Maybe you could start one.
momz
Silentlamb needs to vent!
by feenx 22 Replies latest jw friends
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feenx
that would be great...i guess first i'd need to find out if there'd be interest, and if so take steps to organize it. so yeah...if anyone in CO is interested let me know.
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wednesday
here are a couple links to some good info.
one has a discussion board, it is for anyone who has been abused by any kind of profession, including clergy
one site has a lot of articles on it, really nice people.
hope one of them helps
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VoidEater
JK: What an excellent mantra...I'll incorporate this into my Zen routine...
Feenx: What can I say, other than I completely get it. The resurfacing, the feeling as the pictures all come together into a pattern that makes sense. For me, there's the picture in the garage with the ancient "roller style" washing machine and my grandfather washing his hands there, growling, "Don't you DARE tell!" The realization of why, after all those years, I had to obsessively tuck in the sheets all around me so that not even the slightest breeze could get in.
I don't even know how to start with the issue of how my mom could have left me in the care of this pillar of the church - when she knew he was a pedophile. When her own sister ran away as a teenager to get away from the abuse. Did she think he wouldn't touch me because I was a boy? Did she not remember her own brother fighting him off?
Vent away, lots of folks here care, listen and understand -Void
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nomoreguilt
One day.......I too will come to terms with my repressed memories. I know that SOMETHING happened to me. It wasn't a jw, but the father of a kid I ran around with for a few months when I was 13. Perhaps ONE day I will remember .
He got us drunk when I spent the night at their house. I remember puking my guts out and being put into one of the kids bunk beds. I awoke the next morning in the fathers' bed, naked, his arm around my waist. That's ALL that I REMEMBER!!!!!! WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!???
I have NEVER related this to another soul. I am now going to be 58 in April........Is it too late to remember? or do I REALLY WANT to remember??
Any one??
NMG
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dogisgod
Wow, at your young age I think you are way ahead of the game. A lot of us didn't start to remember or have pieces start to surface untill the late 30's. What a breakthrough about the handwashing. Has it subsided any since the realization? Have you thought about confronting this guy at a counselors office? Somewhere that you wouldn't kill him. That might empower you a lot!
You are worth more than this suffering...you deserve peace and happiness.
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Snoozy
Feenx..I am so sorry you have all this pressure right now. Sometimes you just wish you could turn your brain off and just "Be".I don't even know if they still do this but United Way used to offer a counseling service on a sliding income scale. Which meant you paid according to your income. The less you made the less the charge..if any.It wouldn't hurt to give them a call and see if they still offer the service.
Big hug for what you are going through..
Snoozy...
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lesterd
Theres a lot of interest out there, its more than overcoming what happend to you and many others, its overcoming the indroctrination that its your fault, that the "truth", that dirty little tag they put on you as being unclean, your grandfather doesnt deserve the effort you would put into making him feel the way you do, because he allready does...but he thinks its normal. Forgive yourself, instensify that forgiveness by forgiving him, he is never going to answer to you for his sins.
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VoidEater
NMG: Getting me drunk was a favorite tactic of my abuser, too. Many of those memories are too mached up in the alcoholic daze for me to pinpoint. While difficult, I found some answers in focusing on body sensations, and EMDR therapy - stuff that tries to bypass the cognitive mind and get to the body.
One of my pivotal memories is similar: coming to a bit after throwing up, just after being raped, whith my grandmother at the doorway saying, "Smitty, how COULD you?" My grandmother sent him to his room, cleaned up the hide-a-bed, put me in a bath tub, then sat me on a couch to wait for morning. Never said a word to me.
I puzzled over that strange picture of me laying in my own vomit, her words ringing in my ears, for years. One morning it fell into place - I could feel in my body everything that had been done to me, along with the churning of the liquor in my stomache, and the disjointed photos in my head fell into order as if they were a movie.
I think it's better to know. That may not be true for everyone, some people are happy not knowing anything happened and others can be content knowing something happened (without the details). The hard part is, once you know, what do you do about it? if anything?
The longest road for me has been to realize that it wasn't my fault, that I didn't ask for it or deserve it. A kid doesn't have any power in these situations, especially when deat over the head with the JW litany of following your elders no matter what, of not trusting anyone outside, and having as your only defense the demand to come up with witnesses to the act.
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feenx
WOW!!! thanks to everyone so much for all your support! ironic isn't it...that in one day on a public forum full of DF'd JW's, faders, "apostates" etc. that I've gotten more support from more people on this one subject that an I EVER did in the borg? Granted my parents did what they could while I was still in, but that was about it.
Voideater: Have you confronted your mother about it? Yeah...the pieces to the puzzle. Never gets much easier, I think you just get used to it. I dont know why this hand washing thing is getting to me so much, I've had some pretty brutal memories surface...though is the first one that has anything to do with umm...clean up after the deed. And I know what you mean about wondering why family members didn't stop it. My parents say they never knew, however my mother (who also was abused by him) has multiple personalities. Sometimes it's hard for me to swallow that pill, that out of her 35 some odd alters, not one knew what was going on? I dunno...that's a whole other subject right there...
NoMoreGuilt: From what my various shrinks have told me over the years is that each person is different. Some have recovered memories, whether they want to or not, completely on their own. Others have them come up through therapy. My current therapist said that in the old days the doctors used to think that in order to heal one must remember, and essentially re-live, all occurrences, all their memories. However now they feel that does more harm than good, because it can re-traumatize the patient. So you never know, maybe with the proper treatment you wouldn't have to remember EVERYTHING in order to heal the way you want and need to.
doglsgod: I actually did confront my grandfather, several years ago, while he still lived on state. I met him and my grandmother at a restaurant, I was by myself, told him I wanted an apology, he said for what, you can imagine how the convo went from there. deny, deny, deny. Part of me wishes I had actually waited to confront him, as at the time I only had one firm memory and now I have many more. But there's also the possibility that I would've thrown him onto the highway or something. I threatened him if he ever came near me again and stormed out.