Well as we all know it is time to close out the blogstream blog due to the closing of the site. I will be starting a new blog with the same info over at blogger, I just started it.

http://foreverhealingfromrape.blogspot.com

It is funny how the mind works, before I started counseling I had no idea how it worked. Having stuffed so many bad memories into the depths of my mind. I believed the deeper I stuffed the less chance I would have to ever deal with these bad memories again.

While this theory worked for a long time I paid for it when they decided to resurface. Sort of like a credit card where you buy all these things on the card not having a care in the world and enjoying your new items until years later when your balance is so high you can never pay it down.

I have processed a lot of these memories however I still have bits and pieces that need to come out and be placed in the right area of my mind.

Flashbacks of being raped can be scary or they can be very disconnected. Some times it is like watching a movie in my mind where I can see myself as a teenager being violated yet there is a disconnect there where the me who is in the here and now has no feelings towards what is playing in my mind. These type of flashbacks bother me as they make me feel like what happened to me was ok because I have numbness when it comes to emotion.

Then there are the powerful flashbacks the ones where I can feel what happened to me with all most all of my senses. I can feel the physical pain, I can hear what was being said to me by the offenders, I can feel the pit in my stomach from fear. These ones take an emotional and physical toll on my mind and body.

Healing is hard work very hard work. Each person has a different path for healing. I have been on this journey of deep healing for a few years while it is getting easier it is not over.

Forgiveness, something I have wanted to be able to do for so long now. Everyone tells those who have been hurt to forgive. Is that really the magic key? For years now I have been stuck at the same intersection of healing.



Memories and flash backs of my attack haunted me daily, minute by minute. I could feel the pain, I could feel the fear, I could smell the dampness of the basement the smell of the plastic make shift tarp I was being raped on, I could feel the smash of my skull as it hit the cement floor. I could feel the anxiety building as I tried to play out scenarios to get away from my attackers. I could feel the adrenaline powering my battered body as I ran to safety. I could feel the disbelief once I was away from my attackers and then the denial hit me hard.

I have been volunteering with hospice patients and finding it very rewarding. Most all the patients I have had so far have no one to visit them as they wait for death to knock at their doors.



One day as I went to visit a new patient I wondered to myself what would I think if I came into a room to meet a patient and it was the man who attacked me? This random thought came out of no where.

How would I feel if there was the man who raped me, beat me, and kidnapped me; lying there dying? Could I forgive him? Would I forgive him?

The answer scared me I think I might be able to. If I forgive him does this mean I make it ok for what he did? Does it take away all the pain he has caused?

How did I go from hate, from wanting every aspect of his life to rot before him? I went from wanting to see or at least know he was dying to now taking pity on what his life may have become.



At one time I thought death would be the best thing for him as God would make him PAY for what he did to me. However it occurred to me that God is a loving God that he would not judge or make someone pay rather let him or her navigate this world with the knowledge of knowing what they did was wrong. If God could forgive people for killing his only son why can’t I forgive the man who raped me just as easily?

So many times I tried to hide from the fact that not having a father in my life did not affect me, besides he was in my life for a short time when I was young.

When I needed him he wasn’t there. When things started to happen to me he wasn’t there. When all I ever wanted was a hug from my father I had to realize I was not going to get that.

How it hurt when he would love his wife (s). Wife after wife after wife got the love, attention and conversation that I craved for. I internalized it, had to be my fault. How can a father not love his daughter?

Then as I got older and had more traumas happen to me I began to beg for love from men just to get that love and attention that I never had. Yet that wasn’t love. The guys I tried to get to love me read me like an open book. They saw what I craved and pretended to “love me”, pretended to care yet they only wanted the power of control or to use my body for their own enjoyment.

Damn how things would be different if I had what so many take for granted.

I needed some time to myself today. As I headed out the door I had no idea what it was I was going to do.

 

I just followed the road and went where it took me. I decided to trek back to Brockton where the worst of the worst happened to me. It was painful to feel the pit of my stomach and my emotions felt numb.

 

As I looked at the buildings where things had happened to me it hit me that life goes on. Those building had more life in them then I let myself have. The building is not weeping for my pain or my past. It just kept being what it was and served it’s purpose of being a home to people.

 

This year I have to focus on working through this pain and these memories. I have to put them where they belong in the basement of my mind nice and near and boxed.

 

I think it is time that I begin to forgive. Not only those who did these horrible things to me but I need to learn to forgive myself for the choices I made that left me susceptible to the people who harmed me.

 

I am like a building. There is strength in my foundation. I can rebuild based on that foundation and to have myself come out better then before. Better then I could have imagined. It’s time for me to set myself free from the past.