Link to the 30 paintings in 30 days site hosted by Leslie Saeta

Take a look as the month progresses and be inspired by a huge range of talent. http://www.lesliesaeta.blogspot.com.au/

Art Therapy, or just art - all acts of creation seem to be therapy in some way

Yes indeed, it is a long time since the last post. Writing was replaced with a lot of other things for a time, including an art course, and I have currently taken up a challenge to create 30 paintings in 30 days for the month of January 2015. There are over a thousand artists participating in this event, so the range is going to be wide and varied. And not a little daunting. As the time grew closer, sly thoughts of dragging old work out of the cobwebs to pass off as new was more than tempting, but I disciplined myself enough to get something fresh down on canvas, bolstered by the one day grace that you have when the first of January takes a while to catch up to the rest of the world. The first painting is a quick study of a lake we discovered in New Zealand some time ago. They won't all be landscapes. Who knows what else will make its way out of my head.

Books Books Books

FINALLY THE PSYCHIATRIC WORLD IS CATCHING ON that trauma is not just a neck-up problem. The latest book I have been studying is Trauma and the Body, A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. Latest advances in treatment include examining and working with the physical side of trauma and PTSD with it's ongoing effects.
Yay! (Understatement).
I'm half-way through the book, as it has been a highly detailed slog, but also incredibly enlightening and helpful. I have been educated in-depth about the theories of Information Processing, The Window of Tolerance, Attachment, The Orienting Response, Defensive Subsystems, Action Systems, and Trauma and the Brain.
It all makes so much sense! A thorough explanation of why the patient cannot simply 'get over it' but must work through and repair the damage that was done during childhood development, and re-train defense systems to respond to current issues rather than terrifying past reality.
The next half of the book is devoted to the specifics of Treatment - by the end I should be able to hang a diploma on the wall!
One of the writers of this book recently visited Brisbane and ran workshops that a number of my health care workers attended - they had glowing things to say, but to toot my own horn I have to tell you that I bought the book several months ago before any of them had ever heard about it! (Okay, I didn't start actually reading it till a few weeks ago, but I do know what I like, and I like therapy that is holistic and inclusive of all the body's systems).

After a While....

"After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure... that you really are strong, and you really do have worth." (Veronica A Shoffstall)

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

The above quote is from Edmund Burke, but is paraphrased from this longer statement that I found today. Stirring stuff:

"It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect it is an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as if he had formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational account of a man's life, that he has always acted right but has taken special care to act in such a manner that his endeavours could not possibly be productive of any consequence."

Duty demands and requires that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent, that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated.

Go, Edmund!

It Hits Home

"1 in 3 women are survivors of childhood sexual abuse,
we are your grandmothers, sisters, daughters, partners, cousins, friends....
Listen, believe, make our journey easier...."

(kindly contributed by Lucy)

Questions and Wonderings

Thanks to a prompting from a friend I have been revisiting and revamping the blogsite a little bit, and wondering about what new threads to introduce that could be of value to childhood sexual abuse sufferers/carers/friends and family.

Please feel free to drop in and add your comments and questions and 'always wondered's' - I would love to hear from you.

"Breathing in I calm myself - breathing out I smile..."
Barb.

My latest love

I have discovered Svaroopa Yoga. It's amazing. It gives me a safe, nurturing way to release my deep core tensions without requiring impossible gymnastic feats. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone - you'll go home feeling so much better in touch with the 'bliss of your being' (which is what 'Svaroopa' means). Especially good for people with chronic pain, or anxiety/past abuse issues.



Check out the video to get an idea of what it's all about.

Poetry - 'The Last One to Know'

The Last One to Know
by Barbara Whittaker

If only you had told her when
the last time was the last

From five into her forties the child in her lay waiting
to feel again that easy scoop
that stole her from her bed and
placed her bleary eyed and trusting
amongst her father’s tools
and the sawhorse where
you draped her

If she had known that was the last
she could have slept without the dread

She need not have bunged on such a turn
when they rearranged the room and
made her sleep right near the door -
somehow in her kindergarten head
she thought the distance from it might have kept her safe -
but knew no words to verbalize her fear

of unspeakable things

If she had known,
she could have played out in the yard
instead of tangled in her shoes
in the wardrobe
with the door closed
except for just a crack

Such irony that even after you had died -
when drinking and disease laid you both cold in the ground
her fears, disconnected from their source
thrived on unchecked
incestuously feeding on the damage in your wake

A child cannot breathe such impossible betrayal
alongside the faith she craves like air
that those who are nearest
are the dearest

She cannot colour such brutality
alongside lavender hibiscus and
yellow allamanda

She cannot register the torture of your touch
with flesh that barely knows
the meaning of itself

Her wordless stories – hers and yours –
sank into a sheltered darkness
And with the sinking disconnected
fragments of herself

As time went on
all she saw were uncles
tinkering, talking parts,
boots propped on a sawhorse,
sharing jokes she didn’t understand

Then at night recurring monsters did their
dark insistent work
scooping her from dream to dream
for decades yet to come

because still she didn’t know
that the last time was the last time.

Poetry - 'First Cutting'

First Cutting
by Barbara Whittaker


Forbidden blades meet awkwardly
catching cloth in gathered folds
lacerating tiny seismic peaks

Equally material,
arm or leg or plaited hair would
just as unconcernedly have
borne the biting steel

- private vassal
- effigy of self
- only object under her control

Perhaps the doll seemed more disposed to
calculated injury
Perhaps it proffered something
less finite

But even with the cutting,
insult adds to injury the
emblematic threads of
scars unseen,
unravelling where
any eye might see

- irreversible hurt
- unforgivable sin
- inconsolable despair in place of balm

the gash a lasting testament to shame

Bewildered mother’s hurried needle
roughly tacks the dolly’s dress
only salting fresh dismay
with ugly telling stitches

The reason for the cutting
left unremedied
The motive for the vengeance
left unpaid

Poetry - 'Unschooled'

Unschooled
by Barbara Whittaker

A shining handful of years
breathlessly welcomes the novel restraint
of rigid school shoe leather

Twirling, parading on feet unacquainted with
imminent calls to attention
is assessed in inches of blue gabardine
all the time dancing through measuring tapes,
buttons, elastic and pins

Smalt saucers tire at the calendar
drag of days weighted by journey to come
succumbs for a time to afternoon’s call
as sleep softly overtakes dreams

So marks the end of a childhood
silently stolen – mutely replaced,
new shoes buckled awry on her feet
no words to define the offences

Evidence finds its own voice
Mother’s cries, child
in a doorway
hushed
She looks okay. I’m sure she’s okay.
Quiet now.

So flows the water of the past and
school must be the bridge

Positioned in class
no first day tears to blur the will
of one already in adulthood –
only disdain for squalling classmates clinging
to mothers who know nothing.

'Who Am I?' - Journal Writing Exercise

* I used to......

I used to bury any strong emotion for fear that it would overwhelm me. I used to deny that I felt it at all.
I used to think it was more 'mature' - more important, more safe - to maintain a facade of calm and composure, no matter what the resulting pain was in my head and heart.
I used to have large impenetrable walls in my mind, behind which I had stored the memories of past experiences that were simply too much to bear.
I used to be afraid that if anyone found out about the discrepancy between how I portrayed myself and the weak, vulnerable person that I really was inside, they would despise me, and reject me - that I would end up alone and unloved, and that was what I 'really' deserved.
I used to feel like I would never be able to work out how to be a grown-up - how to feel like one - to feel confident on the inside - to have integrity. It was a mystery to me. (It's interesting that as I came to understand the word, I also understood that I was lacking in it - lacking 'integration').
I used to feel like everyone else's opinion and feelings were naturally more important than my own.
I used to blame myself for the bad experiences of my past (the ones that I could remember) and I would repeatedly and viciously berate myself for my perceived stupidity and gullibility.
I used to think that there was something about me that attracted the sort of attention from others that would ultimately result in more and more pain - for me.
And that perhaps there was some of God's will in this.
I used to believe it was my lot in life never to feel true happiness. I used to think it was better to never have hopes and wishes and dreams, because in the forming of these things, unseen forces would gather to ensure they could never come true.
I used to believe I did not deserve to have good things come to me. I used to believe that it was better to never want, than to want and then be devastatingly disappointed, over and over and over again.

* I feel.....

I feel so incredibly fortunate to have had the experiencs I have had over the last five years. I feel awestruck at the number of fine, caring, helpful, tender people who have come into my life and who have have provided their own individual insights, graciously supporting me as I have continued - and occasionally gotten stuck - on my healing journey.
I feel hope for myself where there simply was none before. I feel, more and more, a sense of
'internal' safety where I can feel free to 'let go', accept myself, and genuinely and authentically 'be myself'. I feel relief, after a lifetime of internally flinching, and clenching and bracing and enduring endless episodes of paralysing fear.

* The games I play.....

The games I play alert me to the knowledge that there is still work to be done. They are signals of my yet unrealized and unmet needs. They are, at times, unfair manipulations to get other people to provide for me the things that I am still learning to provide for myself.

And I play scrabble.

* My body tells me....

My body tells me there was once a lot of pain - more than I could consciously bear. It sends messages and shadows and echoes of past hurts - perhaps so that I will not forget or continue to over-ride the needs of the desolate, miserable child that I once was.
My body tells me that there is yet much work to do. And that it will not last forever. My body tells me though, that it is still capable of many wonderful sensations, and can still support me through many life experiences yet to come.

* I hate....

I hate the insidiously infectious damage caused by lies and deceit self-interest and indifference.
I hate the chasm that I sense between myself and those who can neither comprehend the vastness of my condition, nor the immense effort it requires to endure or to explain.
I hate that I feel that need for other people to understand.
I hate that I cannot yet balance the need to connect with others, ask for and accept help - and the need to be independent and meet my own needs.

I hate unspoken questions, erroneous assumptions, and ignorant dismissals.
I hate the stagnancy and despair of isolation.
I hate that in childhood I suffered in so much silence, and now in the process of healing, society at large still wishes the victim to remain silent - because otherwise, someone must listen - and who will volunteer?

I hate that there are so, so many people who suffer with similar histories, or even worse.
I hate that so many of us are in so much pain that we unable to think of reaching out to lift someone else. I hate that pain interferes with our freedom to make choices.
I hate the fear associated with saying too much and possibly 'blowing somebody out of the water' - and the constant need to monitor my own and my audience's/friends' responses for fear that I might horrify them, or disgust them, or alienate them forever.



I am deeply moved when I find someone who is willing to put their own pain aside (and sometimes that pain is greater than I can imagine myself) to willingly listen to mine.
I hate that listening to the unspeakable and the unbearable is - unspeakable and unbearable.
But if we do not all listen, hear the stories - how can we comfort each other, bear one another's burdens, make a difference, influence change in society, and communities, and families - and individuals - who perpetuate the twisted sort of thinking and desires that cause such suffering in the first place?

#11 How to recognize abusive people

"Abuse comes in many forms: verbal, physical, mental, sexual, and of course emotional, which underlies all other types of abuse.
Those who abuse have not come to terms with their own past emotional issues. Whether it's insecurities they haven't dealt with or the need to maintain complete control of their world, they will rob you of your freedoms in order to feel better about themselves. They will attempt to achieve power by lowering your self-worth because they're threatened by you, or because they don't understand or respect you. Abusers are weak and have personal limitations they have yet not learned to overcome. The less they feel in control the more abusive they get, as they fall into their own limited emotional states which are usually outside their conscious awareness.
This is important to know because, while you are the one who is made to feel inadequate, the abuse you receive seldom has anything to do with you. Unfortunately, we often carry the scars long after the abuse ended.
Ways people abuse you:
Tell lies and half-truths to avoid having to justify actions or ideas
Accuse and blame to divert attention away from them selves
Refuse to take another's point of view and irrationally defend their point of view
Withhold information so the abused will look bad later on ("you should have known that")
Not sharing information someone is entitled to
Not acknowledging another's feelings
Slighting or taking digs in a non-aggressive or joking manner - this allows the abuser to say he was just kidding while still being abusive
Changing the subject to divert attention from them selves
Making someone feel worthless in an attempt to lower their self-esteem and bring them down to the level of the abuser
Threatening or hinting of physical, mental or sexual abuse
Denying anything is wrong (not being responsible and lying to self)
Inappropriate emotional outbursts (a form of distracting attention, confusing the abused or shifting blame)
Controlling others to domineer and limit their freedom or expression
Forgetting commitments and promises
Denying success by placing unreasonable demands, unjustly singling out or constantly placing someone in the category of a loser
Taking advantage of ones weakness or using shame, guilt or fear against another
Manipulating another person against their will
Submissive actions
Cutting some one off so they are not allowed to speak - suppressing self-expression
Eliminating your ability to choose
Inappropriate questions or comments to evoke an emotional response
Humiliating someone in front of others or inappropriately pushing their buttons
Pretending to understand your concerns, and then disregarding them
Slandering some ones name, reputation, associations or activities

taken from http://www.designedthinking.com/Fear/Abuse/abuse.html

#10 Merry Christmas and Goodnight!

But wait there's more!



BlastfromthePast - now with added video resources, and a second music list (some of us just can't get enough of that, it seems - sorry they're only partial songs!)



Right column:

Blog Archive, Songs for the Inner Child, Lotus symbol, Songs about Abuse and Healing, Poll, The Bill of Basic Human Rights, Poem for Anna, Common Cognitive Distortions, Flower Essences for Healing, Books that could Change your Life, Recommended Reading, Books to Help Children, Good Memories, Movies that Move Me, Quotes, Art by Barbara, Further Information



The ABC of Resources now includes:

Affirmations, ANP's and EP's (Apparently Normal Personalities and Emotional Personalities), Approval, Aromatherapy, Art Therapy, Assertiveness, The Brain, Boundaries, Breathing, Calming Exercises, Care Alerts, Chakra Balancing, Childhood Development, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Choosing End Goal Feelings, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Comfort Zone, Core Beliefs, Dissociation, Dreams and Nightmares, Dream Programming, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Feelings, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Grounding Exercises, Group Therapy, Happiness, Incest Survivor's Checklist, Inner Child Work, Inner Critic, The Johari Window, Journalling, Kinesiology - Applied Kinesiology, Touch for Health, Flower Essences, Laughter, Massage, Meditation, Mental Energy, Mindfulness, Mirror Work, Music, Nurturing Myself, The Nervous System and PTSD, It's Okay, Optimists, Panic Attacks, Planning Positive Things, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Questions, Read, Reappraise Relationships, Remember, Reparenting, Responsibility, Safety, Self-Comfort, Self-Esteem, Sentic Exercises, Sexuality, Snakes and Ladders, Somatic Experiencing, The Sun Room, Thought Stopping, Triggers/False Alarms, Understand, Visualization, Water, Exercise, Yoga, Zzzz...

#9 Great Insights from Judith Herman - 'Trauma and Recovery'

Trauma and Recovery

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Women's Health Medical software data

#8 A Quick History of Touch for Health

#7 Playing with a Full Deck

With so much against me on my road to recovery, it was important to be able to assess what I actually had going for me. It’s easy to minimize the positives when things seem so hopeless – and so, so easy to get stuck in a downward spiral of despair. All of the pain and powerlessness and isolation of childhood returns with a vengeance. The truth could be staring me in the face, and yet at times it was impossible for me to believe it. This is where gratitude has played a huge role.
As often as I go back to count my blessings, I am reminded that those dark dreadful days of the past really are gone – ‘I am a big girl now’, able to protect myself, I know that I am a worthwhile human being, and I am surrounded by people who love and care about me. And I have needed those reminders constantly.
You’ve heard of people ‘not playing with a full deck’. My problem was that I was playing with two decks. One deck consisted of the cards I was dealt as a child – all the things I had come to believe about myself and the world as a result of the abuse, all the distorted core beliefs and irrational conclusions I had reached with my immature, untrained mind in order to keep myself safe and cope with living in such an impossible environment.
The other deck I had collected throughout my adult life, based on mature reasoning and a very different set of experiences. But because the childhood experiences and conclusions had been buried so deeply, I had never been able to examine them in the light of adult reasoning and see them for what they really were. I couldn’t consciously compare the two and see the glaring discrepancies. Ultimately the subconscious internal conflict simply became too much to bear, and the memories began to surface.
Then it took everything I had – every resource I could lay my hands to – to keep me sane and functioning in any degree. We all have resources – internal resources, external ones, and more that we pick up along the way. I couldn’t afford to take any of mine for granted. My primary external resource was and is my loyal and loving husband. If I was a female Frodo in Lord of the Rings, then my husband Leonard would be my Sam. My best friend since I was 16 and he was 21, we married just a year later. It wasn’t a relationship that anyone knowing better would have expected to last. 32 years later he remains my constant companion, faithful and unwavering, who would bear my burdens himself if he could, who would follow me into the river knowing he could not swim, in his dogged determination not to leave my side.
Who can imagine what it must be like for a spouse to have to witness everything that he has witnessed? He has stood beside me in his own agony as I have relived feelings and events that no human being should have to endure. He has held me as I have cried - deep sobbing that had been locked away for decades. He has encouraged me lovingly and admiringly as I have made baby steps into integrating my child and adult selves. He has been patient when I have spent days and weeks in bed, incapacitated by the conflict in my head. He has grown with me as we have forged new paths together, forming a renewed and deepened relationship that only ever comes out of life-changing adversity. We have faced the enemy together. And this is a man who tears up when one of the grandchildren get the slightest scrape. I have yet to meet anyone so simultaneously soft and strong. He is the love of my life, and my eternal companion.
My Fellowship of the Ring consists of my seven amazing, loving, responsible, talented children (they can fight over who gets to be Legolas). All adults now, some already have beautiful growing families of their own. I know that they are all with me to the end. At first what tortured me most was not knowing how much my husband and children had been short-changed in all of this – how much had my partially frozen mind negatively affected my own children’s development? As time has gone on and we have been able to share our thoughts and feelings on the subject, I have to take some comfort in knowing that I did the best I could at the time, and as long as we live and breathe we are blessed with more opportunities to love and nurture each other and heal whatever unintentional wounds have been created along the way.
The next resource that I cannot ignore is my faith in God. When I was 21 Leonard and I became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in a loving Heavenly Father who knows and cares for each of us as individuals. We believe in the atoning sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. We also believe in eternal marriage – that the love and progress we share as a married couple here is a relationship that does not end with death.
Part of our membership in the church includes living in accordance with a health code called the Word of Wisdom. We don’t smoke, drink alcohol, tea or coffee, or use illegal drugs. I have always enjoyed living my adult life free of these things, but had no idea how much I had been protected by my faith until I started reading about the predominance of substance abuse amongst people who suffer with PTSD. It is so widespread and common, in fact, that part of recovery usually includes the management of addictions. The unrelenting stresses of the illness drive people into self-destructive behavior just to find some kind of relief.
The Church also provides a wide array of educational programmes including family relationships and parenting. This gave me the foundation that I used to teach my children. On my own I had nothing. Much of their stability and goodness is attributable to what they learned as a result of our religious beliefs. The Church also encourages journaling. It has been a source of fascination to me to go back over my old journals and discover so many signposts that something was wrong – if only someone had known what to look for.
So those three things - my husband, my children and my faith in God - are much of the glue that has held me together. My internal resources have played a part too, of course – but that’s for another day.

PS On the subject of resources, I have been working away at the ABC list of Resources (Post #3) and have added quite a few interesting videos into the mix - be sure to check them out!

#6 A Heartbreaking True Story...

#5 What do I still struggle with?

It is now four years since the beginning of my 'breakthrough'.

I must admit that in the early stages of therapy I was grossly over-optimistic about how quickly I would deal with it all, thinking that I’d 'have this thing done and dusted in a couple of months'. Anna, my therapist, would regard me hesitantly as I made such flippant remarks. And, of course, as more and more skeletons fell out of the cupboard, reality began to sink in and my resolve was severely challenged.

I came up against a string of inescapably hard truths. My recovery was compromised by a number of exacerbating factors:

· The length of time I had been undiagnosed. Yes, it was 18 years since the traumatic birth, but that wasn’t the primary causal factor for my illness. The fact is I had been undiagnosed since I was a small child. It wasn’t a matter of getting back to ‘who I used to be before the trauma’. It was more a matter of deconstructing a lifetime’s worth of traumas, internal conflict, cognitive confusion, distorted development and maladaptive coping mechanisms, and rebuilding completely new ways of thinking and being almost from scratch – while still holding on to those things that were and are good about myself, that make me who I am.
· The number of abusers. My list includes 7 men and 1 negligent medical team.
· My relationship to the abusers. Five of them were family members (thankfully, my father was not amongst them). But the betrayal of a trusted family member increases the damage exponentially when compared to a stranger.
. The number of abusers involved in any particular incident.
. The severity of the abuse. It's difficult to know how much to elaborate on this, but one incident took me four months to physically recover from.
· The number of incidents. Abuse is not something one ever gets ‘used to’. You do not get ‘used to’ being hit by a bus. Each incident causes more and more damage, reinforcing the distortions that a child comes to believe about her/himself. And we figure I got hit by the abuse bus about 30 times.
· Other stressors. Part of my homework has been to put together a timeline of my life encompassing all the major upsets along the way, including things like the death of my father, the time my sister was almost killed in a road accident, etc. My timeline details over 40 significant disasters, in addition to the abuse. My ability to cope with these was greatly compromised because of the existing damage underpinning everything else. So I have had to go back and re-work my way through those as well.
· Lack of Support at the times of the traumas. My mother, through no fault of her own (we have since discovered that she has an unresolved history of her own) was ill equipped to provide the care and comfort and guidance that I needed as a child. In fact, as a result of her own mental state, the way that she responded to some of the evidences of abuse she saw on me only caused me further trauma, rejection, devastation and isolation. I don't know how many of the incidents she was aware of - it would have been impossible for her to be aware of them all - but there was never a single outward sign to me that it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't to blame, and that there wasn't something fundamentally wrong with me. I was too young then to comprehend the nature of what was happening to me, but I knew I had been badly hurt, and humiliated - and she was just angry. And that is why, I suppose, that as far as the teenage traumas were concerned - even though the earlier incidents were long lost to my memory, I just never spoke to a soul about any of it.
· Religious upbringing. I won’t go into the details of that at this point, but my mother’s sect-like religious views and practices created a chasm between me and the 'real world' that only served to mess things up more royally. Therapeutically, this little nugget has been as difficult to work through and untangle as any of the abuse.

So – getting back to today - the recovery from PTSD and the host of other disorders that usually accompany it in situations like mine is often likened to a game of Snakes and Ladders. You can be doing well one minute - then, just happen to land on the wrong square and it seems like you're right back to the bottom of the board again.
Another analogy - the Brake/Accelerator analogy – they say that as far as your nervous and mental systems are concerned, PTSD is like driving with one foot hard on the brake and one foot hard on the accelerator – it is exhausting, and almost impossible to ever feel ‘at peace’.
In the movie The Flying Scotsman, the minister in the story talks about how his wife, who had been abused as a child (and ultimately committed suicide a few years into their marriage) would describe her struggles with day-to-day living, and it really struck a chord with me. (I would love to get a precise quote, if anybody could help out with that) but essentially she described it as ‘trying to walk through thick mud’, and that ‘nobody else was even aware of her pain’. I used to tell Daggers (Dirk aka “Daggers” Harm, my physiotherapist) that I felt like I was trapped in a swamp. He didn’t think it was a very healthy analogy, and I get his point, but at the same time I still can’t think of a more apt description.

What was the question again? Ah, the symptoms and challenges I still struggle with…

· Dissociation
· Nightmares
· Lack of mental energy and efficiency
· Exhaustion
· Managing feelings of discouragement, loss, aloneness and numbness
. The inescapability of it all
· Persistent old false core beliefs
· Feeling overwhelmed – but this has greatly lessened compared to the early stages , as my skills have improved
· Changing self-torture into self-nurture
· Issues with my mother
· Trouble with my nervous system and intestinal system
· Social phobia
· Body issues
· Difficulty connecting to the future
· Learning to give myself space to ‘be’
· My comfort zone seems to be about 2” square at times - the amount of energy required to converse and interact ‘normally’ with other people, especially outside the family, is like having to part and hold back the Red Sea. I am limited as to how long I can maintain it, and need to pace myself carefully and take time out regularly to regroup and rest. (You'll note that I do have a weakness for visual imagery).
· Challenges interacting with my grandchildren as they reflect different ages that I was when I was abused
· Almost constant internal conflict (remember that conversation that Gollum had with himself in Lord of the Rings?) only with better hair and complexion.
. It really does affect every aspect of life, right down to breathing, eating, sleeping, relationships, finances, socializing - you name it.

That being said, I am worlds in front of where I was. I have had some deeply life-changing experiences and insights, and learned enough new skills to build some confidence now that as I keep hanging in there things will generally get easier. The everpresentness of peaks and troughs is just a part of the deal - as long as I can remember that when I'm at the bottom of a trough.

#4 Have I had a breakdown?

Well.... yes. And it's not quite over yet. But is it a mental breakdown? No. A nervous breakdown? No. Both of these are connected with mental illness. I am not mentally ill (although - this is the confusing part - this is an issue of mental health).

What then? This is called a Stress Breakdown. A stress breakdown is 'a psychological injury (operative word) which is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation'. My psychologist also likes to call it, in positive terms, a 'psychological breakthrough', which suits me just fine.

To explain a little further, in the words of Suicide and Mental Health Assocociation International:

'A stress breakdown is a normal and natural conclusion to a period of prolonged negative stress. The body is saying "I'm not designed to operate under these conditions of prolonged negative stress so I am going to do something dramatic to ensure that you reduce or eliminate the stress otherwise your body may suffer irreparable damage; you must take action now". A stress breakdown is often predictable days - sometimes weeks - in advance as the person's fear, fragility, obsessiveness, hypervigilance and hypersensitivity combine to evolve into paranoia (as evidenced by increasingly bizarre talk of conspiracy or MI6). If this happens, a stress breakdown is only days or even hours away and the person needs urgent medical help. The risk of suicide at this point is heightened.'

Their site is one of many that provides an overview of Complex PTSD and how it differs from single-trauma PTSD. It goes into detail with symptomology and the many facets of the disorder.

For my story to be understood in context I have to tell it backwards, starting at the age of 45. After ten years of relatively peaceful country living, I, with my husband and children, moved back to the city where all of my childhood abuse had occurred (abuse which had long been lost to my conscious memory). I was extremely, irrationally reluctant to move, yet powerless to come up with a better alternative to suit our circumstances at the time. And so I suddenly found myself daily immersed in a sea of faces and places and triggers and memories that had been pushed into the darkness for far too long.

My whole system began to collapse. Firstly my knee gave out, and ultimately required surgery. My whole body seemed to be protesting at being alive. I couldn't bear to be in my own skin. I started walking, sometimes for hours at a time, but it was more at attempt to get away from myself than to improve my health. My mind seemed to be constantly running on fast forward. It might be more accurate to say it was on fast rewind.

Flashbacks relating to a difficult birth with our twins 18 years previously began to haunt me again, but of course I didn't know that they were flashbacks, then or at the time of the birth - I just knew they filled my head and my body with confusion and pain and horror. This had been happening on and off since I was 27 yrs old. How much self-torture and self-hatred had I gone through, blaming myself for not being able to simply 'get over it'? Why must I constantly dwell on something that was yes, horrible - but I had lived, and so had both the babies. Why couldn't I just put it behind me and get on with my life? There were no answers then - I suppose I was too busily involved in raising my family and keeping my head above water. Now at the age of 45, with my kids finally all adults and out of school, the flashbacks were back with a vengeance, and impossible to pass off as anything inconsequential.

Regular visits to physiotherapy for my debilitated knee would sometimes do my head in. Just the physicality and proximity of a young man 'doing things to me' - extremely painful things -set me on an emotional roller coaster. After my knee was fixed we started some work on my back, and things got really strange, and I would drift off into deep space. I know now that it was dissociation I was experiencing. It was terrifying and yet strangely compelling. The physiotherapist was the sweetest, most inoffensive guy you could meet, and great at his job, with a reputation for arms of steel - but feeling so out of control with my head would unbalance me for days. There was 'something going on' and there was no way I was going to be able to rest until I could come up with an explanation. I was like a volcano about to explode - but it was all internal. On the outside I seemed much the same as ever, except that I became more and more withdrawn and manic about researching things on the internet. I didn't know it - but I was heading into full-blown PTSD.

After several weeks of rising anxiety I finally started googling in the right places, and discovered how frequently PTSD could be linked to traumatic childbirth - although it has only been recognized in the last few years. Wherever I found a list of symptomology for PTSD I found I could tick all the boxes, and then some! It began to dawn on me that I had been suffering from a verifiable, explainable disorder for no less than 18 years, and had never been diagnosed. This both helped and infuriated me. Helped because it explained so much, and gave me a light at the end of the tunnel I had long given up on ever seeing - that there could actually be some help 'out there' that could explain me to myself and give me a way out - but there was also such a feeling of loss, of being let down by 'the system' - so many 'what if's' and 'if only's'.

Determined not to waste any more time, not prepared to live another day without the treatment I knew I needed but had no clue what it would involve, I tracked down the Birth Trauma Association, and began communication with some very helpful people there.

It didn't take long to realize that my problems didn't just end with PTSD as a result of childbirth trauma. In my readings I had also noted that many women who suffer trauma while giving birth also have an unresolved history of childhood sexual abuse. In the beginning I chose to skim over this little bit of information, but then one day I found myself 'zoning out' in physiotherapy again, and I went home feeling absolutely dreadful, and with a dark and forbiding and familiar feeling that I had experienced that same distancing, or detachment, at other times in my life - long, long ago. And I began to rethink some of the things that I remembered had happened to me during my teenage years. Things I had never forgotten, but had never been able to find peace with.

By this time I had chosen a clinical psychologist, Anna Lamberton, from the list of people that the BTA had recommended to me. As I discussed these teenage events with her, and really laid it all out on the table, it became glaringly clear that these were not merely 'unfortunate events that I was too stupid to handle at the time'. They did in fact add up to a dark and ugly list of sexual abuse incidents, with a number of different abusers. No wonder the PTSD kicked in so hard when the childbirth started to go pear-shaped.

That gave us quite a bit to work on over the next year. Woven in and out of the birth issues, Anna and I also began to pull apart my teenage years. I started to write. Document after document started pouring out of me. As more and more memories and insights came to me, the thought of sleep seemed completely irrelevant. I had so many epiphanies, I was just staggering from one day to the next trying to get it all out of my head and down in black and white so that I could run it all past Anna for her professional feedback and hawklike insights. (During the second year I paused one day to do a quick calculation of what I had amassed, and there were over 200 documents on file. I have since discovered a condition -not a disorder - it's not necessarily a bad thing - known as 'hypergraphia' : an 'overwhelming/compulsive urge to write, which is often triggered by changes in brainwave activity in the temporal lobes, which are connected to the limbic system, said to regulate a human being's need for communication'. The term 'lobal warming' comes to mind. I might have to copyright that...)

Things have slowed considerably since those days, but at the time - Ohmigoodness, did I ever need to communicate! And of course, you can't spill your guts to just anybody about this sort of thing. People start to run when they see you coming.

And Anna, the Angel, rather than complaining about my name constantly appearing in her email box, was only ever supportive, encouraging, and delighted that I was willingly working through so much challenging material. She would greet me excitedly in her office week after week, having already followed my progress online, ready with answers to my questions, assurances for my insecurities and cognitive disputations for all my negatively-effected thinking. And perhaps most importantly, she offered me more understanding and compassion than I had ever felt from any other woman on the planet. I have never left her office not feeling better and more hopeful than when I walked in.

There were still many miles to go and surprises yet to come, but after several months I began to feel the terrors of almost dying in childbirth, and simultaneously almost losing one of our twins had begun to lose their grip. And I was seeing my teenage life in a whole new light. I began to feel that I had a bit of head-space again.

I had been severely molested in a powder-keg of a situation when I was 15 - and that person continued to be a presence in my family, abusing and harrassing me many times over the next few years. Just a few months after the 'powder-keg affair' I was raped while on a group date with some friends. The details are just horrific. Looking back now with a rational, adult mind, I groan to think how I hated and blamed myself for such a long time for getting into that situation. I know now that I was not to blame - not in the least. It was engineered and it was brutal. And what I endured at that time, and was left to live with and believe about myself and the world afterwards - there is just no way to measure that kind of damage, except perhaps in years of pain and mental anguish, and money and time spent on therapy and recovery. It doesn't take into account the secondary victims - the people that I love who have suffered and been short-changed over the years as a result of my inability to function with a fully cognisant and efficient brain! But of course I need to forgive myself for that as well. Just be happy that I am able to heal now and do better 'today'.

At the end of the first year of therapy, things weren't looking too bad - I seemed to be emerging out of that initial shock/crisis state - until I started to have peculiar dreams. Nightmares. Waking dreams. Visions of people as they were when I was just a little girl, people doing very peculiar things, in very peculiar places, and saying the most bizarre things to me and to each other. Another huge puzzle was landing in my lap, piece by piece. Bits of conversations, strings of words, visual stills, sensations of the sun rising and setting overhead in just a matter of minutes, while I was locked in a dark shed with two uncles - one my mother's brother, one my father's. They had become good friends over the years. And as more and more memories returned and pieced together, it became clear that there were some unspeakable and sinister reasons for their comraderie and their quiet jokes behind cupped hands holding ever-present cigarettes.

One event involving both uncles occurred when I was 5 1/2 - just a couple of weeks before I started Grade One. I seriously believed I was going to die. It's a story beyond the scope of any Special Victims Unit show I have ever seen. After that one uncle left me alone, for the most part - but the first uncle had found a number of opportunities both prior and subsequent to that occasion to get me on my own and do things he had no right to do. This filled in some mysteries for me between the ages of about 3 and 9.

If only it ended there. Unbelievably it doesn't. My more persistent uncle had grown up in a state of abuse himself, it seemed. My paternal grandfather was also an abuser. And he had also found opportunities to abuse me, causing fear, trauma, damage and confusion. The earliest instance of abuse we have traced back to when I was 2 yrs and 9 months old. It has taken quite some period of adjustment for me to let that fully sink in and comprehend just how many mysteries it explains, and why I have continued to come up against so many immovable blocks in my head throughout my life.

This is both the end and the beginning of my story. I am now 49, and learning to live my life backwards.