Safe

The most healing work I've done has been "re-parenting." This kind of inner-child work involves taking over the role of parent for ourselves.
No one has perfect parents or a perfect childhood. It's a process that could benefit anyone.

A couple of years ago, as part of this healing work, I created an image of the most serene nursery I could imagine. As I worked on the image, I felt immersed in the safety and peacefulness of this room as I imagined the smallest being I ever was being placed safely in that bassinet. 

Breathe it in.

Can you give yourself the gift of feeling this safe?

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. 

Within

She is within, but tomorrow I hope to open the door, once and for all. 

Wish me luck.

Adventuring Spirit - a New Way to See Myself

I’ve been listening to April Steele’s Imaginal Nurturing CDs. I wrote briefly about the first one, after hearing one track only once. I believe my evaluation of her CD may have come off as luke-warm at that time.

Since then, I’ve listened to the her CDs at least once a day for over two weeks. About the fourth time I listened to the first track, I began to feel something really new and unexpected.

All four tracks on both CDs are guided meditations.

In the first track, April begins by lulling me into a centered and quiet state. Next she has me create a place in which the meditation will take place. For the first one, this is a nursery – a room with a rocking chair and a bassinette. When that place is fully established in my mind, she has me walk to the bassinette and inside I find a tiny baby girl – a newborn.

This child, she says, represents my core. It is my inner child, but it is not the wounded child I’ve been working with for the last several years. This is the inner child as she was when she was new and perfect and untouched by the world.

Right there, that's a concept I'd never imagined before.

April continues to guide the listener through a nurturing session with this newborn. As I fell deeper into the meditation, I began to feel a connection to this newborn. I began to feel what it was like to love this tiny one, and all the time I knew that she was me. In addition, I felt what it was like to be that loved and wanted little one. I could imagine that I actually was being held and nurtured. Each time I listened to the meditation, these feelings grew stronger within me.

The second track of “I’m So Glad You’re Here” is another guided journey with this little one. Once again, I'm guided through a nurturing session with this baby that I once was.

The second CD is called, “Adventuring Spirit”. This one, in my opinion, is better than the first. For one thing, I found the music in the first CD somewhat distracting. It was soft and melodic and falls along the same lines as the Shaina Noll “Songs for the Inner Child” tracks. It was sweet baby music and there was nothing wrong with it, but I felt as if it pulled me somewhat out of my reverie as I listened to the meditation.

In Adventuring Spirit, the music is more subtly included. In addition, there are strategically placed times where the music is used as bilateral stimulation.

If you’re not familiar with this term – bilateral stimulation is what is used in EMDR and DNMS. Quite simply, it means that something is done to alternately stimulate one side of the brain and then the other. This kind of back and forth stimulation is thought to help people hang on to important messages while they’re working through issues. (Please, keep in mind, that is a simplified explanation given by someone who has experienced this in therapy but has never studied it.) As someone whose done this quite a bit, I belive that it's helpful in processing and then maintaining a sense of that processing over time.

During a few key points of the Adventuring Spirit meditations, the music plays first in the left speaker and then in the right in order to create the bilateral stimulation.
After listening to the first track on the second CD, all I could think was, “Wow.” In this one, I was guided to invent a play room of sorts. Within this playroom were a rocking chair, toys on toy shelves, and windows with light streaming in. I could see this so vividly in my mind. Now, the little one is a little older – a toddler, about a year or so old. I don’t want to give away all of April’s secrets, but during this track I really felt that connection to the little child I was. At a year old, I was old enough to have a personality, to decide what I wanted and liked and what I didn’t. I really developed a strong bond with the child – who represents my core self – and I felt myself as the child, growing in loving trust of the adult, who is also me.

In the DNMS process, I’ve learned to connect with parts of myself which we call the Resources. These Resources are made up of three parts – the Nurturer, the Protector and The Spiritual  Core Self.

Back when I first started working with my therapist, it was quite easy for me to imagine the nurturing side of me. I’m a mother. I've done some nurturing. It was equally easy to get a clear picture of the protective qualities inside me. I've had my share of maternal experiences in which I felt protective.

However, the “Spiritual Core Self” has been harder. I had no idea what my therapst meant by “core self." Even after I grew in understanding of what a core self we meant to be, I had a hard time believing I had a one. So, over time I developed a strong connection to Spirit, but it never felt like there was anything for that Spirit energy to connect TO.

Despite this issue with not being able to identify my core, the Resources have done a remarkable job of helping me re-raise the inner children C and I have been working with. I've felt as if I wasn't alone because I had the Resources to call on whenever I needed them. I never really expected the Resources to be any more than they've been for the last three years.

But... now it's changed.

Listening to these CDs, I know that core exists. I feel it - this person inside me who is ME. I feel her and know her and I’m coming to love her.

What a remarkable thing! Suddenly, I felt Spirit come into me and I was there to greet this presence.

My therapist wrote had this to say:

Your experience has been to see the self as separate from the Resources, but it is meant to bring all together as one self that includes Resources and child parts. The CD's seem to be helping you finish the integration we have been constantly moving toward more and more. Some people do not have the "self as separate from the Resources" experience that you have had. Possibly your DID way of surviving has enforced that separateness. The important thing is that, through DNMS and then the finishing touch of the CDs, you are getting the integration we all want for you.

So - I've been doing this "differently" all along. (I’m working very hard at not saying “wrong.") I’m glad I didn't know this before.
The reality - It’s all me.

I keep saying it and each time I’m amazed at how much I feel it. It’s all me – and – I love me. What a concept.

There is a fourth track - the second one on the Adventuring Spirit CD - which I have not yet heard.

Shadow Work

I found a link to this video on another site, and it stemmed a conversation that brought me to some clarity on a few things. The video is about "Shadow Work". To me, it seems like another name for "Inner Child Work." I think some people have a hard time with accepting the concept of the inner child and so they need to have things presented in a different way and Debbie Ford, the woman in the video, does seem to have another viable way to get to the root of an issue many abuse survivors are dealing with.

This video is only a sample exercise - one of many from what I gather. First, Ms. Ford asks, what do you like most about yourself? What one quality do you hold above all others? About five minutes or so into the seven minute video, Ms Ford asks what the opposite of that quality is. Then she goes on to talk about how this opposite quality is the one that is going to turn up in relationship after relationship.

The woman who posted the video link on the other site said she did not understand why this is so. I believe I do understand it, now, but a few years ago, I might not have.

Before I put up my explanation, I want to post portions of what someone else responded. This response comes from a friend of mine, someone I truly admire, a woman named Ilene Wolf. She is an activist, working to help victims of abuse. She is the founder "HEAL" (Healing Emotionally Abused Lives),  

"The is the dynamic of polarity. Pretty much, everything exists on a spectrum. Either end of the spectrum is generally less stable than the middle of the spectrum. Picture a see-saw, and you'll understand that the middle, of course, is the balance point. Either end of the see-saw flies up and down. If you're seated on the balance point, you stay in one place, while the riders seated on either end are getting a verticle ride from the ground to the sky."

This is a great visual. Think about this. If you are on one end of a sea-saw, the person on the other end holds your fate in their hands. Where is your focus going to be?

"... whatever we focus on, whatever we invest our energy on will materialize and increase. If we invest our energy on something we fear, then that point of focus will materialize and increase."

This is really the crux of the matter, and she says it very well. If you want to see the rest of this post, you can find it at Ilene's website at CareCircle.

I wrote most of the following on that other post, and then realized I really wanted to put it up here, too:

I believe my entire adult life, before I began therapy, was spent on one end of the spectrum. My father made my life miserable. To the child I was, this meant everything about him is bad. Black/white thinking is common in abused children.

My mother would sometimes tell me, "you're just like your father." She did this because she was frustrated with my behavior - not because I really was like him - but I didn't know that at the time. I had no power and could not be like he was, as a child, but this increased the intensity of my desire to not be like him.

It became my biggest fear - that I might be like my father - so I did my best to do everything exactly opposite of how he would do it. This means at least two things that I didn't understand going in:

1) In order to do the opposite of what my father is likely to do, I had to know what he would do. The only way to do that was to study him, constantly. While I wanted to stay clear of him and avoid him as much as I could, I was also obsessed with knowing what he would or wouldn't do because it seemed like the most important thing in the world not to be like him. For most of my life I knew him better than I knew myself - and possibly that is still true. I've had half-a-century of study on the subject of "him".

So the first thing this scenario brings is a kind of obsession with the abuser.
The very things that I did not like about him were keeping me connected to him.

2) My only motivation in most of the decisions I made was to do the opposite of what he would do - therefore I never asked myself "what do I want?" I truly had no idea what I wanted, other than not to be like him. Every choice I made was based on my father because all I wanted to do was not what he did - so even though I did a great job of not being like him, I still was not being myself.

Again, this is keeping me connected to him. For many abused children this connection goes on throughout their lives, even after the death of the abuser!

Another thing that comes out of abuse by a parent is the child’s needs not being met - and so there is a constant craving for the attention and love that is not being given. (I believe this part of the abuse dynamic is the focus of a lot of Inner Child work - and it has been the most helpful part of my work, I believe. Even so, the other dynamic - which I really began to understand through CoDA - is also important.) While I continued to hate and fear my father in many ways, I also needed him, and this set up a very difficult dynamic for a child to be in. I was pulled towards him by need and by this obsession and that made it impossible to see the world in any way except as he would - almost through his eyes.

There were times when I did things that I knew would make him happy - not on purpose, but because they seemed to just present themselves in my life. For instance, the man I married was “a good catch” in my father’s opinion. Inside I have always had this angry child jumping up and down whenever my father would say something nice about my husband. In fact, my father has always liked my husband more than me. That is not a childish outburst, it is a fact. It hurt so much that there are times when I have taken it out on my husband – and then another part of me reacts painfully to that, knowing I am really reacting to my father, which makes me furious!

So, even when I have been the “good girl”, it has made me miserable.

Through therapy and CoDA, I have come to a place where I know myself better than I ever have in the past. When I truly know I am doing something because I want to, I get a giddy feeling inside that is very child-like and wonderful.

So - I was not surprised to hear that the opposite quality from the one we most admire is likely to be the biggest influence in life, in the video. I understand that has been my driving force.

People often speak of life lessons. The idea is that we are here to learn certain lessons and that the lesson will be presented again and again until we get it.

I take that a step further in my own beliefs. I think the awful things that happen to us are necessary to show us what that lesson is. The kind of obsession I spoke of above comes from the abuse, so without it I would never have been aware as I am now. The "lesson" could have been thrown at me a hundred times as an adult and I might never have noticed it if I wasn't already so sensitive to it because of my past.

The middle ground Ilene speaks of is exactly what I've been aiming for. In this place I would no longer react to people who I felt were not giving me what I needed because I would have what I needed, inside me. I would be able to look at both ends of the spectrum and find that center - and the center is ME. In that place, I could tell someone when I’m angry or hurt without being abusive or aggressive, and I could enjoy everything that is truly me without worrying if it is making me like someone else.

And - in this place my focus would no longer be at the other end of the sea-saw. It’s a hard place to find, but to me it’s worth the search.

*****

Featured Link: Dissociated Identity as a Coping Mechanism

*****

Invisible Red Ink

Anticipation

Obligation

Degradation

Resignation

Tension

Anxiety

Distress and

Full out fear

Hold back

They can’t see what is real

I am here

I am real

But invisible

Notice me!

Doesn’t help

Demanding attention

Doesn’t help

Frustration

Resentment

Anger and

Full out rage

Not fair!

What’s the point?

Fuck you!

Doesn’t help

Lashing out

Doesn’t help

Grief

Gloom

Sadness and

Full out heartache

Don’t cry

If they come when you cry

It is meaningless
Tears

Won’t help

And a lump in my throat

Doesn’t help

I am worthy of love!

Don’t beg

I am not invisible!

Don’t want

Anticipation

If they would just push the film aside

They would see the world

For what it really is

They could see me

For what I really am

They would know

What they want and need and

They could step outside of

Obligation

I want them to be with me

Because they want to be with me

I want to be worthy of their attention

I want them to notice me

Even when I am NOT being a bitch

I want them to see me

When I am NOT crying

I want them to spend time with me

Because it makes them happy

I want to be wanted

And seen

For what I really am

They could love me

If they tried

Degredation

Oh I know what you'll say

It isn’t about me

But do you know why?

It can’t be about me

Because I am hidden

Behind a magic red film

And what I want to be

And do

And have

And what I am

Is written in invisible red ink

Resignation

Unseen

Unwanted

Unknown

I am

Even here

Beneath the film of red

I still am

Even if no one knows

I am

~Shen

When I was little, I had a magic book.

I don't know what it was called or even remember what it was about. What I remember is that on the left hand pages there was writing and on the right hand pages were pictures. In between each page, there was a thin, almost transparent sheet of red cellophane.

The magic was that part of each picture was drawn in the same red as the cellophane. When I looked at it through the red film, the red parts were invisible. Then, when I lifted the thin red film, I would be able to see all the red parts of the pictures. The entire picture would suddenly change and I could see it for what it really was, and always, the change was miraculous and wonderful.

Spending time with my family-of-origin, this past weekend, reminded me of that book. I've changed so much, and being with my family is different than it used to be. I look at them and know what they will do, how they will react in every situation. They all know their roles, and I am very aware of what my role is supposed to be, too.

The thing is, I don’t want to play my role, anymore. I am ad-libbing most of the time, now, it seems, but what is really frustrating is that nobody notices! They just run through their lines, like seasoned actors, and look at the world through a flimsy red curtain, and anything that doesn’t belong to the landscape they expect comes out in invisible red ink.

*****

DID and the Fifth Step

My sponsor doesn't really understand what DID is. I have explained it to her, to some degree, but I don't know if I want to give her the "Sybil" or "Three Faces of Eve" connection. That is so far from reality that even though it is something people can relate to, it is highly distasteful to me to be associated with those fabrications. I would rather she see me as me and not as a reflection of a character from a movie or book.

When I did my fifth step, I wrote out twenty pages of resentments. As we went over it, at a certain point she said,

You were the only one who stood up to your father. You were the one who would not agree with him when everyone else did. You saw through him. He didn't like that. He needed to feel powerful and your ability to see reality as it was and fight for that was threatening to him.

He tried to break you for your entire childhood - tried to make you conform to what he wanted you to be.
But he didn't break you.
You won!

What a profound moment! Awesome! She sees how much he deserves this anger...
but... wait. I'm supposed to let it go. Isn't that the whole point?

A little later, she answered that question. "Hanging on to this is giving him power."
And then, "What is keeping you from letting it go?"

The most interesting thing happened when she asked this. I knew the answer! It came to me in a moment of clarity like I rarely experience. I felt many parts of me coming together inside, as if in conference, and then the most adult part of me and many of the child parts acted out a kind of pantomime.

This is what I saw:

I am about four years old. I am holding an experience in my hands. It is more than a memory; it is the entire experience - the things that happened and all of my physical and emotional reactions. Every nuance of the experience is there.

I close one small hand around the experience, not allowing any of it to escape. In the other hand I am holding an open zip-lock bag. I put the experience in the bag and quickly close it up. A refrigerator comes into focus behind me. I turn around and place the baggy in the freezer and shut the door. Then I turn back to look at the adult me with a sense of purpose on my small face.

Now, I am the adult. The four-year-old opens the freezer, takes the plastic bag out, and hands it to me.

The adult is now holding the plastic bag. The four year old steps back, waiting.

This scenario is duplicated - not repeated because it is happening simultaneously - again and again. There is a two-year-old, a seven-year-old, an eight-year-old, a nine-year-old, at least two twelve-year-olds and others as well. They are all reaching into the freezer and they are each giving me - the adult - a plastic bag containing something significant.

And that's why I haven't wanted to let them go.

These old experiences, wrapped in plastic, are gifts! They have been held safe and complete all this time, waiting for the moment when these little ones can hand them to an adult who knows what to do with them. They are like sacred offerings.... Here, I've had this all this time. Take it. Fix it. Make us whole.

Now, my sponsor is looking at me. She's waiting for me to respond, but I've been lost in my own head. I hit the "rewind button" in my mind, and remember what she asked.

What is it that is keeping you from letting this go?

I try to explain it to her, but how can I really? I tell her about the baggies and the freezer and the way these felt like gifts. She furrows her brow and says, "I never had a dissociative disorder and I'm not a therapist. I don't really understand it. That is something you have to work out with your counselor."
I tell her I am working on it.
She nods, and then sits back, thinking. After a few moments, she says that in her own life, when she used her "experience strength and hope" to help others, it helped to heal the old wounds.

Inside, the children who e held these experiences safe all this time seem to step forward again.

Yes! Do you hear that? These are gifts! They are sacred offerings given to you! You can't just throw them away. They have power. They have strength. Use them!

I had a rare moment of clarity at that point. I felt entirely sure that this was the answer. Somehow, the things that happened to me were important, there was a reason, there was some purpose to all of it and opening those bags was giving me power. That's why I couldn't simply throw them away. I need them.

For what?
I'm not exactly clear on that yet.
However, it felt like a spiritual opening came with that revelation. That is a post for another day.

Keys to Integration

A day of chaos. It isn't the first, not the beginning, but the culmination of a few weeks of inexplicable turmoil. Even now, trying to describe what’s been going on is sending me reeling around in several directions.
Where to start...?

Often, I've written about things after the fact. It’s quite different to be in the middle of it and try to blog. By giving you the retrospect view, I believe there is one fact that has not been obvious – and that important piece of information is this:

When I am beginning to integrate a part of me, I am unaware that it’s happening.

 So, for the last few weeks, what was I aware of?

• A general sense of unease that was growing each day.
• Blocks of missing time that were increasing in length and number almost daily.
• An increase in the amount of support I needed from outside of myself.
• Overreacting to situations.
• Being completely aware I was overreacting but unable to stop it.
• A growing sense of panic.
• A sense of impending doom.
• Emotions that had nothing to do with what was actually happening in my life.

So, how do I define integration?

1. I accept the concept of the “inner child.” There is a part of me that was formed in childhood that stays with me, forever.
2. I accept the concept that my current situation can sometimes trigger emotions about a similar situation from the past,. This can cause me to overreact or react in ways that I might not if I were able to be completely rational about the current situation. I believe this happens to everyone – not just people with emotional issues. Someone complains that you made a mistake and a forgotten event from your childhood is triggered somewhere in your subconscious. You don't even remember the teacher who wrote a bad grade on your paper and how you felt you didn't deserve it, but the unresolved feelings come up in a similar situation. The anger and frustration from the old situation makes you react strongly to the situation of the present.
3. "Compartmentalized memories" is concept I accept. To some degree, everyone pushes some things into a side pocket of their brain (like the forgotten school paper I spoke of above.)

When you put your keys down because you are distracted by something else, and then can’t find them later, where did the memory go? You eventually track them down, and then think, "oh, yeah, the phone rang right when I came in the door." You answered the phone, unconsciously put your keys down, and you know you did it but you have actually setting them down.

Where did the memory go?

If you forget someone’s birthday, even though you know the date and meant to send a card, that is another form of a “compartmentalized memory?” You obviously have the knowledge somewhere… but it wasn't available at the time you needed it.

And in accepting the three premises above, it seems to me a good way of  understanding dissociative disorders. From my own, personal experiences, I could never doubt the reality of DID because its real and present in my life, but seeing a logical explanation helps me understand it on another level, and maybe it will help you understand as well.

So, the last few weeks have sucked and it only dawned on me yesterday that all the chaos is because I've been bringing home another fragment of my inner child. "She" is "me" and always will be... and now I have access to more of those hidden pieces of my past.

The Stubborn Twelve-Year-Old

Left/Right Writing (after failed anger work, this morning.)

What are you thinking and feeling?

Twelve-year-old:
Sad sad sad
Alone
Unsafe
I don’t want to hurt you.
I don’t want to hurt.
I am not ok.

I know. Me either.
I don’t want to take it and hold it and handle it all the time. I want it to all go away and let me live my life.

Twelve-year-old:
I’m sorry.

No! Not you. You need to stay. You need to feel it so we can be done with it all.

Twelve-year-old:
Are you sure that works?

No. They tell me it does. We’ve tried everything else, though. Why not this?

Twelve-year-old:
We tried crying before.

Yes, but we weren’t safe, then. Now we are.
I can keep us safe.
I will keep us safe.
I know I can
I promise I will.

Twelve-year-old:
I don’t know how to cry and I am NOT a crybaby.

No. You're not a crybaby. You're strong. Really strong. You can take so much… but you don’t have to. It’s time to let it go.

Twelve-year-old:
(long pause) I’m strong.

Yes! You are!

Twelve-year-old:
Then I don’t need to cry.

It's very frustrating. I am exhausted. I don't know what else to say to her... to myself... is it true that crying is... necessary?
Does it get better then?
Because I can take a lot. Really. A LOT.
I just don't want to take it anymore.

What Integration Means to Me

Once again, I'm deleting the text that I will be using in my memoir. I've left the image and the comments
~Shen 2-21-12

Opening the Door to Me

As my life becomes more my own, I find myself creating much more hopeful images. Here are a few I created during the Summer of 2008.

The comments below are about both the images here, and the text I've deleted (2-21-12) as I continue to write my memoir.

I Was a Child

.
I feel bad that I felt so alone, when I was a child, that my adolescent years were so confused and that my first sexual experiences were so far from they should have been. I feel angry. I'm working hard not to turn that anger on myself, and to remember I was a child.

At two and six and twelve and even seventeen, I was a child.

There were a lot of reasons why I continually put myself in danger, and why I assumed that everything that happened TO me was my fault. These reasons are still unfolding for me now. But right now, I am seeing that I was a child, and like all children, I passed through lessons to learn, not to be punished.

I can forgive myself.