Wounded and Bleeding

Some days are so painful that I have to retreat, and not say anything online.

I never can figure out exactly what makes those days so terrible.  I'm sure there's a trigger in there somewhere, but it's not always very visible.

Winter time is often hard. It is gray, and cold, and especially here in New England there is not a lot of social activity to be involved in...at least not that I have found to do.

I am also recognizing that many of my painful memories happened in the winter.
My grandfather died in December.
My grandmother died in October.
My baby brother who died was born in January.
I lost my first baby in November.
We have made two long, hard moves in November and December, setting us up for a LONG winter of no friends in a new area.

A new friend mentioned a term to me this week that really made a lot of sense of what I have been dealing with this past year..."PCS blues".  She said that this move, to this base, has been the worst one for her, that the blues have been worse here than anywhere else she has gone.

I agree...this move HAS been worse for me.  I left behind a child, a house that we had bought, two churches full of amazing friends, a community that we had been part of for 7 years, to move to a place I really didn't want to be, in December, arriving just in time to have no money for Christmas, no time to put up decor, and no friends to invite us to do anything.

In the past year, it HAS gotten better, but it is still hard.  I miss my friends.  I miss my son.  I miss having a purpose, a job, or at least the potential to find one.

So, some days, the hard, the suck, catches up to me, and I have to retreat for a while, and lick my wounds.  I can see that those wounds are healing some, not bleeding quite so much, but I'm trying to give myself room and time to heal.

John Joseph

January, 1975

Our family went from a family of four, to a family of five.

We had just started attending a new church.  We knew very few people, and were still adjusting to the lifestyle changes expected.

I was five years old...I would be turning six in February.  My brother David was four.

I don't remember John's birth.
I don't remember him coming home from the hospital, or where David and I stayed while Mama and Daddy were at the hospital.

There were no ultrasounds.
There was no indication that there was any problem...it looked like a perfectly healthy, normal pregnancy and birth.
There was just this one little thing, noted after-the-fact to have some significance.

Mama and Daddy brought John home.
Everything seemed to be going well.
Except, then they weren't going so well.
Our sweet, smiling little brother wasn't growing like he was supposed to be growing.

Again, I don't remember the doctor's appointments.
I don't remember statistics.
I just remember the stress, the tension, the tears.

I was six by the time they were taking him to Charleston, for what was hoped to be a life-saving surgery.

May, 1975

How do parents send their 4-month-old baby away with the surgeons, knowing he may not live through this surgery?  Hoping and praying that he does?

David and I stayed with the pastor's family, and I went to school.  David was still too young for school.

And then, suddenly Mama and Daddy were back.
"Where's John?"
How this had to have been a knife in the heart of the newly grief-stricken parents!!
He died on the operating table.
His little heart couldn't handle what had to be done.

I don't remember the adult-type details.
I know we didn't bury his little body...they donated it for research on the defect with which he was born.
I know the memorial service seemed to last forever.
I still remember the scrapbook the church gave our family.  The sticks of gum are still on some of the pages, more than 40 years later.

John Joseph would be 41 years old this year.  I look forward to seeing him again.

Diamonds in-the-making

For a lot of my life, I have felt the weight of all of the evil that brushed my life.  I thought it was all my fault.  I was a bad person.  I was never good enough.  I needed to be better, do better, get closer to God, confess more, be more obedient, be a better daughter, a better Christian....do, do, do.

Sackcloth and ashes were mine, just waiting for me.

I believed what I was told.

Even after I accepted that God loved me, and wanted to be the biggest influence in my life, still I believed the lies.  Frankly, it was all I knew, and was the easiest thing to fall back into.

Still, more than 30 years after what should have been a life-altering encounter with God, I struggle with seeing myself as worthy only of sackcloth and ashes.

So, today I heard a song, new to me, and its words spoke to me.

Listen with me....

Grateful that He's making diamonds out of me (us)!!

When Giants Shrink

I have a lot of traumas to work through.
Childhood emotional and physical abuse.
Religious abuse.
Losses that were never grieved.
More than 20 moves in 23 years of marriage.

Today, I was working with my therapist on one particular area that has been troubling me this week.  I was remembering some people that frightened me, and who I was still seeing through the eyes of a scared, abused, neglected, bullied, and intimidated child.  My last interaction with this person was in a formal confrontation as a teenager, and has loomed in my periphery as a picture of them as someone to be frightened of ever coming in contact with again.

As I gazed into the review mirror of my mind, I began to recognize that this person was doing what was expected from the position held, and in the manner expected.  As I stand off to the side, observing, I see myself...nervous, determined, nauseous, intimidated.  I also see the others in the room...some I know and care about, and one that scares me.  It is that one that has grown in my mind to appear to be a giant...but as I look closer, the air of the years is released, and the child I was is now an adult, older than my puffed-up giant was then.  In my mind's eye, as I grew, this other person shrank.  As they shrank, I was able to see the situation through a more adult lens...recognizing expectations on both sides, and the inability of the adults in the situation to recognize the needs and hurts of the child (me).

As I walked my way through this painful memory, I started recognizing others who have become giants in my memory.  They have grown to take up space in my head that is not theirs, through the traumas they have visited on me over the years.

I'm thinking it is time for some giant-slaying to happen....

Dammed-Up

SC Canal Breach, October, 2015

Dams are a good thing.  They hold back water from destroying or inundating low-lying areas.  The whole country of the Netherlands is defined by and survives by its dams, which keep out the sea.

When dams break, through natural or unnatural events, there is damage and destruction that happens in the area below the dam.  The force of the water released by a breach of the dam is incredible to watch and dangerous.  There are many stories in the very recent past of dams in South Carolina breaking under the force of thousands of gallons of water raining down in early October, 2015, resulting in 18 dams being breached, and countless homes and businesses being destroyed.  An earlier example happened in Toccoa Falls, GA, in 1977, and resulted in destruction and loss of lives, and is memorialized in the book Dam Break in Georgia.

Often, people who live in the aftermath of trauma feel dammed-up.

Don't get me wrong.  In the beginning, when things first happen or first come to light, it is expected that they will talk about their traumas, maybe shed some tears...and people are, for the most part, supportive.

However, after a while, the support wanes.  The attitude changes.  People start saying things like, "why aren't you over that yet?" and "time heals all wounds" and "you need to forgive and forget".

What is meant by those statements is something totally different than what is actually said.  What is REALLY meant is more along the lines of "we are tired of hearing about your pain, so quit talking about it already" and "if you MUST talk about it, go see someone professional so I don't have to listen to it any more."  This is more about the listeners' discomfort than it is about the victim's pain.

After a while of hearing these statements, ad nauseum, the traumatized person becomes wary of speaking of their pain.  Instead of being able to continue the healing process, the pain and tears become dammed-up, because no one is willing to be the receiver of the pain.  Sure, there ARE professionals (I am one of them!), but for one reason or another, these caring individuals may not be accessible to the person who is hurting, or it may not be enough to talk to someone who is PAID to listen and act in a caring manner.

So, this is where I find myself.  Dammed-up.  There are tears and memories and painful connections that need to be explored and shared and talked-through, and precious-few people who are willing or available to talk.  I see a counselor.  She is helpful, but she is, by design, not my friend.  She is a professional.  And some days, I need a friend to talk to, to dump on, the cry with.

*Picture from GA Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering article

A beautiful blanket of snow

Feb 2015 snow storm

If you have ever lived in an area where there was much snow, you know how beautiful it is when the snow starts to fall and stick, and the whole world looks clean and bright and beautiful.    That illusion lasts about as long as it takes for the snow to stop falling, and then the kids are out in it, and maybe it starts to melt, and there are water puddles on your floor from where everyone forgot to kick the snow off their boots and shoes when they came inside, and tracked it all over the house.  Or is that just my house?  And then the next morning you look outside, and it is sad because there are all of these footprints through the new-fallen snow, and mud around the back door, and it is not pretty any more, and you can't deny the ugliness of winter any longer.

Some days that's how I feel about my life.  I start the hard work of healing.  I am making progress.  Grace starts covering up the ugliness in my life.  But life goes on...memories are brought up through interactions with the people who started it all, or maybe just something that feels the same comes up, and suddenly there are muddy footprints showing up through the grace, and I can't deny the ugliness that comes from the abuse, trauma, and PTSD.

The wonderful thing about grace is that it is watering the roots, so that growth can happen.  The snow storms that come in the cold of winter make us think that spring will never come...but we know that the moisture from the snow is feeding the beauty that will happen when God brings spring our way again.

Today, I am thankful for the snow...and for God's grace...and healing, and growth.

I missed a day, or two....

Last night I felt like I was run over by a truck.
A very large truck.
And that it came back and tried again.

Tonight, I am FREEZING.
I am almost always freezing in my house, so this is nothing new.

I was taxi driver for my kids for about four hours straight this afternoon.
One kid is still out...it's Semi-formal night at her high school.

I heard from my furthest-away child this week.

We had snow.  Again.

My husband and three children will be home tomorrow.
I still have to get up early to get the other two off to school for the day.

Clearly my brain is not back to 100%.

I have done approximately 9-million loads of laundry this week.
I have seen more than 9-million posts on Facebook about the Powerball.
I am disgusted at how people's (Christians') perspectives on gambling have changed.
FYI, greediness is NOT a sign of godliness, no matter if you tithe on the money or not.

Also, another friend has won his battle with cancer, and is now permanently pain-free and cancer-free.  His funeral was on Monday.  Prayers appreciated for his family who are left to deal with the aftermath.

Awareness of mental health issues does not make the ignorant less jerk-like.
Presidential candidates who make donkey's behinds of themselves do not deserve the attention they are getting.
Why are people so besotted of fools who open their mouths and prove their foolishness?