As the daughter in a similar situation, reading your side of this is incredibly useful and in some ways healing for me. My mom isn't so great at expressing herself, especially around those issues, but her actions at the time and since were very similar to yours. It's helpful to have a window into something that might be similar to her internal processing around all of it, as I (eternally) deal with my side of it.
I think it is much like any injury to your child--they are the primary injured but there are many secondary wounds that we carry. Anything that hurts your child hurts you.
I am sorry that you both had to go through that. It's hell on earth.
I'm glad my account can serve some purpose besides venting and defending my daughter. :)
We live in a climate of "just let it go" and "move on."
Indeed. In panic disorder therapy we were encouraged to "develop the teflon mind". It's a great idea in theory, but in practice it just plain sucks, imho. (btw did I ever tell you that I found out my aversion to forgiveness stems from my adhd?? go figure!)
Later I heard that she asked him about that and he said something like, "Not everything she says about me is true."
Yes. David drilled it into Thomas and Tayler's heads that I would never tell them the truth about anything. I wonder sometimes if this is why I have so much trouble with Thomas now - and his mental disabilities compound that? Thank the gods Tayler grew up and figured out that his dad is often very wrong.
Someone once asked, "Well, if it only happened that once, and was so brief, I don't understand why it should affect her so much."
Statements like this shouldn't surprise me, but it did. Jeeze.
(though she has given me permission to write about the molestation)
This amazing young woman was beaten one night by someone she thought she knew and trusted. It's taken her the past five years to begin to recover from it. This struck me, reading her journey, because I am often hard on myself for having been so strongly affected for so many years by the abuse. Then here is this woman who is obviously bright and talented and normally highly functional, just knocked right down by one violent incident. It made me realize that because these things aren't NORMAL, OF COURSE they profoundly injure our body and our psyche! We shouldn't imagine that we'll be back to normal We are not likely to ever be normal again. We'll always have that scar, that jerk to attention at a trigger, that sensitivity to others who are wounded, that hole in our self esteem
( ... )
yeah I've tried to explain to people that there are things that you just never can get over and that the things that happened to me during my marriage will likely be with me the rest of my life no matter how much therapy and treatment i get. panic group therapist drilled it into our heads that ONE single trauma changes our brain chemistry forever - i hadn't known that but have researched since and it makes so much sense!
trauma is like depression. unless people have been there, they're clueless. because they just can't know.
I think that over time we get better at living with the effects of our abuse, but those effects don't completely go away. I will say the PTSD symptoms gradually lightened up over the years.
I understand where you're coming from. That's one of the things I dislike about Facebook too - ever since my page got swarmed with family (some of which had been fairly estranged), I've been incredibly guarded on there. They don't know I'm bi, don't know of the acting roles I've done, and even those that do know of the more severe abuse in my past (rape, abuse, etc.) don't want to hear it - they want to will it away, like most people in our family were taught to do. I think it's incredibly brave that you continue to be so open about your past in the memoir...far more brave than I, who rely on the security blanket of LJ's anonymity to tell my story.
I think that because I grew up in a family with so many secrets and so much hypocrisy, I developed a knee jerk reaction to secret-keeping. Sure, some secrets ought to be kept if they protect people and someone needs privacy to heal. I may not tell everything openly. But most things, for me, are just part of who I am and what I experienced. In the case of my ex, the shame is his, not mine. Those who don't want to hear about it can stop reading. :)
Most of my family is already not speaking to me. Oh well.
Comments 8
Thank you.
Reply
I am sorry that you both had to go through that. It's hell on earth.
I'm glad my account can serve some purpose besides venting and defending my daughter. :)
Reply
Indeed. In panic disorder therapy we were encouraged to "develop the teflon mind". It's a great idea in theory, but in practice it just plain sucks, imho. (btw did I ever tell you that I found out my aversion to forgiveness stems from my adhd?? go figure!)
Later I heard that she asked him about that and he said something like, "Not everything she says about me is true."
Yes. David drilled it into Thomas and Tayler's heads that I would never tell them the truth about anything. I wonder sometimes if this is why I have so much trouble with Thomas now - and his mental disabilities compound that? Thank the gods Tayler grew up and figured out that his dad is often very wrong.
Someone once asked, "Well, if it only happened that once, and was so brief, I don't understand why it should affect her so much."
Statements like this shouldn't surprise me, but it did. Jeeze.
(though she has given me permission to write about the molestation)
Good!
Reply
This blog put a lot into perspective for me: http://svasti.wordpress.com/
This amazing young woman was beaten one night by someone she thought she knew and trusted. It's taken her the past five years to begin to recover from it. This struck me, reading her journey, because I am often hard on myself for having been so strongly affected for so many years by the abuse. Then here is this woman who is obviously bright and talented and normally highly functional, just knocked right down by one violent incident. It made me realize that because these things aren't NORMAL, OF COURSE they profoundly injure our body and our psyche! We shouldn't imagine that we'll be back to normal We are not likely to ever be normal again. We'll always have that scar, that jerk to attention at a trigger, that sensitivity to others who are wounded, that hole in our self esteem ( ... )
Reply
trauma is like depression. unless people have been there, they're clueless. because they just can't know.
i ramp up to 20mg prozac tomorrow.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I think that because I grew up in a family with so many secrets and so much hypocrisy, I developed a knee jerk reaction to secret-keeping. Sure, some secrets ought to be kept if they protect people and someone needs privacy to heal. I may not tell everything openly. But most things, for me, are just part of who I am and what I experienced. In the case of my ex, the shame is his, not mine. Those who don't want to hear about it can stop reading. :)
Most of my family is already not speaking to me. Oh well.
Reply
Leave a comment