A Sad Day

This posting contains a very large TRIGGER WARNING because it describes in some detail the experience of someone attacking me many years ago.  I was with individuals who tried to rape me and it was only recently, through EMDR therapy, that I was truly able to process the experience. I’ve long wanted it out of my head, to have it before me so I could examine it, process it, and move on from it.  This posting is about getting those connections together.

So if you are able and willing to do so, read on to hear my story. It does contain depictions of violence (physical and sexual assault) and may be upsetting to some readers. Please take care of yourselves.

STORY BEGINS HERE * TRIGGER WARNING*

Bear hugs might as well be bear traps, for all the comfort they generally provide.

I’m not a terribly cuddly person and my physical distancing has led to many varied frustrations with friends, family, coworkers, and strangers. They feel hurt and shirked by my dislike for well-intentioned touching. They don’t understand why I don’t share their desire for physical closeness. What gets lost is the fact that I’m also frustrated by my discomfort. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I could just accept an embrace or a back pat? If I could let hands linger on my shoulders, maybe it would lead to happiness for both me and the others.

But I can’t relax into it.

Human skin has a mild sensitivity to pressure. Fingertips on forearms, head on shoulders, torso pressed to torso; they’re all simple, everyday actions that force an elevated pulse and pounding heart. I’m not excited; I’m anxious. I’m afraid of being trapped, concerned that I will be stuck beneath oppressive limbs. Of course I want to be close to others but my physiological response forges a distance I often believe to be inescapable. I’m bad, I’m different, I’m a hopeless case. I can’t bond.

Naturally, there are reasons why touching is difficult. One of them is the erudite understanding that I am simply not as physically welcoming as the average human being. Another is experiencing abuse that likely hammered my natural tendencies into phobias. From childhood I was physically, verbally, emotionally, and sexually attacked. Degradation and humiliation fostered coldness and muteness. Being frozen meant that I could divorce myself from the hurt that followed. Feet were no longer there. I couldn’t run but I couldn’t feel the depth of my wounds.

As I grew into adulthood I found my arms-length approach morphing into a mile-wide berth. I suspect this change was born from further abuse suffered in adulthood, though the connection that allowed me to understand this deepening has arisen only in the last few years. With a protective bubble of elapsed time and supportive friends I have been able to articulate more and more of the damage.

Yet, until recently I had never told anyone the story of the attempted rape.

Back in 2002, between feeling sorry for myself and suffering a seemingly endless string of losses, I found friends who were willing to spend time with me despite my less-than-happy outlook on life. They liked me and were happy to talk with me and engage in general waywardness. I believed they supported me and were looking out for me in my darker times. Yet, as I grew closer to this new social circle, I began having trouble with this one particular individual. The things he said and did have long been locked in my mind as part of the brick wall of self-imposed exile.

He grew interested in me because I was sad. I called it compassion but my retcon term would be creepy obsession. My self-loathing and lack of self-esteem were as obvious as the marks I had carved into my arms would have been if my sleeves had ever been rolled up. I let him hug me, console me, take me out for walks, and force me to eat. We were friends.

Over a few months, his romantic relationship (with a girl who was also a friend of mine) deteriorated and he began telling me how much he liked my body, how he was attracted to me and wanted to sleep with me. Even as I pushed these suggestions aside and did my best to ignore his advances, I knew our friendship had started to wind into dangerous territory. Still, I spent time with him. Sometimes it was in a group; sometimes it was just the two of us alone.

We even drank together when alone. I had no qualms about my ability to handle alcohol, having always had a good sense of when to drink and when to stop. I’d also never experienced a blackout or found myself doing anything while drinking that I wouldn’t do sober.

But there’s missing time from that night, that stupid, awful night eleven years ago when I suddenly went from being mildly buzzed to feeling extremely drunk. I was sloshy, confused, lethargic and dizzy. I’d had very little to drink and yet my body thought it was the victim of a good seven or eight shots. In my friend’s darkened apartment, I sank back onto the couch, tired and lost. He had another friend visiting. (I shall henceforth call him “S”) They were talking, and I grew agitated, trying to get up from the sofa, turning out the contents of my pockets to the ground, reminding them that I was severely depressed at the time. Scared, unhappy, I really wanted to go home, so I stumbled around the room for a moment, looking for a safe space because S and my friend had both begun to frighten me. Other people had been there earlier in the evening, but they had departed, leaving the three of us in the apartment by ourselves.

Together they closed in on me, blocking my path, telling me I couldn’t leave. With my purse tucked under my arm, I staggered to the door and found that it was a double cylinder bolt, locked from both sides. I pounded on it but neither of them would slip the key in. Similarly, the back door had a bolted lock that required a second twist of metal to undo. With the realization that I was trapped in a third-floor locked apartment with non-opening windows, I felt myself bang on the heavy door, screaming for someone to let me out. I can’t imagine exactly where I would have gone, but I knew I was not safe.

My friend and S pulled me back to the couch, telling me to calm down. In a dissociative fit, my arms and legs struggled without my knowledge. They said they had something to help. Whatever it was, I didn’t want it and lashed out, flailing as I tried to again free myself from the couch. It was a big fluffy piece of furniture, one of those whose cushions cause you to fall into a pit of fabric when you lean back. A knee went over my thighs, pushing me down. Hands smacked into my chest, slamming me against the back of the couch. One of them leaned in, pushing against my forehead, pulling at my chin, forcing my mouth open.

Cursing and admonitions to calm down and shut up ensued as they tipped what I think was their leftover bong water down my throat. I’d never smoked. Not even a cigarette. My heaviest drug use were the few beers I’d had in the six months since turning 21. I choked, trying to expel whatever it was from inside, but instead was pushed back, liquid running down the inside of my throat, and down the outside of my face. They said I’d be fine, but neither one of them released their grip on me. One of them was stroking my skin while the other held me back with the hand flattened to my breastbone. I think, but can’t honestly recall if this is a real detail, that someone started loosening my clothing. I do know that this perception is what caused me to go berserk with screaming and crying.

There were hints of coming sexual assault. Thigh stroking even as I tried to force them off, fingering the skin near my cleavage, above my collar, talk about my attractiveness and interest in fucking me. Someone tried to cover my mouth, to muffle the angry sounds I was making. I took advantage of a moment when hands were readjusted to push my way upward. In 2002 I had not been eating, and I had become sickly thin, my bones so weak that lying down at night hurt me. The fact that I could muster any amount of strength to fight back, particularly in a drugged state, still amazes and bewilders me.

But I did, and this time I managed to snake my cell phone and get a fervent call out to another friend, who agreed to come pick me up. Still, I know that he was at least thirty minutes away and my last memory of that room before his arrival is of the phone call. Whatever happened thereafter, I don’t know. To the best of my knowledge, there was no completed rape, only the attempted one I’ve alluded to already. Though with a distressing thirty minutes of missing memory, I cannot help but feel weak and shake at the black hole of time.

I left the place in a panicked, shaking state. My other friend (we shall refer to him as “B”) lectured me about being alone with those guys, about drinking with them, etc. I had small wounds on my arms and legs, things that I may have done to myself or may have been the natural result of warding off someone else’s attack. I believe I had to put my outer shirt on as I left, which has always led me to wonder why I didn’t have it on. I wasn’t naked, and it’s important to note that I can’t quite remember if this was real or just the product of my later analysis trying to make sense of things. B spent the drive home fixated on that lecture, but when he helped me out of his car and up to my apartment, he tried to kiss me, leaving me further wounded and vulnerable.

After that, I didn’t leave my apartment for several days. I was numb, extremely, extremely turned inward. I showered a lot. I didn’t eat. I didn’t speak to anybody. Very shortly thereafter I tried to kill myself, believing that I was dirty and ruined. Other bad life circumstances factored in but that incident was prominent in my mind. The self-talk script kept echoing, It’s your fault and a wide variety of stereotypical victim-blaming stanzas suggesting that I was wrong for going out drinking with a friend, that I had made a mistake in what I wore, that I had somehow led them on and egged them into harming me because I was being sad and mopey. Those melodies of absurd self-hatred lingered for many, many years, telling me repeatedly that I was a bad, bad person.

Sense memory runs deep as a result. A light touch, even an unintentional one, near my chest, can still sometimes set me off into a crushing panic. It might be subtle, all of the symptoms tucked on the inside, save my quiet wide-eyed face, but it’s still present. Whenever a hand comes at me and lands on the skin, I don’t exist anymore. The panic has already caused me to freeze and disassociate. I’ve gone somewhere else, to a place where I’m debating fighting and fleeing, but where I also can’t feel my legs. I can be lost for seconds, for minutes, for hours. Even if I’m still going, I’m not always really there.

When friends lean in for the hug and I reject them, I know it makes them sad. I don’t like casting that protective wall. Much as most people do I ultimately want to be loved. I long for the ability to rest against another human being, snuggled up, feeling protected and warm. Unfortunately, it’s so very, very hard to dismiss the memory in my skin.

Patrick Stewart’s “You’re Safe Now” & My Own Recovery

I’m ready to come back and talk. I’ve had a couple of months to think and relax at a safe distance from these subjects and I’m again energized to work in advocacy and celebrate my own continuing recovery.

At heart, I am a geek and I have to confess that much of my love for Patrick Stewart is born from being a geek.  So when I saw his interaction with a fan regarding domestic violence I felt this unbelievable sensation of fandom glee and amazement at his eloquent explication of overcoming violence. The Tor blog also links to his speech at Amnesty International on those same subjects. It is amazing that celebrities use their powers for public good. Though I always have to shout out to those who are celebrities in their own communities, the volunteer advocates who take up these causes in equal or greater measure. You are amazing.

For the last several months I have been visiting an acupuncturist who has helped me better learn to relax and to control a number of my physical ailments, including a very frequently recurring eye twitch that was brought on by stress and anxiety. I look forward to these weekly appointments in much the same way I’d look forward to massages, which I really need to schedule.  Among other things, these sessions have helped me with accepting others touching me as a relaxing and calming gesture rather than cause for panic.

In all, I’d say this time has helped me put many things into perspective, and I’m happy to be back and blogging again.

VAWA Is Back

I’m happy that VAWA has been reauthorized. Though I agree that it’s not the 100% protection for all affected people we need, it’s an important piece of legislation that should be considered a building block for other legislation to follow, much as it has been since the 90s. I consider this one  a victory in terms of the lawmakers’ behavior, though. (Not that it wasn’t horrendously difficult and nail-biting frustrating to get to this point.)

I’ve had a hard time writing lately because the media has bombarded me with sadness and things that rally me to action. Also, it’s simply difficult to respond to the worst case scenario from time to time. Rest assured, though, I still rally for the world to learn respect and to treat its inhabitants with that respect for their minds and bodies. I’ll be writing more soon, I hope.

Community Engagement for Healthy Relationships

I’ve very much been meaning to share more but it seems even without small children and extended obligation, the Thanksgiving to Christmas season eats up your time.

American society glances at November and December with a consumerist eye, constantly ready to suggest a new gadget or product or service that will enhance holiday time itself as well as life beyond. If you buy it, you’ll feel happier. You very well may, too, but the good and warm emotions fade away for most people over time.

I got to thinking about this in the vein of cycles. You buy to feel good. Then you feel bad so you buy. It is one huge, overbearing process. It has its ups and downs and it isn’t all bad. This, of course, became an extension of looking at unhealthy relationships. Cycles, processes, ups and downs.

Many advocates talk about abusive relationships in context of cycles. You may have heard of the tension building, the violent, and the honeymoon phases. These have their place in discussing intimate partner violence but they don’t necessarily cover the range of experiences that can be had in relationships, either. Not all unhealthy situations are abusive, either. It would be unfair to suggest that they are. Codependency, for instance, isn’t abusive but is nonetheless unhealthy. Regardless, these sorts of events often present in patterns and it becomes very difficult to break away.

Many people don’t realize they’ve ended up in unhealthy situations immediately precisely because their relationships have good sides as well as bad. Once the bad sides emerge, many people also think they don’t deserve better or that it’s expected that they will be treated poorly. The data on why people have these beliefs is very limited. Obviously it can be tied to many factors, ranging from education to poor self-esteem.

So how do we teach healthy relationship behaviors? With patience and loving reassurance. Sharing with younger generations is important. Involving teenagers in discussions about healthy dating before they go out with someone is vital. Talking to younger kids about the respect they and their bodies deserve is a must. It’s also necessary to engage in discussions with adults. This includes individuals and communities. Having the conversation about how people should be treated extends beyond the intimate partner relationship because our communities are affected when we lack understanding of how to healthfully engage.

Once upon a time I was with a man who treated me poorly. He made me feel dirty and worthless by telling me I was crazy and awful. He hit me and kept me ignorantly clinging on because he would also say nice things about my physical appearance and intelligence. I’ve always suspected he had suffered problems of his own before we met and thus thrust his anger and hurt at me. I believed I didn’t deserve anything better than what I got from him. In fact, with my next boyfriend I had a hard time adapting to his patience and kindness. The respectful behavior felt foreign. But eventually I learned that this was the kind of relationship and respect I not only deserved but wanted.

It takes a lot, sometimes, to overcome our collective missteps and encourage our communities to seek healthier alternatives but it can certainly be done with hope and patience, love and time. I always wish for this kind of peace at this time of year but I’m willing to work to make it happen, too.

Black Friday through a Black Window

And it officially turns into the holiday season.

Even in families with completely loving members who lack sordid histories, holidays can be stressful times. You might love someone but not want to be crammed into a crowded house with him/her for a 72 hour period while you are also away from your routine comforts. That’s just human nature. I love my sister dearly but would not want to take a cross-country road trip with her in a four door sedan. We’re better suited to a relationship where we hang out in each other’s homes, go shopping, eat meals, and then part ways. It’s not because our connection is broken but rather that we’re the type of people who value our alone time and personal space. I suspect that many people can relate to this when it comes to friends and family both.

If you tack on difficult family members and bad family situations, holidays become less concretely about love and respect and morph into minefields of negative gossip, rumor, and frustration. The cultural messages dictating that Thanksgiving and Christmas are times of peace and love, of family and togetherness do not help ease frustration or mixed emotion for those who have less than flowery experiences of time spent together. I’ve seen it many years in emergency shelters. Families feel sad or lost because they’re not at home or don’t answer the phone calls from former partners and partners’ families. They haven’t done anything wrong by leaving an abusive situation but it hurts when a five year-old asks “But why isn’t daddy here?” or a twelve year-old demands “Can’t I go back to Grandma’s house?” Family is a complex concept, and one worthy of far more scholarly attention than I can devote to it in this blog. Still, holidays arouse these kinds of emotions and experiences for so many, including myself.

For years I had internalized the idea that Christmas was magical. And by magical, I mean that it would always end up being a good day no matter what other horrors or bad things preceded it. Everything would be great. No fighting, no sickness, no dying, no sadness. I also firmly believed in my youthful naiveté that my magical understanding was global. Nobody could be sick or sad. No one would fight or die. Not a single soul anywhere in the world. This illusion broke apart for the first time when I learned about friends who had not been visited by Santa Claus (despite believing in him) and when I heard from classmates who had been spanked, grounded, or otherwise punished at Christmas time. I don’t know if I recognized the disconnect between my magical facade and my actual holiday experiences. Somehow I think I was too young. This revelation had far more power in my adolescence when I started to avoid family gatherings.

Besides, my family Christmas experiences were mixed. We’d have a great time on Christmas Eve. Everyone would be cozy while reading stories and finalizing ornament placement on the tree. Sometimes Christmas mornings were wonderful. Other times they were nothing but in-fighting with yelling and accusations. Sometimes they were slightly more violent. Extended family visits could take the same tracks but with a number of younger cousins running around and having none who were older or close to my age, I usually would find a quiet chair and read alone. Sometimes I’d write stories. Typically, though, being alone until dinner was my tactic for getting through most of those celebrations. As anyone dealing with large groups of children will tell you, there was a lot of turmoil. Fighting, arguing, playful violence, and loud voices were common. It’s certainly not abnormal but it stressed me out, made me feel frozen and miserable in many circumstances. Among the most difficult were the times when my younger cousin (younger but similarly sized) would attack me and I would be blamed and punished for his attacking me. Then we’d all have nice dinners and open packages and smile and take photographs and be happy. I suspect this is a fairly normal holiday experience with a large family gathering, though. I share it not because I think of this as the worst possible scenario for a holiday (far from it, actually) but rather to show that I’ve got a varied set of experiences when it comes to the holidays.

At a certain point, after my grandmother passed away close to Christmas (just a couple days before), and I began to realize that my family had not actually always been kind to me, I started to flee from celebration. I didn’t want to be reminded of going to a funeral two days before Christmas. I didn’t want to think about how her death caused all of the positive family traditions to be as much broken apart as the negative ones. I didn’t want to sit through dinners of civil conversation when I knew that I had been abused by the people with whom I passed dinner rolls. And this is where I think that complexity regarding family becomes very, very important. I love them. They love me. I’ve done less than awesome things, such as lying to them, or failing to help out as requested. Some of them verbally and physically abused me for years. But I’ve also done good things for them and they’ve shown love and kindness to me in ways that go beyond the bounds of mere obligation. Again, it’s very, very complicated. I would not suggest to someone else that they have to recognize the good their abusive family members did for them. (This being different from having them characterize an abuser as a person with flaws and virtues.) I simply wish to state that I recognize that about my own situation. It doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to handle going home at holiday time. In fact, I generally avoid it as much as possible. This brings about its own measure of guilt.

Because this is a time of the year that causes increased stress and grows the potential for difficult emotions, I’ve formulated a list (what a surprise, right?!) of tips that I’ve used to help myself get through hard spots. I don’t want to suggest that these are things you must or should do. These may not be things that work for everybody. This is merely what has worked for me and I want to share my experience.

1. Set boundaries. If it seems obvious, that may be because it is. Nonetheless, actually making the commitment to create and honor boundaries can be very difficult. Determining those boundaries in advance is important because it helps me to know when I’m getting close to a bad point. So if I tell myself, “I will go to Christmas dinner but I will not stay past 9 PM,” it sounds reasonable and workable but someone begging and pleading with you to stay later can easily derail such ideas if not firmly established. (Of course it can still be the case that things don’t work out as planned, and this should not be used as an excuse for self-punishing behaviors or thoughts, but it’s something to use as a learning experience.) I try to set boundaries on conversational topics. For instance, if someone starts telling me I’m failing because of my relationship status or career choice, I will end that conversation and walk away. That’s one of my most important boundaries, actually.
2. Have an escape plan. It seems a little sad to me that I have to create an excuse to get out of family holiday events but I think it also means I’m better able to relax into those situations, knowing I have a way to get out if I need to. A plan that allows me to save social face, and prevent angry disturbances is usually best. My typical way of handling this is to have someone on board to send me a message with unclear information so I have a reason to call them and get more details, at which point I can use them as a means to leave if needed. It is dishonest, certainly, but it is also a polite method of preserving the peace, and in many cases, I actually think that it’s okay to keep myself safe and well in those situations. I also handle this by making plans for a specific time so my visits at holiday time are limited. “I’ll need to be home by 9 PM, so I need to leave no later than 5 PM, etc.
3. Rely on self-soothing techniques. You might think I’m talking about getting all boozed up but I’m not. Especially at these types of events, I avoid alcohol like the plague. (Not that I’m much of an imbiber to begin with.) Instead I refer to those things that help me through other bad spots, like the ten second count, deep breathing, stepping away, and having internal dialog to respond to negative comments from others with reassuring positive ones. “You’re a terrible daughter” turns into “She’s upset and stressed out and you know this is not true.” It doesn’t really mean it hurts less. It merely means I have the strength to get through the situation.
4. Have alternative celebrations. If I consider family time to be largely an obligation rather than a celebration, I figure that I still need to have time and space to do actual festive celebrating. This means I set up plans with friends and people I’ve invited into my life as caring and compassionate individuals. I might have a party, or I might merely sit with them and watch bad Christmas specials. The point is that these other events bring me a kind of joy I may not be able to experience when I go home. I have actually tried to help clients recognize that they are entitled to joy and to know that they’re “allowed” to create it for themselves if they so desire.  Actually, there have been many times when I’ve been both happy and excited to engage in celebrations with clients who seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves. It makes us all feel better to find joy where we can.
5. Realize that I have another family. Much like I have learned to create alternative celebrations, I have tried to encourage myself to realize that my friends are every bit my family as well. And these are people whom I trust and love and who respect me and care for me in a way that my blood family may not. (This is not to say that my blood family doesn’t love me or care about me, but my friends care for me in a different way.) I try to remind myself of this fact because I do believe that my output of joy and intake of love are linked to own well-being and my own efforts, but that there are people out there who care for me. And even if there aren’t right now (though there are) that I can seek them out in my own time.

Of course, I still struggle greatly with celebrating holidays with family. These bits of advice help to mitigate my problems but they don’t cure me. I’m probably never going to feel completely at ease with going home at Christmas or Thanksgiving. (If I go at all.) I certainly hope that won’t be the case for the rest of my life and I work to try to make it less and less of a problem but right now, the reality is, it’s just a time when I suffer mixed, difficult feelings. I sympathize greatly with people who have hard times with the holidays (whatever the reason) and I wish them the best.

I am not a professional in this field. I merely offer my opinions and thoughts as they occur to me based on my own experiences. I am willing to listen to alternate viewpoints and discuss variant scenarios but I do reserve the right to remove comments and data I find to be offensive and against my primary purpose of helping survivors.

Feeling Blue

I’ve had a rough couple of days in my personal life.  Things are certainly on the mend but a few bad moments are still frustrating. Of course, this is (fortunately) a normal human experience. A bad week makes you feel bad. It’s a simple, logical circumstance. Entirely understandable. One of the reasons working through my own trauma has historically been so hard is that it’s not so simple as input and output. It’s more like baking a cake than stirring up a salad.

With the release of the movie, I reread The Perks of Being a Wallflower last week. I read it way back in 2002 and found myself at odds with parts of it. Sometimes I’d think Charlie was unbearably annoying (a la Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye) and other times the most sympathetic character I could imagine. I suspect this makes him fairly human then. On my first reading of that book I became very mopey. This time around I found it cathartic.  Possibly it was because I already knew the ending and possibly it was just that it happened to be a good week for that sort of thing.

My coping skills have gotten better. Namely it’s a lot easier to laugh and step back from things. Certainly not everything deserves a chuckle but many things do. I guess practice really does help. I’ve wanted to re-engage in my yoga practice (which has lapsed significantly) because posing and breathing helps me to maintain some physical control over myself. Between examining the subtext of novels and looking for positives, I guess I’m feeling less sick at the thought of getting through another week.

I know it’s obvious from reading what I write here but I like lists. I find them helpful (also probably indicative, at least a little, of my control freak tendencies). So here are things I want to explore as further means to getting healthy:

• Reiki: I’m interested but still really apprehensive about having someone else touch me in this way. However; it’s supposed to be a solid part of boydwork in trauma recovery. I think about getting regular massages for this reason.  The only massages I’ve ever been comfortable getting were on my feet and my upper back (while clothed). I’ve never felt okay with stripping down for a massage, and I don’t know how hard it would be for me to do it. I imagine fairly difficult, honestly. I want to work up toward doing this.
• Visit a new talk therapist. I haven’t tried this in a while. Other activities have actually made it much simpler for me to cope with my life so I haven’t re-explored talking to someone. Nonetheless I don’t think that therapy suggests you’re actively engaged in a problem. What I do think it means is that you’re trying to improve yourself. It’s hard to find a good trauma therapist. That isn’t that there aren’t plenty of qualified people out there, but rather that it’s hard to match myself to someone else in this context.
• Re-engaging in a meditation practice. I’ve done it but I’ve not done a good job of maintaining it as a practice. I haven’t achieved a very good sense of mindfulness but I find myself happier when I get close to holding to my mind in this state. I really need to monitor what I do for meditation practice.

Anyway, that’s just sort of where I am this week.

Touchy Issues

The rest of my life will involve thinking about touch. This suspicion isn’t a purely pessimistic outlook; I’m hurt by my past and even with serious progress in healing I can’t blot out things that have happened.

Recently I lamented the fact that I always think before hugging someone. There is no automatic physical response, no reaching out for a back pat or embrace, and certainly no easy path to cuddling with another human being. I always, always, always experience a process before I’m able to put my hands out and touch somebody. Do I have their consent? Am I okay with it? What will be the ramifications? How long should the touching last? What kind of touching should I do? Should it be a hug, a pat, a stroke? It sounds complicated and perhaps it is overly convoluted but in my head it lasts about 10-30 seconds most of the time. (There are periods when this number goes up but it never really gets any smaller.) I wasn’t always like this, either, and I think that’s what makes me feel sad. At the very least I’m wistful for a time when I could hug a friend in a moment of crisis without debating it first.

Naturally my problems with touching are trauma-induced. I understand that. What I don’t always understand is why I can’t just rewind to a self that existed prior to the trauma. Logically I know I shouldn’t push myself. My therapy is to work through the difficulties in safety and not to punish myself for being unable to get to a point that is arbitrarily defined.

Last year I read Wendy Maltz’s Sexual Healing Journey. If you’re looking for a guide to dealing with touching and physical intimacy in relationships, it’s a very helpful book. Unfortunately, there seems to be a paucity of material out there for those of us who are concerned with a more general repair of our ability to be physical creatures. I’ll jump if someone touches me on the shoulder, which isn’t abnormal, but if someone reaches out to hug me, I can feel my pulse through my skull. My hands ball up. My stomach turns. I start to feel completely ill and trapped. I have to have a lot of warning to be okay with touching and even with trusted friends I sometimes have difficulty with their hugging me.

My PTSD symptoms have lessened in this arena in the last two years but I still need to keep going through it. So my current work involves the following:

• Trusting my own good judgment. Sometimes I don’t want to hug or to be hugged. And it’s okay that this is the case. I’m allowed to say that I don’t want a hug right now.
• “Practicing” hugging in safe spaces with friends who consent to it and who respect my own boundaries.
• Writing down/journaling about any severe reactions that are negative and trying to pinpoint what the issue is. Also noting any times when I find myself feeling particularly good afterward.

Shame.

I’m not inherently good at expressing my feelings. Many people aren’t. (I always seem to take solace in the fact that learning to share emotionally is a journey that many, many of my fellow humans realize they have to experience.) As I’ve learned to deal better with the side effects of trauma I’ve also learned that an expression of feeling isn’t necessarily a prolonged conversation about my immediate emotional state. Very simply this means “I’m angry” suffices as a form of sharing, as does “I’m feeling good about this.” But why was this so hard?

Abuse robbed me of my voice. My personality is not one of the more expressive types so I didn’t immediately recognize how much further abuse had diminished my ability to speak. Despite having more than twenty years of stories to tell it was only very, very recently that I was even able to utter aloud “I was abused.” Something about the shame and horror of what you experience during abuse left me speechless.

Shame is the second punch, I think. Someone else hurts you. You can’t even talk about it. It’s so incredibly, unbelievably unfair that it happens that way. Yet, it does. If you haven’t been abused it can be so difficult to understand why someone else wouldn’t just say something. I have a friend who told me within minutes of meeting me that his father was an alcoholic. His father, however, had never abused him or harmed him, and he had no problem sharing this information. I always found it fascinating that one could be so open about a detail like that. (Consequently it took me five years of knowing this friend to tell him I had an alcoholic parent. He always wondered why it was so hard for me to just say “I have an alcoholic father, also.”) Why shame exists with abuse is probably a question best left to those who study neuroscience and social science but I know for me, it did (and still does) hold my tongue hostage.

In preschool I was spanked wickedly and routinely, really for doing nothing other than crying (or really, in my case, murmuring) and not wanting to be left at school. Eventually this became a cycle based on fearfully trying to avoid pain leading to the application of fear and pain. It’s not my earliest memory of being hurt but certainly is a part of my history. I was sad at school a lot. I remember also wanting so desperately to please the adults around me. I didn’t connect with the kids there because I was busy trying to get the teachers to like me. I wanted to show them that I could add, use the alphabet, sing, dance, do whatever it was that would make them think I was important. These are the same adults who would strike me. I’ve always felt just a tad bit sick at the fact that I went out of my way to cozy up to people who hurt me and who perpetuated my hurt. It was not, however, my fault.

Sadly, my desire to convince adults I was worthwhile is part of what kept me quiet. They would hurt me but I’d still want them to love me. The shame of being rejected (as I saw it) was extra painful.

It’s also hard because looking back on these things is most definitely difficult. It’s emotionally trying and exhausting. Having the thoughts in my brain is something that has always been a problem because they were lingering just under the surface, like a face pressed up against glass, just waiting for someone to shatter the other side and expose it to the shards and air. I didn’t have distance from the thoughts of past abuse by not sharing them. I only had quiet. I was still ashamed and hurt. (I’m still ashamed and while I have been hurt by my experiences I find myself less hurt on a day-to-day basis.)

Years of other abuses only compounded these feelings. When I experienced relationship violence in college it seemed at first to be the last straw for my voice. I didn’t tell ANYBODY what happened. I blamed myself for being too friendly, too interested in trying to keep up a friendship, for all of those things that weren’t excuses for someone else punching me or calling me names or writing me angry letters based only on my saying hello. Those things that weren’t reasons for someone to get to touch me and leave me feeling dirty and sick because I had lost my ability to object. (Note here that I’m not saying this particular act was someone else ignoring me saying no. It was me consenting because I didn’t know how to object. It’s not abuse but rather a symptom of my earlier abuse making me feel that it was what I was supposed to do.)

I’m glad I learned to talk in even the smallest of ways because my shame still lurks within me. I don’t know if I expect it to ever go away completely but the normalizing activity of being able to say “this happened to me and it’s not my fault” has done wonders in the last couple of years. I also wish there was a handy guide to making this a quicker, more direct process, but there isn’t. I struggle with it routinely. (I’ve also sought out that manual frequently.) Some day I hope I can just speak openly and honestly and without that ongoing feeling of being ashamed.

Waitress: Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships

I do wish I had a pie chart. (I’m not without a sense of humor. See?)

My sister recommended that I watch Waitress. She lent me the DVD and told me Kerri Russell and Nathan Fillion were both fantastic in it and that she loved the movie. These things all being true (Kerri Russell and Nathan Fillion are both fantastic in it and obviously my sister loves it) I had an insanely difficult time watching it. Jenna and Earl’s relationship (Earl not being portrayed by Nathan Fillion but rather by Jeremy Sisto) is a fairly realistic portrayal of intimate partner violence. He’s demanding but apologetic, he’s violent but recedes. He tells her he loves her but threatens her and manipulates her. He takes advantage and she makes plans to run away.

Realistic portrayals of abuse in media are important because too often films and television shows insist on showing us bruises and marks to demonstrate violence. While there is some of that in Waitress the ultimate purpose of it is to show one more layer in an abusive scenario. The language, the manipulation, the forced isolation and limiting of social behavior are all pieces of the abuse as well. These are things that don’t get talked about as frequently as the elements of physical violence. I’ve always imagined this is because it’s easier to see damage done to the body. I’m not going to philosophize too much on it.

There was a man in college whom I never dated but who was ostensibly my friend. He spent weeks (months, even) manipulating me through emotional violence. Realizing that this is only one piece of the story that led to my black window, you may possibly wonder why this is one of the things I’m sharing. It has to do with the fact that emotional violence and manipulation are frequently dismissed or ignored as being “something everybody goes through” or “not real abuse.” They are abusive behaviors, though. This particular person made me feel so bad about myself through his language and attempts to isolate and take advantage of me. I’m not going to share more details at this time but suffice it to say he treated me unfairly. I imagine putting that set of behavior into a pure dating context and having someone ignore my struggle. It’s terrifying to consider how frequently this happens to people every day.

Healthy relationships are ones that nurture both partners and are based on equality. Love is Respect has a great starter kit on what a healthy relationship looks like. They also offer information on potential red flag warning signs of abusive behavior. Among those things are “Isolating you from family or friends” and “Telling you what to do” which are high scorers in the manipulation category and not inline with healthy relationship behavior. I emphasize the need for healthy relationships and healthy relationship education because it is often overlooked. It’s promising to focus on the prevention. It’s also good to know that we can work towards healthy relationships even in the midst of violence.

The Discussion of “Everyday Sexual Assault”

I live in an aggressively “touchy-feely” culture. It iinvades my personal space and comfort zone by its incessant insistence on hugging and patting and tapping. Strangers think it’s okay to touch my arm or clasp their hands to my back. Colleagues in the office are convinced they’re in the right when they randomly hug me or throw their arms over my shoulders. Even friends sometimes forget and go too far, hugging for too long. I don’t like it. By nature I’m not terribly physically affectionate. With trauma tacked on I’m especially reluctant to get close to others.

Because many (if not most) human beings are somewhat physical creatures it can be hard to accept that we have to keep our hands off others. I recognize that and usually make pretty solid allowances for others who touch me. On the first go-around I try to kindly accept a hug or pat on the back. Then I like to quickly establish boundaries, such as “Please don’t touch me,” or “Please ask before you touch me.” It’s my concession to a world that likes physical touch, even though I often believe on a personal (and professional) level that others should have to ask me for permission rather than wait for my denial of their access. Hands off, okay? Nonetheless I do what I can to hold myself in control when touched unawares. (File under: practice at dealing with reactions.)

Touching is so confusingly accepted as a natural norm in society. Or it falls under the jurisdiction of “I’m okay with it so you should be also.” (A highly unfair proposition.) I stumbled upon a discussion of “everyday sexual assault” and though the conversation originates in a country that is not my own I think there is a universal quality of understanding in the kinds of things being reported back. The people talking talk about an ongoing, routine violation of their bodily space that they would never previously have referred to as anything beyond “annoyance” or “upsetting.” The classification of “everyday sexual assault” in and of itself brings to light new terminology that seems to have aided many of those in discussion.

Note that the conversation still centers around this being the domain of women, though. We talk about advancement and equality and liberating ourselves from unwanted touch and still we frame the issue as being a woman’s problem, brought on by men. What about women who are touched by other women? (This happens to me routinely, actually. Women think because it’s “just us girls” they’re allowed to place hands or hug or nuzzle or run their hands up and down the fabric of my clothing.) What about men who are hurt by women? (Women grab asses, they pinch and tweak and grope as well.) Or men who are touched by men when they don’t want to be touched? (To put this in cultural normative terms, we could talk about back slaps or hand shakes but there is absolutely nothing to make this conversation end there.) I know I harp on it a lot but unwanted touch is unwanted touch. Gender and sexual orientation don’t matter if someone touches you when you don’t want to be touched. The issue is a social one.

Many people have a hard time referring to an ass grab as a sexual assault. I think I understand why. It’s the same mentality that tells you that a hug that feels wrong somehow is something to just be ignored. The truth is, though, you shouldn’t ignore acts which invade your personal space against your will. While we might not generally put a  rape on the same plane as a repeated caress of the back or arm, those two acts are nonetheless examples of bodies and boundaries being disrespected and people being hurt. I want to see more inclusive language as a result but I think the push to show that “small” acts of assaultive behavior are wrong is a good one.

As for me, I suffer from PTSD symptoms (as is discussed in this blog) so being touched from behind when not expecting it can be enough to make me jump up on the defensive, ready to run and take cover. I know that I don’t like to feel (as I term it) pressed in by certain kinds of touching and the act of someone laying hands on my shoulders can make me shake in an otherwise safe setting. I think about those feelings and think about other unwanted touch, such as people insisting on hugs or sliding hands over my chest in public places. That horrible feeling of uncontrollable shaking (born of trauma) is something I don’t want anyone else to experience. So hands off.