15-08-01   16-08-01   17-08-01   22-08-01
 
 

Well once again it's been a while since I have done a journal.  I was away for about a week when we went down to our friends' farm.  And then when we got home we found that the space bar on the keyboard wouldn't work.  This was a pain, because not only did it look stupid, but it was also hard to type that way.  We are touch typists, not fast and expert, but still do it without thinking, so having to remember to hit the - key made things so slow and annoying.   Went down this morning and got a new keyboard.  It was cheaper than getting it fixed.  So now we are getting use to this one.  It feels different, plus the enter key is different, and we keep hitting the \ key by mistake.  But it won't take long.

We have realised the next hurdle in therapy and recovery is dealing with our anger.  This is a terribly scary thing for us.  We have always been frightened of anger.  Other people's terrifies us and triggers back to that feeling of vulnerability and anxiety.  We tend to run and hide when other people get angry, either physically, but if we can't do that without being noticed we hide within ourselves, disappearing from the world around us.  Our own anger is something that has never been an emotion that we can handle, we have always tried to control it and the people that exhibit clearly.  But as we get a better understanding of our life and the things that happened to us, the anger is becoming more and more noticeable.  There is a sense of unfairness about our life, about the damage that has been done to us.  We we become aware of how much our past still effects us there is that sense of not deserving this, about being angry that we are still suffering years later.  This in itself is a good thing, for it is saying we deserved better, that the people that did this stuff were wrong and we shouldn't have to feel or deal with the results.  But it also leads us to an anger at those people, an uncontrollable rage that has no release.  There is nothing in our life now that we can really do about it.  We can't get revenge, and don't want retribution, we just want to get on with our life, to not be controlled by it.  We don't know how to deal with this anger.  We worry it will get out of control, that the anger will explode into full blown rage.  What if we can't control it, what if it ends up hurting us and others.  It's just such an unknown potential.

Still dealing with the whole bdsm episode.  There is a lot of anger of that, unresolved, still playing on our minds.  I feel lost at times, wondering if I have made the right choices.  I know I was happy with who I was, and that I shouldn't let other people's views of me and my choices hold so much influence over me.  And yet I have begun to doubt so much.  Wondering if I am strange, crazy or wrong.  When I am the one that is completely different from everyone around me it makes me wonder.  And then there is the hurt that comes from how I was treated.  I am so angry, more at myself for allowing these people to treat me like I was some crazy person.  But there is also anger at them.  I get so annoyed, and feel I am turning into some kind of bitter twisted person.  These people claim open-mindedness and yet me being different was an object for derision.  I think also I am angry at myself for making the choice to just leave, to move off without saying anything.  When they treated me like shit the night of the party it hurt and it made me angry but I didn't say anything, I didn't confront them on their behaviour.  When we made the decision to leave the group we didn't explain that choice, we didn't tell anyone the reasons behind it.  We just left, without word or explanation.  It feels like once again we were hurt without saying it isn't acceptable, that we just accepted that it was allowed, that there wasn't anything wrong on the other side.  We left because it was right for us, but in doing so we didn't challenge anyone on how they treated us.  In a way it was like saying that it was ok to treat us that way, and allow them to continue acting the way they do.

We were told people were upset about us leaving, probably true, but we were also told many wanted to talk us into returning.  But that was just talk.  No one has spoken to us about it, but we didn't expect them to say it.  We are easily forgotten.  Ok so I am bitter about the whole thing.  I wonder if I will ever really get over it.  Hurts build, they fester and our pride only makes that worse.  Another thing is they are talking about getting Kate something to thank her for the work she did.  She doesn't want anything.  In fact she's adamant about not accepting anything.  She has said that she will refuse to accept it or at the very most she was give them the money for it.  I don't know, I think she's overreacting but she's still so hurt by it.  Hurt by the insinuations that she was ripping the group off, or that she cooked too much.  She did this because it was something she loved to do, and yet once again the people involved almost ruined it for her.  Maybe we are just too sensitive. Top of Page
 
 

I give up, everything is turning to shit around me and I don't have a clue about how to deal with any of it.   That's all I have to say. Top of Page
 
 

Back to self harming.  Sometimes I struggle with calling it self harm still, because it is not serious enough.  Somehow in my mind self harm equals serious damage to the body, needing medical attention.  And what we do doesn't result in that.  So is it self harm.  Well we sat here tonight and took a shard of glass to our arm scratching away layers of skin until it was was raw and bloody.  We did this on purpose.  So maybe we have to admit that it was self harm.  We do it for a lot of reasons.  When the memories get too strong and we can't control our emotional reaction we scratch at ourselves until everything goes numb again.  This use to happen a lot, when we first started to deal with abuse.  It was all too much and we didn't have the skills to deal with it.  But as we learnt more, learnt to accept our emotions and ground ourselves back into reality we have had less need to deal with the pain in such ways.  Tonight's self harm was more to do with that pervasive feeling of self hatred, a need to punish ourselves.  We do other self harm about that, Needle will scratch away the soft skin around our genitals until it is raw.  We hate that, it hurts a lot, for a long time.  Going to the toilet, even walking can be painful, and what if we get an infection.  Anyway, tonight we hurt ourselves because we aren't coping well enough.  The anger, the hurt, this horrible feeling of being a bad person, was just too much.  So we hurt ourselves.  It was such a conscious decision.  We tried for a while not to do it, because we aren't suppose to.  But we made the decision later to cut away at ourselves.  We sat in front of the tv and sliced over and over at the skin.  Lots of little lines on the arm, until it was raw.  And now we feel like crap.  We haven't done this in such a long time.  We thought we were doing such a good job.  Self harm was put in the non-healthy basket.  And one night it all falls apart again.  I know we shouldn't feel like it is over.  Like the whole work we have done on the self harm means nothing.  It was one day.  It doesn't mean we have fallen right back again.

On a completely different topic, went shopping today.  Kind of retail therapy, shopping to rid myself of depression.  Funny it actually worked when we were doing it, we enjoyed trying on clothes for a change.  Lately when we go looking we just feel ugly and repulsive, this time we felt good about ourselves.  There were no insults, no shame.  Spent too much though, but that's the way of things.  Brought a lot of clothes.  Only thing is don't really have any place to wear them.  Especially the major outfit we brought.  It is really nice but hardly an around the house.  And because of our life situation right now we hardly have a place to go with such things.  Our only real social environment was the Dunedin BDSM group, but now that isn't an option for us.  So we have this really nice stuff and no where to wear it.  That's what happens when you depression shop, end up buying stuff you probably never will wear. Top of Page
 
 

Getting strange messages on my answering machine.  Empty sounds, voices speaking at a distance, like someone is holding out the phone to people talking across the room.  It may just be coincidence, kids fooling around.  But it also the beginning of the bad SRA season, so I am getting a little paranoid, maybe the harassment is starting again.  I don't want to become the type of person I often see online.  The ones that see cultists everywhere, that are so paranoid that everyone around them is a member of the cult, that there is some world wide conspiracy to get to them.  It's not realistic.  Face it one person isn't going to bring them down, that's already been proven.  So why would a world wide cult, even if one existed be so open about tracing down someone, sending cult members to constantly harass them.  The thing about cults is they install this belief that their powers and reach are omnipotent, that they are everywhere, that they will always have you.  They don't want you to believe you will every be safe, they don't want you to think you will ever be free.  They want you to be paranoid, to never feel free.  That way they don't have to do any work, you will do it all for them.  I listen to people that believe the whole town they live in has been infected by the cult, that no matter where they moved the cult would be there, would come and take over the town.  It sounds like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  But it is probably just a message planted in her, that she will never find somewhere where they aren't.  Likewise people talk about people around them are put under the cult's mind control.  Its the same message, trust no one.

But I don't want to be like that.  Yes there is some valid fears, there is always that risk that they will come again.  But there is a limit to their power.  And there is rational precautions to take to help keep me safe.  The fact is it is only a couple a years since I have truly removed myself.  We thought it was longer, we thought, were made to believe that it was in the past, ancient history.  But the reality is that for years it continued, whilst we were going to therapy we were still being abused on a regular basis.  We only recently had the strength to pull away from their control.  We are moving every day to that place when the cult won't have any place in our life.  Every day it's a struggle.  People learn there is another way, those loyal to the cult and it's dogma learn that they don't have to be abused anymore.  And until the day comes we do our best to protect ourselves on the days when the risk is the hardest.  Can I guarantee we won't get hurt anymore?  No.  But every day we work to make that happen.  But what is the point in staying safe when there isn't another life, a non cult life to live.  We can't, or more importantly, we choose not to live our life in fear.  We don't' want to go through life constantly in fear.  We can't ever find true freedom if there isn't anything to replace it with.  So with all the work we do in staying safe, in breaking free, equal amount of work has to be done in finding the life we want.  In finding a life that is good, and real, and the dream of what we want.

So the major cult period is coming.  Months of triggering periods, memories of blood, torture and abuse, the fear that they will come and get me, and then at the end of it our daughter's death.  I will be on edge, will have times when I can't cope at all with any of it.  This is such a bad period, and well, fuck I am so tired of struggling.  We have to struggle constantly, and yet we have to look on top of things.  We can't crawl under a rock and say go away.  And we don't want to either, that's the point.  Part of it is we want more out of life, we want to have normal conversations, to go out for coffee, to laugh, to have those intimate personal moments with others.  But we also don't want to be the sick one, to have that label.  We have stayed alive, coped with extreme abuse for years.  Hell if our mother told the truth the first abuse happened when we were 8 days old.  We made it this far, we are not some weak victim.  I just don't know how to find the balance, to be a survivor empowered for her recovery, and that person that isn't able to always be strong.  These next months will take there toll, we just hope that toll won't be totally overwhelming.  These months, this pain, I don't want it, I wish it would all go away, but it is the life I have. Top of Page