It Wasn't Me

It was the little girl on the coloring page.

Sexual abuse doesn't end with the abuse. We carry it through our lives in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. While I have come a very long way through six years of intense therapy, I still have a long way to go to be free of all the long-reaching binds that hold me, even now, from who I am meant to be.

I am and will forever be grateful to my therapist for all she's done to guide me through the darkest parts of my past. Yesterday, we began in earnest a new phase of my healing work--working directly on my own sexuality. Even a year ago I would have been unable to do this. Even now, our talks are accompanied with averted eyes and much internal discomfort. She assures me this will get better. I believe her. She's been right so many times before.

The following is a memory that came up in our session yesterday. It will almost certainly end up in my second book, Ragdoll's Dance. 

Through the process of integration, I am more able to see the full context of memories like this. I see both the pieces I always had in awareness and the pieces I blocked out either partially or completely. While I've always remembered parts of the event in my classroom in second grade, More details and a greater understanding came to me yesterday.

This is an account of a reaction to sexual abuse and not the actual abuse. I don't think it will be triggering, but I can't guarantee it. So - read on with good self-care in mind.

I am seven years old.

Last year, my first grade teacher told me and Annie Audenbach we were on the fast track. It wasn’t really a track. We just went in a special room for part of the day so we could skip second grade.

Then I was sick for a few months. I had rheumatic fever and that changed everything. I don’t get to take gym anymore, and I have to wear little metal things on the bottoms of my shoes so I walk right. You can’t really see the metal things too much, but they clang on the floor so everybody knows they’re there. Also, there’s this gross medicine I have to take every single day, and I have to get blood tests every Saturday and I didn’t get to go to third grade with Annie Audenbach.

So I’m in second grade.

I don’t like Annie Audenbach and I don’t like second grade. Mrs. Mitchel has mealworms in the closet. They live in a box of Raisin Bran and she says they like it in there. She dumps some out and there’s lots of worms crawling all through the cereal. If our Raisin Bran at home had worms in it, I might scream, but nobody screamed here ‘cause we all knew they were coming. 

It's still gross.

I’m not a good listener. I don’t mean to be a bad listener. Sometimes I just forget to hear. I know someone was talking but when they’re done I don’t know what they said. One time Mommy said she doesn’t know where I go. I don’t know either.

Mrs. Mitchel was probably talking about the mealworms but I guess this was one of those times ‘cause I still don’t know why she keeps worms in the closet and now she’s putting them away.

She says we can take out our crayons. I open my desk and find them and when I close my desk she puts a coloring page on it. She’s giving one to everybody, and they’re all the same picture—a man and a little girl about to cross the street. The man is holding the little girl’s hand and there’s a sign that says “Don’t Walk.” A car is coming. It must be a busy street.

When Daddy crosses the street with me he doesn’t hold my hand. He holds my wrist so I won’t get loose. He holds on really tight and when he lets go, his hand-print is there.

I know the "Don't Walk" sign should be red, so I take out my red crayon. Mrs. Mitchel says to color our pictures. She’s going out for just a moment and she’ll be right back.

I watch the door close.

I feel worried.

I start coloring but I’m getting so worried I forget to color the sign and now the little girl is wearing a red dress and my crayon breaks in my hand ‘cause I’m pushing too hard.

I look at the door.

Mrs. Mitchel isn’t back yet.

I’m worried because there’s an idea in my head and it won’t go away. I don’t even think it’s my idea. I don’t know where it came from, but I swallow and put the broken crayon down ‘cause even though it’s not my idea, I know I’m gonna do it.

I get up.

My shoes clank on the floor.

I’m really gonna do it.

For some reason, when I really know I’m gonna do it, I don’t feel scared anymore. I feel kinda…strong. I walk right to the front where Mrs. Mitchel usually stands.

I turn around and face the class.

They’re all looking at me.

For just a second I think I shouldn’t do it, but then I think, no one can stop me and that makes me feel even more strong.

So I do it. I look right at Bobby and Mark in the first row and I pull my dress up. Their mouths open and their eyes get big. They see my underpants. For just a second I think I’m gonna stop there, but I don’t. I pull my underpants down as far as I can reach without dropping my dress. 

Everything seems really slow except my heart. I turn a little to the left and I see Brad  leaning around so he can see from the back row. I turn a little to the right and I see Billy standing up. 

I feel funny inside. It feels ugly and trembly and warm and throw-uppy all at the same time. I look right into poopy-pants-Perry’s face. He's in the second row, right in the center and he looks scared. 

Everyone sees me. 

The room is so quiet. 

It's such a funny feeling and I know I had it before.

They’re looking right at me... right at it... and they don’t even have a choice.

The funny feeling... the funny feeling... it's bad. I suddenly know it's bad and I can't breathe and I don’t feel strong anymore. I look around the room and I see the girls and I feel angry. I let my dress fall back down.  I walk back to my seat, pulling my underwear up right through my dress. My shoes are really loud now because everything else is so quiet.

Then Bobby goes, “Oh ho!” and everyone starts laughing and bratty Colleen says “I’m telling!” and my heart is really really fast and I feel hot all over.  

It’s so loud in here. So loud with laughing. I’m trying to remember what happened. The ugly mealworms flash through my mind and the coloring picture is still on my desk and the little girl’s dress is dark, dark red and my broken crayon is right on her face and that feeling is still inside me and I wish it would go away.

For a second, I think I’m going to cry, but I don’t.

I start laughing. We're all laughing really hard when Mrs. Mitchel opens the door.

Then everyone gets really quiet. Colleen and Perry raise their hands. Stupid poopy-pants blurts out that I took off my underpants! I know I look pretty shocked ‘cause I didn’t. I’m still wearing them.

But I still have that bad funny feeling inside and Mrs. Mitchel is looking at me.

#

Daddy has a batticle this year. That means he doesn’t go to work so he can get a PHD. You get one by reading and writing lots of stuff and if he gets one, they’ll pay him more money. It seems kinda funny since he’s not even going to work, but that’s what he said.

Mommy works in the daytime now, so it’s good Daddy’s home. When me and Marty come home from school, Daddy gives us lunch.

Marty yawns. That’s good ‘cause he has to take a nap after lunch ‘cause he’s only in kindergarten.

I don’t have to take a nap ‘cause I gotta go back to school.

Daddy makes lunch different from Mommy. He gets everything out and puts it on the table and then asks us if we want any of this and any of that. I get a big slice of liver sausage and some cheese and some celery and some crackers and then he asks if I want beets. I say no ‘cause beets are gross.

He cuts up an apple. I like apples.

The phone rings and Daddy answers it. He’s listening but I don’t know who he’s hearing. I feel scared and I don’t know why. I think maybe it’s my teacher on the phone and then I don’t know why I thought that.

‘Cept I know something’s wrong… there's something… I remember the little girl on the coloring page and then I remember Poopy-pants pointing his finger at me. There’s half-chewed apple in my mouth and I wish I could spit it out ‘cause right now my throat feels too small for it.

Then Daddy puts the phone down on the table and I know it’s Grandmother talking. I can hear her, but also I know ‘cause he usually puts the phone down when Grandmother calls so she can “go on and on like she does.” It seems kinda’ mean, but Grandmother talks a lot and she doesn’t seem to notice.

I’m really glad my teacher didn’t call. Suddenly I remember the bad idea and the bad funny feeling. I don’t know why the bad idea came in my head but I think it had soething to do with the little girl on the coloring page. Maybe she had the bad idea and the funny feeling and somehow it got in me.

I drink some milk to get the apple down my throat. Then I drink the rest so I can get up from the table. I have to keep remembering the idea because it keeps disappearing and I wish it would disappear and not come back. The more I think about it, the more it seems like it was the girl on the coloring page who pulled her dress up. It was her who had the funny feeling, not me, and I hope she doesn’t put that idea in my head again.

Summer-Blue

Small and new to the world, she looked up and found that the sky was summer-blue. The brilliance of it took her breath away. 

Such a vibrant, living sky! 

She stared at it with wonder, knowing this was where she was meant to be. All day she played in the azure glow.

And then it was night and the sky grew cold and black. 

She went inside and closed the door against the longing, mourning the summer-blue.

A little bigger and a little less new, she opened the door. She took just one step beyond the door, but nowhere was the summer-blue. A vast storm covered the world, horizon to horizon.

Gray and swirling.

Anger rumbling.

A flash of terror!

She slammed the door.

But she remembered the summer-blue.

In dreams and reverie, the warm memory of the azure glow ached inside her.  She pushed it aside, aside, aside and then, one day, she opened the door again. She wasn't so brave as to step outside, but even from the doorway she saw no summer-blue. Instead, the sky was dressed in white, attended by a frigid wind. Snow swirled and blew so hard she could barely close the door to its frantic appeal.

This time she shuttered the windows, closing herself more securely in her safe little room. She painted the ceiling blue. This is the sky, she told herself. Here, it will never change. I will always be safe.

She closed her eyes and waited for the warmth of that still-remembered glow. When it didn't come, she became one with the ache and told herself there was nothing beyond the door.

She became an adult within the shuttered windows and a closed door. Even as the seasons passed, she was safe. Even as her inner sky yellowed and pealed around the edges, she was safe. Even as the longing grew, she was safe.

And desperately miserable.

And wondered why?

Wasn't her inner sky every bit as good as that distant memory?
Didn't she have everything she required to survive?

Wasn't this room with its perfectly shuttered windows and impenetrable door exactly what she needed?

“Outside isn’t safe,” she told herself. “I have blue right here. Right here in my safe little room.”

She scowled at the dull and lifeless ceiling and then at her own reflection growing 

Anger

Longing

Despair

And it filled her up and her misery grew and finally she said, “Fine!" She flung the door wide and stepped through her fear, through her gritted teeth, through her resolve. She walked through the cold and through the darkness and through the constant barrage of her own misleading mind and then she saw it.
Had it been there all along?
The sky was summer-blue. And she remembered 

Light

Warmth

Life

And fear.
Fear was the illusion that kept her safe and she was so afraid to see. Too afraid to know know the summer-blue. For knowing it was to risk a return of the cold and the dark and the painful wind.

She returned to her safe little room and closed the door, falling deep into her delusion of safety in the one place where nothing would ever truly be safe... in her own private and unidentified hell. 

Where is Hell?

How could Hell be an actual, physcial place if it is only occupied by Spiritual beings? If Hell is "in" the elusive Spiritual world, it exists beyond the physical universe. In that case, much the way one can say, "God is everywhere," Hell could be anywhere and everywhere.

So, I personally believe it is possible to “be in Hell” at any time or place. I believe many people find themselves “in Hell” right now, as they walk the Earth.

I don't mean people who have, say, lost a child or are suffering great physical pain through cancer or are right now dodging fire in the front lines of a war. While it may feel desperate to be in this world, dealing with physical and emotional pain,to me that isn’t Hell. It's awful, horrible, sickening, excrutiatin, but even in the worst pain imaginable, we can still have something which does not exist in Hell.

Hope.

At my darkest moments, it was the loss of hope that most terrified me, and what I most was afraid of losing was not my life or health or that of another - it was connection.

Even with nourishment and shelter, a child will fail to thrive without a sense of connection. It is a fundamental need. When that sense of connection is threatened, panic drives people to desperate acts. Some people spend their entire lives in that desperation, searching for the connection they desperately need.

Imagine a man who has flirted with the very edge of this desperation all his life. As a young child, his mother threatened to take her love away over the smallest disruptions as a way of controlling his behavior. He was a sickly child, one who required surgery when he was only three months old, to save his life. He died on the operating table, but was revived. Later, he was told he had almost died because he hadn't been a good boy.

• He learned that he had to work very hard, to be good so he wouldn't die. 
• He learned that his own behavior was what controlled whether he lived or died AND whether he was loved or not.
• What he wanted more than anything was connection, and he learned that the way to get what he wanted was through force and manipulation.

As this man went through life, the fear of the loss of connection was his obsession. Even when he thought he was in control, this obsession ruled him. He spent every moment devising ways to manipulate the world into a place which would feed his overwhelming hunger.

Of course, he was unaware of why he behaved as he did. If you were to ask him, he would tell you that he didn't need anyone. He was fine on his own. He couldn't admit, even to himself, that he needed this connection because it was unbearable to face the possibility that he might never have it.

He married young, searching for that connection in a way that society expected, but his fears and mistrust prevented him from finding what he needed most in that relationship. When the marriage ended, the church he’d grown up in told him he could never marry again. This felt like a rejection from not only the institution of the Catholic Church, but also from God.

The man said he didn't care. “Religion is fake and God doesn't exist!” he proclaimed, thus cutting himself off completely from an already tenuous Spiritual connection, as well.

He took his next wife hostage. He carefully chose one who had already been abandoned. She feared the loss of connection as much as he did.

He played the game very carefully, charming and thus convincing her that he was the answer to her great need to feel loved. When he had her firmly within his grasp, he began to use a ploy he’d learned very early on – he threatened to take his love away if she didn't do everything he wanted.

For decades, these two lived in this way, one completely engulfed in the shadow of the other. Despite the anniversaries ticking away, beyond the silver, beyond the gold, they both still felt a desperate need for connection because their relationship was felt as empty as a child suckling a stone.

They tried to pull others into the vacuum of their lives, but anyone who could break free did so, and ran as far as they could. The more people ran from them, the harder they tried to hold on and the more desperate they became.

And still, even today, this man is just a frightened little boy, sitting on the edge of hopelessness. His life is waning away, minute by minute. In his complete denial of any power greater than himself – a denial he feels he must keep up in a warped attempt at self-protection – he can’t acknowledge even the possibility of a life beyond the one he knows. He lives in the hell of disconnection with no hope of redemption; a hell of his own making.

The man is my father.

It may be that his being gone for the first year of my life allowed my mother to form a deep connection with me, when I was an infant. It may be this connection that drove him to hurt me. Not only was he jealous of my connection with my mother – something he still craved with a vengeance – but also I was threatening his hold on her. If she had me, possibly she wouldn't need him.

He did everything in his power to isolate me, and when that didn't work, he tried to own me. He told me there was no God and that anyone who thought there was, was a foolish sheep, following liars and in denial of the truth – that we would all die and that was the end of it. He told me, many times, that when people found out what I was really like, they would turn against me. He told me I couldn't trust anyone, and then he proved it to me, in ugly and hurtful ways.

Was that hell?

Not for me. It was terribly painful and at times it seemed unbearable, but somehow there was some glimmer of hope that there would be a way out. I just had to make it through… and I'm finding my way.

Hell is where my father lives, and where he has been for as long as I've known him and for a long time before. He is terrified of death, which he still portrays as the end of everything, but I feel that it is only in death that he will be released from Hell.

We can’t know what comes next. We are physical beings and can only understand what our physical brains can comprehend. However, when we die, I believe the Spirit within is freed of this body and all its limitations. Even though I can’t know “where” we go after that, I am convinced that when we get “there”, the connection we all seek is going to be as limitless and constant as the universe… and that is Heaven.

*****

Soul Retrieval - Pieces of the Puzzle

When I was a teenager, there were times when I would look in the mirror and not see myself. If I wanted to fix my hair or look at some other part, close-up, I could see that part, but I couldn’t step back and see what I really looked like. I can’t explain exactly what this was like any better than that. I remember knowing that my reflection was there, moving a hand to see it move, but also being aware that I was not seeing it as it was.

During the Soul Retrieval, yesterday, I was told there would be a mirror. I turned and saw the mirror and for a moment I felt terrified that when I looked in the mirror I would not see anything. I knew I was really sitting on a couch in an office on a sunny June day and at the same time I was entrenched in the dream of the room on a crystal mountain, with the mirror. Part of me wondered what she would say if I told her I didn’t see anything. Part of me wanted to open my eyes in the real world and not look at the spirit-mirror.
But, I had to know.

It was a relief when I looked and saw it was just me. I look as I do in my head, younger than I am, less detailed, perhaps, but still it looked like me. I knew it was not really me I was looking at. It was both more and less than one would see in the “real world”. In a way, it was very much like staring into the “hole in the soul” as I wrote about it in this story.

Then she said something about missing pieces. I don’t know exactly what she said because it seems as if I wasn't hearing the words, but was understanding the concepts without hearing.

I looked at the mirror and the area around my abdomen faded out. There it was, in the middle of me, a missing piece just as she had suggested.
Again, the hole in the soul idea flashed through my mind.

She asked me if I could find the missing piece. I knew I could. I knew exactly where it was, and in the next instant, I was standing there.

This was so much like doing the DNMS work with C, with two big differences.

One is that when I am working on an issue with C, she will ask me where I am in whatever memory is being triggered. When I know, I am instantly there – just like I was yesterday during the Soul Retrieval. However, with C I always AM the missing piece. I relive the events as if they are happening in the present, as if I am that little child again.

Yesterday, it was more like standing in the room, watching.

The second difference is that while it felt safer, or more in control, to approach these pieces as an empowered adult, in another way I felt less in control during the Soul Retrieval than I do with C. When C works with me, I feel as if I am leading all the time. With this deeper hypnoses, or guided journey, I felt as if I was being pulled along.

I’m not sure how much of this is just me, how much is the trust level I have with C after two-and-a-half years of working together, and how much is the actual processes, but that is how it was for me - as if I was being led and I ws never quite sure where I was going to be taken.

So - its all about control! I saw C, last night, several hours after the Soul Retrieval,a nd when I said something about this control issue, she laughed and commented on my codependent nature. I had to smile at that. You mean I'm not supposed to want to be in control all the time?

This is a somewhat edited, tamed-down version of what I saw when I went looking for the first missing piece:

As if from above, I see the bedroom I had when I was growing up. I see myself as a toddler, lying in bed. My father is standing in front of me. Behind him, I see the missing piece. She is watching. In her wide-eyed stare I see confusion and terror and so much sadness. I reach down to this little one, standing behind my father as he looked when I was little.

I pick her up. I hold her close for a while, and then I look at her face. I tell her she is safe, it is safe now. I promise that I will always keep her safe.

The Rainbow Lady asks me what gift this missing piece has for me.

I say, Innocence.

Next, she tells me to breathe through my mouth, in a certain way, to bring the missing piece into me. I do the breathing, expecting that this is how this piece will come home, but that is not what happens. It isn’t in the breath, at all. The breathing is like a doorbell, but it isn’t the door. As soon as I start the breathing, I feel this little one – who it still seems I am holding, right now – absorb into me.

She is right here, in front of me, with me.

When I tried to explain this to C, last night, I was saying something about how these pieces were right with me, now.

She asked, “they weren’t before?”

I said, “yes, but now it’s different. Before, it was as if they were behind me, following me. Now I feel like they are right here,” and I put my hands on my arms in an embrace.

I can still feel them… right here.

I went back to the mirror three more times.

The second time, the missing piece was in my throat. When I find this piece she was also two-years-old. This time, she was standing outside the cabinet where I hid one night. Inside the cabinet, I saw myself curled up on top of the extra baby blankets my mother kept in there. Outside, I sensed that this is when I first knew that I could not say what was real.

That night, when I was two, was the beginning of this difficulty I have in expressing myself verbally – and maybe it is another key to unlocking that flow of words, for me. While I can write just about anything, in person you would probably be surprised by how little I am actually able to say. It is frustrating how the words just shut off, how they refuse to make the journey from my mind to my mouth, and how – if I try to force it – they disappear from my mind as well.

This is what I try to explain to the Rainbow Lady when she asks what gifts this piece has.
She is easy to understand.
She knows how to be safe.
She is good, and none of this is her fault.
There is no shame here, and it is safe to talk.

I turned the watcher away from the little sleeping child in the cabinet. I picked her up and brought her home.

The third time I went to the mirror, it was my hands that were missing. At first, when I went looking for the missing piece, I saw only a piano. Gradually, I realized there was a twelve-year-old version of me looking at the piano. She didn’t want to touch it. Inside her, I sensed that she did not want to be heard. Unlike the two-year-old who was afraid to say what she needed to say, the twelve-year-old’s silence was motivated more by anger than fear. It felt like an attack.
In her narrowed eyes and tight-lipped expression, I sensed stubbornness that I remember well.
You will never know me.
I am not going to let you in.
I have gifts to share, but you will never hear them.

And who is the “you” in those statements? It is the whole world. My mother used to tell me I always looked like I was mad at the world… and in this adolescent staring at the piano, that is exactly what I found. If I can really get her to the place where she feels safe, she can give me so much.

I have something to offer, but I am not going to let you have it, yet.

I did bring this one home, but her stubbornness is not gone. I feel it is going to take some coaxing to get to the gifts she has. What she brings is confidence to express myself and to allow my talents and gifts to be heard.

The final trip to the mirror was different. Instead of a missing piece, I saw a gray area. At first, I thought that was because this piece was closer to coming home, but that is not true. I believe this piece is not really ready to come home. Interestingly, she is the one I am the most aware of, right now, but instead of sensing her calmly inside, I feel as if she is clinging tightly to me, terrified I am going to let go. I’m not sure what I have to do to make her feel safe.

When I looked in the mirror that fourth time, the gray I saw was on my legs. I knew it was about the time when I was sick, when I was six-years-old. I didn’t see just one place, or one image, I saw a bombardment of images of me at age six.

The doctor touching my legs.
Screaming and squirming and then being held down so they could draw blood or give me shots.
Lying in bed, waiting for someone to come get me because I couldn’t walk.
Lying on the sofa in front of the TV, alone.
Needing to go to the bathroom, but no one was around to carry me there.
Annoyed expressions when someone would be saddled with the task of taking me to the bathroom.
Waiting as long as I could to ask.
Then waiting some more.
The doctor touching my legs.
Screaming and squirming and then being held down so they could draw blood or give me shots.
Needing to go to the bathroom, but no one was around to carry me there.

It was swirling around in my head, and I started to panic. I tried to open my eyes, but it was hard. I blinked and the room literally swam in front of me.
I hadn't realized I was lying down. I'd been sitting, last I knew.
I saw the Rainbow Lady.
She said something.
I said something.
I don't know what.
I sat up.
I felt embarrassed and agitated at the concern on her face.
Telling her I needed to use the bathroom certainly didn't make me feel any less embarrassed.
She got up and moved the curtain from the door, and I went out into the bright hall.

In the bathroom, I wondered how I was going to explain this. I felt really mortified and wondered if I’d screwed up the entire thing. There were still forty-five minutes left in the appointment time.
Is that going to be enough time to get back to where I was?
Do I want to?

While I washed my hands, I looked in the mirror.
It was just me – older than I expected, looking tired and a little afraid.
But just me.

I went back in the room.

She asked, “Was it too intense?”
I tried to explain about when I was sick, when I couldn’t walk for two months, how helpless I felt. How I always felt like a burden to whoever was stuck taking care of me, and how the worst part was having to go to the bathroom because I couldn't go myself and no one wanted to be bothered with it and how I saw this six-year-old there and I had to help her...
all the thoughts came out in some kind of jumble that she seemed to understand.

I still felt embarrassed.

She said, “You spoke up for her, and you took care of her.”

Yes. That is what I did.
That’s exactly what I did.

I sat down, closed my eyes, and soon I was back to the six-year-old. I found her easily enough and when I picked her up she held on and I felt how she’s been waiting for me, all this time.

In a way, it hasn’t been long, for her, because she is still six, stuck in time… but in a way, it was a very long time because two months of not being able to walk, and then having to relearn how to walk is a very long time to a six-year-old.

I brought her back, but as I said, this part is different. I know I have more work to do with this one. It’s important that I do this work because she has a very important gift.

Personal power.

Time was short, by the time I held the six-year-old. The Rainbow Lady went through the rest of the things, and it felt a little quick, in a way. Even so, I knew I had done enough for one day. I was emotionally drained and physically felt as if I really had climbed a mountain. When she talked about other missing pieces, she said something about them all coming home, and for a little bit I saw that twinkling, like it had been in my dream. Spirit fireflies danced over my head... and some came towards me, but others stayed where they were.

I went back to the purple meadow, and she played a song I know. It is one by Shaina Noll, which C has played before, and I found it very comforting.

Then she counted up to five.
The world came back a little more gently than it had when I'd suddenly pulled my self out of it to go to the bathroom.

She asked how it was.
I told her it was intense.
She said, “you did a lot.”

Yes… I did.
It was a wonderful experience and I’m glad I did it.
It doesn't feel like this Soul Retrieval was complete, and maybe there is no such thing. There is no one thing we can do to get back what we've lost along the way. It's all a process, a lot of hard work that brings about a gradual shift towards our true selves. For me, this was a special piece of the puzzle that I will always remember, and I might even try it again, someday.