You are here: Home / Archives for victim

The Journey

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We all have our journeys in our lives. We all have our tales to tell and our high and low points; we all have our ‘private’ selves and our secrets, and we all have our lives to live regardless of the past. In all of this we often lose track of where we came from and how life became the way that it is. In the thrum of our adult lives we usually give little regard to the lessons of the past that have led us to who and where we are, because we believe we don’t need to. We have learned behaviors that help us cope with the monstrosity that life can be, but we also have learned behaviors that can dog us and cause us issues in our lives. We view the past as exactly that – the past. What if that journey wasn’t what you expected it to be, but that you had simply ‘forgotten’ the past? What if your childhood was hidden from plain sight? What if it started to come back, and in that moment your reality started to fall apart? The lessons learned in the formative years fall into question then, and life seems to take on a slant in the wrong direction. That realization, in itself, is enough to create imbalance, and that is where my journey begins.

I have journeyed hard and long into my past this last five years. I have journeyed back to the past to the things that my mind had hidden from me; to the events that had formed who I was; to the habits and coping mechanisms that had massive negative effects on me, but kept me alive none-the-less; to the memories of events that shouldn’t have happened and a new awareness of who I am not. Now it’s time to introduce you to that journey in the hope that it helps you on your journey, whatever that may be, and in the knowledge that it will help me. I started this journey alone. I am no longer alone. I am no longer weak. I was not responsible; I was not to blame; it was not my fault.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How it began

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I wrote a four page letter to someone I respect highly. In that four page letter I managed to encapsulate the essence of my journey to such a degree that the next chapter, ‘Path of Discovery’, is based on that letter. I thought it the perfect, poignant way to frame this journey; a rightful beginning to put a face to a monster that haunted my life for so many years yet lay hidden in the darkest corners of my mind. The words are very real, true to the point and true to the memory; a written graphic reminder of what was real – emphasis on ‘was’.

It’s hard to paint a picture when you have no canvas. Without the basic tools, no matter how talented you are, you cannot complete the picture. It will remain in your minds eye, unable to be expressed yet still ever present in your day to day life. In my view, without the nurturing of loving parents it is nigh on impossible to build and grow into a functional adult. The tools to build a young life towards adulthood are supplied mainly by those closest to you over those formative years – more to the point – your parents hold the key. Without them it becomes a guessing game; trial and error. Mistakes in this guessing game could destroy a life, literally and metaphorically. Hence the canvas mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph is foundation for building your life. What are your views if they are formed on lies?

The learning process for me, getting from then to now, has been incredible, hence calling it a journey. The transition from what I was to what I am is incredible also, almost like day and night, and it continues to morph and grow daily, yet I have a profound feeling that I am the same core person – I can’t tell you how comforting that one thought is. In dealing with the nightmare of my past I have opened new doors to a richer, happier life. I understand the strength necessary to take this journey, it is not easy, and I maintain that all survivors do have that strength they just don’t know how to access it yet. I also understand, with sadness, that there are those that don’t have the will to survive. There are those that either want to die to end the pain, or want to endure the pity of others and live a sad, lonely life. I don’t pity them, I hurt for them and, in my own way, understand them and wish I could give them the strength to make that change. That is not mine to give. Human nature can be cruel at times.

There is something in the core of everyone that yearns to survive and be happy. I believe that there can sometimes be something at the core of us that yearns to be a victim. Maybe that yearning is our subconscious mind playing out coping mechanisms. Maybe that yearning is familiarity, better the devil we know so to speak. Maybe that yearning is a misplaced and misunderstood emotion or response that grips us like a vice. Maybe I have missed the point entirely, who knows. It’s not my place to do anything other than express my own feeling right here, right now.

Who knows how anyone else perceives the world around them. Who knows whether the color that I know as red looks the same as the color you know as red. Who’s to say that my perception of how a life should be is anything other than just that, my perception. In the grand scheme of things, in the myriad dimensions of thought, life and of the universe there is so much that we don’t know, that we don’t comprehend that it almost seems impossible to comprehend the scale of what our minds can achieve – we don’t know – we really don’t know. The scale of that thought is part of what kept me alive during my childhood. The chapter called ‘The Box’ goes some way to explain the scale of my thought.

Reading through the chapter ‘Reflection on What Was’ will give you an idea of where I was when I started this process of healing. It’s brutally honest and to the point and can be somewhat disturbing, even though I still feel I couldn’t adequately describe the gravity of how I felt and what I was going through. Beyond that point in time is the journey in more detail, from a different standpoints and perspectives and, some would say, from a different person. I remain the same core person; my perspective has changed – my life has changed, almost polar opposites. I learned to love, and be loved, and that is one of the greatest gifts that there is. There is hope – no matter how deep the crap is, no matter how thick the fog is we can beat this. Don’t be alone in your pain – do what I did and become a winner.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

It’s all about me

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The content of this blog is entirely my view. This is entirely my perception. These are my words, my thoughts and my experiences. I don’t claim to be right. I don’t claim to be anything other than one man sharing his experiences, ideas and thoughts with those that might listen; no more and no less. To think any different is to misinterpret my intention. To misinterpret my intention is to misinterpret me, and that doesn’t belong with me anymore.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , ,

Path of Discovery

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

(a letter to a friend)

I would like to share with you my path towards healing and hopefully give you an insight to the spirit of ‘me’ that has aided my journey. It’s not an easy thing to write and it will not be an easy thing for you to read. In understanding my words I hope that you will better understand the real me, my journey, and why the journey means so much to me. The journey is just as important as the goal; the journey is the struggle towards a normal life; the journey is a Path of Discovery.

It’s hard to know where to begin. There is so much information, so much life that I have lived, or not as the case may be. There is a paragraph by Charles Swindoll called Attitude, and a text called Mastery by Stewart Emery that are both so very powerful and pertinent messages and have such deep meaning for me, more so if you have been where I have been and seen what I have seen. In my journey towards becoming whole again I have often pondered the meaning of both texts. Now that I am on the other side of the curve I better understand them. It is easy to read the words and know the meaning. It is not so easy to truly understand and feel the meaning, let alone live by it. Any journey such as mine reminds you of that fact.

In the forty something years leading me to ‘here’ and ‘now’, I have been so many people and seen so many places (yes, I meant to say it that way), and I have been in awe of life itself so many times, but never as much or as such as I am right now, right here in this moment that I am sharing with you. It is time to let loose the past and in doing so, embrace the future. It’s an incredible journey to say the least, and it has left its mark.

In late 2004 I began a journey of discovery. My blanketed past had so many jaded edges that I could not understand, memories that didn’t belong let alone make sense, and flashbacks to events I didn’t even know occurred. I knew that my childhood was hard and I knew that it was not a loving time for me, but I had no real concept of what really went on, just many fast and loud memories that would haunt me in my sleep and shadow my life. Not knowing what they were, they remained in the darkened corners of my mind where they ate at my spirit every hour of every day. To understand them I had to wake up to something I had been denying. To wake up I had to acknowledge my past. To acknowledge my past I had to remember, and I did not want to remember.

As I grew weaker through illness more memories came to the surface. These were disturbing images and emotions that I couldn’t quite grasp. The more I remembered, the harder I pushed my body when training, and the sicker I got. Five hours of surgery served to remind me how frail the human body really is. I was also diagnosed with narcolepsy during this time and the only saving grace of that was the ability to sleep within three minutes of lying down. At least that would mask the trail of memories and cosset me from the sharp edges of my past by giving me some rest.

It was a time of reflection, a time of discovery indeed, but in that discovery laid the reasons for my life mistakes; answers to questions I longed to ask and understand, and memories of events that no one should ever see. This was the truth of where I came from. It was killing me, literally and metaphorically.

I knew the past held something I did not want to remember. I knew that something was hiding in my subconscious and had to come out. I consciously chose to face the past head on. I chose to pull the memories to the front of my mind where I could deal with them. I knew that it would be a trying time and I knew that it would hurt me but I also knew that my survival was dependant on truth, honesty and integrity. I could only give myself truth if I was true to myself and faced the ghosts of my past; faced the true reality that was buried in my past. My very limited memory of childhood afforded me no real clues. That, in itself was a clue.

I couldn’t look in the mirror and say ‘I know you, I understand you and I love you’ to myself. I was living in a world that I had subconsciously created to cushion myself from my reality. As I grew up I had no concept of what was supposed to be real so I did something to help myself. I watched those around me and copied the parts of them that I liked. I modeled successful people. I built my life around what I saw around me and I adapted, added, took away and altered what I saw to adapt myself to my current surroundings. I joined the military at age sixteen and served twelve years for Queen and country. I buried myself in my duty to defend my country. I had purpose and was growing and learning, always knowing that my superiors controlled my life. That was the key, not controlling my own life. Was that a subconscious decision I wonder? I built the person I wanted to be from what I saw and experienced but I knew, still, that I wasn’t whole.

For the longest time the coping mechanism I had forged worked in my favor. For the longest time I thought I was happy and perhaps, in a way, I was; but in reality I was hiding from the one thing that should have been important, and that was the real ‘me’. I could feel the past tugging at me at every corner and the weakness was gnawing away at my mind, my body and my spirit. The only way forward was to go back but it had to be the right time, the right place and with the right people.

I told my closest friends of my decision and of my reasoning. I asked them if they understood because I have tried to face this in the past but I could not do this alone. In the past those around me chose to ignore and rebuff me through their own ignorance, their own fear and their own sense of disgust which was aimed at me even though they knew it wasn’t my fault. Therein lies a truth, it wasn’t my fault. Their fear of my past was aimed at me. In reality I should have known that my true friends would stand by me. They are still standing by me through all the memories that I have had to face since deciding to confront this. This being the faceless monster that has tried to kill me, tried to deface me and had taken away my capacity to love and be loved, and had denied me my self esteem. My spirit was dying and it had to stop.

Through countless sessions with a counselor I furrowed into the memories. Each time I saw a little more and my heart died a little. I knew it would get worse before it got better but I wasn’t ready for the sheer gravity of events and emotions that would follow. Each time I remembered I withdraw from my reality in anger, shock and disgust. Each morsel offered me an insight into why I was the way I was and why I reacted the way I did, and then that same reality stabbed me in the back when I wasn’t looking and tried to steal another part of me away. Each memory was an answer to a question on human nature and a lesson in my capacity to evolve, and each memory gnawed at my reasons for living. Through all this my body weakened and my demeanor became stooped and low. My friends still loved me and tried to help, but I withdrew from that reality and lived a daily existence. All this time no-one really knew the depth of my pain, no-one knew the truth, but those close to me tried to support me. I trained harder still to focus myself somewhere constructive. I knew if I could master my situation I could evolve, learn and move on. I knew that to challenge the past I had to master the present. That would afford me the strength to carry on. I just didn’t know how.

Early 2005 I chose to tell my story to some close friends. I chose to not hide the details from them and I chose to ask for their help in my journey. I asked them all to not share any information, knowing that if this leaked out it would do irreparable damage to my foundation, to my being, to my soul, the very part of me that I was trying to regain; or that was how I perceived it. I risked losing them in my insular knowledge of how others had rejected me from not understanding my past, but I knew it had to be done. None of them flinched or judged me. They are still my pillars of support, my true family and they have stood by me through thick and thin. Through all that has happened I have felt a bond that will never be broken.

Now I choose to open my heart to you and let you see the real me. I choose to share with you the reality of my life, past and present. This I do with my head held high. This I do not only for you, but for me. There is no shame, it wasn’t my fault.

Here I am: my father was a leader in the community and someone that demanded and got respect. My mother was a psychologist in a hostel for wayward teenage children. My father sexually abused me for ten long, empty years, my earliest memory being at age three and last at age thirteen. That was when I finally fought back. Once, he threw me in the deep end of a swimming pool at age five and walked away … I couldn’t swim. The look on his face as he walked away burned into my memory and became my nightmare. He knew what he had done. Had a kind soul not pushed me to the side I believe I would have drowned. He knew that, I saw it in his eyes. If I made any noise during his sexual advances I was beaten for betraying him. My mother would attack me in a drunken rage, sometimes for what appeared to be no apparent reason but, as I found out later in life, she attacked me because she knew what he was doing and somehow blamed me for it. There was too much in this for it to be real I was told, and that is what I told myself. I had a vague perception that I must have been very naughty to be punished this way, and that God must not have loved me to let this happen.

The general perception around me was that there was no way that these wonderful parents would ever be capable of such atrocities. I was called a liar by my family and rebuked by anyone and everyone that I tried to tell. I didn’t live, I didn’t even exist, I just ‘was’. I didn’t cry nor love. I didn’t speak much at all. I was painfully shy, very, very sad and very scared. I had a dream world that I had created to focus myself on. No one else mattered there. I had the place [in my mind] that I went when my father wanted to use me and I went there often to hide. To cope I had to master leaving my body behind. I had to take my mind to a place where it didn’t connect to the real world, that way I felt no physical pain. That way I was safe from him. He could defile my body but he would never get my mind. I created my reality as I went along and believe I survived because of it. I would wonder in awe at the size of the universe and immerse myself in the dream world of science. I saw myself from a distance. My body was on the bed but my mind was in a box, floating in space, free from him and free from pain. I still using similar coping mechanisms today, but only to release myself from stress.

My father had made me feel like it was my fault and that I deserved what he did to me. He had told me that he would love me if I let him have his way so I let him, time and time again, because all I wanted was for him to love me. There were days when I begged God to take me away and make me whole because surely he wouldn’t want me to stay there and suffer. If he took me to heaven someone would love me and I wouldn’t have to hurt anymore. I didn’t realize the impact of my thoughts. I couldn’t fathom the gravity of where I was. I was too young.

The memories surfaced one by one over an eighteen month period. More and more information came forward and from that, more and more pain and anguish in my heart for that little boy. I hated myself for what had happened even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. I felt used and dirty, even in the memory. There have been times when I wished that I could go to sleep and not wake up because in that sleep there would be calm; the noise, the pain and the memories would stop and I would be at peace. It would be an eternal peace. No, it wasn’t suicide or a cry for help. It was a wanton desire to be at peace, misguided by too many memories that occurred too often, and was offset knowing that the world around me, as I saw it, was based on someone I didn’t really know [me]; and that the world around me watched as I suffered at the hands of my parents and did nothing. Not one person stepped forward to rescue that little boy. He was utterly alone and that thought hurt me so much.

I fought through memories that no one should ever see, in so much graphic detail that I almost felt it again but this time the person being defiled was the adult ‘me’. With the help of my friends, and a therapist that refused to let me give up, I faced the past, I lived it again. Every Thursday morning I would enter a room with a therapist and I would fight for my life. I would force myself to recount the horror and then rebuild myself after it. My therapist would walk me through the things I saw and felt and then gently bring me back into the real world. She would never let me face them alone. She never once judged me.

The honest truth is that I nearly didn’t make it. The gravity of the past was so heavy that I wanted to give up. I couldn’t deal with the emotional turmoil that I felt and I couldn’t hide from any of it. I was at an impasse that had no escape and despite the support I had I could see no end to it. The fibers of my life were being torn apart. Someone literally turned the light at the end of the tunnel off. Suddenly that metaphor meant much more than it ever had. My body was failing and my mind was full of self pity. I had cursed myself by trying to face something that was bigger than me, or so I thought.

Through all this turmoil I had to maintain my career, and kept training and teaching martial arts. My sanity was teaching. My mood would break the minute I entered the floor and I was free, confident, happy, and I felt wanted, even respected. I managed my career as a separate entity to the person suffering the past. That way I could detach and maintain, but it was getting very difficult to stop the memories from intruding to both work and training.
I had to rebuild myself in spite of the memories. Everything that I felt was so raw that I suddenly realized that those were the real emotions, and that I had lied to myself about how I felt up until that point. I was new, like a child in an adult’s body. I was a child with an inner adult. I was starting the growing up process again because all that I was up until that point was built around a lie, and was built by a child to protect himself from the pain that was his life. It was finally time to grow up.

My spirit was tested to the end of its limits through all of the memories. I had an inner strength that I didn’t know existed, stronger than I thought possible that grew stronger every day. My friends have stood by me while I fought. My life has begun again. I am learning to love and be loved and I grow each and every day, and evolve each and every moment that I live. I always knew life was special, I just never thought I would experience it. Even as a child I could see it, I could smell it and touch it and taste it, but I knew that I could not have it. Life makes no sense when you don’t have the tools to work through it, tools that are taught with love and nurturing as a child grows up and touches the reality of life.

I have grown beyond the past now. I see it for what it was. I accept it as a part of me and I am stronger in spite of it. Within me the fire burns brighter and stronger than I have ever felt. I forgave myself for the sins of the past, and in doing so released all those years of burden from my shoulders. I have won that battle. I still cannot forgive him. I’m not sure I ever will. I have been told that to forgive is to finally let go – maybe I am just not ready for that finality yet.

In the vain of mastering the present, I give you these words and in giving you these words I bear my soul to you. It is with great respect that I offer you my journey towards personal mastery. I am who I am in spite of my past, not because of it. I learned that the hard way, but learned it none the less. My journey is just beginning and my life is anew. My health returns slowly and my strength builds as my mind matures beyond the past. I am ready; I am willing; I am free.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A little about me

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

It’s all about me. In this post it is ‘I’.

I am not old. I am 45 years old at the time of writing, an executive in a fast paced, multi-faceted, high tech company. My career is trying, extremely stressful but is successful and I have a great salary, a beautiful house and a fast car – ironic isn’t it? More importantly now, I have a caring, loving and committed partner who accepts me for all that I am, and all that I am not. That, in itself, is priceless. That makes it all worthwhile. I know I can love, and I know I can be loved. That is huge!

I write music. I use music as a lever to express what I am feeling. I can lose myself in the music and music can affect me; my emotions; my being. I am self taught; I am passionate in it; it is a reflection of me –plus it’s fun of course.

I am a black belt. The discipline of martial arts helps me to control aggression and release it if need be, not necessarily using violence or force. Teaching martial arts allows me to express myself in a forum of control, and I teach with passion.

I’m a geek! I love computers and tech toys. I am the ultimate child when it comes to technology, never growing up, never wanting to grow up. With computers I can write music, I can design graphics, web sites and can express myself in so many ways. It is a form of freedom that is in my control and I can lose myself in it.

I’m narcoleptic. I was diagnosed only a couple of years ago. Narcolepsy is a condition and not a disease. I wonder sometimes if the narcolepsy developed as a mechanism to protect me from the horrors of my past, but there are no facts to support that. During the process of healing, learning and change it served me well. It takes an average of three minutes for me to fall asleep and I tend to stay asleep. There are other symptoms, some of which can be very trying, but so is life.

I’m hyper-vigilant. Day to day my brain is active all the time. I am constantly thinking, analyzing and multi tasking; running scenarios and occasionally daydreaming. It is hard for me to relax; it is hard for me to switch off but I am learning. It has been said that I hear and see more than most. I see it that I am more aware of my surroundings and it served to keep me alive after I left home. Perhaps that is also a part of creativity, who knows.

The journey. My view is that the journey never ends. Once beyond the hold of the past it becomes a process of learning and growing. It can still be painful; emotions seem new and raw, but it is exciting to be so alive without the encumbrances of the past weighing you down and trying to draw you in. The past will still be there and it will still affect me, but now I know what it is and I am well prepared to deal with it.

There’s a child in me. I still believe I look through the eyes of a child. Sometimes my partner tells me that I have a childish quality, good or bad, in an action or reaction. He sees it as an endearing quality, being able to embrace the child that we all hold inside. I believe that we are in too much of a rush to grow up and be ‘adult’, and that the child in us has to have a voice. Denying all parts of who we are can stop us reaching our full potential in life I think.

This is me – so much more than I was!

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Leaving a Therapy Session

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

At the end of every therapy session I  felt disconnected, confused and vulnerable. It felt almost like I had to rebuild my inner self, and my outward persona  so that I could patch the holes that were leaking the real me into the real world, and go back to the daily gind in some semblance of order. That process started in the therapy room and extended to the reception area. It was  always daunting, stepping from memories to the real world, not sure if it would spill, not sure if I had enough control to keep it all inside. I would chat with the receptionist just to take my mind off where I had just been – long enough to get to a level of comfort.

The conversations with the receptionist became a routine, a reality check to see if I was ready to face the world. It began a routine of helping to let go of the session, sanitizing if you like, rebuilding the wall that stopped me losing control where it wasn’t welcome. I knew that from leaving the therapy room to getting to the reception area I had to regain enough composure to look somewhat normal at least, that was a good start. So much of me was out in the open when the sessions finished that I felt literally raw and disoriented. It took so much effort to put myself back together at the end of the session alone, let alone trying to get back into the daily routine.  I had to make sure I was ‘safe’ to leave the building. Much as this sounds dramatic, it was how it felt. The reality of it might not have had to be so intense, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Leaving the therapy center without rebuilding the walls around me that protected me would have been dangerous, or so I thought, and I knew I could not afford to lose any footing at any stage of the game. Though deeply hurt, disturbed and troubled, and very confused, something burned inside me to keep me alive and I consciously and subconsciously took every available step to keep myself sane and safe. One of those steps was decompressing through a process from leaving the therapy room, to getting back to work.

The realism of moving from the therapy room to the front office was innocuous enough, after all it was just a walk up the corridor. I could never predict from session to session what I would take out of the therapy room with me. I would struggle with myself to get my mind in shape. I would literally think about raising barriers to attain the frame of mind that I needed to stay safe, all the time thinking that the receptionist shouldn’t have to see what a mess I really was. I couldn’t face her, or the world, with my barriers down.

The receptionist and I had some serious conversations; reflections on ‘us’ and our thinking; reflections on the world around us; reflections on human nature and more, and we interacted on a level where I believe both of us were learning. It was nothing untoward, nothing out of the ordinary, but so insightful; we would chat about actions, reactions and even coping mechanisms. Her train of thought would actually lead me to conclusions about my own life, and my conclusions would help her rationalize her world. In hearing and thinking through some of the subjects we chatted about my mind was receptive to both her need and mine. I would rationalize situations we were both in and actually make some sense of them, albeit in the third party. Perhaps it was a sort of debrief for me, a way to get my head back into normal mode. I came to enjoy the time I spent chatting with her. She would always have a smile and good conversation, and it became routine.

There were days when she wasn’t there.  Getting back to everyday life was then too quick and I would have to think hard before leaving. I knew that I needed to get past the reliance on that conversation – it was a methodology therefore I should be able to recreate the effecct in my mind. In reality, when all was said and done, I had to face that process alone anyway. The few times that the receptionist wasn’t around, there were lessons in how to cope with the transition from therapy to real life. Each time, with or without her, it became easier to adjust, easier to cope and control the transition. It became another part of the learning experience that I chose to turn into a lesson.

Why did I harp on about that here? It’s showing a method, a way of thinking, of building coping mechanisms and trying to make sense of the real world. It was part of the process and it had enough impact behind it to deserve a mention. It’s all a part of ‘how it was done’, for me – and it was a great sanity check for my emotional state before stepping for the quite of a therapy center to the life that awaited outside.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , ,

Understanding Emotions

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

To be honest, I am not sure  I know what emotions are. I don’t understand them. I don’t suppose I ever will. It scares me to think that we have so little knowledge of how they work, how they create the deepest of sensations within us and what they are really capable of. To think that emotions can drive us to kill ourselves, or even worse – kill others, scares me incredibly, especially considering I have so little understanding of mine. I don’t see my emotions as a part of me, I see them as something that lives within me, that which I have no control over, a separate entity per say. It’s very scary to think that I have made emotions an entity within me, separate from what I consider to be my core, because I know I have empowered them somehow but I don’t know why and, as I continue on this journey I know that I have less control over them. Understanding them means I have to connect with them and that is like salt on an open wound. Each time I connect to the past I connect to emotions and that lessens the blow. It’s not easy but it is visible progress, and it’s a welcome sign that my life is moving forward. I’m learning that understanding them isn’t as important as understanding where they came from. What part of the past has triggered that reaction and how do I get around it? It’s a learning process that I need to get on board with.

As I grew through my twenties and thirties I had vague notions of emotions. I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. I would feel some moods but if I didn’t want to feel an emotion I would switch it off. It literally was that simple for me. Conversely if I wanted to feel an emotion I would find a trigger point, a picture in my head, and create that emotion. I know that sounds strange but it’s the only way I can explain how I dealt with the real world. I was insular within my whole life. I was inside the shell of an adult not knowing how I was supposed to react, not knowing who I was supposed to be. In the inside world that I had created it was much like a child building a fantasy world around him to make sense of the darkness. Darkness to me was both literal and metaphoric. I was adept at creating worlds, one of which was the box I created to detach from my father when he used me, another was where emotions lived. Emotions belonged to the adult though, which wasn’t me – that’s how I perceived it. It seemed easier to not own them. I rationalized that if I didn’t own them then they didn’t own me, therefore had less of an effect. Who was I kidding?

There were a couple times when I knew I had no control over what I felt and those times scared me to death. I had no control over the emotion, but it had control over me. I learned to bury the feelings deeper and control them even more, not knowing that in doing that I was cutting myself off more from the real world. I understood in the instant that I felt those emotions that I could not allow them to be real. The sheer power of them would overwhelm me and something bad would happen. Whatever control I had at that point had to be rebuilt and reinforced, my temper and my sadness were not to be let out ever again. The walls I built were impenetrable. It kept them out – It kept me in, and that is probably what saved me over the years.

I know that I feel emotions now and I know that they are extremely real and extremely raw, but I also know that even at this point in the therapy they haven’t really come out fully yet. I haven’t let them go. I still don’t know how to. I am still very scared at what might happen if I do but I am also scared that I will never learn to let them just be. I am learning to love for what seems like the first time, and the range of emotions involved in that are so intense that even laughter burns my heart so very deeply. If I laugh I cry. It seems that my insides are still confused, an enigma you might think. These ‘new’ emotions feel right somehow though. I can’t explain that other than maybe it is instinct.

What I don’t know most of the time is what the emotion is, or what it means. Again, it doesn’t sound possible to not know what you are feeling but for me, that’s the way it is. I know that something inside me is trying to tell me something, and that the voice is like an ebb or flow, much like a river, but pushing me one way or another. It seems that dependent on which way the flow is moving determines which emotion I should be feeling. If you believe in having a life essence, a spirit if you will, then the ebb and flow feeling is your spirit trying to move you toward an emotion, almost guiding you to where you should be. I say that because my perception of it is that it has life. When I get out of bed in the morning I don’t know what mood I am in until someone speaks to me. Some days that could be hours, some times in the past, it was days. But in that silence was comfort. No ‘noise’ around me – the walls were thick and I was protected, safe.

Most people have learned the life skills to understand what each feeling is supposed to be. I didn’t. I made up what I felt when I needed it so now I have no real idea of what it means or even why it’s there sometimes. When these feelings jump out of nowhere and for no reason, how am I supposed to link them to reality, let alone know what they are? Even when I sit back and try to rationalize them they don’t make sense most of the time. It frustrates me and I have little patience for that learning process, yet I know I have to live the emotion to understand and integrate myself back into a whole person.

I have learned to visualize emotions more now. In reality I have been doing this all of my life but have only recently learned how to explain it. I see a picture in my head and have to almost decipher it. An example is in trying to explain what I feel to someone. I know I feel it, I know it’s there and I can now usually tell if it’s positive or negative, but I still can’t express it or make it known. Maybe it is that I have controlled emotions for so long that I don’t know how to feel them anymore. Maybe it is that these emotions are no longer pretend, no longer made up by me, and are too real. Either way I had to find a way to explain them to my therapist, as well as explain them to myself. I would explain what I saw in my head, the picture, and that would then let my therapist know what I was feeling, and she would help me put words to it. Sometimes she would tell me what I was feeling before I even had time to acknowledge it, another clue that I had no idea of what I was dealing with.

The pictures can be as simple as black and white. Seeing a simple difference would lead me to understand that the emotion would play to the situation I was in at the time. In other worlds, coupled with what I felt, the picture would help me makes sense of what it was, but not how to deal with it. It doesn’t seem to make much sense when you think of it outside of what you are feeling. You feel something, see a picture and that picture helps you explain it.

Once, in therapy, I saw a picture of two identical desert scenes. One was night time and the impression was that it was scorching hot; the other was daytime but freezing cold. I couldn’t grasp what I was seeing because it was the opposite of what I expected to see, but I knew that I was confused. Part of translating that was that I could see more of the real world and it was somewhat identical to the world I had created, just some of the important information was missing. In the images I saw it was obvious that the daytime should have been scorching hot. The other part of the association for me was that I was starting to see the reality of my life, but I still had confused some fundamental parts of it. So, with the confusion and the missing information, it took some effort to try to rationalize what it was I was seeing. The idea I took from that was that I was on the right track but still had some fundamental work to do to try to match my world to the real world. That might not sound so dramatic, but for me it was. Seeing progression, forward motion from the hell that I was in was a great sign that not only was I on the right track, but I was actually making visible progress. It also gave me another way of working out how to better understand how I felt, and to be more aware of it.

In reality I’m not sure what the real world is, or indeed that there is a real world. We each create our world according to our needs, be it a positive or negative experience. What I am aware of is that learning to embrace and understand emotions means a better grasp of what makes me tick. Giving in to an emotion is what breaks us. They are there for a reason and are usually trying to tell us something, but most of the time we miss the point. We choose how we accept emotions, disseminating them is just part of the process.

Residual Effects

I have noticed that there are still emotions and mood swings that I don’t fully understand. Maybe it’s a little unreal to say that I don’t understand, more that I don’t know how to deal with them; how powerful they are or even where they came from. Having spent most of my life telling myself how I felt, lying to myself about how I felt, it’s enough to say that perhaps these were normal but I had shut them off for so long that they don’t feel familiar. In reality I’m sure it’s part of the learning process, something that I knew I would have to go through. Now I am starting to understand the power that emotions can have over you and it’s scaring me a little. Luckily I have plenty of support around me, especially my very supportive partner.

Recently I went on vacation to Key West with my partner. During the second day of the vacation I had what I called a ‘moment’. I suddenly felt insecure, insignificant and disconnected from my partner, and from the people we were with. We had met up with a group of guys and had just had a great Cuban dinner with them. We had a great time and the conversation was flowing. It was a lot of fun to chat with mixed company and we all got on really well. After dinner we were wandering around town looking in art galleries and just generally taking in the night life. I felt more and more detached from my partner as time went by, and felt that he wasn’t interested in being with me. I pulled back from the group and tried to understand what I was thinking. Insecurity crept in, and with it came anger, resentment and jealousy too. I tried to communicate this to him but he didn’t seem to understand, but that’s not to say that he didn’t try. He thought I wasn’t being holey serious at first, and didn’t quite get the gravity of the situation. I kept trying to get him to understand but all he knew was that I was upset and that it didn’t seem to make much sense to him. He didn’t really understand why and, looking back, I can understand his confusion.

He made the decision to split from the group and head back to the hotel. He told the others we were tired and, for some reason, that annoyed me even more. I thought he was making fun of me behind my back. It seems I was in the mood to take everything the wrong way. When we got back to the hotel we sat outside for an hour or so and talked. I couldn’t get it out of my head that I thought he wasn’t interested in me. All I wanted was one of the signs that he wanted me, just a touch, a look or a smile and I wasn’t getting them. As much as I tried to tell him how I felt I didn’t seem to get it across to him, and the more I talked the more upset he got. He thought I wasn’t being fair to him and it upset him that I was so upset.

Eventually we seemed to reach an impasse. The main point was that we knew we loved each other but there were things we needed to work out, more me than him. I needed to work on trusting the fact that he loves me whether he is standing next to me or a hundred miles away. I need to work on the jealousy issue. I have never loved anyone the way I love him and, having been through the months of self discovery, I had found emotions that I didn’t know I could feel, with an intensity that can be overbearing. The main point for me was that I recognized that I had some work to do. The insecurity followed me around for a day or two afterward but I tried hard to just enjoy the time, and not focus on the irrational fears.

For his part he knows that he can be mono focused at times. He doesn’t need to be in the same room to know that he loves me and he thought I understood that. For the most part I did, I just lost focus for a while. I was out of my comfort zone.  I was on the other side of the country, away from everything that was familiar. This was my first vacation since I was fourteen years old and I was sharing the time, twenty four by seven, with someone that I loved. I should have guessed that the insecurity would be there and maybe taken time to understand it. By the same token, he had to understand that this wasn’t easy for me and would need to give me some leeway in dealing with how I felt. He got very upset that he had upset me, and that upset me more. It was an ever increasing circle of sadness.

In retrospect I saw this coming and I should have prepared for it. Or maybe I should have prepared him for it. Either way we got through it but I don’t want to go through that again. I think that the process actually strengthened me. During the rest of the stay in Key West I tried to be just ‘me’ and let him be just ‘him’. Each time insecurity crept in I would acknowledge it but not let it take control of me. I would tell myself ‘it’s normal, let it be’. It seemed to work.

It serves to remind me always that this is going to be a work in process, trying to understand the newness of what I feel and how it affects those around me. I have noticed trends in moods. I think the episode in Key West for instance, was more me being in unfamiliar surroundings and unsure of myself from that. My partner has traveled a lot and isn’t fazed by it. I then created the insecurity by wrongly assessing the situation around me. Since that time I have made a conscious effort to understand what I am feeling when insecurity creeps in and am trying to positively affirm to myself that it is normal, natural and harmless. Time will tell if I am going down the right path but I have found that it has worked well for me so far.

One last note on this topic, for now, is that emotions don’t normally come as single entities. That was a shocker to me since I thought you could only feel one thing at a time. Part of the learning process is working out how many emotions are involved in a particular moment, what caused them and what the driving factor is. I didn’t know that sometimes anger is necessary in a situation to establish a point, but anxiety will cut off access to the thoughts I need to address the angry situation. The end result of that one is feeling exhasperated that I couldn’t say what I know was right because I was too anxious to access the thought. Does that make sense? So, part of this is learning coping mechanisms – ways to identify how many, and which emotions are there, and to keep anxiety at bay. Not an easy thing for me, believe me.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , ,

Messages Boards

April 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

There was a time when I wanted to know if I was the only one feeling the way I did. I needed some sort of consolation that what I was going through wasn’t just me, but I had the strange feeling that no-one else would understand. I find it strange now to think that I would believe I was the only one, but then maybe that is a part of understanding where I was at that point. I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one out there. I needed to find some congruity in things that were happening to me, and to the thoughts that I was having. I needed to belong somewhere in a world that I thought had rejected me. I had to have hope and I thought survivor specific message boards were part of that hope.

I joined a message board for survivors. It wasn’t gender specific but it was a message board that you had to go through quite a thorough process of registration. This was the first one of two. I would read through the post of others, trying to find similarities, even with female survivors, and I did. For a short period of time I felt accepted, but was acutely aware that the ratio of men to woman was around fifty to one. That being said, I would encounter the male point of view now and then. I soldiered on in the hope of finding an outlet.

But, as I was used to, I was totally misunderstood, or so I thought. I tried to get across the reality of my situation without offending others but I seemed to always upset someone or other. I was told that I couldn’t mention how bad I felt because it might upset others and, if I did, I was chastised for being selfish and told I would be banned if I continued. I was confused – weren’t these message boards designed to help? Weren’t we supposed to be able to say what we feel and get some perspective? Apparently not!

I was lost. I thought it was about being free to write about me and my journey; to help me, and to read others stories and sympathize; and maybe even understand myself more through them. I tried hard to listen more than post but I had a need and I wanted to let go of what was inside me. I wrote some truths, at the time, about the will to live. I never mentioned suicide but I intimated that life wasn’t worth living in the hell that I was in then. Apparently I wasn’t as safe as I thought I was.

Someone from the message board pulled some details about me and contacted my therapist. That was the ultimate betrayal for me, the ultimate deed of mistrust. How could they not know how that would affect me? I was overwhelmed, distraught and felt like I had lost the last hope to healing and moving on. I can’t tell you how hard that hit me. It seemed that time and time again I was being betrayed and abused, that no-one was listening to me. I didn’t want to die but they were not hearing me. Maybe too many people cry wolf and that puts others on edge. I’m not sure of the rationale. Even though I knew what I had written and I knew that it wasn’t a suicide trip, I still felt guilty and ashamed. Why did everything come with conditions? You can talk, but not about how you feel! What? So this is a message board for those that cry wolf and want to be victims? Where’s the ‘help’ in that! (Remember this is my perception. I am not saying I am right.)

I withdrew from the list and I withdrew from myself for a while. I was alone again and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I was relying heavily on my weekly sessions with my therapist, but I still knew I wanted to find others like me. My therapist wanted more sessions but I resisted. I wasn’t sure if I could take more than once a week, let alone afford the sessions. Why is life so damn complicated?

Believe it or not, I tried another message board. For want of not creating issues for the users, moderators and owners of that board, I will not mention its name. This one seemed to be specifically geared towards male victims. I would read other posts and listen to what they had to say. I would see similarities with my situation and started to think that this might actually work. I paid a membership fee and moved to the inner boards. This time I posted messages, small, unassuming messages just to test the water. That seemed to work. I answered some posts with my thoughts and I was being accepted. I relaxed a little more.

That part of that board was good for me. Then I had a really bad day and had to post my thoughts. I wrote graphically and honestly thinking I was in a safe place, and was immediately chastised for not considering others feelings AGAIN. What? I was back on that roller coaster, not understanding why I wasn’t allowed to express myself. Others had and weren’t chastised. Why was I being singled out?

I was told that I was too graphic and that I wasn’t considering that I could trigger others with my words, even though I wrote *possible triggers* in the subject line just like I was told to. I started to not make sense again. They moved my posts off the board and moved me to a ‘secure’ area. On reading posts in that area I saw it was a ‘safe place’ for ‘predators’ to write about their fight to not molest young children, or some of them writing that they had succumbed to the compulsion and were confessing anonymously. I was dumbstruck again. These people had put me in the same ‘room’ as child molesters without considering that it might trigger me? – what? All that was after telling me that I might trigger them? I was struck with duality and the ultimate irony. Why was it that I couldn’t post what I felt, but child molesters could. Because I was too graphic? You’re kidding me! I was singled out again and I withdrew again. I was used to this now. The lesson was that I was not to receive help from other victims – it wasn’t allowed. The rules were against me – no one cared. Eyes down, head down, here we go again. I was losing my fight even though I was fighting hard.

I sent an email to the webmaster of that message board. Here is that email in all its entirety, unedited.

This is going to be an emotionally charged email and may trigger you. You gave me this address a few nights ago … you virtually demanded I email you or IM you, I did not. No-one has the right to demand I do anything. That is by the by … I am asking for your help now.

I was in a strange place the night I wrote the thread “the eyes of a child” that got you so fired up. I live in a perpetual world of memories, triggers and lies and I made the decision to give up fighting. That is my right and I still stand by it. I cannot endure living in a world where there is nothing real for me anymore. I am done, worn out, burnt out, tired and lonely.

What I don’t understand is that, for the second time, a post of mine was removed from the forum. In an inane attempt to try to convince myself that rationalizing how I feel with my words would change that decision I told that I had entered into in that post, I started writing. Writing is something I am good at … it sometimes let’s the real me out and I can take control of my life again. I thought this forum was about “us”, the survivors, our need to speak and our need to be heard by those that know what we went through but I don’t see that now. I am censured and you know what, that just reminds me that no matter what I do or say, my situation will never change. I was beaten down physically as a child, now it is in other methods as an adult. If I can’t express myself in the one place that was created to help people like me then I might as well give up. Do you think it was easy to trust my situation to “men” in the first place?

I can’t help the way that I feel; even if I know it isn’t right. I can’t change what happened to me … it has to come out and I am sorry if the fact that I don’t care anymore has irked you. Maybe you endured the same or, god forbid, worse than me, but you are not me and that hasn’t been taken into consideration.

I tried to private message the guy “XXX” twice to ask why he didn’t even let me know he was removing my post, but he has ignored my messages. I am never rude, I don’t post derogatory comments in the forums and I don’t air my angst anywhere in the public forums, but still I am censured and then summarily ignored. What little faith I had in sharing with men the rape and torture that I had to endure as a child has slowly died in the realization that there is no place for me;there is no place that can deal with me; there is no place that wants to deal with me. The feelings of sadness and failure are so intense that it feels like it is burning me, and I want to know what did I do that was so bad that your people denied me the basic right, freedom of speech? I have read other posts on the forum that contain the same tone as me yet I am chastised for mine?

My father told me that if I let him rape me he would love me. He dangled bait to a child, a kid that had no idea what it was like to be loved. A child too young to understand or perceive the lie and deceit he weaved … time and time again he would promise and I would say yes and I hated all men for it. After 41 years of life, 41 years of trying to rationalize my past I began looking for a way to lay it all to rest. Part of that was trusting in men again. I tried trusting a male counselor a few months ago and he ended up having sex with me. Do you see a pattern? I tried to let it out in a survivor forum about people like me, the ideal place for me to let go … and I am denied.

There is no place for me because I don’t know how to “be”. You have been there … why don’t you and the others realize that I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to be able to speak. It was the one thing that would have helped me when I wanted to live.

I guess my question is “what point is there having a forum like this if we have no way to let out the real feelings?”. There are even threats in the suicide thread for gods sake. It doesn’t make sense.

I don’t want to hurt anyone by this, I just want to understand why everyone is against me. It was the same when I was a child, I didn’t do anything wrong but everyone hated me anyway.

I’m sorry this email is so intense. I daren’t post in the forums anymore for fear of being rejected again but I want to be heard, just once, please?

One of the major horrors that sticks in my mind, even now, is that I was placed in a forum for child molesters. I cannot express just how incredibly horrified that made me feel. I was being classified as ‘one of them’. I was being ‘grouped’ with the very thing that was still trying to destroy me. To this day I do not see the rationale, nor do I care to understand the thought process. It was blatantly wrong and should never have happened. One of the issues I believe is that on a paid message board, the moderation should be carried out by trained staff, and not other victims. It’s gratifying that at least there is an attempt to help others, but surely the situation(s) dealt with on those boards are too volatile for no professional help? That’s just my thought.

It was getting to be a habit that I was either misjudged or was doing something wrong. I came to the conclusion that it was a sick mix of both, and that the only way I was going to face this was by myself. I had the vague notion that others wanted to dwell in their sadness and the pain of not healing, and that either they weren’t ready to move forward, didn’t know how, or didn’t want to – they just wanted to be victims. It wasn’t for me to judge but I felt that they were holding themselves back.

With that thought I knew that I couldn’t rely on sources such as those, period. Perhaps they work for some people, but not for me. At least I was trying different sources but they all led me to the same place. I had to face this head on with someone that wasn’t going to tell me how to be. I left the message boards at that and moved forward therapy. Had I not had the spirit to survive, these experiences alone could have put me over the edge.

I’m not blaming them for my woes, nor am I saying I was right. I’m just conveying my experiences and my perception to you. I think in both cases it could have been handled a lot better but, as I have been made painfully aware – you can’t change the past. Once you learn that (odd as it sounds), moving forward becomes easier!

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Box

April 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

WARNING – POTENTIAL TRIGGERS

During the times when my father would abuse me I would escape. I don’t know how I got to the point of escaping. I knew that if I made a noise I would be punished – I knew if I fought back I would be punished – I knew I had to ‘not be there’, somehow, yet I don’t remember when or how it started. I called my place ‘the box’. The box was the place that I took my mind to escape the physical and mental effects of what was happening to me. I would picture myself surrounded a box. My head and chest were surrounded, my lower body outside of the box and unattached from my reality; outside of my control. My face would rest in a hole that only I could see through; the rest of the area inside the box was black, quiet, calm and empty. Looking through the hole I was looking at the universe, almost as if I were lying under the stars at night. The universe (the box) was my playground; my solace; my focus; my intention and my savior. I would think about the vastness of the universe and get lost in the thought of the perception of infinity and reality. I would think about shapes that I now know are called parabolic curves, and wonder if that was how the universe was shaped – but no – that would imply an outside to shape itself, yet it could fold in on itself. I would take my mind as far away from earth as I could. I would attempt to reason the lack of the end of infinity, and the perception of time. Even as a pre-school child I was intently aware of how little was known about ‘space’.

To quote from the chapter ‘Path of Discovery’: “To cope I had to master leaving my body behind. I had to take my mind to a place where I didn’t connect to the real world, that way I felt no physical pain; that way my mind was safe from him. He could defile my body but he would never get my mind. I created my reality as I went along and survived because of it. I would wonder at the size of the universe and immerse myself in the dream world of science. I saw myself from a distance. My body was on the bed but my mind was in a box, floating in space, free from him and free from pain.”

I don’t remember ever crying during or after, I don’t remember any pain, I don’t remember much at all to be honest and, for the longest time I had no real concept of what had happened. It’s hard to explain – I knew it, but I didn’t. Maybe I didn’t consciously accept it – I’m not sure – it would sit on the edge of my consciousness – I knew it was there but I couldn’t quite grasp it. That, in itself, was frustrating.

During the process of remembering I have lost the ability to cry, and that’s very hard to deal with. I can’t let out the intense pain I feel in my heart. I suppress it, just like I suppress anger. I feel it rising from the pit of my stomach and I fight it. The higher it rises the harder I fight until the only thing left to do is to dissociate from it – that’s the point I lose “me”. I try so hard to not do that anymore, but I’m not there yet. It seems that I’m still not separating the emotions properly yet – perhaps I need practice at that, but where do you practice? My therapist can pull some reactions from me even though I trust her and know that it’s just part of the process. Even that part is confusing.

Back to the box – the saviour from the what was happening to me. I guess that even at that tender age, when the abuse started, I had coping mechanisms to help me get through it. I’m not sure at what point I made that happen, but I’m glad I did. I feel sadness for that little boy – he suffered so much an no-one cared – he coped with the reality of physical, sexual and mental abuse and survived in spite of it. I want to cry for that little boy, but I can’t – yet. I’m close, so very close.

Filed Under: My Inner Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Somewhere in the thought of it

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

WARNING – POSSIBLE TRIGGERS

In the time between the ups and the downs, when the memory rides on the wave between awake and asleep, there are those thoughts. You don’t quite know where they came from, and you don’t quite know why they are there. You try to see them but they are blurred in the distance, yet they are real and remembered in your mind. Awareness is a word that echoes somewhere in the real world, acceptance is a word that holds no meaning and love is a pain that was learned from way back when, confusion the norm, echoes of a life that never was.

Your mind travels the distance and urges you forward, remembering the detail that eluded you for so long. It aches to release you back to the real world but you fight it, knowing in your heart that it was real, knowing in your mind that it was real, knowing in the now, that it is real. You don’t panic or flinch, you don’t move, you don’t react or respond. You feel deep inside the weight of the memory and your heart aches to release it. You see the tears in your mind and you feel them rise from your heart but, somewhere along the way, they get lost and you hold on to that memory, unable to mourn it or let it go.

Your eyes drift down as if to bow to the memory. You see the picture clearly now, but this time it’s the ‘you’ that you are today. Now the panic starts to rise as you follow the trail of memory through the haze. You see it, you feel it and you yearn to accept it but something stands in your way. You fight to release it. It grips you like a vise and it tears the life from you. It fights you all the way. It makes you do things you don’t want to do and it laughs in your face. ‘It’, is you.

It’s clear now, the scene is set and the thought is forefront in your mind. The panic has gone and the haze has cleared. The stark light of the reality sinks into you and drags you towards the floor, heavy from its darkness, taking advantage of your weakness and clouding your judgment.

“Please, just let me cry”! You utter the words but the memory refuses.

“You have to know me, you have to accept me, you have to remember me”, it says.

“I can’t”, you reply.

It’s been too long. The memory owns you and won’t let you go. You have to get away from it but you can’t, and numbness sets in. It’s the only way you know, it’s the only path left to take and, somewhere in the darkness you lose track of who you are. There is no fight anymore. You don’t live, you don’t even exist, you just ‘are’. Until you release it, it will own you, hate you and eat away at you until you succumb to it. The weaker you get the stronger it is. It’s a vicious circle, a catch 22. “Release me” … you know it has to be done; you fight with it, against it and even for it. You relive it, accept the reality, walk through it, around it and inside of it and the memory rises from your heart, but the tears will never come. The memory has won again.

I yearn to be me, I long to be free, I deserve to understand, but I can’t. The words echo again in your mind.

“Please, just let me cry”! You utter the words but the memory refuses.

“You have to know me, you have to accept me, you have to remember me”, it says.

“I can’t”, you reply ..

Just a few thoughts … these are just the ones that I took the time to save … there are a lot more and they are not pleasant. Those that know me don’t know that I go through this in this depth, nor will they ever … but I have to get it out … I have to let it live so that I can live, or die.

Filed Under: Letters Tagged With: , , , , ,
« Older Posts