophecy, about everything. The great miracle in my life is the unfolding of my story, my truth, and my transformation. Real transformation is a miracle, like the lifecycle of a butterfly. It is hardly explicable by science, for healing doesn't come from the explained. The cycle of samsara - birth, death, and rebirth - is as endless as it is mystical. And through this blog, I am sharing my mystical miracle with the world.

Everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has a wound to be healed. I want to believe there is beauty and meaning here. I need to believe this. Pema Chodron speaks about the human addiction to hope in her discourse on Fearless Nontheism. I do not believe there is some 'great babysitter in the sky;' I do not believe God is actively intervening in our lives. I do believe that the truth is inconvenient and that suffering is a natural and inescapable part of life. But I have also come to understand that this suffering is necessary for transformation. And in the midst of suffering I need hope, for without it there is no meaning in my life.

Jane McGonagil's TED talk is a powerful argument for the relationship between suffering and transformation. In this talk she speaks of research done with hospice workers - those who care for us in our last days - and what has been documented as the top 5 regrets of the dying. They are:

1. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
2. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
3. I wish I had let myself be happier.
4. I wish I'd had the courage to express my true self.
5. I wish I had lived a life true to my dreams instead of what others expected of me.

These things are sad, mostly because they are true. And yet there is a ray of sunlight inside this sadness. The crux of Jane's talk is that in certain cases, experiencing trauma can produce a state of betterment. Instead of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, about which we hear all too much, there is a possibility for Post-Traumatic Growth. Some people can actually get stronger and lead fuller lives because of traumatic experience. In fact, the 5 things that those who experience Post-Traumatic Growth have in common are:

1. Our priorities change and we are not afraid to do what makes us happy.
2. We feel closer to friends and family.
3. We understand ourselves and know who we really are now.
4. We have a new sense of meaning and purpose in our lives.
5. We are better able to focus on our goals and dreams.

These five effects of PTG are oddly the direct opposite of the top 5 regrets of the dying! In this I find great hope, immeasurable strength, and renewed purpose. I have transformed a great deal in this past year and I'm not finished yet. I am hopeful for what I may become on the other side. What matters now is that...

I know that my suffering has produced a stronger state of me.
I know that my experience - awful as it has been at times - has shaped my ability to relate to others truly, deeply, and authentically.
I know that my truth and my story have helped me create a system of priority in my life that supports Who I Really Am.

I hope that a year from now I will be ever better, that maybe I will even be thriving.
I hope that by sharing my story I am able to help others do the same.
But most and best of all, I have hope.

The Wolf

For a long, long time I blamed myself for not stopping or preventing the assaults from my abuser. The self-blame was so harsh and so deep that I understand now this is likely why I hid the truth from myself for nigh 25 years. I thought it was my fault. I must have done something to spur or invite the violation, as mentioned in my post On Shame. I wasn't even able to control my body's response to the assaults. I wasn't smart enough, adept enough, strong enough, or good enough. I wasn't enough. Period.

My journal is rife with passages denoting my foolishness, stupidity, and cowardice. During EMDR and tonglen exercises on The Theatre I was clearly able to get in touch with my supporters' tender emotions toward the victimized Little Me. St. Francis wept and wept for the sorrow inside that young violated girl. Jesus was so enraged that we had to hold him back from punching my abuser in the face. I found this both humorous and comforting. As for me, I felt no compassion for Little Me. Dee asked me to imagine how I would feel if it were some other young girl in that situation. Instantly my feelings would morph into sadness, grief, and despair. But when focused on the actual me, I could only conjure remnants of disgust. Dee said that was the part which needed healing the most.

We zeroed in on this self-disgust on a quest towards dissolution. Dee challenged me, as she often did in the most insightful and poignant ways, to consider my humanity. What if, because I am human, I did want the attention, the affection, the comfort, and the pleasure? This question instantly brought out The Black Oil but it also unlocked a heretofore unnoticed pattern. When Dee asked about comfort, I immediately thought about the sound of my abuser's voice. At once I realized that in all of my abuse memories he had been mute. In fact in my mind's eye he had no mouth at all, much like in The Matrix during Neo's interrogation. Memories of my assailant had consisted mostly of his piercing blue eyes, his profile in various abuse scenarios, the feel of his hands, the sickeningly sweet smell of laundry soap (the origin of this nosmic memory will be revealed in The Terrible Awful), but no mouth and no words. Until now.

All of the sudden, I was aware that his voice had been a source of great comfort to me. The simple act of reaching for those memories washed a wave of warmth over me.

He was the one I talked to during the trauma of my mother's suicide attempts.
He was the only one asking me how I was, how I felt.
I trusted him.
In fact, I loved him in the way that a scared child clings to an adult in times of need.
And then he betrayed me.

Something happened inside me upon this revelation. This knowing of intermingled love and betrayal opened up my compassion for Little Me. I wasn't stupid, I was betrayed! I wasn't a coward, I was manipulated! Until this point, the muted monster in my memory was so clearly a predator that I could not help but blame myself for my failure of not knowing better. Doesn't the gazelle recognize the lion by instinct? But this isn't how it happened at all. He garnered and then abused my trust. He endeared himself to me - the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.

The monster had been identified for precisely who and what he was. He was both the good and the bad wolf.
And in either case, I was innocent.

The ASCA Survivor to Thriver Manual has much to say on the topic of unraveling self-blame:

Survivors grow up believing the classic myth of child abuse: that they, not their parents or abusers, were somehow responsible for the abuse. "I let him do it to me." "I should have been able to protect myself." "I liked certain aspects of the abuse, the attention, the gifts, the pleasurable sensations, the sense of being special." The child's often distorted perceptions of who was responsible are enhanced by the abusers' indictments [such as] "I am showing you how much I love you." These words are truly toxic because they do more than simply and unjustly place the blame for the abuse on your shoulders. They eat away at your positive sense of self, and the lingering messages continue to do so in your adult life.

You need to understand that you were the child and that you had neither the power nor the authority to make your abusers do anything to you. The abuse was their responsibility because, quite simply, they had the greater power and they did it to you. Nothing you could have done would have changed this, because families and society are set up to give power and authority to adults. Children have little or no power over their abuse, or much of anything else. 

 As a child, you were not psychologically equipped to believe that what your abusers were doing was wrong, much less speak out about it. Because you were dependent on them for so much, you couldn't risk alienating them by speaking the truth even if your child mind was precocious enough to make sense of the complex web of issues that comprises child abuse. Few, if any, children can do this effectively because their intellectual capacities are not sufficiently developed to do so. You desperately wanted to love them and be loved by them. It would have been foolish for you to incur their wrath and dash whatever hope of love, caring, and nurturing you harbored inside. Think back to what it would have meant for you, the child, to accept that the people who were supposed to love you were actually hurting you. It's not surprising that few children can face this horrible reality, because to do so would cause them to become emotional orphans in the process, and little could be worse than that.

Step five of The Manual is "I accept that I was powerless over my abuser's actions which holds THEM responsible." This is when true healing began for me. Healing is transformation, and transformation is only possible through changing one's perspective from within.  It took years of therapy for me to get to this place, but the unlocking of self-compassion was my turnkey moment. I no longer needed to forgive myself, for there was no transgression to forgive. Knowing this truth set me free from the blame and shame game I had played for far too many years. In my heart of hearts, I was no longer at fault.

I thought for some time that this is where my memory journey would make the upward turn. I was sorely mistaken. A darker, scarier truth lay far beneath the surface - one that would never have revealed itself until Puzzle Pieces connected and Shame was nearly dissolved. Now that I had full compassion for self, I was ready to know the rest of The Terrible Awful story.