04-04-01    09-04-01   14-04-01    21-04-01   22-04-01    23-04-01  
24-04-01     26-04-01   27-04-01   28-04-01   29-04-01
 
 

Why do we see our need for support as being weak.  To not be strong 24/7 is the same as being a victim.  I am meant to be a good girl, meant to get over the past, to have moved on.  I aren't meant to be crying every day, to be self harming.  Everything here is so bad, and yet the slightest sign of my pain I feel like I am doing something so terribly wrong.  I feel that anything but that strong, coping facade is somehow bad.  I hate the term victim.  It not only implies weakness, but also says the person isn't working to get better, that they are abdicating responsibility for themselves.  I don't think we are a victim, I have worked to hard to become a victim.  But when my pain reaches up and overwhelms me that is would it feels like.  Like I am some loser feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in self pity.  I don't want to be that person.  I want to be someone strong, someone that is in charge and can handle their life.  So what if I have had a bad life, who the hell hasn't.  Why should I feel worse than anyone else.  You don't see others sitting around their homes, unable to keep themselves together.  I just feel all my distress is sounding me that I am just another victim, because I am not trying hard enough, I am not strong enough, determined enough.

My mother told me that I was nothing more than a sulker.  That if I didn't pull myself together immediately then I was just being selfish and bad.  I know I learnt that, that I took it on board.  I believed her when she said that sulking was bad, that I had to be good and take my punishments and then be grateful that she cared enough to teach me, to make me a good girl.  For you see, she would say, I was nothing but badness, badness so deep that nothing would ever change that.  But she would help, she would beat me til I learnt to be good, she would punish me when I was bad, and that included sulking.  So I learnt to bury all those hurt feelings.  That feelings in general would mean I was bad.  I learnt not only to be afraid of emotions, but to hate myself for having them.  So now as the adult I am, I know I am a bad girl for not being strong, for giving into my emotions and letting them overwhelm me.  Seems I didn't learn my mother's lesson well enough.  Maybe she should of hit us harder, punished us more.  Maybe then we would be good, be the daughter she could of loved.

But no one loved us, and no one saw our pain as being acceptable.  Even now, people just chose to look the other way.  The pain we show, even the little of it that comes to the surface only turns people away from us.  Our coping facade is wafer thin now, it doesn't take much to see through it.  But yet no one sees, they close their eyes when they look at us, choosing to believe the facade of yesterday.  The one that hid the pain so well.  We can do anything in front of anyone, we have self harmed in plain sight, we have gone into flashback whilst talking to others.  It makes no difference.  People don't want to know.  Maybe because our pain is so extreme, but maybe, and I think more truthfully, because we just don't deserve the friendship and support of others.  After all we are bad, why would anyone care about a bad girl.
 
 

I have been so slack with these journals, where has my motivation gone I wonder?
Ok butting in here, I wanted to write this to one of the lists we are on.  But I realise that the Shire is unable to deal with any flame war that might be started by what I have to say.  And although I think this sucks shit, I can take the abuse if it comes, I am slowly getting that others here will be effected by it and we are just too fragile to deal with that right now.  So instead I will take the safer (weaker) option and vent it here.

There has been a lot of complaints about people feeling they are on pedestals.  I don't know what that feels like.  The Shire have always been nobodies.  That is the way we like it, the person in the corner that is not looked to for anything, that is not thought of as intelligent, a guide, a teacher or anyone especially special.  I know that for many the term nobody might seem a put down, but it isn't, it is safe, it means we can go about our life without having to be held up as an example.  I know that for us the idea of being placed on a pedestal, of having people look up to us is a horrific one, and therefore I can understand why some people complain when they find themselves placed up there.

However, and here is the bit that they don't want me to say on the list.  There is this contradiction in the behaviour I see.  Those that are the most vocal about not wanting to be seen as all knowing, all wise, those that say they hate being on this pedestal, react hostile when their position is challenged.  They usually come out fighting, not so much for their beliefs, but rather for their position.  When we, as nobodies, have our beliefs and opinions challenged, we listen, we may debate the topic some more, and occasionally when we see the need, might alter our original opinion.  We do not feel threatened by opposing views, we do not feel our standing within a group has been attacked (we don't have a standing).  And yet there have been times when we have disagreed with people, with their ideas, with how things are, and the response has been, well why are you here, if you don't like it then leave.  It seems to me, that those people have viewed my opinion as an attack on their pedestal.  It is as if any opinion that challenges theirs is not a different opinion but an attack on their status.

If you don't like a pedestal, get off it.  Ok sometimes it isn't that simple, I realise that.  That people will forever hold you up as some kind of god, as the ultimate authority.  But you can learn to not respond as such.  You can learn to accept others will differ, you can accept that at times you don't know everything, that someone else has a different, and yes, sometimes better view on things.  To say, hey I never thought of it that way, I see what you mean isn't a crime, it may, however mean you have to step down from your position.  And that is what I mean about getting off the pedestal, if you don't like being up there take a risk and step off it occasionally.  Others might try to put you back up there, but you can step off when the opportunity arises.  If you don't want to step off, if being seen as all knowing, as the wise, intelligent one, gives you the jollies you need, then stop bitching about how lonely it is up there.  You may not of chosen to be placed on it, but it is your choice to remain there indefinitely.  Maybe then you will let people challenge your views without it being seen as an attack on your person.

~Victress
 
 

Easter, horrid time of year.  I just want it to be over.  We have this hope that it will be the last easter they harass us, the last easter of having to fight to remain safe from them.  I don't know why this feeling is here, but we do feel this year will be the last year of their active harassment.  Maybe it's wishful thinking, maybe it's about the 3's and the limit of programming.  It just feels right that they will stop if we can remain safe through to 2002.  All friday we felt half asleep, almost as if we were drugged.  It was a horrible feeling, like I hadn't slept in days.  I know nothing happened the night before and I couldn't understand it at the time.  But now I have a strong idea.  You see about 10 that night the feeling just left, vanished and we were wide awake.  I know now it was an internal thing, part of an activated programme, meant to make us more vulnerable.  The feeling stopped because we did a stupid thing.  We have put our phone on no rings over Easter, and decided to check the voice mail.  There was a message that was very strange.  I didn't remember it at the time, only remembering we listened to it this morning.  It was a coded message to prepare to be picked up last night.  I remember thinking last night it was very strange that we were suddenly wearing our shoes.  We don't wear shoes inside.  But I put that down to breaking in my new boots, they are still tight so I thought I was just wearing them in.  At about 11 they turned up, knocking at our door.  We ignored that, we just stayed in the main room and didn't go near the door, so they moved around to the window, trying to access programming.  We spent the next two hours glued to the computer chair, knowing if we moved there would be a risk of just returning, knowing that things were moving inside, the fear of not returning, the desire to be somewhere old and familiar.  We made it through the night.  It doesn't really surprise me, although I still wonder how we can do it, that we were able to, in the midst of all this, chat to a friend on messenger and write normal sounding emails.  At the same time that the cult was outside our door, we also were talking, giving advice, sounding so very normal.  It's no wonder I feel like we are lying or faking, when with all the trauma going on we act normal and unaffected.

This is so difficult to say, but during these times, when the ritual side of my life is so extreme, there is an ache to return, to be part of it again.  In so many ways things were easier back then.  For all the horror and abuse there was a sense of belonging, of having somewhere where we fit.  We knew the rules, knew what was expected of us, it all made sense in some bizarre sick way.  This belonging is something now we crave.  We don't feel like we fit into this world in any way, it feels like we are an alien in this world, not an extraterrestrial one, but rather alien as in totally foreign and out of place.  We don't understand the rules, we don't belong, always on the edges looking in.  And that gets so lonely, so defeating.  In the cult we knew how things worked, we knew the rules of behaviour, there was that feeling of belonging.  It came with a price, that of abuse and terror, but at this moment in time it feels like a small price to pay.  We are just tired of being the odd one, of being alone and strange, of having no one really get us, really understand what we are trying to say.  There is an ache to return to the past.  We don't like what it stood for, but at least we weren't so damn isolated and unacceptable.   But the reality is we have moved too far into recovery, we can't return there, we can not give up what we have accomplished to ever fit in anymore.  So this recovery process has not only made us aware of our differences, but it has also made it impossible to return to the only place we fit within.  Perhaps we will always be alone, always have to stand on the edges watching, never truly belonging anywhere.  We know too much, we have experienced too much to ever be normal, and that can't change.  We no longer what to pretend though, no longer want to play the part.  So now we celebrate our differences even though they make us hurt with longing for a place to feel at home in.
 
 

I have always said I wanted someone to care about us, to want to help.  But I wonder now if I really do.  That would mean being real, being seen.  And that is something we fear.  We prefer to suffer alone, there is less shame in that, we don't want people to know our fears, to see us in tears, that is weak, that will mean we aren't totally perfect all the time.  Maybe the idea of having someone care, listen and comfort is what we cling to, but the reality of it scares us.  When people try we shut down, we do the I'm ok thing because people caring will mean we will get hurt again.  We don't know how to deal with them, we don't know caring without pain.  And then there is the next thing, we want to believe no one cares, because if people showed they cared then there it will be more obvious that there isn't a damn thing anyone can do for us, we will have to face the reality that we are alone, not because no one cares but because there is nothing anyone can do.  But at the same time, we ache because we are so alone with our pain.  It's such a contradiction.  We don't want anyone close, because it will hurt us, but we don't want to be alone with all our pain.  We are just too confused right now.  We don't know what we are doing, we don't know what we feel.  So many are saying different things, so much conflicting information.  We can't trust anyone again, the last time we did that it backfired.  We knew at the time it was a mistake, but our need to have someone there, to have someone care about us overpowered our caution.  And we paid for that, we opened ourselves up, felt the shame and fear and got abandoned again.  Perhaps it is better to just remain isolated, to say I'm fine, rather than open up to anyone.

I haven't been writing my journal lately because the memories are too strong, by the end of the day we are exhausted, our head aches and our soul is too heavy.  I am wondering now if I should start writing out the memories the pain in these journals.  Instead of talking about other stuff, because this stuff is what our life is about at the moment.  I should not worry about looking stupid or as a victim, instead I should try to think that this is my own way of talking.  No one will listen, and I don't know if anyone will read it, but at least I can pretend someone is hearing, or more importantly the words will be out there, they will be out in the world, regardless if anyone is listening.  This makes sense.  It is still scary though to bring my pain out into the world, my shame at having this stuff happen to me.  But I can't stand living with all this running around, never stopping inside of my mind.  Ok so that's the plan.  If there is nothing else to talk about we will write out all that we have remembered, all that we have felt during the day.  Maybe it will be our way of breaking the silence.

Just heard my parents are coming down for 2 days.  Thought it was just ANZAC day, but no they will be down on Tuesday as well.  Damnit.  I really can't deal with them, I don't want to have to make small talk to act like everything is fine.  Kat is going to be pissed off, cos that is the same day Joy doesn't work so we will miss out this week.  We will do a good act, but it will come at a cost.  We will play the good daughter ignoring all the harm they did to us, we will act normal for them.  I know that when we get home things will fall apart, but right now that is the safest way to be.  We can't handle a confrontation at the moment, and we can't tell them not to come.  We aren't strong enough yet.  We are doing well, we said we wouldn't go back with them for a holiday.  Man can you imagine it, a week or two in Kurow, with the flashbacks, the memories.  We might think we are bad and should be punished, but even that is too extreme a punishment for us.  Ok for most of us.  It amazes me how some of us still wish to be a good girl, still wish to grovel for forgiveness, and say they will be a better daughter, even after everything we still know.  The idea that we are the ones at fault is still strong, and the need to have a Mommy and Daddy is still here.  Sick, I mean, our minds are so screwed over that we think that we can make them love us, that we should be sorry that we made them hurt us.

It's good that we have stopped cutting our arm, by Tuesday the marks will have faded.  We stopped not because the need wasn't there anymore, but because the pain and blood we could get wasn't enough.  We won't allow deep cuts that need stitches so the ones we were doing isn't doing any good so what's the point.  Also maybe if we leave it for a while, when we start cutting again it will do it's job.  I know I shouldn't even cut, but it gave us some relief for a while.
 
 

One more day until our parents turn up.  Just one day of peace.  I don't know how we will be able to act normal around them, the information we are getting is too much.  So much new stuff about the sexual abuse by our mother.  How are we meant to hug her and act normal when we know that she used us as a sexual object for so many years.  But its more than that, more than the physical act.  It is about her belief, her attitude towards us, the abuse was one thing, the fact that she treated us like scum, like we were solely there for her pleasure, the fact that she reveled in degrading us whilst abusing us, that is something we can't handle, we don't know what to do with.  Amy has been crying since Thursday.  Not because her mother abused her, but rather because according to our mother she had been selfish.  Amy's distress is not the abuse, it is because she was bad for not doing it with our mother earlier.  She thinks she is a bad girl for holding out on her mother.  When our mother came to her and punished her, it was because she was being abused by our grandparents and hadn't given it up to her.  She was a selfish slut her mother told her, selfish for not having sex with her.  Whilst others cry for having to endure the abuse, Amy cries for not being abused earlier.  We don't know how to deal with that.  We don't know how to deal with a lot of it.  We just want to scream out, to tell everyone to shut up.  We have had enough information, we have had enough pain.  Why do we need to keep hearing that, why do we need to continue to suffer.  Ok so the answer to that is so it doesn't continue to do us harm, we know this is the way through, in our clear moments.  The pain, the memories are worth it because it will lead us to the other side.  But how do we deal with a little seven year old that thinks she was bad for not performing sex acts with our mother, that thinks she learnt to be good by acting like a slut for our mother.  She doesn't want to be told it was wrong that our mother did this, she doesn't believe it.  She believes the only bad thing was she should of done it earlier.

We can't keep this up.  Fuck our life is so messed up.  What the hell was going on in that family, what made them all so screwy that they could act this way with a child.  I just did some maths and worked out that we have been raped at least 4500 times in our life, that's just raped, it doesn't even include the beatings and the weird shit.  What the hell were they thinking.  What the hell was going on in that family.  And now us, is it any wonder we don't see rape as abuse anymore, that it is normal, that it doesn't matter to be raped.  By the time we were about 12 it became so normal.  In a way it is hard to think of it as rape, it's not like it hurt anymore, not physically anyway.  And then there are those that did it without question, some even would instigate it.  Not because they wanted it, but because it was what they were meant to do.  Just as so called normal children are taught to hug their parents and grandparents we learnt to have sex with them.  Ok so this is getting bizarre, but for many of us being raped was absolutely no different that giving a friend a hug.  They have no boundaries, if someone, even now was to say have sex with me they would do so without question, they would not fight, they would not say get real, they would take their clothes off and do as the other person wanted.  There is no feeling of being a person in charge of what happens to their body.  They don't see it as theirs, they are an object for someone else's pleasure, that simple.

On a totally different note.  Got an email from Chris this morning.  It was a surprise the way we reacted to it.  He spoke about all the wonderful things in his life, how well he was doing, how much he had improved.  But there was not one question about us, about how we were doing.  I don't even know how he got the drgnborn email addy.  He wasn't given it on purpose.  He had the symf one, the one we don't go to anymore.  We didn't want to keep hearing from him, it got Kat so upset, made her feel like shit and she would weep all night over it.  So we decided to move on.  He made his choice, he choose to go with her, but he still wanted us as a friend, well more like a support person.  He wanted us to remain in love with him, wanted us to deal with his stuff regardless of anything we were feeling.  But this time Kat got more angry than upset.  Yes she still misses him, but now its less, it is more about her annoyance that he doesn't give a shit about our well being.  And face it he has done well because he has had so much support, has had the money for good therapy, has had twenty four hour support.  And for us it has mostly been alone that we have dealt with our problems.  He made a comment about how Anne has stuck by him, I wonder if it is a dig that we didn't.  Well why should we, he decided it was her he wanted.  Why do we have to ignore our needs to take care of someone else's.  We need to think of what is best for us now, we can't push aside our issues, our needs to just be the person someone else wants.  We are tired of being used like that, by him and others.  We won't give up ourselves to suit another person.
 
 

Seems my sister-in-law is going to be ringing me when her and my brother get to New Zealand.  Mother told me that when they are in Dunedin, she wants to meet me for coffee.  Ok that's fine.  I really don't have a major problem with my brother, and I especially don't have a problem with her.  In fact I have never met her, so how could I.  Yes, my brother abused us, but at the same time he knew no different, he was taught from a young age that was appropriate behaviour.   What gets me is my mother's attitude.  She is still blaming me for the rift in the relationship.  She is constantly on me about the fact that her children don't get on.  She sees me as the evil one in the family, the person setting out to destroy the family.  It is so damn annoying.  I am so sick of hearing how we don't get on, how sad she is that I can't get on with my brother.  She engineered it that way.  She taught him not only that it was ok to abuse me, but how to do it with the maximum effect but minimum evidence.  And she wonders why I don't want to be his best friend.  She ignores the fact that he has made no effort to be with me.  He has never once contacted me, never tried to be a part of my life.  Yes he invited me to the wedding, knowing that I was on a benefit he sent me an invitation a couple of months before the wedding date.  So it was my fault that I didn't go, it meant nothing that I couldn't afford to buy an air ticket and fly to Australia.  I was suppose to be able to, and the fact I didn't meant I was a bad daughter and a bad sister.  My mother saw my absence as a disgrace to the whole family.

I am so tired of being the bad daughter, the bad sister.  I don't want to hear it anymore.  I will go see this woman, my sister-in-law.  I don't know what I have to say to her, I don't really think we will have a lot in common.  I have so little in common with "normal" people.  I am a multiple, that is a no go subject.  I am in a D/s relationship, can't see that being talked about.  I am a pagan/witch, yeah right normal conversation.  I am in a lesbian relationship, ok so no biggie, but hard to talk about with a straight woman.  So what do we talk about?  The family, oh that will be a joy to behold.  I will have to fake it, I can not tell her about her inlaws rape and abuse of me, I can not tell her about how her husband use to beat me when he got stressed.  This is going to be such a wonderful meeting.  Fake image will have to be up strong.  What the hell are we going to talk about.  Man I am so not looking forward to this.  But I suppose she is my brother's wife.  I really should meet her.

Parents will be here tomorrow, just realised that their visit will mean I don't get to see my nurse this week.  Such good timing.  I really need my therapist back, I need to start dealing again, start working on the abuse and memories.  So much inside desperate to come out, and it's coming, just coming alone.  I need the focus now.  The direction that I am actually remembering this stuff for a purpose, that I am working on some kind of resolution for this pain.
 
 

Well it was the day of the family.  We went into town.  Mum made this big deal of us picking where to go for lunch, so we said the food court, because we wanted noodle soup.  Well we get there and mum decides nope, she doesn't want to eat there, so we go off to another food court, nothing there interested me, the food was crap.  Now that's not really the point, the point is why did she say it was my choice in the first place, why pretend my opinions count.  It's that old mind shit she always does to us, ask us something then punish us for having an opinion, only now she doesn't punish, she wouldn't dare.  But it doesn't matter anyway, the set up is enough to trigger the memories of the punishments.  Funny how to the outside it would just look like a family choosing to eat somewhere, but to us it's this long involved repeat of the past abuse.  It is no wonder we are so afraid to express an opinion or make a decision.  She would set us up like that, say what do you think, which one would you like?  And when we answered we would be screamed at, told we are stupid, selfish, and then get a beaten.  If we refused to make a decision then we would be beaten until we choose then beaten again for choosing wrong.  Fuck so screwed up.  So anyway we wandered around town for the day, mother getting shitty the world wasn't working on her schedule, dad trying to look at stuff and being told to hurry up, and me, becoming the scared child in the background hoping they didn't get too angry and start hitting us.  It got bad in the car, and Flick wanted to jump out, she went to open the door, wanting to jump from a driving car to avoid getting smacked around.

When they were in the paint store we couldn't stand it so went next door to the bike shop, had a good time for about 5 minutes then the assistant came over.  We/they got scared and took off so I said I was looking for a second hand motorbike, not really a lie I need a new one.  He was very nice, and showed us this bike, it looks really good, he told us about it, as if we understood a word of it *laugh*.  It was \$3500.  Now that's not too bad, but of course we can't afford it.  But we need another one, the bike we have is dying, it is slowly giving up.  And if we don't have one to replace it then we will become virtually housebound, since taking a bus terrifies us.  We can just make it with a support person, but alone it just doesn't happen, we are too afraid, in too much distress.  am thinking of going down to the bank this week, and find out how much I have to have in my account before they will give me a loan, and then find out how much the repayments will be.  It doesn't seem likely that I will be able to afford one anytime soon, but I can find out the information.  Some of us got excited at first, thinking we could afford it, imagining being able to go for drives, to get away, to go fast and leave the pain behind.  We could get out on the open road, we could spend a day just driving, without having to deal with anything else.  Just us, the bike and freedom.  It is a good dream.

Got home to find I had been out when the nurse called, so that's another week without seeing her.  Man I am sure my mother plans things like this.  Well she also wants us to go back to Kurow again, asked us about five times all up, we managed to divert her away without answering.  The confusion hit though, some crying because they are missing their mommy, some crying with utter terror we might go, some saying we have to go, we are their daughter, we can't say no, others desperately wanting to say, fuck off aint no way we are going to your house.  Don't know how long we can keep putting them off.  Hopefully all year.  Then if Joy is here for xmas even if we do go for a holiday she will be there for support.  Yes I know, considering how much we have remembered about our family it would make sense to just break off all contact, but we can't, we can't handle the confrontation at the moment, we will limit our contact, we will grow strong and see what the future will bring.
 
 

Well our stopping cutting didn't last long, our arm is scratched up again.  It was the only thing that seems to work when the pain hits.  We sat there tonight, the pain, the memories, too hard to deal with.  Why do we have to go through this, why do we have to be so alone?  We have no other way out, no where to turn, so we cut, we needed some relief, even just a little moment of relief.  There was no one to comfort us in our pain, so we turned to the old way, we sat and watched the blood pool on the skin, feeling the sting in the skin.  It is not bad, the cutting, its only superficial, but it's still self harm.  I find that hard still, to believe that self harm isn't just deep cuts or things that need medical attention.  But it seems all things are self harm if you damage your body on purpose.  I wonder what's happening to us, sometimes things are so dark, there isn't any hope, there isn't any future.  Why do we even bother staying alive, it's not like life is offering us anything worth sticking around for.  I sat here tonight wondering how long we would lie dead, before anyone found out, how long we could go unnoticed.  Of course I would never find out the answer to that.  I would be dead after all, but it just seems to intrigue me.  It's funny the things you think about when you are alone and hurting.  I am tired of the alone, but that is the facts.  And face it, we don't let anyone in, we are sad and in pain, and just told someone we were ok.  What the fuck do we expect if we won't tell people the pain, they can't read our minds.  But we are just totally ashamed of being distressed.  We are suppose to be strong and in control.  I don't know how to do anything else with people, I don't know how to show people what we are really feeling.

So now I am alone and miserable, so fucking depressing too.  I am sick of being so morose all the time.  I wish things were better, I think all the time I am letting people down.  But there isn't really anyone to let down, and there isn't doing anything else.  I wish I could be be the strong person people expect of me but I just can't do that.  This journal might seem depressing, and people might want me to cheer up, but the truth is this is how we feel this is the way we are.  We can't pretend anymore, no matter how much we wish we could.  Our life is a mess, and it's showing.  I think that's why we are hiding from the world, we don't write to our email groups, we hardly talk to anyone, and when we do it's never about what is really going on, instead we put on a mask, a thin one but it's still there.  It doesn't last for long, and the horror of showing someone the amount of pain here, makes us feel terrified.  We are so distress, we can't show the world we are hurting, but yet we crave someone to be there with us, to care for us in our pain.  So we want the best of both worlds, selfish I know.  I just want someone to sit with me when I am shaking and crying.  I just want someone to hold me and tell me it's going to be ok.  But at the same time I want to go through life as a normal, strong person.  God we are so pathetic, we really don't know what we want.  There isn't go to be either of those things, so face it we will just have to keep being ok.
 
 

Headache must be bad, we can feel it.  I know this will seem strange, but we are always having headaches, but we don't actually feel them.  It's more like an awareness that we are having a headache without the actual pain of one.  I still remember all those tests for the headaches we had, the fear there was something serious wrong with us.  Every known test back then we went through.  Until finally the doctor, unable to find any reason for them, told me and my mother that it was more likely a brain tumor that he couldn't find.  We spent years thinking we were going to die, that the unfindable tumor was going to kill us.  I still am so angry at that doctor, at his ineptness.  I can't believe he never acted on what he saw.  He treated us repeatedly for thrust, never once inquiring where it had come from why it kept coming back.  He must of seen the bruises, the accidents we would have.  There was a family joke that the nurses at A&E knew me at sight, because we were always down there.  We would have trauma after trauma, all those "accidents" I was in.  But even they never questioned it.  Maybe life was different back then, maybe they would ask questions now.  But back then they just turned a blind eye, never once commenting on my regular trips to the hospital.  Why did no one comment about what was happening to me?  Makes me wonder if they just didn't think we were worth it.  That somehow we didn't matter to anyone.  I try to remember this was all over 30 years ago, that the world was different.  Maybe not so different when you look at the abuse of children still going on in the world.

We were really surprised today, talking to a friend.  She spoke about our sight, about the abuse she had read here.  It shocked us, most people don't want to talk about it, they just nod and move on.  Ok I don't know how people react when they read stuff here, I aren't around to see that.  But in real life conversations I see the awkwardness, the inability to think about it, and the uncomfortablity that makes them change the subject.  We expect them to do that now, and when someone shows us the caring of being able to discuss things with us, it's shocking, and it kind of hurts.  Not in a bad way, but it reminds us of how few people will listen to our pain.  We are so grateful for the conversation tonight.  I don't think she understood how much it meant, not to have it glossed over.  There is this ache to talk to a friend, not just a professional support person.  The need of a friend, someone that actually cares about me, to sit there as I spill all this stuff out.  I know there it is a lot to ask of someone, to listen to my horror stories.  My stuff is so extreme, the pain so great.  I don't want to inflict that onto anyone.  Especially someone I care about.  Things are so hard here, I don't know how to reach out, how to ask for help, how to tell someone what I need.  When things reach a point that I can't control myself, when I am screaming out to be heard, I only withdraw even more.  Today someone came in, someone made a step towards me and we didn't run... well ok, we didn't run very far.

Our therapist returns next week.  Karen, our PDN, thinks this will help, that we will have a focus, a direction that might lead us towards the health we are wanting.  I suppose she is right, but we are also terrified of it, it brings up so much for us, it becomes so real and we can't hide from the past, the emotions and realisations.  I want some kind of focus, I just wish there was another way to do it, another way to find what we are looking for.  I don't want to look that closely at my past.  No one really wants to go back into it, but yet there is a need to do so.  We know this is the right direction, it just hurts to move that way.  When we do the memory reprocessing work, the abuse becomes so real, it is like being back there, all the sights, the sounds, the smells.  But even more scary the emotions become real.  We have spent a life time hiding from our emotions, and when doing this the emotions come running up at me.  For the next couple of days they are so real, they are unable to be put away, there isn't any judging of them.  It all just runs wild through us.  And with the emotions there are these understandings, about the way we behaving, about the methods and thoughts of our abusers.  This happens, we are alone and it hurts so much we don't think we will make it to the next day, but slowly things settle again, back to the normal routine.  I suppose this is now in recovery, I suppose this is the way things will get better.  Somehow pain for a purpose is better than just vague directionless pain.  I suppose.
 
 

Well been shopping, actually that's window shopping since as usual we don't have any money to purchase anything.  Actually it was kind of fun, a time out of our lives to wander around the stores.  Kate got all drooly like in Whitcoulls, there were about 5 cookbooks there on special.  She flicked through them, looking at all the recipes, just holding them in her hands, yeah the woman is totally addicted to cooking books, sad isn't it.  We ended up having to drag her away from them, she would of stood there all day if we had let her.  The day was like old times, when we would chatter away, wandering into any store, looking at anything that pulled us in, everyone out, a social outing so to speak.  It was nice, to be normal again, well normal for us and that's what counts.  So we spent a couple of hours wandering, going into all kinds of shops, just looking.  Oh to be rich, but nevertheless it was an enjoyable morning.

Am thinking about talking to our therapist, to find out if the hospital ministers, the one attached to the psych ward, has any understanding about multiplicity and ritual abuse.  Most likely they don't, but you never know.  After my talk last night, we think it might help Olivia to talk to someone Christian, especially someone that is well a minister or something.  She, Olivia, is probably Christian, and will want to remain that way, but is so confused because of having the cult screw with her head, she believes in God and Satan, hates that she belongs to Satan, wants to have God's love.  All that sort of thing, but she is only 11, she thinks like a child in many ways, but yet in others she knows more than any child should.  Whoever spoke to her would have to be able to see past the adult body, have to understand that it was a child sitting in front of them, then they would have to be at least able to listen, and hopefully understand what was done to her.  But we, well we worry about how our story, about how our multiplicity will be received by anyone associated with the Christian church.  Probably I am being paranoid and judgmental, but I don't want to end up being preached to about finding God, about the fact that the Devil has my soul, and that all these other people are demons.  I know that it has happened to others, that they have had to deal with this judgment.  But all I want is someone to talk to Olivia, someone to tell her that she isn't doomed, for what she did, for what was done at her.  Even if I found some minister to talk to there would probably have to be some education done, before they spoke with Olivia, and I don't know if I can go through that again, the explanations, the trying to get someone to see another reality.
 

Man I so love mp3's, its like jist so damn cool.  I like git to download all this shitkicking music jist for me.  Ok they say too much will cram the puter, but not like I care, I will jist throw all the stuff I've had enough of and move on.  Finally this house has dance music, music that isn't all old and grudgy.  I got my space, I got my tunes, I can now like dance around the house.  No one to see, no fatarse pathetic type people to laugh.  Like git over yourselves what it matter what I do.  I haven't been this damn excited for a long time.  Yeah I know, it only music but hey when your life is as boring as my shit hole one is music can be like the second coming.  So I'm off to do some downloading..spot ya.