Category Archives: Random Thoughts.

Dental Fear

by

0

Dental Fear

It wasn’t until coming out into the world about my childhood did I learn and understand that my totally illogical fear of the dentist is actually quite common amongst people that were abused as children. I found this fascinating because I didn’t understand that there would be a link at all, even though my own irrational fear does trigger many of the things from childhood, I never saw that there was a correlation between the two.

I found that I wasn’t the only one with this fear. I know dental fear isn’t just in those that have been abused, it is a common fear in general, but what I found about the link between child sexual abuse and dental fear made a lot of sense to me and explained why I have it.

I stare now at the letter that has come from my dentist, just a copy that is referring me to the hospital for sedation. I’m only having a rebuild on a back tooth that I smashed a couple of months ago, nothing major.  But there is no way I can get in the dental chair for work to be done. In fact just to have it looked at, I couldn’t lie back, he had to view it with me mostly sat upright and my other half in the room.

I asked him to please not use any instruments in my mouth, not even the mirror. I was shaking and my breathing was going, all he was doing was looking into my mouth to assess the damage I had done to this tooth. “It’s easy to fix,” he told me.

Easy? Not at all, just sitting in that chair wasn’t easy. He said he could fix it there and then, I asked if instead he could remove all my teeth. And yes I really did ask, because I hate this fear, I look after my teeth so much to save myself the trauma of the dentist, that I thought if I just had them removed, the only thing I’ll ever have to endure is having a cast of my mouth taken. He said no. At 36 years old, he said by the time I reached my 60’s my gums would have receded so much that not even dentures would hold and he wasn’t about to start removing teeth that were healthy.

Of course I understood what he was saying, and told him he couldn’t fix my tooth. I saw my other half sigh. But I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes. I asked to be sedated.

So now I have this letter that states severe needle fear, which is funny because it isn’t. Needles don’t bother me, the ex-drug abuser in me laughed. I am not afraid of needles at all.

But what the dentist does cause:

  • Having to lie back while a dentist examines my mouth (usually a man)
  • Having to trust a person of authority.
  • The anticipation of pain
  • Feeling smothered
  • Instruments in my mouth as well as fingers
  • Lack of control (which goes back to the authority figure having control)
  • Hands over my mouth and nose
  • Fear of not being able to breathe or swallow
  • Fear of gagging
  • Worried about the dentist getting annoyed
  • Feeling restrained.

It seems that many dental procedures remind me and others like me of abusive experiences.

It’s just a stupid light bulb.

by

7

It’s just a stupid light bulb.

Strange topic for a blog post I know, but that’s what’s troubling me at the moment. A stupid light bulb. The one in the hallway blew out two nights ago and once again I have forgotten to replace it. The night arrives and darkness falls and suddenly the door to my lounge becomes like the door to a prison cell.

light-bulb_460x276

Probably a strange concept to those that aren’t afraid, not that I am afraid of the dark, that doesn’t bother me at all, it’s the vision the dark gives me. The mental flashbacks that get triggered by a light not working. It makes me so frustrated with myself, it doesn’t matter how often I tell myself he isn’t real, he can’t come any more. He does not exist, the child inside does not want to listen.

I lie on the sofa at night trying to sleep and all I can feel is the anticipation of his hands in my hair yanking my head back, his nails digging into my arms, or his teeth in my skin and everything else that follows. All because I forgot to change a stupid light bulb.

I can’t even go out there, not even to go to my kitchen to grab a drink or to my bathroom. It’s like being a child once again. Even sleeping alone at night is a task, all I want to do is sit up and check that he isn’t here, but no amount of checking reassures me, because what if this time when I close my eyes, he comes. I feel like I’m an adult with a child’s logic sometimes when it is like this.

Once the night comes down, I know, no one will hear me scream and no one will come to help.

Just Today

by

2

 

I got myself up today with my heart heavy in my chest for many reasons. The most important one today though has to be that it is the anniversary of my Nan’s passing. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about her, or miss her deeply. If I close my eyes when it is quiet I can hear her voice saying my name. I can recall her perfume and the way she laughed.I_Miss_you-I_miss_U (2)

13 Years have gone by so fast, but it feels like it was just yesterday. I walked in the hospital that morning and the nurse caught me before I got to your bed. I knew right then that you were gone, but I asked her not to say it to me. I didn’t want to hear the words from her. Even sitting here writing this to you and I feel myself fall apart. I guess what I want to say is that I miss you so much. I wish you were still here. I wish you got to see all the things I missed sharing with you. But I am grateful for the 24 years I got to have you in my life.  You were my favourite person, probably always will be. Without you I don’t think I’d have survived.

I miss you badly.

Strangers with Familiar Faces

by

7

Sometimes I think of things to write about on here and then I don’t, I think I don’t want to sound as though I am depressed or only write dark kind of posts. I am not after pity, mostly support, and sharing my journey. I think sometimes I lose track of that. I post here to help me, but also to help those that might come across my words with the same issues. I know, realising  I am not alone and that one person understands means more to me than any form of sympathy.

So I think I lost sight of what I started this for and so have not posted many thoughts.

A few weeks ago, when the weather was great I had a barbeque at my house, it didn’t actually start that way, but it’s what it turned into. In many ways I am glad, what started to be something for one of my children became a day where lots of things happened for me.BBQ

For starters, I ate barbequed food. That’s huge for me. I love food cooked on a barbeque, but my OCD had stolen that from me and really it had been a good ten years since I have dared to enjoy food like that. I ate crisps with my hands (potato chips to my American readers).

I had people in my house and I didn’t watch what they touched, didn’t freak out internally every time someone wanted to use my bathroom. I didn’t freak out later that many people had used it and now I had to clean it.

I didn’t panic at my children eating food with their fingers. I didn’t panic when the children and friends took their empty plates and things into the kitchen or when someone other than me opened bread rolls or salad.

Maybe these are little things, but to me, these are things that would have sent me on some odd kind of anxiety day until I couldn’t breathe.

Perhaps though, the most important realisation was my father. I hadn’t seen him for the best part of a year, my choice really. He came with my brother and they sat away from everyone else. I talked to them and I was pleasant enough, but really, I didn’t fit there anymore. I didn’t want to. I realised that I didn’t belong with them. They were just strangers with familiar faces.

When he asked me how I was doing with my schooling I wasn’t afraid to tell him, maybe it was because there were a lot of people around and I knew that he wouldn’t belittle me then or maybe it was just because I’m happy and I wasn’t letting him spoil it.

Afterwards when he left and I saw him out, we stood around the front of my house and for the first time I looked at him, really looked at him. I thought to myself, I know what you did to me. That kind of thing has never crossed my mind before, I don’t know where it came from, but maybe that in itself was another achievement for me that day.

I’d rather break my leg

by

7

Sometimes I wish that I was missing a limb rather than suffering with various mental illnesses. At least if I had no legs or no arms, or something that disabled my physically, people would see it and understand my difficulties, but mental illness is much worse. Even to myself when I try to snap myself out of it and understand that it is just my mind. It doesn’t matter though, no amount of pep talks seem to work.

Yesterday my OCD was at a high point, I am not even sure why, something usually triggers it. I think perhaps if anything it was the fear of something going wrong and the only way to cope was for my OCD to come out.

I’d been about to cook dinner as I do every day, but something felt wrong with it. Perhaps it was that I was making something that wasn’t planned, I don’t really know, but that feeling inside that tells me something is wrong with the food wouldn’t go away. I cooked it though, cooked it for longer than it needed. But as I tried to eat it, I found myself analysing every mouthful. In the end I decided I couldn’t eat it, that bad feeling was too much for me and there had to be something wrong with the food. I gave my excuses and said I wasn’t hungry today and then put it in the trash.

I dislike the days like this, when I can’t do something just because, even though I could do it yesterday.

Innocence

by

14

For many years of my life I thought that what my father was doing to me, could not be classed as abuse. I was very confused by it. I really did think that I was bad or that there was something wrong with me. Abuse has and probably always is portrayed with a crying child being forced into something they don’t want and having no choices.

I would see these when I was younger and think, I am not like them, yet what I was going through was not really the same. Yes there were adults doing things with me that I knew were wrong. I was partaking in sexual activity with adults, and society told me that this was wrong. It was abuse. lady-and-the-butterfly

However, what would make me quiet was my part in it. My choices to go to my father and the fact that received pleasure from what he was doing. In short, I liked the abuse.

I couldn’t deny it, not even to myself. For so many years this rolled around my head, I must be bad because I liked what he was doing.  It wasn’t until perhaps two years ago when I had talked to someone, and she simply said, congratulations, your body works like it is meant to.

I remember the moment reading those words. I was shaking and I could hardly breathe, was it really true that my enjoyment didn’t mean I was like my father? That there was something wrong with me and I was as sick as them all?

The relief inside was so tremendous, because it had been part of my biggest battle.

Today however, I see someone that appears to be an advocate to stop child abuse and child trafficking, post a comment, that any child who enjoys sexual abuse has been turned away from God and become the antichrist. Whilst I am not religious, this kind of comment a couple of years ago would have been so devastating to me and I am sure others like me.

So today I felt like I should write this post and hope that maybe anyone who was where I was a few years ago, will realise, no matter what they enjoyed, they were not bad.

Facebook Messages

by

5

On my Facebook I have liked several pages that look or talk about mental illness and different things in child abuse. Often these pages have many inspirational quotes or things that are really food for thought.

I saw a couple of them today, they both kind of link in and probably caught my attention because of personal matters. One of them states that abuse survivors suffer many losses and it isn’t until the healing journey begins do we see these losses. This I find myself to be very true, once I opened the box to the hidden pain I’ve carried for such a long time, I also got to see what I have lost and as many times I have seen there has to be a period of mourning.

The repercussions of childhood abuse seem to be never ending. First there is the loss of innocence, something that is so freely given, yet for people like myself it was taken so young I don’t remember having it. We lose our families and parents. Not in the physical sense of the word, but what they are supposed to be we never experience. I do not know what it feels like to have my mothers arms around me, or to see my father smile proudly at something I have done. My family was stolen from me and I became just someone that lived in the house with these people. I do not know what it feels like to lie safely in my own bed or to share the excitement of a family gathering. My birthdays and other members of my families were nothing but pain filled dates for me to dread with that burning inside my stomach as I would wonder what cruelty I would suffer this year. Such simple things, the list is endless, but I lost them, not that I ever had them to begin with.

The post also mentioned the loss of friends, friends who do not understand and yes I have had my fair share of that, often the loss of a friend just reinforces the messages from parents, that I am not good enough. I was never good enough to be loved as someone’s son and my parents were right, if my parents couldn’t love me, how can anyone else? With the loss of friends along the way, it seems that whatever my parents saw that made them treat me that way, other people see too. But it isn’t just that, there is the loss of the friend who doesn’t understand, or can’t listen.

Which brings me to the other post I had read a couple of days ago that said, as survivors we should limit what we tell to our friends, they can only take so much and whilst we ask for understanding with whatever repercussions we face, we must do the same.

I see the point of it, I understand that not everyone can take hearing these terrible stories, it makes me ask which is fair? Is it fair for the survivor to have to be quiet and continue the silence endured a life time already, or should the friend just listen and deal with whatever they are being told even though they have not had the same years of conditioning so it’s all very hard for them.

I know I hear often a true friend listens etc, and whilst that is also true, I realise that it is another loss. Child abuse doesn’t just steal from the past, it takes from the future too. My health, my friends and simple things that just hurt too much.

Why is the world so cruel?

by

6

Some days I think it hurts to live in this world, perhaps it’s just me, I don’t really know.

I don’t watch the news because of this, when I see the despair, loss and atrocities that people do to each other, it feels like pain inside, like sadness I think.

I watched and shared a video, it was about two people that clearly loved one another and one of them died in a sudden accident, and I watched the one that was left behind, his tears and the sadness that was so unmistakable in his face and words, he had just lost his world, but what is sadder than that, is his partners parents cruelly pushed him out and took his partners body and then strangers that saw his memorial page for his partner, or read his sorrow, dared to email him telling him to get over it, and that he should stop moaning there are people starving and other various vile words.

When my book first came out, I received some messages like this, obviously I didn’t lose someone, except my own self as a child, but I was told to not write about my abuse, that other people were abused and they didn’t spread their story all over. That my story is boring and that other people have had much worse happen to them.

I wonder what is wrong with people. I recently lost a friend of mine, not through death, although it does feel that kind of loss, but through acts I do not understand.

I wonder why people aren’t nice to each other. why they spend so much energy on being cruel. Why they are happy to cause someone else’s tears. why their own selfishness makes them say things.

If watching that video showed me anything it’s that tomorrow the person you love, be it partner, husband, wife, friend or child, maybe they could be taken and then it’s too late.

Why do we put more time into hurting others and less time telling them we love them. why do we not just take the hands of those we hold most dear and hold onto them. forget what the rest of the world is doing. forget sending cruel messages to strangers.

In one breath, what you love could be gone, so why risk wasting a minute?

Blame Take Two

by

5

Blame: Take Two

I guess, like anyone, blame and shame are my biggest issues. In reality, I would never blame a child for the atrocities of its parents; I would see him or her as innocent, and a victim of their parent’s wrong doings. Yet, when it comes to me, I cannot. I blame myself and no matter how much the evidence is stacked up against my parents, I cannot change it. If I even try, it feels like lies.

One of the factors of blame, is understanding the’ why’ question, and because that is almost impossible to answer, the only conclusion a child can draw on, is that it must be their fault.

For those who read this blog and don’t know, I study Psychology and during a recent lesson, we studied a Psychologist named, Stanley Milgram.blame_700

He investigated why Nuremberg war criminals in WWII, carried out acts of genocide. Was it simply because Germans were made different and, therefore, cruel?

He believed they were, and tested his theory with an experiment. He asked ordinary people to volunteer as teachers and had actors as the learner. The teachers thought they were simply there for a memory test, but that was not the case.

Milgram set up the teacher and the learner in different rooms. The learner was strapped to a chair and attached to a buzzer that gave them an electric shock. The teacher was in another room and asked the learner a question. For each question they got wrong, the teacher would administer an electric shock. These shocks went along a scale, starting at nothing more than a quick nip of volts, to 450 volts, which was fatal.

In the room with the teacher, was an experimenter, (an actor) who appeared to be taking notes and watching. The teacher could not see the learner, only hear them.

However, what they really heard, was a recorded voice. They weren’t really electrocuting people, they just believed they were. Eventually, as the voltage got higher, the voice would plead, asking for no more, and eventually it went silent, leaving the teacher not knowing if the learner was unconscious or simply not responding.

Of course, as the cries or the silence got worse, the teacher often became stressed, but the experimenter in the room would simply state that it was vital to the experiment and to please continue (they did have the right to leave at any time).

Milgram found that over 60% of people went to the fatal 450volts and, when asked later, he concluded that like the Nazi, it was not down to ethnicity, but rather obedience. If people did not hold the blame, they could continue.

My father, like many the same, told me, it was my fault. I wanted it. I asked for it. I liked it and his personal favourite that I gained everything in my life through sex. It would seem the case, even using it to gain my father’s love and attention. The way he worded thing caused me to  take the blame because what he said was logical.

What if Milgram’s theory applies here? My father convinced himself that it was what I wanted. He believed his own lies, removed blame, and gave it to me. He believed he was doing what I wanted, what I liked and what I offered.  He was being obedient.

Making it my fault and not his, made it okay for him to do what he did.