(Also thanks for having awesome stuff like this in the first place, obviously.)

<3

#7 is just so hard !!! I know I should be patient and that what I went through breaks many people. I should be grateful for surviving what I did, somewhat sane. And for being able to not pass it on to my kids. But UGH!!! I don’t want to have this stuck hurt, I fought it for so long.

In the interests of fairness and full disclosure…

The big hurts like mine? It isn’t just women. It is men,too. My older brother, sadly long dead, was abused with me. And therapists truly didn’t have it together about male survivors when he tried to get help.

Since I am fully disclosing, I am a curious and very nosy person, therefore, I know that my father, evil though he was to my brother, my mother and me, among others, belongs in the big hurt category.

That was hard to admit. It doesn’t remove any responsibility for what he did or lessen the destruction he caused. However, the big hurt was there. This is not an excuse, more like an explanation.

My brother and I made a conscious decision, I can remember the conversation, long ago though it was, that we would not pass the pain and the big hurt forward.

Having a long life has some advantages.

I have reams more to say. I am not sure this is the right place to say what I have to say, again.

I remember walking into the first meeting of my long-time therapists’ group of her clients. A
large group of women with one man. I looked at him with apparently a funny look on my face.

He said, “Yes, you are in the right place.”

That man, in my view was a hero because he confronted his demons and fears to protect his own little boy from being vulnerable to the his father, his abuser. And that man’s life fell apart.

I had to add that.

Also men are largely, though not the only ones who cause that kind of big hurt. Women, a few, can and do become the source of that, too.

There are national and local groups from which support and help are available. I got support and information from some of these groups.

All of this made me eventually open to what Havi has to share which is so very healing.

I wish with all my heart that my brother were alive to read what Havi has to say about self-kindness and destuckification.

I am tearing up. I’d better go.

Long hugs, comforting words, love, blessings that bring peace to all of you with big hurts.

I am staying tuned.

Evy

Good for you! The Flashlight seems the perfect thing. I have one that I haven’t figured out the details of yet which can be cranked without a battery. I found it on the Internet. I intend to read the instructions…
soon.

I sleep with the light on most nights. Any week I get through four consecutive nights without the light is a big deal.

I know about the panic and the agoraphobia. I am getting better with the panic. Now and again I can go outside, by myself. Having people to talk to who have gone through similar things has helped me immeasurably. A lot of people with hurts get impatient with my agoraphobia. I have days when I get impatient, too.

When I have my therapy group with me, I can go outside and even sit in the evening outside, often. It has taken me a long time.

It has taken me so long to learn to be gentle and loving to the hurt child. No one showed me how when I was growing up. My therapists have helped show me. I work on kindness to myself every single day. It is one of main things for me to do now.

I am so very, very sorry that the bad things happened to you. The scared little girl deserved and deserves love and care and safety and kind people to support her and comfort her. I hope what we are doing here helps some.

I am so sorry that we have so many women with us. I wish it were not so.

Do what helps you feel better. Do it as often as you are able.

Many long frequent hugs, if you are up to hugs from strangers. Many blessings.

Havi and the things she offers and discusses help me a great deal.

The person across the country who hauls me back to reality when I need it got enthusiastic about Havi immediately. She tells me to go back and read again.
I do.

I am glad you can write about your pain. I hope that makes it less.

I send lots of love and peace and comfort to you.

Be as kind to yourself as possible.

Hugs and love and blessings,

Evy

So much love and so much compassion to help us with so much hurt.

evy & renmiri & all with tears–
Trauma and hurt… for me turned to scared and alone. Then little superstitions to keep me safe. Then agoraphobia and panic so that in my more hypervigilant and paranoid states, I feel someone or something is going to come get me. My reluctance to recognize led to more trauma and hurt. A cycle I do not like.

I have been getting better at letting some compulsions go… but I remain attached to my flashlight I keep within arm’s reach under my bed. It is hand-powered because I had been obsessively changing batteries every week. It has a radio. I banged it accidentally last summer and found there is a hidden compartment for a fork and spoon in the side. I was overjoyed at the realizing I had a built in weapon and slept better for weeks.

I named it. Flashlight. Not very original.

I very much relate to visualizations to get me through anxiety issues and depressive episodes. So I keep Flashlight in my head as I visualize facing my deepest soul-basement fears. These fears have dirt floors, rotted wooden stairs, smell like the entrance to a mine shaft. I am not friends with these fears even though we spend an inordinate amount of time together.

So, my image of Flashlight accompanies me on these trips to visit my internal creepy basement with no windows where hurts and scariness hide in corners or under the stairs. I usually walk down into that basement, ready to do battle… to swing violently or stab with Flashlight’s fork…. More often than not, however, the light shines on a little child, dirty, and neglected who is scared of a loud noise….or the dark…. or being told I could never be loved….

Flashlight reminds me to see some of these larger fears sourced from wounds that I have not yet sat with, examined, held, and released.

Flashlight reminds me that I am not alone in the darkness. My flashlight with its radio, spoon, and fork…

I will share Flashlight with you if you need it.

melissas last blog post..What is a name?

Many hugs. Frequent and long hugs.

I made a choice which had some consequences I didn’t think about. I moved to a place where I knew no one after my third divorce was final.

This means that outside of my therapy group, still in therapy, yes; I don’t know how to say things about my childhood without entering denial.

Anyone I tell honestly about my childhood either doesn’t believe me or acknowledges that it was awful. In both cases, it is a real conversation stopper.

I am currently going slowly with friends not in my therapy group/community.

I found a therapist who believes that people with my diagnosis can be cured…CURED. I will follow her anywhere for as long as I can.

I also forgot (repressed memory) between the ages of 19 and 35. I have perhaps made some peace with the time of denial. Denial floats by now and again. I have long-distance friends who can haul me back to reality over the phone.

There are things that still trigger me. I am keeping fairly closely to my contract of not reading very many news articles about children being harmed. Mostly.

I send you blessings (or however you categorize good things/time/supportive people).

Everyone deals in her own way. I hope you can joyfully accept whatever ways work for you. I cannot tell you how many arguments in my therapy group I have had about reading Charlaine Harris and early Laurell K. Hamilton vampire novels. I have been in the group for 2 and a half years.

They can’t quite tolerate that, when I sink, I crawl into vampire books and reread them, over and over.

I am a little afraid to tell you that I have been in therapy for thirty years. Therapists have learned a lot during the past 30 years. I am 61 and started my therapy when I was 35. My father finally died when I was 19, thank the Universe.

I would share some things that work for me, if you would find it useful. I trust Havi to figure out how to do it and feel OK about it.

My father was ackowledged by everyone who knew him to be mentally ill, in a time period when there were no meds at all and not much idea of what to do.

Only one second cousin on my father’s side speaks to me. The family on my mother’s side still communicates with me.

There are plenty of us in varying degrees of remaining unhealed hurt. Many of us have had parts of our lives that have been positive. Me, for sure.

For many months I went to group meetings, early on, just to see that other hurt women were still walking around and breathing. For me, that meant that I could keep on keeping on.

Hugs and love and abundant blessings on you and yours,

Evy

I knew I was making progress when I started getting aggressive at my father when he showed up in dreams.

Havi may choose not to post this.

I have told and told and told about what happened to me. I have posted on the Internet in forums about abuse.

If this gets to you, I hope there is something or other that is useful to you.

Renmiri, I wish for you all the love and safety in the world and I am sending healing vibes your way.

I’m getting ready to go through a big hurt myself. My boyfriend is moving to China for 11 months and I am not going to be going with him. Even though it is a great adventure, and I am so happy for him to go and have this great experience, I have no idea what will happen to us.

SuperCareos last blog post..Omigosh! It’s Thursday!

I’ve noticed in myself that sometimes – even when I think the situation is not related – it kind of is. Sometimes the people in the situation remind me of people from the past, or they’re engaging in the same kind of tactics used on me in the past. #3 has gotten easier if I ask myself what aspects of the present situation are similar to aspects of the past situation – the situation where I needed to develop and use those coping mechanisms that are causing me pain now. Your subconscious is so smart. It helped you get through childhood. And it might not be helping now… but it thinks it is. It thinks it can – and tries to help in the only way it currently knows how, which is sometimes what the stuckness is.

I hope that this helps, and that it doesn’t come across as a “should.” Huge *hugs* again.

And thank you for the extremely helpful insights, Havi. I’m having a lot of difficulty with #7 right now. It’s not just the patience… but the gentleness with myself that’s hard to achieve – especially since the stuckness comes from a place where I was absolutely not treated gently. Your site has helped immensely. :)

Thanks! Hugs help.

I think I’m up to #2, my bad hurt is recognized as a bad hurt – a drunken and physically abusive dad – so I managed to give up denying that it hurt me. For a while I was so determined to deny him the chance to ruin my entire life that I managed to “forget it” and do two entire years of analysis without ever mentioning my father beat me.

Getting to #3. #4 is really hard for me because in theory the whole world is safe, my dad passed away years ago. But out of the blue I find myself relieving the fears and coping strategies I developed long ago. On a completely unrelated situation. I wish I knew how to better avoid it.

Ya, a time with Selma and Havi is definitely something I want. Meanwhile I’ll keep reading stuff here :)

PS: Can’t make it tomorrow will be stuck working late :/

Catherine Cantieri, Sorteds last blog post..Freeing up mental space